Actress Cate Blanchett launches a free registry tool to keep AI from using your likeness

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Solo-maxxing: How tech taught Gen Z to monetise being alone

Solo-maxxing — the trend of deliberately maximising time alone and treating singlehood as a lifestyle goal — is examined as a symptom of how technology has commodified solitude. The term traces its roots from 1940s game theory through incel forums to mainstream TikTok culture. Young people are retreating from dating apps due to financial costs and emotional exhaustion, with Tinder losing 7% of paying users in 2024. Algorithms reward aestheticised loneliness content, pushing creators to brand themselves around permanent solitude. The deeper concern is that the same tech ecosystem that gamified intimacy now monetises the retreat from it — and is positioning AI companions as the next step. Regulatory responses like the EU AI Act, Digital Services Act, and US state-level AI companion laws are emerging but are seen as insufficient, since they address transparency rather than the deeper question of what happens to human connection when companionship becomes frictionless and on-demand.

Meta pauses employee monitoring program after data protections fail

Meta has paused its Model Compatibility Initiative (MCI), an employee monitoring program launched in April that collected keystrokes, mouse movements, screen content, and private conversations to train AI models. Unauthorized employees accessed restricted MCI data on June 18, and after Meta claimed to have fixed the vulnerability, the breach recurred. Security analysts criticize the inadequate access controls, noting that the highly sensitive behavioral data was not classified as PII, which may have led Meta to underestimate its risk level. Experts warn that beyond the data exposure itself, the trust damage among employees — who now doubt leadership's data protection commitments — poses a lasting organizational risk.

UN urges AI firms to come clean on their environmental costs

A UN University Institute report warns that AI's environmental footprint is expanding rapidly across electricity, water, and land dimensions. Data centres are projected to consume ~945 TWh of electricity annually by 2030, nearly triple the combined usage of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria. AI-related water consumption could match the basic annual domestic needs of 1.3 billion people. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is pressing AI companies to disclose their carbon, water, and land consumption and transition data centres to clean energy. The report proposes a 'responsible AI ecosystem' framework built on transparency, efficiency, equity, and lifecycle responsibility, while stopping short of mandating hard caps or naming specific companies.

The smart TV in your living room is training AI - here's how to stop it

Smart TVs are being used as residential proxies for AI training data scrapers, enabled by hidden consent buried in app Terms and Conditions. Research by Include Security reveals that Bright Data's SDK — embedded in apps on smart TVs and cable boxes — routes up to 200 GB of web scraping traffic through your home network. The SDK ships as an unauthenticated public endpoint, meaning unauthorized users could also exploit it. VPNs won't stop it since the SDK bypasses virtual interfaces. The fix is to block specific Bright Data domains via DNS (Pi-hole, AdGuard, Technitium) or add TLS SNI filters on a hardware firewall. Five specific domains and three wildcard patterns are provided to block the proxy tunnels.

Meta pauses its employee mouse-tracking program over data-security fears

Meta has paused its Model Capability Initiative (MCI), an internal program launched in April 2026 that tracks employee mouse movements, keystrokes, clicks, and screenshots to train its AI models. The halt follows a permissions misconfiguration that left sensitive employee data — including private conversations, performance records, and transcriptions — accessible to all Meta staff. The program had already faced internal protests over surveillance concerns and potential GDPR violations. Meta says it found no evidence of improper access but is investigating, with no stated timeline for resumption or indication of whether MCI will return in its current form.

Make AI Boring Again (xpost)

Charity Majors argues that AI is not uniquely evil — it's just technology — and that tech workers have a moral responsibility to engage with it rather than disengage for purity's sake. She catalogs real harms (training data exploitation, energy use, labor, concentration of power) but contends that awareness of harms should drive engagement and reform, not abstention. She critiques performative purity politics as ineffective and narcissistic, drawing on personal history with religious fundamentalism. Her call to action: learn AI deeply, have honest workplace conversations about its use, push for accountability, and do the boring disciplined work of shaping how these tools evolve rather than walking off the field.