After layoffs and an AI scandal, CNET's staff is unionizing

CNET, the venerable tech site which began publication nearly 30 years ago, has become the latest digital media company whose staff have chosen to band together and demand more. The CNET Media Worker's Union (CMWU) today sent a letter to Red Ventures, the private equity concern which purchased CNET in 2020, seeking recognition of a bargaining unit of nearly 100 workers including editors, writers, and video producers. According to CMWU, a supermajority of those in the unit signed union authorization cards.Like the overwhelming majority of other organized digital publications, the workers who make up CMWU are responding in large part to an increasingly hostile financial climate in the industry. CNET has not been spared the same tumult that has led to the shuttering of Buzzfeed News and VICE's decision to file for bankruptcy: the company went through three brutal rounds of layoffs over recent months, the most recent of which stripped approximately a dozen staffers from the masthead. "We lost a lot of really great reporters," Laura Michelle Davis, an editor with CNET and organizing committee member, told Engadget.According to Davis, that sense of uncertainty led to a number of voluntary departures, but also to the surviving staff choosing to organize. Despite those cuts, according to the union's statement sent to management today, staff have continue to be "subjected to ongoing restructuring, cost-cutting austerity measures, shifting job roles and promotion freezes." CMWU has... Continue reading at 'Engadget'

[ Engadget | 2023-05-16 16:13:18 UTC ]
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Rutgers University's Barnes & Noble College Booksellers Unionize

The workers at B&N College Booksellers at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., have voted unanimously to unionize. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-05-15 04:00:00 UTC ]
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AI machines aren’t ‘hallucinating’. But their makers are | Naomi Klein

Tech CEOs want us to believe that generative AI will benefit humanity. They are kidding themselvesInside the many debates swirling around the rapid rollout of so-called artificial intelligence, there is a relatively obscure skirmish focused on the choice of the word “hallucinate”.This is the... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2023-05-08 08:02:01 UTC ]
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AI Concerns Drop Chegg Stock by 48%

The stock price of Chegg, the online learning platform for university students, fell 48% Tuesday, after its CEO reported that a spike in interest by students in ChatGPT resulted in lower than expected results in the first quarter. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-05-03 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Teachers Union Protests Outside Literacy Partners Gala in New York City

The Movement of Rank and File Educators turned up to the event on May 1 to protest cuts to public resources spearheaded by Mayor Eric Adams, who was being honored with Literacy Partners' Champion of Literacy Award. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-05-02 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Workers at B&N Flagship Store in NYC Launch Union Drive

Workers at the Barnes & Noble flagship store in New York City's Union Square filed on Friday for a union election with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. It is the second union drive started by B&N workers in the past month. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-05-01 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Harper Design Closed Among More Layoffs at HarperCollins

As part of a plan to cut 5% of its North American workforce force by June 30, HarperCollins has closed its Harper Design imprint this week, among other layoffs. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-04-28 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Microsoft Designer’s superb, free AI art tools open to everyone

Microsoft is taking its superb AI art / visual designer tool, Microsoft Designer, and opening it up to the general public today. The company is also publicizing its intelligent features: AI-generated captions and hashtags, new image formatting for social media, and AI-powered editing... Continue reading at PC World

[ PC World | 2023-04-27 17:06:28 UTC ]
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The top 5 AI marketing activations you need to know about right now

Bush's Beans gets a spot, a fake pizza brand pops up, Harry Potter gets Wes Anderson treatment and more. Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2023-04-27 09:30:00 UTC ]
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Blair Tindall, Whose Music Memoir Scandalized, Dies at 63

Her 2005 book, “Mozart in the Jungle,” lived up to its subtitle, “Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music,” and was later made into an Amazon TV series. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2023-04-19 18:57:28 UTC ]
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Google calls for relaxing of Australia’s copyright laws so AI can mine websites for information

Tech company argues government should support artificial intelligence development while artists seek protectionsFollow our Australia news live blog for the latest updatesGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastGoogle and other tech giants have called on the... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2023-04-19 04:40:32 UTC ]
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‘I didn’t give permission’: Do AI’s backers care about data law breaches?

Regulators around world are cracking down on content being hoovered up by ChatGPT, Stable Diffusion and othersCutting-edge artificial intelligence systems can help you escape a parking fine, write an academic essay, or fool you into believing Pope Francis is a fashionista. But the virtual... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2023-04-10 09:10:17 UTC ]
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Authors Guild Meets with Legislators Over Generative AI Concerns

The Guild led a coalition of creative groups who spent a week lobbying lawmakers for legal guardrails against generative artificial intelligence programs and educating them on potential harms posed by such programs on literary and creative industries. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-04-05 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Adobe is bringing generative AI features to Photoshop, After Effects and Premiere Pro

Adobe’s suite of photo and video editing software has long leveraged the assistance of machine intelligence to help its human users do their jobs, having employed the Sensei AI system for more than a decade to power features like Neural Filters in Photoshop or Acrobat's Liquid Mode. On Tuesday,... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2023-03-21 13:00:34 UTC ]
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AI-generated images from text can't be copyrighted, US government rules

Any images that are produced by giving a text prompt to current generative AI models, such as Midjourney or Stable Diffusion, cannot be copyrighted in the US. That's according to the US Copyright Office (USCO), which has equated such prompts to a buyer giving directions to a commissioned artist.... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2023-03-16 17:42:43 UTC ]
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GPT-4 unleashed: Here’s what it will mean for AI chatbots

OpenAI unveiled GPT-4 today, its next-gen large language model that is the technical foundation for both ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Bing AI chatbots. It’s a profound upgrade, potentially opening the door for major advances in both the capabilities and features of today’s AI... Continue reading at PC World

[ PC World | 2023-03-14 19:29:22 UTC ]
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What Isaac Asimov Can Teach Us About AI

The science fiction writer imagined artificial intelligence—and what it might want—long before this uncanny reality ever became our own. Continue reading at The Atlantic

[ The Atlantic | 2023-03-03 12:19:04 UTC ]
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Image Comics Union Ratifies First Contract

Union members of comics publisher Image Comics voted overwhelmingly in favor of its first-ever contract. The staffers are members of Comic Book Workers United, a new affiliate of the Communications Workers of America. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-03-03 05:00:00 UTC ]
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‘AI’ at Bologna: The Hair-Raising Topic of 2023

The buzziest programming of the run-up to Bologna Children's Book Fair focus on artificial intelligence and its impact on publishing. The post ‘AI’ at Bologna: The Hair-Raising Topic of 2023 appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2023-03-01 11:22:06 UTC ]
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Science Fiction Tried to Warn Us about AI. Or Did It?, by Tom Gammarino

Science Fiction Tried to Warn Us about AI. Or Did It?, by Tom Gammarino Essay [email protected] Wed, 03/01/2023 - 03:46 Photo by NASA / Unsplash “All our AI Frankenstein stories,” the author writes, “warn us that AI will destroy us, but far... Continue reading at World Literature Today

[ World Literature Today | 2023-03-01 09:46:57 UTC ]
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German publisher Axel Springer says journalists could be replaced by AI

Owner of Politico urges focus on investigative journalism and original commentary, as company prepares for job cuts at German papers Die Welt and BildJournalists are at risk of being replaced by artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT, the CEO of German media group Axel Springer has... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2023-03-01 01:23:51 UTC ]
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