ChatGPT and its ilk seem to be taking on ever more work in modern offices.

A new survey from Gallup finds that AI use at work has been accelerating. Nearly one in five workers now say they use it a few times a week, and 8% of respondents report daily AI interactions. Both those numbers have essentially doubled from Gallup’s first measure in 2023.

But not all workers use AI equally. The surge is mostly among white-collar workers, for one; production and frontline staffers have actually seen a slight dip in usage over the past couple of years (from 11% to 9%). Sectors with the highest concentrations of workers frequently turning to AI included the tech industry (50%), professional services (34%), and finance (32%).

BYOAI: Like other surveys have shown, AI usage among employees has also continued to race ahead of employer planning and leadership on the tech. That can create security headaches and lead to a lack of consistent guidelines for workplaces.

While the number of organizations that have communicated a clear plan for integrating AI improved from 15% to 22% in the past year, “it’s still quite low,” according to Jim Harter, Gallup’s chief scientist of workplace management and well-being.

“[Organizations] need to be intentional about the planning process, about the training process,” Harter told Tech Brew. “They’ve got to have a plan about how it can best benefit their company and the jobs that they have, and how it can be a companion for efficiency’s sake in those jobs.”

Keep reading here.—PK

With the federal government backing off AI safety research, it could leave a void of standards for risk-proofing AI models.

The Center for Civil Rights and Technology at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights wants to help fill those needs with a new framework meant to help companies and other orgs design and deploy AI systems with equity in mind.

The 36-page document covers each stage of the development process with considerations for protecting the civil rights of marginalized groups, as well as case studies and resources. It’s aimed at companies and investors in “specific sectors that utilize consumer-focused tech,” including those at a particular risk for discrimination, like housing, banking, and healthcare.

“Private industry doesn’t have to wait on Congress or the White House to catch up; they can start implementing this Innovation Framework immediately,” Kostubh “KJ” Bagchi, VP of the Center for Civil Rights and Technology, said in a statement.

Founded in 1950, the Conference is a coalition of national organizations born out of the civil rights movement. The group formed the Center for Civil Rights and Technology as a joint project with its education and research arm in 2023 to advocate specifically around AI and privacy, industry accountability, and broadband access.

The framework’s release came just before Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick renamed the National Institute for Standards and Technology’s AI Safety Institute to drop the word “safety.” NIST released a widely cited AI risk management framework in 2023 under President Biden that faced opposition from some Republicans, including Senator Ted Cruz, who called the org’s AI safety standards “woke.”

Keep reading here.—PK

Republicans in Washington seem to be softening a bit on some facets of green tech: Last month, House Republicans expressed excitement about geothermal energy production in a hearing, and the Trump administration stated its intentions to “usher in a nuclear renaissance” via four executive orders.

But widespread adoption of both geothermal and nuclear will face obstacles due to personnel shortages and a lack of industrial strategy, former Department of Energy Deputy Secretary David Turk told Tech Brew. In the first 100 days of the Trump administration, thousands of DOE employees and scientists were fired or resigned as part of a “deferred resignation” program designed to reduce the federal workforce.

“There are some technologies that I think will get attention [and] should have strong bipartisan support. And then it’s a matter of execution,” Turk said. “You can’t execute on anything, whether it’s a loan program or grant or anything, unless you have really talented people.”

And Turk told Tech Brew that many (though “not all”) of the DOE’s talented workers are no longer with the department, resulting in “about a third less staff.”

Keep reading here.—TC