All posts tagged: losing

Deranged Video Shows AI Job Recruiter Absolutely Losing It During an Interview

Deranged Video Shows AI Job Recruiter Absolutely Losing It During an Interview

Published by José

Looking for work is already arduous enough — but for one job-seeker, the process became something out of a deleted “Black Mirror” scene when the AI recruiter she was paired with went veritably insane. In a buckwild TikTok video, the job-seeker is seen suffering for nearly 30 seconds as the AI recruiter barked the term “vertical bar pilates” at her no fewer than 14 times, often slurring its words or mixing up letters along the way. @its_ken04 It was genuinely so creepy and weird. Please stop trying to be lazy and have AI try to do YOUR JOB!!! It gave me the creeps so bad #fyp ♬ original sound – Its Ken 🤍 The incident — and the way it affected the young woman who endured it — is a startling example not only of where America’s abysmal labor market is at, but also of how ill-conceived this sort of AI “outsourcing” has become. Though she looks nonplussed on her interview screen, the TikToker who goes by Ken told 404 Media that she was pretty perturbed …

Reddit Becomes a Lifeline for Federal Workers Scared of Losing Their Jobs

Reddit Becomes a Lifeline for Federal Workers Scared of Losing Their Jobs

Published by skeptic

On March 4, a Trump appointee at the Department of Veterans Affairs circulated a memo to senior leadership. The agency, it said, would “move out aggressively” to improve efficiency, with an “initial objective” of cutting the work force to 2019 levels. The next morning, someone posted a copy of this “reduction in force” memo to a Reddit group called VeteransAffairs, an online community of 19,000 members. The copy was difficult to follow, a sequence of photos taken of the memo on a screen, but the message was clear enough: Some 80,000 jobs would be cut. Questions and comments poured in, some bewildered, some frantic. The agency had half a million employees at hospitals, clinics, call lines and regional benefit offices that served veterans across the country. Who would be fired? Was this the end of the V.A.’s medical research? How would this affect wait times for medical appointments? No one had solid answers, just informed speculation. Livelihoods and veterans’ well-being were at stake, so the vibe was somber. But there was still room for dark …

Bench customers are now being forced to hand over their data or risk losing it, they say

Bench customers are now being forced to hand over their data or risk losing it, they say

Published by skeptic

After accounting startup Bench abruptly shut down on December 27 and was bought in a fire-sale by Employer.com, Bench customers are now learning they can’t easily just take their financial data and leave.  And some are very unhappy about it, three customers told TechCrunch. To recap: When Bench, a startup based in Canada that raised $113 million from investors like Bain Capital Ventures and Shopify, shuttered, it left thousands of businesses without access to their accounting and tax documents. Days later, Bench announced it would be acquired by Employer.com for an undisclosed price in a last-minute deal. San Francisco-based HR tech company Employer.com focuses on payroll and onboarding, in contrast to Bench, which specializes in accounting and tax.  On the surface, Employer.com appears to be a relatively new company: Its CEO, Jesse Tinsley, announced his acquisition of the domain name in November for about $450,000. Tinsley is behind a host of HR, onboarding, and recruiting-related businesses, including Recruiter.com and BountyJobs. However, digging deeper, TechCrunch learned that Employer.com is a dba for Recruiting.com Ventures. Tinsley acquired …

It Costs So Much to Run ChatGPT That OpenAI Is Losing Money on 0 ChatGPT Pro Subscriptions

It Costs So Much to Run ChatGPT That OpenAI Is Losing Money on $200 ChatGPT Pro Subscriptions

Published by José

“People use it much more than we expected.” Fiscal Shortage While trying its darndest to become profitable, OpenAI is still falling comically short — which, since it’s the 800-pound gorilla in the nascent AI industry, should probably give pause to its rivals both large and small. In a post on X-formerly-Twitter, CEO Sam Altman admitted an “insane” fact: that the company is “currently losing money” on ChatGPT Pro subscriptions, which run $200 per month and give users access to its suite of products including its o1 “reasoning” model. “People use it much more than we expected,” the cofounder wrote, later adding in response to another user that he “personally chose the price and thought we would make some money.” Though Altman didn’t explicitly say why OpenAI is losing money on these premium subscriptions, the issue almost certainly comes down to the enormous expense of running AI infrastructure: the massive and increasing amounts of electricity needed to power the facilities that power AI, not to mention the cost of building and maintaining those data centers. Way back …

Feeling connected to nature may ease mental health struggles after losing a loved one

Feeling connected to nature may ease mental health struggles after losing a loved one

Published by José

A study of individuals who experienced the death of a loved one due to COVID-19 found that complicated grief following such a loss can lead to adverse mental health outcomes, including depression and anxiety. However, feelings of connectedness to nature were found to mitigate this link, potentially serving as a protective factor. The findings were published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Complicated grief is a prolonged and intense form of grief that persists for an extended period, interfering with an individual’s ability to function in daily life. It goes beyond typical bereavement, involving persistent yearning or longing for the deceased, difficulty accepting the loss, and feelings of disbelief or emotional numbness. People experiencing complicated grief may feel stuck in their mourning, preoccupied with memories of their loved one, or unable to engage in activities they once enjoyed. This condition can also lead to physical symptoms, social withdrawal, and an increased risk of depression and anxiety. The 2021-2022 COVID-19 pandemic claimed 2.6 million lives worldwide, leaving a profound impact on their …

TikTok faces US ban after losing court battle | Science, Climate & Tech News

TikTok faces US ban after losing court battle | Science, Climate & Tech News

Published by skeptic

TikTok has lost an appeal against plans to ban the video-sharing app in the US. The social media platform had argued the proposal was a breach of the US First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech. TikTok pushed to overturn a law that could lead to its ban in a few months. However, the petition was dismissed on Friday by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Its judges ruled the government’s ban was constitutional because it was designed “solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States”. The law, which was signed off by US President Joe Biden in April, requires TikTok to break ties with its China-based parent company ByteDance by mid-January – or else it will be blocked in the country. It was introduced following concern from some US politicians that the company might share user data with the Chinese government, despite repeated assurances from the firm that it would not. Critics …

What Would a Humanist Do? Losing Myself in Election Stress

What Would a Humanist Do? Losing Myself in Election Stress

Published by skeptic

Today we bring you our latest installment of “What Would a Humanist Do?”—offering multiple AHA staff opinions on reader questions. Because while humanists are committed to being good without a god, sometimes we need a little advice on how to pull it off. Q: I hardly think I’m unique in this struggle, but the ramp up to next week’s election has been bringing a debilitating amount of stress into my life. With every corner of this country yelling about this latest in a series of the most important elections of our lives, what are some ways my fellow humanists have been coping, processing, and staying grounded during this time? A’s: Going for a nice long walk, playing with my dog, listening to my favorite music, having some laughs with my friends—all of these are stress relievers. I’m comforted by the fact that no matter what happens, there will be advocates, nonprofit organizations, experts, and more always working hard to protect our civil liberties and human rights. —Isabella Russian   There’s so much in this world …

The US is now at risk of losing to China in the race to send people back to the Moon’s surface

The US is now at risk of losing to China in the race to send people back to the Moon’s surface

Published by skeptic

Will the next human to walk on the Moon speak English or Mandarin? In all, 12 Americans landed on the lunar surface between 1969 and 1972. Now, both the US and China are preparing to send humans back there this decade. However, the US lunar programme is delayed, in part because the spacesuits and lunar-landing vehicle are not ready. Meanwhile, China has pledged to put astronauts on the Moon by 2030 – and it has a habit of sticking to timelines. Just a few years ago, such a scenario would have seemed unlikely. But there now appears to be a realistic possibility that China could beat the US in a race that America, arguably, has defined. So who will return there first, and does it really matter? Nasa’s Moon programme is called Artemis. The US has involved international and commercial partners to spread the cost. Nasa set out a plan to get American boots back on lunar soil over the course of three missions. In November 2022, Nasa launched its Orion spacecraft on a loop …

WhatsApp Will Finally Save Your Contacts So You Don’t Keep Losing Them

WhatsApp Will Finally Save Your Contacts So You Don’t Keep Losing Them

Published by skeptic

Long gone is the tradition of storing contacts in a Rolodex; we now expect our contacts to be accessible on any of our personal devices with the help of the cloud. Finally rising to this expectation is WhatsApp, with the introduction of a feature to save contacts in the messenger’s cloud storage. Announced today on WhatsApp’s blog, the messaging platform will now let you save and manage contacts directly in the app. Previously, to find someone on WhatsApp, you had to access data from your device’s integrated contact list, type in a number manually, or scan a QR code. When adding a connection to WhatsApp that did not already exist in your device’s contacts, you had to save that contact locally. WhatsApp Of course, saving contacts locally is not ideal when you lose your device, voluntarily upgrade your phone, or need to access contact information on your computer instead of your phone, or vice versa. To accompany this update with security assurances, WhatsApp is pointing to its Identity Proof Linked Storage, an encrypted system to …