You're tuned in to Tech Beat, and here's what's moving in the world of technology today.
A new survey out of Britain paints a striking picture of public sentiment around social media. Research firm Opinium polled around two thousand adults and found that just seven percent believe social media is a force for good, with roughly one in three saying life would actually improve if every platform vanished overnight. That's a remarkable signal from a connected society growing quietly exhausted.
Meanwhile, California is drawing a firm line between human judgment and algorithmic efficiency. The state has enacted new legislation barring companies from relying on artificial intelligence to initiate layoffs or drive employee monitoring decisions. It's one of the first laws of its kind in the country, and it raises a question the rest of the world will eventually have to answer: who is responsible when a machine makes the call?
And speaking of AI decision-making, the dream of software bots shopping on your behalf is generating enormous excitement in tech and finance circles, but a closer look suggests the reality is years behind the hype. Amazon recently blocked Meta's shopping bot over terms of use concerns, and the broader infrastructure for so-called agentic commerce simply isn't there yet. The gap between vision and execution remains wide.
Keep surfing. Tech Beat out.
