Inviting people over to hang out at my house is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I don’t need to leave home. On the other, I’m plagued by anxiety, not because I don’t enjoy seeing my friends, but because of all the tidying and cleaning I feel pressured to do even for a casual evening of watching TV. In an instant, I transform into my mother, frantically scrubbing and organizing. To welcome guests into a house that shows signs of life — a pile of unopened mail sitting on the dining room table or crumbs in the couch cushions — is to open yourself up to judgment. It’s a common sentiment among those of hosting age: the manic cleaning that precedes the arrival of guests, memed and parodied ad infinitum. Of course these concerns primarily afflict women — centuries of socialization have reinforced the notion that the condition of a home is a woman’s business.Mothers, who are somehow expected to be the primary caretaker and keep the house spotless on top of everything else, carry an even heavier domestic burden. Whenever Ciara Bogdanovic’s clients come to her with these concerns, she can’t assure them that no one is judging the state of their home. But she can promise them that the majority of people aren’t. “Often,” Bogdanovic, a licensed marriage and family therapist, says, “we project our own beliefs about ourselves onto what we believe others are thinking.”But here’s the thing about hanging out at home: It’s free, low-key, and convenient. And we should be looking for more ways to find connection, not less, given the negative physical and mental health consequences of loneliness and social isolation. Many people crave more time with their friends, yet the anxiety of hosting what should be an undemanding get-together may preclude them from seeing their buds more often. So the only rule you really need to keep in mind is to make sure your house is just tidy enough for guests to relax, experts say. Fear of having a space that looks like people live there shouldn’t hold you back from spending time with friends. If they’re judging you, that’s a reflection on them. The fear of judgmentPersonal standards for how a home “should” look before hosting are shaped by past experiences, Bogdanovic says. Many people either had a relative who stressed the importance of cleaning up for guests or saw the caricature depicted in culture — or online. Across social media, images of uber-organized homes and performative cleaning videos create the false perception that the average home looks like a magazine. We also have a tendency to compare our spaces to those of our friends. “You’re comparing your behind-the-scenes with someone else’s highlight reel,” says KC Davis, a therapist and author of How to Keep House While Drowning. “When you’re at home, you’re looking at your home the way it really looks in the midst of living there. When you go over to other people’s homes, most people are cleaning before you get there.” This tendency to compare is also why you might find yourself subconsciously spotting dust bunnies in a friend’s home. “There might be some conclusions we’re trying to draw,” says licensed clinical social worker Alyssa Petersel. “Is this person doing better or worse than I am in life, financially? Is their style more or less like what I want my style to be?” These observations impact how we view ourselves.Assuming you don’t want to be critiqued about your own home, it’s always best to suspend judgment about how others live. Unless the state of their home poses a danger to those living there, what they choose to clean — or not — before you come over is not worth commenting on. “What is important to you in a friendship?” Bogdanovic says. “Is cleanliness and perfection really the most important thing? Or would you prefer someone who listens to you and you have fun with?”Aim for clean enoughThe primary goal of a host should be to pay attention to guests, not a stray toy. Davis says to focus your efforts on making the room where you’ll be hanging out comfortable for guests. Think practically: providing a place to sit, making sure the floor is clear so people can walk around, offering drinks and snacks on fresh dishes, ensuring the bathroom is clean. The dishes in the sink or your disorganized bedroom? Not so much a priority. “As long as things are sanitary, people aren’t going to remember what it looks like,” Davis says. “They’re going to remember the way that they felt and the time that they had while they were there.”Whatever you do, don’t apologize for the state of your house, experts say. If you feel awkward when you notice a guest eye your disorganized coat rack, you can cut the tension with a quick joke, like, “Come on in, we live here!” or, “The kids have taken over with their jackets.” If you’re still feeling self-conscious, Bogdanovic suggests observing your friends’ actions and body language. Are they looking around your house or sitting rigidly trying to keep as little of their body from touching your sofa as possible? Or are they lounging and engaging in conversation? Take stock of what’s actually happening, not what you’re imagining is happening. Unless you truly value spending hours cleaning, focus on your priorities, Bogdanovic says, which is probably spending quality time with your friends — an activity that contributes to happiness more than a clean house. Letting friends into your space, mess and all, breaks the cycle of perfectionism. Once you ditch the expectation that homes should look like furniture showrooms, your friend group may feel more comfortable hosting despite the chaos in their kids’ rooms, too. “In the moments where we are a bit imperfect or we’re a little raw or we’re a little unpolished,” Petersel says, “we’re actually giving other people permission to show up as their full selves.”See More: #dont #let #messy #house #stop

Forward-thinking businesses – and even nations – are upskilling mid-career professionals to help them not only survive but prosper in the era of widespread enterprise artificial intelligence. As businesses and public sector organisations adopt AI at a lightning pace, white-collar professions face huge disruption, not unlike that experienced by nineteenth century blue-collar workers. According to research by OpenAI and the University of Pennsylvania, roles that will be affected include accountants, legal assistants, financial analysts, journalists, translators and public relations professionals. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs published figures in March 2023 that spoke of 300 million jobs exposed to AI across all sectors. Although it’s a concept dating back decades, the widespread take-up of generative AIbegan around 2022 with the release of ChatGPT. It was a wake-up call for governments and businesses alike, which must prepare for inevitable disruption. According to Tram Anh Nguyen, co-founder of the centre for finance, technology and entrepreneurship, people over the age of 40 in mid-career professional roles are the most at risk of major job disruption as businesses integrate AI into their operations. CFTE is a global education platform that specialises in training in the finance sector, including teaching AI in finance. Nguyen, who is also Global Women in AI chair, spent decades working in the finance sector in business roles, said: “AI is no longer a future concept. It’s here and it’s affecting everyone at every level.” But this does not mean professionals will be replaced if they are re-trained – and this does not just mean technical training. Training on AI for non-technical roles will encompass professionals learning underlying knowledge about AI, the AI tools available to them and the use cases for AI in their roles, said Nguyen. In its whitepaper titled The AI-fication of talents, CFTE said three groups of professionals will emerge. It reported that there will be: “mass displacement” of roles centred on execution which will be increasingly automated; “supercharged professionals” will emerge who use AI to expand scope and scale; while “creative disruptors” will be small group inventing new models, products and systems. Nguyen warned that the UK is behind in readying the workforce for AI. “We are not preparing people in the right way because the focus is not on adult education at scale,” she told Computer Weekly. She cited a project in Singapore which CFTE helped to design. It involves supporting mid-career transitions, particularly focusing on technology and finance sectors, while providing financial support to help people switching careers. All Singaporeans aged 40 and above received funds to refresh their skills, with a large proportion taking up IT-related courses in areas including artificial intelligence. Around 555,000 people participated in programmes supported by SkillsFuture Singaporein 2024 and 520,000 in 2023, according to Singapore newspaper The Straits Times. These are significant numbers for Singapore, which has a population of around six million, but the same challenge is faced globally. One sector being heavily affected is financial services, which leads the way in AI innovation and investment. For example, Bloomberg Intelligence recently put the number of jobs set to be replaced by AI in the US finance sector – Wall Street specifically – at hundreds of thousands. CIOs questioned by the organisation expected 3% of their workforce to be cut on average. Around a quarter of respondents expect the workforce to be cut by between 5% and 10% as AI takes over roles, with the back and middle offices to be most affected. According to research by banking industry benchmarking firm Evident, AI-related roles could be the only “safe jobs” in the banking sector as financial organisations “relentlessly” press on with AI-led transformation. It’s banking industry report found that recruitment of AI development professionals grew by 6% in the last year, hiring of data engineers increased by 14%, and the number of AI and software implementation experts hired increased by 42%. But while the finance sector finds itself on the front-line of the AI revolution, the technology’s rapid spread goes way beyond. Bloomberg’s head of AI, Amanda Stent, recently told Computer Weekly in an interview that there has been “no revolution in history that has not led to job transformation”. “Some types of job change, some types of job go away,” they added. “But there’s also no revolution in history that hasn’t led to more jobs created overall, I think that is true with AI, which will augment a lot of people.” Stent said all workers, regardless of their roles, will have to learn to use AI: “We can teach people how to be effective users of AI without needing to know all that maths.” The legal sector is an example of a traditional industry adapting to AI. The UK regulator of solicitors, the Solicitors Regulation Authority, recently authorised the first law firm to provide legal services purely through AI. Mark Lewis, a lawyer at Stephenson Hardwood, specialised in technology, said most, “if not virtually all, serious law firms” are deploying AI and GenAI operationally. “Typical use cases include document review, analysis and summarisation, legal research, case research and predicting the outcomes of cases, reviewing and reporting on the application of regulations around the world, and, of course, in law firm back-office operations – for example, in client due diligence and acceptance.” But he added that AI is not “yet” causing “major disruption” in the legal sector: “As with talk of AI disrupting many sectors, including doing away with the work now done by paralegals, junior lawyers, and even senior lawyers, this hasn’t really happened yet in the legal markets here – or, I think, anywhere. “There is a good deal of the usual tech hype about it. No doubt AI will become integral to legal process and lawyering at all levels, but, as in many other sectors, even that is going to take time and the maturing of legal use cases.” He said firms are, however, preparing for the impact of AI: “We, like many firms, have made available to all our lawyers GenAI tools developed specifically for us, to be used within certain parameters and in accordance with our AI/GenAI policies. “We want our lawyers to use these GenAI tools, to become accustomed to the way it processes work, to understand its strengths and limitations, and to become expert in creating and refining prompts. “For me, there is an even more important – existential – point: the single biggest challenge is how we as a society learn to understand, live and work with AI. It should start as early as possible and continue through our lives.” In the IT sector, AI is a huge business opportunity, but the technology is also transforming how suppliers operate. Workers in the IT sector will also have to learn to work with AI. Amrinder Singh, head of EMEA and APAC operations at Indian IT services firm Hexaware, told Computer Weekly that all the company’s staff, around 30,000, will be trained how to harness AI. He put it in startling terms the risks to workers that are not trained up. “We said that there is no future for single-skilled people,” he said. “Unless you are multi-skilled with domain understanding, as well as understanding how to use AI and technology, you will not survive.” about GenAI #midcareer #professionals #must #learn #understand

Courtyard House without Second Floor | © Ken’ichi Suzuki Photo Studio In the dense urban fabric of Tokyo’s low-rise residential zones, the idea of a courtyard house often arrives burdened with contradictions. While courtyards promise tranquility, daylight, and spatial openness, they simultaneously risk exposure in neighborhoods where proximity to adjacent buildings is a constant reality. In Courtyard House without Second Floor, Takuro Yamamoto Architects responds to this tension not by enclosing the courtyard at ground level, as is typical in urban Japan, but by lifting it skyward and, in doing so, rethinking the basic assumptions of residential typology. Courtyard House without Second Floor Technical Information Architects1-11: Takuro Yamamoto Architects Location: Tokyo, Japan Area: 84.81 m2 | 912.87 Sq. Ft. Completion Year: 2023 Photographs: © Ken’ichi Suzuki Photo Studio By having a courtyard on the third floor where one does not need to worry about neighbors’ houses, and by making the living room that faces the courtyard the main living space, it is possible to propose a lifestyle of living with the sky. – Takuro Yamamoto Architects Courtyard House without Second Floor Photographs © Ken’ichi Suzuki Photo Studio © Ken’ichi Suzuki Photo Studio © Ken’ichi Suzuki Photo Studio © Ken’ichi Suzuki Photo Studio © Ken’ichi Suzuki Photo Studio © Ken’ichi Suzuki Photo Studio © Ken’ichi Suzuki Photo Studio © Ken’ichi Suzuki Photo Studio © Ken’ichi Suzuki Photo Studio © Ken’ichi Suzuki Photo Studio Rethinking the Urban Courtyard Typology In the dense urban fabric of Tokyo’s low-rise residential zones, the idea of a courtyard house often arrives burdened with contradictions. While courtyards promise tranquility, daylight, and spatial openness, they simultaneously risk exposure in neighborhoods where proximity to adjacent buildings is a constant reality. In Courtyard House without Second Floor, Takuro Yamamoto Architects responds to this tension not by enclosing the courtyard at ground level, as is typical in urban Japan, but by lifting it skyward and, in doing so, rethinking the basic assumptions of residential typology. Commissioned by a couple seeking privacy and serenity within a compact urban site, the house proposes a bold inversion of conventional planning. Rather than layering private and public functions vertically, the architects chose to eliminate the second floor entirely, allowing the first and third floors to operate in deliberate dialogue. The result is a residence that privileges visual and environmental connection with the sky while subtly redefining the relationship between floor height, program, and spatial character. Design Intent and Spatial Strategy: Living with the Sky At the core of the project lies a radical conceptual maneuver: displacing the courtyard from the ground to the third floor. This decision emerges from a critique of the traditional urban courtyard model. In this Tokyo neighborhood, where surrounding buildings are often taller and closely spaced, a ground-level courtyard would likely be overlooked, compromising its function as a private outdoor room. High surrounding walls could restore privacy but at the cost of daylight and spatial openness. By relocating the courtyard upward, above the line of sight of nearby houses, the architects enable a new kind of domestic experience centered on openness, air, and sky. The third floor becomes the primary living domain, composed of a light-filled living room that opens directly onto the rooftop courtyard. The courtyard, in turn, becomes not just a spatial device but a living boundary between interior and exterior, structured absence and atmospheric presence. This elevated void also informs the project’s volumetric logic. Since the clients required only a modest floor area, the architects chose to dispense with the intermediate second floor, enabling a clearer division of functions. Communal and spatially expansive activities are raised above, while intimate, enclosed functions occupy the ground level. This unusual strategy reorients how verticality is deployed not as a stacking of programs but as a spatial gradient calibrated to privacy, light, and openness. Materiality, Light, and Spatial Atmosphere Constructed using a rigid wooden frame structure, the house maintains a calm and tactile material palette, allowing spatial relationships and natural light to define its atmosphere. The first floor, often overlooked in vertically stratified dwellings, benefits from a double-height volume due to the absence of the second floor. This inversion creates unexpected generosity in typically constrained spaces, such as the two workrooms facing each other across a slender internal courtyard planted with a Japanese dogwood tree. Light becomes the central agent of spatial modulation. Tall windows on the first-floor drawing in daylight, softening the compactness of the lower level and offering fluctuating lighting conditions throughout the day. Meanwhile, the upper courtyard receives unobstructed sunlight, casting dynamic shadows and amplifying the architectural strategy of turning upward for openness. The spatial sequence thus becomes non-linear, entering into lower, quiet rooms whose expanded vertical dimensions lend them dignity before ascending to a third-floor realm that opens horizontally to the sky. Rather than a classical hierarchy of levels, the house presents a compositional field of contrasts between enclosure and exposure, compression and release, and ground and air. Courtyard House Urban Context Tokyo’s residential neighborhoods are defined not only by density but also by a highly codified regulatory environment. Within the constraints of a Type 1 restricted low-rise residential zone, the architects worked with a site area of 169.78 m², achieving a floor area ratio of 77.87% and a building coverage of just under 50%. These constraints typically lead to compact, stacked dwellings. Yet the Courtyard House without Second Floor resists this default model, proposing a typological deviation that extracts architectural generosity from regulatory discipline instead. Courtyard House without Second Floor Plans Floor Plan | © Takuro Yamamoto Architects Section | © Takuro Yamamoto Architects Elevation | © Takuro Yamamoto Architects Courtyard House without Second Floor Image Gallery About Takuro Yamamoto Architects Credits and Additional Notes Design Team: Takuro Yamamoto, Tomoko Yanagi Structural Design: NCN Corporation / Yuusuke Okamoto Construction: REMOL DESIGN / Hiroyuki Watanabe, Syuhei Watanabe Furniture: Tanaka Kogei / Toshiya Tanaka, Takeshi Minamizawa Structure: Wooden rigid frame Site Area: 169.78 m² Total Floor Area: 132.21 m² 1st Floor Area: 74.09 m² 3rd Floor Area: 58.12 m² Lot Percentage: 49.95% Floor Space Ratio: 77.87% #courtyard #house #without #second #floor

Nintendo admits Switch 2 won't support VRR on TV after all "The incorrect information was initially published." Image credit: Nintendo News by Tom Phillips Editor-in-Chief Published on May 16, 2025 Switch 2 won't support Variable Refresh Rateon TVs after all, despite Nintendo previously suggesting it would. The Mario maker today set the record straight in a comment to Nintendo Life, acknowledging that VRR would only be available when playing Switch 2 in handheld mode. An earlier, now-removed statement on Nintendo's website had not made that distinction, and suggested VRR while docked would also be possible. "Nintendo Switch 2 supports VRR in handheld mode only. The incorrect information was initially published on the Nintendo Switch 2 website, and we apologise for the error," Nintendo said today. When Nintendo Life probed further on the possibility that Switch 2 VRR support while docked would be added in a future system update, Nintendo said it had "nothing to announce" at the moment. Today marks the first time Nintendo has acknowledged this officially, just days after Digital Foundry reported the lack of docked VRR support in its comprehensive Switch 2 final tech specs report just days ago. "Something that is important to clarify is that as far as Switch 2 developers are concerned, VRR is indeed a function of the internal display only and that there is no support at all right now for VRR over HDMI," Digital Foundry boss Richard Leadbetter wrote. "The best theory we have for this is that the dock's DisplayPort to HDMI converter doesn't support standard HDMI VRR, but whatever is the cause, we would hope to see Nintendo provide some sort of solution in due course." Nintendo is likely to become the "primary partner for third-party game publishers" over the next console generation, a leading analyst firm forecasted yesterday, as reported by Eurogamer, with Switch 2 expected to sell 100m in five years. #nintendo #admits #switch #won039t #support

Take-Two's Strauss Zelnick on game prices, Civilization 7's launch and Switch 2 "This is our broadest, most robust support ever for a Nintendo launch, so clearly we believe" Feature by Samuel Roberts Editorial Director Published on May 16, 2025 Following an FY25 that landed at the upper end of guidance, Take-Two Interactive has entered FY26 with GTA 6 having shifted out of it. Take-Two CEO and chairman Strauss Zelnick caught up with GamesIndustry.biz on the year ahead, including game pricing, Borderlands 4, and Civilization 7's post-launch. The interview below has been edited for brevity and clarity. 2K has a number of Switch 2 ports on the way. What do you see as the opportunity with that console for both new releases and catalogue titles? We feel very good about it. We're supporting Nintendo's Switch 2 at launch with four titles. This is our broadest, most robust support ever for a Nintendo launch, so clearly we believe. What was the strategy behind announcing the GTA 6 release date as early as you did? Our labels will typically announce dates when they believe that's the date they're going to deliver the product, and it meets within a marketing window,all the stars essentially align. But that's always resided with our labels. Civilization 7 got a mixed community response at launch, but the results note that updates are ongoing and a long sales cycle is expected, as with previous entries. Can you talk about how you see the journey of that game playing out? I think you actually captured it pretty well. We definitely had some challenges at launch. Every time we've come out with a new platform iteration of Civilization, there's been some consternation on the part of consumers who love the franchise and are beholden to its prior iteration. Then, we will occasionally do updates, make changes, address concerns, and the sales cycle ends up being very long, and people – once again – fall in love with it. I see that happening right now. We've addressed some of the initial changes, we probably have a bit more work to do, but sales are strong and we're really happy with how it's going – and I think in the fullness of time, it'll be just great. I was wondering if you could talk about game pricing and the decision to make Mafia: The Old Country a product. What was the strategy there, and what are your thoughts about where pricing is at more generally? We've always had variable pricing here, and our job as an entertainmentseeking to bring the biggest and best hits to all consumers around the world is always to deliver more value than what we charge. Always. We think Mafia: The Old Country is absolutely extraordinary – it looks just great. We wanted to get it into as many hands as possible. This was one way to do it. Our job is not to turn a consumer upside down, shake them, and see how much change comes out of their pockets. Our job is to create the very best entertainment. If we do that, the revenue will take care of itself. Image credit: Take-Two Interactive What about the upper end of premium game pricing? Obviously we've seen Nintendo and Xbox increase pricing on their side – what do you make of the response to that, and where do you see Take-Two going with future premium game pricing? Look, undoubtedly on a real basis, that is to say adjusted for inflation, topline pricing has been coming down for years. Probably two decades. Which is to say, on an inflation-adjusted basis, every year topline pricing has been further and further discounted. Consumers look at their entertainment through a lens of, 'how much time am I going to spend with this, and how much am I going to like it?' The more time they spend, and the more they're going to like it, the more value is being delivered to those consumers. Again, our job is to maximise the value being delivered, and then offer that value at a meaningfully reduced cost, so that the experience of consumption is optimised across both how it feels when you're actually playing our games, as well as how it feels when you're paying your credit card bill. That's our job. I do think that the value that is offered is massive and growing, and that is our job. Borderlands 4 has huge Steam wishlist numbers. What's kept that franchise so evergreen over almost two decades now? Randy Pitchford and the team at Gearbox do amazing work. It is a phenomenal property, and I think the most recent trailer shows that no matter what you think, Gearbox has always been a step ahead of you. They capture that tone. They're not slavishly devoted to what came before. What came before informs what they do, and then they, 'how do we take this to the next level?' Or the next planet, as the case may be. It was a great year for Zynga. What's the key to that level of performance in such a competitive market? I'm so proud of what the team at Zynga has been able to accomplish, because really, Zynga is the only mobile company out there that's generating multiple new hits in the marketplace. We have Match Factory, which is now profitable, we have Color Block Jam which has been enormously successful in a short period of time. Toon Blast, which is a legacy title that's booming. We have Empires & Puzzles which is a huge title that's stabilised, and is now poised for growth. What's special? Honestly? Take-Two aims to have among our colleagues the very most talented people in the business, on the creative side, and on the executive side. It's self-serving, but I believe that's the case. Match Factory comes to us from Peak, Color Block Jam comes to us from Rollic. These studios are phenomenal, led by phenomenally talented people. In the results, you mentioned the massive success of GTA 6's second trailer. In the short term, what kind of effect has that had on the existing Rockstar catalogue of titles? In the quarter we just announced, GTA Online and Red Dead Online both did better than expectations. As for the trailer, it generated 475 million views in the first 24 hours, setting a record. So I think we're in a pretty good place. What's exciting you about the year ahead? We have a great release schedule coming up, I'm really looking forward to Mafia: The Old Country, Borderlands 4, both of which we've discussed. We've a lot of other great releases coming, of course our annualised titles WWE and NBA. Across the board, there's a lot of very exciting titles coming. We have our live-ops titles we just discussed. Zynga has new releases coming. It's always hard to say what a mobile title will do, but I feel really good about a number of those titles. And we have our catalogue. This company has the opportunity to perform all of its various divisions, all of its various business channels, and our recent results reflect the fact that we're doing so. #taketwo039s #strauss #zelnick #game #prices

KPF and Heatherwick Studio have broken ground on Terminal 5 at Changi Airport, Singapore. The design of the billion scheme was unveiled in September 2022 and is expected to be ready to serve 50 million annual passengers by the mid-2030s. The terminal’s design adopts an “airport as a city” concept, where each component is seen as an opportunity to create a neighborhood with its own character. The team also describes the terminal as an “engaging new district” of benefit to travelers and locals, echoing Safdie’s move to combine natural and built elements within the airport. “Our design for Terminal 5 is inspired by Singapore’s unique blend of nature and city,” said KPF Design Principal Trent Tesch when the scheme’s design was unveiled. “We are conscious of the international significance of this project, and are focused on creating not only an iconic building that is identifiably Changi Airport but also a memorable and positive experience for travelers and the greater public.”... #kpf #heatherwick #break #ground #singapores

Apple's iPhone 17 Air may last longer on a charge that it would with existing tech, thanks to silicon batteries that pack 15% more energy into the same space.iPhone 17 Air render on the rightThe iPhone 17 Air, expected this fall, could be the first Apple smartphone to feature advanced silicon-anode battery technology. Japanese supplier TDK has confirmed that it's accelerating production, with shipments set to begin by the end of June.That timeline may give Apple just enough lead time to include the new batteries in its rumored 5.5mm-thin device, according to DigiTimes. The thin model is widely expected to be announced in September. Rumor Score: 🤔 Possible Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums #iphone #air #debut #advanced #silicon

Enterprise IT leaders are becoming uncomfortably aware that generative AItechnology is still a work in progress and buying into it is like spending several billion dollars to participate in an alpha test— not even a beta test, but an early alpha, where coders can barely keep up with bug reports.  For people who remember the first three seasons of Saturday Night Live, genAI is the ultimate Not-Ready-for-Primetime algorithm.  One of the latest pieces of evidence for this comes from OpenAI, which had to sheepishly pull back a recent version of ChatGPTwhen it — among other things — delivered wildly inaccurate translations.  Lost in translation Why? In the words of a CTO who discovered the issue, “ChatGPT didn’t actually translate the document. It guessed what I wanted to hear, blending it with past conversations to make it feel legitimate. It didn’t just predict words. It predicted my expectations. That’s absolutely terrifying, as I truly believed it.” OpenAI said ChatGPT was just being too nice. “We have rolled back last week’s GPT‑4o update in ChatGPT so people are now using an earlier version with more balanced behavior. The update we removed was overly flattering or agreeable — often described as sycophantic,” OpenAI explained, adding that in that “GPT‑4o update, we made adjustments aimed at improving the model’s default personality to make it feel more intuitive and effective across a variety of tasks. We focused too much on short-term feedback and did not fully account for how users’ interactions with ChatGPT evolve over time. As a result, GPT‑4o skewed towards responses that were overly supportive but disingenuous. “…Each of these desirable qualities, like attempting to be useful or supportive, can have unintended side effects. And with 500 million people using ChatGPT each week, across every culture and context, a single default can’t capture every preference.” OpenAI was being deliberately obtuse. The problem was not that the app was being too polite and well-mannered. This wasn’t an issue of it emulating Miss Manners. I am not being nice if you ask me to translate a document and I tell you what I think you want to hear. This is akin to Excel taking your financial figures and making the net income much larger because it thinks that will make you happy. In the same way that IT decision-makers expect Excel to calculate numbers accurately regardless of how it may impact our mood, they expect that the translation of a Chinese document doesn’t make stuff up. OpenAI can’t paper over this mess by saying that “desirable qualities like attempting to be useful or supportive can have unintended side effects.” Let’s be clear: giving people wrong answers will have the precisely expected effect — bad decisions. Yale: LLMs need data labeled as wrong Alas, OpenAI’s happiness efforts weren’t the only bizarre genAI news of late. Researchers at Yale University explored a fascinating theory: If an LLM is only trained on information that is labeled as being correct — whether or not the data is actually correct is not material — it has no chance of identifying flawed or highly unreliable data because it doesn’t know what it looks like.  In short, if it’s never been trained on data labeled as false, how could it possibly recognize it?  Even the US government is finding genAI claims going too far. And when the feds say a lie is going too far, that is quite a statement. FTC: GenAI vendor makes false, misleading claims The US Federal Trade Commissionfound that one large language modelvendor, Workado, was deceiving people with flawed claims of the accuracy of its LLM detection product. It wants that vendor to “maintain competent and reliable evidence showing those products are as accurate as claimed.” Customers “trusted Workado’s AI Content Detector to help them decipher whether AI was behind a piece of writing, but the product did no better than a coin toss,” said Chris Mufarrige, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Misleading claims about AI undermine competition by making it harder for legitimate providers of AI-related products to reach consumers. “…The order settles allegations that Workado promoted its AI Content Detector as ‘98 percent’ accurate in detecting whether text was written by AI or human. But independent testing showed the accuracy rate on general-purpose content was just 53 percent,” according to the FTC’s administrative complaint.  “The FTC alleges that Workado violated the FTC Act because the ‘98 percent’ claim was false, misleading, or non-substantiated.” There is a critical lesson here for enterprise IT. GenAI vendors are making major claims for their products without meaningful documentation. You think genAI makes stuff up? Imagine what comes out of their vendors’ marketing departments.  #chatgpt #gave #wildly #inaccurate #translations