The Washington Post details a vision of home security "pitched by Sauron, a Silicon Valley start-up boasting a waiting list of tech CEOs and venture capitalists." In the future, your home will feel as safe from intruders as a state-of-the-art military base. Cameras and sensors surveil the perimeter, scanning bystanders' faces for potential threats. Drones from a "deterrence pod" scare off trespassers by projecting a searchlight over any suspicious movements. A virtual view of the home is rendered in 3D and updated in real time, just like a Tesla's digital display. And private security agents monitor alerts from a central hub.... By incorporating technology developed for autonomous vehicles, robotics and border security, Sauron has built a supercharged burglar alarm [argued Sauron co-founder Kevin Hartz, a tech entrepreneur and former partner at Peter Thiel's venture firm Founders Fund]...

For many tech elites, security is both a national priority and a growing concern in their personal lives... After the presidential election last month, the start-up incubator Y Combinator put out a request for "public safety technology" companies, such as those that produce tools that facilitate a neighborhood watch or technology that uses computer vision to identify "suspicious activities or people in distress from video feeds...." Sauron has raised $18 million in funding from executives behind Flock Safety and Palantir, the data analytics firm, [and] defense tech investors such as 8VC, a venture firm started by Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale... Sauron is targeting homeowners at the high end of the real estate market, beginning with a private event at Abraham's home on Thursday, during Art Basel Miami Beach, the annual art exhibition that attracts collectors from around the world. The company plans to launch in San Francisco early next year, before expanding to Los Angeles and Miami...

Big Tech companies haven't deployed tools such as facial recognition as aggressively as Hartz would like. "If somebody comes onto my property, I feel like I should know who that is," Hartz said... In recent years massive investments have driven down the cost of drones, high-resolution cameras and lidar sensors, which use light detection to create 3D maps. Sauron uses lower-cost hardware and tools like facial recognition, combined with custom-built software adapted for residential use. For facial recognition, it will use a third-party service called Paravision... Sauron is still figuring out how to incorporate drones, but it is already imagining more aggressive countermeasures, Hartz said. "Is it a machine that could take out a bad actor with a bullet or something?"

"OpenAI is partnering with defense tech company Anduril," wrote the Verge this week, noting that OpenAI "used to describe its mission as saving the world." It was Anduril founder Palmer Luckey who advocated for a "warrior class" and autonomous weapons during a talk at Pepperdine University, saying society's need people "excited about enacting violence on others in pursuit of good aims." The Verge notes it's OpenAI's first partnership with a defense contractor "and a significant reversal of its earlier stance towards the military." OpenAI's terms of service once banned "military and warfare" use of its technology, but it softened its position on military use earlier this year, changing its terms of service in January to remove the proscription.
Hours after the announcement, some OpenAI employees "raised ethical concerns about the prospect of AI technology they helped develop being put to military use," reports the Washington Post. "On an internal company discussion forum, employees pushed back on the deal and asked for more transparency from leaders, messages viewed by The Washington Post show." OpenAI has said its work with Anduril will be limited to using AI to enhance systems the defense company sells the Pentagon to defend U.S. soldiers from drone attacks. Employees at the AI developer asked in internal messages how OpenAI could ensure Anduril systems aided by its technology wouldn't also be directed against human-piloted aircraft, or stop the U.S. military from deploying them in other ways. One OpenAI worker said the company appeared to be trying to downplay the clear implications of doing business with a weapons manufacturer, the messages showed. Another said that they were concerned the deal would hurt OpenAI's reputation, according to the messages...

OpenAI executives quickly acknowledged the concerns, messages seen by The Post show, while also writing that the company's work with Anduril is limited to defensive systems intended to save American lives. Other OpenAI employees in the forum said that they supported the deal and were thankful the company supported internal discussion on the topic. "We are proud to help keep safe the people who risk their lives to keep our families and our country safe," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement...

[OpenAI] has invested heavily in safety testing, and said that the Anduril project was vetted by its policy team. OpenAI has held feedback sessions with employees on its national security work in the past few months, and plans to hold more, Liz Bourgeois, an OpenAI spokesperson said. In the internal discussions seen by The Post, the executives stated that it was important for OpenAI to provide the best technology available to militaries run by democratically-elected governments, and that authoritarian governments would not hold back from using AI for military uses. Some workers countered that the United States has sold weapons to authoritarian allies. By taking on military projects, OpenAI could help the U.S. government understand AI technology better and prepare to defend against its use by potential adversaries, executives also said.
"The debate inside OpenAI comes after the ChatGPT maker and other leading AI developers including Anthropic and Meta changed their policies to allow military use of their technology," the article points out. And it also notes another concern raised in OpenAI's internal discussion forum.

The comment said "that defensive use cases still represented militarization of AI, and noted that the fictional AI system Skynet, which turns on humanity in the Terminator movies, was also originally designed to defend against aerial attacks on North America.

"TikTok has lost its bid to strike down a law that could result in the platform being banned in the United States," reports CNN.

A U.S. federal appeals court just unanimously ruled in favor of the new U.S. law requiring TikTok's China-based owners to either sell the app next month or face an effective ban in the United States. Denying TikTok's argument that the law was unconstitutional, the judges found that the law does not "contravene the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States," nor does it "violate the Fifth Amendment guarantee of equal protection of the laws"... After the [January 25] deadline, U.S. app stores and internet services could face hefty fines for hosting TikTok if it is not sold. (Under the legislation, President Biden may issue a one-time extension of the deadline.)

In a statement, TikTok indicated it would appeal the decision. "The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans' right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue," said company spokesperson Michael Hughes. "Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people. The TikTok ban, unless stopped, will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19th, 2025"....

"People in the United States would remain free to read and share as much PRC propaganda (or any other content) as they desire on TikTok or any other platform of their choosing," the judges said. "What the Act targets is the PRC's ability to manipulate the content covertly. Understood in that way, the Government's justification is wholly consonant with the First Amendment."
The judges also wrote that "in part precisely because of the platform's expansive reach, Congress and multiple Presidents determined that divesting it from the PRC's control is essential to protect our national security... Congress judged it necessary to assume that risk given the grave national-security threats it perceived."

CNN notes that ByteDance "has previously indicated it will not sell TikTok."

Bitcoin just broke $100,000 USD for the first time and reached as high as $104k, and is now sitting at $102,857 at the time of this writing.

Slashdot was pretty early on Bitcoin.

Thoughts, nocoiners?

"$15.8 million every 60 seconds. That's how much US consumers spent in two hours on Monday night," reports CNN, "capping off a five-day spending spree that smashed previous records." U.S. consumers spent a total of $13.3 billion on Cyber Monday, up 7.3% from the previous year, according to Adobe Analytics... Consumers spent a record $41.1 billion across the five days beginning Thanksgiving Day, according to Adobe. "While Cyber Monday remained the season's and year's biggest online shopping day, year-over-year growth was stronger on both Thanksgiving and Black Friday," Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, said in a statement... The company's data projects that holiday spending from November 1 to December 31 will surpass $240 billion, up 8.4% from the previous year.

The record sales on Cyber Monday were boosted by US consumers shopping on their mobile devices, which accounted for $7.6 billion in spending. This year, 57% of online sales came through a mobile device, compared to 33% in 2019, as shopping on mobile phones has surged in popularity... Buy now, pay later" programs also contributed nearly $1 billion in spending on Cyber Monday, a record high. About 75% of these types of transactions occurred through a mobile device.

Cyber Monday shopping wasn't just confined to the US, either. Global sales reached $49.7 billion, up 3% from the previous year, according to data from Salesforce.
The top-selling items included consumer electronics like the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Nintendo Switch OLED, the article points out (adding that "About 78% of all consumer smartphones and 87% of consoles were imported from China in 2023, according to a report from the Consumer Technology Association.")

More interesting statistics from CNN:

• "Discounts on apparel peaked at just over 23% off, while TVs and computers peaked at almost 22% off, according to Adobe. And the discounts might last: Adobe projects discounts of up to 18% off computers through the end of the year... "

• "For US retail sites, the share of revenue from affiliates and partners like social media influencers was 20.3% on Cyber Monday, up almost 7% from the previous year. "

• "Additionally, companies employed AI chatbots to assist consumers, like Amazon's Rufus. Traffic to retail sites from chatbots increased by nearly 2,000% on Cyber Monday, according to Adobe."

Have you been to Enron.com lately?

"It's the comeback story no one asked for," reports CNN, "the resurrection of a brand so toxic it remains synonymous with corporate fraud more than two decades after it collapsed in bankruptcy.

"That's right, folks: Enron is back. But only kind of." TL;DR: A company that makes T-shirts bought the Enron trademark and appears to be trying to sell some merch on behalf of the guy behind the satirical conspiracy theory "Birds Aren't Real...."

On Monday, the 23rd anniversary of Enron's filing for bankruptcy, rumors began to spread that the former Texas energy giant had come back from the dead. A sleek new website, enron.com, appeared to show that the company had done some serious soul-searching and, inexplicably, reincorporated under its original brand. As a modern energy company, it would be dedicated to "solving the global energy crisis," its press statement reads. The site is packed with the kind of stock art and benign corporate platitudes that lend it credibility. There's a link to job openings, employee testimonials and even a minute-long video titled "I am Enron," a movie-trailer-style mashup of cityscape time lapses, rockets launching into space, a ballerina twirling on a beach — a mess of imagery and baritone voiceover so trite it's almost believable.

But the site and its associated social media accounts are, like Enron's balance sheets, mostly fiction. Unlike the Enron scandal, however, this one appears to be little more than performance art designed to sell branded hoodies. Publicly available documents show that an Akansas-based LLC called The College Company bought the Enron trademark for $275 in 2020... You can tab over to the site's "Company Store" page to browse a selection of Enron-branded hoodies ($118 before tax and shipping), puffer vests ($89), tees ($40) baseball hats ($40), beanies ($30) and water bottles emblazoned with the slogan "you've got great energy."
Somewhere on the site CNN spotted a list of "key pillars" which included a commitment to "permissionless innovation," which CNN took to be "a nod that prompted some speculation online that the new 'Enron' would launch some kind of digital token." That phrase has apparently been changed now to "continuous innovation." An Enron-branded X account posted and later deleted a message teasing at a crypto offering, saying "we do not have any token or coin (yet). Stay tuned, we are excited to show you more soon."
But sharp-eyed X.com users also found the key context to add: that the Terms of Use at Enron.com declare the site's information "is First Amendment-protected parody, represents performance art, and is for entertainment purposes only."

Still, the site includes this testimonial from someone it says is a current employee. "Like many of my peers in the Enron family, I was skeptical at first.

"Now, not only do I have complete confidence in the integrity of the company, I also genuinely believe that we are leading the way for a new chapter of American business."

Tuesday the Wikimedia Foundation released its annual list of the most-visited Wikipedia pages. (Scroll down to where it says "The full top 25"...)

But while the top subjects seem to be politics and pop culture, CNN reports that in the end "a list of deaths in 2024 was the most visited page, garnering over 44 million views." A page about deaths in a given year has ranked at the top of the list five times since 2015, when the Wikimedia Foundation began releasing the data. The topic has never fallen below third place on the list.

People also searched for U.S. political figures... [The #2, #3, #5, #7, and #9 most-visited pages were, respectively, for Kamala Harris, the 2024 United States presidential election, Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and Project 2025.] While U.S. politics was a notable search subject, popular culture had the largest share of the top 25. The fourth most-visited page was about Lyle and Erik Menendez, the brothers who were sentenced to life in prison for the 1989 murder of their parents and are now facing a resentencing trial. The case received renewed public attention after a Netflix documentary was published this year. The Wikipedia page about the brothers received over 26 million views in 2024.

The "Deadpool & Wolverine" and "Dune: Part Two" movies were eighth and 23rd, respectively... [Other high-ranking pop-culture pages included Taylor Swift (#11)and the 2024 Summer Olympics (#14).]

"Wikipedia readers in India continue to make a big impact on the list, a trend we saw in 2023 as well," Wikimedia Foundation's Alikhan said. The Indian Premier League, a cricket league in India, garnered over 24.5 million views this year as the site's sixth most visited page... [The 2024 Indian general election came in at #10]
Wikipedia's entry on ChatGPT came in at #12, while Elon Musk came in at #17.

"When people want to learn about our world — the good, bad, weird, and wild alike — they turn to Wikipedia," explains the blog post from the Wikimedia Foundation, calling Wikipedia "the largest knowledge resource ever assembled in the history of the world" and "a reflection of all the people who live on our planet. its story is your story, your interests, your questions, and your curiosity."

Other statistics about Wikipedia in 2024:

• Nearly 3.5 billion bytes of information were added this year via over 31 million edits.

• People spent an estimated 2.4 billion hours — nearly 275,000 years! — reading English Wikipedia in 2024, according to data from the Wikimedia Foundation.

Intel's board of directors ousted CEO Pat Gelsinger after losing confidence in his ambitious turnaround strategy. The move comes as Intel posted significant losses, including $16.6 billion in Q3 2024, its worst quarterly result ever. Under Gelsinger's leadership, Intel struggled to compete in the AI chip market dominated by Nvidia, while facing manufacturing challenges and declining data center revenue.

Analysts suggest the board may be considering splitting off Intel's foundry business, though such a move could face scrutiny from the U.S. Commerce Department due to $8 billion in CHIPS Act funding. The Verge adds: But Moorhead and Creative Strategies analyst Ben Bajarin both believe Gelsinger's departure was so sudden, it can't simply have been the straw that broke the camel's back. "There must have been a decision the board made that he was not going to stick around for," Moorhead tells me.

His hunch: Intel's board may want to split off its foundry business entirely, above and beyond the spinoff that Gelsinger already announced, turning Intel into a company that simply designs chips like its direct rivals.

Walmart said Tuesday it had completed its $2.3 billion all-cash acquisition of TV maker Vizio, a move by the retailing giant to expand its advertising business. From a report: The closing of the deal follows the expiration of the waiting period under federal regulations. Walmart announced the deal to buy Vizio in February 2024. Walmart said the acquisition of Vizio will let it "bring to market new and differentiated ways for advertisers to meaningfully connect with customers at scale and boost product discovery" through Walmart Connect, the company's U.S. retail media business.

Walmart and Vizio will continue to operate separately "for the foreseeable future," according to the announcement. William Wang will continue to lead Vizio as CEO, reporting to Seth Dallaire, executive VP and chief growth officer of Walmart U.S. Vizio, founded in 2002, is a leading vendor of value-priced HDTVs. Its device ecosystem and its smart TV operating system, SmartCast, provide free, ad-supported access to streaming content.

More Americans are looking to switch jobs than at any point in the past decade. In a cooling job market, that's a lot easier said than done. From a report: White-collar hiring continues to slow, but workers' restlessness to find new work is intensifying, new Gallup data show. More than half of 20,000 U.S. workers surveyed in November said they were watching for or actively seeking a new job. That's the largest share since 2015, eclipsing the so-called Great Resignation of 2021 and 2022, when millions of people quit jobs for better ones.

The result? Job satisfaction has fallen to its lowest level in recent years as employees feel more stuck -- and frustrated -- where they are, according to Gallup, whose quarterly surveys are widely viewed as a bellwether of workplace sentiment. Smaller raises and fewer promotions are spurring some of the discontent, workers say. So are cost-cutting moves and stepped-up requirements to be working in offices more often.

Major U.S. corporations have eliminated thousands of middle management positions over the past two years in a widespread restructuring trend, with no signs of rehiring, according to workforce data from Revelio Labs.

Job postings for middle management roles remained 42% below April 2022 levels in October, even as hiring rebounded for other positions. Meta, Citigroup, UPS, and Amazon have all reduced management layers or increased worker-to-supervisor ratios, citing efficiency goals. Middle managers accounted for 32% of layoffs in 2023, up from 20% in 2019, Live Data Technologies reports.

Displaced supervisors, typically in their late 40s to 50s, face limited job prospects as companies permanently eliminate these positions rather than temporarily freezing hiring, Business Insider reports.

RTFKT, the NFT project most known for its attempt at making "digital shoes" a thing, is shutting down, according to a statement on Monday. From a report: The project, acquired by athletic wear juggernaut Nike in 2021 for an undisclosed sum, plans to fully unwind by the end of January, though its Ethereum-based tokens will remain accessible.

Launched in 2020 amid the beginnings of the mania around NFTs and the metaverse, RTFKT quickly garnered a reputation as a fast-moving startup. It spun up "drops" with brands, including Nike, and collaborated with the likes of sneaker designer Jeff Staple and Japanese artist Takashi Murakami.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Companies have been discussing migrating off of VMware since Broadcom's takeover a year ago led to higher costs and other controversial changes. Now we have an inside look at one of the larger customers that recently made the move.

According to a report from The Register today, Beeks Group, a cloud operator headquartered in the United Kingdom, has moved most of its 20,000-plus virtual machines (VMs) off VMware and to OpenNebula, an open source cloud and edge computing platform. Beeks Group sells virtual private servers and bare metal servers to financial service providers. It still has some VMware VMs, but "the majority" of its machines are currently on OpenNebula, The Register reported.

Beeks' head of production management, Matthew Cretney, said that one of the reasons for Beeks migration was a VMware bill for "10 times the sum it previously paid for software licenses," per The Register. According to Beeks, OpenNebula has enabled the company to dedicate more of its 3,000 bare metal server fleet to client loads instead of to VM management, as it had to with VMware. With OpenNebula purportedly requiring less management overhead, Beeks is reporting a 200 percent increase in VM efficiency since it now has more VMs on each server.

U.S. movie theaters are struggling to attract casual moviegoers, who once made up a significant portion of box office revenues, as shorter theatrical runs and changing consumer habits reshape the industry. The domestic box office, which regularly exceeded $10 billion in annual ticket sales before COVID-19, is expected to reach only $8.5 billion this year.

Films now average 32 days in theaters compared to 80 days pre-pandemic, limiting opportunities for audiences to discover movies spontaneously. Midtier films generating $50-100 million at the box office have become scarcer, particularly in genres like drama and romantic comedy. Theater chains are responding with enhanced experiences and loyalty programs to draw audiences back.

"It's fair to say there is a missing billion dollars that, if we had the right movies, people would be going to see them," said Bruce Nash, founder of movie business site the Numbers, told LA Times. Frequent moviegoers comprise only 12-15% of box office revenue, according to Patrick Corcoran of theater consulting firm Fithian Group.

Getty Images CEO has criticized AI companies' stance on copyright, particularly pushing back against claims that all web content is fair use for AI training. The statement comes amid Getty's ongoing litigation against Stability AI for allegedly using millions of Getty-owned images without permission to train its Stable Diffusion model, launched in August 2022.

Acknowledging AI's potential benefits in areas like healthcare and climate change, Getty's chief executive argued against the industry's "all-or-nothing" approach to copyright. He specifically challenged Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman's assertion that web content has been "freeware" since the 1990s. The Getty chief advocated for applying fair use principles case-by-case, distinguishing between AI models for scientific advancement and commercial content generation. He also drew parallels to music streaming's evolution from Napster to licensed platforms like Spotify, suggesting AI companies could develop similar permission-based models.

He adds: As litigation slowly advances, AI companies advance an argument that there will be no AI absent the ability to freely scrape content for training, resulting in our inability to leverage the promise of AI to solve cancer, mitigate global climate change, and eradicate global hunger. Note that the companies investing in and building AI spend billions of dollars on talent, GPUs, and the required power to train and run these models -- but remarkably claim compensation for content owners is an unsurmountable challenge.

My focus is to achieve a world where creativity is celebrated and rewarded AND a world that is without cancer, climate change, and global hunger. I want the cake and to eat it. I suspect most of us want the same.

A new lawsuit filed by a current Apple employee accuses the company of spying on its workers via their personal iCloud accounts and non-work devices. From a report: The suit, filed Sunday evening in California state court, alleges Apple employees are required to give up the right to personal privacy, and that the company says it can "engage in physical, video and electronic surveillance of them" even when they are at home and after they stop working for Apple.

Those requirements are part of a long list of Apple employment policies that the suit contends violate California law. The plaintiff in the case, Amar Bhakta, has worked in advertising technology for Apple since 2020. According to the suit, Apple used its privacy policies to harm his employment prospects. For instance, it forbade Bhakta from participating in public speaking about digital advertising and forced him to remove information from his LinkedIn page about his job at Apple.

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has stepped down amid the company's continued struggles against rivals, with shares losing over half their value this year. The chipmaker announced Monday that Chief Financial Officer David Zinsner and Executive Vice President Michelle Johnston Holthaus will serve as interim co-CEOs while the board searches for a permanent replacement.

Gelsinger, 63, was hired in 2021 to lead an ambitious turnaround aimed at reclaiming Intel's technological edge from competitors like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. His strategy included expanding Intel's factory network with new facilities in Ohio and transforming the company into a contract manufacturer for other firms. The plan faced significant headwinds as Nvidia dominated the AI chip market, with cloud computing companies increasingly favoring Nvidia's processors for AI development over Intel's Gaudi line.

Intel's challenges culminated in an August earnings report showing a surprise loss, leading to dividend suspension and plans to cut over 15% of its 110,000-person workforce. Board Chairman Frank Yeary, now serving as interim executive chair, emphasized the need to prioritize Intel's product group to meet customer demands. The leadership change also impacts the Biden administration's semiconductor industry initiatives, as Intel was set to receive the largest grant under the $39 billion Chips Act program.

Multiple news outlets including Bloomberg and Reuters report that Gelsinger was forced out by the board because "directors felt Gelsinger's costly and ambitious plan to turn Intel around was not working and the progress of change was not fast enough."

America's FBI "has been investigating a longtime Exxon Mobil consultant," reports Reuters, "over the contractor's alleged role in a hack-and-leak operation that targeted hundreds of the oil company's biggest critics, according to three people familiar with the matter." The operation involved mercenary hackers who successfully breached the email accounts of environmental activists and others, the sources told Reuters. The scheme allegedly began in late 2015, when U.S. authorities contend that the names of the hacking targets were compiled by the DCI Group, a public affairs and lobbying company working for Exxon at the time, one of the sources said. DCI provided the names to an Israeli private detective, who then outsourced the hacking, according to the source.

In an effort to push a narrative that Exxon was the target of a political vendetta aimed at destroying its business, some of the stolen material was subsequently leaked to the media by DCI, Reuters determined. The Federal Bureau of Investigation found that DCI shared the information with Exxon before leaking it, the source said. Some environmental activists interviewed by Reuters say the hacking operation disrupted preparations for lawsuits by cities and state attorneys general against Exxon and other energy companies... The stolen material continues to be used today to counter litigation claiming the oil giant misled the public and its investors about the risks of climate change...

The investigation into the hack-and-leak operation comes amid growing concern among law enforcement agencies worldwide about how such cyberespionage schemes threaten to taint judicial proceedings. The FBI has been investigating the broader use of mercenary hackers to tamper with lawsuits since early 2018, Reuters has previously reported. The Israeli private detective hired by DCI, Amit Forlit, was arrested this year at London's Heathrow Airport and is fighting extradition to the United States on charges of hacking and wire fraud... Federal prosecutors have secured a related conviction: that of Forlit's former business associate, private investigator Aviram Azari. Azari pleaded guilty in 2022 to wire fraud, conspiracy to commit hacking and aggravated identity theft, which included targeting the environmental activists.

Nonprofit Code.org has posted this year's cartoon for "Hour of Code," their annual learn-to-code event for schoolchildren.

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp notes its animated pigeon gives a shout-out to the AI that could ultimately replace programmers: In an Instagram post introducing the video, Code.org explains: "Bartlett the Pigeon just learned how to code and now thinks he's smarter than us. Honestly...he might be. Meet the face (and feathers) of this year's #HourOfCode." In the video, Bartlett wows a social media influencer with his coding skills. "Is this pigeon typing code?" she asks in disbelief. "I'm going to film this for my socials!" Bartlett goes on to explain that the song he remixes with coding blocks — Aloe Blacc's "I Need a Dollar" — could have instead been generated by simply using AI, which he says is "like having a personal DJ assistant who never misses a beat!"

Interestingly, Blacc noted in a 2011 interview that he wrote "I Need a Dollar" after being made redundant in his career as a business consultant by Ernst & Young. That multinational company is now advising global business leaders on how they can harness the power of GenAI "to achieve more with fewer resources" by disrupting professions — like programming — that "involve a high degree of repetitive and data-driven tasks that AI can automate."

The New York Post writes that "After the COVID-19 pandemic upended mom-and-pops around the city and resulted in thousands shuttering for good, it is important — now more than ever — to shop local."

America's Small Business Administration issued their own statement urging shoppers to "champion small businesses nationwide and #ShopSmall on Saturday, linking to a site mapping small businesses in your area. (And there's also a directory listing online small businesses.) Small Business Saturday was founded by American Express in 2010 and officially cosponsored by the U.S. Small Business Administration since 2011. It is an important part of small businesses' busiest shopping season.

- In 2023, the reported projected spending in the U.S. from those who shopped at small businesses on Small Business Saturday was around $17 billion

- Since 2010, the total reported U.S. spending at small businesses during the annual Small Business Saturday is an estimated $201 billion
"Let's keep the Shop Small tradition going," urges the American Express web site — encouraging shoppers to also use the #ShopSmall hashtag on social media.