The News

Will the last Microsoft employee turn the light off on their way out?

Microsoft is laying off another 9,000 employees (Bloomberg, $). The cuts, which are apparently across “teams, geographies and tenure”, brings its total number of job cuts to 15,000 — or close to 7% of its global workforce — since May. The Xbox team’s cuts are reportedly particularly savage (Engadget), seemingly because of gaming industry-wide factors and Microsoft’s decision to back away from being a console-maker that I wrote about earlier this week.

In funny timing: Linux has apparently hit a 5% share of the US desktop market for the first time ever (Mastodon) while, as I linked to earlier this week, Windows is losing users (Tom’s Hardware),

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

People are sending AI bots to meetings

There’s a great Washington Post article about people sending their “AI helpers” to meetings instead of going themselves (Washington Post). For those not familiar, a common feature amongst various AI companies like Otter’s products is to have a bot sit in on video/audio calls so it can transcribe what is said. Some companies want to take this further by eventually having AI representatives who will act on the “real” person’s instructions. Obviously this is insanely dystopian. Imagine turning up to a meeting where you speak to a bunch of non-responsive AI bots. Also, I don’t love people unilaterally introducing AI bots into conversations. But can I say that I can see the appeal of using it to (somewhat passive aggressively) deal with meetings that you don’t need to be in — or that should have been an email instead?

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

A big Australian AI centre investment that smells a bit odd

A story about “Australia’s largest AI data centre” being built in Tasmania has caught my eye (ABC News). Both Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockcliff and opposition leader Dean Winter welcomed a promise from Firmus Technologies to spend $2.1 billion on the first phase of a data centre that it says will be operational from the start of next year (Cyber Daily AU). The company, which is apparently just about to finish raising $280 million of investment (AFR, $), is founded by three men — including Oliver Curtis, who spent a year in jail for insider trading (AFR, $). It’s a beautiful story of rehabilitation, truly the Australian dream! Anyway, this combination of a buzzy industry, big investments and promises and the people behind it has me thinking we should keep an eye on this…

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Leftovers

Discuss these links in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Oh, Also

Fun games showing how LLMs do (and, importantly, don’t) work

A cool thing that’s come out of the brains at QUT is their GenAI Arcade, a cool collection of games that tries to demonstrate how AI does — and doesn’t — work.

It’s got things like the “sort-of-calculator” that shows AI’s struggles with maths, “milkless” which challenges you to get an AI trained not to talk about to … err … talk about milk, even a LinkedIn content generator (which is probably a bigger indictment on LinkedIn than AI. Definitely a cool resource to send to people to help understand these concepts!

Discuss in the Sizzle Slack or forum.

Bargains

Electrical & electronics

Computing

Mobile

The End

😎 The Sizzle is written by Cam Wilson and emailed every weekday. It was created by Anthony “decryption” Agius.

🤖 We love robots at the Sizzle but this newsletter has always been and will always be written by humans for humans.

🗣️ Have any feedback, a tip or just want to chat? Send me an email or Signal message. I promise to reply!

💬 Want to hang out with other Sizzlers? There’s a subscriber-only Slack server and forum if you want to procrastinate and chat about tech-related news.

🌐 The Sizzle is on Bluesky, Mastodon and LinkedIn if you’re feeling social.

💳 Paid subscriber looking to manage your billing info, change email address or cancel your subscription? Visit the Beehiiv customer portal.

🎁 Make someone's day and gift them a 12 month gift subscription to The Sizzle.

💔 Don’t want this any more? I won’t take it personally. There’s a unsubscribe button at the bottom of this email or here’s a guide.

🦺 The Sizzle has been tested to meet and exceed ISO 3533 standards.

Always Was, Always Will Be Aboriginal Land

The Sizzle is created on Gadigal land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.