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Both readings

Party Equalization or Normalization Through Visual Generative AI in the 2025 German Federal Election

This study examines whether visual generative artificial intelligence (VGenAI) serves as an equalizing force for minor parties or reinforces existing power asymmetries in political communication. Drawing on equalization and normalization theory, we investigate party differences in VGenAI adoption, content strategies, and user engagement during the 2025 German federal election. Using a semi-automated AI detection method combining automated classification with manual validation, we analyzed Facebook and Instagram…

Media and Communication · Policy

Party Equalization or Normalization Through Visual Generative AI in the 2025 German Federal Election

Evidence-backed gain

Platformed Foodways in Helsinki: Young Immigrant Men, AI Tools, and “Networked Eating”

In a digitally saturated Helsinki, everyday eating is increasingly routed through apps, chats, and platform encounters. This article examines how young immigrant men (aged 21–35) activate these encounters and move across them to shape their food practices and a sense of belonging. In qualitative interviews, participants narrated how they search and share recipes and foods (e.g., through WhatsApp, Telegram, or Instagram), adapt dishes to cultural or religious preferences, learn new techniques, and use delivery pl…

Lifestyle

Evidence-backed gain

Exploring attitudes and acceptance of artificial intelligence in multiple sclerosis from the patient perspective

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being integrated into healthcare, particularly in data-intensive chronic diseases that rely on longitudinal monitoring and shared decision-making. Multiple sclerosis is a prototypical example of such care, but real-world benefit will depend on whether people accept AI support in different clinical roles. We conducted a cross-sectional, web-based survey among 241 people with MS (pwMS) to assess comfort with AI across eight clinical domains and to identify predictors of…

Health

Evidence-backed problem

AI is guzzling energy for slop content – could it be reimagined to help the climate?

Artificial intelligence is often associated with ludicrous amounts of electricity, and therefore planet-heating emissions, expended to create nonsensical or misleading slop that is of meagre value to humanity. Some AI advocates at a major UN climate summit are posing an alternative view, though – what if AI could help us solve, rather than worsen, the climate crisis? The “AI for good” argument has been made repeatedly at the Cop30 talks in Belém, Brazil, with supporters arguing AI can be used to lower, rather th…

Climate

Evidence-backed gain

Estonia eschews phone bans in schools and takes leap into AI

While many schools in England have banned smartphones, in Estonia – regarded as the new European education powerhouse – students are regularly asked to use their devices in class, and from September they will be given their own AI accounts. The small Baltic country – population 1.4 million – has quietly become Europe’s top performer in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s programme for international student assessment (Pisa), overtaking its near neighbour Finland. In the most recent Pisa…

Education

Evidence-backed gain

Generation AI: fears of ‘social divide’ unless all children learn computing skills

In a Cambridge classroom, Joseph, 10, trained his AI model to discern between drawings of apples and drawings of smiles. “AI gets lots of things wrong,” he said, as it mistakenly identified a fruit as a face. He set about retraining it and, in a flash, he had it back on track – instinctively understanding the inner nature of artificial intelligence and machine learning in a way few adults do. His friends from the St Paul’s C of E primary school coding club tapped away to build their own AIs with similar dexterit…

Education

Both readings

‘It’s going to be a life skill’: educators discuss the impact of AI on university education

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently told a US podcast that if he was graduating today, “I would feel like the luckiest kid in all of history.” Altman, whose company developed and released ChatGPT in November 2022, believes the transformative power of AI offers unprecedented opportunities for young people. Yes, there will be job displacement, but “this always happens,” says Altman, “and young people are the best at adapting to this.” New, more exciting jobs will emerge, full of greater possibilities. For UK sixth-form…

Education

Why university lecturers are turning to AI in classes | Letters

I disagree with the decision of lecturers to use artificial intelligence to create teaching materials (‘We could have asked ChatGPT’: students fight back over course taught by AI, 20 November), though I understand the pressures and incentives that they are responding to. As a recent doctoral graduate, I can only get fixed or zero-hours teaching contracts. Each taught hour may take days of preparation that is not accounted for in the pay formula. I have developed material including work plans, assessments, readin…

Education

Why university lecturers are turning to AI in classes | Letters

After SpaceX’s huge IPO, Americans’ financial future will be bound to AI

Americans are growing worried about what artificial intelligence portends for their futures. Eight in 10 Americans report concern over AI, compared with a third who report being excited, according to a recent Quinnipiac poll. More than half think it will do more harm than good in their daily lives. Seven out of 10 think it will reduce the number of available jobs. Skeptical though they may be, they are about to get more AI rammed down their throats and stuck into their pension plans and their investment portfoli…

Business

After SpaceX’s huge IPO, Americans’ financial future will be bound to AI

Accenture dubs 800,000 staff ‘reinventors’ amid shift to AI

Accenture has reportedly begun calling its near 800,000 employees “reinventors”, as the consultancy tries to position itself as a leader in artificial intelligence. The consultancy’s chief executive, Julie Sweet, has already started referring to staff by the new label and the business is now pushing for the term to be used more widely. The “reinventor” label came from a reorganisation across Accenture in June, which merged its strategy, consulting, creative, technology and operations divisions into a single unit…

Business

Accenture dubs 800,000 staff ‘reinventors’ amid shift to AI

US workers overwhelmingly support union-backed policies on AI, poll says

US workers overwhelmingly support pro-worker policies on artificial intelligence (AI) and view labor unions as the most reliable protectors of workers from the effects of AI, according to a new poll released by the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US. More than nine out of 10 workers surveyed expressed support for policies on artificial intelligence that labor unions may fight for, including 95% supporting a requirement that a human be the final decision maker on any issues affecting individua

Labor

US workers overwhelmingly support union-backed policies on AI, poll says

US leads record global surge in gas-fired power driven by AI demands, with big costs for the climate

The US is leading a huge global surge in new gas-fired power generation that will cause a major leap in planet-heating emissions, with this record boom driven by the expansion of energy-hungry datacenters to service artificial intelligence, according to a new forecast. This year is set to shatter the annual record for new gas power additions around the world, with projects in development expected to grow existing global gas capacity by nearly 50%, a report by Global Energy Monitor (GEM) found. The US is at the f…

Climate

Teacher v chatbot: my journey into the classroom in the age of AI

Two years ago, at the age of 39, I began training to be a school teacher. I wanted to teach English – to help young people become stronger readers, writers and thinkers, with a deeper connection to literature. After 15 years of working as a freelance writer and as a novelist, I felt confident that I had something to offer. But the further I progressed in my training, the more uncertain I felt. One particular question taunted me for my lack of an answer. What to do about artificial intelligence? The immediate dil…

Education

Teacher v chatbot: my journey into the classroom in the age of AI

AI in the classroom prompts tide of concern from US parents and experts

In October, Kelly Clancy’s son received an assignment in sixth grade at a middle school in Brooklyn, New York, to create a science experiment and then ask Google Gemini, an artificial intelligence chatbot, for feedback, she said. Clancy, who has three children in New York City public schools, told the teacher that the bot “is something that just teaches kids that they can have machines do the thinking for them”, instead of suggesting: “Let’s talk to your partners. What about the science experiment could you impr…

Education

AI in the classroom prompts tide of concern from US parents and experts

Investment fraud in UK soared to more than £220m lost last year, trade body says

Increasingly elaborate investment scams involving gold, cryptocurrencies and wine have soared in the past year with more than £220m lost to the fraud, according to a report. UK banks reported almost 15,000 investment scams in 2025 as criminals use artificial intelligence to dupe people out of their money. About £221.5m was lost to scams in which people were persuaded to move their money to a fake investment or a fictitious fund, a rise of 40% from the year before, according to the report from UK Finance. This parti

Crime

Investment fraud in UK soared to more than £220m lost last year, trade body says