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Recent Editions
Human Times
North America
The U.S. government has given Anthropic the green light to put its Claude Mythos 5 artificial intelligence model back into the hands of 100 or so “trusted partners”, including many Fortune 500 companies and U.S. government departments. The Trump administration had been concerned that such powerful AI systems could be misused by military intelligence users in China, Russia or other countries. Reuters notes that the administration's vetting of which companies can gain access to Mythos has been widely criticized. "No one knows how these companies are picked and why everyone else is excluded," observed John Coleman, legislative counsel for the Philadelphia-based nonpartisan free speech organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. "This is putting too much power in the hands of the government. There's little transparency and it raises questions about the rule of law."
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Human Times
UK
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has said the city's efforts to deal with rising temperatures will require the help of private investors due to the considerable financial cost. “This is an environmental crisis, but also it’s an economic crisis, a public health crisis, and a social justice crisis,” Khan said. “The costs of inaction outweigh the cost of action, but also we recognize we can’t do this by ourselves from City Hall.” The Mayor's office has set out an inaugural plan to deal with extreme heat in the age of climate change, including a concession to air conditioning, of which it was previously sceptical due to the energy required to run units. Meanwhile, Khan has said there should be a maximum and minimum limit for how hot workplaces and classrooms get before they close. “Sometimes in winter months schools and workplaces shouldn’t be too cold just as in summer they shouldn’t be too hot . . . I think it’s really important for each individual employer and headteacher to make a common-sense decision based on what’s right for them.”
Human Times
Europe
British American Tobacco (BAT) has announced plans to cut 5,500 jobs by the end of the year and outsource a further 3,500 as the cigarette-maker looks for ways to push down costs. BAT is contending with falling demand for traditional cigarettes in many markets and shifting its focus to smoking alternatives such as its Vuse vapes and Velo nicotine pouches to drive growth. The company said the cuts were part of a “transformation programme” that is expected to create £600m of annual cost savings by the end of 2028. BAT chief executive Tadeu Marroco said the company was “building a future-ready organisation” that was “more agile, cost disciplined and technology enabled.”
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Human Times
Middle East
The Wall Street Journal reports that some employers are cutting back on junior hiring because widespread remote work is making young talent a less attractive value proposition. Researchers from the London School of Economics, who recently observed that the amount of hiring devoted to entry-level roles across some countries has fallen more than 14% since 2019, said the return-on-investment after the hiring of an entry-level worker is dependent on the rate at which that young employee learns. Since remote work slows that process, employers prefer to invest instead in older workers, the researchers argue. “The implication is stark . . . A persistent contraction of this kind hollows out the pipeline of future experienced workers, causing declines in aggregate productivity as well as imposing cohort-specific scarring,” they wrote.
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