Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

Submission + - Gen Z relies on parents for money while turning to AI for financial advice (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: A new study from Wells Fargo suggests the idea of the American Dream may be evolving, especially among younger Americans. The bankâ(TM)s 2026 Money Study found that 69 percent of Gen Z adults believe owning a business is part of achieving that dream, and many see entrepreneurship as a way to control their own destiny. At the same time, the study paints a complicated picture of financial independence, with 64 percent of parents reporting that their Gen Z children rely on them for financial support in some way, whether that means housing, direct financial help, or covering certain expenses.

The report also highlights a growing reliance on technology for financial guidance. About 19 percent of U.S. adults say they used artificial intelligence over the past year to learn about or generate ideas related to their finances, a number that jumps to 38 percent among Gen Z. Many respondents say they use AI tools to explore financial options or weigh risks, and two thirds of those who tried AI generated suggestions reported acting on them. With younger adults balancing side hustles, family support, and new AI tools to manage money, the study raises an interesting question about how financial literacy and independence might evolve in a more algorithm driven world.

Submission + - Show HN: Zerobox - Sandbox any command with file and network restrictions (github.com)

Submitted by afshin
afshin writes: Zerobox is an open-source process sandbox that wraps any command with deny-by-default file and network restrictions. Built on the same sandboxing engine that powers OpenAI Codex. no Docker, no VMs, no daemon. A single binary that starts in ~10ms.

Control what the process can read, write, and connect to with granular allow/deny flags. Filter network by domain through a built-in HTTP/SOCKS proxy. Pass API keys as secrets that are never visible inside the sandbox — the proxy injects real values into HTTP headers only for approved hosts. Environment variables are clean by default (only PATH, HOME, etc.).

TypeScript SDK included: Sandbox.create({ secrets: { OPENAI_API_KEY: { value: "sk-...", hosts: ["api.openai.com"] } } }).

Read more: https://github.com/afshinm/zer...

Submission + - Code red at OpenAI as it 'pours money down a black hole' (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: Since its release in late 2022, OpenAI has become one of the world’s most valuable start-ups, raising tens of billions of dollars and making Sam Altman, its chief executive, one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent figures.

But even as it breaks records, OpenAI is facing questions about whether the vast sums investors have ploughed into the company will ever be repaid.

Some have even speculated that the poster child of the AI boom could run out of cash and potentially bring down much of the US tech sector with it.

Submission + - Life with AI causing human brain 'fry' (france24.com)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: Too many lines of code to analyze, armies of AI assistants to wrangle, and lengthy prompts to draft are among the laments by hard-core AI adopters.

Consultants at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) have dubbed the phenomenon "AI brain fry," a state of mental exhaustion stemming "from the excessive use or supervision of artificial intelligence tools, pushed beyond our cognitive limits."

Comment The problem they don't mention (Score 1) 36

The problem they don't mention is that future civilizations may not even recognize what these are, and even if they do, reading them might not be possible.

Similar to reading the early magnetic tapes from NASA, the specialized equipment required will probably no longer exist; reverse engineering it might not be possible...especially 100 or 1000 years from now.

This may be a very clever, way of making durable Read-Only Memory that can't be read.

Submission + - Microsoft Copilot is now injecting ads into pull requests on GitHub, GitLab (neowin.net)

Submitted by darwinmac
darwinmac writes: Neowin reports that on GitHub, Microsoft appears to be injecting ads into pull requests generated by Copilot. There are now thousands of pull requests containing the phrase, "Quickly spin up Copilot coding agent tasks from anywhere on your macOS or Windows machine with Raycast."

A quick cursory search of that phrase on GitHub reveals this is not an isolated incident. The exact same promotional text appears in over 11,000 different pull requests across thousands of repos on GitHub. Even merge requests on GitLab are not safe from the injection.

At first, you might think the ads are coming from Raycasts Copilot extension, which lets you start and track Copilot coding agent tasks, kick off Copilot jobs, monitor progress, and manage pull requests from within the Raycast launcher using prompts. But the ads appear to be tied to Microsofts Copilot coding agent tips rather than Raycast itself. Neowin adds:

If you look at the raw markdown of the affected pull requests, there is a hidden HTML comment, START COPILOT CODING AGENT TIPS, placed just before the ad tip. This suggests Microsoft is using the comment to insert a tip that points back to its own developer ecosystem or partner integrations.

There is a growing push for monetization in generative AI, as labs and platforms try to cover the massive costs of inference computing.

With an over $400 billion gap between the money invested in AI data centers and the actual revenue these products generate, Silicon Valley slowly returned to the tested and trusted playbook: advertising.

Ads on generative AI platforms are already proving lucrative. Just weeks after launching ads for Free and Go tier users, OpenAI says its ChatGPT ad business hit a $100 million annualized run rate. The company now plans to expand the ads to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and roll out a self-serve ad platform for businesses.

Submission + - Tech CEOs Suddenly Love Blaming AI For Mass Job Cuts (bbc.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Sweeping job cuts at Big Tech companies have become an annual tradition. How executives explain those decisions, however, has changed. Out are buzzwords like efficiency, over-hiring, and too many management layers. Today, all explanations stem from artificial intelligence (AI). In recent weeks, giants including Google, Amazon, Meta, as well as smaller firms such as Pinterest and Atlassian, have all announced or warned of plans to shrink their workforce, pointing to developments in AI that they say are allowing their firms to do more with fewer people. [...] But explaining cuts by pointing to advances in AI sounds better than citing cost pressures or a desire to please shareholders, says tech investor Terrence Rohan, who has had a seat on many company boards. "Pointing to AI makes a better blog post," Rohan says. "Or it at least doesn't make you seem as much the bad guy who just wants to cut people for cost-effectiveness."

That does not mean there is no substance behind the words, Rohan added. Some of the companies he's backing are using code that is 25% to 75% AI-generated. That is a sign of the real threat that AI tools for writing code represent to jobs such as software developer, computer engineer and programmer, posts once considered a near-guarantee of highly paid, stable careers. "Some of it is that the narrative is changing, some of it is that we really are starting to see step changes in productivity," Anne Hoecker, a partner at Bain who leads the consultancy's technology practice, says of the recent job cuts. "Leaders more recently are seeing these tools are good enough that you really can do the same amount of work with fundamentally less people."

There is another way that AI is driving job cuts — and it has nothing to do with the technical abilities of coding tools and chatbots. Amazon, Meta, Google and Microsoft are collectively planning to pour $650 billion into AI in the coming year. As executives hunt for ways to try to ease investor shock at those costs, many are landing on payroll, typically tech firms' single biggest expense. [...] Although the expense of, for example, 30,000 corporate Amazon employees is dwarfed by that company's AI spending plans, firms of this size will now take any opportunity to cut costs, Rohan says. "They're playing a game of inches," Rohan says of cuts at Big Tech firms. "If you can even slightly tune the machine, that is helpful." Hoecker says cutting jobs also signals to stock market investors worried about the "real and huge" cost of AI development that executives are not blithely writing blank cheques. "It shows some discipline," says Hoecker. "Maybe laying off people isn't going to make much of a dent in that bill, but by creating a little bit of cashflow, it helps."

Submission + - Chromebook Remorse: Tech Backlash at Schools Extends Beyond Phones

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In addition to student cell phone bans, the New York Times' Natasha Singer reports that some schools are also rethinking the wisdom of always-on-and-available school-issued laptops :

Inge Esping, the principal of McPherson Middle School, has spent years battling digital devices for children’s attention. Four years ago, her school in McPherson, Kan., banned student cellphones during the school day. But digital distractions continued. Many children watched YouTube videos or played video games on their school-issued Chromebook laptops. Some used school Gmail accounts to bully fellow students.

In December, the middle school asked all 480 students to return the Chromebooks they had freely used in class and at home. Now the school keeps the laptops, which run on Google’s Chrome operating system, in carts parked in classrooms. Children take notes mostly by hand, and laptops are used sparingly, for specific activities assigned by teachers. “We just felt we couldn’t have Chromebooks be that huge distraction,” said Ms. Esping, 43, Kansas’ 2025 middle school principal of the year. “This technology can be a tool. It is not the answer to education.”

McPherson Middle School no longer gives students their own Chromebooks to use in school and take home. The laptops are now kept in classroom carts and used only for specific activities assigned by teachers. McPherson Middle School, about an hour’s drive from Wichita, is at the forefront of a new tech backlash spreading in education: Chromebook remorse.

Elsewhere in the Times, an opinion piece by CS prof Cal Newport explains why Johnny — and his parents — can't concentrate and what to do about it.

Submission + - Bluesky says AI should serve people but right-leaning users are not welcome (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Bluesky is pitching a user-first vision for AI, arguing that it should serve people rather than platforms. The company is leaning on its decentralized AT Protocol and experimenting with a new app called Attie, which lets users describe the kind of social feed they want and have AI build it for them. The idea is to move away from opaque, engagement-driven algorithms and give individuals more control over what they see, especially as AI-generated content continues to flood social networks.

That all sounds promising, but in practice, the platformâ(TM)s culture tells a different story. Bluesky has developed a reputation for being heavily left-leaning, where right-leaning users often report feeling unwelcome or dismissed. So while the technology may aim to decentralize control and empower users, it does not automatically solve the human side of the equation. AI might be an accelerant, but if the underlying community is one-sided, it is unlikely to produce the kind of open, balanced discourse the platform claims to support.

Submission + - World's smallest QR code, smaller than bacteria, could store data for centuries (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: Scientists have created a microscopic QR code so tiny it can only be seen with an electron microscope—smaller than most bacteria and now officially a world record. But this isn’t just about size; it’s about durability. By engraving data into ultra-stable ceramic materials, the team has opened the door to storing information that could last for centuries or even millennia without needing power or maintenance.

Slashdot Top Deals

Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do. -- R. A. Heinlein

Close