The announcement by San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors to allow the city’s police to use robots that can deploy “deadly force” in the fight against crime has been met with concern.

What Killer Robots? 

According to a San Francisco Police Department policy document, the city has essentially approved the use of 17 robots, 5 of which aren’t currently functioning. The remotely controlled, ground operated robots include (for example) REMOTEC robots that can climb stairs (such as in apartment buildings), can carry tools and accessories, plus have an arm that can lift weights from 65 to 85 pounds. Their stated purpose is to support officers in “training and simulations, criminal apprehensions, critical incidents, exigent circumstances, executing a warrant or during suspicious device assessments”.  

Crucially, however, the SFPD policy document outlines how: “Robots will only be used as a deadly force option when risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and outweighs any other force option available to SFPD.” 

Bad Memories – New York 

The announcement has re-ignited fears and concerns expressed back in May 2021 when, on the other side of the US in New York, ‘Digidog’ the police robot dog with a militarised appearance was deployed to an incident in the Bronx. Footage published online caused alarm and criticism among members of the public which was heightened at the time by the high-profile incidents of police killings of black citizens, and the resulting protests. On seeing DigiDog, comparisons were made with fictional characters like the Terminator and Robocop and this led to comments that the robot was ‘creepy’ and like something from a dystopian future.

Killed By Robot 

Robots have been used with lethal force by police before. Back in 2016 in Dallas, police used a bomb mounted on a robot to kill a sniper gunman who had shot five police officers during a protest.

SFPD does not currently have robots equipped with lethal force. However, if/when deployed, it appears the new robots that SFPD plan to use are intended only to be used in extreme circumstances to tackle similar situations i.e., “potentially be equipped with explosive charges to breach fortified structures containing violent, armed, or dangerous subjects”.

Objections 

Despite assurances that such robots would only be used in very specific situations there has, of course been criticism of SFPD’s policy decision, including:

– The use of robots is dehumanising, make humans feel more distant from the use of force and its consequences, and from the emotional impact of killing / taking a life. This could make it easier to make decisions to use lethal force.

– Both Amnesty International and the campaign group ‘Stop Killer Robots’ are vocal and active in their opposition to the use of ‘killer robots’ and autonomous weapons systems wherever they are used or planned.

– Their use could be normalised and gradually broadened until they are deployed in situations where they don’t need to be, i.e. their use could constitute excessive force.

– Mistakes could still be made, and innocent people could be killed or injured with robot attacks, e.g. as they have been with drones.

– This could be a tool that begs to be used and police may choose to use it when they should be looking for other options.

– It could be more of a threat to San Franciso’s most vulnerable people and ethnic communities.

– It could be a step towards a dystopian future.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

SFPD have assured people that these robots would only be used in extreme situations where the lives of innocent people and first responders are in danger and where other options are not viable, e.g. incidents like mass shootings. Also, this is a policy change announcement and there are currently no robots being used by the SFPD that have lethal force capabilities. Basic remote-controlled robots have proven their use around the world for bomb disposal and suchlike. The new robots planned by SFPD are also remote-controlled relatively basic models and a far cry from the idea of an autonomous, humanoid robot such as Robocop. However, many valid fears have been expressed and the thought of robots on the streets, controlled by the police and equipped to kill is unnerving to many people and could be seen as a first step along the road to a frightening future if not regulated properly or used exactly as intended.

A report from Seagate has highlighted how the rising costs of storing and managing data is hitting businesses hard.

One-Third Of Company Budgets 

The report highlights how up to a third of company IT budgets are being eaten up by data management and storage costs at an average spend of £213,000 per year!

Sleeping Giant 

Seagate describes the problem as a “sleeping giant” for businesses and over half (52 per cent) of the senior IT decision-makers at companies with more than 1,000 employees who were surveyed for the report described this level of spending as “unsustainable.” 

Prioritised 

Also, the report revealed that companies are prioritising spending on data over energy costs, as well as employee welfare and training.

Why Is It Happening? 

There are several main reasons why companies are spending so much on data management and storage. These include:

– Businesses are using and storing data at unprecedented levels.

– Management do not always realise the scale of the problem (51 per cent of those surveyed thought this), thereby allowing costs to continue spiralling.

– Tough economic conditions pushing up data storage and cloud services prices, e.g. Google Cloud raising its prices in March this year. Reasons why cloud prices are rising include disruption in the semiconductor supply chain, rising energy prices, huge demand causing cloud companies to reach scale, and an uncertain geopolitical landscape (in Europe) stalling data centre expansion plans.

Innovation Suffering 

The Seagate report highlights how nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) of those surveyed think that how data storage and management is now priced also discourages innovation. This is bad for competitiveness and industries.

Similar Findings To IDC 

The Seagate report echoes some of findings of a recent (November 22) International Data Corporation (IDC) report which highlighted how “the largest share of enterprise IT infrastructure spending in the first half of 2022 (1H22) was Structured Databases/Data Management” with organisations spending $6.3 billion on compute and storage infrastructure to support this workload (8.5 per cent of the market total). The IDC report found that businesses worldwide are spending $41.1 billion annually on “Data Management”. 

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Data is now a central and vital component for businesses and although a move to the cloud has facilitated its storage and management while providing ways to create more value from that data, the costs of cloud services (among others) are rising at rates which are causing concern.

Over half those surveyed for the report thought that they wouldn’t be able to sustain these kinds of costs in 3 years’ time with data-management spending having risen by 30 per cent this year alone. As noted in the report, there may be a lack of management awareness about the scale of the problem, yet many businesses are now looking at all their costs anyway at this time and their data management costs are now likely to be on that list too. Some approaches that companies could try to reduce those costs (without affecting growth) include optimising existing cloud resources, incentivising behaviour that save cloud costs, more proactive budget controls, keeping scalability and savings in balance, finding/removing underused but costly processes, plus prioritising those processes and tools that best serve business needs. The fact remains, however, that data costs are likely to keep rising so businesses need to act now to take a close look at the sources of their data management costs and identify which steps can be taken to keep them down without hurting competitiveness.

In this insight, we look at what ‘quiet quitting’ is, what its causes are, together with what could be done to prevent it.

Quiet Quitting? 

Quiet quitting is a term commonly associated with employment where it refers to how workers decide to only do the job they’re being paid to without taking on extra duties or participating in extracurricular work or work activities. I.e., quiet quitters do little or nothing outside the basics of the job description, specifically, doing the bare minimum needed to still get paid. It could also be described as a pandemic-induced burnout resulting in a disengagement.

Quiet quitting from social media (e.g. Twitter) refers to more lurking and less tweeting, i.e. not giving more to a platform than you can expect to get back.

Why? 

Some of the reasons for what many now believe to be the employment trend of quiet quitting (after it trended on TikTok) include:

– The need to re-establish work-life boundaries and get a better work/life balance. Many people appear to have had a realisation that life may be more important than they recognised or appreciated before the pandemic, i.e. the realisation that there’s more to life than just work.

– Managers in a post-pandemic world still applying old principles and techniques leading to dissatisfaction and disconnection, particularly among the young, e.g. millennials and Gen Z.

– The higher levels of stress and uncertainty caused by the pandemic leading to the magnification of the unhealthy aspects of some work environments.

– A high workload and a perceived lack of empathy from employers.

– Employees feeling disenfranchised and feeling that they can’t be themselves and that they need to change themselves or suppress part of themselves to fit in, e.g. within inequitable work environments.

– Poor compensation, a lack of management support, and an apparent disregard for work and personal life boundaries in a workplace.

– Changing expectations and poor communication or conflict resolution.

Does Quiet Quitting Lead To Real Quitting? 

While quiet quitting really refers to actually staying in a job but doing the minimum, in early 2021 just after the pandemic, a trend known as the Great Resignation/the Big Quit/the Great Reshuffle happened. This referred to employees voluntarily resigning from their jobs en-masse.

Some reasons for this may have been similar to the reasons for quiet quitting, e.g. a shift in priorities precipitated by the pandemic leading to pursuit of a ‘dream job’ or resentments about their employers not treating them well during the pandemic.

It should also be remembered that when the pandemic and its restrictions first took hold, many workers simply lost their jobs and had no choice.

What Can Done To Stop Quiet Quitting? 

Some ways that the quiet quitting challenge could be addressed include:

– Being prepared to manage the younger generations of workers differently and offering more flexible workplace options.

– Giving employees the chance to prioritise their work with perhaps just a one-on-one at the beginning of the week to help overcome overload at work.

– Having realistic expectations of (and goals for) workers – particularly younger workers.

– Ensuring that increases in workload are kept short-term.

– Managers leading by example, being less rigid, and letting employees know that it’s OK to be away from the office sometimes.

– Managers showing gratitude and empathy and letting workers know they’re valued.

– Keeping pay competitive with market rates and compensating employees well for extra effort or results.

– Making stepping up optional and making sure employees’ boundaries are not overstepped by co-workers or managers intruding on their personal time.

– Trying to build a rapport and relationships with employees and monitoring mood and behaviour changes in employees.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

The pandemic and the post pandemic environment created a new and unusual set of circumstances and consequences that have manifested in some (mostly younger we’re told) employees as a kind of burnout and disengagement. Although employees doing the bare minimum and detaching themselves from the business is, of course, bad for productivity and competitiveness, it doesn’t have to be like that.

Everyone suffered during the pandemic, not least business owners, but businesses can’t run well without committed staff and preventing the worrying trend of quiet quitting involves listening and creating the right environment where there is mutual respect, workloads are managed well, employees feel supported and the rewards for (optional) stepping up are clear while offering a motivating levels of reward.

Following news of the collapse of FTX, we look at what it was plus the events leading up to its demise and the effects going forward.

FTX 

FTX, until very recently, was a Bahamas-based cryptocurrency exchange, founded in 2019 which at its peak (July 2021) had more than one million users and was the third-largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume. FTX was founded by the now 30-year-old Sam Bankman-Fried.

What Happened To FTX? 

A series of recent events and allegations about FTX and Mr Bankman-Fried caused panicked traders to pulled $6bn out of FTX, leading to its collapse and bankruptcy. These included:

– In July 2021, Binance, an early investor in FTX, sold its stake in its rival for $2.1 billion worth of FTT, a token launched by FTX.

– A CoinDesk article on (Nov 2) alleged that FTX and its corporate sibling Alameda Research (also owned by Bankman-Fried) faced a liquidity crisis. This led to concerns that Alameda Research’s balance sheet was too heavily reliant on illiquid tokens (tokens that can’t be quickly and easily bought or sold) including FTX’s own FTT.

– One-week later, FTX’s rival Binance announced that FTX had a liquidity crunch and had asked for its help. Binance then agreed a rescue plan to buy the FTX cryptocurrency exchange (not including FTX’s U.S. division called ‘FTX US’) with two CEOs, “CZ” Zhao and Bankman-Fried, signing non-binding letter of intent and saying that a due diligence process would soon be underway.

– The next day (Nov 9) Binance pulled out of its rescue plan deal following a “corporate due diligence” review which appeared to reveal issues in FTX’s financial situation. Binance said these were “beyond our control or ability to help.” 

– Binance’s CEO “CZ” Zhao announced that he was selling all his holdings of FTX’s FTT to “in a way that minimizes market impact.” 

– FTX’s CEO Bankman-Fried denied rumours of insolvency, saying that “a competitor is trying to go after us with false rumours.” He also said that “FTX is fine.” 

– CZ’s announcement that he was selling off all his holdings of FTX’s FTT resulted in a fall in FTT’s price.

– Alameda’s CEO, Caroline Ellison, then tweeted that Alameda (also owned by Bankman-Fried) would buy all Binance’s FTT tokens for $22 each in to minimise the impact on prices.

– The Binance rescue plan caused a 10 per cent (plus) fall in the prices of Bitcoin and Etherium, wiping out more than $60 billion from the market.

– It was alleged that CZ may have deliberately created a liquidity crisis at FTX (which he denied) to enable him to buy one of his biggest competitors for a rock bottom price.

– The US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission began an investigation into FTX’s relationships with its sister entities Alameda Research and FTX. Allegations that customer funds had been mishandled were also investigated.

– This led to a knock-on effect on USDC and USDT on the Solana blockchain over FTX’s role in trading Solana-based stablecoins and operating a Solana bridge.

– Many FTX customers then said that they were having trouble withdrawing money from FTX.

– Bankman-Fried announced the winding down of FTX’s sister entity Alameda Research (Nov 10), and that he was concentrating on raising “liquidity” and considering bankruptcy.

– FTX sought rescue funds (of $9.4 billion) from investors, rival exchanges (OKX and Tether), and made a deal with the Tron blockchain network founder Justin Sun, to allow holders Tron-related tokens to withdraw their holdings from FTX.

– A banner on the FTX US website announced the possible halting of trading on FTX US.

– On Nov 11, Bankman-Fried resigned from his position as the FTX CEO and John J. Ray III (a lawyer) was announced as the person taking over as CEO.

– Alameda Research, FTX and around 30 affiliated companies started bankruptcy proceedings.

– American FTX were told that they should be able to get their money back in full although international customers may only get 20/25 per cent of their money back from FTX.

– A Reuters report then alleged that at least $1 billion in funds from FTX customers’ accounts has gone missing.

– Police in the Bahamas along with the Bahamas Securities Commission started an investigation into FTX to see if there had been any wrongdoing.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Sadly, the FTX collapse, like many other crypto failures and crashes, has dealt another blow to the crypto industry and confidence in it. Investors like certainty and in the crypto market, liquidity, being able to easily buy and sell, is also valued.

In the case of the illiquid FTX and following the failed deal and spat with Binance they had neither certainty nor liquidity, so this coupled with the speed and frequency of worrying announcements meant that things were only going to head one way. The FTX collapse has had damaging knock-on effects for other cryptocurrencies and investments, and its collapse puts Binance in a much stronger market position with FTX gone. This has changed the shape of the whole crypto market. The events and investigation into FTX are still quite recent, however, and it remains to be seen what (if any) new information surfaces and which effects this will have going forward.