INBOXIFY ORIGINAL's [07/July/2023]

Hello, Friday! Welcome to our weekly newsletter filled with captivating stories, exciting updates, and valuable insights. Get ready to embark on a journey of discovery and inspiration as we dive into the highlights of the week. Sit back, relax, and enjoy your Friday read!

WORK

First US law over AI bias in hiring tools takes effect

The hiring manager who decides whether you get your next job may not be human as companies increasingly adopt AI tools for hiring. And a New York City law that took effect yesterday wants to make sure that if the AI doesn’t pick you, it’s not because of an algorithm’s baked-in bias.

The concern is real: AI can exhibit racist and sexist biases (machines, they’re just like us!), and a survey last year by the Society for Human Resource Management found that almost 1 in 4 companies already uses AI in the hiring process.

The first-of-its-kind law requires companies to:

• Notify job candidates who live in NYC that AI is being used and let them request info on what data is being collected.

• Conduct yearly independent audits of any AI tools they use to make employment decisions aimed at ensuring they don’t discriminate based on sex, race, or ethnicity and publish ratios to show whether they disproportionately impact specific groups.

Businesses that don’t comply can be fined up to $1,500 per violation a day.

Everyone’s a critic

As with all things AI, the new law drew impassioned responses. It was passed in 2021 but got delayed for years while lawmakers sifted through a boatload of public comments on how to enforce it—many from businesses that called it an impractical burden.

Some public interest groups and advocates now say the final version doesn’t go far enough to root out discrimination. Because it focuses on AI making substantial decisions, it may not even apply ​​to popular tools that winnow down job applicants before they’re screened by human staff.

Zoom out: NYC’s law will be the first to regulate bias in AI algorithms in the workplace, but it won’t be the last. And it’ll provide an important model for laws around the country. Legislators in California, New Jersey, Vermont, and New York are already drafting state-level laws.

TRAVEL

Japan Airlines will rent you your trip fit

Japan Airlines wants you to never again feel the agony of zipping a bursting-at-the-seams suitcase and lugging it to the airport only to learn that it’s 3.4 pounds overweight.

Yesterday, the airline debuted its “Any Wear, Anywhere” service, which lets passengers rent and receive clothes upon arrival in Japan.

The country’s flagship carrier wants to study whether the offering will encourage folks to pack light, allowing its planes to burn less greenhouse-gas-spewing fuel. Plus, it seeks to reduce clothing waste by partnering with trading firm Sumitomo Corp., which will supply overstock garments.

Here’s how it works:

• Travelers assemble their Japan-trip wardrobe online by choosing up to eight sets of business or business casual clothes for $28–$49 each.

• The outfits are delivered to their hotel, and travelers can keep them for up to two weeks.

Japan Airlines is one of several airlines making moves to give an environmentally friendly sheen to aviation, which causes 3.5% of human-induced climate change, according to one study.

But…skeptics worry that some of the environmental benefits of the service, which will be available on a trial basis through August 2024, might be offset by the impact of delivering the rented clothes and tourists filling their freed-up luggage space with souvenir samurai swords and sake bottles other travel necessities.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Zuck unleashes his Twitter killer

We might not have to wait for their cage match to watch Mark Zuckerberg knock out Elon Musk.

Meta’s Twitter rival, a microblogging app called Threads, appeared on the App Store over the holiday weekend. For Zuck, the timing couldn’t be better: Disgruntled Twitter users have been scrambling to find alternatives after Twitter owner Elon Musk unleashed a series of unpopular new updates in the past week, including temporarily limiting how many posts can be viewed in a day.

Big picture: Many would-be Twitter rivals have popped up in the past few years to poach users from the Bird App’s nest, but Threads, coming from what is already one of largest social media companies on Earth, presents Twitter’s biggest threat yet.

• On competing platforms like Bluesky or Mastodon, a Twitter user with a large following would have to start from scratch.

• With Threads, an Instagram influencer can easily post to the following they’ve already built. That’s a pretty compelling pitch.

It’s all part of the Zuck playbook

Meta has become notorious for watching social media competitors roll out popular features and then hitting crtl+c and ctrl+v into its own platform. And it’s been a successful strategy.

• Stories, a Snapchat clone, now accounts for more than 25% of Instagram’s global ad revenue, per Insider Intelligence.

• And Reels, the TikTok impersonator Facebook launched in 2020, appears to be helping keep people on Instagram—even if they’re just old TikToks. Plays of Reels doubled in six months thanks to Meta’s AI-discovery engine, Zuck said in February.

Threads is not guaranteed to succeed—Twitter’s shown a Rasputin-like ability to survive multiple assassination attempts. And it’s still unclear how Instagram users accustomed to a visual app will respond to a text-based product.

But while Zuck is only a white belt in jujitsu, he’s a sensei in social media. All he needs to do is convert 18% of Instagram users to Threads, and he’ll create a new app the same size as Twitter.

AROUND THE WEB

• Israel pulled out of the West Bank city of Jenin after a two-day, large-scale military operation that killed 12 Palestinians.

• Jenny Craig, the weight loss company that recently shut down after 40 years in business, will be revived—at least online—by former rival Nutrisystems.

• Just Stop Oil, the anti-fossil-fuel group, disrupted Wimbledon twice by throwing orange confetti and jigsaw puzzle pieces onto a court.

• Allison Mack, the Smallville actress who pleaded guilty to crimes stemming from her involvement with the NXIVM cult, has been released from prison early.

• Coco Lee died by suicide at age 48. The pop star famously performed a song from the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon soundtrack at the 2001 Oscars.