Tim Newman

HELP Minority Staff reviewed economic data, investor transcripts, corporate financial filings— and asked ChatGPT about job displacement. Specifically, HELP Minority Staff asked ChatGPT to analyze job descriptions catalogued by the federal government for the entire U.S. economy and predict tasks that could be performed by AI and automation. According to the ChatGPT-based model, artificial intelligence and automation could replace nearly 100 million jobs over the next ten years, including 89% of fast food and counter workers, 64% of accountants and 47% of truck drivers.

The full report is now posted here (PDF): www.sanders.senate.gov/wp-content/u...

Here are the methods…. 🤔

Exclusive: AI could erase 100 million U.S. jobs, Senate Dem report finds A ChatGPT-based analysis from Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee found that AI could wipe out swaths of both white- and blue-collar jobs

Oh good lord, the Dems on the Senate HELP Committee released this report that is apparently… “a ChatGPT-based analysis”🧐

Here’s an op-ed about it by Sanders for Fox News: www.foxnews.com/opinion/sen-...

www.axios.com/2025/10/06/a...

Trump plan would limit disability benefits for older Americans Trump administration officials are considering eliminating age as a factor in deciding whether someone is capable of working.

Exclusive: The Trump administration is preparing a plan that will make it harder for older Americans to qualify for Social Security disability payments, part of an overhaul that could result in hundreds of thousands of people losing benefits.

Trump plan would limit disability benefits for older Americans Trump administration officials are considering eliminating age as a factor in deciding whether someone is capable of working.

The Trump administration wants to make it harder for older Americans to qualify for Social Security www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202... @merylkornfield.bsky.social

“The memo from the Army's chief technology officer about the NGC2 platform that connects soldiers, sensors, vehicles and commanders with real-time data paints a bleak security picture of the initial product”

If you are interested in tracking the businesses that make data usable for AI systems, check out this resource and microsite we created at @techequity.bsky.social:

bsky.app/profile/tech...

Uber Buys Data Labeling Startup in Push to Sell AI Services Uber Technologies Inc. has bought Belgian startup Segments.ai as the ride-hailing company seeks to expand its nascent data-labeling business.

In case you forgot, Uber has a data labeling business in which it provides a platform to other businesses to outsource annotation, translation and editing tasks to independent contractors.

It just bought another data labeling startup.
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

This is a great resource if folks haven’t seen it already and would like more background and context!

bsky.app/profile/alix...

AI Is Dominating 2025 VC Investing, Pulling in $192.7 Billion Venture capitalists poured $192.7 billion into AI startups so far this year — setting new global records and putting 2025 on track to be the first year where more than half of total VC dollars went in...

“Venture capitalists poured $192.7B into AI startups so far this year—setting new global records... Most of the capital went to established startups... 'Everywhere we look, the market is bifurcated. You’re in AI, or you’re not. You’re a big firm, or you’re not.'" www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

US banks expect victory in capital requirements as Trump regulators revamp rules As President Donald Trump's regulators revamp bank rules, big lenders expect their capital requirements could fall, in a stunning victory for the industry which faced a big hike under former President Joe Biden, according to senior industry executives.

“As Trump’s regulators revamp bank rules, big lenders expect their capital requirements could fall, in a stunning victory for the industry… Trump’s agency picks are working on the most sweeping overhaul of U.S. capital rules since the global financial crisis of 2008”
www.reuters.com/sustainabili...

Thank you for reading and sharing it!!

We identify four broad themes that should concern policymakers: Workers struggle to make ends meet. 86% of surveyed workers worry about meeting their financial responsibilities, and 25% of respondents rely on public assistance, primarily food assistance and Medicaid. Nearly two-thirds of respondents (66%) report spending at least three hours weekly sitting at their computers waiting for tasks to be available, and 26% report spending more than eight hours waiting for tasks. Only 30% of respondents reported that they are paid for the time when no tasks are available. Workers reported a median hourly wage of $15 and a median workweek of 29 hours of paid time, which equates to annual earnings of $22,620. Workers perform critical, skilled work but are increasingly hamstrung by lack of control over the work process, which results in lower work output and, in turn, higher-risk AI systems. More than half of the workers who are assigned an average estimated time (AET) to complete a task felt that AETs are often not long enough to complete the task accurately. 87% of respondents report they are regularly assigned tasks for which they are not adequately trained. With limited or no access to mental health benefits, workers are unable to safeguard themselves even as they act as a first line of defense, protecting millions of people from harmful content and imperfect AI systems. Only 23% of surveyed workers are covered by health insurance from their employer. Deeply involved in every aspect of building AI systems, workers recognize the wide range of risks that these systems pose to themselves and to society at large. Fifty-two percent of surveyed workers believe they are training AI to replace other workers’ jobs, and 36% believe they are training AI to replace their own jobs. 74% were concerned about AI’s contribution to the spread of disinformation, 54% concerned about surveillance, and 47% concerned about the use of AI to suppress free speech, among other issues.

New research from AWU/CWU/Techquity on AI data workers in North America. “[L]ow paid people who are not even treated as humans [are] making the 1 billion dollar, trillion dollar AI systems that are supposed to lead our entire society and civilization into the future.”
cwa-union.org/ghost-worker...

U.S. assigned a specialized immigration team to target campus protesters A Tufts University graduate student was among those targeted after the Trump administration created a “tiger team” to investigate pro-Palestinian activists.

The Trump administration created a “tiger team” to investigate pro-Palestinian activists, relying on an investigative arm of DHS whose work traditionally has focused on crimes such as drug smuggling and human trafficking.

The 22-year-old AI CEO behind Friend.com necklace welcomes graffiti on his $1 million ad campaign: ‘Capitalism is the greatest artistic medium’ | Fortune ”The audience completes the work,” Avi Schiffmann, creator of the AI wearable, told Fortune. “I purchased the zeitgeist.”

“the ad campaign cost him $1M—an enormous outlay for a startup with barely $7M in venture capital”

“The audience completes the work. Capitalism is the greatest artistic medium.”

“I think one day we’ll probably be sued & we’ll figure it out. It’ll be really cool to see.”
fortune.com/2025/10/01/w...

Every line of this story with the founder of the AI surveillance product responding to the defacement of his ad spend in NYC Subway is more unhinged than the next.

A Meta Change on Publishing Research Causes a Stir in Its AI Group In recent weeks, Meta Platforms made a change to its Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research lab that rubbed members of the group the wrong way: FAIR, as the group is known, would have to undergo...

"Meta made a change to its Fundamental AI Research lab that rubbed members of the group the wrong way: FAIR, as the group is known, would have to undergo additional review of its research before publishing it, according to two people familiar with the matter." www.theinformation.com/articles/met...

A Meta Change on Publishing Research Causes a Stir in Its AI Group In recent weeks, Meta Platforms made a change to its Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research lab that rubbed members of the group the wrong way: FAIR, as the group is known, would have to undergo...

"Meta Superintelligence Labs has already seen some turnover. For example, Wang’s chief of staff, Bill Long, who joined Meta in June, has returned to Scale, according to three people familiar with the matter." www.theinformation.com/articles/met...

You’ve heard of “data as the new oil,” but have you considered AI as the “new arsenal for the 21st century”?

“Instead of steel, we're forging this arsenal on human capital and high-fidelity data…, which are the two essential ingredients for AI-driven national security.”

“With our government customers, they're all interested in building AI solutions. And the fuel for those AI solutions is the high-quality, AI-ready data that Scale produces, and training of that data happens at Scale’s St. Louis AI center,” A.J. Segal, who leads that center, told Defense One. “You can think of what we're building here is kind of that new arsenal for the 21st century. So instead of steel, we're forging this arsenal on the human capital and high-fidelity data that we have at our AI center, which are the two essential ingredients for AI-driven national security.”

“With our government customers, they're all interested in building AI solutions. & the fuel for those AI solutions is the high-quality, AI-ready data that Scale produces & training of that data happens at Scale’s St Louis AI center,” AJ Segal, who leads that center www.defenseone.com/business/202...

If some geography student is not already writing their thesis on St Louis as an emerging hub at the nexus of big tech, national defense and geospatial technology…

Silicon Valley in St. Louis? With the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency as its north star, a non-profit is working to get defense tech to put down roots in the Midwest.

"St. Louis is vying to be the next big defense tech hub with a new initiative meant to attract startups and investors eager to build up the geospatial industry." www.defenseone.com/business/202...

Yes, and in fact for people working at employers covered by the EEOC, the EEOC’s website still includes “no-beard” policies as its paradigmatic example of an employment policy that could be discriminatory based on race and therefore potentially unlawful. www.eeoc.gov/racecolor-di...

The NYT finally managed to get some clarity on an important question: How much is MPD still cooperating with ICE now that the federal takeover is over?

Bowser was very evasive when @segravesnbc4.bsky.social asked about this last month.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/u...

You can sit at your computer all day waiting for work, unpaid. That’s the hidden cost of keeping AI running.

What Happens When AI Sets Wages Generative AI is no longer just automating text; with AI-based wage-setting, it’s shaping paychecks, livelihoods, and access to opportunity. Left unchecked, these systems risk reinforcing, or even wid...

"Workers from affluent regions consistently received higher AI-driven wages than equally qualified peers from lower-income regions."
hbr.org/2025/10/what...

“vibe revenue”

Hope all of this helps provide some more context to see the financial and reputational incentives that would lead a company like Citi to push employees to use AI!

How Citi Ventures Backs AI Startups It Thinks Can Transform Its Business For the final article in our AI investor series for 2024, we spoke with Citi Ventures, one of the more active corporate venture investors through the past decade, on its investment focus in AI.

3) Not only that, but Citi has even more on the line: its venture division is one of the "top 10 leading corporate venture firms investing in AI-related companies”: dumping millions into AI startups focused on compliance, productivity, knowledge management etc news.crunchbase.com/venture/citi...

So yeah, if Citi doesn’t want to look foolish based on this bet — and if it wants to build a good reputation for its research division — the bosses at Citi are gonna make their employees use AI as evidence for their prediction, as long as the bosses have the power.

The brokerage said big tech firms are no longer relying only on profits to fund AI infrastructure. The costs are extremely high - about $50 billion for every 1 GW of compute capacity - and the companies are borrowing to keep up. This shift is already showing up in their financials, with spending starting to eat into free cash flows. Investors are now asking how the tech companies will fund this scale of investment, especially as traditional models fall short. "Enterprises have provided a clear external validation of value," Citi said, pointing to production deployments at companies such as Eli Lilly (LLY.N) , opens new tab, Hitachi (6501.T), opens new tab and Wolters Kluwer (WLSNc.AS)

Citi’s main excuse for optimism given the fact that AI firms are paying for infrastructure with debt and not profits?

That these AI firms will eventually find effective enterprise use cases for AI as its profit model.