If AI takes over many jobs, how will people make a living? If AI takes over many jobs, how will people make a living? Once the AI bubble pops, we'll all suffer. Could that be better than letting it grow unabated? The Guardian's journalism is independent.

Sign up to receive the Future Tense newsletter every other Saturday. It's a busy time to run a Secret Santa site. For Elfster, one such site, the normal staff of around 20 elves (yes, they call themselves elves) balloons to a team of about 55. "We need a million servers, we need tons of support people--it's just off the hook for the holidays," Peter Imburg, the company's CEO, told me recently on Zoom. More than 21 million people have used Elfster for exchanges, and Imburg said the biggest group he's seen participate in an exchange on the platform was about 5,000 people. Imburg started Elfster in 2004 (the time of Friendster and Napster, hence the name) as a way to solve a personal problem: How to coordinate a family gift exchange when not everyone was in the same place, and with certain conditions, like not selecting yourself or your spouse?

The pandemic situation has changed the way we do business. Digitalization has accelerated in many ways. We see many businesses moving to online, we see cryptocurrencies emerging and metaverses being created. With Facebook's recent announcement of rebranding to Meta, this trend has only gained speed. Artificial intelligence (AI) has now become more important than ever.

We recently featured the brilliant Nichesss, an AI tool that can be used to generate content and ideas. As is often the case with new tools a Facebook group has been set up and recently users have posted some interesting results using the tool…AI written short stories! I'll get on to how in a moment, let's just take a moment to check out some examples. As the cradle rocked, and the fire crackled, and the kitten snoozed, a robot appeared at the door of the cottage. It was battered, dented and dirty.

The Pixel 4a is a return to form for Google's smartphone efforts: a lower-cost, mid-range phone that is high quality, long-lasting and fairly small, with a great camera. The £349 Pixel 4a is very much an attempt to boil down a smartphone to only the essentials and then make them all work really well. It slots under the higher-priced £669-and-up Pixel 4 series, replacing last year's Pixel 3a and 3a XL with only one size of phone, taking the design of the 3a and expanding the screen to fill the front of the device. A 5G version is coming later in the year but for now the Pixel 4a is 4G only. The body is high-quality, soft-touch polycarbonate and feels surprisingly nice.

After almost six years on the market, smart speakers now come in a variety of sizes, shapes, capabilities and prices. Whether you want a cheap speaker to keep the kids entertained, one that doubles as a digital photo frame or one that sounds so good you'll want to yell "turn it up to 11", here's a quick guide to the best on the market. Google's Assistant is the best voice system on the market. It has better understanding than rivals, an enormous range of knowledge and – importantly – the ability to choose between male and female voices, even on a user-by-user basis as Google can distinguish between the individuals giving instructions. The Nest Mini is the second generation of Google's smallest and cheapest smart speaker.

Coping with lockdown life is hard enough without having to listen to other members of your household while you are trying to work. If you can't get away physically, a set of noise-cancelling headphones could be just the ticket to isolate you just enough to concentrate. Most cheaper noise-cancelling headphones are terrible, but the Lindy BNX-60 are actually pretty good. They're a little old, originally released in 2016, but having been reduced to just £50 they offer incredible value. The noise-cancelling handles background drone fairly well, while the ear cups enclose your ears to help quieten the rest of the world.

Sennheiser's second-generation high-end true wireless earbuds gain noise cancelling and longer battery life to do battle with Sony and Apple. The German firm's first earbuds were some of the best-sounding available. Now Sennheiser hopes its £280 Momentum True Wireless 2 can steal the show once again. The first thing you notice is just how big the earbuds are. Despite being slightly smaller than the previous versions they are still large, shaped like a fez with the eartip projecting out of one corner.

My smart TV is old (Samsung, 2014) so I watch BBC iPlayer on my Now TV box (also old and discontinued). What is the best device for all the popular streaming services including the upcoming Disney? To my knowledge, it is not yet confirmed if it will be available on my Roku-powered Now TV box. You may be in luck, because Disney has just signed a deal with Sky. As a result, Disney will be available via Sky from its UK launch on 24 March, to be followed by Now TV in the coming months, says Sky. It's not clear how many months that means.

During an interview with the BBC last year, Google's senior vice-president for devices and services, Rick Osterloh, pondered whether a homeowner should disclose the presence of smart home devices to guests. "I would, and do, when someone enters into my home," he said. When your central heating thermostat asks for your phone number, your TV knows what you like to watch and hackers can install spyware in your home through a lightbulb security flaw, perhaps it's time we all started taking smart home privacy issues more seriously. Just this week the National Cyber Security Centre issued a warning to owners of smart cameras and baby monitors to review their security settings. You can get a quick overview of privacy options for many smart home devices using the Mozilla "*privacy not included" guide; however if you've already invested in particular technology, all is not lost.