Marketplace Tech

An increasing number of school districts are restricting phones in the classroom, and a series of major lawsuits against social media companies have led some platforms to make significant changes to how they operate. But, bans or not, the reality is that kids are going to encounter this stuff at some point.

Pamela Wisniewski, at the International Computer Science Institute, says kids need guidance to learn how to use technology responsibly.

More on this

Google faces mounting backlash for controversial AI school policy — from CBS

ChatGPT for Teens' safeguards don't work, risk assessment finds — from Marketplace

Silicon Valley Executives Are Tech Fans. Just Not for Their Own Kids — from The New York Times

Reddit announced it will soon require users to log in to see much of the helpful human-generated content on its site. Why? Because traffic, and thus advertising, has taken a hit since AI started summarizing its data.

It's the latest development to threaten the old model of the open internet, says Sarah Gilbert, who researches online communities at the Citizens and Technology Lab at Cornell and is also active in r/askhistorians. She says the new login requirement puts up a wall between humans on the internet and is likely to discourage future contributions to the site.

More on this:

“Reddit moves to logged-in experience as AI eats search” from Axios

“AI Is Killing Wikipedia’s Human Traffic” from Gizmodo

The message that Americans have no love for AI data centers rang out loud and clear in the midterms, with dozens of jurisdictions voting to stop their construction and electing governors who oppose them.

Where they are still allowed, it's likely we'll see some concessions from data center developers — like community benefit agreements. These agreements have been used for decades for big building projects like transit or sports arenas.

Late last year, the city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, signed one of the first major CBAs with data center developers.

Devashree Saha, director of the U.S. Clean Energy Economy Program at the World Resources Institute, explains how the agreement came together and where it might fall short.

More on this

After the midterms, a bigger clash over data centers could be coming — from Tech Crunch

OpenAI pledges no NDAs, protection from power costs in data center deals — from Seeking Alpha

Powering Progress: How Community Benefits Agreements Can Drive Responsible Data Center Development — from the World Resources Institute

Drew and Lindsay Haven spent years working in the Silicon Valley tech industry, but eventually felt they needed a change.

Lindsay left the video game industry about a decade ago. Drew left his job about a year and a half ago, becoming disillusioned with the company culture.

Their story is the latest in our series, “Clocked Out,” which follows people who’ve left the workforce.

More on this:

Why people are dropping out of the workforce and not looking for new jobs: ‘The market wore me down’ — from CNBC

The U.S. labor market may soon face a new crisis: Too few workers — from CBS News

Why are so many men opting out of the labor force? — from Marketplace

Voters have made their dissatisfaction quite clear with the tech status quo. And it sounds like the Democrats gearing up to take power in the House and Senate might actually do something about that.

Plus, Big Tech spent big on races in this election, but didn't get a whole lot of bang for their buck. But first, a tech issue that was actually on the ballot: data centers. More than 40 jurisdictions across 10 states voted to put them on ice. However, Harwood, North Dakota, gave them the green light. Paresh Dave, senior writer at Wired, joins Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino to explain more about all this on this week’s “Tech Bytes: Week in Review.”

More on this:

“America got the anti-data-center wave it voted for. Here come the economic consequences” from CNN

“After Midterm Rebuke, OpenAI Pledges to Give Data Center Towns More Say” from The New York Times

“AI & Tech Brief: Midterms turn the AI tide” from The Washington Post

“Democratic midterm wins set stage for tougher tech and AI scrutiny” from IAPP

“Elon Musk suffers major blow in US midterms” from Politico

“Ohio’s Senate Race Is a Rare Loss for Crypto Under Trump” from The New York Times

Check out our YouTube page to watch more episodes of “Tech Bytes.”