EU ministers have discussed how to make labour standards compatible with modern technological conditions and workplace culture, such as telework and AI-led staff oversight, without losing competitiveness.
The law in question, called the Quality Jobs Act, covers a wide range of work protection measures, such as common standards for being able to ‘go home’ and disconnect from remote work, and limits to AI role in recruitment or its scrutiny of workers’ performance.
Technological innovation should “benefit both workers and businesses,” said Portuguese labour minister Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho, addressing the ministers’ council on Monday (19 October) in Luxembourg.
Human oversight is essential, especially where AI systems decide on recruitment or workers’ assessment, she said.
Next to innovation, labour rules needed to ensure “fair and transparent practices, respect for human workers’ rights … and effective social dialog,” said Roxana Mînzatu, the EU commissioner for employment.
“This revolutionary technology has to be regulated” so that it “delivers for all,” Isabelle Schömann, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) deputy general secretary had also said during a conference organised by the centre-left S&D group in the European Parliament on 14 October, commenting on the need for the Quality Jobs Act to curb AI.
The draft Quality Jobs Act that the European Commission plans to present in December aims to update the long out of date 1989 and 1990 health and safety workplace rules.
It would also protect subcontractors and create standards for working in heatwaves, becoming more frequent with climate change.
EU legislators need to ensure minimum standards so that “neither jobs nor businesses are jeopardised” with extreme weather, Yolanda Díaz Pérez, the Spanish labour minister, said ahead of Monday’s debate.
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Cabinet ministers are turning on Ed Miliband, accusing him of blocking AI investment to protect Net Zero – while families pay the price in lost jobs and holidays.
A recent breakthrough in airborne drone control has offered a tangible glimpse into the future of US air combat, signaling the US Air Force’s accelerating push to integrate autonomous wingmen alongside frontline fighters. This month, The War Zone (TWZ) reported that a US Air Force F-22 Raptor pilot successfully controlled an uncrewed YFQ-44A Fury fighter […]
No âmbito do XIX Festival Internacional de Órgão do Algarve, a Igreja Matriz de Lagoa recebe, no dia 1 de novembro, pelas 18h00, o Concerto com Ricardo Toste (órgão) e Rebeca Csalog (Harpista) e a entrada é livre.
Natural da Ilha Terceira, nos Açores, Ricardo Toste iniciou os estudos de órgão em 2001 e desenvolveu a sua formação na Universidade de Aveiro, onde concluiu a Licenciatura em Música e dois mestrados, em Teoria e Formação Musical e em Órgão de Tubos. Tem realizado concertos a solo em Portugal continental e nos Açores, afirmando-se como intérprete e pedagogo. Atualmente, leciona Formação Musical e Órgão em várias instituições de ensino artístico e exerce as funções de organista titular da Catedral de Aveiro, mantendo uma ativa ligação à música litúrgica e à formação de jovens músicos.
Rebeca Csalog, harpista luso-húngara nascida em Lisboa, cresceu num ambiente familiar ligado à música, iniciando-se no violino e mais tarde na harpa. Após concluir os estudos musicais, licenciou-se em Antropologia e obteve um mestrado em Migrações, Inter-Etnicidades e Transnacionalismo. Regressou à música em 2020, realizando um Mestrado em Harpa na ESML e uma pós-graduação em Milão. Atualmente, atua como harpista com algumas das principais orquestras portuguesas, bem como em projetos a solo e de música de câmara, explorando repertórios para além da tradição clássica.
Integrado no XIX Festival Internacional de Órgão do Algarve, organizado pela Associação Música XXI. Entrada livre, limitada à lotação; qualquer donativo será bem-vindo para apoiar as instituições que acolhem o festival.
Uno stress test per il settore finanziario. È quello che il G7 pensa di fare per verificare la pericolosità dell’intelligenza artificiale. A Bangkok, dove sono riuniti i ministri delle Finanze e i governatori delle banche centrali, è emersa la volontà di mettete a punto esercitazioni “teoriche” per capire fino a che punto possono stare tranquilli di fronte alle minacce rappresentate dagli agenti di AI di frontiera. L’obiettivo è studiare la risposta più efficace per difendersi.
A scriverlo è il Financial Times, secondo cui l’esercitazione potrebbe coinvolgere le banche. Come sottolinea il ministro delle Finanze olandese, “stiamo tutti fissando la stessa scatola nera. Vediamo i rischi, ma come affrontarli?”, si chiede Eelco Heinen. “Se pochi Paesi possiedono la tecnologia, ma il mondo interno può esserne vittima, la cooperazione internazionale è fondamentale. È proprio qui che risiede la preoccupazione”. L’idea arriva d’altronde in un momento topico. L’AI viene continuamente descritta come uno strumento rivoluzionario, ma a due facce. Quella negativa potrebbe comportare delle conseguenze ancora poco quantificabili, ma sicuramente drammatiche. Una di queste è che gli agenti di AI possano autonomamente impossessarsi di altri sistemi, sdoppiandosi ed infiltrandosi. Ad esempio, in una banca.
Lo afferma anche il Fondo Monetario Internazionale in un suo rapporto, in cui si legge che “gravi incidenti informatici potrebbero minare la fiducia del mercato e interrompere le infrastrutture e le operazioni critiche dei mercati finanziari”.
Se e quando i test partiranno, si potrà capire meglio a che livello sono le difese. Nel tempo si sono prese delle precauzioni e ci sono dei manuali di risposta già stilati. Ma il pericolo è cambiato, si presenta sotto forme diverse. Per cui bisogna vedere se il sistema architettato possa reggere all’urto. “La situazione può diventare davvero molto difficile”, ammette Caio Ferreia, vice presidente del reparto global markets analysis dell’Fmi. Non è solo una questione operativa. “La perdita di fiducia potrebbe di per sé rappresentare un evento sistemico”.
Resta da capire quando e come si svolgeranno le esercitazioni. Sicuramente il messaggio che invia il G7 è chiaro: con l’AI tutti devono fare i conti, perché nessuno ne è immune. C’è però un dettaglio, neanche troppo piccolo, sottolineato anche dal ministro dell’Economia italiano Giancarlo Giorgetti. I grandi assenti al tavolo di Bangkok erano gli americani. “Il punto di partenza, sinceramente va detto, è che qui non è venuto Scott Bessent“, dice riferendosi al segretario del Tesoro. Al suo posto c’era un sottosegretario. “Evidentemente questo mette in una luce diversa sia le riunioni del G20 sia del G7, sia in qualche modo l’Fmi. Una situazione di grande incertezza, instabilità geopolitica con conseguenze economiche e finanziarie evidenti, con gli Stati Uniti un po’ protagonisti di tutto, che qua sono presenti in tono minore”. In sintesi, conclude Giorgetti, ci troviamo in “un mondo in cerca di equilibrio in cui gli Usa giocano una partita d’isolamento”.
As a free speech absolutist, Elon Musk is making a mistake going after Nitter, says Dr R P. He should instead be praising the site that helps users speak freely, uninhibited by login screens that undermine their privacy.
The Australian government has introduced its digital duty of care legislation to parliament today. The bill includes an “off switch” to allow social media users to opt out of recommender algorithms. If passed, Australians could choose to switch off their algorithmic recommendation and consume a news feed populated by the accounts they subscribe to. It’s […]
On a recent episode of the Bulwark podcast, journalist Ron Brownstein described the election as a contest between “the wave versus the wall.” The wave being voter anger and President Donald Trump’s plummeting popularity. The wall being structural impediments to voters’ voices, such as gerrymanders and the Republican Party’s stark spending advantage. Now we know […]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered Israel’s attorney general and the heads of the Israeli military and Shin Bet security service to investigate the soldiers and officers interviewed anonymously in the documentary film NAZA.
Netanyahu called Sunday for the agencies to identify “all those who are involved or appear in the libel film” and to prosecute them for “serious information security offences, criminal defamation, and harming Israel’s diplomatic and security interests.”
In a letter to IDF Chief of Staff, the head of the Shin Bet, and Israel’s attorney general, Netanyahu decried the film for “present[ing] a false, misleading and biased narrative that defames the State of Israel and the IDF around the world and severely damages Israel’s standing.”
The film NAZA features anonymous interviews with 24 Israeli soldiers and officers involved in remote mass killings of Palestinians in Gaza over the past three years. The soldiers’ faces are obscured and voices are altered for anonymity as they speak with journalist and director Yuval Abraham on rooftops in Tel Aviv.
NAZA reveals how Israel’s AI-based surveillance systems have been used to facilitate and execute remote killings of thousands during Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The film’s title is a Hebrew military acronym for collateral damage – as in, the number of Palestinian civilians deemed acceptable to kill in a bombing with a military target. In one instance, a soldier tells director Yuval Abraham that the military approved the killing of 500 Gazans for one target.
The film and its directors have faced attacks by the Israeli government since its world premiere in September at the Venice Film Festival. Both the Israeli culture minister and Netanyahu have called for revoking the Israeli citizenship of the film’s directors, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, while accusing them of treason and defamation. The IDF chief called the film a “blood libel” and “an attack on the State of Israel.”
Upon the film’s premiere in the U.S. in late September, Netanyahu compared NAZA to “launching dozens of ballistic missiles at Israel.”
Several Israeli civil society organizations, including human rights group B’Tselem, criticized the attacks on the filmmakers, and called for “an end to the wave of incitement and threats of violence against them.”
Abraham and Szor produced No Other Land, the 2024 documentary focused on Israel’s displacement of Palestinian villages in the West Bank, along with Palestinian activist and journalist Basel Adra and Palestinian researcher and photographer Hamdan Ballal. After the film won major international awards, including an Academy Award, members of the film’s Palestinian crew were attacked by both Israeli settlers and soldiers.
Earlier this month, Israel put forward a hastily-produced rival film to counter NAZA; last week, the Israeli government announced that it was awarding the filmmakers “for their contribution to Israeli public diplomacy.”
The Guardian, which produced the film, has pushed back on the Israeli government’s attempts to discreditNAZA. On October 1st, a Guardian spokesperson said that “The process of assessing the credibility of the testimonies was rigorous. It included leaked classified documents, detailed verification of specific strikes and corroboration via a wider pool of confidential journalistic sources who did not appear on camera in the film.”
The Guardian added that the team that produced the film interviewed “more than 100 sources familiar with IDF systems used in the war in Gaza, including senior-ranking commanders directly involved in the authorization of strikes.”
Much of the material in the film had already been published in reports at The Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Israel’s left-wing publication, Local Call.
In a 2024 piece co-published by +972 Magazine and Local Call, Yuval Abraham explained how AI systems like “Lavender” and “Where’s Daddy” identified low-ranking Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives as military targets. After October 7, 2023, Israel’s military decided that these tens of thousands of people could be bombed inside their homes with their families – even tracking and monitoring their children in order to strike their homes. In NAZA, one soldier spoke about using the gruesomely named “Where’s Daddy” AI system to track a 12-year-old girl before killing her. According to Abraham, the Israeli military was also aware that much of the AI systems’ data was also faulty – some 10-15 percent of the people identified as targets were not militants or operatives whatsoever.
In an interview, Abraham explained that NAZA also reveals the extent of the dehumanization of Palestinians within Israeli society – including among the self-identified Israeli “center-left,” which disproportionately took part in the aerial bombardment campaign on Gaza. The aerial bombardment campaign has constituted “some of the most heinous crimes in Gaza,” Abraham argued, as it led to the killing of thousands of Palestinian toddlers in their homes – and it was led largely by members of the center-left opposition against Netanyahu.
“We have fallen into habits that are steadily deskilling the human body,” writes Melanie Challenger. “This is a strange turn of events for an animal whose success comes mostly from the extraordinary ability to learn through experience.” For Aeon, Challenger explores how modern technologies, from GPS to AI, are eroding our body’s physical skills by replacing the embodied experiences through which we learn.
After all, the brain is itself a physical organ, continually shaped by what the body does and encounters. Once we decide that the mind is the real human and the rest of the body only hardware, it becomes easier to disregard the physical work, including the neurocognitive work of a biological brain, through which we move, find our way, put thoughts into words, and recognise our own needs. A machine may do some of that work faster, but each act it takes over is one that the body no longer performs and that the body, including the brain, no longer learns through. The irony is that a project motivated by the desire to overcome bodily fragility is helping to produce more fragile bodies.
Video of Jonatan Greenblatt saying they’ve been working with OpenAI, Anthropic, Alphabet, the company that runs Gemini, Google, Meta, who runs Muse, and others, X, who run Grok... "We've had excellent collaboration"'
Após China sancionar ministro paraguaio por manter ligações com Taiwan, Paraguai declara a sua liberdade de associação com qualquer nação do mundo. "O Paraguai é um país livre e soberano".
O Paraguai e o Belize integram o grupo de 12 países que mantêm relações diplomáticas formais com Taiwan, ilha governada de forma autónoma cuja soberania é reivindicada por Pequim
Anthropic, the maker of the Claude AI models, is preparing what could be the largest initial public offering in history, raising more than $100 billion, according to The New York Times, at a valuation near US$2 trillion. According to Reuters, which reviewed the draft prospectus (the document has not yet been made public), the company […]
Encarnados deram um tiro no pé com a publicidade às galinhas na Luz. Já Haaland comprou casa no Dubai, mas há suspeitas que tenha sido oferecida. E Vinícius Júnior foi expulso e ainda ficou solteiro.
Famous Indian author Shashi Tharoor was famously quoted as saying: “Everything in India is recycled, even the dreams “ In October 2010, The Economist ran a cover titled “How India’s growth will outpace China,” citing India’s young population, dynamic private sector and a strong democratic system as advantages over China’s state-led model. The IMF projected […]
Artificial intelligence is rapidly making its way into national defense. Reconnaissance, early warning, target detection, mission planning—everywhere, machine-learning systems promise faster analysis, faster responses, and faster decision-making. In a military context, this sounds like progress. In reality, AI exacerbates a security problem that cannot be solved technically. Anyone who attempts to do so anyway risks […]
China’s artificial intelligence and digital-infrastructure investments in the Gulf Arab states are increasingly colliding with a far larger and more strategically privileged American technology presence, particularly in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While Beijing offers Gulf governments cloud platforms, 5G networks, smart-city systems, surveillance technologies and lower-cost digital infrastructure, Washington offers the […]
This story originally appeared in Panamerican Dispatch on Oct. 08, 2026, and is shared here with permission.
No doubt you’ve seen it yourself, or read about it: Meta, the tech giant behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, manipulating engagement on certain accounts or banning pages and posts outright to limit the reach of specific political groups.
Here’s something that happened to me. I recently set up a second Instagram account. I never interacted with, followed or liked any far right content. I only followed progressive accounts: Brasil 247’s page, the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement, Lula and a few others. So what showed up first in my feed? A reel from Lucas Pavanato. Yes, the same far right extremist who won more than 3 million votes for federal deputy on the strength of his viral social media clips. Let’s be honest about how he got those millions of views. It wasn’t charisma, and it certainly wasn’t political substance.
Jeferson Miola, a columnist and political analyst at Brasil 247, shared an account of his own: “Instagram took down the page of SAJU, the legal aid service run by the law school at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul,” he said. “SAJU was founded in 1950, and it provides free legal help to low income people. Instagram removed the page after it posted support for Lula’s reelection. That’s a university institution being shut down for political and ideological reasons. It’s a clear restriction of freedom of expression.”
When media personality Fábio Porchat, who has 7.5 million followers on Instagram alone, posted a video video calling out abuses at senatorial candidate Michelle Bolsonaro’s prosperity gospel church, Lagoinha, Instagram pulled it offline with no explanation. It only went back online after a wave of public pressure.
I could list case after case all day. But one account stood out to me in particular: someone who actually works at Meta Brazil. I’m protecting her identity, as journalism allows, so I’ll call her Lira. Here’s what she told me:
“At Meta, there’s a whole team of human moderators who review content. They decide what gets approved and what gets flagged, whether it’s political violence, sexual content, or anything else that crosses their line. These are people with judgment and critical thinking, making real decisions, even while working within the platform’s guidelines. Right in the middle of Brazil’s election season, a large number of them were laid off and replaced almost immediately by AI systems. That means decisions are now coming from a single automated command, possibly issued from the US, designed to boost certain content while burying the rest.”
It’s no secret that Meta has been cutting jobs worldwide. What’s not public is which jobs these were, what those employees actually did, or why the company chose this specific moment in Brazil’s political calendar to make the switch.
There’s a bigger issue here too. AI doesn’t just follow orders, it scales them, instantly and at massive reach, whether the intent behind them is good or bad. All it takes is one command. Maybe from one billionaire.
Zuckerberg’s Unapologetic Support for Trump
Lira’s story connects a lot of dots. Pavanato showing up in my feed, Porchat’s video disappearing, a university page getting banned: all of it could trace back to a single AI instruction, one that executes instantly with no human review at all.
In 2025, Meta’s CEO doubled down on his alignment with the Trump administration, the same administration that openly admits to meddling in Brazil’s politics. “The government can either be actively against you, adding friction and getting in your way, or it can actively help you break down barriers,” Zuckerberg said. Asked about backing Trump specifically, he called it “the right thing to do.”
This partnership isn’t subtle. The support runs both ways, and there’s a real appetite here to control entire countries, Brazil especially. Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court and federal government still try to regulate social media and hold Big Tech accountable to the Constitution, as we saw recently with Discord. For Meta, getting Flávio Bolsonaro into the presidency would mean restoring the lawless digital free for all his father presided over. That’s not just a preference. It’s a profitable mission for Meta, and one that’s more alive than ever. After all, how do you think those viral, extremist friendly clips that get far right candidates elected actually come about, if not with some help from Big Tech?
Laís Gouveia has been a reporter at Brasil 247 since 2018. Before that, she was educational policy director at the National Student Union (União Nacional dos Estudantes/UNE) and an editor at Portal Vermelho.
This article originally ran at Brasil 247, was translated, with consent, by Panamerican Dispatch, and can be read in its original Portuguese here.
The European Union’s technology chief expects countries that oppose stricter artificial intelligence rules to change course, as AI systems are becoming more capable and harder to evaluate.
“I’m sure that all those countries who are not willing to regulate the use of AI, they will come back to that quite soon,” European Commission Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen told the European Newsroom (enr) on Friday. She warned of a “risk of very serious incidents” in the absence of any guardrails and called for the establishment of safeguards at an international level.
Concerns about the risks of AI have been at the centre of public attention for weeks, sparked mainly by hacking attacks carried out by AI software that acted autonomously during test runs. Some industry insiders have sounded the alarm, warning that artificial intelligence could potentially cause large numbers of deaths if the technology were to spiral out of control.
Virkkunen warned that fierce global competition is creating a risk that “companies are coming to the markets with products that they haven’t been testing enough.” She pointed to incidents in which AI agents had escaped from test “sandboxes” and service providers or developers had been unable to control their own systems.
At the same time, she said, some AI models “have become so capable that it’s more and more difficult also to evaluate them.” Adequate testing required highly qualified experts, sufficient expertise and enough time, she added.
The EU began enforcing its AI Act, the world’s first comprehensive legal framework to regulate AI based on the level of risk it poses, in August. Virkkunen said that the Commission had already sent a Request for Information (RFI) to two major US-based AI companies – OpenAI, known for ChatGPT, and Anthropic, known for Claude – as well as to some Chinese companies not further specified.
An RFI is a formal investigative tool used by the Commission to gather facts, data, and internal documentation from businesses, governments, or member states.
Global AI race
China and the United States have emerged as frontrunners in the development of AI systems, showing no signs of hitting the breaks. Governments in both countries have rejected calls to slow down its development, arguing it would create a competitive, strategic and economic disadvantage.
“Currently the risks are mainly focused and related to cyber security,” Virkkunen said, but she warned of more serious risks in future, including the possibility that highly capable models could be used in connection with biological weapons or fall into the hands of terrorists.
The Finnish politician called for the establishment of international rules to mitigate the risks of AI. She said the security of AI models had already been discussed within the Group of Seven (G7) this year as well as among G20 countries, and that the discussions would continue.
Talking about the EU’s role in AI development, Virkkunen said the Union should avoid dependence on a single company or third country for critical technologies and develop AI systems based on European values, languages and culture.
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