Microsoft said it won't raise salaries for full-time employees this year, the latest sign of tech companies' belt-tightening amid concerns about a slowing economy. The software company, which is in the midst of embracing new artificial-intelligence tools that could revolutionize work and learning, said it plans to offer promotions, bonuses and stock awards to full-time employees this year.

You have probably read a lot about the major changes brought on by AI technology in recent months. Many people have called 2023 "the year of AI." Every day we hear new stories about miraculous breakthroughs caused by ChatGPT and other AI applications. For example, ChatGPT recently The Independent said that the technology is starting to show signs that it can think like humans. Some companies are interested in taking advantage of the benefits of existing AI tools like ChatGPT. However, others want more control over AI technology, so they are seeking to develop their own AI software.

Automation has become widely recognized for saving employees time and effort by carrying out high volume, repetitive and typically error-prone tasks. By utilizing robotic process automation (RPA), enterprises can more easily manage their manual, time-intensive tasks while also boosting accuracy, timeliness, and compliance. RPA also has been leveraged for cost avoidance. During the COVID-19 pandemic, companies across a variety of industries used automation to ensure business continuity and optimize costs. For example, airline companies developed automated processes to refund customers and reschedule flights.

The Chinese crypto community operation team of EpiK will be cancelled before Jan 1, 2022. There will be no more full-time employees of EpiK Protocol Foundation in China. We are grateful for the contribution of the Chinese team. All Chinese team members are welcome to join our global community as community ambassadors. The AI data constructed in EpiK Protocol network is valuable and has nothing to do with cryptocurrency.

Autonomous vehicles were supposed to make human drivers obsolete. But the coronavirus pandemic is exposing how a technology designed to be human-free still relies on a large workforce of contract laborers at almost every level. The Verge reached out to 10 autonomous vehicle developers to find out what they were doing in response to the coronavirus outbreak. Almost all of them said they would be grounding their fleets for at least several weeks as they monitor the spread of the virus. But the fate of human backup drivers who ride around in the vehicles is less certain.

Rightly or wrongly, the AI-driven world has come to typify the woes of modern economic life, as tech giants such as Facebook and Alphabet amass vast fortunes, due in large part to the huge quantities of data that users often freely provide them. Accusations of economic imbalance tend to be multi-faceted. Not only do these companies typically employ fewer people than the industrial titans of yore, but they also attract the ire of officials over their tax practices and have grown insanely rich off the back of something users receive no compensation for. It's helped to create a world in which the haves are increasingly well off, while the have nots make do with insecure and poorly paid work. Nowhere is this exchange more evident than in the data annotation industry, where people from around the world help to prepare and tidy up the data used by the tech giants to train the algorithms upon which their fortunes increasingly rest.

Rightly or wrongly, the AI-driven world has come to typify the woes of modern economic life, as tech giants such as Facebook and Alphabet amass vast fortunes, due in large part to the huge quantities of data that users often freely provide them. Accusations of economic imbalance tend to be multi-faceted. Not only do these companies typically employ fewer people than the industrial titans of yore, but they also attract the ire of officials over their tax practices and have grown insanely rich off the back of something users receive no compensation for. It's helped to create a world in which the haves are increasingly well off, while the have nots make do with insecure and poorly paid work. Nowhere is this exchange more evident than in the data annotation industry, where people from around the world help to prepare and tidy up the data used by the tech giants to train the algorithms upon which their fortunes increasingly rest.

In the past month, workers in Silicon Valley have demanded that the large tech companies where they work stop doing business with federal agencies associated with the ghastlier policies of the Trump administration and local governments--and in some cases it's worked. Google said it would not renew a contract with the Pentagon to build an A.I. system for military drones after thousands of employees signed a petition and dozens quit in protest. Orlando, Florida's police department dropped Amazon's facial-recognition tech after a public outcry that included criticisms from Amazon employees opposed to the activity. Microsoft is keeping a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement despite demands from more than 100 of its employees who believe doing so signals a complicity with the administration's hard-line immigration policy. This activity has been facilitated by the Tech Workers Coalition, a volunteer group of professionals in the tech industry that has worked on a number of labor, justice, and equality issues in recent years.

Nearly 70 Percent of Taxpayers Support Use of AI to Improve Accuracy of Filings, Accenture Global Survey Finds'Digital tax assistant' could prove especially beneficial to 40 percent of taxpayers who reported making filing errors NEW YORK; Feb. 20, 2018 – Nearly 70 percent of taxpayers in 12 countries said they would use AI to improve the accuracy of tax filings, according to a new study by Accenture (NYSE: ACN), which also found that more than 40 percent of taxpayers reported making a filing error in the last 24 months. The Accenture Digital Taxpayers Research asked more than 6,500 taxpayers across Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America who interacted with their tax authority in the prior 12 months about their experiences with, attitudes about and expectations of revenue authorities. The findings indicate that in an era in which people around the world expect easy and simple consumer experiences, tax rules and regulations still confuse citizens. For instance, 38 percent of respondents said they are not confident they pay the right amount of tax, and 44 percent said they feel their tax knowledge could be improved. While most respondents said they have limited contact with their revenue authorities after filing a tax form, half (51 percent) reported contacting their revenue authority once or twice in the past year, with 20 percent reporting three or more contacts.

On the floor of CES, LG's CLOi service robots got a lot of attention. But just across the parking lot from the Las Vegas Convention Center, two service robots--both Relay robots from San Jose-based Savioke--are quietly at work. These robots, tagged Elvis and Priscilla, are full-time employees of the Renaissance Hotel, and they aren't getting a lot of attention. When Priscilla navigated through the crowded lobby to make a delivery on Wednesday, only a few people pulled out cameras. Others casually brushed by, sometimes giving it a little pat as they passed.