OpenAI’s latest update of its text-to-video-creation tool Sora generates such realistic-looking content that misinformation experts are warning of media manipulation on an entirely new scale.

Along with Meta rival Vibes, Sora is part of a “burgeoning family of AI tools” that allow people to create and share “hyper-realistic or fantastical content” for free, with only basic tech knowledge, said CBS News. Sora 2 also offers a social feed that creates a “TikTok-like experience” made up entirely of user-generated AI content.

‘Copyright-infringing AI slop’
The recent release of Sora 2 has resulted in a “messy pile of potentially copyright-infringing AI slop”, from videos of SpongeBob SquarePants cooking meth to fake “South Park” episodes, said Futurism. OpenAI is “burning through cash” as unexpectedly high numbers of Sora users generate “countless resource-intensive AI videos”. And there’s no indication that users will pay to keep using it, so “turning Sora 2 into a source of revenue won’t be easy”. 

The energy needed to generate the videos is considerable, said Rolling Stone, citing MIT research which found that even a “short, non-high-definition clip may require more than 700 times the energy required to produce a high-quality still image”. This has already put “significant strain” on OpenAI’s servers and the US electricity grid, and requires a “tremendous amount of water” to cool data centre hardware.

Control the ‘Frankensteinian monster’
Although real-life individuals have control over the use of their likenesses (known in Sora-speak as “cameos”), Sora2 allows the use of “likenesses of the dead”. Robin Williams’ daughter has made a public plea for people to “please stop sending me AI videos of Dad”. 

Sora does “have guard-rails” for now, said Vice, notably a “moving watermark” that identifies them as AI-generated. But “how long will it be before people find a way to remove it”? Much more needs to be done to avoid the risk of “inflammatory videos” of “something that never happened” fooling people into violence and “insurrections”.

“We’re about to have an internet of animals, and that’s super exciting.” So said Martin Wikelski, from Germany’s Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, of the space-based tracking programme that he is pioneering. 

The International Co-operation for Animal Research Using Space is launching the first of a series of satellites into space this month in order to monitor 100,000 animals worldwide. Data on their movements will help to inform conservationists about habitat loss and climate change – and, hopefully, help to anticipate natural disasters and zoonotic disease. 

How does it work?
The Icarus project uses “affordable and lightweight GPS sensors that could be worn by animals as small as songbirds”, said MIT Technology Review. These “Fitbits for wild creatures” could offer “live location data accurate to a few metres”, while allowing scientists to monitor heart rates and body heat, as well as ambient temperature and air pressure.

This is possible due to the development of large wireless networks – the so-called Internet of Things – which made “two-way digital communications with small devices viable”, while smartphones made low-cost GPS “increasingly available” and lithium batteries “shrunk to sizes that more animals can carry”.

The Icarus tags will send the information to receivers on tiny satellites that beam the data back to Earth, where it will be shared in Movebank, a freely accessible database established 25 years ago that Wikelski describes as a “permanent digital museum” of animal data.

What is Icarus hoping to achieve?
This is “the most ambitious wildlife-tracking project that’s ever been attempted”, said BBC Science Focus. For researchers, the applications are "almost endless”, from tracking changes in animal behaviour to predict events such as volcanic eruptions to monitoring species that have played a part in epidemics, such as bats.

The Icarus founder hopes that enabling people to “follow their favourite bird or tortoise or fish” on the database, via a smartphone app, could help “build support for conservation”, said The New York Times. “If people hear Cecil the lion died, it’s very real to them,” Wikelski told the newspaper. “But if you say 3,000 lions died, nobody cares.”

Palestinians celebrate after Israel and Hamas agreed to the first phase of the 20-point peace deal proposed by the US. A ceasefire went into effect in Gaza today as part of the agreement, under which the remaining Israeli hostages are due to be released within days.

Abdallah F.S. Alattar / Anadolu / Getty Images

As Halloween draws closer, it’s time for autumn enthusiasts to start thinking about where to source their pumpkins. Whether for cooking, carving or decorating, here are five of the UK’s best pumpkin patches to get those gourds.

Hatter’s Farm, Essex
Only 30 miles from central London, Hatter’s Farm offers “wholesome, family-focused fun”, said Condé Nast Traveller. As well as pumpkin picking during the day, the farm hosts an array of spooky activities during its “Pumpkin Nights”, including “a maze to navigate, roaming live actors”, face-painting and a pumpkin cannon.

Freshfields Farm, Cambridgeshire
Freshfields Farm, near Peterborough, promises “plenty of photo opportunities”, said Cambridgeshire Live. Entrance is free, but the site is cash only, so “make sure to bring some with you to buy a pumpkin and some treats” from the farm’s coffee van and cake stand to “keep you fuelled throughout the day”.

Secretts, Surrey
“Expect fancy dress competitions, scavenger hunts and pumpkin-themed refreshments” at Secretts’ Pumpkin Week, said Time Out. The farm is known for its artisan food and drink, so as well as seasonal squash, visitors can take their pick from more than 300 British and European cheeses, plus “sustainably sourced, high-quality meats” from the on-site butcher.

Arnprior Farm, Stirling
Home to Scotland’s original pumpkin festival, Arnprior Farm, located 20 miles north of Glasgow, grows around 15,000 pumpkins over 12 acres, said Condé Nast Traveller. The farm promises “an experience for the whole family”, with “something for everyone”, including “quad pod rides”, a “fun-filled indoor straw barn”, face-painting and a host of food stalls.

Robert Jenrick – keep Birmingham, my beloved hometown, out of your mouth
Shazia Mirza in The Independent
My hometown is “famous for its culture, diversity and integration”, writes Brummie comedian Shazia Mirza. So I was “extremely surprised” when Robert Jenrick suggested its Handsworth area is a “slum” where “people aren’t properly integrated”. The shadow justice secretary is “talking rubbish”: “people of different faiths, cultures, religions and colours” have “always lived next to each other” in Birmingham, and they “love being British”. Jenrick, born in similarly “multicultural” Wolverhampton, “needs to go back where he came from”.

I have been criticised for being part of the Riyadh comedy festival. This is why I did it
Omid Djalili in The Guardian
There’s been a “backlash against comedians” performing in Saudi Arabia, writes Omid Djalili, but “I took the gig” because “there’s a push for change” there, and allowing comedy “subtly broadens what’s thinkable and sayable in a society”. A “blanket boycott” of events like the Riyadh comedy festival patronises “ordinary Saudis”. I wasn’t “endorsing a regime” and I wasn’t “selling out”: I was “sharing laughter, and a chance for cultural exchange as a force for social transformation”.

How I learnt to love the urban fox
Alan Cochrane in The Telegraph
I once lived on a Scottish “shooting estate”, writes Alan Cochrane, and developed a “loathing of foxes” that I “took with me” when I moved to the city. But after finding an injured fox in my doorway, I “felt huge sympathy for this poor beast”. In the end, the fox had to be “put to sleep”, but my wife said she believed it had “wanted comfort” and “came to the right people”. Never before have I “enjoyed or deserved such a plaudit”.