6 h. ago AI to transform telecoms but technology won’t completely replace humans, new Optus CEO says

Stephen Rue says artificial intelligence will improve customer service and efficiency, but people required for decisionsGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastOptus’s new chief executive, Stephen Rue, says artificial intelligence will play a significant role in the future of telecommunications, but humans will remain central to the company.Rue joined the Australian mobile network operator, a subsidiary of Singaporean telecommunications company Singtel, in November last year after six years at the helm of the federal government’s National Broadband Network (NBN).Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...

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5 d. ago NatWest boss says AI is ‘addition’ to human jobs rather than replacement

Chief executive Paul Thwaite told MPs: “We don’t see a direct link between deploying technology and removal of jobs.”

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1 week ago For Silicon Valley, AI isn’t just about replacing some jobs. It’s about replacing all of them | Ed Newton

AI will do the thinking, robots will do the doing. What place do humans have in this arrangement – and do tech CEOs care?I recently found myself at a dinner in an upstairs room at a restaurant in San Francisco hosted by a venture capital firm. The after-dinner speaker was a tech veteran who, having sold his AI company for hundreds of millions of dollars, has now turned his hand to investing. He had a simple message for the assembled startup founders: the money you can make in AI isn’t limited to the paltry market sizes of previous technology waves. You can replace the world’s workers – which means you can capture their salaries. All of them.Replacing all human labour with AI sounds like the stuff of science fiction. But it is the explicit aim of a growing number of the tech elite – and these are people who lack neither drive nor resources, who have deep pockets and even deeper determination. If they say they want to automate all labour, we should take them at their word.Ed Newton-Re...

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2 w. ago Amazon reveals new robot that can feel – and it is going to pack your deliveries

System is a ‘fundamental leap forward in robotics’ – and Amazon claims it will work alongside rather than replace human workers

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2 w. ago Should ChatGPT be your therapist? Why women are turning to AI for emotional support

With therapy waitlists at record highs and sessions costing £60+, some women are leaning on AI tools like ChatGPT to cope but can it really replace human connection?

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3 w. ago Better at everything: how AI could make human beings irrelevant

The end of civilisation might look less like a war, and more like a love story. Can we avoid being willing participants in our own downfall?Right now, most big AI labs have a team figuring out ways that rogue AIs might escape supervision, or secretly collude with each other against humans. But there’s a more mundane way we could lose control of civilisation: we might simply become obsolete. This wouldn’t require any hidden plots – if AI and robotics keep improving, it’s what happens by default.How so? Well, AI developers are firmly on track to build better replacements for humans in almost every role we play: not just economically as workers and decision-makers, but culturally as artists and creators, and even socially as friends and romantic companions. What place will humans have when AI can do everything we do, only better? Continue reading...

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