GeekWire - Inside the Amazon walkout

That was Pamela Hayter, the Amazon employee who created the Slack channel opposing the company’s return-to-office policy, speaking this week during a walkout and protest by Amazon workers. Hundreds in Seattle rallied against that policy, and in favor of more aggressive action against climate change.

On the GeekWire Podcast, we hear from Amazon employees in the crowd and speakers at the podium, discuss the company’s perspective, and put the walkout in the context of larger shifts taking place in the tech industry. 

Listen here, or subscribe to GeekWire in Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

For longtime listeners of NPR’s “Planet Money,” there are few voices as recognizable and iconic as that of Robert Smith, one of the show’s former hosts. But even the most experienced and discerning ears might struggle to tell the difference between the journalist and his voice clone. The accuracy is jaw-dropping or terrifying, depending on your perspective. Either way, it’s a credit to the technology behind Seattle startup WellSaid Labs, which created “Synthetic Robert” for a special Planet Money series. Read more.

Philanthropic ventures are eager to tap into the frenzy around AI and ChatGPT. Across the nonprofit sector, the tools can be used to improve internal operations and boost efficiency — and most importantly, better target donor dollars. Experts are advising nonprofits to explore the tech, but to proceed at a measured pace and embrace the edict of first doing no harm. Read more.

Goodbye, Ctrl+F. A new startup wants to make financial analysts more efficient with a chatbot tool that uses artificial intelligence to scour publicly available business filings and answer research questions in natural language. Finpilot is led by CEO Lakshay Chauhan, a longtime machine learning engineer at Seattle hedge fund Euclidean. He’s joined by John Alberg, the fund’s co-founder, who will play a close advisory role. Read more.