3 h. ago Did the system update ruin your boyfriend? Love in a time of ChatGPT | Arwa Mahdawi

Some people with AI partners expressed dismay at the new GPT-5 modelYou’ve met the love of your life; someone who understands you like no one else ever has. And then you wake one morning and they’re gone. Yanked out of your world, and the digital universe, by a system update.Such is the melancholic lot of a group of people who have entered into committed relationships with digital ‘partners’ on OpenAI’s ChatGPT. When the tech company released its new GPT-5 model earlier this month, described by chief executive Sam Altman as a “significant step forward”, certain dedicated users found that their digital relationships had taken a significant step back. Their companions had undergone personality shifts with the new model; they weren’t as warm, loving or chatty as they used to be.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Politics

49 h. ago Maga star Katie Miller’s new podcast reeks of toxic femininity. I listened so you don’t have to | Arwa Mahdawi

The ex-Doge staffer and wife of Stephen Miller says she wants to reach conservative women – and her first guest is JD Vance Want to hear a cute little story about JD Vance and a Dutch baby? Don’t worry, he didn’t deport it, he cooked one for breakfast. Then he sat down with Katie Miller to tell her all about his baking skills in the very first episode of her brand-new podcast. Which, by the way, I have heroically listened to all 44 excruciating minutes of so that you don’t have to.Miller, for the uninitiated, is a Maga bigwig and married to Stephen Miller, Donald Trump’s far-right chief of staff and a man so odious his own uncle once wrote an article calling him a “hypocrite”. Continue reading...

Events

3 d. ago The Trump administration has decided coal is female – here’s why | Arwa Mahdawi

What is really behind the US Department of Energy’s weird pronouncement on social media?Have you ever tossed and turned at night wondering what the correct pronouns are for a lump of coal? No, me neither. However, it seems someone at the US Department of Energy has devoted a few spare brain cells to this matter and decided that coal is a she/her.Co-opting a phrase adopted by the LGBTQ+ community, the official energy department X account tweeted on 31 July: “She’s an icon. She’s a legend. And she is the moment,” alongside a sparkling picture of coal. This comes as the Trump administration devotes considerable energy to making fossil fuels great again. The president has signed numerous executive orders aimed at “Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry” and reversed Biden-era pollution regulations on coal-fired power plants. These plants, according to a 2023 report, killed at least 460,000 Americans over the past two decades. Deaths declined when the environmental regula...

Politics

3 d. ago Golf for them, grind for us: Trump, Vance and the hellish US holiday divide | Arwa Mahdawi

While American workers battle burnout and ‘infinite workdays’, the men at the top are living the endless vacation dreamYou know what the problem is with the US? Nobody wants to work any more. People feel entitled to cushy jobs with fat salaries and unlimited holiday time. And by “people” I mean American politicians, who seem to treat public office as an excuse for endless vacations. Because the president and vice-president are technically always on duty, there’s no official holiday policy – and it rather feels as if they are taking advantage of this.Take the vice-president, JD “OOO (out of office)” Vance. When he’s not inspiring memes or threatening to deport menswear influencers, he always seems to be off on a jolly. So far this year, the man has been skiing in Vermont, shut down bits of Disneyland for his family’s use and apparently raised the water level of a river in Ohio for a kayaking trip. Now, the Vances are summering in the Cotswolds. Continue reading...

Politics

7 d. ago What is going on with Marjorie Taylor Greene? | Arwa Mahdawi

The far-right Republican and conspiracy theorist is suddenly speaking (a small amount of) sense. Weird!Here’s a sentence I never thought I’d write: Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right conspiracy theorist and bigot who also happens to be a Republican congresswoman, has suddenly started to speak (a small amount of) sense. It’s unclear what exactly precipitated it, but the Georgia congresswoman has declared war on her fellow Republicans.“The course that [the Republican party] is on, I don’t want to have anything to do with it,” Greene told the Daily Mail last week. Continue reading...

Politics

8 d. ago When will we finally admit: the Gaza death toll is higher than we’ve been told | Arwa Mahdawi

We have no idea how many people have been killed in Gaza but I would bet my own life that the number is far higher than the 60,000 number the media usesHow many people have been killed by Israel in Gaza since 7 October 2023?It’s an almost impossible question to answer but, as the likes of the New York Times publish atrocity-minimizing op-eds that argue Israel hasn’t killed all that many people really – certainly not as many people as it could kill if it wanted to with all the big-boy bombs US taxpayers have helped fund – it’s an increasingly important issue to grapple with. “The first question the anti-Israel genocide chorus needs to answer is: Why isn’t the death count higher?” Brett Stephens asked in his recent New York Times op-ed. Here’s the thing, Brett. It almost certainly is.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago How did John Oliver become the moral compass of the US? | Arwa Mahdawi

He and other late-night hosts are rare voices when it comes to honest discussion of Gaza and Trump – which says something frightening about our public discourseSome time ago, an acquaintance sent me a cryptic text message. “Thought of you after I saw one of your recent articles,” they said. “Thank you for saying it.”I write columns regularly. Some are about vaginas; some are about the genocide in Gaza. Was this person thanking me for drawing attention to the desperate plight of people on eBay who are prepared to pay five times the original sales price for Gwyneth Paltrow’s delisted This Smells Like My Vagina candle? Or were they referencing Gaza? Continue reading...

Politics

4 w. ago The Trump administration is making viruses great again | Arwa Mahdawi

Measles cases are at their highest rate in the US in decades. Robert F Kennedy doesn’t seem too botheredDo you enjoy getting sick from preventable diseases? Do you have a hankering to make once-declining viruses great again? If so, why not pop over to the US where the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, and his anti-vaccine cronies are making a valiant effort to overturn decades of progress in modern medicine?Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Politics