Hey folks!

Do you remember the last time your phone came with an inbuilt Radio FM app? It certainly feels like a long time.

Well, the government wants to change that. A couple of days ago, the government issued an advisory which said that if phones come with frequency modulation or FM services then manufacturers shouldn’t disable them by default.

And if you’re wondering who listens to the radio anymore, you’re missing out on those folks who still may not have access to the internet. Or those who own smartphones but might not be able to afford a data recharge every month despite data rates falling so drastically over the years.

FM could actually be their means of entertainment or even emergency updates like the weather from the government.

And on a lighter note, having FM back on our phones by default can take us back in time to when the internet wasn’t an easy catch.

Sorry, GenZs. We don’t mean to sideline you. Us millennials genuinely miss our good ol’ days.

Here’s a soundtrack to put you in the mood 🎵

Saadho by Aabhas Shreyas

A huge shout out to Yogesh Arora for this recommendation. What lovely lyrics!

Are we ready to roll?

A couple of things caught our eye this week 👀

Will AI snatch away your job?

There are two perspectives when it comes to artificial intelligence.

The first one is that AI will result in jobs being lost. And this is true. This week, IBM made it to the headlines for deciding to freeze hiring over the next 5 years. It’ll turn to AI to fill nearly 8,000 roles at the tech giant.

But we don’t want to talk about the doomsday scenario here. Because the second perspective is that AI helps workers improve their productivity. People get to keep their jobs and do it even better.

See, AI is made by humans to help them work faster. Like say, be the customer’s first point of contact for queries or complaints. You know the kind you already use with online businesses to get quick solutions to problems frequently addressed by other customers.

But with more advanced conversational AI like Chat GPT, customers may not have to really escalate a problem beyond the bot. This means employees get more time to do other tasks like handling more serious quality issues that need their attention.

In fact, a paper recently published by the National Bureau of Economic Research tried to understand the impact of generative AI tools like ChatGPT by studying a model that combines a recent version of GPT with additional machine learning algorithms that focus on customer service interactions.

And they figured that on average this model helped bring down the escalation of issues to a manager by 25%. Employees were also observed to resolve 14% more issues per hour and 35% more issues per hour in the case of lower-skilled employees.

So, even if highly experienced employees may already have gone past the learning curve and gotten better at their work, AI was actually seen to help newbies learn faster and boost their confidence.

Recently, a Bengaluru-based investing firm Captialmind, also proved this by reimbursing employees the cost of their Chat GPT subscriptions simply because their productivity was up 5 times after using it.

Not having to spend continuously on training new sets of employees repeatedly also saves company costs. And guess what? Getting things done faster can also mean moving towards shorter work weeks.

Now, although it could do good to speed up employees at work, here’s how it could affect attrition. See, young folks won’t be as sensitive to being managed or guided by an AI tool as more experienced ones. If people who are up the work ladder feel uncomfortable being told what to do by a pre-trained model, they might want to switch to other roles that can do without it.

But since most areas of work are keen on adopting AI in the future, we might as well have to embrace AI as a prospective colleague rather than live in fear of it.

What do you think?

***

An invisible right

Often repairing an electronic device like a phone, iron box, earphones or laptop could burn a hole in your wallet. More often than not, if it’s a third or fourth repair, the device loses its efficiency and often needs expensive part replacements from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Sometimes, these costs could even come close to how much your device is currently worth.

So you think it futile to unnecessarily invest in repairs. You’d rather put in a few thousand more and buy a new device altogether. That definitely contributes to more sales for OEMs, while hurting your budget and also the environment.

You see, although our e-waste handling capacity has multiplied 8 fold between FY18 and FY22, it still remains just a meagre 33% of the total e-waste we generate. The rest of lies unprocessed and does no good to the environment.

And to get past all these problems, the government has been mulling over cementing the right to repair in India. A couple of days ago, it rolled out an official portal that allows companies to onboard themselves to the initiative.

This way they can share information about their equipment and its spares more freely with third-party service providers who could help customers save up on maintenance.

Think of your car that needs a service. You may have a third-party service provider nearby who could do a good job at a great price. But you could be hesitant about it because this could render your car’s warranty invalid. But with a right to repair, this won’t be a problem.

But here’s what could be a potential problem. Right to Repair only has a framework as of now. The government hasn’t really made any amendments to the Consumer Protection Act to further shield customers from disputes arising while their exercise their brand-new right.

And if we don’t really have a law that protects us, then how will an information portal or a framework even help? That’s something to think about, isn’t it?

Infographic 📊

Money tips 💰

Sorting out your finances in 60 seconds

No matter what kind of work you do, most of us have a routine or a pattern to our day. And it could often sound like this, although not always in the same order. Wake up, freshen up, work out, have breakfast, study or work, get home, do the chores, have dinner, relax and then hit the bed.

If you felt like that was a perfect routine, there’s still something missing in here ― taking out a minute to look at how you spent your money.

Think about it. All you need is 60 seconds or maybe a tad bit more to glance through your bank accounts and credit card statements. Doing that could give an insight into how tight or loose you should let your purse strings be the next day.

Maybe you’ve already dined out with your friends today. You might want to cut down on ordering in over the next few days to balance things out. It’s not just good for your money, but also for your diet. 😉

So make sure you do this before you hit the bed every day. Have a daily money minute and know where your money is going. That way you’ll be the one controlling your finances, not the other way around.

Readers Recommend 🗒️

Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker

This week we have a book recommendation by Santhoshi Andalam. In this book, the author, a sleep expert explores sleep and looks at how it affects our physical and mental well-being. He charts scientific breakthroughs, his decades of research and clinical practice and explains how we can harness sleep to improve learning, mood and energy levels, and even prevent diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s and diabetes or slow down ageing. He also tells you how to get a better night’s sleep.

If this interests you, do pick it up. You can thank our reader Santhoshi for this useful rec.

Finshots Weekly Quiz 🧩

It’s time to announce the winner of our previous Weekly Quiz. And the winner is… 🥁

Varun Pinto! Congratulations. We’ll get in touch with you soon to send over your Finshots merch.

And for the rest of you, here’s your next chance to grab the winner’s crown. Click on this 👉🏽 link, answer all the questions correctly and tune in next week to check if you got lucky.

Until then, don’t forget to tell us what you thought of today’s newsletter. And send us your book, music, business movies, documentaries or podcast recommendations. We’ll feature them in the newsletter! Just hit reply to this email (or if you’re reading this on the web, drop us a message: ).

We’ll see you next Sunday!

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