Plus: surveillance-tech company Flock Safety announces safeguards to curb potential abuse by law enforcement. And China’s future economy may need far fewer workers. Julie Chang hosts.
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[00:00:01] Here's your afternoon TNB Tech Minute for Thursday, August 13. I'm Julie Chang for The Wall Street Journal. OpenAI's Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser will be stepping down to pursue other opportunities. The company's announcement comes less than a year after the former CEO of Slack joined the AI company. At OpenAI, Dresser was tasked with growing sales among large businesses looking to adopt AI tools in their workforces.
[00:00:27] She's the latest senior OpenAI executive to leave the company. Earlier this week, Brad Lightcap, the company's former Chief Operating Officer, resigned. And Fiji Simo, once OpenAI's second-in-command, stepped down last month. Surveillance tech company Flock Safety announced safeguards to curb potential abuse by law enforcement following backlash and vandalism against its AI-enabled cameras.
[00:00:51] By the end of 2026, all law enforcement customers must adopt a tool that flags abnormal activity for review, a feature Flock says has already led to arrests of officers misusing the system. Flock is also requiring case codes for database searches and reducing default data retention from 30 days to 7. The company's cameras photographed passing vehicles to collect license plate and identifying data, while supporters argue they help police reduce crime.
[00:01:20] Critics warn they violate privacy rights, citing incidents in which officers allegedly used the cameras for stalking. And AI, robotics, and biotech will drive China's economy into the future, but these industries will need far fewer workers. That's according to the head of Asia Economics at Oxford Economics. She says the new sectors need roughly half the labor of the old ones they displace.
[00:01:45] Chinese labor supply is falling by less than a percent a year in the medium term, but labor demand may be falling even faster. For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out Friday's Tech News Briefing Podcast. . .