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Candy Crush-Maker King Lays Off 200 Staff, Replacing Many With AI Tools They Built

1 week 3 days ago
Candy Crush-maker King is cutting approximately 200 employees, with many positions filled by AI tools the departing workers helped develop, according to multiple sources who spoke anonymously to industry publication MobileGamer.biz. The layoffs heavily target level designers, user research staff, and UX and narrative writers across King's London, Barcelona, Stockholm, and Berlin studios. The London-based Farm Heroes Saga team faces cuts of roughly 50 people, including key leadership positions. "Most of level design has been wiped, which is crazy since they've spent months building tools to craft levels quicker," one staffer said. "Now those AI tools are basically replacing the teams."

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Microsoft Uses Chinese Engineers To Maintain Defense Department Systems Under Minimal US Oversight

1 week 3 days ago
Microsoft employs engineers in China to help maintain Defense Department computer systems, with U.S. citizens serving as "digital escorts" to oversee the foreign workers, according to a ProPublica investigation. The escorts often lack advanced technical expertise to police engineers with far more sophisticated skills, and some are former military personnel paid barely above minimum wage. "We're trusting that what they're doing isn't malicious, but we really can't tell," one current escort told the publication. The arrangement, critical to Microsoft winning federal cloud computing contracts a decade ago, handles sensitive but unclassified government data including materials that directly support military operations. Former CIA and NSA executive Harry Coker called the system a natural opportunity for spies, saying "If I were an operative, I would look at that as an avenue for extremely valuable access."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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