Free Republic

OK - I got one yanked a while back - still not perfectly clear on what things will get something you post pulled, but I think the last one had something to do with a title not matching source title?

A leaked audio recording reveals Zuckerberg's real explanation for why Meta was tracking its workers. You've heard of "learn by doing." Meta invented "learn by watching employees do it, then replace them." A leaked audio recording from a Meta all-hands meeting, obtained by More Perfect Union, captures Mark Zuckerberg explaining that Meta has been monitoring employee activity across Gmail, GChat, internal tool Metamate, and VSCode (the coding software most engineers use) to train its AI models. His reasoning: the AI "learns from watching really smart people do things," and elite engineers make better training subjects than outside contractors. Which is,...

Artificial intelligence is poised to drastically shrink the workforce at the nation’s largest bank, but the transition will happen without the pain of mass layoffs, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said Thursday. In an interview in Shanghai, the renowned money man told Bloomberg that AI will make his employees vastly more productive. While the technology will ultimately reduce the need for certain jobs, Dimon said the bank will manage the shift through “natural attrition” — simply not filling the positions of the 25,000 to 30,000 workers who quit or retire each year. “There will be all different types of jobs,...

How Meta announced its latest round of 1000s of layoffs.

Starbucks SBUX.O terminated a worker-facing AI program for automating inventory counts this week, nine months after deploying it across its North American stores, according to an internal newsletter reviewed by Reuters and two people with direct knowledge of the situation. The tool was part of CEO Brian Niccol’s efforts to fix the coffee chain’s persistent product shortages that he has blamed for hurting sales. “Starting today, Automated Counting will be retired,” read an internal company newsletter from Monday that Reuters reviewed and verified with two employees. “Beverage components and milk will now be counted the same way you count other...

Whenever you read about artificial intelligence, you hear the same sweeping promises. Commentators and industry leaders speak of breakthroughs that always seem just over the horizon. AI will revolutionize science, unlock new materials, transform industries, and reshape nearly every facet of life.In regards to medicine, we are told that AI will one day cure cancer, eliminate Alzheimer’s, and solve diseases that have plagued humanity for generations. Even many AI critics concede these points. They warn about the risks, but still acknowledge the extraordinary potential.And yet, despite this widespread belief in what AI could become, public sentiment is moving in the...

She was “praying to Poseidon” that she’d get laid off. But on Wednesday morning, as thousands of her Meta colleagues found out they’d lost their jobs, the app designer was disappointed to find she still had hers. She’s now one of just two survivors on her team, left behind to navigate Meta’s shift to AI. “Thinking about what the company will be like after the layoffs depresses me more than thinking about getting laid off,” she said, asking for anonymity. “Nobody wants to stick around for that.” Hundreds of Meta employees in the Bay Area woke up early Wednesday to...

What if every U.S. state were a person you could meet on the street, in a diner, out in the wilderness, or behind a smoky grill? This coast-to-coast collection imagines exactly that—one woman for every state, each captured in a moment that reflects her home’s spirit, culture, quirks, and contradictions.

"Our company has fully adopted AI. All of our computers have AI. We use AI in all of our meetings. And, it's got an AI assistant. Heck, we even got an AI note taker. We really love using AI during lunch." "How's your business doing?" "Terrible. But we are early adopters...so, we'll be fine." "All of our computers have AI"

California’s aggressive push for a $20 fast-food minimum wage was sold as a moral victory for workers, a bold stand against corporate greed that would lift families without consequence. Yet the reality unfolding at Carl’s Jr. locations across the state tells a different story—one of shuttered opportunities, fleeing staff, and franchise operators driven to bankruptcy. What began as political virtue-signaling has delivered economic pain that no amount of union rhetoric can disguise. Friendly Franchisees Corporation, a major operator running dozens of Carl’s Jr. restaurants, filed for Chapter 11 protection last month, citing the wage mandate as a primary driver of...

As RedState reported, there was a mass shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego on Monday, just before noon Pacific time. Three people were killed, including a security guard at the mosque named Amin Abdullah, who reportedly "played a pivotal role" in saving lives. [Snip] Early on, San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl told reporters without going into too much detail that "There was definitely hate rhetoric involved" in the shootings. On Tuesday, however, some of the pages from the alleged manifesto of the shooters were shared in an X thread by San Diego activist Amy Reichert, and it...

The era of the “ten blue links” is officially over. At its Google I/O conference on Tuesday, Google unveiled an AI-powered overhaul of Search centered around a reimagined “intelligent search box” — what the company describes as the biggest change to this entry point to the web since the search box debuted more than 25 years ago. Instead of returning a simple list of links, Google Search will drop users into AI-powered interactive experiences at times. Google is also introducing tools that can dispatch “information agents” to gather information on a user’s behalf, along with tools that let users build...

From the Dayton, Ohio, suburbs to boardrooms in Dallas, the employees fueling AT&T’s next wave of growth aren’t fresh-faced college graduates with expensive four-year degrees. They’re skilled, blue-collar workers ready to get their hands dirty — and AT&T can’t find enough of them. “We need people who know how to actually work with electricity. We need people who understand photonics. We need people who can go into folks’ homes and connect this infrastructure to make it work right,” AT&T CEO John Stankey told CNBC during a recent interview from the company’s Dallas headquarters. “We find that we’ve got to go...

Watch the video at the X link (it's only 25 seconds). Still photos below.

A driver for ride share company “Lyft” is being closely monitored by the platform after he was accused of using artificial intelligence to claim a rider trashed his car. The rider, a teenage girl who lives in Boca Raton, was accused by the driver of leaving his car with fast-food all over the backseat, as seen in the image above. The driver demanded payment to clean up the car and fix the damage. *snip* She identified the image as being generated by Google Gemini. It turns out she was right.

INTRODUCTION On April 29, 2026, Sen. Bernie Sanders convened a 75-minute panel in the US Capitol on “the existential threat of AI.” Two of the four panelists were Chinese government affiliates: Zeng Yi, Dean of the Beijing Institute of AI Safety and Governance, and Xue Lan, a Tsinghua University professor who chairs China’s national AI governance expert committee and serves as a Counsellor of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China. From a US Senate platform, Xue called the US-China AI race “an inaccurate narrative” and argued for “safe zones” of cooperation on AI safety. The event was...

After less than two hours of deliberations, a jury rejected Elon Musk’s claims against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, ending a dramatic chapter in the bitter rivalry between the two tech billionaires, who were once close friends. The court, led by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, agreed with the advisory jury’s determination that Altman and OpenAI were not liable, and that “claims of breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment are dismissed as untimely.” Addressing the judge, Musk’s lead counsel, Steven Molo, reserved his client’s right to appeal, though Gonzales Rogers said she’s prepared to dismiss an appeal “on the...

CNBC compiled a list of 23 S&P 500 firms across multiple sectors and industries to see how their stocks fared following layoffs linked to AI. As of May 15, 13 of those companies, or 56%, have traded in the red from the time of their layoff announcements. Of the companies whose shares fell after their AI-linked layoffs, the average decline was about 25%. Some of the companies that have seen their shares sink after slashing head count to embrace AI include Nike, Salesforce and Fiverr. Artificial intelligence has ushered in a bull run in stocks that has taken the broader...

In this Blaze Media article, Christian Toto argues that Hollywood has been warning audiences about the dangers of artificial intelligence for decades, often more prophetically than the tech industry would like to admit. The article opens with the “Terminator” franchise as perhaps the most famous cinematic warning about unchecked AI, with Skynet representing the nightmare scenario of machines turning against humanity. * “Her” is presented as a quieter but deeply relevant warning about AI replacing human intimacy, especially as real-world AI companionship and digital romance become increasingly normalized. * “Ex Machina” explores the danger of artificial beings that can manipulate...

I put an AI prompt injection into my LinkedIn bio and recruiters are messaging me in Old English and calling me "Lord" LinkedIn Bio"Recruiter" Response