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Shoring up global supply chains with generative AI

It is not the only catastrophic event to strike supply chains in the last five years either. For example, in 2021 a six-day blockage of the Suez Canal—a narrow waterway through which 30% of global container traffic passes—added further upheaval, impacting an estimated $9.6 billion in goods each day that it remained impassable. These shocks have been a sobering wake-up call. Now, 86% of CEOs cite resilience as a priority issue in their own supply chains. Amid ongoing efforts to better prepare fo

Half of companies planning to replace customer service with AI are reversing course

Editor's take: Customer care has become one of the most notorious business failures of the digital age, and everyone knows it. Now, artificial intelligence threatens to take this horror show of impersonal, unreliable service to a whole new level. Within a couple of years, 50 percent of the organizations that had planned to replace their customer service personnel with AI models are expected to reverse their decision. According to a recent survey from Gartner, the original goals were overly ambi

CEO Says AI Will Replace So Many Jobs That It’ll Cause a Major Recession

The CEO of layaway startup Klarna is claiming that AI is coming for your white-collar jobs — even though his own experiments with replacing human workers with AI were a bust. Speaking to The Times Tech podcast, the Sweden-based CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski admitted that adoption of the technology will result in "implication[s] for white-collar jobs" that include, but are not limited to, "at least a recession in the short term." "Unfortunately, I don't see how we could avoid it, with what's happ

Topics: ai ceo human like workers

Are we ready to hand AI agents the keys?

The flash crash is probably the most well-known example of the dangers raised by agents—automated systems that have the power to take actions in the real world, without human oversight. That power is the source of their value; the agents that supercharged the flash crash, for example, could trade far faster than any human. But it’s also why they can cause so much mischief. “The great paradox of agents is that the very thing that makes them useful—that they’re able to accomplish a range of tasks—

Inside the AI Party at the End of the World

In a $30 million mansion perched on a cliff overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, a group of AI researchers, philosophers, and technologists gathered to discuss the end of humanity. The Sunday afternoon symposium, called “Worthy Successor,” revolved around a provocative idea from entrepreneur Daniel Faggella: The “moral aim” of advanced AI should be to create a form of intelligence so powerful and wise that “you would gladly prefer that it (not humanity) determine the future path of life itself.”

Anthropic Abruptly Shuts Down Blog Run by Its AI, Won't Say Why

Anthropic wanted to show off its Claude chatbot's writing skills by having it pen a blog on the plain old internet — but just after its launch, the company kiboshed the entire thing. As TechCrunch reports, the "Claude Explains" project was only live for a few weeks before Anthropic decided to pull the plug, erasing all of its purportedly human-edited posts — which seem mostly to have been about coding — without any explanation. Revealed by TechCrunch earlier in June, Claude's blog was, as an A

Why humanoid robots need their own safety rules

“If Digit’s going to walk out into an aisle in front of you, you don’t want to be surprised by that,” he says. The robot could use voice commands, but audio alone is not practical for a loud industrial setting. It could be even more confusing if you have multiple robots in the same space—which one is trying to get your attention? There’s also a psychological effect that differentiates humanoids from other kinds of robots, says Prather. We naturally anthropomorphize robots that look like us, whi

This Muscle-Powered Robot Might Be the Creepiest Thing We've Ever Seen

Forget valleys; we're now entering veritable Grand Canyons of uncanniness. Behold the robot known as "Protoclone," built by Clone Robotics. It's supposedly the world's first bipedal, musculoskeletal android. But it's mostly just got people extremely creeped out. In a promotional video shared on X this Wednesday, the startup — of which little is known — makes every effort possible to subvert the industry's favored image of robots as servile little helpers there for the good of humankind. Nope.

Robot with 1,000 muscles twitches like human while dangling from ceiling

On Wednesday, Clone Robotics released video footage of its Protoclone humanoid robot, a full-body machine that uses synthetic muscles to create unsettlingly human-like movements. In the video, the robot hangs suspended from the ceiling as its limbs twitch and kick, marking what the company claims is a step toward its goal of creating household-helper robots. Atherton, California-based Clone Robotics designed the Protoclone with a polymer skeleton that replicates 206 human bones. The company bui

Avatar: Seven Havens‘ Apocalyptic Premise Has Korra Fans Worried Their Hero Is Going to Get Slandered

Yesterday, Nickelodeon and Avatar Studios finally unveiled some concrete details about Avatar: Seven Havens, the new animated spin-off of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. While the news came with comforting details like a lengthy episode count and the involvement of series co-creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, the plot details of the new show have Korra fans bracing for more slander of their favorite hero. Accompanying Seven Havens‘ announcement was some flavor t

Dreo 6L Smart Humidifier Just Had Its Biggest Price Cut Ever, Only $72 on Amazon

Looking to combat dry air without the hassle of constant refills and confusing controls? Dreo’s latest humidifier is making waves with its powerful 500mL/hr output and smart features that actually work. This 6L beast combines warm and cool mist options with app control, making it a standout choice for keeping your space perfectly humid without turning it into a sauna. Right now, Amazon’s knocked the price down to $72 from its usual $90, saving you $18 (20% off). It’s a solid deal on a feature-p

This smart humidifier is helping me win the war against winter dryness (and it's on sale)

You'd be hard-pressed to find a better humidifier at this price point. Jack Wallen/ZDNET What's the deal? Amazon is currently offering the Dreo Smart 5L Humidifier for $60, which is 20% off the regular price. Why this deal is ZDNET recommended I went hands-on with this humidifier, and it performed flawlessly in my testing with a slue of easy to use functions that make it a worthwhile investment. ZDNET's key takeaways Regularly priceed at $75, the Dreo Smart 5L Humidifier is on sale on Amaz

Mercor, an AI recruiting startup founded by 21-year-olds, raises $100M at $2B valuation

Mercor, the AI recruiting startup founded by three 21-year-old Thiel Fellows, has raised $100 million in a Series B round, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. Menlo Park-based Felicis led the round, valuing Mercor at $2 billion—eight times its previous valuation, the Wall Street Journal previously reported. Existing investors Benchmark, General Catalyst, and DST Global also participated. General Catalyst had led the company’s $3.6 million seed round in 2023, while Benchmark backed its $32 mil

Humane wrapped its bet against the iPhone in the cloak of AI and lost

The Ai Pin is officially dead. Parts of Humane have been sold to HP, and the Ai Pin will cease to function in a week. Cause of death? An outdated and undercooked bet against the iPhone made by former Apple engineers that Humane tried to disguise as artificial intelligence hardware. Bloomberg reports that HP has agreed to acquire assets from Humane for $116 million. Humane’s sole product, Ai Pin, won’t become an HP product. Instead, HP will put the parts of Humane that it is acquiring into its A

The Humane AI Pin debacle is a reminder that AI alone doesn’t make a compelling product

The demise of Humane is perhaps the most predictable tech story of 2025. The company tried to build some buzz around its AI Pin in late 2023, marketing the device as a tiny replacement for smartphones and playing up the fact that Humane’s co-founders were former Apple employees. The problem was that it wasn’t really clear what the AI Pin would do to justify its $700 asking price (plus a $24/month subscription). It didn’t take long for things to spiral out of control. The AI Pin was released in