All posts tagged: workers

Workers Who Fear AI May be More Prone to Slacking Off

Workers Who Fear AI May be More Prone to Slacking Off

Published by skeptic

Just a few years ago, the leaders of major AI companies undertook a rather bizarre public relations strategy to promote their new products—they promised (threatened?) that they’d wipe out entire industries. “Entire classes of jobs will go away and not come back,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in 2019.  Now, with public backlash to AI data centers in particular reaching a fever pitch (and an oddly bipartisan one, given how politically polarized we are), tech titans are scrambling to recalibrate. They’re backing off previous claims of a “jobs apocalypse” and promising AI disruption will be much less, well, disruptive.  Read more: “Mere Minutes With AI Causes a Sharp Drop in Persistence” It’s too early to tell if the about-face will work as a matter of public relations, but there are at least some hints that their earlier PR blitz is harming the workers in industries exposed to AI disruption. In fact, a new study published in Occupational Health Science suggests the mere threat of AI could be throwing a wrench into workplace dynamics. A team …

These workers wear GoPros to train robots to do their jobs : NPR

These workers wear GoPros to train robots to do their jobs : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

KARUR, India — Three men stride across a cavernous textile factory floor of Texworth in the southern Indian city of Karur, handing GoPros and smart glasses to workers, including 40-year-old Shoba Kirubakaran. She’s packing yellow aprons decorated with chickens into plastic wrapping for the brand Designs By Danica. It’s the third time Kirubakaran says she’s been told to don a GoPro. It’s recording her every hand gesture, to train AI robots to take over this job — a fact that she says the company did not share with her. NPR informed her when they interviewed her on a recent day. “Nobody told me anything about it,” she says. Kirubakaran has worked in the factory for 10 years, six days a week, from around 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. She makes $90 a month. With that money, she’s helped her husband, a rickshaw driver, raise their two sons. And she adds, “I only know how to do this job.” Scenes like these shook the Indian public in April after a video went viral showing rows of …

AI limiting European workers’ bargaining power, ECB’s Lane says

AI limiting European workers’ bargaining power, ECB’s Lane says

Published by Sam Flores

FRANKFURT, Oct 13 : The increased use of AI by euro zone companies could curb workers’ ability to demand higher wages while heavy investment into the new technology may be materially tightening financing conditions, ECB chief economist Philip Lane said on Tuesday. With inflation now running at nearly twice the ECB’s 2 per cent target on expensive energy, policymakers are searching for signs of second-round price effects, but have so far concluded there are none, especially in wage growth. While AI has not changed employment trends, hiring plans are muted and this limits workers’ ability to demand compensation for high inflation, Lane said, offering a potential explanation for why wage growth is slowing, despite high inflation. “The potential for AI to replace some types of workers may also weaken the bargaining power of workers, moderating wage growth and reducing the labour share in total income,” Lane said in a speech in Dublin. While Lane did not directly discuss current monetary policy, he said that companies around the globe are borrowing so heavily to fund AI …

WHO says no plague case registered after Russian lab worker’s death | World Health Organization News

WHO says no plague case registered after Russian lab worker’s death | World Health Organization News

Published by Sam Flores

The WHO says the lack of a confirmed diagnosis remains a key uncertainty, with no sign of ongoing transmission. Published On 10 Oct 202610 Oct 2026 The World Health Organization (WHO) has said it still does not know what caused the pneumonia that killed a laboratory worker at a Russian plague research institute and that no case of plague has been registered. Russia’s state health regulator told the WHO that tests on the worker and people who had been in contact with her were negative for the dangerous pathogens they tested for, the United Nations health agency said in a statement on Saturday. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list Her contacts still showed no symptoms, and no further linked cases of severe pneumonia had been found, the WHO added. “Based on the information provided… WHO has not identified evidence of ongoing transmission associated with this event. A key uncertainty remains the absence of a confirmed diagnosis in the deceased laboratory worker,” it said. What happened? The worker fell ill and died in undisclosed …

Cloudflare acquires Deno to improve its Workers programming model

Cloudflare acquires Deno to improve its Workers programming model

Published by skeptic

Cloudflare announced Friday that it’s acquiring Deno, the startup behind the programming runtime of the same name. According to Cloudflare’s Kenton Varda, Cloudflare will use this acquisition to improve its Workers programming model and platform, which allows customers to build and run software on Cloudflare’s network. (Varda is principal engineer for Cloudflare Workers.) Deno — which was co-founded by Bert Belder and Node.js creator Ryan Dahl — recently launched celld, an open source implementation of Workers, which Varda wrote “delighted” the Cloudflare team. Varda argued that contrary to “a popular theory” that the company “made Cloudflare Workers work differently from other cloud platforms in order to create ‘lock-in,’” the company believes “being open source and giving people an escape hatch is good business.” Dahl, meanwhile, wrote that his team is “joining Cloudflare to make the Workers programming model a mainstream way to build servers.” The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Deno had raised a total of $26 million, including a Series A led by Sequoia. Source link

Did Russia play by the rules in reporting lab worker’s death? : NPR

Did Russia play by the rules in reporting lab worker’s death? : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

A woman wearing a face mask walks past the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East, founded in the 1930s to monitor strains of dangerous pathogens. Tatyana Makeyeva/AFP/via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption i Tatyana Makeyeva/AFP/via Getty Images A 28-year-old woman died in Russia last week and, since then, speculations about the case have ricocheted around the globe. The woman was a lab technician at a Russian research institute that studies the plague. As unverified rumors have circulated that she may have contracted the disease from a lab leak, President Trump, the World Health Organization and other leaders are asking for more information. A security person wearing a face mask looks out from the door of an infectious diseases hospital in the town of Shelekhov, where an employee of the Irkutsk Antiplague Research Institute had died. Tatyana Makeyeva/AFP/via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption i Tatyana Makeyeva/AFP/via Getty Images Russia has insisted this is not a health emergency and stated that its health authorities have not found dangerous pathogens in any …

Trump Administration Cuts Off Access to a Major Immigration Program for Workers at Microsoft and Adobe

Trump Administration Cuts Off Access to a Major Immigration Program for Workers at Microsoft and Adobe

Published by skeptic

The Trump administration will no longer allow Microsoft and other tech companies to participate in a program that allows H-1B visa holders to apply for green cards, one of the most common pathways for skilled foreign workers seeking permanent residency in the United States. In addition to Microsoft, administration officials said on Thursday that software giant Adobe and IT companies including Cognizant, Infosys, and Tata will be suspended from the PERM program, the Labor Department’s permanent labor certification program. PERM is a key step for H-1B visa holders to gain permanent residency, requiring employers to prove that there are no American workers who would be suitable for the applicant’s permanent job opportunity. Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling said that the agency is investigating whether these companies committed fraud, undercutting American workers by hiring foreign employees. Vice President JD Vance, meanwhile, singled out Microsoft. “There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has abused this system more than Microsoft,” Vance said during a press conference. In a statement provided by Microsoft representative Kaitlin …

Health Care Workers Are Tired of Cleaning Up Palantir’s Mess

Health Care Workers Are Tired of Cleaning Up Palantir’s Mess

Published by skeptic

Over the past four months, Amber Retzloff, a critical care nurse in Florida, requested to work 50 specific 12-hour shifts. But over half the time, she says her hospital’s Palantir-powered scheduling software assigned her to different shifts, often putting her on back-to-back-to-back days and leaving her mentally drained. Retzloff doesn’t expect to always get the slots she wants, but by her count the tool does a far worse job honoring her preferences than managers did when they assigned shifts by hand. Retzloff’s experience mirrors that of other nurses across HCA Healthcare, the largest hospital chain in the US. Since 2023, HCA has rolled out an AI scheduling tool it co-developed with Palantir called Timpani at roughly 130 of its 190 locations. Retzloff’s hospital adopted it nearly two years ago. “No one is happy with Timpani,” says Retzloff, echoing what five nurses at other locations reported in interviews with WIRED. “Everyone complains all the time.” Other purported HCA workers have expressed similar gripes about the tool on platforms like Reddit. The nurses who spoke with WIRED …

Millions of new skilled workers are needed – vocational GCSEs could help prepare them

Millions of new skilled workers are needed – vocational GCSEs could help prepare them

Published by skeptic

Vocational education is coming back into the classroom. The government has announced a new generation of vocational GCSEs, allowing teenagers in England to study subjects such as building and construction, digital technology, creative media production, child development and business and finance alongside the traditional academic curriculum. The qualifications, which could be available in some subjects from September 2029, will eventually replace existing technical awards. English, maths and science will remain part of the common academic core. The government also wants businesses to provide another 200,000 work experience placements for 14- to 16-year-olds. There are good educational arguments for giving young people greater choice between different forms of learning. But there is an equally important economic argument. Three fundamental changes are transforming the British labour market: demographics, the green economy and AI. All three make vocational expertise increasingly valuable. As I argue in my forthcoming book, Skilled: How to Master the Changing World of Work, preparing for an uncertain future is less about predicting which jobs will survive than developing skills that allow people to adapt …