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TECH


Ellen E Jones: AI can already create films. What it can’t create is art

Aug 7, 2026

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4 min read

Ellen E Jones: AI can already create films. What it can’t create is art

A machine-made movie has premiered at Tribeca and virtual actor Tilly Norwood is about to star in a feature. But if there’s no soul, no emotion, or no attempt at human connection ... who cares? By Ellen E Jones

Ellen E Jones
Ellen E Jones
Cory Doctorow: The people who tell you ‘AI is changing everything’ are lying

Aug 4, 2026

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6 min read

Cory Doctorow: The people who tell you ‘AI is changing everything’ are lying

It has become impossible to tell managers mesmerised by artificial intelligence that the tools are not, in fact, helpful. So employees just play along with the fiction to keep their jobs, writes our tech columnist

Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow
‘We go where the silence is’: Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! on Trump, violence and the power of bearing witness

Jul 31, 2026

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10 min read

‘We go where the silence is’: Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! on Trump, violence and the power of bearing witness

The pioneering independent reporter, now the subject of a documentary, talks to Carole Cadwalladr about surviving a massacre and the current threats to the media

Carole Cadwalladr
Carole Cadwalladr
Adele Walton: The Online Safety Act is supposed to make Britain’s internet a safe space – yet it can’t touch the site linked to my sister’s death

Jul 22, 2026

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5 min read

Adele Walton: The Online Safety Act is supposed to make Britain’s internet a safe space – yet it can’t touch the site linked to my sister’s death

Ofcom says it has used all its powers and can do no more against a pro-suicide forum. For bereaved families like mine, only a public inquiry can explain why

Adele Walton
Adele Walton
Peter Thiel, precogs and ‘non-human corporations’ – welcome to the wild world of AI Argentina

Jul 14, 2026

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5 min read

Peter Thiel, precogs and ‘non-human corporations’ – welcome to the wild world of AI Argentina

President Milei’s plans to turn my country into an anarcho-capitalist tech paradise makes him just the latest character in the nation’s long history of chancers and dictators, writes Uki Goñi

Uki Goñi
Uki Goñi
We’re being asked to save two buckets of water a day. Meanwhile data centres drink a town’s worth

Jul 7, 2026

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3 min read

We’re being asked to save two buckets of water a day. Meanwhile data centres drink a town’s worth

England is heading for a 5bn-litre daily water shortfall by 2055 – so why is the government fast-tracking one of the most water-hungry industries there is, and letting it keep its consumption private, asks campaigner Adele Walton

Adele Walton
Adele Walton
‘If these social media apps were an air fryer, they would have been recalled’: digital campaigner Beeban Kidron on Big Tech

Jul 3, 2026

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7 min read

‘If these social media apps were an air fryer, they would have been recalled’: digital campaigner Beeban Kidron on Big Tech

The acclaimed film-maker and peer has made it her business to represent the rights of children and creators against Silicon Valley’s ‘giant compulsion machine’. She talks to Lucia Osborne-Crowley

Lucia Osborne-Crowley
Lucia Osborne-Crowley
‘It’s like this was made up by a schoolkid’: Reform’s vanishing crypto bill

Jun 30, 2026

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9 min read

‘It’s like this was made up by a schoolkid’: Reform’s vanishing crypto bill

Nigel Farage launched it in Las Vegas and promised to make it law. Now, as his links to cryptobillionaire Christopher Harborne are under scrutiny, Reform’s flagship policy has disappeared. When you understand who would benefit from its proposals – and from other policies Farage has lobbied for since – this is perhaps no surprise. By Ian Tucker

Ian Tucker
Ian Tucker
Scan your eyeballs, think of the children: how Britain sells surveillance as safety

Jun 16, 2026

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3 min read

Scan your eyeballs, think of the children: how Britain sells surveillance as safety

Keir Starmer's under-16 social media ban can only work if everyone proves who they are. It is the natural conclusion of the Online Safety Act – and of a Brexit that was always about control, says digital rights advocate Heather Burns

Heather Burns
Heather Burns
At last, the fool’s bargain that the media struck with AI may be over

Jun 9, 2026

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5 min read

At last, the fool’s bargain that the media struck with AI may be over

In a thunderous speech last week, the boss of the New York Times sounded a rallying call to news organisations to rise up against the theft of their work by Big Tech – and not before time, writes Branko Brkic

Branko Brkic
Branko Brkic
‘Her silence was more powerful than words’: how I interviewed a Facebook whistleblower who wasn’t allowed to speak

Jun 5, 2026

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6 min read

‘Her silence was more powerful than words’: how I interviewed a Facebook whistleblower who wasn’t allowed to speak

The Nerve’s Carole Cadwalladr was all set to talk to Sarah Wynn-Williams, author of the explosive memoir Careless People, at the Hay festival when Meta’s lawyers intervened ... and turned the event into ‘absurdist theatre’

Carole Cadwalladr
Carole Cadwalladr
‘What’s happening is horrifying’: the rebel film-maker challenging AI’s march into Hollywood

Jun 5, 2026

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4 min read

‘What’s happening is horrifying’: the rebel film-maker challenging AI’s march into Hollywood

While pro-Silicon Valley documentaries got major distribution deals, Valerie Veatch had to struggle to get her film, about Big Tech’s dark past and future, into the world. She talked to Charlotte O’Sullivan about what some attendees called ‘the scariest movie playing at Sundance’

Charlotte O'Sullivan
Charlotte O'Sullivan
Cory Doctorow: Hell is other people – so billionaires are using AI to replace them

Jun 2, 2026

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4 min read

Cory Doctorow: Hell is other people – so billionaires are using AI to replace them

The tech elite are pouring billions into dispensing with inconvenient humans. Now governments want the same trick to wish away the migrants their economies desperately need, writes the author and Nerve columnist

Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow
‘They are weapons of war’: Gisèle Pelicot on the tech platforms that facilitate rape

May 29, 2026

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7 min read

‘They are weapons of war’: Gisèle Pelicot on the tech platforms that facilitate rape

The woman whose courage at trial transformed the debate around abuse talks to Lucia Osborne-Crowley about survival, reclaiming confidence – and shutting down the tools of sexual exploitation

Lucia Osborne-Crowley
Lucia Osborne-Crowley
‘It’s not progress, and we can stop it’: journalist Karen Hao on big tech, protest and the preventable AI future

May 26, 2026

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8 min read

‘It’s not progress, and we can stop it’: journalist Karen Hao on big tech, protest and the preventable AI future

The US reporter and bestselling author was one of the first journalists to get inside OpenAI – and was alarmed at what she found. Six years on, she tells Carole Cadwalladr, a coalition of resistance is growing to oppose the new Silicon Valley ascendancy

Carole Cadwalladr
Carole Cadwalladr
‘They can shape the outcomes they claim to forecast’ – could Polymarket influence an election?

May 15, 2026

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9 min read

‘They can shape the outcomes they claim to forecast’ – could Polymarket influence an election?

A platform backed by Peter Thiel and advised by Donald Trump Jr. is taking anonymous crypto bets on UK elections, missile strikes and the death of world leaders. In Britain no regulator will touch it, writes Ian Tucker in this in-depth guide to so-called "prediction markets"

Ian Tucker
Ian Tucker
New fears over spread of Palantir’s influence after ‘Big Brother’ Met police project extended

May 15, 2026

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6 min read

New fears over spread of Palantir’s influence after ‘Big Brother’ Met police project extended

The programme, designed to expose officer misconduct, was due to expire last month. The Nerve has established that it was extended to today, May 15, with no indication what happens next. Officers fear they will be under long-term surveillance, while it’s also emerged the project could be rolled out to more staff. Report by Max Colbert and Lucia Osborne-Crowley

Max Colbert
Lucia Osborne-Crowley
Max Colbert, +1
‘It’s like they were sharing tips on building a barbecue’: how the ‘rape academy’ teaching men to become Dominique Pelicot was exposed

May 12, 2026

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7 min read

‘It’s like they were sharing tips on building a barbecue’: how the ‘rape academy’ teaching men to become Dominique Pelicot was exposed

CNN’s Niamh Kennedy was one of a team that made headlines when they uncovered a porn site specialising in abusing drugged women. She talked to Lucia Osborne-Crowley about the impact of her work – and the toll it can take

Richard Dawkins’s chatbot isn’t conscious: it’s just all talk

May 8, 2026

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5 min read

Richard Dawkins’s chatbot isn’t conscious: it’s just all talk

The acclaimed scientist spent time with Anthropic’s ‘Claudia’ and couldn’t believe she wasn’t sentient. But Dawkins' own work has taught us that complexity can exist without a divine spark, writes neuroscientist Anil Seth

Anil Seth
Anil Seth
Wellness scammers promise to ‘reset your nervous system’ for money. Don’t believe them

May 8, 2026

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5 min read

Wellness scammers promise to ‘reset your nervous system’ for money. Don’t believe them

'Vagus nerve stimulation', which scientists still don’t fully understand, has become a trend – pushed by influencers who could cause serious harm, writes the Nerve's Lucia Osborne-Crowley

Lucia Osborne-Crowley
Lucia Osborne-Crowley
Cory Doctorow: Comrade Trump is the unwitting hero of a green revolution

May 5, 2026

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7 min read

Cory Doctorow: Comrade Trump is the unwitting hero of a green revolution

In the first of a new monthly column for the Nerve, the author and cyber-activist argues that by dumping cheap solar panels on Asia and starting a catastrophic war in the Gulf, the president has started a headlong rush for cleantech that no eco-activism could match

Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow
Iran is winning the propaganda war against Trump – brick by brick

Apr 17, 2026

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3 min read

Iran is winning the propaganda war against Trump – brick by brick

Tehran’s viral videos satirising a Lego-style president have harnessed the power of AI – and Maga’s debasing of political discourse – and turned it against the US, writes disinformation expert Nina Jankowicz

Your pension, Palantir’s war machine

Apr 2, 2026

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9 min read

Your pension, Palantir’s war machine

USS, the UK's largest private pension fund, has £45m invested in the AI company that, its CEO boasts, can bring ‘violence and death’ to America's enemies. University union leaders want change, reports Ian Tucker

Ian Tucker
Ian Tucker
Big Tech tried to get young people addicted. Now the reckoning has begun

Mar 31, 2026

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8 min read

Big Tech tried to get young people addicted. Now the reckoning has begun

Two seismic court decisions in the US have intervened where legislators have failed to defend social media users from exploitation, writes campaigner Zamaan Qureshi

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