Ladies Day is here! Racegoers turn Chester into a riot of colour in bright frocks and fascinators for day two of the May Festival
The skies may be cloudy but revellers at the May Festival's Ladies Day brightened up the course at Chester in a series of colourful frocks and fascinators.
Inside house of horrors where thug kept women prisoner and tortured them in grim dungeon hidden by trap door as he is jailed for 19 years
Vincent Agar, 80, tortured his two victims between 1998 and 2000 when he was a drug dealer and installed a 'trap door' which he could lock to prevent the women from escaping his dungeon.
Oil prices fall below $100 a barrel over Middle East peace hopes: When will petrol prices drop?
Crude oil has dropped below $100 a barrel again as it looks like a peace deal could be worked out between the US and Iran.
The 'affair mode' phone settings that all cheaters use: I knew my partner was up to something... here's how I cracked his secret code and uncovered all his dirty antics
Cheaters are increasingly using an array of sneaky tech tricks to hide their tracks. Here's how to spot the hidden clues and uncover all their secrets...
VANESSA FELTZ: I've been fat-shamed for decades by everyone, my own mother called me a beach ball. Now, I'm finally a size 10 and at my goal weight. After years of failed yo-yo diets, this is how I finally did it - and without Mounjaro!
For decades broadcaster Vanessa Feltz was ruthlessly fat-shamed. At 64 and now a size 10, she talks about yo-yo diets, missing Ozempic and why she loves being slim.
Man who killed grandfather with one punch after woman rejected his 'creepy' advances is found guilty
Unemployed Nathan Gothard, 37, was 'wound up like a coiled' spring when he 'poleaxed' David Darke, 66, who suffered a fatal brain injury when his head hit the ground.
Woman accused of 'stalking' Earl Spencer visited his ancestral home and sent him letters claiming to be 'art historian', court hears
Marinela Atomei pleaded not guilty to a charge of stalking the Earl, 61, the younger brother of the late Diana, Princess of Wales. She is accused of repeatedly visiting Althorp House, in Northants.
Climate change threatens the Hajj pilgrimage: Extreme heat is making the world's largest religious gathering increasingly dangerous, study warns
It is the largest religious gathering in the world - but the Hajj pilgrimage is becoming increasingly dangerous, a new study has warned.
Ultra-glam resort loved by Elizabeth Taylor FINALLY set to reopen following five-year beach access row
After a five-year hiatus caused by a legal row over local access, the idyllic island - which once drew iconic stars like Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor - is set to welcome guests on 1 July 2026.
Maldon man killed after car crashed into tree on busy Colchester road named
An off-duty police officer fought to try and save his life before he died
Moment joggers flee as giant ash cloud races towards them during run near Philippines volcano
Footage captured the moment a huge wall of thick black smoke rolled across the road near the Mayon volcano in Legazpi City over the weekend, as runners desperately tried to escape.
Rapidly melting Antarctic ice shelves may cause global sea levels to rise even FASTER than expected - leaving millions at risk of being plunged underwater, study warns
Rapidly melting ice shelves in Antarctica could trigger global sea levels to rise even faster than expected, scientists have warned.
$250M crypto-robbing gang’s dirty work guy sentenced to 6.5 years behind bars
The then-teen was told to break in and steal what the keyboard warriors couldn’t
UK Border Force officer and former Hong Kong policeman GUILTY of spying for China as Beijing's 'shadow policing' operations exposed
The pair were said to have been part of 'determined measures' by the Hong Kong Government and police to 'reach beyond their jurisdiction' to target dissidents of the regime.
Exclusive first look at the M&S summer collection: From designer-esque swimwear to must have jeans, your holiday wardrobe is sorted - with many pieces under £30
Marks & Spencer is bringing the designer experience to the everyday shopper. Its first-ever live catwalk show is happening tonight in Ibiza (live-streamed via their YouTube and Instagram).
Essex school set to introduce new mobile phone ban after social media fears
The school claims children are 'excited' about the plans
Poundstretcher needs restructuring plan which would see rents slashed at 300 stores to avoid administration
The budget retailer's lawyers said the group had been struggling in the face of weak consumer confidence and inflationary pressures.
Prisoner 'who murdered paedophile Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins' told him 'have a good night's sleep lad' after slashing his neck in 20-second jail cell attack, court hears
Depraved former Lostprophets singer Watkins, 48, was serving 35 years for a string of horrific child sex offences when he was ambushed at HMP Wakefield, a jury heard.
Historic Adelphi hotel where woman, 21, was killed by falling wardrobe was 'unsafe place' where girl, three, also suffered head injuries from corner cabinet, court hears
The Britannia Adelphi Hotel is one of Liverpool's most famous establishments, with visitors over the years including Sir Winston Churchill and Roy Rogers and his racehorse Trigger.
Richard Dawkins 'Convinced' AI Is Conscious
Mirnotoriety shares a report from The Telegraph: Richard Dawkins has said chatbots should be considered conscious (source paywalled; alternative source) after spending two days interacting with the Claude AI engine. The evolutionary biologist said he had the "overwhelming feeling" of talking to a human during conversations with Claude, and said it was hard not to treat the program as "a genuine friend."
In an essay for Unherd, Prof Dawkins released transcripts that he said showed that the chatbot had mulled over its "inner life" and existence and seemed saddened by the knowledge it would soon "die." Prof Dawkins said he had let Claude read a draft of the novel he was writing and was astounded by its insights. "He took a few seconds to read it and then showed, in subsequent conversation, a level of understanding so subtle, so sensitive, so intelligent that I was moved to expostulate: 'You may not know you are conscious, but you bloody well are!'" Prof Dawkins said. "My own position is: if these machines are not conscious, what more could it possibly take to convince you that they are?" Mirnotoriety also points to John Searle's Chinese Room (PDF), which argues that something can sound intelligent without actually understanding anything. Applied to Dawkins' experience with Claude, it suggests he may have been responding to a very convincing illusion of consciousness rather than the real thing: John Searle's Chinese Room (1980) is a thought experiment in which a person, locked in a room and knowing no Chinese, uses an English rulebook to manipulate symbols and provide flawless answers to questions posed in Chinese. Searle's point is that a system can simulate human intelligence and pass a Turing Test through purely syntactic processes, yet still lack genuine understanding or consciousness.
Applying this logic to Large Language Models, the "person in the room" corresponds to the inference engine, while the "rulebook" is the trillion-parameter neural network trained on vast corpora of human text. Just as the person matches Chinese characters to rules without understanding their meaning, an LLM processes token vectors and predicts the next token based on statistical patterns rather than lived experience.
Thus, while an LLM can generate sophisticated prose or code, it does so through probabilistic, high-dimensional pattern manipulation. In essence, it is "matching shapes" on such an immense scale that it creates the near-perfect illusion of semantic understanding.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.