Technology

A series of warnings from artificial intelligence (AI) industry insiders shows how the debate around AI drives extreme news cycles, swinging between hype and alarm.

The result is media coverage that overlooks the intricacies of this technology and its impact on everyday life. We examine the real risks, what’s being overstated, and what major tech companies stand to gain from all the fearmongering.

Contributors:
Rumman Chowdhury – Founder, Humane Intelligence
Mutale Nkonde – Founder, AI for the People
Chris Stokel-Walker – Author of the book How AI Ate the World

On our radar

Francesca Albanese, the United Nations’ special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, has found herself in the middle of a political firestorm, all because of comments she never actually made.

After a manipulated video of Albanese calling Israel the “enemy of humanity” went viral,  there were calls for her resignation across Europe. The UN has labelled these allegations part of a wider smear campaign to discredit Albanese and the UN itself.

A curated view of Israel for African journalists

For decades, the Israeli government and pro-Israel organisations have sponsored trips for politicians, celebrities and journalists, inviting them to visit and, as they put it, tell the “real story” about Israel. In the past, those invitations largely targeted figures from Western countries. But since October 7th, there has been a noticeable shift towards African journalists and social media influencers.

The objective is clear: to shape coverage in African media and influence audiences across the continent.

The Listening Post’s Nic Muirhead reports on the African journalists taking part in these fully funded, tightly managed visits to Israel.

Featuring:
Hassen Lorgat – Media critic and activist
Makhudu Sefara – Editor, Sunday Times
Timnit Gebru – Founder, the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR)
Njahira Gitahi – Reporter, The Standard

Feb. 20 (UPI) — The University of Mississippi Medical Center closed its 35 clinics throughout Mississippi on Friday after being targeted in a ransomware attack.

Medical center officials also canceled all elective medical procedures that were scheduled for the day and rescheduled all but dialysis appointments at the medical center’s location in the Jackson Medical Mall in the state’s capital.

That medical center remained open and provided medical services on Friday. Hospital officials said they and federal law enforcement were in contact with those who carried out the ransomware attack.

“We continue to work with federal authorities and national experts in cyberattack response as we evaluate the extent of the attack and our next steps,” medical center officials said in a Facebook post Thursday.

“We expect this to be a multi-day event and will communicate helpful information when available.”

The university medical center’s hospitals and emergency departments also were open. Officials said they plan to announce any closures that might affect those healthcare service providers if it becomes necessary.

University officials also canceled all online classes Friday, but in-person classes were held.

University Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs LouAnn Woodward confirmed a ransomware attack affected the medical center’s key network systems, including Epic and its medical records.

Woodward said officials at the medical center shut down its IT systems out of precaution and do not know when the matter might be resolved.

In the meantime, doctors and medical center staff were using pen and paper while continuing to provide medical services for patients until the IT system is restored.

The university health clinics provide many services, including treating cancer and chronic pain.

Feb. 20 (UPI) — Microsoft Gaming Chief Executive Officer Phil Spencer is retiring after 38 years at the tech giant and is being replaced by Asha Sharma, whom Microsoft hired from Instacart in 2024.

Sharma will become Microsoft’s executive vice president for gaming and report to Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella.

Nadella said Spencer last year announced his decision to retire, and the company officials announced the pending change to staff on Friday.

Sharma will move from Microsoft’s CoreAI wing, where he was the company’s president of product development. He formerly was Instacart’s chief operating officer and before that was Meta’s vice president of product development.

Spencer is leaving the tech giant after former business development head Chris Young and Thomas Dohmke, former GitHub chief executive, departed last year.

Microsoft’s security systems head Charlie Bell also changed his role with the company but continues working in an individual capacity.

Microsoft’s video gaming revenues declined by 10% from December 2024 to December 2025, which exceeded the company’s expectations, according to CNBC.

Despite the tech firm’s reduced gaming revenue, it posted a 17% gain in revenue during the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to a year earlier.

Microsoft in 2023 bought Activision Blizzard and made its Call of Duty gaming titles available on its cloud service.

Competition for Sony’s proprietary gaming system has impacted Microsoft’s gaming revenues due to its Xbox system not matching Sony’s PlayStation or Nintendo’s Switch in popularity.

Microsoft has closed its gaming development studios that developed new titles.

Stepping into Jr. Market boutique in Highland Park is like entering a 1980s time warp. Built into a refurbished shipping container, it’s filled with everything from tiny Walkman-style portables to colorful, number-flip clock radios and, naturally, boomboxes of all sizes. Few are more imposing than the TV the Searcher, a Sharp boombox from the early ‘80s that features a built-in, 5-inch color television.

“Try lifting it, it’s really heavy,” warns Spencer Richardson, the shop’s owner. Indeed, the machine is at least 15 pounds without the 10 D batteries that power the unit. He adds, “I don’t think you’re taking this to the beach so you could watch TV while you listen to music.”

An affable, hyper-knowledgeable proprietor in his early 30s, Richardson repairs and resells analog music technology from the 1980s or earlier. In bringing these rehabbed players back into circulation, he’s helping others rediscover a musical format once left for dead. While his hobby-turned-side hustle started as “a gateway to discover sounds” that he otherwise would not have heard, it now attracts curious customers willing to drop $100-plus for a vintage Technics RS-M2 or My First Sony Walkman. His customers include older baby boomers and Gen X‑ers nostalgic for the players of their childhood, but most have been millennials like himself, drawn to something tactile and analog in an era when everything else disappears into the digital ether.

A rare Technics RS-M2 stereo radio tape deck. “I’ve worked on a lot of tape players and this one shouts quality inside and out,” Richardson writes on Instagram.

(Spencer Richardson)

Unlike turntables, which have become increasingly high-tech thanks to the “vinyl revival” of the last 20 years, almost all cassette players in current production rely on the same, basic tape mechanism from Taiwan, Richardson explains. Though cassette culture is enjoying its own period of rediscovery — albeit on a far smaller scale — he hasn’t seen a market emerge for newly engineered tape decks. And he’s fine with that.

“I’m not one of those people that’s like, ‘Why don’t they make good new tape players?’” he says. “No one needs to make it better. You’re still better off buying a refurbished one from the time when they made them.”

That’s where he steps in.

Richardson works on a Nakamichi tape deck out of his repair studio in downtown L.A.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

It’s easy to forget that when cassettes debuted in the mid-1960s, the technology was groundbreaking. Not only were the players far more portable than turntables but unlike records, tapes were resilient to being tossed about. Even more profoundly, cassettes democratized access to the act of recording itself since cassette technology required minimal infrastructure and cost.

“I think about how incredible it must have been for people to realize they could just put whatever they wanted onto a tape, dub it, give it to a friend,” says Richardson.

Entire genres of music, especially in the developing world, became far more accessible across borders. In some countries, big records are still released on cassette. “I have a Filipino release of Kanye West’s ‘College Dropout’ on tape,” Richardson says.

The constraints of the technology guided the listening experience. Because skipping songs on a player was a hassle, most people sat with cassette albums as a track-by-track, linear journey, the antithesis to the algorithmic, shuffle-centric playlists ubiquitous on today’s streaming platforms. It’s a pace that Richardson appreciates.

“I want things to be intentional and slow,” he says. “I don’t need them to be optimized.”

He learned how to repair gear by watching YouTube videos, perusing old manuals and through trial and error.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Born in the early 1990s, Richardson grew up in Santa Monica and the Pacific Palisades, where his mother’s home was lost in the L.A. wildfires last year. He’s just old enough to remember cassettes as a child: “My mom had books on tape like ‘Winnie the Pooh,’ but I wasn’t out buying tapes.” Fast forward to the mid-2010s and he was working at the now-defunct Touch Vinyl in West L.A. “Back in 2014, we started this little in-store tape label,” he explained. “Bands would come to play, and we’d duplicate 10 tapes and give them away or sell them.” Richardson slowly began collecting cassettes but after the store closed a few years later, he realized how hard it was to find people to service his tape players.

Finally, once the pandemic hit in 2020 and everyone was stuck at home, he decided to learn how to repair his gear by watching YouTube.“I was just fascinated by the videos, absorbing soldering techniques and tools you might need,” he said. With no formal engineering background, Richardson began collecting information online, perusing old manuals, learning through trial and error. “You just need to get your hands in there and be like, ‘Oh, OK, I see how this works,’ or maybe I don’t see how this works, and I’m just going to bang my head against the wall, and then a year later, try again.” His first successful repair was for his Teac CX-311, a compact stereo cassette player/recorder that he still owns. “It has some quirks but runs well.”

A few years later, Richardson’s girlfriend, Faith, suggested he start selling his players online via an Instagram account — jrmarket.radio — originally created for a short-lived internet station. Tim Mahoney, his childhood friend and a professional photographer, shot the units against a plain white backdrop, as if for an art catalog. A community of enthusiasts quickly found his account and Richardson began selling pieces online and via pop-ups. In 2024, the owners of vintage clothing store the Bearded Beagle invited him to take over the parking lot space behind their new location on Figueroa St. Opening a brick-and-mortar store hadn’t been his ambition but Richardson accepted the opportunity: “I never envisioned opening my own physical store. It’s hard enough to have a retail space in Los Angeles to sell something that’s very niche.”

Jr. Market operates as a shop Thursday through Saturday in Highland Park.

(Spencer Richardson)

Jr. Market — whose name is inspired by Japanese convenience stores known as “junior markets” — isn’t trying to appeal to audiophiles though Richardson does stock studio-quality recording decks. He primarily looks for players with appealing visual design, most of them made in Japan where Richardson has been traveling to since graduating high school. Through those trips, he’s learned where to source pristinely-kept gear, including his best-selling Corocasse: a bright red plastic cube of a radio/tape player, introduced by National in 1983. He also keeps an eye out for the unique Sanyo MR-QF4 from 1979, an elongated boombox with four speakers, designed to play either horizontally or flipped into a vertical tower.

The store also stocks a small selection of portable record players, including a Viktor PK-2, a whimsical, plastic-bodied three-in-one turntable, tape player and AM radio that looks like something designed by a modernist artist for Fisher-Price. That went to local author and historian Sam Sweet, who visited the store with no intention of buying anything and left with the Viktor, which now sits on his writing desk. “Spencer’s part of a grand tradition of workshop tinkerers and specialty mechanics,” Sweet says. “The refurbished devices he sells are as much a reflection of his ethos and expertise as they are treasures of the past.”

Last year, Imma Almourzaeva, an Echo Park art director, came to the store and purchased a massive 1979 Sony “Zilba’p” boombox, which is nearly 2 feet wide and over a foot tall, with wood veneer panels to boot. Almourzaeva, who grew up in Russia in the ‘90s, wanted a player that offered “the tactile feel of my childhood and bringing it back into my daily routine, something familiar, something warm.” The Zilba’p is the largest boombox Richardson has carried and Almourzaeva said, “It’s aesthetically a showstopper. Maybe I have a Napoleon complex because I’m pretty small too. It’s like ‘go big or go home’ for me.” She shared that she recently bought a Soviet-era boombox from Richardson for her brother for Christmas. “It turned out my mom grew up using the same brand of stereo,” Almourzaeva says. Richardson had told her that Soviet boomboxes are “very DIY, more funky and finicky.”

Refurbishment is one of Richardson’s specialties, including repairing customer units, each of them a puzzle he enjoys solving. No matter if a player is sparse or feature-packed, the simple act of playing a cassette creates a sense of calm and focus for him. “You’re not distracted, because it doesn’t do anything else,” he says. In a time where every “smart” device is marketed with dizzying arrays of features, that simplicity can feel downright revolutionary.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has appeared in a Los Angeles court to answer questions about accusations of harm that his company causes to young users.

The landmark trial is looking into the addictive aspects of the use of social media.

It’s part of a big wave of growing anger against tech platforms, which are said to contribute to addictive behaviour.

As a response, some countries have already started restricting access to youngsters.

Others have gone as far as banning their use for children younger than 16.

But can a court case change things?

And what role should families play in controlling their kids’ excessive use of social media?

Presenter: James Bays

Guests:

Adele Walton – Online safety campaigner

Larry Magid – CEO of ConnectSafely.org, an internet safety and security organisation that advises companies, including Facebook

Donna Dawson – Psychologist focusing on personality and behaviour

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has cancelled his keynote speech at India’s flagship AI summit just hours before he was due to take the stage on Thursday.

Gates, who has faced renewed scrutiny over his past ties to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, withdrew to “ensure the focus remains on the AI Summit’s key priorities”, the Gates Foundation said in a statement.

The five-day India AI Impact Summit 2026 was meant to showcase India’s ambitions in the booming sector, with the country expecting to attract more than $200bn in investment over the next two years.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi had billed the summit as an opportunity for India to shape the future of AI, drawing high-profile attendees, including French President Emmanuel Macron and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Instead, it has been dogged by controversy, from Gates’s abrupt exit to an incident in which an Indian university tried to pass off a Chinese-made robotic dog as its own innovation.

So, what exactly went wrong at India’s flagship AI gathering and why has it drawn such intense scrutiny?

Why Gates’s appearance became an issue

Bill Gates was due to deliver a short but high-profile speech highlighting the opportunities and risks posed by artificial intelligence.

However, in recent weeks, several opposition figures and commentators in Indian media weighed in after emails featuring his name were released in the Epstein files in late January, questioning whether his presence was appropriate.

Despite the discussion, all appeared to be proceeding as planned earlier in the week. On Tuesday, the Gates Foundation’s India office posted on X that Gates would attend the summit and “deliver his keynote as scheduled”.

Then, on Thursday, hours before the scheduled speech, it released a statement saying that “After careful consideration, and to ensure the focus remains on the AI Summit’s key priorities, Mr Gates will not be delivering his keynote address.”

It added that Ankur Vora, president of the Gates Foundation’s Africa and India offices, would deliver the speech instead.

What are the alleged links between Epstein and Gates?

Bill Gates was named in documents related to Epstein released in January by the US Department of Justice.

In a draft email included among the documents, Epstein alleged Gates had engaged in extramarital affairs and sought his help in procuring drugs “to deal with consequences of sex with Russian girls”.

It was unclear whether Epstein actually sent the email, and Gates denies any wrongdoing.

The Gates Foundation, in a statement to The New York Times, called the allegations “absolutely absurd and completely false”.

What has India’s government said?

Very little.

Despite criticism and calls from opposition figures to explain the invitation to Gates, the Indian government has not directly addressed the controversy that culminated in Gates’s withdrawal.

While unnamed government sources told local media he would not attend the summit, officials stopped short of explaining why.

Asked about Gates’s participation, Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw declined to give a clear answer to reporters, while Modi made no reference to the issue in his public remarks.

Why are the Epstein files a sensitive subject for India?

The controversy surrounding Gates’s planned participation comes close on the heels of a series of disclosures in the Epstein files that have forced the Modi government on the backfoot.

In one email to an unidentified individual he referred to only as “Jabor Y”, Epstein referred to Modi’s historic visit – the first by an Indian prime minister – to Israel in July 2017.

Epstein wrote: “The Indian Prime minister modi took advice. and danced and sang in israel for the benefit of the US president. they had met a few weeks ago.. IT WORKED. !”

Modi’s visit to Israel – and his subsequent embrace of the Benjamin Netanyahu government, with military, intelligence and other ties strengthened over the past decade – had already drawn criticism from the opposition Congress party and others, who have accused him of reversing decades of Indian support for the Palestinian cause. India was the first non-Arab nation to recognise the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1974, and did not establish full diplomatic relations with Israel until 1992.

But the Epstein email turbocharged the opposition criticism of Modi’s Israel policy – with questions now also asked about whether it was influenced by Washington.

The Indian Ministry of External Affairs dismissed the Epstein email in an unusually sharply worded statement.

“Beyond the fact of the prime minister’s official visit to Israel in July 2017, the rest of the allusions in the email are little more than trashy ruminations by a convicted criminal, which deserve to be dismissed with the utmost contempt,” spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said.

But the Epstein cloud continues to hover over India.

The files also show that India’s current oil minister, Hardeep Singh Puri, exchanged dozens of emails with Epstein after he joined Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party in 2014.

In many of them, Puti appears to be taking Epstein’s help in getting US investors, such as LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman, to visit India. In others, he appears to suggest that he had a fairly comfortable personal relationship with Epstein.

“Please let me know when you are back from your exotic island,” Puri wrote in December 2014, for instance, asking to set up a meeting in which Puri could give Epstein some books to “excite an interest in India”.

Puri, in a new conference, has claimed that he only met Epstein “three or four times”, but the Congress party has argued that the emails suggest a much closer relationship.

Gates’s work in India

The Gates Foundation has long been a key partner in India’s public health and development sectors, backing major vaccination drives, disease prevention campaigns and sanitation programmes.

At the same time, he has had vocal critics, including environmental activist Vandana Shiva, who has argued that Gates’s brand of “philanthro-imperialism” uses wealth to control global food systems.

Gates also faced heavy criticism after a 2024 podcast in which he said India was “a kind of laboratory to try things … that then, when you prove them out in India, you can take to other places” when discussing development programmes and the foundation’s work there.

‘Orion’ the robodog and other controversies

Beyond the fallout over Bill Gates’s cancelled keynote, the AI Impact Summit has faced several controversies.

One incident involved a robotic dog named “Orion”, which Galgotias University, based in the New Delhi suburban town of Greater Noida, presented as its own innovation.

Online users quickly identified the machine as a commercially available Chinese-made model, prompting organisers to ask the institution to vacate its stall.

The event also drew criticism on its opening day after facing logistical issues, including long queues and confusion over entry procedures, according to local media.

On Wednesday, large crowds were seen walking for miles after police cordoned off roads for VIP access.

Dhananjay Yadav, the CEO of a company exhibiting high-tech wearables, made headlines after he reported on social media that devices had been stolen from the company’s stand.

The Times of India later reported that two maintenance workers at the event had been arrested for allegedly stealing the wearables.

BY THE NUMBERS

Spending on AI is forecast to skyrocket to $2.5 trillion in 2026, dwarfing even the largest scientific and infrastructure projects.

World leaders and tech executives are convening in New Delhi for the India-AI Impact Summit 2026, focusing on the role of artificial intelligence in governance, job disruption and global collaboration.

However, behind these discussions lies the financial reality. Over the past decade, AI has drawn one of the largest waves of private investment in modern history, totalling trillions of dollars.

According to Gartner, a United States-based business and technology insights company, worldwide spending on AI is forecast to total $2.5 trillion in 2026, a 44 percent increase over 2025.

To understand the magnitude of these investments, Al Jazeera visualises the staggering amounts by comparing them with some of the largest projects ever created by humanity. We also highlight which countries are spending the most on AI and provide insights into expenditures on data centres, models, services, and security.

What does $1bn look like?

To help understand a trillion dollars, it is useful to first visualise what millions and billions of dollars look like by using a stack of US dollar bills.

If you break these amounts down using $100 bills, here is how they stack up:

• $1,000 would form a stack about 1cm (0.393-inch) high.
• $10,000 would form a stack approximately 10cm (3.93-inch) high.
• $1m would fit inside a briefcase.
• $10m would fit inside a very large suitcase.
• $100m would fit on an industrial pallet stacked waist-high.
• $1bn would create a building approximately 5.2 metres (17 feet) high, with a width and a length of about 2 metres (6.6 feet) each.

Another way to think of it is if you spent $1 every second, it would take:

• 11.5 days to spend $1m
• 31 years to spend $1bn
• 31,000 years to spend $1 trillion

In more tangible terms, $1bn is roughly equivalent to:

• The estimated cost of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, one of the largest archaeological museums in the world
• The cost of constructing two to three modern football stadiums, depending on size and design
• Buying 10 luxury private jets (at $100m each)
• Buying 6.3 tonnes of gold (at $5,000 per ounce)
• Buying 1 million high-end iPhones at retail price

$1.6 trillion already spent on AI

Over the past decade, AI-related investments have surged nearly 13-fold.

According to the 2025 AI Index Report by Stanford University, between 2013 and 2024, total global corporate investment in AI reached $1.6 trillion. This substantial expenditure dwarfs even the largest scientific and infrastructure projects of the 20th and 21st centuries.

To put the scale of AI investment into perspective, consider how it compares with some of the most ambitious and expensive projects in modern history. All figures are adjusted to 2024 US dollars:

• The Manhattan Project (1942-46): $36bn
• The International Space Station (1984-2011): $150bn
• The Apollo Program (1960-73): $250bn
• The US Interstate Highway System (1956-92): $620bn

In just over a decade, investment in AI has surpassed the cost of developing the first atomic bomb, landing humans on the moon and the decades-long effort to build the 75,440km (46,876-mile) US interstate highway network.

Unlike these landmark projects, AI funding has not been driven by a single government or wartime urgency. It has flowed through private markets, venture capital, corporate research and development, and global investors, making it one of the largest privately financed technological waves in history.

Global corporate investments in AI cover a vast array of operations, including mergers and acquisitions, minority stakes, private investments, and public offerings. These monumental expenditures highlight the extensive financial commitment to advance AI.

Which countries are spending the most on AI?

The AI investment surge is concentrated in just a few countries, where private capital has fuelled thousands of startups and shaped global innovation hubs.

The US has dominated AI spending, accounting for roughly 62 percent of total private AI funding since 2013. Between 2013 and 2024, US companies spent $471bn on AI. Chinese companies are the second-largest spenders at $119bn, followed by the United Kingdom at $28bn.

These figures exclude government spending, such as the US CHIPS Act or European national AI subsidies.

Global private investment in AI by country, 2013-24:

• US: $471bn, supporting 6,956 newly funded AI companies
• China: $119bn, 1,605 startups
• UK: $28bn, 885 startups
• Canada: $15bn, 481 startups
• Israel: $15bn, 492 startups
• Germany: $13bn, 394 startups
• India: $11bn, 434 startups
• France: $11bn, 468 startups
• South Korea: $9bn, 270 startups
• Singapore: $7bn, 239 startups
• Others: $58bn

AI spending to total $2.5 trillion in 2026

AI spending is forecast to skyrocket to $2.5 trillion in 2026, driven by a massive global build-out of data centres and services, according to Gartner.

The bulk of the spending is expected to go towards:

• AI infrastructure: $1.37 trillion
• AI services: $589bn
• AI software: $452bn
• AI cybersecurity: $51bn
• AI platforms for data science and machine learning: $31bn
• AI models: $26bn
• AI application development platforms: $8.4bn
• AI data: $3bn

By 2027, Gartner is forecasting that AI spending will surpass $3.3 trillion.

Feb. 18 (UPI) — Tesla will stop using the term “Autopilot” in marketing of its vehicles in California, the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles announced.

In December, a judge ruled that the company was using deceptive wording in its marketing of the cars in California and recommended a suspension of sales and manufacturing in the state. But the DMV allowed the company 60 days to change its wording.

Autopilot is Tesla’s driver-assistance mode, and its self-driving setting is called Full Self-Driving. The DMV argued that both terms mislead customers and distort the abilities of the driver-assistance systems.

Tesla had changed the self-driving system to be called “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)” to indicate that drivers must still monitor the system. But it stayed with “Autopilot,” prompting the DMV to refer the case to the California Office of Administrative Hearings.

The judge ruled with the DMV and recommended the suspension. But the DMV gave the company the grace period.

“Since then, Tesla took corrective action and has stopped using the misleading term ‘Autopilot’ in the marketing of its electric vehicles in California,” the DMV said in a press release Tuesday. “Tesla had previously modified its use of the term ‘Full Self-Driving’ to clarify that driver supervision is required. By taking this prescribed action, Tesla will avoid having its dealer and manufacturer licenses suspended in the state for 30 days by the DMV.”

But Tesla went a step further and changed its driver-assistance plan altogether. It discontinued the former Autopilot mode and now requires owners to pay for an FSD Supervised subscription. Until last week, owners paid a one-time fee of $8,000 for FSD. Now, they pay a $99 monthly fee. CEO Elon Musk has said the fee will increase as FSD Supervised improves, TechCrunch reported.

California is Tesla’s biggest market, with about 30% of its sales. Tesla recently announced that its Fremont, Calif., factory will begin making its Optimus humanoid robots by the end of 2027. It discontinued its Model S and X cars, previously manufactured there.

Feb. 18 (UPI) — Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to testify Wednesday in a trial that will decide if his social media platforms and YouTube intentionally harmed children and teens.

The lawsuit in Los Angeles was filed by a 20-year-old woman called KGM in the suit and her mother, Karen Glenn, who claim the platforms damaged her mental health as a child. It’s the first in a group of lawsuits brought by 1,600 parents, teens and school districts who allege that when teens are addicted to the platforms, they suffer from depression, self-harm, eating disorders and more.

KGM, also known as Kaley in the suit, began using YouTube at age 6 and Instagram at 9, said her lawyer, Mark Lanier. Despite her mother’s efforts to mitigate her social media use, Kaley sometimes used Instagram for “several hours a day.” The app’s addictive features led her to develop anxiety, body dysmorphia and suicidal thoughts, she alleges. She was also the victim of bullying and sextortion.

A Meta spokesperson said the company strongly disagrees with the allegations.

“The question for the jury in Los Angeles is whether Instagram was a substantial factor in the plaintiff’s mental health struggles,” CNN reported a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “The evidence will show she faced many significant, difficult challenges well before she ever used social media.”

The company said it is “confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people.”

Plaintiffs’ lawyers in the cases say internal documents at the companies stress the goal of making apps difficult to put down like infinite scroll, auto-play, likes, beauty filters and push notifications.

“These companies built machines designed to addict the brains of children,” lawyer Mark Lanier said in his opening statements, NPR reported. “And they did it on purpose.”

The trial is in state court, which means there only needs to be nine of the 12 jurors in agreement. If Kaley and her mother win, it could lead to settlements in the other cases.

Feb. 17 (UPI) — Artificial intelligence and software analytics firm Palantir Technologies Inc. has moved its headquarters from Denver to Miami, company officials announced on Tuesday.

The announcement was made on social media and says only that Palantir has moved its headquarters to Miami without providing other information.

The tech firm has many government contracts, including with federal immigration law enforcement agencies and the military, which recently triggered protests and vandalism at Palantir’s Denver headquarters.

Palantir co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Alex Karp recently described it as a “completely anti-woke” firm that seeks employees who share its values, according to the Denver Gazette.

Palantir accepted a $30 million contract to create the ImmigrationOS app that enables Immigration and Customs Enforcement to support self-deportation, and the U.S. Army awarded the tech firm an up-to-$10 billion contract to provide data and software tools over the next decade.

Palantir also is among the corporate donors that contributed $300 million to build a ballroom on the site of the former East Wing of the White House.

Palantir’s co-founders established the tech firm in Palo Alto, Calif., in 2003 and in 2020 moved its headquarters to Denver.

The move to Miami follows that of many other tech firms and positions the coastal city as a rival to California’s Silicon Valley.

Florida’s tax-friendly business environment has helped the state to lure many tech billionaires from California, where lawmakers are wrangling over a proposed 5% wealth tax on residents who have a net worth of $1 billion or more.

Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel has relocated to Miami ahead of the tech firm’s headquarters move, and Karp in 2020 said the tech firm does not share the same values as many others in Silicon Valley’s tech community.

Meta Platforms Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg also is among wealthy big-tech bosses who have moved from California to Florida, and many tech firms have established hubs in Miami.

Feb. 17 (UPI) — Spanish authorities plan to investigate social media giants X, Meta and TikTok over the distribution of child sex abuse materials on their respective social media platforms, the government announced Tuesday.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said there is a pending investigation by state prosecutors into the alleged spread of artificial intelligence-generated material.

“These platforms are jeopardizing the mental health, dignity and rights of our sons and daughters,” Sanchez said in a translated post on X.

“The state cannot allow this,” he said. “The impunity of the giants must end.”

The Spanish government said it is looking at options for holding tech firms accountable for “potential criminal liability of increasingly widespread practices in the digital environment, such as the generation and dissemination of sexual content and child sexual abuse through deepfakes and the manipulation of real images to create others with explicit sexual content, thereby undermining the dignity of the victims,” as reported by The Guardian.

A recently produced report suggested that social media platforms enable the creation and rapid distribution of offensive content that enables their makers to elude detection and potential criminal prosecution.

Meanwhile, the respective social media sites profit from such activities, officials said.

Sanchez said Spain’s Council of Ministers will invoke Article 8 of the Organic Statute of the Public Ministry to ask it to investigate the alleged crimes that the three tech firms might be committing via the creation and distribution of AI-generated child sexual abuse materials using their respective AI tools.

The Spanish probe into the social media giants arose after French authorities raided X’s offices in Paris over similar accusations, but X officials there have denied any wrongdoing.

X recently added Grok AI, which is the creation of Elon Musk’s xAI artificial intelligence company. Musk also owns X.

TikTok offers AI tools, while Meta AI is integrated into Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp platforms.

The issue raises the matter of free speech laws in the European Union and the United States.

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission is among European regulatory bodies leading the European Commission’s inquiry into X over the use of the Grok AI tool to generate deepfake and sexualized images of real people, including children.

The investigation is to determine if X is complying with European laws regarding personal data and how algorithms might protect lawbreakers.

Feb. 17 (UPI) — The European Commission announced Tuesday that it has opened formal proceedings against online retailer Shein “for its addictive design, the lack of transparency of recommender systems, as well as the sale of illegal products, including child sexual abuse material.”

The Commission said in a press release it was specifically investigating: the systems Shein has to limit the sale of illegal products in the European Union; risks linked to the addictive design of the service and the systems to mitigate those risks; and transparency of the recommender systems that it uses to propose content and products to users.

Under the Digital Services Act, Shein must disclose the parameters used in its recommender systems and it must provide users with at least one easily accessible option that is not based on profiling for each recommender system, the release said. The EU said it found that Shein only explained its recommender “in a very general manner.”

“In the EU, illegal products are prohibited — whether they are on a store shelf or on an online marketplace,” Henna Virkkunen, executive vice president for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, in a statement. “The Digital Services Act keeps shoppers safe, protects their wellbeing and empowers them with information about the algorithms they are interacting with. We will assess whether Shein is respecting these rules and their responsibility.”

If the investigation finds that Shein has broken EU law, Brussels can impose interim measures, accept binding commitments from Shein or give a non-compliance decision that could lead to large fines, EuroNews reported.

Shein released a statement saying it always “cooperates fully” with the Commission and the Coimisiún na Meán, the Digital Services Coordinator for Ireland involved in the investigation.

“Over the last few months, we have continued to invest significantly in measures to strengthen our compliance with the DSA. These include comprehensive systemic-risk assessments and mitigation frameworks, enhanced protections for younger users, and ongoing work to design our services in ways that promote a safe and trusted user experience,” Shein said in the statement. “Protecting minors and reducing the risk of harmful content and behaviors are central to how we develop and operate our platform. We share the authorities’ objective of ensuring a safe and trusted online environment and will continue to engage constructively.”

The retailer has recently come under fire in France because, in November, it was found to be selling weapons and sex dolls designed to look like young children. Around the same time, Shein opened its first brick-and-mortar shop in Paris to protests for its sale of the dolls and its environmental impact.

Singapore-based Shein issued a statement on Nov. 4 saying it had removed the dolls and permanently banned “all seller accounts linked to illegal or non-compliant sex-doll products.”

A Shein spokesperson said in December that the platform would not reopen in France right away. It was doing an internal audit to find weaknesses in its marketplace operations.

Hollywood groups say the AI video tool uses the likeness of actors and others without permission.

China’s ByteDance has pledged to address concerns over its new artificial intelligence video generator, after Hollywood groups claimed Seedance 2.0 “blatantly” violates copyright and uses the likenesses of actors and others without permission.

The company, which owns TikTok, told The Associated Press news agency on Sunday that it respects intellectual property rights and pledged action to strengthen safeguards.

The tool, called Seedance 2.0, is available only in China for now and lets users generate high-quality AI videos using simple text prompts.

The Motion Picture Association (MPA) said last week that Seedance 2.0 “has engaged in unauthorized use of US copyrighted works on a massive scale”.

“By launching a service that operates without meaningful safeguards against infringement, ByteDance is disregarding well-established copyright law that protects the rights of creators and underpins millions of American jobs. ByteDance should immediately cease its infringing activity,” Charles Rivkin, chairman and CEO of the MPA, said in a statement on February 10.

Screenwriter Rhett Reese, who wrote the Deadpool movies, said on X last week, “I hate to say it. It’s likely over for us.”

His post was in response to Irish director Ruairi Robinson’s post of a Seedance 2.0 video that went viral and shows AI versions of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Actors union SAG-AFTRA said on Friday it “stands with the studios in condemning the blatant infringement” enabled by Seedance 2.0.

“The infringement includes the unauthorized use of our members’ voices and likenesses. This is unacceptable and undercuts the ability of human talent to earn a livelihood,” SAG-AFTRA said in a statement.

“Seedance 2.0 disregards law, ethics, industry standards and basic principles of consent. Responsible AI development demands responsibility, and that is nonexistent here.”

ByteDance said in response that it has heard the concerns regarding Seedance 2.0.

“We are taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorised use of intellectual property and likeness by users,” it told the AP.

Jonathan Handel, an entertainment journalist and lawyer, told Al Jazeera the developments mark “the beginning of a difficult road” for the film industry.

Until courts make a significant ruling, AI-generated videos will have major implications on the film industry,” he said.

“Digital technology moves a lot quicker, and we are going to see in several years full-length movies that are AI-generated,” he said.

These tools are trained primarily on unlicensed data, Handel said, and the output could resemble faces and scenes from famous movies, “and so you’ve got copyrights, trademarks, all of those rights are implicated here”.

French President Macron and Brazilian leader Lula expected to attend summit aimed to outline global AI governance and collaboration.

India is hosting an artificial intelligence summit this week, bringing together heads of state and tech executives with hot-button issues on the agenda, including job disruption and child safety.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Monday afternoon inaugurate the five-day AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, which aims to declare a “shared roadmap for global AI governance and collaboration”.

“This occasion is further proof that our country is progressing rapidly in the field of science and technology,” and it “shows the capability of our country’s youth”, he said in an X post on Monday.

Touted as the biggest edition yet, the Indian government is expecting 250,000 visitors from across the sector, including 20 national leaders and 45 ministerial-level delegations.

It comes at a pivotal moment as AI rapidly transforms economies, reshapes labour markets and raises questions around regulations, security and ethics.

From generative AI tools that can produce text and images to advanced systems used in defence, healthcare and climate modelling, AI has become a central focus for governments and corporations across the world.

The summit, previously held in France, the United Kingdom and South Korea, has evolved far beyond its modest beginnings as a meeting tightly focused on the safety of cutting-edge AI systems into an all-purpose jamboree trade fair in which safety is just one aspect.

‘AI should be used for shaping humanity’

India – the world’s most populous nation and one of the fastest-growing digital markets – sees the summit as an opportunity to project itself as a bridge between advanced economies and the Global South.

Officials said the country’s experience in building large-scale digital public infrastructure, including digital identity and payment platforms, offers a model for deploying AI at scale while keeping costs low.

“The goal is clear: AI should be used for shaping humanity, inclusive growth and a sustainable future,” India’s Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw said.

French President Emmanuel Macron and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva are among the world leaders who are attending the summit.

Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Microsoft President Brad Smith and AMI Labs Executive Chairman Yann LeCun are also expected to attend.

New Delhi declaration

The summit has the loose themes of “people, progress, planet” – dubbed the “three sutras”.

Like previous editions, the India AI Impact Summit is not expected to result in a joint binding political agreement. It is more likely that the event could end with a nonbinding pledge or declaration on goals for AI development.

Last year’s edition, the Paris AI Action Summit, was dominated by United States Vice President JD Vance’s speech in which he rebuked European efforts to curb AI’s risks by warning global leaders and tech industry executives against “excessive regulation” that could hobble the rapidly growing AI industry.

AI summits have evolved since the first meeting in November 2023, barely a year after the launch of ChatGPT, which stoked excitement and fear about the capabilities of generative artificial intelligence.

That meeting at a former code-breaking base north of London was attended only by official delegations from 28 countries and the European Union, along with a small number of AI executives and researchers, and was focused on keeping AI safe and reining in its potentially catastrophic risks.

Seth Hays, author of the Asia AI Policy Monitor newsletter, said talk at the summit would likely centre around “ensuring that governments put up some guardrails, but don’t throttle AI development”.

“There may be some announcements for more state investment in AI, but it may not move the needle much, as India needs partnerships to integrate on the international scene for AI,” Hays told the AFP news agency.

Feb. 13 (UPI) — Amazon-owned Ring announced it is ending its partnership with Flock Safety, a company whose artificial intelligence-powered technology came into question after a Ring Super Bowl ad touting new surveillance features.

In a blog post published Thursday, Ring said the two companies “made the joint decision to cancel the planned integration” they initially announced in October.

“Following a comprehensive review, we determined the planned Flock Safety integration would require significantly more time and resources than anticipated,” the Ring post read.

Ring’s surveillance camera capabilities came under fire Sunday after the company aired a 30-second commercial highlighting its new Search Party feature.

The feature allows users to upload images of their missing pets to the Ring Neighbors app, which would then use AI to trawl footage in the cloud to find the missing pet. If a missing pet is spotted in the footage, the information would be sent to the owner of the camera that picked up the footage and give them the option to notify the missing pet’s owners.

Ring said the Search Party feature is automatically enabled on all outdoor cameras enrolled in a Ring subscription. But critics questioned whether the AI technology could be combined with Ring’s new facial recognition technology, Familiar Faces, and provide law enforcement surveillance on humans.

Of additional concern, Flock Safety’s technology allows customers to grant local and federal government agencies access to the data picked up by the cameras. Among the organizations that could have access to this data are Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Secret Service and the Navy.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., in November called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Flock Security for allowing government access to the data without “meaningful privacy protections.”

“At the urging of concerned constituents, I conducted further oversight and have determined that Flock cannot live up to its commitment to protect the privacy and security of Oregonians,” Wyden wrote in a letter to the FTC. “Abuse of Flock cameras is inevitable, and Flock has made it clear it takes no responsibility to prevent or detect that.”

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Ma., who has previously criticized Ring’s connections to law enforcement, posted his thoughts on the Super Bowl ad on X.

“This definitely isn’t about dogs — it’s about mass surveillance,” he wrote.

Emma Daniels, a spokeswoman for Ring, told The Verge, that the Search Party feature works only with dogs and is “not capable of processing human biometrics.”

“These are not tools for mass surveillance,” she added. “We build the right guardrails, and we’re super transparent about them.”

In a January blog post, Flock Safety maintained that it doesn’t work directly with ICE or other agencies within the Department of Homeland Security. The company said every piece of data collected by its technology is owned by the customers.

“Decisions about whether, when, and how data is shared are made by the customer that owns the data, not by Flock,” the post read. “There is no hidden back-door access in Flock technology.

“If a local agency chooses not to collaborate with any federal entity, including ICE, Flock has no ability to override that decision.”

Taipei agrees to buy some $85bn of US energy, aircraft and equipment in exchange for 15 percent tariff rate.

The United States and Taiwan have finalised a trade deal to reduce tariffs on Taiwanese exports and facilitate billions of dollars of spending on US goods.

The agreement announced on Thursday lowers the general tariff on Taiwanese goods from 20 percent to 15 percent, the same level as Asian trade partners South Korea and Japan, in exchange for Taipei agreeing to buy about $85bn of US energy, aircraft and equipment.

Under the deal, Taiwan will eliminate or reduce 99 percent of tariff barriers and provide preferential market access to numerous US goods, including auto parts, chemicals, machinery, health products, dairy products and pork, the office of the US trade envoy said in a statement.

The US will, in turn, exempt a large range of Taiwanese goods from tariffs, including chalk, castor oil, pineapples and ginseng.

Taiwanese President William Lai Ching-te said Taipei had secured tariff exemptions for some 2,000 Taiwanese products, hailing the agreement as a “pivotal” moment for the self-governing island’s economy.

Lai said the deal, when various carve-outs are included, would take the average tariff rate on Taiwanese goods to 12.3 percent.

“From familiar items such as Phalaenopsis orchids, tea, bubble tea ingredients (tapioca starch), and coffee, to pineapple cakes, taro, pineapples, and mangoes – these products that represent Taiwan will become more price-competitive in the US market,” Lai said in a statement on social media.

“We aim not only to sell Taiwan’s great flavors overseas, but also to ensure Taiwanese brands truly enter international markets,” he said.

Lai made no mention of Taiwan’s chip industry, a crucial driver of the island’s economy that is estimated to account for up to 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Taiwan’s exports rose by 35 percent in 2025 on the back of furious demand for its AI chips, hitting a record $640.75bn.

Thursday’s agreement notably does not include specific commitments from Taiwan to invest in the US chip industry, despite an announcement by US President Donald Trump’s administration last month that Taiwanese firms would pour $250bn into the sector.

A fact sheet released by the Office of the US Trade Representative said the two sides “take note” of the January deal, which included a prior commitment by chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing to invest $100bn in the US.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Thursday’s agreement built on the longstanding trade relations between Taiwan and the US and would “significantly enhance the resilience of our supply chains, particularly in high-technology sectors”.

“President Trump’s leadership in the Asia Pacific region continues to generate prosperous trade ties for the United States with important partners across Asia, while further advancing the economic and national security interests of the American people,” Greer said.

Nearly one-third of Taiwan’s exports went to the US in 2025, making the country the island’s biggest market for the first time since 2000.

Feb. 12 (UPI) — Russia has attempted to block access to WhatsApp, the Meta-owned encrypted smartphone messaging application said, accusing the Kremlin of trying to force its citizens to use a state-owned service.

WhatsApp said the Russian attempt to block the service occurred Thursday.

“Trying to isolate over 100 million users from private and secure communication is a backwards step and can only lead to less safety for people in Russia,” WhatsApp said in a brief statement in both English and Russian.

“We continue to do everything we can to keep users connected.”

Little information about the alleged effort was made public by the U.S.-based company. UPI has contacted WhatsApp and Roskomnadzor, Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, for comment.

The application Russia was allegedly attempting to drive users to was not named by WhatsApp, but is widely believed to be Max, a smartphone application that Reporters Without Borders condemns as a tool for digital control.

According to the free speech and media watchdog, Russia is seeking to make Max the most widely used messaging app in Russia and the occupied Ukrainian territories. It said the service requires a Russian or Belarusian phone number and blocks communication with other parts of Ukraine while harvesting user data and disseminating pro-Kremlin news and information.

“Max gives the Kremlin a powerful tool for spreading its propaganda in a centralized digital space,” Vincent Berthier and Pauline Maufrais of RSF said in a joint statement published in November.

“This forced adoption also creates an information blackout for Ukrainian citizens in the occupied territories, cut off from free Ukraine.”

WhatsApp made its accusation after Telegram founder Pavel Durov made similar allegations against Moscow.

“Russia is restricting access to Telegram in an attempt to force its citizens to switch to a state-controlled app built for surveillance and political censorship,” he said in a post on Telegram.

“Restricting citizens’ freedom is never the right answer. Telegram stands for freedom of speech and privacy, no matter the pressure.”

Roskomnadzor said in a statement that it will continue to restrict access to Telegram over alleged violations of Russian law, privately owned Russian business news outlet RBC reported.

It accused Telegram of not implementing legally regulated measures to protect the security of citizens’ data and said it would continue to take steps to compel its compliance with the law.

“By decision of the authorized bodies, Roskomnadzor will continue the introduction of phased restrictions in order to achieve compliance with Russian legislation and ensure the protection of citizens,” the agency said.

Meta was designated as an extremist organization by a Russian court in 2022, leading to bans of Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram. Other social media platforms, including X, are blocked or restricted in the country.

Feb. 12 (UPI) — President Donald Trump has directed the Pentagon to purchase coal-fired electricity to boost domestic coal production, a move that has drawn staunch criticism from energy and environmental experts.

Trump issued the directive via an executive order that he signed Thursday at the end of a White House ceremony attended by coal executives called “The Champion of Coal Event.”

“We’re going to be buying a lot of coal through the military now,” he said. “And it’s going to be less expensive and actually much more effective than what we have been using for many, many years. And again, with the environmental progress that’s been made on coal, it’s going to be just as clean.”

The executive order directs the Department of Defense to approve agreements with coal-fired power facilities to serve its installations and other mission-critical facilities.

The order aligns with Trump’s domestic policy focus of reinvigorating the U.S. coal industry, which has declined over recent years due to environmental concerns.

“Kentucky coal is BACK — and it’s because President Trump fights for American energy,” Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., said in a statement.

Barr was at the White House for the ceremony, and said in a recorded statement that the Trump administration was ending the “war on coal” waged by the previous Democratic presidencies of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

“We’re putting our coal miners back to work to make America energy dominant again,” he said in a recorded statement, while describing Trump’s executive order as “great.”

During the ceremony at the East Room of the White House, Trump was given a trophy inscribed with the words “Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal” by the Washington Coal Club lobby group.

After receiving the trophy, which is shaped like a miner, Trump signed the executive order.

While the Trump administration and Republicans champion the resource as “beautiful clean coal,” energy economists and environmental advocates broadly describe coal as a costly and highly polluting power source.

“Rather than helping people with their crippling electrical bills, Donald Trump is illegally bailing out his coal industry buddies with precious taxpayer dollars,” Laurie Williams, director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, said in a statement.

“As energy bills and hospital bills stack up for everyday families, Americans have one man to blame: Donald Trump — the undisputed champion of expensive energy and deadly pollution.”

Julie McNamara, associate policy director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, lambasted the executive order as a wast of time, money and opportunity.

She said there are cheaper, cleaner and more efficient options at the president’s disposal, but he chose coal while ending development of new solar and wind projects and stopping investment to build out a modern grid infrastructure.

“Reality doesn’t lie: coal is a rapidly dwindling relic of the past, not a solution for the future,” McNamara said in a statement.

“The Trump administration’s failings come with real consequences,” she said, adding that forcing the use of aging coal plants risks power outages and will increase electricity costs.

Former Environmental Protection Agency scientist and vice president of federal policy Matthew Davis similarly said this plan risks driving up energy prices for Americans.

“Coal power not only has one of the highest costs of any energy source, but also has the worst reliability record of any form of energy, with twice as many unplanned shutdowns and interruptions in generation as wind power,” he said in a statement.

“Instead of forcing the government to waste taxpayer dollars on dirty outdated coal, we should be focusing on increasing access to clean, reliable energy sources like wind and solar that are the fastest, cheapest way to deploy energy onto the grid.”

New York City, United States – For 14 years, BC Dodge built a career telling other people’s stories as a marketing and communications professional in the nonprofit sector in the Washington, DC area in the United States. But in late 2024, that stable career hit a speed bump.

He was laid off from his job amid a round of restructuring. The news landed without warning. One day he had a job, and the next he was sitting at home, staring at the numbers, trying to figure out how to keep paying the mortgage and putting food on the table.

He is married, and his partner is a teacher, but the math did not work. One salary might cover things for a little while, but not long enough to maintain long-term stability.

So he started applying for new work immediately. Over three months, he submitted 350 job applications. He got six interviews.

After months of searching, something moved.

He advanced in the hiring process for a Washington, DC–based nonprofit, making it far enough to sit across from senior leadership. It felt like he finally caught a break.

Then the ground shifted again. As Dodge was interviewing for a new job, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, was advising the administration of US President Donald Trump on how to shrink the federal government, and that meant cutting funding to agencies that provide contracts and funds to swaths of nonprofit organisations around the country. The effects rippled outward, and Dodge was caught in the crosshairs.

Contracts were cancelled and funding streams dried up. Nonprofits that depend on government support had to pull back and scale down ambitions — those very same nonprofits from whom Dodge sought employment.

“I got a call from HR saying they weren’t going to hire for the position, and that all hiring was on hold. I couldn’t argue with them, because I’d been hearing the same thing from organisations I’d spoken to since I started applying. ‘We were relying on federal funds, and now they’re gone,’” Dodge said.

Then it was back to the drawing board. He began searching yet again, but this time with a cloud of uncertainty looming over the entire industry he works in. Dodge finally took what he could get — part-time work in his field. The pay was well below what he had been earning before, but he accepted it anyway. Some income, he reasoned, was better than none.

The result is underemployment. Underemployment can manifest in several ways, often when workers are seeking full-time work but can only find part-time positions, or when the jobs they work do not fully utilise their skills and training. It is generally associated with industries like restaurants or retail, but it also reaches into fields with fewer resources and shrinking opportunities, including the nonprofit sector, where jobs are increasingly precarious and full-time stability is harder to find because of the wave of government funding cuts in 2025.

The upshot is lower incomes for underemployed workers, sometimes below the cost of living or even pushing them into the ranks of the working poor.

Underemployment has been on the rise, according to the Economic Policy Institute, which has tracked the rate of underemployment since 1978. Today, 8 percent of the US population is underemployed, up 0.5 percent from 2024 and it is up 1.1 percent from 2023.

At the same time, many in the US are seeing their expenses increase.

The impact of tariffs has hit low-to-middle-income earners harder than others. Analysis from the Yale Budget Lab found that lower-income households are paying a higher percentage of their post-tax income on goods subject to tariffs as opposed to higher-income households, all while costs for necessities like healthcare are increasing.

Earlier this year, Congressional leaders failed to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies. Premiums increased by an average of 144 percent, according to analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

“Some people have lost their jobs and found new ones that pay less, but others have kept their jobs, but their healthcare premiums have increased. Their electric bills have also gone up. Their salaries no longer cover basic living costs,” Jillian Hishaw, a personal bankruptcy lawyer in Charlotte, North Carolina, said.

She said that because of increased costs like these and a stalling job market, she is seeing an increase in inquiries about personal bankruptcy filings in efforts by potential clients not to lose their homes to foreclosure.

“In one day last week, 85 foreclosures were filed in Mecklenburg County [where Charlotte is located]. Foreclosures happen daily, but 85 in a single day is unusually high. Two years ago, the daily average was 10 to 20, but now filings are approaching triple digits each day,” Hishaw said.

Shrinking options

The surging economic pressures hit workers across various sectors, including financial and administrative services. An Ohio-based accountant who did not want his name to be published, has worked a patchwork of accounting and administrative jobs over the past few years. In March, he was laid off from a research organisation in central Ohio.

After months of searching, he found new work, but not as an accountant, and the pay falls far short of covering his cost of living.

“I’m working as a sales coordinator, which I really don’t want to be doing, but it was the only thing I could land with how bad things are. It’s not enough to live on,” he said.

The labour market is under strain. Layoffs reached more than 1.1 million in 2025, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, while job creation failed to keep pace, with just 584,000 jobs added. As a result, more workers are settling for underpaid or part-time work that does not meet basic living expenses, including Dodge and the accountant.

Michele Evermore, senior fellow at the National Academy of Social Insurance, says that economic uncertainty driven by tariffs and developments in artificial intelligence has put businesses across a wide set of sectors essentially on pause — maintaining the status quo or scaling back.

“People who are already at the margins are getting kicked out entirely, and that’s placing pressure on everyone who is clinging to a job,” Evermore told Al Jazeera.

In January, one of the key measures of underemployment, the number of people who work part-time for economic reasons, such as an inability to find full-time work or had their hours reduced, hit 4.9 million. It was a 453,000 decline from the month before, but is up 410,000 from this time last year, according to the January jobs report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday.

Long-term unemployment jumped 386,000 from this time a year ago to 1.8 million, although it remains unchanged compared with the previous month.

The nonprofit sector has been hit particularly hard in the last year, losing 28,729 jobs in 2025, up sharply from 5,640 losses the year before, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Like the Ohio accountant, Dodge has been searching for new opportunities since he lost his full-time role a year and a half ago. He has applied for 460 jobs and only landed a handful of interviews.

Working weekends, washing dishes

The market is only getting tighter. US employers cut more than 108,000 jobs in January, while employers only announced intentions to hire 5,300 new roles for the month, the lowest on record since Challenger, Gray & Christmas started tracking that in 2009.

“Employers aren’t wanting to make any big investments right now, including increasing salaries to their workforce,” Evermore, who served as a policy adviser in the US Labor Department during the administration of former US President Joe Biden, added.

In December, labour market turnover remained stagnant. Amid economic uncertainty and a slowdown in new job growth, many Americans are hanging on to the jobs they already have. Job openings fell to 6.5 million, down 386,000 from the previous month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labour Turnover Survey (JOLTS).

Hiring and separations, which include layoffs and firings, were unchanged. That followed November’s report, which similarly showed little movement in both new hiring and the number of workers leaving their jobs.

Combined, that means that for the underemployed, finding a new role, either part-time to augment their existing income, or to replace it altogether, is increasingly difficult for people like the accountant.

“I’m also working weekends at a friend’s cafe, washing dishes, and I’m still applying and interviewing for other opportunities. But it’s the same story, no offers. At the same time, I’m debating whether to switch professions or even go back to school, even though I already have a master’s degree,” he said.

That shared distress has also created an unlikely sense of camaraderie among those struggling to get by, even as the outlook remains bleak.

Dodge finds it in late-night scrolls through Reddit, watching strangers narrate versions of the same stalled search.

“I doomscroll a lot,” he said, “getting depressed about the state of politics and the global economy, and taking some solace in knowing I’m not the only one struggling to find viable employment after 12, 13, 14, even 15 months.”

For now, that recognition of others stuck in the same place, hitting the same walls, is enough to keep him moving forward, submitting applications and waiting for a response that might not even come.

TikTok calls European Commission probe ‘meritless’, pledges to challenge findings the video platform harms minors.

Authorities in the European Union said that the video-sharing platform TikTok is in breach of online content regulations, warning the company to change “addictive” features in order to protect minors from compulsive use.

The European Commission shared the preliminary conclusions of a probe into TikTok on Friday, stating that features such as infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications, and a personalised recommendation algorithm encouraged addiction.

“TikTok has to take actions and they have to change the design of their service in Europe to protect our minors,” EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen told reporters.

European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said the “measures that TikTok has in place are simply not enough”.

“These features lead to the compulsive use of the app, especially for our kids, and this poses major risks to their mental health and wellbeing,” Regnier said, stating that the app is in violation of the Digital Services Act.

The EU regulator has threatened TikTok with a potential fine of as much as 6 percent of the global turnover of ByteDance, the platform’s owner.

TikTok slammed the findings, saying they are without basis.

“The Commission’s preliminary findings present a categorically false and entirely meritless depiction of our platform, and we will take whatever steps are necessary to challenge these findings,” a spokesperson for TikTok said.

The probe comes as EU countries are seeking greater restrictions on powerful tech and social media companies, often with the stated goal of protecting young users.

TikTok stands out among competitors for an algorithm able to craft a precise understanding of the users’ interests, directing related content into their feed.

The investigation into TikTok was first opened in February 2024, with Regnier citing a series of “alarming” statistics compiled during the course of the investigation.

He stated that the app is the most-used social media platform after midnight by children between the ages of 13 and 18, and that 7 percent of children between the ages of 12 and 15 spend four to five hours on the app every day.

Feb. 5 (Asia Today) — Business leaders, academics and policymakers gathering in Seoul agreed Thursday that South Korea’s push to become an artificial intelligence powerhouse will require a broad, system-wide response extending well beyond technological development.

The fourth Korea CEO Forum, hosted by the Korea Employers Federation, was held at the Westin Chosun Hotel under the theme “The AI Era: New Opportunities and Challenges.” The event drew large attendance from industry, academia and government, reflecting growing concern over how Korean industries should prepare for an AI-centered economic structure.

Participants repeatedly raised a central question: how Korea should respond strategically as industries move beyond the Fourth Industrial Revolution toward an AI-driven paradigm. Speakers argued that becoming an AI leader will require coordinated changes across politics, the economy, society and culture.

Opening the forum, Sohn Kyung-shik, chairman of the Korea Federation of Business Associations, underscored the need for long-term competitiveness. The first keynote was delivered by Kim Dae-sik, a professor of electrical engineering at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, who spoke on “The Era of AGI Market Dominance.”

Kim said advances in artificial intelligence will reshape not only productivity but also human thinking and decision-making, calling for education and industrial policies that can keep pace with the speed of technological change.

The forum’s highlight presentation came from Hyun Dong-jin, head of the robotics lab at Hyundai Motor Group, who outlined the expansion of human-centered AI robotics. He said the convergence of AI and robotics is transforming manufacturing and service industries, with collaborative robots and automation emerging as key competitive factors.

Hyun emphasized that robotics should complement human labor rather than replace it. He introduced the wearable robot “X-Schroder,” which adjusts assistive force based on a user’s posture, and “MobED,” an autonomous mobile platform under development. He noted that while robotic autonomy shares core elements with self-driving vehicles, robots must operate safely in spaces shared directly with humans.

Geopolitical and strategic dimensions of AI were also discussed. Kang Jun-young, a professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, analyzed the impact of U.S.-China technological rivalry on global supply chains, arguing that AI leadership is increasingly intertwined with diplomacy and national security.

The forum extended beyond industry to health and demographics. Yoo Tae-woo, director of the Dr. U Together Center, discussed how AI could transform healthcare and lifestyle management in a super-aged society, stressing prevention-focused approaches to physical and mental health.

An industry participant said AI is no longer an issue limited to specific sectors but a determinant of national competitiveness, adding that AI-driven robotics will be a core pillar of future manufacturing innovation.

Participants concluded that the AI era demands a multilayered strategy encompassing talent development, industrial ecosystem building and global cooperation, alongside technological advancement.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

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