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Apple will supply senior managers to advise feds on new US Tech Force

Apple will supply senior managers to advise feds on new US Tech Force

In order to correct for the overambitious firings of so many federal technologists, the Trump administration has announced a new initiative called the "Tech Force," and is calling on Silicon Valley to staff it. An image shared by the US Tech Force website. Image source: Tech Force The United States government has gone through some tumultuous months after a new administration took over, created the Department of Government Efficiency, and promptly fired thousands of federal employees. The haste and seeming randomness of the dissolution of so many teams, programs, and initiatives left the United States floundering on the world stage as it attempts to compete. According to a report from Nextgov , big tech companies will play a role in helping the US government create the Tech Force. Donated senior managers from tech firms would work for the government and be given a leave of absence or sabbatical from their home companies for two years. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

'Slop' is Merriam-Webster's word of the year

'Slop' is Merriam-Webster's word of the year

Merriam-Webster has selected "slop" for the dictionary company's 2025 word of the year. The leading lexicographers define slop as "digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence." We've seen an absolute deluge of AI slop this year, from fake movie trailers on YouTube to AI-generated bands on Spotify . Not even food delivery like Uber Eats could escape the onslaught of AI-generated garbage that no one asked for. It's gotten to the point that half the videos my well-meaning parents send me on social media are AI-generated videos of dogs. This isn't all that surprising given how very intentionally the social media giants have added slop to all our feeds . Merriam-Webster rightly points out the somewhat mocking nature of calling it “slop.” "Like slime , sludge and muck , slop has the wet sound of something you don't want to touch. Slop oozes into everything. The original sense of the word, in the 1700s, was 'soft mud.' In the 1800s it came to mean 'food waste' (as in 'pig slop'), and then more generally, 'rubbish' or 'a product of little or no value,'" the dictionary distributors wrote. As the proliferation of AI slop expanded, some platforms like TikTok and Pinterest got wise and began offering users the choice to tone down the sheer amount of it in their feeds. Even Spotify is at least trying to combat some of this stuff now, though that didn't stop an AI-generated copycat from going unnoticed on the platform for weeks. Elsewhere, companies like Google leaned in, incorporating Veo 3-generated videos into YouTube Shorts. We'll only be able to tell in hindsight if 2025 was the peak of AI slop, but for now it shows no signs of abating. Merriam-Webster highlighted some other words for the year (some of which the chronically online will be familiar with), including Gerrymander, Touch Grass, Performative, Tariff, Conclave and Six Seven. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/slop-is-merriam-websters-word-of-the-year-181903322.html?src=rss