AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It #ai #longread

Summary.  One of the promises of AI is that it can reduce workloads so employees can focus more on higher-value and more engaging tasks. But according to new research, AI tools don’t reduce work, they consistently intensify it: In the study, employees worked at a faster pace, took on a broader scope of tasks, and extended work into more hours of the day, often without being asked to do so. That may sound like a win, but it’s not quite so simple. These changes can be unsustainable, leading to workload creep, cognitive fatigue, burnout, and weakened decision-making. The productivity surge enjoyed at the beginning can give way to lower quality work, turnover, and other problems. To correct for this, companies need to adopt an “AI practice,” or a set of norms and standards around AI use that can include intentional pauses, sequencing work, and adding more human grounding.

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New EU rules to stop destruction of unsold clothes and shoes - Environment #environment

The European Commission adopted new measures under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) to prevent the destruction of unsold apparel, clothing, accessories and footwear.

The rules will help cut waste, reduce environmental damage and create a level playing field for companies embracing sustainable business models, allowing them to reap the benefits of a more circular economy.

Every year in Europe, an estimated 4-9% of unsold textiles are destroyed before ever being worn. This waste generates around 5.6 million tons of CO2 emissions – almost equal to Sweden’s total net emissions in 2021.

To help reduce this wasteful practice, the ESPR requires companies to disclose information on the unsold consumer products they discard as waste. It also introduces a ban on the destruction of unsold apparel, clothing accessories and footwear.

Hideki Sato, designer of all Sega’s consoles, has died | VGC #promemoria

Hideki Sato, the designer behind virtually every Sega console, and the company’s former president, has died age 77.

Japanese games outlet Beep21 reports that Sato passed away this weekend.

Sato and his R&D team were responsible for the creation of Sega’s arcade and home console hardware, including the Master System, Genesis / Mega Drive, Saturn, and Dreamcast.

Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit: Tools for Thinking Critically & Knowing Pseudoscience When You See It | Open Culture #science #philosophy

The Demon-Haunt­ed World is the sub­ject of the Genet­i­cal­ly Mod­i­fied Skep­tic video above, whose host Drew McCoy describes it as his favorite book. He pays spe­cial atten­tion to its chap­ter in which Sagan lays out what he calls his “baloney detec­tion kit.” This assem­bled metaphor­i­cal box of tools for diag­nos­ing fraud­u­lent argu­ments and con­struct­ing rea­soned ones involves these nine prin­ci­ples:

• Wher­ev­er pos­si­ble there must be inde­pen­dent con­fir­ma­tion of the “facts.”
• Encour­age sub­stan­tive debate on the evi­dence by knowl­edge­able pro­po­nents of all points of view.
• Argu­ments from author­i­ty car­ry lit­tle weight — “author­i­ties” have made mis­takes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Per­haps a bet­ter way to say it is that in sci­ence there are no author­i­ties; at most, there are experts.
• Spin more than one hypoth­e­sis. If there’s some­thing to be explained, think of all the dif­fer­ent ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly dis­prove each of the alter­na­tives.
• Try not to get over­ly attached to a hypoth­e­sis just because it’s yours. It’s only a way sta­tion in the pur­suit of knowl­edge. Ask your­self why you like the idea. Com­pare it fair­ly with the alter­na­tives.
• See if you can find rea­sons for reject­ing it. If you don’t, oth­ers will.
• If what­ev­er it is you’re explain­ing has some mea­sure, some numer­i­cal quan­ti­ty attached to it, you’ll be much bet­ter able to dis­crim­i­nate among com­pet­ing hypothe­ses. What is vague and qual­i­ta­tive is open to many expla­na­tions.
• If there’s a chain of argu­ment, every link in the chain must work (includ­ing the premise) — not just most of them.
• Occam’s Razor. This con­ve­nient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypothe­ses that explain the data equal­ly well to choose the sim­pler. Always ask whether the hypoth­e­sis can be, at least in prin­ci­ple, fal­si­fied…. You must be able to check asser­tions out. Invet­er­ate skep­tics must be giv­en the chance to fol­low your rea­son­ing, to dupli­cate your exper­i­ments and see if they get the same result.

Ireland rolls out pioneering basic income scheme for artists | Reuters #ubi #society #economy

Ireland rolled out a permanent basic income scheme for the arts on Tuesday, pledging to pay 2,000 creative workers 325 euros ($387) per week following a trial that participants said eased financial strain and allowed them to spend more time on projects. Ireland began the three-year trial in 2022 to help artists recover from COVID-19 shutdowns. While similar pilots have been tried in San Francisco and New York, Ireland's Culture Minister Patrick O'Donovan said the scheme was the first permanent one of its kind in the world.

Europe's $24 Trillion Breakup With Visa and Mastercard #economy #finances #digitalsovereignty

Every time a European taps a card, pays online or splits a bill with friends, the transaction flows through infrastructure owned and operated by American companies. Visa and Mastercard together process approximately $24 trillion in transactions annually. Card payments account for 56% of all cashless transactions in the EU. And the data — who bought what, where, when and for how much — leaves European jurisdiction every time.

“It’s important for us to have digital payment under our control,” Lagarde told The Pat Kenny Show. “Whether you use a card or whether you use a phone, typically it goes through Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Alipay. Where are all those coming from? Well, either the US or China.”

How H-1B visa changes are fueling tech hiring in India - Rest of World #career #economy

If tech talent can’t come to the U.S., American companies will go where the talent is.

Hiring by Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, and Google has risen sharply in India in recent months. This trend coincides with the growing scrutiny of the H-1B visa, often used by tech companies to bring international talent to the U.S.

There were about 4,200 open positions at these companies in India as of February 5, Anuj Agrawal, founder and CEO of talent advisory and recruitment firm Zyoin Group, told Rest of World.

Of the current openings, just 15% are for entry-level roles that require less than three years of experience, while AI, machine learning, cloud, and cybersecurity roles comprise nearly half of the vacancies.

The shadowy world of abandoned oil tankers #economy #world #longread

Back in 2016, 20 ships were abandoned around the world, according to the ITF. In 2025 the number had ballooned to 410, with 6,223 merchant seamen falling victim. Both of those figures for last year were up by almost a third on 2024.

Geopolitical instability is said to have been a driving factor of the increase in recent years. Widespread conflicts around the world and the Covid pandemic have triggered supply chain disruption and wild variation in freight costs, meaning some operators are struggling to stay afloat.

But the ITF says the growing prevalence of so-called "shadow fleets" could be contributing to the big spike last year.

These ships, typically oil tankers such as the one Ivan is stuck on, are more often ageing vessels of obscure ownership, unseaworthy, likely uninsured, and operationally hazardous. And they typically sail under flags of convenience or FOCs - the ships are registered in countries with very limited regulatory oversight.

The shadow fleet vessels are trying to stay under the radar to help countries such as Russia, Iran and Venezuela export their crude in contravention of Western sanctions.

Matrix messaging gaining ground in government IT • The Register #internet #privacy

FOSDEM 2026 Amid growing interest in digital sovereignty and getting data out of the corporate cloud and into organizations' ownership, the Matrix open communication protocol is thriving.

The project was co-founded by Matthew Hodgson and Amandine le Pape, and The Reg FOSS desk met both at this year's FOSDEM for a chat about what's happening with Matrix.

The Register has covered Matrix and its commercial Element side quite a few times over the years, but we thought it might make things a little clearer to first explain the two sides of the Matrix project. It has existed since 2014 when it separated from its parent and sponsor, telecoms vendor Amdocs, which we've covered since at least 2000.

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