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Layoffs afloat in San Francisco

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Layoffs afloat in San Francisco


Layoffs are within the air in San Francisco.

What’s taking place: Native tech corporations — large and small — have introduced employees reductions in latest weeks amid an unsure financial panorama.

  • Twilio and DocuSign, each publicly traded corporations with round 7,500 staff every, mentioned in September they’d let go of roughly 10% of their respective staffs to prioritize profitability.
  • Divvy Properties, an actual property startup, laid off 40 staff (about 12% of its workforce) final Tuesday in response to rising mortgage rates of interest.

Tech giants wish to make cuts, as properly.

  • Citing the unstable economic system, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced a hiring freeze in an all-hands assembly final Thursday, and mentioned that for the primary time in its 18-year historical past, the corporate would look to cut back its employees in 2023, Bloomberg reported.
  • The cuts will make Meta “considerably smaller” by the top of subsequent yr. The downsize will probably be a results of letting roles go unfilled when folks go away or by making an attempt to “handle out individuals who aren’t succeeding,” Zuckerberg mentioned, based on Bloomberg.

What we’re watching: Whether or not these latest layoff and hiring freeze bulletins point out a tough street forward for native job-seeking tech staff, or if they’ll reshuffle into new corporations.

By the numbers: Town’s chief economist, Ted Egan, instructed Axios that tech employment throughout San Francisco and San Mateo counties didn’t develop in August.

  • 181,800 folks had tech jobs within the space in August, based on information from California’s Employment Growth Division, the identical quantity as in July.
  • “It is one information level, and it could go up once more subsequent month,” Egan mentioned. “[But] it could possibly be a worrying signal … when you do not see [layoffs] offset by different kinds of hiring.”

Zoom out: Egan additionally mentioned “there was a big decline within the variety of new job listings in San Francisco because the spring, particularly within the tech business.”

  • A jobs tracker from Certainly additionally exhibits a decline in listings in latest months for all sectors throughout the Bay Space.
  • Nonetheless, earlier this summer season, the Wall Avenue Journal reported extra reassuring information that nationally, for each one unemployed individual looking for work, there have been practically two jobs obtainable.

The U.S. unemployment charge was 3.7% in August — up barely from 3.5% in July, which was the bottom in practically half a century.

What they’re saying: One San Francisco resident who was just lately let go from his tech job, instructed Axios he was much less involved in regards to the macro surroundings and extra anxious in regards to the timing heading into This autumn, which he mentioned, is historically a tougher time to land a brand new position.

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  • He felt some reassurance, although, given the rise of distant work and with the ability to search for jobs at corporations throughout the nation.



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San Francisco, CA

Britain expands AI safety institute to San Francisco amid scrutiny over regulatory shortcomings

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Britain expands AI safety institute to San Francisco amid scrutiny over regulatory shortcomings


An aerial view of the city of San Francisco skyline and the Golden Gate Bridge in California, October 28, 2021.

Carlos Barria | Reuters

LONDON — The British government is expanding its facility for testing “frontier” artificial intelligence models to the United States, in a bid to further its image as a top global player tackling the risks of the tech and to increase cooperation with the U.S. as governments around the world jostle for AI leadership.

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The government on Monday announced it would open a U.S. counterpart to its AI safety summit, a state-backed body focused on testing advanced AI systems to ensure they’re safe, in San Francisco this summer.

The U.S. iteration of the AI Safety Institute will aim to recruit a team of technical staff headed up by a research director. In London, the institute currently has a team of 30. It is chaired by Ian Hogarth, a prominent British tech entrepreneur who founded the music concert discovery site Songkick.

In a statement, U.K. Technology Minister Michelle Donelan said the AI Safety Summit’s U.S. rollout “represents British leadership in AI in action.”

“It is a pivotal moment in the U.K.’s ability to study both the risks and potential of AI from a global lens, strengthening our partnership with the U.S. and paving the way for other countries to tap into our expertise as we continue to lead the world on AI safety.”

The expansion “will allow the U.K. to tap into the wealth of tech talent available in the Bay Area, engage with the world’s largest AI labs headquartered in both London and San Francisco, and cement relationships with the United States to advance AI safety for the public interest,” the government said.

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San Francisco is the home of OpenAI, the Microsoft-backed company behind viral AI chatbot ChatGPT.

The AI Safety Institute was established in November 2023 during the AI Safety Summit, a global event held in England’s Bletchley Park, the home of World War II code breakers, that sought to boost cross-border cooperation on AI safety.

The expansion of the AI Safety Institute to the U.S. comes on the eve of the AI Seoul Summit in South Korea, which was first proposed at the U.K. summit in Bletchley Park last year. The Seoul summit will take place across Tuesday and Wednesday.

The government said that, since the AI Safety Institute was established in November, it’s made progress in evaluating frontier AI models from some of the industry’s leading players.

It said Monday that several AI models completed cybersecurity challenges but struggle to complete more advanced challenges, while several models demonstrated PhD-level knowledge of chemistry and biology.

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Meanwhile, all models tested by the institute remained highly vulnerable to “jailbreaks,” where users trick them into producing responses they’re not permitted to under their content guidelines, while some would produce harmful outputs even without attempts to circumvent safeguards.

Tested models were also unable to complete more complex, time-consuming tasks without humans there to oversee them, according to the government.

It didn’t name the AI models that were tested. The government previously got OpenAI, DeepMind, and Anthropic to agree to opening their coveted AI models up to the government to help inform research into the risks associated with their systems.

The development comes as Britain has faced criticism for not introducing formal regulations for AI, while other jurisdictions, like the European Union, race ahead with AI-tailored laws.

The EU’s landmark AI Act, which is the first major legislation for AI of its kind, is expected to become a blueprint for global AI regulations once it is approved by all EU member states and enters into force.

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Game Day: Bay Area golfer making most of 2nd chance

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Game Day: Bay Area golfer making most of 2nd chance


Game Day: Bay Area golfer making most of 2nd chance – CBS San Francisco

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Anthony Lasconia’s baseball career was cut short by a car accident in high school. He decided to try golf and has done more than pickup a new hobby.

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Bay to Breakers brings thousands to San Francisco for race day

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Bay to Breakers brings thousands to San Francisco for race day


Colorful costumes, loud cheers and crushed tortillas marked the start of San Francisco’s zany Bay to Breakers footrace Sunday as thousands of runners surged off the starting line in a flurry of dizzying forward motion.

Participants—dressed as everything from cowboys to hot dogs with condiments—hit the streets early, with some donning race-issued pink T-shirts featuring the city’s iconic Painted Ladies houses. Others went all out in cartoon, comic book or spotted cow costumes and helmets.

The runners surged off the starting line in a flurry of colorful fabric and loud cheering, pounding hundreds of tossed tortillas into the tarmac beneath their feet.

From morning and well into the afternoon, it was prime time for people-watching.

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Cowboys blurred into groups in orange prison jumpsuits or screenshot-perfect Oompa Loompa uniforms, with distracting touches like a little fluorescent green tulle here or a pair of inflatable chickens there.

As is so often the case in any public and free event, a hardy few joined the yearly rite by insisting on their right to wear as little as possible, with a few minor exceptions made for spandex or skivvies or by accessorizing with baseball hats, head coverings and race-appropriate footwear. Others mostly kept it moving and took it all in stride.

In addition to the spirits some spent valuable race time surreptitiously sipping on or openly guzzling, others’ spirits seemed to soar ever higher as the morning’s low clouds began to burn off, and thousands of people powered westward along closed-off roadways, accepting cheers and the odd orange slice or two from generous onlookers.

Showers of blown bubbles drifted into the air along Fell Street and came down equally atop a costumed swarm of bees, a walking watermelon slice, a spotted-cow-onesie sporting competitor.

By the time many reached the finish line, stiff breezes flew the state and U.S. flags and seemed to put wind into the sails of runners who powered across with uplifted arms and jubilant shouts.

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