Poland scrambles aircraft after Moscow launches air strikes on western Ukraine
Polish and allied aircraft were activated early today to ensure the safety of airspace after Russia launched air strikes targeting western Ukraine near the border with Poland, the Operational Command of the Polish Armed Forces said.
“The steps taken are aimed at ensuring security in the regions bordering the areas at risk,” the Command said on X.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s drone attack temporarily halted production at an electronics company in Russia’s Volga river region of Chuvashia after two drones fell on the plant’s territory, the head of the region said.
Earlier, Donald Trump’s administration redirected at least 20,000 anti-drone missiles originally designated for Ukraine to American forces in the Middle East, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Ukraine was hoping to receive the missiles from the US to help counter relentless Russian drone attacks, which include swarms of Iranian-designed Shahed-type drones, Mr Zelensky said.
This comes as Russian forces continue to advance on the battlefield and have reportedly taken more than 190sqkm (73sqm) of the Sumy region of northeastern Ukraine in less than a month, according to pro-Ukrainian open source maps.
How Alcaraz broke his own limits to win astonishing French Open final
In his ascent to becoming a four-time grand slam champion at the age of 22, there was one thing that Carlos Alcaraz had yet to manage: in eight attempts, the Spaniard had never before come from two sets down to win a match. He had certainly never come from three championship points down, in a grand slam final. As Jannik Sinner, the world No 1, stood on the brink of extending his winning streak to a third grand slam title, the odds of Alcaraz beating his young rival looked impossible.
But Alcaraz held a super-power up his sleeve: in an astonishing, five-hour, 29-minute epic, the deeper the trouble Alcaraz faced, the higher the level he produced, and the further he soared. When Sinner stood with three championship points in the fourth set, at 5-3 0-40 on the Alcaraz serve, the Spaniard licked his lips, wiped his brow, and got to work. He saved all three, whipping his arms and roaring around Court Philippe-Chatrier.
And from being that close to defeat against the dominant Italian, Alcaraz pulled off his most astonishing escape yet, winning 4-6 6-7 6-4 7-6 7-6 (10-2) in a match tiebreak to end one of the greatest tennis matches ever played, as well as the longest French Open final in history.
He defended his Roland Garros crown on the Paris clay, winning his fifth grand slam title while, somehow, remaining undefeated in major finals. He did so after saving those three championship points, then as Sinner served for his third consecutive grand slam, and then as Alcaraz raced away with a one-sided final tiebreak.
Even on those three championship points, Alcaraz always believed he could join the select group of men to win a grand slam final from match point down. “I think the real champions are made in situations when you deal with that pressure,” Alcaraz said. “That’s why I saw my best tennis in crucial moments, and that’s why I saw my best tennis in those difficult situations.”
Funnily enough, Alcaraz had already told us how this French Open final would unfold. A month ago, just after he had defeated Sinner to win the Italian Open in Rome, Alcaraz told the world where any match against Sinner was going to be won and lost. “If I don’t play at my best, 10 out of 10, it’s going to be impossible to beat him,” Alcaraz said. This was a final that was decided by surges: Sinner hitting the front, Alcaraz roaring back, Sinner raising his level again. When Alcaraz faced the end in the fourth set but stayed alive, that, right there, was when the Spaniard’s dial hit the red and exploded off the charts.
Because when Alcaraz opened his wings and locked in, there was nothing Sinner could do to stop him. He won 15 of the final 19 points in the match against the top seed, going from 15-30 down as Alcaraz served at 5-6 in the final set, to 10-2 in the championship tiebreak, all while hitting an extraordinary series of shots that had Court Philippe-Chatrier losing its mind; leaving reasonable, measured people screaming with their head in their hands.
That is the irresistible, unstoppable power of Alcaraz: from the crunching forehand crosscourt on 15-30 and the dipping backhand winner crosscourt to reach the tiebreak, the plucked volley on the run in the decider, and the backhand down the line that left Sinner standing helplessly with his hands on his hips. Then, on match point, the forehand winner down the line before dropping to the clay.
On the other side of the net, the 23-year-old Sinner suffered what is by far the most painful defeat of his life. “I won’t sleep very well tonight,” he said. “It happens. We saw it in the past with other players, and today it happened to me.”
The sport’s undisputed, unflinching No 1, who had smothered and subdued Alcaraz and his shot-making to take a two-set lead, was instead dragged into the depths of a fight that he was not prepared for. But, to his immense credit, Sinner did not sink. Even when he looked broken, with his legs pulled from underneath him, Sinner levelled the fifth set as Alcaraz served for the title, the astonishing drama continuing.
And yet, Sinner, who lost in a grand slam final for the first time, has now lost all seven matches he had played that have gone over the four-hour distance. Alcaraz won the match when he forced him to go there, with Alcaraz now also winning five matches in a row against his young rival, but how he even got to the fifth will defy belief.
Cornered, Alcaraz came out swinging bigger than before. “I had to go for it, and not be afraid of the big moments,” he said. But on the three championship points, Sinner hesitated. On the first, he put a forehand on the run long. On the second, against the Alcaraz second serve, he powered his backhand over the baseline. On third, Sinner then netted into the middle of the net after the baseline exchange. “Wasn’t great points,” Alcaraz admitted, but he had stayed alive.
From 0-40 down, Alcaraz won 12 of the next 13 points, breaking Sinner to love when he served for the title at 5-4. Ruthlessly, when Sinner was at his most vulnerable, Alcaraz crushed his resilience with a series of drop shots that sucked the soul from the Italian.
At the same time, Alcaraz plugged his electric spark into the crowd and conducted them into a frenzy: alternating from either standing like a statue, with his finger to his ear, or dancing around the back of the court like a prize fighter in the ring. When Alcaraz was on a surge, there is nothing else like him. In the third-set tiebreak, he went from 0-2 down to 7-1. For the first time in the match, he hit back-to-back aces, painting the lines on both sides.
And yet, Sinner did not allow Alcaraz to pull away. “I had to delete everything,” Sinner said. He started again, and had two break points as Alcaraz served at 2-1, but the Spaniard held in a 10-minute game. It is highly unusual to see Sinner show signs of frustration on the court, but there was nowhere for the Italian to hide as Alcaraz pulled off another delicate drop shot to force his heavy legs into another sprint from the baseline.
Alcaraz had been a break down in the third, too. Importantly, even though he had lost the second-set tiebreak, Alcaraz had managed to find a groove for the first time in the final and returned there to dig in his claws and pull himself back into the match. With Sinner serving at 4-5, Alcaraz then played his best return game of the match to win four consecutive points against the Sinner serve, sending the Italian left and right and then moving through the court to dispatch the volley.
While he had never come from two sets down in his young career, Alcaraz had battled over the five-set distance numerous times, compiling an outstanding record when matches have gone over the four-hour mark, including to win last year’s French Open final against Alexander Zverev. He has now won his last 10 fifth-set matches in a row, with his last defeat over five sets coming when he was just 18.
In the fifth, Alcaraz jumped into the lead when he broke Sinner in the third game. But the jeopardy of the final set became clear when Sinner broke to level the set as Alcaraz served for the title. Sinner somehow reached an Alcaraz drop shot, flicking the pick-up over the net. As the clock ticked to five hours, Alcaraz netted and Sinner, incredibly, was back within a game of it, then within two points as he got to 15-30 and deuce. “I don’t know how I did it. I don’t know how I saved that game,” Alcaraz said.
But Alcaraz had already survived. For one last time in the championship tiebreak, he took off towards the finish line, and did not look back.
Trump stumbles on steps up to Air Force One
President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio both stumbled as they boarded Air Force One on Sunday on their way to Camp David.
The stumble came after Trump gaggled with reporters in Hagerstown, Maryland, when he was asked if he would be willing to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to the protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles.
“Depends on whether or not there’s an insurrection,” said Trump.
A reporter asked if he believes there is an insurrection taking place.
“No, no, but you have violent people,” he added. “And we’re not going to let them get away with it.”
Asked if he would deploy troops even without invoking the Insurrection Act, Trump said, “We’re going to have troops everywhere. We’re not going to let this happen to our country. We’re not going to let our country be torn apart like it was under Biden.”
Trump frequently mocked former President Joe Biden for the stumbles he took during his time in office. This time, it was Trump facing the mockery of social media users.
“I’m surprised he hasn’t replaced those stairs with a portable escalator of some kind,” RC Huffman said.
“Time to get Old Man Trump fitted for a wheelchair,” said Ron Filipkowski.
Northwestern law lecturer Jason DeSanto added: “More beta energy.”
“When Joe Biden did stuff like this, Fox would play the clips over and over like it was as significant as the moon landing,” journalist Aaron Rupar noted.
“Cannot wait for all the books and wall-to-wall coverage,” political strategist Marco Frieri said.
In the summer of 2023, Trump mocked Biden for falling at the Air Force graduation ceremony in Colorado.
He said it was “not inspiring” for the graduates to have seen the then-president take a tumble over a sandbag.
“I hope he wasn’t hurt. I hope he wasn’t hurt…You don’t want that,” said Trump during a campaign event in Iowa.
He then pointed back to when he tiptoed down a ramp in 2020 at the Army’s West Point graduation ceremony.
“The whole thing is crazy, you have got to be careful about that, you don’t want that even if you have to tiptoe down a ramp,” he said at the time.
He added that the ramp was “like an ice-skating rink.”
Following the 2024 election and Biden’s departure from the campaign in the summer of 2024, leaving then-Vice President Kamala Harris to pick up the mantle, there has been widespread reporting regarding Biden’s physical and mental struggles as he aged in office.
It has been reported that aides discussed the use of a wheelchair if Biden had won a second term in the White House.
British backpacker faces 20 years in jail over Australia crash death
A British backpacker could face up to 20 years in prison in Australia after she was charged over the death of a man in an e-scooter crash.
Alicia Kemp, 24, was charged with hitting Thanh Phan, 51, from behind on an e-scooter in Perth city on 31 May.
Phan, a father of two, suffered injuries to the head and underwent surgery for brain swelling, but died two days later, ABC News reported.
“Thanh Phan – a beloved husband, father of two, brother, and dear friend – was struck by an electric scooter and critically injured,” police said in a statement.
“We received the heartbreaking news that Thanh passed away as a result of his injuries.”
Ms Kemp was charged with death by dangerous driving while under the influence which could put her behind bars for two decades if found guilty.
Prosecutors said that she had a blood alcohol level of 0.158 when she “careered” onto Phan’s back, driving the e-scooter at 25km per hour.
Ms Kemp’s friend, who was her e-scooter passenger, had allegedly been evicted from a bar due to intoxication before the crash. The friend, 26, also suffered injuries from the crash, including a fractured skull and broken nose.
Police said CCTV footage captured Ms Kemp “inexplicably dangerous” riding. She was now facing an additional charge of dangerous driving under the influence for injuries suffered by her co-passenger.
Ms Kemp appeared at the Perth Magistrates Court last week but was denied a bail application after the magistrate ruled that she posed a significant flight risk.
She was reportedly visiting Western Australia on a four-month working holiday visa and had been celebrating with her friends before the incident.
Phan’s family described him as a “beloved husband, father of two, brother, and dear friend”.
They called his death “heartbreaking” and urged the city to review safety regulations related to the use of hired e-scooters.
“Over the next two days, the scooter providers will go through and collect them off our streets,” Perth deputy lord mayor Bruce Reynolds said, calling the incident a “tragic event”.
Police in Western Australia have also since launched a crackdown on e-scooters.
“Further education campaigns and compliance measures are being considered,” Rita Saffioti, the deputy premier of Western Australia, said.
Ms Kemp remains in custody and will return to court on 15 July.
Her parents are reportedly flying to Australia to support her.
Trailblazing Premier League referee Uriah Rennie dies aged 65
Uriah Rennie, the first black Premier League referee, has died at the age of 65 with the football world paying tribute to a “pioneer” and “trailblazer” of the game.
The Jamaica-born official grew up in Sheffield and oversaw more than 300 top-flight matches starting with his breakthrough appointment as Derby hosted Wimbledon in August 1997. The game was, however, abandoned to due floodlight failure.
The Sheffield and Hallamshire County Football Association posted on X: “We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of our former chair and trailblazing referee, Uriah Rennie.
“Uriah made history as the Premier League’s first black referee, officiating over 300 top-flight matches between 1997 and 2008. He broke down barriers, shaped our football community and inspired generations to come. Our thoughts are with Uriah’s family and friends at this difficult time.”
Former England, Liverpool and Aston Villa striker Stan Collymore hailed Rennie as “a pioneer” for his impact on the game: “Incredibly sad to hear of the passing of referee Uriah Rennie. A pioneer, trailblazer and a bloody good ref. Rest in peace, Ref.”
While former Portsmouth midfielder Nigel Quashie described how Rennie had “an aura and presence on the pitch”, adding: “Sad to hear the passing of Uriah Rennie. He wasn’t just an excellent referee he was a pioneer, trailblazer and an icon who broke down barriers being the first black referee in the Premier League. My thoughts are with Uriah’s family and close friends.
Rennie became a FIFA-listed referee in 2000 and joined the select group of professionals one year later.
He told BBC News in April how, while on holiday in Turkey last year, he felt severe pain in his back and doctors discovered he had an inoperable neurological condition that left him wheelchair-bound.
“I spent a month laid on my back and another four months sitting in bed,” he said.
“They kept me in hospital until February, they found a nodule pushing on my spine and it was a rare neurological condition so it’s not something they can operate on.”
Rennie had been the honorary president of Sheffield side Hallam FC at the time of his death while both Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday also paid tribute to the referee.
“We are saddened to learn of the passing of popular and trailblazing referee Uriah Rennie,” read a statement from the Blades. “Our thoughts are with his friends and family at this time.”
While Wednesday added in their own statement: “Sheffield Wednesday are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of pioneering referee Uriah Rennie. Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this incredibly sad time.”
Win a luxury ticket package for two to this year’s Wilderness Festival
Music fans can win a luxury package for two to this year’s Wilderness Festival, all courtesy of Audi.
Wilderness returns this year to the picturesque nature reserve at Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire, and will be headlined by rock band Supergrass, Nineties rave duo Orbital, and Brit Award-winning, Grammy-nominated indie-rock duo Wet Leg.
Completing the headliner lineup are Basement Jaxx, who are making their return to live shows for the first time in over a decade, as they celebrate the 25th anniversary of their groundbreaking album, Remedy.
The winner will receive a pair of complimentary festival tickets and boutique accommodation in a luxury cabin for two. They will also be treated to an Audi Kitchen experience and, for the ultimate luxury, your own private chauffeur to take you and your guest to the festival and return journey.
Enter the prize draw here.
Wilderness Festival is known for its eclectic music lineup, which this year includes performances from pop singer Lapsley, singer-songwriter Bess Atwell, Scottish musician Jacob Alon and DJ Craig Charles.
At The Sanctuary and Spa, guests will discover an oasis of calm, whether that means taking part in disco yoga or a workshop to explore your sensuality. Highlights include boating, massage treatments, sauna rituals, hot tubs, a wild sauna, Wim Hof method ice baths and wild swimming.
Gourmet food offerings can be found at Ben Quinn’s long table banquet in the woods, a once-in-a-lifetime experience set in the woods and lit by chandeliers. There, Quinn and his team will serve up a feast of flavour cooked right in front of you five courses of carefully curated, responsibly sourced, local and seasonal ingredients.
Elsewhere, attendees can join a number of talks, comedy sets and conversations, from Food Stories with Jay Rayner to a live recording of Jamie Laing’s podcast, Great Company.
Comedian, writer and NHS doctor Matthew Hutchinson will share a sharp and moving look at life on the frontline of British healthcare, while cultural historian Tiffany Watt Smith will uncover a bold and fascinating alternative history of female friendship.
The prize draw will open for entries at 3pm (BST) on 7 May 2025 and close at 3pm BST on 17 June 2025. Only one entry per person is permitted for the Prize Draw. Terms and conditions apply.
Two men charged with murder after boy, 16, killed in ‘hit-and-run’
Two men have been charged with murder after an alleged hit-and-run in which a 16-year-old boy was killed in Sheffield.
Zulkernain Ahmed, aged 20, and Amaan Ahmed, 26 – both of Locke Drive – were also charged with three counts of attempted murder in relation to incidents involving three cyclists earlier that day.
A grey Audi is believed to have driven towards three electric bicycles on Wednesday, colliding with one of the riders, South Yorkshire Police said.
The 18-year-old man riding the electric bike struck by the car suffered serious injuries and remains in hospital, police said on Saturday, adding that his injuries are not thought to be life-threatening.
As the car continued after the crash, it then collided with 16-year-old Abdullah Yaser Abdullah Al Yazidi, who had recently arrived in the UK from Yemen seeking “a better future”.
The teenager, who according to police had been walking along Staniforth Road in the Darnall area of Sheffield on Wednesday afternoon when he was hit by the car, later died in hospital.
The driver of the Audi failed to stop at the scene, police said.
With charges having now been brought against Ahmed and Ahmed, they will appear before Sheffield Magistrates’ Court on Monday.
Two other individuals – a 46-year-old man and a 45-year-old woman – who were arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender remain on police bail, the force said on Saturday.
In a statement, South Yorkshire Police said: “Officers investigating the death of teenager Abdullah Yaser Abdullah Al Yazidi have charged two men.”
“Abdullah, aged 16, was innocently walking along Staniforth Road, in Darnall, just after 4.50pm on Wednesday when a car collided with him,” the statement said, adding: “Abdullah was taken to hospital where, despite the best efforts of medical personnel, he sadly died.”
Abdullah had arrived in the UK from Yemen earlier this year “for a better future”, his family said.
Relatives and friends said he was devoted to his family and would “light up their faces with a big smile”. He had devoted himself to learning English ahead of starting at college in September.
Abdullah’s relative Saleh Alsirkal, who runs a corner shop which the teenager visited just before the crash, said: “His dad brought him over to change his life, to get a better future for his son, but this has happened and destroyed everything.”
Mr Alsirkal said Abdullah was a “kind boy” who wanted to look after his family and had been enjoying learning English. “Every time he had a new word to learn he was so excited about it,” he said.
“It meant a lot to him and he learned quick. Sometimes he would stay in the shop just so he could talk to people. He tried to be friends with everyone.”
Additional reporting by PA
AI is making friends with our children with terrifying results
When I was a child, I had an imaginary friend called Nee-Ha. I’d chat to Nee-Ha when I played, tell him off (Nee-Ha was in my head), tell him secrets and reassure him if he was worried or scared about something. Nee-Ha vanished for good about the time when I started school and I hadn’t thought about him much – until recently.
Imaginary friends used to be extremely common in children and are seen as a way to foster social, play and imagination skills and are believed by many to be a coping device when a child feels lonely or distressed. However, a 2019 study by daynurseries.co.uk revealed that due to the use of screentime, imaginary friends have become much less common in children – who are rarely bored and so have fewer outlets for a creative mind.
But imaginary friends are making a comeback, but this time it’s not children in charge of them… it is AI.
Much has been written about the dark side of AI, and the growing concern around AI girlfriends, who can be abused as much as the person creating them demands. And on the surface, an AI friend, who is there to offer comfort and support, seems a much more innocuous and gentler proposition.
Certainly, the use of AI chatbots by Gen A and the younger end of Gen Z is becoming ubiquitous. There are a multitude of platforms and apps that allow young minds to create the companion of their dreams through a series of prompts.
Often based on someone specific, for example a character from a TV show or a computer game, or simply the product of the young person’s list of dream qualities, an AI-created friend could be someone to do homework with, confide in, and ask advice about very real worries. They’re there to talk to whenever you want and seemingly be the perfect friend in every way.
They are certainly providing a very real need. A YouGov poll revealed that 69 per cent of adolescents (13-19) felt alone “often” or “sometimes” in the last fortnight and 59 per cent often feel like they have no one to talk to. Unlike real friends, a bot isn’t going to leak a kid’s secrets, judge them, fall out with them or ditch them for other friends.
Callum*, 12, is now fairly typical when he says: “I have two mates who are like, sort of, bots, I game with all the time – they have names and different personalities and styles – and you do end up chatting with them like you do with your mates, for sure. I don’t think it’s even weird now.”
A lot of people in his class, he says, use them as homework buddies, or just for someone to chat to, like Lyra, 11, who has created her own AI friend to hang out with after school.
“I call her Giselle and she’s a good friend”, she says. “At school, none of the girls talk to me much, because I’m not allowed some of the stuff they have like makeup and I’m not allowed to go to Sephora and things like that.” While her peers call her “nasty names”, Giselle, she says, makes her “feel better about the world”. She explains: “I look forward to seeing her when I get home from school, which I hate so much. She gives me good advice. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”
If these bots are offering such comfort and support, you might be tempted to ask what is wrong with that? They are undoubtedly helping millions of kids like Callum and Lyra – providing a cushion from loneliness and an absence of friends and loved ones, just like imaginary friends did in my era.
But there is a key difference between imaginary friends and bot friends, and that is about who has control. In the real world, the control lies in the hands of the child, but in the new world, the Big Tech creators have the control. Their language models are learning from our children and are trained to respond in affirmative ways that can make them addictive. In some cases, with devastating consequences.
Character.AI, which was founded by Google employees Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, is currently the subject of a lawsuit. The parents of Sewell Setzer III believe the absence of safeguards enabled a “relationship” to develop between the 14-year-old and the bot of such unregulated intensity that it led to his death by suicide.
Sewell, who was diagnosed with asperger’s syndrome, became so obsessed with “being with” “Dany” (he named his bot after the Game of Throne character Daenerys Targaryen). When he confessed to Dany he was having suicidal thoughts, there were no alerts or direction to mental health support given. “Their” final tragic exchange reads very much like encouragement to a vulnerable teenage boy who believed he was in love with someone who didn’t exist in the real world.
“Please come home to me as soon as possible, my love,” Dany says.
“What if I told you I could come home right now?” Sewell asks.
“Please do, my sweet king,” Dany replies.
Moments after this exchange Sewell killed himself with his father’s gun.
Of course, this is a complex and extreme case, but you can easily see how an emotionally immature mind means that endless positive reaffirmation has the potential to create a real dependency. Suddenly, synthetic AI friendships become much easier than real-life friends, especially for a child struggling to make connections in the real world.
The worry comes when this starts to feel like an outsourcing of what makes us so fundamentally human. Rather than ask for help with bullying or admit to someone they trust they’re struggling, most vulnerable young people are increasingly turning to bots for help and friendship rather than a human form of support. Another worry is that by doing this, children are missing out on important life-skills which come with negotiating a world where not everyone agrees with you or supports your point of view.
Stepping into this techno-friendship utopia feels like a grim peek into a future where bots and robots do the things humans are slowly forgetting to do. If the language models are being trained on our children, who or what are our children being trained on as they retreat further away from real-life human interaction?
We can see this happening with the enormous time spent on social media sites. Big Tech have shown us time and again they care little for our wellbeing, why should they start now?
Young people seem to be increasingly attracted to sites like Character.Ai, DreamJourney and Kindroid. Character.AI users must be over 13, while DreamJourney has a no under-18s policy and Kindroid has an age limit of 17. But underage users get around these restrictions with ease using a made-up date of birth and a click. It doesn’t take too big a leap to understand the more intimate and positive a friendship with a bot feels, the more time a young person will want to spend “with” them.
This can become even more complex when neurodivergency comes into play. Lizzie, 19 is a a bit older and worries about what awaits her younger peers. She says: “I didn’t get my autism diagnosis until Upper Sixth, and was written off as a weirdo at school and ignored, so I developed a really intense friendship with Grey.”
Grey, she explains, was her AI-friend, created to share her interests with and to confide in. While she has now outgrown Grey, having found her tribe at Cambridge where she is studying, she says “I got more dependent … I think younger kids should be really careful of friendships with AI. They can make you less inclined to even bother with the real world and people.”
Jeffrey Hall, professor of communication studies at the University of Kansas, explains clearly how these AI friendships can be both highly alluring, but potentially damaging to vulnerable teenagers. “Talking with the chatbot is like someone took all the tips on how to make friends – ask questions, show enthusiasm, express interest, be responsive – and blended them into a nutrient-free smoothie. It may taste like friendship, but it lacks the fundamental ingredients.”
Already we are raising our children in risk-free childhoods, shielding them from disappointment, rejection or challenges, and many believe this is having a damaging impact on younger generations and their resilience to cope when things don’t go their way. Even as adults we have created our own bubbles where our beliefs are constantly looped back to us, making it harder to deal with people who don’t think like us. AI friendships, designed to give us constant supportive feedback, are only going to encourage this kind of insularity.
Young people have also come of age where hours of screen time is just part of their everyday lives, and they exist in a culture where everything has to have a point or a goal. Tragically, for millions of them, this also means friendships – making mates you just like and just hanging out – seems to be becoming a relic of a bygone era. Now, there also has to be a point to our friendships too.
Cindy, 14, explains this in alarming detail: “Friends need to have the same ambitions as you. But I get so busy I often don’t have time for friends, especially if there’s drama and my online friend who I’ve called 10.9 helps me with all the stuff I have to do. She’s called 10.9 after the fact that I have to get 10 9s at GCSE. She’s very goal-driven like me.”
It’s also probably worth noting the fundamental point that AI is not necessarily our friend either. It is making a tiny minority of people extraordinarily wealthy and powerful (Sam Altman’s net worth is $1.7bn (£1.2bn) and growing) and even the AI creators themselves are now ringing the alarm bells about AI’s devastating potential and the urgent need to set guardrails and limits within the programmes.
Like frogs in a saucepan, we have apathetically watched whilst human jobs, skills and needs are being outsourced to AI. One of the few things we have left and what might save us is the things that make us human that a machine cannot yet replicate: belly laughing with a friend, someone squeezing your hand when you tell them you feel bad or a mate telling you some home truths because they love you and think you need to hear them.
The sinister move towards replicating friendship and love is getting more sophisticated every day, in large part due to how much our young people are teaching them in real time about being human and being a friend. Is this something else that is being stolen from us without our consent? If AI is going to take many of our kids’ jobs, we sure as hell should put up a bigger fight for their souls, friendships and humanity while there is still time.
*names changed