“Northern Ireland has an incredible community of artisan bakers, and last year’s competition showed just how much talent there is here”

The hunt for Northern Ireland’s Best Croissant returns for a second year.

Artisan bakers from across the country are invited to put their lamination skills to the test as NI’s Best Croissant Competition returns on Monday, November 2.

Organised by The Edinburgh Butter Company, the competition celebrates the talent and craftsmanship of Northern Ireland’s independent bakeries.

Last year, Saul Kearney of Mamo Patisserie in Belfast City Centre was crowned the winner of the first-ever competition and joins the judging panel for 2026.

The croissants will be judged on appearance, lamination, texture and flavour by fellow judges Jimmy Griffin, master baker and lamination specialist and food champion Paula McIntyre.

Registered bakeries from across Northern Ireland are invited to enter six plain croissants, made using The Edinburgh Butter Company’s cultured butter sheets, specially developed for pastry lamination. Every entrant will receive two complimentary sheets to practise with and use for the competition.

This year’s event takes place at Andrew Ingredients in Lisburn, the Gold Sponsor and host, and the winner will take home a bespoke trophy created by Metal Moran, with prizes also awarded for second and third place.

New for 2026 is a Best Off-Cuts Bake competition, giving entrants the chance to create something inventive using the pastry off-cuts from their croissants.

Chloe Black, Director of The Edinburgh Butter Company, said: “Northern Ireland has an incredible community of artisan bakers, and last year’s competition showed just how much talent there is here.

“We wanted to create an event that celebrates not only the perfect croissant, but the people, passion and craftsmanship behind it. We’re really looking forward to bringing everyone together again this year and seeing who can take the buttery crown!”

Claire Andrew of Andrew Ingredients added: “We’re delighted to host Northern Ireland’s Best Croissant Competition and support an event that celebrates the incredible talent within our local baking industry.

“We see the passion and dedication of Northern Ireland’s bakers every day, and we’re looking forward to welcoming them to Lisburn and finding out who will be crowned this year’s winner.”

Entries close on 30 September. Bakers can enter and find full competition details at Northern Ireland’s Best Croissant Competition

For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our daily newsletter here

Denmark and the UK are often compared when it comes to health. Danes live longer, survive more cancers and report higher levels of wellbeing.

But the reasons why stretch well beyond hospitals and healthcare systems. One place to look is the everyday: how people structure their time, move through their day and balance work with the rest of their life.

A weekday in Denmark and the UK can look quite similar on the surface. People wake up, go to work, eat dinner and wind down in the evening. But look a little closer at how the day unfolds, hour by hour, and small differences begin to appear.

Time-use studies offer a useful window into these patterns. They track how people spend their day in detail, from commuting to leisure. While no two schedules are identical, they give a sense of what a “typical” weekday might look like. Here is what they reveal.

Health Gap / Sundhedskløften is a collaborative series from The Conversation UK and Denmark’s Videnskab.dk exploring what the two countries can learn from each other when it comes to health and wellbeing.

From cycling and alcohol to inequality, healthcare and everyday habits, the series looks beyond hospitals and medical treatment to explore how culture, politics and society shape the way people live – and how healthy they are.

Starting the day

Mornings begin in much the same way. A recent study in Sleep Medicine found that in Denmark people wake at around 7:03am on average, compared with 7:10am in the UK. The difference is small, but routines start to diverge soon after.

The commute

The journey to work is where the contrast becomes clearer. In the UK, many people commute by car, train or bus, often sitting and scrolling through their phones. In Denmark, the commute is more likely to involve movement.

Around 15% of all trips in Denmark are made by bicycle, compared with about 2% in England.

In Copenhagen, close to half of commuting trips are by bike. In London, cycling makes up 4.7% of journeys, even though numbers have increased in recent years.

This is not just about individual choice. Cycling in Denmark has been supported for decades through infrastructure and urban planning. Dedicated cycle paths have existed since the late 19th century, and cities have been designed to make cycling a safe and practical option.

In the UK, cycling routes are less consistently integrated, and participation varies more across groups.

By the time the working day begins, these differences have already shaped how much people have moved. In Denmark, many arrive at work having already been physically active. In the UK, the morning is more often spent sitting.

The working day

Working hours differ, too. Data from the OECD shows that Danish employees worked an average of 1,379 hours per year in 2023, compared with 1,524 hours in the UK in 2024. That amounts to roughly three extra working weeks each year. Very long working weeks are also rare in Denmark.

Family life is shaped by these patterns. Denmark has extensive publicly funded childcare, and most children aged three to five attend daycare. This makes it easier for parents to balance work and family routines. In the UK, childcare support has expanded in recent years, but costs can still be high, and arrangements are often more varied.

Finishing work

In Denmark, many people finish work around 4pm. This creates a clearer break between work and home life and leaves time to pick up children and settle into the evening.

In the UK, working hours are often longer or less predictable. As a result, the evening can feel more compressed, with less time between finishing work and going to bed.

Leisure and dinner

Dinner tends to conclude by 7pm in Denmark, leaving space afterwards for family time, socialising or relaxing. Many Danes also take part in organised sport: around four in ten adults report having participated in a sports club in the past year.

This may help explain why Denmark consistently ranks among the more active countries in Europe. More than a quarter of adults meet recommended physical activity levels, and most report being regularly active.

In the UK, people are active too, but the structure of the day is different. Longer commutes and later finishes can reduce the time available before the evening. Exercise is therefore more likely to take place in planned sessions, such as going to the gym, rather than being part of everyday routines.

Dinner also tends to be later, often followed by more sedentary activities. Leisure time still plays an important role, but it is more clearly separated from the rest of the day.

Winding down and sleep

By late evening, routines in both countries look similar again. People watch television, read or spend time online before going to bed.

Sleep duration is broadly comparable, but timing differs slightly. Data from World Population Review suggests that in Denmark bedtime is earlier on average at around 11:22pm, compared with 11:27am in the UK.

Happiness levels also vary. The World Happiness Report 2024 ranks Denmark second and the UK 23rd out of 147 countries. Many factors contribute to this, but daily routines probably play a part.

Taken together, these patterns show that life in Denmark and the UK is shaped less by what people do, and more by how their day is organised. Work, commuting, family time and leisure are present in both countries, but arranged in different ways.

In Denmark, movement is often part of the day itself, built into commuting and the time between work and home life. In the UK, activities are more often separated, with clearer boundaries between work, travel and leisure.

These are not simply individual choices. They reflect broader systems, from infrastructure and working hours to childcare and cultural habits. Small differences in how time is structured can add up, shaping how easy it is to be active, spend time with family or unwind in the evening.

This series was commissioned as part of a partnership between Videnskab.dk and The Conversation, where articles are published in English and Danish.

A buzz, then another, and another. I’m half asleep when an unfamiliar alarm jolts me awake, its vibration insistent against the bedside table.

This isn’t my usual alarm. The last thing I remember is falling asleep to the news: tensions between the US and Iran were escalating once again, with all the sadly familiar language of strikes and retaliation and what-might-happen-next.

What on earth might this alarm be warning about? The trill once more. It isn’t an alarm at all. It’s my grandmother, calling. Repeatedly.

She has also seen the news, and is, perhaps understandably, concerned about me here in Dubai, in the middle of what, from the outside, looks like a region on (or over) the brink.

Yet standing beneath the gleaming glass and steel skyline later that morning, with the traffic streaming past and the city carrying on with its usual polished efficiency, there’s no hint of anything out of the ordinary.

The planes are still soaring in from across the globe. The hotels are humming with guests. The flamboyant synchronised LED and laser displays continue each evening illuminating the Burj Khalifa, the world’s highest building (at 829.8 metres).

In Dubai, the show goes on. Reports of its demise, to paraphrase Mark Twain, are greatly exaggerated.

The emirate, one of seven within the UAE, remains very much open for business – as I’ve seen in the days since arriving, shortly after the UK’s Foreign Office lifted its ‘do not travel’ advice that was originally issued in February following one-off drone attacks on the Fairmont The Palm Hotel and Dubai International Airport. In the event, one local worker was tragically killed by falling missile debris.

Discovering a different side to Dubai: The Emirati city has plenty of culture if you look for it

Wooden boats can ferry you between parts of the city, taking you to the more historic side

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And pent-up demand is clearly there. Emirates, Dubai’s flag carrier, says forward bookings leapt 16 per cent when restrictions were eased, while it reports ‘sustained demand’ for the upcoming winter sun period.

It’s been a tricky time for the airline. In June, in a bid to drum up sales, Emirates became the first airline to offer comprehensive travel insurance to all customers, including medical and conflict-related cover. 

It was a bold move, designed to provide peace of mind for those determined to travel despite the previous Foreign Office warning.

‘It has been safe here, absolutely,’ says Haroon, my taxi driver from the airport. He’s lived in Dubai for ten years. ‘It’s been so quiet because everyone sees this area as the same place as Iran but the region is so big. You are here now and you would never know there had been fighting.’

Arriving late, my first meal is downtown at ‘warehouse chic’ Time Out Market, a lively food hall inside Souk Al Bahar, across the lake from the Burj Khalifa. And it is my first lesson that nothing appears to have dulled the pulse of Dubai.

Here, I struggle to find a space at the communal tables busy with diners tucking into dim sum, tacos, pad and 18-hour smoked brisket.

To cut through the humidity – sticky, even at 9.30pm – I gulp down pints of lager (which, wouldn’t you know it, cost less than in London).

That night, and throughout my visit, I cross paths with few visitors from the UK and Europe. It is, after all, the hot season with daily highs of reaching 40C (104F) and higher. The prime tourist period usually kicks in from November, when temperatures dip.

Dubai’s polished image – sparkling skyscrapers, designer boutiques and conspicuous wealth – can feel gaudy at first. There are only so many air-conditioned malls and influencers posing for the perfect shot before the sheen starts to wear thin.

Yet, if you dig around, another Dubai comes into focus, a real place beneath the gloss.

Dubai Creek is a 15-minute drive from downtown, a saltwater inlet that was for generations the city’s commercial lifeline. This was where pearl divers and merchants with Persia, East Africa and India traded.

It divides the city in two – Deira and Bur Dubai – and for one dirham (20 pence), wooden boats known as ‘abras’ ferry you between them. 

On the latter side, Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood provides the clearest sense of the past. Narrow alleyways weave between wind towers and sand-coloured buildings, their shadows offering respite from the baking sunshine.

Much here was reconstructed as part of an effort to preserve what remained of ‘old Dubai’, part of a campaign championed by the then Prince Charles after his visit in 1989. Britain fostered interests in Dubai and the region from around 1820 up until the formation of the UAE in 1971, so our national connections run deep.

Dubai Creek has traditional architecture and a more humble vibe, says Ben, and leads through to the Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood

The city has plenty of quieter quarters to explore beyond the high-rise buildings too

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Alserkal Avenue is Dubai’s answer to early-2000s Shoreditch, an arts and culture hub

On board an abra, the noise of the city fades and your view is mainly old warehouses and minarets. Hopping off, away from the tourist trail, I stop on a whim to get my beard trimmed. The price? £3.60 (it might be five times that back home).

A dozen miles away on the other side of town, Alserkal Avenue catches you off guard for different reasons. Within the industrial Al Quoz area, this patchwork of warehouses and former factories has over the past couple of decades morphed into Dubai’s answer to early-2000s Shoreditch.

There are street food trucks and slick gyms offering Pilates and spin classes. You can pop into slick contemporary galleries championing Gulf-based artists. Artisan gelato and pastries are for sale in little hipster cafes. Gems such as Nightjar serve potent coffee. Meanwhile, Cinema Akil is a wonderful independent picturehouse, where retro film posters on the walls give a jolt of technicolour.

Inside the many creative spaces, I loved British-born Tunji Adeniyi-Jones’s oil paintings of vibrant orange and blue in the Efie Gallery (which is also home to a very cool Seventies-style space with a collection of more than 2,000 records – groovy).

In a vintage book shop, I pick up a first edition of the original Lonely Planet guide to Dubai, published in 2000. It’s easy to forget how new tourism is to the emirate.

Dubai’s food scene offers up yet more surprises. I expected soulless celebrity-chef outposts. Instead, the city’s restaurants mirror its population: nine in ten residents were born overseas, and food is gloriously international.

For high-end dining, the exquisite Michelin-starred Orfali Bros is a must. From its two-storey open kitchen come dishes rooted in the founders’ Syrian heritage, but deftly reimagined.

An eclair with the most delicate pastry is filled with umami-rich porcini cream. The ‘corn bomb’ is another highlight: a single bite combining sweetcorn ‘custard’, Parmesan and huitlacoche (a prized Mexican delicacy), which explode in a salty-sweet burst. The tasting menus are a reasonable £60, each course optionally paired with quirky non-alcoholic drinks.

Taqueria El Primo is Ben’s top choice for Mexican food in Dubai. The modern Indian cuisine at Tresind, right, is also delicious, with an experimental play on traditional dishes

Michelin-starred Orfali Bros is a must – try the ‘corn bomb’, a dish that includes huitlacoche, a sweetcorn fungus that’s regarded as a delicacy in Mexico

At Tresind, which bills itself as ‘modern Indian’, flavours are coaxed into unfamiliar forms: a ‘cannoli’ stuffed with aloo matar (peas and potatoes), or soft wagyu beef dipped in ‘Indian chimichurri’ – much like the Argentine original but laced with coriander and cumin.

My favourite place is Taqueria El Primo, opened by Mexico-born Jonathan Colin in December. It regularly sees hour-long queues for its tacos and tostadas. 

It’s laid back, loud and – above all – delicious. Try the achiote-marinated chicken tacos with onion, pineapple and avocado sauce (£5). Just make sure you save room for soft-serve ice creams, flavoured with Mexican vanilla.

If you want to get to know the city by its dishes, I recommend Frying Pan Adventures food tours. The company was started by two sisters, who lead small walking groups through the lesser-visited parts of the city. Over Iraqi kebabs and then sweet baklava, Farida (one of the founders) shared her favourite restaurants and enthused about the diverse cuisines to be found in Dubai.

Beyond hoping for tourists to return, people here aren’t overthinking geopolitics.

Dubai is very much alive – and, I can report to my grandmother, so am I.

Wayne Rooney: That can’t be a red card. It was more of a flick or a gesture, than a kick out.

Danny Murphy: Bruno kicked Foden first, but that’s not a red for him. But then Foden did kick out at him and if you kick upwards, you are going to get a red.

Gary Neville: A painful moment for Foden to have to make that run down the long tunnel. I’m surprised Fernandes didn’t get a yellow for the kick on the floor, he’s certainly pulled a reaction out of Foden which will help his team-mates.

Paul Robinson: Initially it looks really stupid from Phil Foden. He kicks out in the midriff of Bruno Fernandes. There is absolutely no way it was going to be overturned. That was petulant, that was stupid and he could have cost his side.

Roy Keane: Foden gets up and reacts obviously, so he’s sent off. Fernandes catches him and gives him a little kick. I guess it’s classed as violent. But Fernandes is the one who is violent here, I don’t think Foden should have a red card.

Welcome to our live coverage for the 2026 Spanish Grand Prix, the first time the race has been held at the all-new, purpose-built street circuit, the Madring. The track has developed a reputation in its short life for being a bit of a tricky one. Some have gone so far as to call it a “car killer”? Is it living up to that reputation? Probably, especially if you look at some of the lower formulae that have run on it. 

It has also increasingly become the case for the Formula One cars, too. The first couple of practice sessions on Friday revealed little to worry about. As the drivers began to push, though, from final practice and qualifying, the mistakes and crashes happened. The biggest so far was Oliver Bearman but also a smaller one for Lewis Hamilton. 

There will almost certainly be some kind of incident in the race, but whether we see red flags, safety cars and so on remains to be seen. A bigger and perhaps more significant question will be how much overtaking will take place on this track. The drivers are not optimistic. The theory goes that if tyre degradation is high then there will be, because you will have significant pace offsets between worn and fresh tyres. The problem is that the leaders tend not to differ to greatly from one another on strategy these days…

Perhaps George Russell, who qualified down in sixth and has little to lose, will be brave and put on a set of hard tyres to start with. Russell has work to do yet again. He was not miles off Antonelli in qualifying when it came to pace, but given how close it was in the top six, finds four cars between himself and the championship leader, who just missed out on pole to McLaren’s Lando Norris. 

Norris said it was the best lap of his life and seemed to come from nowhere. He improved more than a second from Q2 to Q3 and continues his fine form in 2026. He will start alongside Antonelli with Max Verstappen in third, Lewis Hamilton in fourth and Charles Leclerc in fifth, before Russell. 

Maresca is looking to continue his perfect start to life at the Etihad with a fourth straight win, topped off by matching the likes of Sven-Goran Eriksson and Pep Guardiola by winning his first Manchester derby. Nico O’Reilly is pushing to return from injury. Follow the game LIVE below with our dedicated match blog, featuring expert insight and analysis.

Meghan and Harry have been enjoying British country life with their children, as they were seen splashing in muddy puddles and walking the dogs in the woods in a new Instagram video.

In what are the first images of the family together in Britain since their return, they have shared a series of family videos on Meghan’s social media sites. 

Harry and Meghan are first shown walking hand in hand in wellingtons through the woods, with Meghan beckoning to the camera, thought to be held by one of the children, and saying, ‘Come on, you!’

Princess Lilibet, five, is seen warming her bare feet next to the fire, humming contentedly, and then wellies that appear to be worn by Archie, seven, splash into the scene in a muddy puddle.

The next shot is of Lilibet on a pink tasselled bicycle fitted with a doll in its chair on the back, riding towards a group of deer across a track in a park.

‘Archie!’ Harry calls out to his son as he runs on camera, in a pink shirt and blue wellies.

The family’s labrador, Pula, is then seen bounding down another wooded track lined with ferns and trees as Wham!’s Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go starts playing over the video.

Lilibet rides towards a group of deer across a track in a par on a pink tasselled bicycle with a doll sat behind her in its chair, while her brother Archie runs on ahead

The next scene to appear in the video is of a family fishing trip with labrador, Pula. ‘I got this’, says Archie in what appears to be an American accent

Cut to the next scene, and the family is sitting in a rowboat in a lake, with Harry fixing up a hook on a fishing rod, while Pula plays on the banks.

Archie is heard saying, ‘I got this’ in a distinctly American accent as fish writhe around in the water.

The video – posted on Meghan’s Instagram account – has a Union flag and red heart emoji side by side throughout, in place of a caption.

The family have recently moved to their new home in the Cotswolds but will keep their mansion in Montecito, California. They also own a holiday home in Portugal.

They have recently said they are ‘happy to be back’ in the UK, and the children have started at school already.

This is in spite of their row with Buckingham Palace over Uganda’s withdrawal from Prince Harry’s Invictus Games – a sporting event founded by the Duke for wounded military veterans.

Insiders close to the couple said Uganda’s exit was a ‘direct result’ of a letter written by King Charles, which insisted they are ‘private citizens’, not working royals.

Charles’s letter – sent to senior government officials, military leaders, Lord Lieutenants and the couple’s team – made it clear that, while the family was back in the country, they were not back in the Firm.

After the King’s announcement, Uganda’s chief of defence and son of the president, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, appeared to want to distance himself from Harry’s project, suggesting he did not want to be associated with this ‘Harry-Meghan nonsense’.

He said on X earlier this week: ‘In order not to be construed as being opposed to His Majesty King Charles III of the United Kingdom, whom we deeply revere, Uganda hereby withdraws from the Invictus Games.’

The Sussexes said they were ‘surprised’ to have received the letter from the King following rumours they might have had a ‘half in, half out’ arrangement on their return. But the letter appears to have put an end to all hope of this idea.

Insiders close to the couple said that the ‘only people suffering’ as a result of the monarch’s letter are the Ugandan competitors who were set to take part in the upcoming games.

‘They made it very clear that the reason they pulled out was a direct result of perceived guidance from the Lord Chamberlain,’ they told People magazine, which is widely considered the Sussexes’ preferred publication in the US.

Meghan and Harry left the UK six years ago to enjoy personal and financial freedom in the US before moving back just over a fortnight ago.

A bitter argument has existed between the Sussexes and the royals back home since they left, after it was decided that they would not be allowed to have taxpayer-funded police security when visiting the UK, as they were no longer working royals.

The Duke of Sussex has reportedly ‘privately pleaded’ with Shabana Mahmood for a decision on whether or not he is getting funding for security for his family. 

Prince Harry said last year in a BBC interview that he was ready to ‘reconcile’ with his family and that the issue of police protection was the last remaining ‘sticking point’ in the feud. 

Princess Lilibet is seen warming her little bare feet next to the fire, humming contentedly

Prince Archie splashes into the scene, stomping his wellies in a muddy puddle

The family’s labrador Pula is seen walking along a wooded path dappled with sunlight

Fish splash beneath rods as Archie commentates, determined to reel them in

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However, Harry and Meghan’s autumn diary still appears to be heavily laden with public engagements in the midst of the ongoing disagreements.

Harry is due to have a pseudo-royal appearance at the inaugural ‘Invictus Spirit’ Awards this Thursday. There are even rumours that the duchess could join him at the glitzy event.

This public appearance has already caused a major clash in the royal calendar with William and Catherine’s ‘royal away-day’ visit to the Isle of Bute on the same day, announced on Friday.

Once there, the Prince and Princess of Wales are due to visit Rothesay, the town that inspired the name of the titles they hold in Scotland – that of Duke and Duchess of Rothesay – where they will spend time with locals at the Anchor Tavern.

The King has a major public engagement at the same time, as it was announced that he would attend a meeting with global AI chiefs in hopes that it could be developed for ‘the good of humanity’.

Other engagements for Harry this month include the launch of the Invictus education programme INSPIRE.

Afterwards, there’s the WellChild Awards in London on September 21, a charity for ill children and their families, which the prince has been involved with since his earliest days as a working royal.

Meanwhile, Meghan has been mulling over a ‘return to charity work’ once Archie and Lilibet settle into their new life.

A source close to the Duchess said ‘she wants to pick up with a lot of people’ now that she is back.

It is understood to include Smart Works, a charity supporting unemployed, vulnerable women looking for jobs, which Meghan is wishing to rekindle public support for.

She held four patronages after she wed Harry in 2018, but Smart Works was the only one she continued to support after she stopped working as a royal. 

‘She is thinking about plans for how she can get more involved and support the causes she was supporting and was passionate about again, and new causes too,’ the source previously told The Sunday Times.

There have also been rumours that she would return to acting after Guy Ritchie was believed to have offered her a role in his hit TV show The Gentlemen, which was quickly revoked following massive backlash against the decision.

A Russian strike has hit a train near the Ukraine-Poland border shortly after former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other top European officials had passed through.

No casualties were reported after the Russian strike, which hit the train’s engine.

Johnson and some of Europe’s most senior security advisers, including the UK’s Jonathan Powell, had passed along the same line on their way back from a conference in the capital, Kyiv.

Russia said Sunday it struck “railway infrastructure” in western Ukraine, but the former PM said “I don’t know what warped logic drove Putin to blow up a stationary Ukrainian locomotive on the Polish border this morning” and asked “When are we going to give them the air defences they need?”

Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said a Russian drone had struck 800m from Polish border.

Russia has in recent months carried out a number of deadly attacks targeting Ukraine’s trains, railway depots and other transport facilities.

Earlier this month, six employees of the state railway company Ukrzaliznytsia were killed after a depot was hit in Kyiv.

This week, a female conductor died in a Russian drone attack on a passenger train in southern Ukraine.

In January, President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned as “terrorism” a Russian strike on a crowded passenger train in the north-eastern Kharkiv region that left five people dead.

The Russian attacks have significantly damaged Ukraine’s vast train network – the main mode of transportation for millions of Ukrainians as all air travel has been suspended since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

Artificial intelligence (AI) could wipe out humanity this decade, according to three researchers from the US company Anthropic. One of the employees, Jacob Coxon, has quit the AI firm.

His predictions were backed by two other current Anthropic researchers in posts on social media. On X, Coxon claimed: “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt.”

It’s not the first time AI researchers and companies have issued such assessments. Here, Kate Devlin, professor of artificial intelligence & society, explains what is behind them and whether there’s anything different about the latest warning.

The latest claims about AI have come from a researcher who resigned from Anthropic. What is your general view on what has happened here?

To give this a sense of perspective, we should remember that it’s one AI company ex-employee posting on a platform known for grandiose claims, which was then quoted by a current AI company employee who put a figure on the risk of human extinction at greater than 10%.

So, it’s another doom-laden narrative about the supposed threat from AI. There is some dialling back from this in a follow up tweet from current Anthropic employee Evan Hubinger that read: “I think the risk from present models is low. What I’m worried about is superintelligence”.

These tweets have gained huge coverage because these kinds of things always do. It taps into our very primal fears – and our decades of watching dystopian sci-fi.

The claims from Jacob Coxon were backed by current employees of Anthropic. Why do you think AI companies are happy to support these kinds of claims in public?

It’s likely that these men believe what they’re saying, but we’ve heard warnings like this for years. It does seem odd that AI companies are okay with these kinds of claims.

Let’s remember that they are constantly looking for investment and, in return, they promise the most powerful and dominant models. What could be more powerful than a model that threatens our very existence?

One theory for doom-mongering by AI companies is that they want to avoid regulation. Do you think outside regulation of AI companies is inevitable?

It has been incredibly difficult to regulate AI, certainly at an international level. There has been little appetite for AI to be regulated in the US because there’s a view that regulation might stifle innovation.

The UK doesn’t have any AI-specific laws either, just existing laws that might apply in some cases. China began to introduce national-level laws but has now replaced that with technical standards and sector regulation. The EU remains the only place where there is dedicated AI regulation.

However, it looks like this has kicked off yet another call for better regulation, and we’re seeing that at present in US Congress and in the Houses of Parliament in the UK.

There is another angle, in that industry might be on board with regulation, as big tech companies would have the money to comply, but it could knock out their competitors with smaller budgets, so it would leave the leaders in dominant positions.

How far away are we from the kind of superintelligent AI mentioned in the latest warnings?

We don’t have superintelligence. I’m reluctant to put a time frame on that. Often people say “5-10 years” but that’s happened a lot in AI and 5-10 years pass without anything arising. It also depends on what is meant by superintelligence. Something that is conscious and thinks for itself? That might never happen.

In this case, it doesn’t really matter, as there are other harms already happening from AI, and there are other ways things can go wrong, though probably not at the existential level that’s being suggested here.

For example, AI is energy-hungry. It needs water to cool data centres. It has a damaging environmental impact. There are also issues around the content generated by AI, anything from a lack of plurality in the models’ outputs (meaning that the information it returns is homogenised, converging on particular viewpoints) to the spread of misinformation and disinformation.

We also know there is hidden labour in the AI supply chain: there are people working in terrible conditions to deliver the technology. And we know that it’s having an impact on people’s lives in terms of how it’s changing the workplace.

What are the potential practical ways in which AI could actually wipe out humans?

“Wiping out” is a bit extreme but there are some dangerous threats. There are the “bad actor” scenarios where AI is used destructively, like creating weapons or deadly viruses.

More mundane, but potentially very destructive, are AI agents let loose due to human carelessness or incompetence, hacking or taking control of insecure systems.

A survey we recently ran at King’s College London found that the UK public are feeling increasingly negative about AI, and that 42% of people are deliberately limiting their AI use. With claims from tech companies that it poses a direct threat to our existence, it will be unsurprising if public opinion dips even further.