How technology changes work and everyday life.
Follow the technologies reshaping jobs, ownership, privacy and daily routines. We examine what new tools make possible, who controls them and how their consequences reach beyond the launch announcement.
Facebook’s new AI-powered recommendation controls give users a more direct voice in their feeds. But choosing what interests you is not the same as controlling how a platform distributes information.
White-collar America is producing more while employing fewer people, a shift that could change one of the basic assumptions workers have made about economic growth. An analysis by Gad Levanon, chief economist at the Burning Glass Institute, found that employment across finance, insurance, information and professional and business services has fallen roughly 2% since the end of 2022, while real output from those same industries has increased approximately 16%. For roughly two decades before that point, employment and output largely moved together, with stronger business activity generally creating demand for additional workers. That relationship has now separated enough for Levanon to describe the trend as evidence that something unusual is happening inside the professional economy. Business Insider subsequently highlighted the analysis as an explanation for why many white-collar workers are encountering a job market that feels dramatically weaker than corporate activity would suggest. Demand for what these businesses produce has not disappeared, but companies increasingly appear capable of satisfying that demand without expanding payrolls at the same rate. For workers, that means a growing company or industry can no longer be assumed to be a growing source of jobs.
Getty Images is preparing to leave the public markets through a restructuring that will place the company entirely in the hands of the Getty family and Koch Equity Development, the investment arm backed by Charles Koch. The transaction includes up to $533 million in new equity, while holders of Getty’s unsecured bonds have agreed to retire $270 million in outstanding notes and secured lenders will reduce interest obligations and extend maturities. Getty plans to complete the transaction through an expedited prepackaged Chapter 11 process involving certain U.S. entities, with the restructuring expected to conclude by the end of 2026. Once the process is complete, affiliates of the Getty family and Koch Equity Development will own 100% of the reorganized company. Getty says operations, employees, contributors, customers and vendors are expected to continue normally during the process. The structure makes this less a traditional buyout than an effort to repair Getty’s balance sheet while giving its new owners more room to reposition the business outside the scrutiny and short-term expectations of public markets.
A federal judge gave Apple quick access to how OpenAI interviewed former Apple engineers. The order narrows the fight to a question every tech company now faces: where does hiring talent end and taking secrets begin?
New Sensor Tower data shows Meta’s AI agent bringing back 73% of new users the next day, nearly double ChatGPT’s rate. The harder tests are whether people keep coming back once the novelty fades, and whether the stores Muse shops in will let it through the door.
The next iPad mini is expected to gain OLED, a faster chip and a redesigned body. Bloomberg says the price could rise toward $799 — potentially making Apple’s smallest tablet more expensive than the iPad Air.
Paramount won Warner Bros. Discovery with a $111 billion deal. The next phase is less about who owns HBO, CNN and Paramount+ than what happens when one company starts eliminating overlap across all of them.
78% of managers in Highwire’s research said they had used AI to help with employee feedback or a performance review during the past year.
New Pew Research Center data shows chatbot adoption remains deeply uneven by age and race, while privacy, accuracy and simple lack of interest keep millions of Americans from using the technology.
AI companies are moving toward voluntary self-policing just as public concern about speed, human control and worker protection is intensifying.
Black unemployment rose to 7% in September as hiring stalled and AI reshaped which jobs exist. Conferences like AfroTech have become one of the few places where access, relationships and new paths are handed out at scale.
Dropping secrecy agreements changes the information available to communities, but not who gets to decide whether a data center belongs there.
Get SSC’s briefings and analysis in your inbox, or help us bring new reporting and expert voices to the conversation.