Latest articles Wednesday January 13, 2021

1. Featured Story: Why gig workers are turning away from traditional banks

   162 million people, or 30% of the workforce, across the US and the EU-15 countries are gig workers. In 2018, the total spending on the gig economy around the world reached a staggering $4.5 trillion. Meanwhile in the US, 80% of large companies are planning to switch to a “flexible workforce”.

   By Stav Dimitropoulos

1. Parler users are still trying to convince everyone they're leaving Twitter

   Since the U.S. election, Parler downloads have skyrocketed as millions of users have signed up to escape a perceived “anti-conservative” bias among mainstream social media platforms.

   By Aimee Pearcy

   From the Twitter desk

2. AI can now produce passable parody song lyrics

   The coronavirus pandemic has caused many outbursts of creativity, but few have the potential to be as meaningful as Mark O. Riedl’s lockdown project. The academic at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s school of interactive computing has spent the last several long months producing an artificial intelligence system that’s able to produce lyrics for parody songs, similar to those produced by Weird Al Yankovic.

   By Chris Stokel-Walker

   From the Culture desk