Big Tech is moving fast and breaking your job

Plus: Bloodbath & Beyond. [Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a LadMDA-powered search of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - [Robots]( are circling [Big Tech](. - Bed Bath is [beyond repair](. - [Sports betting]( is a big business. - Older workers need [a revolution](. This Is Your Brain on Bard Google product names usually stick to a [predictable convention](. There’s Google Search, Google Alerts, Google Books, Google Meet. You get the picture. So the Shakespeare-invoking name of [its ChatGPT rival]( — “Bard” — is quite the deviation. It makes you wonder whether “Bard” will eventually replace “Google” altogether. I can picture it: Bard News, Bard Assistant, Bard Ad Manager, BardMail. Will we just be “Barding” in a few years? [The search giant is normally pretty slow]( when it comes to new product releases, Parmy Olson notes. But [the birth of ChatGPT]( threw Google’s $150 billion [search business]( into the path of an oncoming [AI train](. Sundar Pichai had to act fast or risk being left behind, which helps explain why he chose to [spill the beans]( about �€™s new LadMDA-powered search query tool. [Other companies]( are catching on, as Robert Burgess has noted. Just today, the Chinese company Baidu [announced its forthcoming "Ernie Bot."]( Google’s pivot to AI is a sign of the times. Big Tech needs to learn to do more with less — less time, less money and less headcount. At the start of the pandemic, [job offers were being thrown to tech workers]( like water bottles during a half-marathon, Justin Fox notes. But everyone from Facebook to Microsoft overhydrated, and now they’re cutting back — a trend Parmy forecasts will last the year. The fact that all these layoffs are happening at a time when everyone and their mother are leaning into artificial intelligence is a bit disconcerting to non-artificially intelligent people. But at least the layoffs are happening at the hands of real-life humans in actual human-resources departments. Down the road, Beth Kowitt predicts [the algorithms coming for our jobs will also help fire us](. Amazon employees have already gotten [a taste of this dystopian future](, with some getting [fired via automated emails]( after robots decided they weren’t doing enough. Office workers could soon face a similar fate, in which AI helps HR weed out unproductive workers. This could open up a can of worms for corporate America: “Rather than remove bias from a round of messy and uncomfortable layoffs, AI has the potential to encode it,” Beth writes. This is one AI rollout that should be as slow as possible. Bloodbath & Beyond I shamelessly stole the above header from Matt Levine’s summary of [what has happened to Bed Bath & Beyond]( over the past 24 hours. This includes a $1 billion capital-raising meant to fend off bankruptcy, the biggest one-day stock-price gain in the company’s history, and then the biggest one-day price drop. Leticia Miranda calls the offering “[a last-ditch effort to keep the lights on](,” and one analyst cut their [price target on the stock to $0](. Some of Bed Bath’s vendors are so sketched out they’ve stopped sending it Tervis tumblers and Tempur-Pedic mattress toppers because they’re worried the company doesn’t have the cash to pay them. So yeah, you could say [things are looking pretty dire](: Source: Ben Tobin via [Business Insider]( Matt suggests Bed Bath’s capital bonanza “looks a lot like meme-stock financial engineering,” with the company dumping loads of stock (at inflated prices) on innocent retail investors every time it goes viral on Reddit, using the proceeds to chip away at its debt pile. If that gives you [the ick](, you’re not alone. Bed Bath needed this cash [like yesterday](, and it’s [shutting the doors of 150 more]( stores. Maybe try to use the 47 coupons you have sitting in your junk drawer while you still have a chance. Betting Boom What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the words “Super Bowl?” Maybe it’s a [Bud Light commercial](. Maybe it’s [food poisoning](. But for too many people, it’s gambling. [A record 20% of Americans]( will toss their money into a pool and write their initials in a small square box on Game Day this year. And for whatever reason, it will be your cousin Bill who ends up taking the pot. It’s always Bill. In a three-part edition of his “Crash Course” podcast, Tim O’Brien speaks with players in the $44 billion sports-betting industry, including [gambling maven Blair Montgomery](. Along the way, he explores the rising threat of [match fixing]( and the risk that [Native Americans]( will lose their big share of the US gambling market. Listen to the episodes on [iHeartRadio](, [Apple Podcasts]( or [Spotify](. It will entertain you while you’re prepping [all those chicken wings](. Telltale Charts Efforts to lure people [back to the office]( are getting a little desperate. This past week, “Fortune” published a story about the [restorative value of commuting]( that made the internet collectively [break out]( in hives. Meanwhile, Emmanuel Macron is raising France’s pension age and setting diversity quotas in an effort to get older workers back into the labor force. Or, as French protesters characterized the scheme: “Commute, work, die.” Macron’s heart may be in the right place, [but his tools are a little too blunt](, Lionel Laurent writes. Have you ever seen those videos where an adult shows a small child [a rotary phone]( or a [floppy disk]( and asks them what it is and they have no idea? Well, we have a new contender: the World Trade Organization. Eduardo Porter was in Marrakech in 1994 when the multinational institution was formed amid high hopes. But today, you could say the WTO stands for “What The OK” and a Gen Zer would probably believe you. Worse, the dream of using [trade to promote global peace]( is as dead as the organization that once promoted it, Eduardo writes. Further Reading $31 trillion of debt sounds bad, but America’s [debt-to-GDP ratio]( is far more harrowing. — Karl Smith Liz Truss’s “human hand grenade” approach was violent, but unhappy Tories [think her diagnosis was correct](. — Martin Ivens What to do [when your landlord decides to sell your apartment building]( midway through your lease. — Stuart Trow If President Joe Biden’s [State of the Union address]( is successful, it will be boring. — Jonathan Bernstein Vladimir Putin has made a lot of enemies lately, but [one friend is sticking around](: India. — David Fickling BP is pivoting from “Beyond Petroleum” to “[Back into Petroleum](.” — Javier Blas SoftBank should get into [stock buybacks](. — Tim Culpan ICYMI The death toll in Turkey and Syria [keeps rising](. Egg prices [are finally cracking](. There's a lot riding on [Biden's big speech](. Donald Trump is [already playing dirty]( with Ron DeSantis. [Barbra Streisand]( has an [incredibly long]( memoir. Kickers La La Land is [headed to Broadway](. Magic Mike is [showing less skin](. Can you [find rectangles]( in a square? Harry Styles spun in [the wrong direction](. Area woman makes [recipes etched on gravestones](. Source: [Trung Phan]( Notes:  Please send Tempur-Pedic mattress toppers and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Instagram](, [TikTok](, [Twitter]( and [Facebook](. Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. [Learn more](. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Bloomberg Opinion Today newsletter. 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