Jobs & Labour - SiliconNoon (Page 3)

The Frontier

Liquid AI's 230M model beats models four times its size at data extraction

Small models are quietly winning the jobs nobody brags about. Liquid AI says its tiniest LFM2.5 release yet — a 230-million-parameter model — outperforms rivals four times its size on data-extraction work, and it is small enough to run almost anywhere. Liquid AI's new LFM2.5-230M tops models roughly four times its size on extraction benchmarks while running on hardware as modest as a phone, according to the company's announcement.

The Everyday

Hollywood creatives are paid to train the AI that may replace them

Award-winning writers, directors and producers are quietly taking gig work that trains AI models to do their own jobs, according to a Guardian investigation published today. It's the sharpest portrait yet of the invisible hiring boom behind frontier labs — and the people powering it are often the ones most exposed to the fallout. Hollywood pros are being paid $12 to $200 an hour to teach AI models the skills that used to pay their bills.

The Arena

Apple cuts 200+ jobs as Siri AI and smart glasses take priority

Two moves capture where the AI industry is putting its money right now: Apple quietly re-engineering its teams around an AI-first roadmap, and Anthropic racing toward a landmark public listing. Apple cut more than 200 jobs across its Vision Pro, Siri and software teams, part of a hard pivot toward AI and smart glasses.

The Everyday

AI is deleting the first rung, not the senior job

This morning we ran the Bank of Korea's headline count. The note underneath it is the story: the same industries shedding juniors are still adding people in their 50s. A second print, not a first scare On Tuesday the central bank's employment team published Issue Note 2026-19. The raw count is the one we already flagged in Korea lost 285,000 youth jobs in AI-exposed sectors: 285,000 fewer jobs for people aged 15 to 29 between June 2022 and June 2026, and 268,000 of those — 94 percent — sat…

The Everyday

Korea lost 285,000 youth jobs in AI-exposed sectors

South Korea's central bank just put a number on the career-ladder problem everyone has been arguing about: the jobs disappearing first are the ones young people used to learn on. The Bank of Korea says 285,000 youth jobs vanished in four years — and 94 percent of them sat in industries most exposed to AI. From June 2022 to June 2026, employment among 15-to-29-year-olds fell by 285,000, according to Issue Note 2026-19 from the bank's employment research team.

The Everyday

One in five US workers now hands tasks to AI, not colleagues

A new representative survey from Epoch AI and polling firm Ipsos quantifies how far AI has crept into everyday work: one in five employed Americans now hands at least one task to a machine that used to go to a person. One in five employed US adults now delegates at least one work task to AI that previously went to a coworker or outside contractor, according to a survey of 1,106 workers by Epoch AI and Ipsos.

The Everyday

China's jobs squeeze: 53M now deliver or drive

Two stories this morning show AI colliding with the real economy from opposite ends: millions of Chinese workers absorbing manufacturing automation as gig drivers, and investors pouring money into securing the AI systems companies are rushing into production. More than 53 million people in China were working as food-delivery or ride-hailing drivers as of 2025 — up roughly 10 million in two years — according to new Financial Times analysis, as a slumping construction sector and accelerating…

The Arena

SAP freezes most travel and hiring as AI costs soar

The AI cost squeeze has reached Europe's biggest software company: SAP has frozen most hiring and travel to pay for AI — and unlike a typical belt-tightening, this one is explicitly pro-AI. SAP, Europe's largest software company, suspended most travel and hiring last month because of AI's soaring cost, and a current employee says the freezes are still in force.

The Guardrails

America's first AI tax: taxing tokens to fund the jobs AI takes

This week, three House Democrats introduced the first serious federal proposal to tax AI usage itself — a levy on the tokens companies sell and the revenue they take in, bankrolling a New Deal-style jobs program. The bill has essentially no chance of passing a Republican-controlled House. It matters anyway: it is the moment Washington started trying to put a price on AI-driven displacement, and the fight over how to tax AI is fast becoming the Democratic Party's liveliest policy argument…

The Guardrails

House Democrats propose AI tax to fund worker protections

Washington is starting to legislate the AI labor question directly: House Democrats unveiled the first bill to tax AI companies on usage, while a fresh PwC survey shows most CEOs still can't point to returns from the technology. House Democrats introduced a bill that would tax AI companies on tokens and AI product revenue to fund a federal jobs program. The AI Tax and Work Protection Act, unveiled Thursday by Reps.

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