August rundown: Who's afraid of remote work?

For many, August has been all about getting away on holiday – stepping back from your desk, and putting on your email’s ‘out of office’. But others have spent the past month focused on how to ensure workers work longer hours and physically turn up to do their 9-5 on company soil.

Eric Schmidt, former CEO at Google, has got into hot water over his claims that companies should ditch remote work schedules if they want to succeed. Schmidt even suggested that his former company was lagging in the generative AI race as a result of its focus on work-life balance.

Also this month, companies competing in that very race have been closely watching the brewing California AI Bill, which seeks to improve the safety of publicly available AI models. How might these companies fare in the wake of the new laws?

In this episode, Jane and Rory welcome back Ross Kelly, ITPro’s news and analysis editor, to explore the past month’s developments.

Highlights

“It caused a ruckus, Schmidt's comments, but that wasn't the only thing that caused a ruckus. There were comments around IP, for example, which a lot of people really took an issue with, around successful startups, if they've potentially pinched a little bit of inspiration or a little bit of intellectual property, that they can essentially worry about the lawsuits later. I think that gives an insight, again, into the sort of mindset, mentality from that perhaps generational divide in Silicon Valley and the tech sector.”

“I think you need to remember the fact that, you know, Google was kind of taken unaware in this generative AI race that kicked off at the start of 2023, end of 2022. So they have been playing catch up, and we've covered that quite extensively in our coverage.”

“This is all about robust testing and safety to make sure that publicly available models aren't hallucinating, providing factually incorrect information, and issues around algorithmic bias. We've been talking about this for about a year and a half at this point, the idea of regulation, and this is California's attempt to pounce on the moment and introduce some form of regulation.”

Footnotes

• Eric Schmidt’s car crash Stanford interview showed big tech’s true colors on remote work
• Former Google CEO in damage control mode after remote work comments spark controversy
• Tech execs pushed for a return to the office – now they’re backtracking amid a workforce revolt, with only 3% of firms asking staff to return full-time
• Dell Technologies told remote workers they’ll miss out on promotions unless they return to the office – staff said they’re willing to take the risk
• Dell Technologies staff aren’t happy after recent layoffs and a controversial RTO scheme — and they made that very clear in a recent internal survey
• Pushing staff back to the office? You may want to reconsider – return to office mandates harm employee productivity and retention
• Google eyes its own on-campus Hotel California in $99 'summer special' lure
• California lawmakers approve sweeping AI legislation – here's what it means for the industry
• Big tech is flexing its muscle to try and ‘water down’ California's AI regulation – here’s why that’s a problem
• Lawmakers and startups lock horns over California AI legislation
• OpenAI pledges support for AI watermarking rules

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