Thursday, June 18Thursday, June 189 days · 5 summary articles
AI’s double-edged advance reshapes Asia’s tech landscape as Samsung thrives while gig work surges
Samsung Electronics reported a 12% year-on-year jump in second-quarter operating profit on Thursday, driven by AI-powered chips and smartphones, even as the company’s aggressive automation slashed 3,200 IT jobs across Asia in the past 12 months . The South Korean giant’s financial surge underscores how artificial intelligence is bifurcating the region’s tech sector: winners reap record margins while displaced engineers and customer-service agents are funneled into precarious gig contracts.
Japan’s banking lobby warned the same day that AI-enabled cyberattacks could trigger “potential service disruptions” within months, urging lenders to bolster defenses against adversarial machine-learning tools . The warning, issued by the Japanese Bankers Association, signals a new front in the AI arms race: financial institutions must now defend against attacks that evolve faster than human-led security teams can counter.
Meanwhile, Klarna’s 2024 pivot to AI customer service has quietly entrenched gig work as the default labor model. After customers rebelled over bot responses, the buy-now-pay-later firm rehired human agents—not as full-time staff but as on-demand contractors paid per query, CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski told a February podcast. “Just like somebody can go and drive an Uber for a while, they can actually jump on and work for Klarna’s customer service,” he said, confirming that AI now handles 85% of routine inquiries while gig workers tackle escalations .
The trend extends beyond commerce. In Finland, the first AI agent completed an online purchase this month, though Paytrail, the payment processor, cautioned it will take “years” before agents can autonomously manage end-to-end transactions . Across Europe, Britain is set to deploy AI age-assessment tools for asylum seekers within weeks, despite a leaked audit revealing “deeply unreliable” accuracy that risks misclassifying minors as adults .
Analysts warn the pattern is structural. “AI doesn’t just replace jobs; it fragments them,” said Dr. Aiko Tanaka, an economist at Tokyo’s Waseda University. “The high-value roles stay in-house, while the rest are pushed into fragmented, algorithmically managed gig platforms where wages and protections are negotiable—by the AI system.” With Samsung’s profits surging 12% and Japan’s banks bracing for AI-driven breaches, the region’s tech divide is widening faster than policymakers can legislate.
2 further sources not geolocated
Verkkokauppa | Tekoälyshoppailu yleistyy, vaikka Suomessa agentti ei voi vielä maksaa ostosta Suomessa tehtiin ensimmäinen tekoälyagentin suorittama verkko-ostos. Menee kuitenkin vuosia ennen kuin agentit hoitavat kaiken alusta loppuun, arvioi maksuyhtiö Paytrail.
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faz · about 2 hours ago
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financial times · about 2 hours ago
Gig workers are endlessly exploited. AI could make more of us share their fate As companies integrate AI and hire fewer employees, a shift toward a gig economy will commenceIn 2024, the buy-now-pay-later company Klarna announced that it would cut hundreds of customer service roles and begin using an artificial intelligence chatbot instead. The move was expected to save the company millions. But a year later, after customers complained about the degraded quality of customer service, Klarna began to quietly recruit human customer service agents back.At first glance, the reversal appeared to be a victory for human workers in the age of AI. The reality was more complex. Instead of bringing on full-time customer service agents, who Klarna contracts through an outside agency, it instead brought on workers in what Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski has described as an Uber type of set-up. Now, an AI chatbot continues to handle most of customers basic queries, while a growing number of gig workers handle the more advanced ones. Just like somebody can go and drive an Uber for a while, they can actually jump on and work for Klarnas customer service, Siemiatkowski said on a podcast in February. Continue reading...
theguardian · about 2 hours ago
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bluesky bot · about 2 hours ago
Japan bank lobby warns of potential service disruptions due to AI-enabled cyberattacks reut.rs/4vhZBv9
bluesky bot · about 2 hours ago
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handelsblatt · about 2 hours ago