Amazon confirmed it would cut 16,000 jobs globally, hours after an email regarding the layoffs was mistakenly sent to staff, according to the BBC. The email, seen by the BBC, detailed a new round of global redundancies affecting employees in the US, Canada, and Costa Rica, as part of an effort to "strengthen the company." The message was quickly cancelled after being shared by mistake.
The job reductions were announced as part of a plan to "remove bureaucracy" at the firm, according to Amazon's announcement on Wednesday. Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology at Amazon, stated that the company was not planning to make "broader" role reductions at this time.
In other technology news, the UK government launched a series of free AI training courses aimed at helping adults learn how to use the technology in the workplace, according to BBC Technology. The online lessons offer advice on prompting chatbots and using them for administrative tasks. The government aims to reach 10 million workers by 2030 through these courses, calling it the most ambitious training scheme since the launch of the Open University in 1971. However, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) cautioned that workers would need more than just chatbot prompting skills to adapt to the growth of AI. "Skills for the age of AI can't be," the IPPR stated, emphasizing the need for broader AI knowledge.
The AI boom itself is expected to produce both winners and losers, according to Chuck Robbins, chairman and chief executive of Cisco Systems. Robbins told the BBC that AI would "change everything" and be "bigger than the internet." While he believes the current market is likely a bubble, Cisco, a leading technology company providing critical IT infrastructure for AI, anticipates significant changes in the job market. Robbins noted that some jobs would be changed or even "eliminated" by AI, particularly in customer service and other areas.
Meanwhile, Pornhub announced it would restrict access to its website for UK users starting February 2, citing tougher age checks introduced for explicit sites, according to BBC Technology. Only users with existing Pornhub accounts will be able to access content. Aylo, Pornhub's parent company, stated that updates to the UK's Online Safety Act (OSA), requiring age verification, had "not achieved its goal of protecting minors" and had "diverted traffic to darker, unregulated corners of the internet." In October, Aylo reported a 77% drop in traffic to the website due to the law change. Ofcom, the regulator, maintained that tougher age checks were fulfilling their intended purpose.
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