Natural language processing (NLP) has seen remarkable advancements with the development of large language models (LLMs). Despite these advancements, LLMs often produce socially biased outputs. Recent studies have mainly addressed this problem by prompting LLMs to behave ethically, but this approach results in unacceptable performance degradation. In this paper, we propose a multi-objective approach within a multi-agent framework (MOMA) to mitigate social bias in LLMs without significantly compromising their performance. The key idea of MOMA involves deploying multiple agents to perform causal interventions on bias-related contents of the input questions, breaking the shortcut connection between these contents and the corresponding answers. Unlike traditional debiasing techniques leading to performance degradation, MOMA substantially reduces bias while maintaining accuracy in downstream tasks. Our experiments conducted on two datasets and two models demonstrate that MOMA reduces bias scores by up to 87.7%, with only a marginal performance degradation of up to 6.8% in the BBQ dataset. Additionally, it significantly enhances the multi-objective metric icat in the StereoSet dataset by up to 58.1%. Code will be made available at https://github.com/Cortantse/MOMA.

Booths, a high-end supermarket chain in northern England, has announced it is removing self-checkouts in the majority of its stores. The retailer said it was not a fan of the machines and prided itself on great customer service "and you can't do that through a robot". It is believed to be the first supermarket chain in the UK to return to fully-staffed tills, so the Guardian asked people for their views about self-checkouts. Here, four of them share their experiences of the machines and the effect they have on their supermarket shop. Self-checkouts are one of the things that rile me – if they're my only choice in a shop I feel really aggravated.

It was a busy weekend at the local supermarket, and lines were forming at checkout. Around a half-dozen people lined up at the automated checkout registers when I noticed there was no line at the checkout where a human cashier was waiting. When a customer approached the checkout area, they scanned the options and decided to wait in line for the automated checkout instead of walking right up to the cashier with no wait. I could not resist asking the customer why they chose to wait for a machine instead of getting immediate service from a human. Their response carries an important message for the future of artificial intelligence (AI) and the robots it enables: "I don't want them (the human cashier) looking at everything that I'm buying, and I don't care for their opinions of what I'm getting."

Recently, a man used the AI image generator Midjourney to enter a fine arts contest for the Colorado State Fair under the "Digital Arts/Digitally-Manipulated Photography" category. His piece won the top prize, sparking conversation from artists about the validity of AI in art. Many have flocked to AIs like Midjourney and DALL-E 2, which are designed to create illustrations from simple, one-sentence prompts, for their low-effort input and high-quality output. DALL-E 2 can "create realistic images and art from a description in natural language." The program, along with Midjourney and other image generation AI like Stable Diffusion, dominated internet searches for months.

When customers buy a cupcake at a Sprinkles bakery, they no longer line up at a cashier. Instead, they type into a tablet, swipe a credit card and wait for an employee to retrieve an order. The kiosk system -- which the cupcake chain began testing during at the beginning of the pandemic -- initially allowed social distancing. Now, it helps the Austin, Texas-based company keep pace with increased online orders in a tight labor market where new employees are hard to find and retain. Its 20 locations will have the kiosks by early January, said Justin Murakami, Sprinkles senior vice president of operations.

The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of cutting-edge technologies. From contactless cashiers to welding drones to "chow bots" -- machines that serve up salads on demand -- automation is fundamentally transforming, rather than merely touching, every aspect of daily life. This prospect may well please consumers. Forsaking human folly for algorithmic (and mechanistic) perfection means better, cheaper, and faster service. But what should workers -- who once provided these services -- expect?

When Kroger customers in Cincinnati shop online these days, their groceries may be picked out not by a worker in their local supermarket but by a robot in a nearby warehouse. Gamers at Dave & Buster's in Dallas who want pretzel dogs can order and pay from their phones -- no need to flag down a waiter. And in the drive-through lane at Checkers near Atlanta, requests for Big Buford burgers and Mother Cruncher chicken sandwiches may be fielded not by a cashier in a headset, but by a voice-recognition algorithm. An increase in automation, especially in service industries, may prove to be an economic legacy of the pandemic. Businesses from factories to fast-food outlets to hotels turned to technology last year to keep operations running amid social distancing requirements and contagion fears.

AI, or artificial intelligence, has become huge in recent years and has affected many aspects of our society. We've seen it in our restaurants, our hospitals, and even our schools. AI is even impacting the latest casino bonuses. Since many people like to gamble online, online casinos have implemented AI to help you beat probabilities and earn you more bonuses. However, you sometimes have to wonder whether AI is affecting your life as well.

If you are looking to make a career move or are seeing a rapid decline in your current industry, it's vital to continually look to the future for job security. Some specific sectors and industries are rapidly growing with our economy, yet many others will quickly die with a dismal future ahead. During the pandemic, many workers found out their jobs were not considered "essential" by the government, and they were forced to either work from home or were laid off. One of the most frustrating aspects of the virus was it seemed to come out of nowhere, and there was very little we could do to have been prepared for it ahead of time. Due to market volatility and the quickly changing job industries, it's essential to evaluate your current or future career's health before deciding to make any substantial life changes.

This is a series of 4 articles I am sharing here, for people who are concerned and eager to understand more about job displacement impact potentially caused by artificial intelligence technology. You would read about "safe" versus "endangered" jobs in this series. The jobs listed in each article are demonstrative from my research research and technological knowledge, which may or may not fit into your personal scenario. I highly encourage readers to take those as references and inspirations, and to start re-imagine and re-strategize your career today with our shared future -- powered by AI. Telesales are among the very first professions to be replaced.