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Singapore bank axes 4,000 roles for AI replacements
Singapore’s biggest bank DBS has revealed plans to replace up to 4,000 roles with AI tools over the next three years.
DBS said the move will see work previously carried out by temporary and contract staff instead provided by AI models. The jobs will be phased out by “natural attrition”, the bank claims, while up to 1000 new AI-related roles will also be created.
Permanent staff are not affected by the cuts, a spokesperson for DBS said.
“Over the next three years, we envisage that AI could reduce the need to renew about 4,000 temporary/contract staff across our 19 markets working on specific projects,” the DBS spokesperson said.
“As such, we expect the reduction in workforce will come from natural attrition as these temporary and contract roles are completed over the next few years.”
Last year, the bank said it deploys over 800 AI models across 350 use cases, and that it expects the measured economic impact of these to exceed S$1bn ($745m; ÂŁ592m) in 2025.
Apple speech-to-text tool transcribes the word “racist” as “Trump”
Apple has said it is working to resolve an issue on iPhones that has caused its text-to-speech tool to type out the word “Trump” when users spoke the word “racist” into their devices.
“We are aware of an issue with the speech recognition model that powers Dictation and we are rolling out a fix today,” an Apple spokesperson said.
The iPhone-maker suggested the bug – which has gone viral on TikTok – had been caused by “phonetic overlap”, with the technology confusing words contraining the “r” consonant.
Videos shared online, external show people speaking the word “racist” into the Dictation tool, with various outcomes, including the word correctly being transcribed – but on several occasions turning into the word “Trump” before returning to the correct word.
The videos went viral in the same week that Apple announced a major investment in the US, following a meeting between Trump and Apple CEO Tim Cook last week.
BT launches Global Fabric for multinational customers
BT has launched a new network-as-a-service platform aimed at providing connectivity for large multinationals.
The BT Global Fabric went live earlier this week and is already supporting customer traffic, BT said.
Through the platform’s web portal, customers can view connectivity to their apps, network health, events and alerts. It allows them to make changes to their connectivity in an instant, such as scaling up and down bandwidth, as well as provisioning new connections.
BT said it will continue to add features to the platform, which leverages the British telco’s global reach. These include features such as intent-based routing, building up to the launch of IP VPN and Ethernet connectivity services. These will be offered together with a choice of solutions such as DDoS cyber-security and SD-WAN.
Bas Burger, CEO, Business, BT, said: “Today marks the start of a new era of international business connectivity. Customers are now joining us on a journey to combine the full power of cloud and networks to drive adoption of digital services, such as AI. For BT, it marks a milestone in the delivery of our strategy for customers — to provide rock solid foundations for their digital business plans.”
UK govt launches Digital Inclusion Plan
The UK government has announced a new scheme that aims to upskill those in society who are left behind by digital technologies.
The Digital Inclusion Action Plan will seek to boost digital skills across the country, especially in low-income areas and among elderly people.
“The technological revolution we are living in is not only transforming everyone’s lives, but is advancing at breakneck speed and will not slow down any time soon,” said technology minister Peter Kyle.
“Leaving people behind in the process could threaten our mission to maximise technology for economic growth and better public services, which is central to our Plan for Change.”
The government partnering with both industry and charities to drive digital inclusion, including a partnership with the Digital Poverty Alliance to provide laptops to those who are digitally excluded.
It also revealed a partnership with Vodafone, Deloitte and The Good Things Foundation to develop a charter for responsible device donation, establishing common principles for business and organisations to commit to, including increasing the number of devices businesses donate to those in need.
Others involved in the government’s plans include Google, BT, Sky, Three and Openreach.
US court rejects Theranos founder Holmes’s appeal
A US court has upheld the conviction of the Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes for defrauding investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars, rejecting her appeal
Theranos – the failed blood-testing startup launched by Holmes – was once valued at $9 billion but the company collapsed after claims about its revolutionary blood tests were exposed as false.
A three-judge panel for the 9th US circuit court of appeals in San Francisco upheld Holmes’s conviction, as well as that of Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, once Holmes’s romantic partner and president of Theranos, after hearing arguments in which lawyers for the Theranos founder claimed that her trial had featured improper procedures and evidence.
Holmes is currently serving a nine-year sentence. In a recent interview with People magazine, she described federal prison as “hell and torture”.