From Steven Spielberg’s creepy “AI” (2001) to M3GAN (2022), toys imbued with artificial intelligence have been a source of fascination and terror in pop culture for decades. Now, in the face of all those cautionary tales, a new class of vaguely menacing chatty toys are being sold online — but unlike the “Gremlin“-esque Furbies of

Content warning: this story includes discussion of self-harm and suicide. If you are in crisis, please call, text or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741. A young woman took her own life after talking to a ChatGPT-based AI therapist named Harry.

In a jarring new analysis, psychiatric researchers found that a wide swath of mental health issues have already been associated with artificial intelligence usage — and virtually every top AI company has been implicated. Sifting through academic databases and news articles between November 2024 and July 2025, Duke psychiatry professor Allen Frances and Johns Hopkins

It’s no secret that social media has devolved into a toxic cesspool of disinformation and hate speech. Without any meaningful pressure to come up with effective guardrails and enforceable policies, social media platforms quickly turned into rage-filled and polarizing echo chambers with one purpose: to keep users hooked on outrage and brain rot so they

If you use TikTok or any other app designed to rot your brain, chances are you’ve encountered AI-generated ads for somehow even faker-seeming products. But the popular short-form video platform in particular is pushing a specific style of these ads that aim to be nefariously familiar: a person looking into the camera and making a

AI has been a game-changer for many businesses, and CEOs are eager to get in on the action. Smart move! But, before you start envisioning robots handling your customer service and algorithms optimising everything from inventory to cafeteria orders, let’s talk about the elephant in the room: the costs no one mentions at those slick

The Council for Science and Technology (CST) urges the UK to seize a “once-in-20-years opportunity” to build a world-class AI chip design industry, or risk becoming a nation that simply consumes, rather than creates, the technology that will define our future. In a report published this week, the council argues the UK must get serious

In southwest Arkansas, the state government runs what might be the world’s most unusual diamond mine. For the price of a movie ticket, anyone can dig for diamonds at Crater of Diamonds State Park—and keep whatever they find. The 37-acre search field near Murfreesboro sits atop an ancient volcanic pipe that erupted roughly 100 million

There’s a new Nissan Leaf coming later this year. The third of its kind to bear the name, it sounds like an appealing upgrade. Smaller than the current model on the outside but with more room inside, it’s also more efficient and finally uses a liquid-cooled battery. But we knew all that back at the

Serious badminton players are constantly exploring different techniques to give them an edge over opponents. One of the latest innovations is the spin serve, a devastatingly effective method in which a player adds a pre-spin just before the racket contacts the shuttlecock (aka the birdie). It’s so effective—some have called it “impossible to return“—that the