House of Lords pushes back against government’s AI plans

Peers back amendment to data bill requiring AI companies to reveal which copyrighted material they have used

The government has suffered another setback in the House of Lords over its plans to let artificial intelligence firms use copyright-protected work without permission.

An amendment to the data bill requiring AI companies to reveal which copyrighted material is used in their models was backed by peers, despite government opposition.

Published: May 12, 2025, 7:57 pm

For Silicon Valley, AI isn’t just about replacing some jobs. It’s about replacing all of them | Ed Newton-Rex

AI will do the thinking, robots will do the doing. What place do humans have in this arrangement – and do tech CEOs care?

I recently found myself at a dinner in an upstairs room at a restaurant in San Francisco hosted by a venture capital firm. The after-dinner speaker was a tech veteran who, having sold his AI company for hundreds of millions of dollars, has now turned his hand to investing. He had a simple message for the assembled startup founders: the money you can make in AI isn’t limited to the paltry market sizes of previous technology waves. You can replace the world’s workers – which means you can capture their salaries. All of them.

Replacing all human labour with AI sounds like the stuff of science fiction. But it is the explicit aim of a growing number of the tech elite – and these are people who lack neither drive nor resources, who have deep pockets and even deeper determination. If they say they want to automate all labour, we should take them at their word.

Ed Newton-Rex is the founder of Fairly Trained, a non-profit that certifies generative AI companies that respect creators’ rights, and a visiting scholar at Stanford University

Published: May 12, 2025, 7:00 am

‘It was just the perfect game’: Henk Rogers on buying Tetris and foiling the KGB

The man who brought Tetris to the west reveals what the movie of his life got right and wrong, how he influenced Nintendo, and why he has now swapped gaming for climate change campaigning

When game designer and entrepreneur Henk Rogers first encountered Tetris at the 1988 Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show, he immediately knew it was special. “It was just the perfect game,” he recalls. “It looked so simple, so rudimentary, but I wanted to play it again and again and again … There was no other game demo that ever did that to me.”

Rogers is now co-owner of the Tetris Company, which manages and licenses the Tetris brand. Over the past 30 years, he has become almost as famous as the game itself. The escapades surrounding his deal to buy its distribution rights from Russian agency Elektronorgtechnica (Elorg) were dramatised in an Apple TV+ film starring Taron Egerton. “I suggested that Johnny Depp or Keanu Reeves should play me, but apparently they were way too old,” Rogers says.

Published: May 12, 2025, 8:00 am

Weight loss jabs in obese children can help avoid mealtime rows, study says

Liraglutide is found to have beneficial impact on weight and families report reduced conflicts around food

Giving obese children weight loss jabs works and could help avoid arguments over mealtimes, according to research.

Clinicians treating very obese children at a hospital in Sweden analysed whether liraglutide injections could be used as well as diet and lifestyle changes to increase weight loss.

Published: May 12, 2025, 10:01 pm

Have we got the appendix all wrong? – podcast

For a long time the appendix was considered disposable. After all, millions of people have theirs removed each year and go on to live healthy lives. But as Heather F Smith, a professor of anatomy at Midwestern University tells Ian Sample, researchers are increasingly understanding what this small worm-shaped organ may be bringing to the table in terms of our health. Smith explains how the appendix is linked to both our immune system development and gut health, and why she thinks an increasing interest in the microbiome may bring it to greater prominence

Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod

Published: May 13, 2025, 4:00 am

Starwatch: Tracking Virgo across the spring sky

While faint, the constellation still makes a big impression because of its sheer size

This week, we track down one of the zodiacal constellations, Virgo, the virgin. It is a prominent constellation in the northern hemisphere’s spring night sky because of its sheer size. Covering an area of 1,294 square degrees, Virgo is the second largest constellation in the sky. By comparison, the easily recognisable Orion, the hunter, is a celestial minnow at just 594 square degrees.

The chart shows the view looking south from London at 22.00 BST on 12 May, although the view will remain roughly the same all week.

Published: May 12, 2025, 5:00 am

Is it true that … ginger shots boost immunity?

Some see the fiery root as a miracle cure for colds, but there are easier, cheaper ways to support your immune system

Do you find yourself buying tiny bottles of fiery gloop at the first signs of a cold? You’re not alone. Ginger shots have become a trend in recent years, thanks to the perception that they’re good for immunity. But are they?

Dr Emily Leeming, a dietitian at King’s College London, says it’s unlikely they are a miracle cure. She says there has been only a small amount of research that shows that gingerol extracts, the active polyphenols in ginger, may help lower some markers of inflammation (an immune response), but the evidence is pretty weak.

Published: May 12, 2025, 7:00 am

Did you solve it? Are you craftier than a cat burglar?

The answers to today’s puzzles

Earlier today I set these two puzzles. Here they are again with solutions.

1. Go compare!

Published: May 12, 2025, 3:53 pm

Can you solve it? Are you craftier than a cat burglar?

Don’t run out of rope!

UPDATE: Read the solutions here

Two very different puzzles today. In the first, you have to identify two numbers. In the second, you have to escape off a roof.

1. Go compare!

Published: May 12, 2025, 6:10 am