Computerworld News
AI is evolving faster than most people, even those building it, could even fathom, and its impact on the workforce and the economy is, at this point, really anyone’s guess. Researchers from The Anthropic Institute are offering a few possibilities: They have built a nuanced framework looking at how AI might impact jobs, unemployment, and gross domestic product (GDP) growth between now and 2030. They posit three potential scenarios for an AI-augmented future: “modest,” “substantial,” and “extreme,” and have created an interactive tool where users can explore how productive, or disruptive, AI will become in the workplace, based on their [...]
Gartner on Wednesday said that it expects 30% of the positions eliminated by AI-related layoffs to be refilled by 2029, suggesting that the initial terminations were ill-advised and excessive. “When business and IT executives look back on the early AI era, they will realize their greatest mistake was believing that work automation was the point, when workforce amplification was the opportunity,” said Tori Paulman, VP analyst at Gartner. “The competitive advantage will go to the CIOs and business executives who build an AI-shaped organization where AI value compounds by reshaping roles and allowing workflows to cross traditional boundaries, increasing velocity [...]
Twenty-five years ago, I sat near the front of the room while then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs rolled out Apple’s digital hub strategy, a vision in which the Mac would become the central manager of all manner of portable digital devices. Now, a quarter of a century later, nearly all of those digital devices have become features on your iPhone, and the arrival of AI means the iPhone has become the intelligent personal hub, the central manager of, well, of you. Apple’s new CEO, John Ternus, went straight for the concept in his important opening remarks at Wednesday’s big iPhone launch, where nearly all [...]
Adobe on Wednesday unveiled a range of updates to Acrobat, including the ability to turn PDF documents into interactive visual reports and podcasts. And a new Knowledge Base feature connects Adobe’s Acrobat AI assistant to document sources such as Microsoft SharePoint and Google Drive. It’s the biggest Acrobat update in several years, Adobe said, and highlights the application’s evolution from PDF reader to what the company now describes as an AI-powered document productivity and creativity platform. Acrobat users open more than 400 billion PDFs in the app each year, Adobe said, claiming 650 million monthly active users as of last [...]
A slew of recent studies indicate that AI isn’t dramatically displacing workers. At the same time, there were no indicators that the fast-moving technology is creating a lot of jobs, even as AI skills remain in high demand. Stanford University researchers in an August study found that any AI-related job declines were concentrated among young workers aged 22–25. But for older and more experienced workers that wasn’t the case. “Claims of economy-wide AI-driven job losses are not visible in payroll data through June 2026,” the researchers said, citing ADP payroll information. Stanford partnered with ADP to conduct the research. The [...]
Late-breaking reports suggest Apple has built a new Siri AI ‘Recaps’ feature that summarizes your day for you. The idea sounds great until you recognize that this summary will also include overheard conversations. Suspending the huge red flag of concern over privacy and data protection for a moment or two, why would this be useful and who is it for? How it’s supposed to work First, it is being described as an Apple Watch feature that will only be available on the latest models: Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4, as these allegedly include secure audio processing hardware. Reading [...]
AI note-taking applications are increasingly used by workers to record meetings, generate conversation summaries and suggest post-meeting action items. Along with the promised productivity benefits — enabling users to focus on meetings rather than actively taking notes — the emergence of these AI tools has raised privacy questions, particularly around obtaining prior consent by meeting participants for their use. Those concerns, in turn, have prompted a spate of lawsuits against software vendors that sell AI notetaking tools. In some ways, the underlying questions are not new: It’s long been possible to record a phone call with a dictaphone, and laws around [...]
By now, you probably know my stance on Gemini and other generative AI gobbledegook — right? In short: It’s an insanely powerful form of technology (obviously). But it’s also wildly inaccurate and ineffective as an all-purpose answer engine, and by cramming it into every last nook and cranny, Google is doing a serious disservice to its users — and to itself. That being said, generative AI can be incredibly useful. The key is simply to frame it as a purpose-specific tool for the right type of limited task as opposed to treating it as the end-all answer for everything, as [...]
For decades, global time experts have mapped atomic clock time to the earth’s rotation, periodically adding a second (aka a leap second) as rotation slowed. But the planet’s rotation has now slightly sped up, which could mean that a negative adjustment will be required. The problem is that computer systems have not been programmed to do that. To avoid this issue, the General Conference on Weights and Measures (GCWM) in October will vote on a proposal to maintain the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) as a continuous time from May 20, 2027, without adjustment via leap seconds, allowing UT1, the measure [...]
We’re hurtling toward the loss of something big. Finally, after months of speculation, Apple is about to introduce its first-ever folding smartphone. And once it does, the conversation will change as the annual iPhone rumor season is replaced with the reality of whatever Apple unveils. Except, it won’t quite be the same as in the past. Because no sooner will new Apple CEO John Ternus finish his iPhone announcement keynote speech tomorrow than the speculation will shift to next year’s 20th-anniversary iPhone, what’s coming to the iPhone 18 and e-series iPhones, and expectations around Apple’s upcoming wave of smart home products, including health and home security [...]
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