Bay Area employers slashed thousands of jobs in July, an unsettling economic setback that suggests the waves of layoffs in the wobbly tech industry have begun to undermine the region’s employment sector. Last month’s job losses in the Bay Area were spawned by big employment reductions in the South Bay and the San Francisco metro … Read more
For many of us, summer fairs hold happy memories of riding the carousel and bumper cars and eating corn dogs, funnel cakes and cotton candy. But for the people who operate the rides and work the concession stands, the experience may be far from happy. As founder and executive director of Centro de los Derechos … Read more
Starting Monday, Zoom users will have the option to open a document tool from within their video calling app and create sharable files based on their meetings—but they’ll also be prompted to use generative AI to help them write and edit them. This new feature, essentially Zoom’s version of Google Docs, is the latest effort … Read more
When Mark Zuckerberg rebranded Facebook as Meta in 2021, he estimated the metaverse could reach a billion people over a decade. Not long after, Bill Gates predicted that within two or three years “most virtual meetings will move from 2D camera image grids—which I call the Hollywood Squares model, although I know that probably dates … Read more
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s decade–in-the-making effort to understand how handing out free money affects recipients and the broader economy delivered its first big results Monday. OpenResearch found that when it gave some of the poorest Americans $1,000 a month for three years with no strings attached, they put much of the money toward basic needs … Read more
WeWork is set to become a smaller—and potentially right-sized—company. Following a final hearing on its bankruptcy plan Thursday morning, the coworking pioneer will have fewer locations, a new influx of capital, and $4 billion in debt wiped from its books. In a packed courtroom in Newark, New Jersey, Judge John Sherwood approved WeWork’s restructuring plan. … Read more
For all the bluster about generative artificial intelligence upending the world, the technology has yet to meaningfully transform white-collar work. Workers are dabbling with chatbots for tasks such as drafting emails, and companies are launching countless experiments, but office work hasn’t undergone a major AI reboot. Perhaps that’s only because we haven’t given chatbots like … Read more
The white colonial revival church with its high steeple adds an idyllic architectural touch to the affluent town of Huntington, a Long Island suburb of New York City. But a sign grabs the eye from the road: “Coworking space,” it says. “Kind of like a WeWork. Was a church, but not anymore.” The former church … Read more
Ever since the rollout of ChatGPT in November 2022, many people in science, business, and media have been obsessed with AI. A cursory look at my own published work during that period fingers me as among the guilty. My defense is that I share with those other obsessives a belief that large language models are … Read more
If you look at social media, the life of a makeup artist or hair stylist seems glamorous. But have you ever had any insight into how much money they actually make? The beauty industry is filled with freelance creatives who, more often than not, are not paid fairly ― which makes pay transparency more important … Read more