Hillican Valley – Tech layoffs escalate

Layoffs are spreading among Silicon Valley giants, with Google announcing on Friday that it will cut about 12,000 jobs.

Meanwhile, T-Mobile said a hacker stole the data of some 37 million customers, and a poll found that nearly 30 percent of professionals surveyed said they used the new ChatGPT tool at work.

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Google to cut 12,000 jobs

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, will cut about 12,000 jobs, amid widespread layoffs across the tech sector.

“Over the past two years, we have seen periods of dramatic growth,” Chief Executive Sundar Pichai said in an email to Google employees on Friday. “To match and drive this growth, we employ a different economic reality than what we face today.”

After a “rigorous review,” Pichai said they would cut staff across Alphabet’s “product areas, functions, levels, and regions.”

“As a nearly 25-year-old company, we’re bound to go through tough economic cycles,” Pichai added. “These are important times to sharpen our focus, redesign our cost base and direct our people and capital to our highest priorities.”

The layoffs join tens of thousands of other layoffs announced by tech companies in recent weeks:

Meta also cut 11,000 jobs in November and thousands more by the end of 2022 from Twitter, Netflix, Stripe and others.

Read more here.

T-Mobile Hackers Steal Data on 37M

T-Mobile said a hacker stole the data of about 37 million customers after gaining access to the company’s systems for the first time in November, according to a report filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Thursday.

The phone carrier said it first identified the “bad actor” on Jan. 1. 5 and be able to track and stop their activities within a day.

“Our investigation is still ongoing, but at this time the malicious activity appears to have been fully contained, and there is currently no evidence that bad actors were able to compromise or compromise our systems or network,” T-Mobile said in an SEC filing.

Around November 10, hackers compromised an application programming interface. 25, which contained data about customers’ names, billing addresses, emails, phone numbers, dates of birth, T-Mobile account numbers, and plan information. However, T-Mobile noted that many of the 37 million accounts affected did not include this entire range of data.

Read more here.

Nearly 30% say they use CHATGPT at work

Nearly 30 percent of professional workers said they had used artificial intelligence software called ChatGPT at work.

A poll by Fishbowl, a publication that focuses on workplace trends and employee views, found that 27 percent of professionals use the program to help them with work-related tasks. The poll reported that those in the marketing and advertising industry use it most often, with 37% saying so.

Launched to the public in November, the AI ​​search tool has since gained popularity as a free service. Users of the program can enter a question and the tool will provide the answer in the form of an article.

Read more here.

spare parts

A column worth chewing on: Social media must balance ‘right to free speech’ with audience ‘right to know’

Famous links from around the web:

Tech layoffs hit young workers. the elderly? Not that much. (New York Times/Tripp Mickle)

Tech workers fight for Iran protesters as big tech plays it safe (Wired/Paresh Dave)

tomorrow’s business

Tensions heat up between Democrats and Musk

Tensions are heating up between Elon Musk and Senate Democrats ahead of former President Trump’s expected return to Twitter following reports that hate speech has spread since Musk took over the popular social media platform last year. has increased.

Mori. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) raised concerns about Twitter’s opaque funding and whether foreign interests could gain enough leverage over a “digital city square” to pose a national security threat before the 2024 election.

Anticipating more criticism from Democratic lawmakers, Musk predicted on Wednesday that the Biden administration “may try to weaponize federal agencies against Twitter.”

Read more here.

That’s all for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s technology and cybersecurity pages for the latest news and coverage. See you on Monday.

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