Friendlier chatbots more inaccurate research claims, iOS 27 to add new Apple Intelligence photo editing tools

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AI chatbots trained to be warm and friendly when interacting with users may also be more prone to inaccuracies, new research suggests. Oxford Internet Institute (OII) researchers analysed more than 400,000 responses from five AI systems which had been tweaked to communicate in a more empathetic way. Friendlier answers contained more mistakes – from giving inaccurate medical advice to reaffirming user’s false beliefs, the study found. The findings raise further questions over the trustworthiness of AI models, which are often deliberately designed to be warm and human-like in order to increase engagement. BBC 

There have been further listings of confidential health records of UK volunteers on the Chinese website Alibaba since the breach reported last week, and the government is braced for further leaks, the science minister has said. Addressing a House of Lords debate on the attempted sale of data belonging to 500,000 UK Biobank volunteers, Patrick Vallance said the government had worked with Chinese officials to remove additional postings on the online marketplace. “New listings will emerge – there have been additional listings posted since the government were made aware of the issue last week – and we continue to work with the Chinese government to remove them quickly,” Lord Vallance said. Guardian

This is the long-awaited and breakthrough Volkswagen ID. Polo, which moves the game on for VW by putting a hallowed nameplate on a clean-sheet electric car, one with a sub-£25,000 price tag. Bristling with tech and spaciousness – it equals or beats the Volkswagen Golf in some key dimensions – the supermini EV will go on UK sale in late 2026. And like the famous Polo and Golf combustion hatches, the ID. Polo is front-wheel drive, the opposite of VW’s four existing ID models. Autoexpress 

If you’re tired of interacting with a bot that spews Nazi propaganda or refers to itself as MechaHitler, you could sign off of Elon Musk’s xAI. Or, just to be sure, use an LLM whose training data ends in 1930, three years before the Nazis took power in Germany and nine years before World War II started. A trio of AI researchers has released a 13-billion-parameter “vintage” language model they call Talkie, which has been trained solely on digital scans of English-language books, newspapers, periodicals, scientific journals, patents, and case law that were published before the end of 1930. The Register 

Apple will add new Apple Intelligence photo editing tools to the Photos app in iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27, reports Bloomberg.

On-device ‌Apple Intelligence‌ will be able to make subtle changes to image quality, positioning, and focus, with the new capabilities joining Clean Up, the sole AI editing feature that Apple has released to date. The ‌Photos‌ app in ‌iOS 27‌, iPadOS 27, and ‌macOS 27‌ will have an ‌Apple Intelligence‌ Tools section when editing an image. Options will include Extend, Enhance, and Reframe. MacRumors

Renault’s new electric Twingo fits easily into the French carmaker’s portfolio. It is a modern mini passenger car meant for urban European drivers, but it also tells a story about changes in the broader auto industry.  Renault developed the new Twingo over a breakneck 21 months in Shanghai, following an initial design phase in France.  The car is now in production in Slovenia, arriving this month at dealers with a price tag just under €20,000 ($23,000). The continent-hopping Twingo is a snapshot of a hypercompetitive auto industry and its new center of gravity in China. There, many legacy carmakers are developing new models by focusing on speed, cost and technology. DW

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