Young less likely to work if they live with parents, says jobs tsar, as number of NEETs heads towards 1m
Young people living with their parents are less likely to work, Labour's jobs tsar warned yesterday as figures showed nearly a million are languishing outside the education system or workplace.
ServiceNow boasts its AI bot is resolving 90% of its own help desk tickets
When it gets stuck, the bot will escalate rather than hallucinate
ServiceNow claims it has created an AI agent that is currently solving 90 percent of the inbound IT tickets to the company's own employee help desk.…
Jack Dorsey's Block Cuts Nearly Half of Its Staff In AI Gamble
Jack Dorsey's Block is cutting more than 4,000 jobs, or nearly half its workforce, as part of a deliberate shift toward becoming a smaller, "intelligence-native" company built around AI. The Verge reports: "We're not making this decision because we're in trouble," Dorsey says. "Our business is strong. Gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving. But something has changed. We're already seeing that the intelligence tools we're creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company. And that's accelerating rapidly."
Dorsey opted to do a big layoff instead of gradual cuts because "I'd rather take a hard, clear action now and build from a position we believe in than manage a slow reduction of people toward the same outcome." The layoffs were announced on Thursday as part of the company's Q4 2025 earnings. In a shareholder letter (PDF), Dorsey says that "We believe Block will be significantly more valuable as a smaller, faster, intelligence-native company. Everything we do from here is in service of that."
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Gwynnie's garage sale: The fashion world is agog as the Goop goddess sells off 504 of her most personal treasures
The news that Gwyneth Paltrow (pictured) is auctioning off a chunk of her personal wardrobe on March 24 at 6pm UK time is setting hearts aflutter in the fashion world.
How Cristiano Ronaldo is preparing for retirement after becoming a club owner with football's first billionaire putting plans in place at age of 41
On Thursday morning, Ronaldo's roadmap to retirement has become clearer, and he has done exactly what he said he would do.
Hair-raising moment toddler plunges 10ft from tower block window - before hero nurses use a COAT to catch him
A Russian toddler survived a 110ft fall from a high rise tower block window after two quick-thinking nurses used a coat to catch him mid-air.
Lily Collins says speaking out about her eating disorder 'was one of the most terrifying but rewarding experiences of her life' as she says her recovery is ongoing
The actress, 36, has detailed her struggles with an eating disorder during her teenage years, admitting that it was her desire to start a family in the future that eventually led her to get help.
Missing mom found alive and well after 24 years is seen for the first time as she's arrested for 2001 DUI and claims she 'never knew' anguished family was searching for her
Michele Hundley Smith was photographed after being arrested in North Carolina earlier this week.
BOB SEELY: Why is the one policy Starmer's determined to cling to, the one no one wants except his Leftie lawyer cronies?
Even by Keir Starmer's standards, the Chagos debacle has become an icon of incompetence. There is a fascinating whodunnit to be written about the imbroglio.
What's the Point of School When AI Can Do Your Homework?
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: There's a new agentic AI called Einstein that will, according to its developers, live the life of a student for them. Einstein's website claims that the AI will attend lectures for you, write your papers, and even log into EdTech platforms like Canvas to take tests and participate in discussions. Educators told me that Einstein is just one of many AI tools that can do homework for students, but should be seen as a warning to schools that are increasingly seen by students as a place to gain a diploma and status as opposed to the value of education itself.
If an AI can go to school for you what's the point of going to school? For Advait Paliwal, Brown dropout and co-creator of Einstein, there isn't one. "I think about horses," he said. "They used to pull carriages, but when cars came around, I'd argue horses became a lot more free," he said. "They can do whatever they want now. It would be weird if horses revolted and said 'no, I want to pull carriages, this is my purpose in life.'" But humans aren't horses. "This is much bigger than Einstein," Matthew Kirschenbaum told 404 Media. "Einstein is symptomatic. I doubt we'll be talking about Einstein, as such, in a year. But it's symptomatic of what's about to descend on higher ed and secondary ed as well."
[...] The attractiveness of agentic AIs is a symptom of a decades-long trend in higher education. "Universitiesby and large adopted a transactive model of education," Kirschenbaum said. "Students see their diploma as a credential. They pay tuition and at the end of four years, sometimes five years, they receive the credential and, in theory at least, that is then the springboard to economic stability and prosperity." Paliwal seems to agree. He told 404 Media that he attempted to change the university from the inside while working as a TA, but felt stymied by politics. "The only way to force these institutions to evolve is to bring reality to their face. And usually the loudest critics are the ones who can't do their own job well and live in fear of automation," he said. "I think we really need to question what learning even is and whether traditional educational institutions are actually helping or harming us," said Paliwal. "We're seeing a rise in unemployment across degree holders because of AI, and that makes me question whether this is really what humans are born to do. We've been brainwashed as a society into valuing ourselves by the output of our productive work, and I think humanity is a lot more beautiful than that. Is it really education if we're just memorizing things to perform a task well?"
Kirschenbaum added: "What we're finding is that if forms of education can be transacted then we've just about arrived at the point where autonomous software AI agents are capable of performing the transaction on your behalf," he said. "And so the whole educational paradigm has come back to essentially bite itself in the ass."
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Revealed: Unexplained objects that stop and accelerate quickly in space detected by 'highly qualified observers, says former UFO chief. 'Spacecraft we know don't behave that way'
The Pentagon's former UFO chief says unexplained objects have been detected in space performing maneuvers beyond the capabilities of known US aircraft or spacecraft.
Red Dwarf creator Rob Grant dead at 70: Shocked Craig Charles leads tributes as TV 'visionary' passes away suddenly
Red Dwarf co-creator Rob Grant has died, his family have confirmed.
Google Launches Nano Banana 2 Model With Faster Image Generation
Google has launched Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image), a faster, more realistic image generation model that becomes the default across Gemini, Search, Lens, and Flow. TechCrunch reports: The new Nano Banana 2 retains some of the high-fidelity characteristics of the Pro model but produces images faster. The company says you can create images with a resolution ranging from 512px to 4K, in different aspect ratios. Nano Banana 2 can maintain character consistency for up to five characters and fidelity of up to 14 objects in one workflow for better storytelling. Users can also issue complex requests with detailed nuances for image generation, Google says. In addition, users can create media with more vibrant lighting, richer textures, and sharper detail.
[...] On Google's higher-end plans, Google AI Pro and Ultra, subscribers can continue to use Nano Banana Pro for specialized tasks by regenerating images via the three-dot menu. [...] The company said that all images created through the new model will have a SynthID watermark, which is Google's mark to denote AI-generated images. The images are also interoperable with C2PA Content Credentials, created by an industry body consisting of companies like Adobe, Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, and Meta. Google said that since launching the SynthID verification in the Gemini app in November, people have used it over 20 million times.
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Sasha Obama puffs on a vape as she steps out of luxury gym in midriff-baring ensemble
The 24-year-old, who is the youngest daughter of former president Barack Obama and wife Michelle Obama, opted for an all-black athleisure ensemble for her workout.
Actor Martin Clunes loses travellers' site battle with hippie neighbours who wanted to build permanent camp 300 yards from £5million farmhouse
The actor, 64, has spent three years trying to stop neighbours Theo Langton and Ruth McGill turning a temporary woodland encampment into a permanent travellers' site.
Christian Bale makes a rare appearance with his wife of 26 years Sibi Blazic as they attend the premiere of his new film The Bride!
The actor, 52, was supported by his partner, 55, who he has been married to for 26 years, on the red carpet at Cineworld Leicester Square.
QUENTIN LETTS: It was time to crowbar open the tombstones as the Lords debated Starmer's EU 're-set'
To the House of Lords to hear the old stiffs debate the Starmerite 're-set' with the European Union. A thicket of grey, bushy eyebrow here, a tremulous claw there. And barely a mention of democracy.
Fresh heartbreak for Savannah Guthrie as FBI scales back hunt for Nancy in Tucson and moves nerve center to Phoenix
Agents will move to a new command post more than 100 miles away in Phoenix, sources with knowledge of the investigation said Thursday.
Spain will be able to block Brit travellers from entering Gibraltar under post-Brexit treaty
Spanish authorities will have the power to block the entry of travellers from outside the EU if they are deemed to pose a risk to security, public health or international relations.
Chinese Official's Use of ChatGPT Revealed a Global Intimidation Opperation
New submitter sabbede shares a report from CNN Politics: A sprawling Chinese influence operation -- accidentally revealed by a Chinese law enforcement official's use of ChatGPT -- focused on intimidating Chinese dissidents abroad, including by impersonating US immigration officials, according to a new report from ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. The Chinese law enforcement official used ChatGPT like a diary to document the alleged covert campaign of suppression, OpenAI said. In one instance, Chinese operators allegedly disguised themselves as US immigration officials to warn a US-based Chinese dissident that their public statements had supposedly broken the law, according to the ChatGPT user. In another case, they describe an effort to use forged documents from a US county court to try to get a Chinese dissident's social media account taken down. "This is what Chinese modern transnational repression looks like," Ben Nimmo, principal investigator at OpenAI, told reporters ahead of the report's release. "It's not just digital. It's not just about trolling. It's industrialized. It's about trying to hit critics of the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] with everything, everywhere, all at once."
Michael Horowitz, a former Pentagon official focused on emerging technologies, said the report from OpenAI "clearly demonstrates the way that China is actively employing AI tools to enhance information operations. US-China AI competition is continuing to intensify. This competition is not just taking place at the frontier, but in how China's government is planning and implementing the day-to-day of their surveillance and information apparatus."
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