Amazon confirms plans to lay off 14,000 corporate workers as part of wave of cuts

Amazon has confirmed plans to lay off 14,000 corporate workers, as part of a wave of cuts expected to hit tens of thousands of jobs.The Seattle-based retail giant, which is vying to reverse a pandemic hiring spree, is attempting to cut costs and slim down its huge operation. This summer, its CEO warned white-collar employees their jobs could be taken by artificial intelligence.Beth Galetti, a senior vice-president at Amazon, wrote in a memo to employees on Tuesday: “The reductions we’re sharing today are a continuation of … work to get even stronger by further reducing bureaucracy, removing layers, and shifting resources to ensure we’re investing in our biggest bets and what matters most to our customers’ current and future needs.”On Monday, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon was poised to cut as many as 30,000 corporate jobs, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, as it tries to undo the vast recruitment drive it embarked on at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, which unleashed an extraordinary – but fleeting – surge in demand for online shopping

Elon Musk launches encyclopedia ‘fact-checked’ by AI and aligning with rightwing views

Elon Musk has launched an online encyclopedia named Grokipedia that he said relied on artificial intelligence and would align more with his rightwing views than Wikipedia, though many of its articles say they are based on Wikipedia itself.Calling an AI encyclopedia “super important for civilization”, Musk had been planning the Wikipedia rival for at least a month. Grokipedia does not have human authors, unlike Wikipedia, which is written and edited by volunteers in a transparent process. Grokipedia said it is “fact-checked” by Grok, Musk’s AI chatbot.Musk said the idea was suggested by the Trump administration’s AI and cryptocurrency czar, David Sacks

‘A good moment in time for us’: Firefox head on AI browsers and what’s next for the web

Do you need an assistant for your online activities?Multiple major players in artificial intelligence are moving on from chatbots like ChatGPT and are now focusing their efforts on new browsers with deep AI integrations. Those could take the form of an agent that shops for you or an omnipresent chatbot that follows you around and summarizes what you’re seeing, looks up related stuff, or answers related questions.Last week alone, OpenAI released the ChatGPT Atlas browser, and Microsoft showed off Edge’s new Copilot Mode, both of which heavily feature chatbots. At the start of October, Perplexity made its Comet browser free. In mid-September, Google rolled out Chrome With Gemini, integrating its AI assistant with the most popular browser in the world

More than a million people every week show suicidal intent when chatting with ChatGPT, OpenAI estimates

More than a million ChatGPT users each week send messages that include “explicit indicators of potential suicidal planning or intent”, according to a blogpost published by OpenAI on Monday. The finding, part of an update on how the chatbot handles sensitive conversations, is one of the most direct statements from the artificial intelligence giant on the scale of how AI can exacerbate mental health issues.In addition to its estimates on suicidal ideations and related interactions, OpenAI also said that about 0.07% of users active in a given week – about 560,000 of its touted 800m weekly users – show “possible signs of mental health emergencies related to psychosis or mania”. The post cautioned that these conversations were difficult to detect or measure, and that this was an initial analysis

Ultra-HD televisions not noticeably better for typical viewer, scientists say

Many modern living rooms are now dominated by a huge television, but researchers say there might be little point in plumping for an ultra-high-definition model.Scientists at the University of Cambridge and Meta, the company that owns Facebook, have found that for an average-sized living room a 4K or 8K screen offers no noticeable benefit over a similarly sized 2K screen of the sort often used in computer monitors and laptops. In other words, there is no tangible difference when it comes to how sharp an image appears to our eyes.“At a certain viewing distance, it doesn’t matter how many pixels you add. It’s just, I suppose, wasteful because your eye can’t really detect it,” said Dr Maliha Ashraf, the first author of the study from the University of Cambridge

Apple Watch Ultra 3 review: the biggest and best smartwatch for an iPhone

The biggest, baddest and boldest Apple Watch is back for its third generation, adding a bigger screen, longer battery life and satellite messaging for when lost in the wilderness.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.The Ultra 3 is Apple’s answer to adventure watches such as Garmin’s Fenix 8 Pro while being a full smartwatch for the iPhone with all the trimmings