Datacentre nimbys are holding Britain back, George Osborne has said in reaction to nationwide protests about the giant water- and energy-guzzling structures.

The former Tory chancellor is now the head of AI for countries at OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT. His job is to represent the company to governments around the world and he also has a role in enabling the building of datacentres and other infrastructure.

Speaking at the Big Brue festival in Somerset on Sunday, Osborne said: “You try and build a datacentre in Britain … I spent my life when I was politician trying to get people to agree to have new roads and railway lines and airport runways, and communities go up in arms – it’s really hard to build a datacentre.”

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He said the UK would lose its “sovereignty” over tech to the US if it failed to allow datacentres to be built.

He explained: “You can either choose to have these datacentres in Ohio and Georgia and Michigan, which is where they’re all being built … we don’t allow these things to be built. They’re going to be built elsewhere, and you know that’s a loss of some sovereign control over the physical location where these things are.”

There have been protests about datacentres across the UK, including in central London, Devon and outside Holyrood in Edinburgh. People have said they are a blight on the landscape, questioned whether they will bring jobs to the local area, and argued they will take investment and space that could be used for affordable housing. There are also concerns about the vast water and energy use.

The government has classified AI datacentres as critical national infrastructure to get them built more quickly. But the Green party in England has called for a moratorium on building them.

Osborne dismissed the concerns over datacentres as nimbyism. He said: “I think a lot of the to opposition datacentres is very much like ‘not in my back yard’. There’s an enormous building boom going on in the United States of datacentres, even as the political opposition undoubtedly is growing.”

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Verity Harding, the head of the AI and geopolitics project at Cambridge University’s Bennett School for Public Policy, said people had wider concerns over these centres.

She said: “The reason everyone hates datacentres has nothing to do with datacentres. It’s the only tangible thing to protest against … [people] just don’t like what’s happening and they don’t feel that anybody’s in control or thinking about the impact of it.

“It’s exactly because the tech industry execs are talking in this ridiculous way … You know, you cannot go out on the one hand and say this [AI] might kill everybody one week and then the next week go and appear at a big sales conference saying that you should integrate it into your business.”

Bosses of OpenAI and Anthropic, two of the largest AI companies, will be meeting world leaders at the UN general assembly in New York City this week amid debate over the prospect of dangerous, superintelligent AI and whether and how it should be regulated.

Osborne said: “The fact that corporate leaders are sitting down with the presidents and prime ministers of the world in the UN security council I would say actually shouldn’t be alarming. It’s actually reassuring that people are beginning to try and use the kind of institutions of the world to think about how we regulate this new technology.”

This is an arthouse action game from Finnish developer Remedy, masters of exactly this type of thing. It’s a sequel, however, so not only must it clear the high bar that its strikingly distinctive predecessor has set – it must also ideally arrive with a bushel of new ideas. There are clear and valuable strengths here in character progression and the lustrous presentation of its paranormal world, but Resonant doesn’t feel as enjoyably recondite or expansive in its influences as 2019’s Control did. As you wander New York brandishing supernatural abilities against glowing orange foes, the sad sense creeps in that you might be playing any number of games.

As paranormal event survivor Jesse Faden, your journey through the original Control was like a sequence of playable Twilight Zone episodes, battling prosaic household objects with supernatural properties that teased and twisted reality inside an endlessly fascinating supernatural government bureau called the Oldest House. You’d navigate architecturally impossible spaces bridging the subconscious and the bricks-and-mortar world, in order to defeat a malevolent fridge. That’s broadly true again in Resonant, albeit with diminishing returns. This time you’re playing as Jesse’s brother Dylan, waking up after years of containment in the Oldest House to find its contents have escaped into downtown Manhattan. So you head out of the interesting place, and into a setting you’ve explored before in Marvel’s Spider-Man, The Division, Max Payne, and others ad infinitum.

It’s disappointing because being bewitchingly strange has historically been Remedy’s great strength. It’s not unusual for games to give a reverent nod to Twin Peaks now and then, but this studio is the alpha and omega of interactive Lynchian nightmares. It’s been refining that skill since 2001’s Max Payne, and at this point there’s really nobody better at nonlinear storytelling or unnerving dream sequences.

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Remedy’s take on New York has an exhilaratingly free-form structure that lets you take on enemies, missions and places in roughly the order you want. The main missions are fairly rigid, but you can engage with the rest however and whenever you want. You fight a malevolent paranormal force with an imaginative collection of supernatural kung fu moves, whose power and combo potential level up satisfyingly. Your shapeshifting weapon can take many forms, from a dagger-like blade to a scythe or a hammer. Secondary attacks, ranged weapons and passive abilities lend more interest to fights against paranormal entity the Hiss as time goes on, but compared to something like the surgically precise swordplay of Onimusha: Way of the Sword, battles feel a bit blunt here.

Your ultimate tests come in the form of the Resonants themselves, a series of bosses lying in wait throughout Manhattan. Remedy’s knack for otherworldly horror comes to the fore in their visual design, which I won’t spoil, and like so much of the game they can be hunted down in any order. Beware, though – beating them changes other enemies’ presence, strength and behaviour afterwards.

Dylan’s movement is more imaginative and enjoyable than his arsenal. Here, trading off a fascinating indoor setting for more outdoor space starts to make sense, as you triple-jump your way across rooftops and shift your gravitational grounding to walk on streets that have been bent upwards vertically à la Inception. It’s playful about it, too – soon after gaining that latter ability, your bureau handler pumps some EDM down the radio to soundtrack your run through a multistorey car park whose levels fold and distort at impossible angles.

It is the little moments like this, not the grand story beats, that prove the most memorable and gratifying. Where Control evoked an oppressive feeling of distorted reality, here there’s a more conventional tale about a man on a mission of redemption, and there’s even the odd moment of human warmth in Dylan’s interactions with his bureau colleagues and his elusive sister. Just like the gameplay, the story has made a tonal shift towards easily digestible mainstream convention, and while there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, I’m left craving the original’s more hallucinogenic vision of the action-RPG.

The Reserve Bank governor said AI could be a bubble and there was no evidence it is making the economy more efficient, as the Albanese government claims the technology will solve Australia’s economic malaise.

Ahead of an expected interest rate rise next week Michele Bullock also said the slump in house prices was deeper than others in Australia’s recent history.

Resurgent oil prices and inflation are weighing on markets but US tech stocks surged on Monday after Facebook owner Meta debuted its new Muse AI agent and saw its shares rise 11%.

Bullock said a messy slump in tech values could hurt economic activity, speaking at a CEDA event in Sydney.

“All central banks are a little bit worried about that,” Bullock said.

“Some people think it’s a bubble, some people don’t. I don’t have a particular view one way or the other, but it’s a risk that I think we’re watching.”

Bullock said the RBA and its overseas colleagues believed AI was “the great white hope” to make economies more productive but had seen little sign of any effect yet, with rapid adoption and investment in datacentres adding to inflation instead.

She cited research from the RBA’s South Korean counterpart that found employees adopting AI tended to produce the same output but work 1.5 hours less each week.

“[While] people fiddle around and try and figure out what to do with this new technology, productivity actually can decline,” Bullock said. “But once we reimagine our business processes… then you might see productivity take off.”

The Australian government’s intergenerational report, released on Tuesday, relied on the potential “profound” boost from AI in its projection that Australians’ inflation-adjusted per-person economic activity would rise from $99,200 today to $157,300 by 2066.

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, told the Guardian’s Australian Politics podcast: “It’s the most transformative thing that will happen in our lifetime.”

The report assumed productivity would return to its long run level of improving by 1.2% a year, which economists have said appears unlikely. If productivity only rose by 0.8%, per-person activity would only hit $136,600 by 2066.

Bullock said on Tuesday: “Many have put it, ‘well, it’s an unrealistic assumption, we’re not going to get that.’ I guess the way I’m trying to think about it is, ‘OK, that’s what we’ve got to aim at.”

Housing downturn

As the government defends Australia’s easing rate of immigration, Bullock said immigration was almost entirely responsible for Australia’s economic growth in the last year.

Bullock said new arrivals did not add to inflation as they typically worked as well as spending money. She said the exception was the housing market, as new immigrants did not immediately generate new housing supply.

“Where it bites is the housing market, because the housing market can’t respond,” she said.

One Nation has called for more migrants to leave Australia than arrive over three years, including reducing the number of temporary migrants by more than 750,000.

Labor has instead planned to tighten the existing immigration intake, which home affairs minister Tony Burke said would be “part of the solution for the housing crisis” – but Burke warned more severe cuts could “trash the economy”.

House prices have fallen 3.1% over the past three months after the RBA lifted interest rates three times and the government reformed property investor tax breaks. Bullock said home loan approvals had slumped, in her most explicit public comments on the budget to date.

“They’ve dropped for everyone but they’ve really dropped a long way for investors, so it has changed the dynamic for investors, whether it’s worth investing in housing or not,” she said.

Bullock said housing had become “pretty unaffordable” before the decline, which she described as “a slight dip down after a very long run up”.

“The downturn is sort of in the lower range … but it’s certainly not out of the ballpark of the sorts of downturns we’ve seen in the past,” she said.

She declined to say whether she would recommend an interest rate increase next Tuesday. Traders are betting on more than a 90% chance rates will rise from 4.35% to 4.6%, which would be a 14-year high.

A December 1969 report from the consumer magazine Which? explored a relatively new gadget that, it predicted, many people would be giving as Christmas presents: the electric toothbrush. For those who hadn’t yet seen one, the magazine described it as “not that much different in principle from an ordinary brush – you have a stick with a brush on the end. The difference is that an electric one moves the brush head for you”. Progress indeed.

Nearly six decades on, electric toothbrushes can do a lot more than merely jiggle, offering multiple speeds and movement sensors for real-time tracking of where you’ve brushed – some even promise gum-massage or tongue-cleaning modes. Prices range from about £25 for a basic Oral B model to £599.99 for a Philips Sonicare model that gives “smart coverage feedback”. The latest super-toothbrush – a mere £419.99 – features a camera and a built-in water jet to clean between teeth, using AI to identify gaps. Created by Dyson, it’s still, essentially, a stick with a brush on the end (although there is another toothbrush on the market that’s shaped like a mouthguard, with individual brushes, that claims to clean your teeth in 20 seconds).

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In the UK, 59% of adults use an electric toothbrush and sales, including replacement heads, reached £361m in the last year, according to market intelligence company Mintel. Any product launch by Dyson – still associated with reinventing the vacuum cleaner – feels like something of an event, so its incursion into oral health does feel significant, says Rachel Bairsto, the head of museum services at the British Dental Association. “We’re seeing more and more expensive toothbrushes,” she says. “Expensive toothpaste as well.”

These highly designed everyday objects have become symbols of affluence. “If you see a picture of a swanky bathroom, it will definitely have plug sockets for some kind of rechargeable electric toothbrush,” says Bairsto. “Whereas I’ve tried to look through the archives to find pictures of bathrooms with toothbrushes in them, and I can’t. Was everybody appalled at the sight of a toothbrush in the bathroom? I don’t know.” With many toothbrushes now, she says, “I think there’s definitely a status symbol [aspect] to it.”

We’re more interested in oral health than ever, says Dr Zaeem Jafri, a dentist and the founder of Nova Smiles, an online advice website. “From what I’ve seen from my patients, people are more conscious about it, wanting to avoid dental treatment, wanting their teeth to look nice and feel nice, and I think a lot of people are turning to gadgets to help.” Another dentist, Dr Reena Wadia, known as Dr Reena, a periodontist or gum specialist at the RW Perio clinic in London, says: “Gum health has become super topical. One reason why is because there’s really good evidence now that gum health is linked to your general health, so gum health is now part of the wellness conversation. People are taking it more seriously.” There is growing evidence that gum disease, she says, comes with an “increased risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Those are the two key ones, [but] there’s lots of other conditions related to it.” A poor oral microbiome has been associated with a range of diseases, including Alzheimer’s and several types of cancer, as well as depression.

Both Dr Reena and Jafri recommend rechargeable electric toothbrushes over manual ones, but neither are urging their patients to go out and buy a Dyson brush, or spend similar sums on other brands. “There’s no robust research that says a certain kind of electric brush removes plaque at a better rate than others,” says Jafri.

Jafri has tested Dyson’s CameraJet, along with many other electric toothbrushes. He found it messy – the water jet was hard to angle, and he says it didn’t seem to find all the gaps between his teeth. He points out that a non-foaming toothpaste is needed for an adequate camera view – sold by Dyson, with the cheapest at £8.49. The live stream to a phone app was a novelty, but in reality he says it was hard to see much with water, teeth and the inside of his cheeks in the way. Cameras in toothbrushes, says Jafri, “have the potential to be good. If patients had cameras that were detecting chipped and broken fillings and can send those images to a dentist to review [and] spot things early, that would be a phenomenal advancement. For Dyson right now, it’s using the camera to detect when the brush is in the right position to shoot the water jet – it didn’t really work that well for me. It’s a bit of an overkill.”

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Another concern is that the water jet rinses away the toothpaste when most dentists now recommend spitting, not rinsing, so the fluoride in it stays on and around the teeth for longer. Dr Reena adds: “[The water jet may] make people think, oh, I don’t need to floss, or I don’t need to use interdental brushes. But actually, that jet is an adjunct, not a replacement.” Niamh Turney, a Dyson engineer who worked on the CameraJet, says, however, “The goal is to make interdental cleaning easier and more convenient for those who aren’t already managing to fit flossing into their routine.”

There have been reports of some brushes overheating, and charging problems; at the time of writing, the brush was unavailable to buy. Dyson says it is aware that “a small number of early batches may have experienced a component issue. We are isolating those batches and are taking all the necessary steps to support our customers,” and that there are “some shortages of supply as we are in the process of scaling up production. We expect the next wave to be available in the coming weeks.”

Meanwhile, we are in the midst of an oral health crisis. It is slowly improving on previous years, but access to NHS dentists remains low – 60% of the adult population in England have not seen an NHS dentist in the two years to March 2026. Inequality has a huge effect on oral health – in the most deprived areas, adults are less likely to brush their teeth twice a day, and children are more than three times more likely to have tooth extractions related to decay. The proportion of adults who use an electric toothbrush is 47% in the lowest income groups, compared with 76% in the highest income. Jafri says that the people who are considering spending hundreds of pounds on an electric toothbrush, or those who track their brushing on apps, are likely to be “health-conscious individuals who are brushing their teeth well to begin with, and [this is] probably not solving the bigger problem we have”.

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The first electric toothbrushes, says Bairsto, had a “clunky side-to-side action, and that’s about all they could do.” There was an increased interest in dental and oral health in the 1960s – programmes to add fluoride to drinking water were rolled out – and electric toothbrushes were part of this, even if they were slow to take off. That 1969 Which? report tested “all 11 we could find on the market”, including those made by Bosch and Boots, alongside several by US manufacturer Ronson, more famous at the time for its cigarette lighters. Women, it claimed, preferred brushes with a softer touch; men liked something more vigorous “as you might expect”. Children liked them, the report said, “perhaps because they are a good way of doing action paintings with toothpaste on the bathroom mirror”.

Now the market is dominated by Oral B, owned by Procter & Gamble. Jafri says dentists don’t earn commission from selling products but, he adds, “in dental school, they come in with free pizzas and give everyone an Oral B brush. All the dental students kind of associate with Oral B quite quickly. There will be the ‘Oral B lecture’ that everybody talks about because it’s free pizza.”

It has a market share of approximately 60% according to Ziyu Tian, a personal care research analyst at Mintel. “Other brands like Philips, [own labels such as] Superdrug and Boots, and Colgate are also the big players,” she says. The Dyson launch, says Tian, while a premium product that won’t appeal to everyone, will raise the bar for consumer expectations and may force existing players in the sector to innovate. Alongside the increased awareness around oral health’s links to general health, she says, “teeth whitening and the beauty element of oral care is something that the younger generation is really embracing. So oral care is not only about cleaning the teeth or freshening the breath, it’s more about the beauty and wellness routines in general.”

As more evidence emerges, particularly links to the gut microbiome, companies will lean on this in their marketing, says Tian. You can already see it in products such as toothpaste that contains “prebiotics and probiotics for our microbiome, magnesium for evening wind-down, and exosomes [“messengers” between cells, already used in skincare] for tissue regeneration, anti-ageing and longevity”. Toothpaste flavours are branching out, too, from the traditional mint, with berries, chocolate and even fried chicken. “I think it is tied to the rise of the GLP-1 [weight loss injections],” says Tian. “Consumers might not get these indulgent flavours from food and drink, and oral care like toothpaste and other things can be a substitute.”

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One of the more recent incomers to the toothbrush market is Suri (from £65), launched in 2022, which makes nicely designed, recyclable, largely plastic-free electric toothbrushes. Its founders, Mark Rushmore and Gyve Safavi, both previously worked in marketing for Procter & Gamble. They were driven, says Rushmore, by the environmental impact of toothbrushes. “Billions of brushes are thrown away – manual, electric – and end up in landfills and oceans. Every brush you’ve probably ever used since you were a child still exists somewhere.”

Damien Walmsley, an emeritus professor of dentistry at the University of Birmingham, has worked with all the big powered toothbrush companies, and most recently with Suri. He says he is probably still under non-disclosure agreements so won’t go into detail; “but I’ve seen some wacky ideas out there, some strange ones”. Companies are constantly trying to add new features, “so that people feel they’re getting a newer product, and people will then be attracted to it. If it’s something new, it will catch the imagination, and that’s what this new Dyson has done.” If it encourages people to brush their teeth more effectively, and more often, “that’s really good”. But Walmsley questions how long the novelty lasts. “We’d like to see more long-term studies evaluating the cost. Was it worth paying the extra money, and did it bring about extra value from that? Those studies aren’t out there.”

Walmsley was one of a number of scientists involved in the 2003 review of literature by the Cochrane library, with the latest update in 2014, concluding that powered toothbrushes were more effective in removing plaque than manual brushes – by 11% in the short term, and 21% after three months – and at reducing gingivitis (early-stage gum disease). Many of the studies were small, short-lived – and run by Oral B. Should consumers be concerned about that? Research studies are expensive, says Walmsley, and over the years Oral B was among the few companies doing them. “We have certain criteria, and we checked that [studies] followed that, and we followed up the evidence,” says Walmsley. “It was as open as it can be.” He also points out that toothbrushing technique and usage in a controlled trial may be different compared to use by a wider population in everyday life.

“Dental professionals should be showing their patients how to brush,” says Dr Reena. “It sounds basic, but actually, [many people have] never been shown. Essentially brushing along the gum line [at around a 45-degree angle] to remove bacteria that are trapped. The bristles should be going under your gum line a little bit.” But not too hard, which can lead to gum recession. A pressure sensor is a valuable feature. “Different modes [in speed for instance] are quite helpful as well, if someone’s got sensitivity or gum issues.” She is interested in the idea of a camera in a toothbrush, especially if it can provide “real-time feedback on what a patient is doing. But the key thing it always comes back to is that technique and consistency are more important.”

Dozens of Black employees at Tesla’s flagship plant in California said they were subject to racist slurs, unequal pay and promotions, and bullying by supervisors on a daily basis, a situation management did little to nothing to fix.

Their complaints form the basis of a lawsuit brought against the Elon Musk-owned electric car company by the state of California, which began trial with opening statements on Monday.

Brett Watson, a lawyer for the California Civil Rights Department, started by showing the court a series of photographs taken throughout Tesla’s Fremont factory. There was the N-word scratched on to a grey-blue metal surface and written in black marker on a wall. “KKK”, swastikas, the Confederate flag, a white supremacist logo and “go back to Africa” had also been found scrawled in bathrooms, lockers, workplace benches and lunch tables, according to court documents.

Watson listed a long string of racial epithets workers said were directed personally at them, including one incident where a Black worker said he was asked: “You want to hang from a tree?”

“Despite what Tesla might argue, you will hear Black workers were deeply offended,” Watson said. “These experiences cannot be dismissed as a few bad apples … hundreds of complaints to Tesla and [the Civil Rights Department] will show these experiences were not isolated.”

Watson said Black employees at Tesla experienced “rampant racism” that was left unchecked for years, and that workers referred to the factory as a “slaveship”, “the plantation” and “The Elon Slave Labor Association” – spelling out TESLA. One Black worker told state lawyers that he heard racial slurs as often as 50-100 times a day.

The lawsuit was filed against Tesla in February 2022 and alleges that the company did not comply with the law, violating California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act. It alleges that the factory was racially segregated and Black workers were paid less, promoted less and terminated more frequently than their white counterparts.

The state is seeking financial damages and injunctive relief, which could force Tesla to change its labor practices and internal policies. Judge Peter Borkon will make the final ruling in the bench trial, which proceeds without a jury.

It’s the first such lawsuit brought against Tesla by a government agency on behalf of dozens of workers to go to trial. Legal experts say the outcome of the trial could have sweeping consequences for the company since the state is not bound by the same arbitration agreements as employees. The trial is expected to continue through the end of October.

The car manufacturer has denied any wrongdoing and called the lawsuit “misguided”, saying it has “always disciplined and terminated employees who engage in misconduct, including those who use racial slurs or harass others in different ways”. Tesla said its Fremont factory has a majority-minority workforce and provides “the best paying jobs in the automotive industry” to tens of thousands of Californians.

Tyree Jones, the lead lawyer for Tesla, began his opening statements repeatedly saying the N-word in a familiar tone. “What’s up my [N-word], my [N-word] …,” Jones said, adding that “none of which is used as a racial slur.”

“By this action, the state of California attacks the way many Black people greet each other,” Jones said. “It’s offensive.”

Jones touted Tesla’s accomplishments as an innovative electric car manufacturer and reiterated that the company provides thousands of jobs in the state. “The most prolific employer of California is on trial and under attack by the state,” Jones said. Referring to the racist graffiti around the factory, Jones said: “The state is blaming the employer, when it’s the victim.”

After both sides presented opening arguments, the state called three witnesses. All were former Black employees at Tesla who said they either witnessed or were subject to racism at the company. The first witness worked at Tesla from 2021 to 2024 and said he was repeatedly bullied for being Black. In one incident, he alleged he was called the N-word by another employee, and the company gave him a write-up on the situation instead of the instigator.

The second witness was a senior security manager who worked at Tesla for six years. He said he habitually worked with human resources when complaints of discrimination came in, and that he witnessed Black employees treated differently than workers of other races. In one incident, he alleged Musk got involved when white employees were caught drinking alcohol on site and the CEO directed management to override company policy and not terminate the workers.

Nadia Clark, who previously worked as a police officer and an army officer for decades, was employed as a security manager at Tesla’s Fremont facility from 2020 to 2022. She testified about an incident where a white employee called her the N-word more than ten times in a row in front of other workers.

“I likened Tesla to some experiences I had on the street and in the military. It was like a pressure cooker,” Clark said. “These words have a violent landing.”

She said the incident shook her and she immediately reported it to human resources, but never got a response. Clark decided to leave Tesla that day. “There were these continuous patterns that were never addressed,” Clark said. “The work environment was unsafe, hostile, and I never returned.”

This lawsuit is one of dozens of discrimination suits brought against Tesla, including a case brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a federal agency. The suits allege the company has routinely ignored complaints of repeated racial harassment. In 2022, a federal jury awarded Owen Diaz, a former Tesla employee, $137m for these claims – one of the largest awards given in a discrimination lawsuit brought by a single worker, although a judge later reduced that sum.

Similar suits have been filed by female employees, who allege they experienced physical assaults, harassment and catcalling at Tesla facilities across the country.

Tesla has denied wrongdoing in all cases, and has said it implemented various policies in recent years to prevent racist and sexist conduct and punish it when it does occur.

Musk, who joined Tesla in 2004 and became the CEO in 2008, has also been accused of racist behavior, including promoting white supremacist conspiracy theories like “white genocide”. The CEO also tends to broadcast his thoughts on X, a social media platform he owns, fixating on anti-immigrant content and theories that the white race is under threat.

Musk is not expected to be called as a witness in the trial. He hasn’t publicly addressed the legal proceedings under way and did not return a request for comment.