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In today’s newsletter: As Rishi Sunak gets ready to host a global AI summit at Bletchley Park, our global technology editor explains how experts want to mitigate its risks and harness its power
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Good morning. Does artificial intelligence (AI) pose an “extinction-level threat” to humankind or is it a remarkable “force for good” that could develop new drugs and gene therapies for previously incurable diseases (and make big tech firms billions of dollars along the way)?
Scientists, mathematicians and politicians from around the world will next week battle it out at the world’s first AI summit at Bletchley Park, the Buckinghamshire country estate where Alan Turing cracked the Enigma code that helped end the second world war.
Israel-Hamas war | The UN secretary general has called for an immediate ceasefire to end “epic suffering” in the Gaza Strip. António Guterres portrayed the 7 October atrocities by Hamas as a reaction to “56 years of suffocating occupation” – leading Israel’s UN envoy, Gilad Erdan, to call on Guterres to resign immediately for justifying “terrorism and murder”.
Europe | One person died and four were missing after a British cargo ship sank off the coast of Germany following a collision in the North Sea.
Cost of living | Britons are planning to party at home and save on trips out this Christmas as the cost-of-living crisis continues to put a dampener on celebrations.
US news | Lawyers for Donald Trump are raising new challenges to the federal election subversion case against him, telling a judge that the indictment should be dismissed because it violates the former president’s free speech rights and represents a vindictive prosecution.
Health | The average number of abortions performed each month in the US rose in the year after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade and allowed more than a dozen states to ban the procedure, according to data from a research group backed by the Society of Family Planning.
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