Capitals across the EU are being asked to discuss how stronger child protection measures should be incorporated into the upcoming Digital Fairness Act (DFA).
The initiative comes as policymakers attempt to address growing concerns about how online platforms expose minors to harmful content, manipulative design practices, and unsafe digital environments.
According to a document circulated during Cyprus’s Council presidency of the European Union, member states are expected to debate which concrete safeguards should be introduced as part of the broader consumer protection framework.
The discussions are part of the European Union’s broader effort to strengthen digital governance and consumer protection across online platforms. Policymakers are increasingly focusing on how platform design, recommendation algorithms, and monetisation models may affect younger users.
The proposals could complement existing EU regulations targeting large digital platforms, while expanding protections specifically focused on minors.
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New Age-Restricted Material Codes have begun to be enforced in Australia, requiring online platforms to introduce stronger protections to prevent children from accessing harmful digital content.
The rules apply across a wide range of services, including social media, app stores, gaming platforms, search engines, pornography websites, and AI chatbots.
Under the framework, companies must implement age-assurance systems before allowing access to content involving pornography, high-impact violence, self-harm material, or other age-restricted topics.
These measures also extend to AI companions and chatbots, which must prevent sexually explicit or self-harm-related conversations with minors.
The rules form part of Australia’s broader online safety framework overseen by the eSafety Commissioner, which will monitor compliance and enforce the codes.
Companies that fail to comply may face penalties of up to $49.5 million per breach.
The policy aims to shift responsibility toward technology companies by requiring them to build protections directly into their platforms.
Officials in Australia argue the measures mirror long-standing offline safeguards designed to prevent children from accessing adult environments or harmful material.
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OpenAI has postponed the launch of ChatGPT’s ‘adult mode’, a feature designed to let verified adult users access erotica and other mature content.
Teams are focusing on improving intelligence, personality and proactive behaviour instead of releasing the feature immediately.
A feature that was first announced by Sam Altman in October, with an initial December rollout, aiming to allow adults more freedom while maintaining safety for younger users.
The project faced an earlier delay as internal teams prioritised the core ChatGPT experience.
OpenAI stated it still supports the principle of treating adults like adults but warned that achieving the right experience will require more time. No new release date has been provided.
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Courts across Europe are examining how copyright law applies to AI systems trained on large datasets. Judges in Europe are reviewing whether existing rules allow AI developers to use copyrighted books, music and journalism without permission.
One closely watched dispute in Luxembourg involves a publisher challenging Google over summaries produced by its Gemini chatbot. The case before the EU court in Luxembourg could test how press publishers’ rights apply to AI-generated outputs.
Legal experts warn the ruling in Luxembourg may not resolve wider questions about AI training data. Many disputes in Europe focus on the EU copyright directive and its text and data mining exception.
Additional lawsuits across Europe involving music rights group GEMA and OpenAI are expected to continue for years. Policymakers in Europe are also considering updates to copyright rules as AI technology expands.
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The European Commission and Canada have launched negotiations on a new Digital Trade Agreement to strengthen the rules governing cross-border digital commerce.
An agreement that will expand the digital dimension of the existing Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, which has already increased trade in goods and services between the two partners.
Officials say the new negotiations aim to create clearer rules for businesses and consumers engaging in cross-border digital transactions.
Proposals under discussion include promoting paperless trade systems, recognising electronic signatures and digital contracts, and prohibiting customs duties on electronic transmissions.
The agreement between the EU and Canada will also seek to prevent protectionist practices such as unjustified data localisation requirements or forced transfers of software source code.
European officials argue that the negotiations reflect a broader effort to develop international standards for digital trade governance while preserving governments’ ability to regulate emerging challenges in the digital economy.
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A new Anthropic report finds AI has not yet caused significant job losses, introducing ‘observed exposure’ to measure actual workplace AI use.
Researchers combined language model capabilities with workplace data to identify occupations at risk of disruption. Although AI can perform many tasks, its actual adoption remains much lower across most industries, which is a main finding of the study.
Even in highly digital professions, only a fraction of potential automation results from AI use. For instance, computer and mathematics occupations rank among the most AI-exposed groups. Despite AI’s capability to assist with many tasks, it currently covers only about 33% of them in these fields.
Across the broader economy, many roles experience little or no impact from AI, which represents a key finding. About 30% of workers are in jobs such as cooking, bartending, mechanics, and lifeguarding, where physical tasks dominate, and measured AI exposure is almost zero.
The report also finds no clear evidence that AI adoption has increased unemployment or caused a spike in job losses since generative AI tools began spreading widely in 2022. Rather than triggering sudden job losses, researchers suggest labour-market effects emerge gradually, through slower hiring, shifting skill requirements, and changes in job composition.
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Google has launched its new AI Centre in Berlin, creating a hub for researchers, developers, and leaders from Google DeepMind, Google Research, and Google Cloud. The centre aims to foster collaboration, debate, and innovation in AI.
The opening event highlighted the company’s work in advancing science and healthcare through AI-enabled agents and platforms. Google announced long-term research partnerships with the Technical University of Munich and Helmholtz Munich, backed by the Google.org AI for Science fund.
Built on Google’s existing research and engineering foundations in Germany and globally, the Berlin centre emphasises AI innovations with societal benefits. It will connect experts from science, business, academia, and politics to drive forward responsible AI development.
The centre will also serve as a platform for public engagement, hosting workshops, lectures, and events to raise awareness about AI applications, ethical considerations, and future opportunities across industries and communities.
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The US tech company Oracle has introduced a new AI platform to predict safety risks across construction projects.
A system called Advisor for Safety that aims to shift industry practices from reactive incident response to predictive risk prevention.
The AI model was trained using safety information equivalent to more than 10,000 project-years across multiple project types and locations.
By analysing historical patterns, the platform generates weekly forecasts that identify projects statistically most likely to experience safety incidents.
The solution also integrates structured safety observation tools through systems such as Oracle Aconex and Oracle Primavera Unifier, allowing field teams to collect consistent data on mobile devices or web platforms.
These inputs improve predictive accuracy while enabling organisations to track potential hazards earlier in the project lifecycle.
According to Oracle, the system combines data streams ranging from incident reports and payroll records to project schedules and operational metrics.
Early adopters reportedly reduced workplace incidents by up to 50 percent and workers’ compensation costs by as much as 75 percent during the first year of use.
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A new round of the ORCA (Omni Research on Calculation in AI) benchmark reveals significant progress in how leading AI chatbots handle real-world mathematical problems, while also highlighting persistent limitations in reliability and consistency.
The latest results show Google’s Gemini 3 Flash moving clearly ahead of competing systems, correctly answering nearly three-quarters of the 500 practical questions used in the benchmark.
Our readers may recall that the platform previously analysed the first edition of the ORCA benchmark, examining how AI chatbots performed on everyday quantitative tasks rather than purely academic problems. The earlier analysis already showed notable gaps between systems and raised questions about the reliability of AI models for calculations people might encounter in daily life.
The second benchmark compares four widely accessible models: ChatGPT-5.2, Gemini 3 Flash, Grok-4.1 and DeepSeek V3.2. Gemini recorded the largest improvement, decisively outpacing the others. ChatGPT and DeepSeek posted smaller but steady gains, while Grok’s results declined slightly in several subject areas.
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Performance improvements were uneven across domains, with Gemini showing particularly strong gains in fields such as biology, chemistry, physics and health-related calculations.
Closer examination of the errors reveals why AI still struggles with mathematical accuracy. Calculation mistakes have increased as a share of total errors, while rounding and formatting problems have decreased.
Researchers explain that large language models do not actually compute numbers in the same way that calculators do. Instead, they predict likely sequences of words and numbers, which can lead to small shortcuts during multi-step reasoning that eventually produce incorrect results.
The benchmark also highlights another challenge: instability. The same question can produce different answers when asked multiple times, even when the model initially responded correctly. Such variation reflects the probabilistic nature of AI systems.
As a result, the benchmark concludes that AI chatbots can assist with calculations but cannot yet match the consistency of traditional calculators, which always return the same answer for the same input.
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Experts gathered in London, UK, to examine how the concept of privacy has evolved over centuries. Discussions in London, UK, highlighted that privacy was only widely recognised as a legal and social norm after the Second World War.
Speakers in London noted that earlier societies often viewed privacy with suspicion or did not recognise it at all. Historical examples discussed included practices from Roman society and the French monarchy.
Modern legal protections expanded rapidly in recent decades, with privacy laws now covering about 80 percent of the global population. Scholars said the concept remains relatively new despite its central role in modern democracies.
The debate also explored whether privacy will remain a stable social value as technology evolves. Analysts in London said emerging technologies such as AI are reshaping debates over personal data and surveillance.
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