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Rani Molla

More tech jobs these days are in non-tech companies

Looking for a tech job? It might be smart to look outside the tech sector.

Non-tech industries like professional services and transportation, warehousing & wholesale each added more tech jobs last year than the entire tech industry, according to the latest Scoring Tech Talent report by real estate services firm CBRE, which analyzed Bureau of Labor Statistics data. That’s the first time that’s been the case in the 11 years CBRE has been releasing the report.

One reason: The shift to AI at tech companies has meant fewer, more specialized job openings. And the slowdown isn’t just isolated to tech. Tech occupation hiring across industries growth slowed to 3.6% in 2023, from 7.3% in 2022, though that growth is much more in line with historical rates, according to CBRE data.

Of course, when you add up all the other industries, they’ve long surpassed the tech industry in tech talent. At the end of 2023, 55% of all technology workers were employed by companies outside the tech sector, according to industry association CompTIA, roughly what it’s been the past several years.

CompTIA, which releases monthly data, found that employment in tech occupations declined by 28,000 positions in August. That’s led the tech occupation unemployment rate to grow to 3.4%, still below the national rate of 4.2%.

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Tesla’s Robotaxi program has disclosed its 15th accident, Electrek reports, citing the latest filing from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. According to Electrek’s estimation, extrapolated from the last time Tesla disclosed mileage figures, that amounts to a crash every 57,000 miles — about 9 times the rate for humans.

The latest crash involved a Model Y hitting a fixed object at 9 mph in January while the autonomous system was engaged.

Humans are very much still involved with Tesla’s so-called autonomous driving service. Despite announcing in January that the service had started removing safety monitors from the front seats, only two unsupervised vehicles have been spotted in the last month according to Robotaxi Tracker. The entire fleet has also dwindled from around 50 vehicles to just 35. Their mileage is unavailable.

tech

Meta’s reported 20% layoff could bring headcount to its lowest level since 2021

Meta is rising Monday morning after Reuters reported the tech giant is planning to lay off 20% of its employees in an effort to use AI to make its workforce more efficient and offset its surging AI capex costs.

On the company’s last earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg touted 30% efficiency gains for its software engineers and said some “power users” of the company’s AI coding tools saw productivity jump as high as 80% — what some saw as a veiled threat to employees who failed to use AI to boost their output.

Meta’s headcount was nearly 79,000 last quarter, having steadily risen since its layoffs during the self-described “year of efficiency” in 2023. A 20% cut would bring headcount to around 63,000 — the company’s lowest level since 2021.

Shares were recently up 2.7%.

Meta’s headcount was nearly 79,000 last quarter, having steadily risen since its layoffs during the self-described “year of efficiency” in 2023. A 20% cut would bring headcount to around 63,000 — the company’s lowest level since 2021.

Shares were recently up 2.7%.

tech

Report: Amid safety failures, ChatGPT’s planned “adult mode” caused concern within OpenAI, with minors misclassified as adults 12% of the time

Despite a series of alarming mental health safety failures that resulted in ChatGPT users allegedly using the product to plan suicides and murder, OpenAI decided to double down on its plan to roll out an “adult mode,” allowing the AI chatbot to produce erotic content.

That decision raised alarms within the company, warning that users could develop unhealthy emotional dependence on the chatbot and that the new age estimation feature was imperfect — and therefore likely to allow minors to access the feature — according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. Per the report, some 12% of the time, the age estimation feature mistakenly classified minors as adults.

OpenAI’s council of mental health experts were “furious” and unanimous in their opposition to the plans to move forward with the adult mode feature after they were told about the decision in January, with concerns about creating a “sexy suicide coach.”

Earlier this month, the company said it would delay the new feature to focus on other products.

That decision raised alarms within the company, warning that users could develop unhealthy emotional dependence on the chatbot and that the new age estimation feature was imperfect — and therefore likely to allow minors to access the feature — according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. Per the report, some 12% of the time, the age estimation feature mistakenly classified minors as adults.

OpenAI’s council of mental health experts were “furious” and unanimous in their opposition to the plans to move forward with the adult mode feature after they were told about the decision in January, with concerns about creating a “sexy suicide coach.”

Earlier this month, the company said it would delay the new feature to focus on other products.

tech
Rani Molla

Amazon raises the price for ad-free Prime Video to $4.99

Amazon is giving consumers more — for more. The e-commerce giant is raising the price of its ad-free Prime Video tier to $4.99 a month, up from $2.99.

On April 10, the service, now rebranded as Prime Video Ultra, will allow more concurrent streams (five instead of three) and up to 100 downloads, up from 25. Ad-free Prime Video had been included with a Prime membership until 2024, when Amazon added ads and began charging $2.99 a month to remove them.

For what it’s worth, ad-free Prime Video is still cheaper than the other increasingly expensive streaming services — if you don’t include the cost of Prime.

For what it’s worth, ad-free Prime Video is still cheaper than the other increasingly expensive streaming services — if you don’t include the cost of Prime.

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