Berlin-based business consultant Matt and his colleague were among the first at their workplace to discover ChatGPT, mere weeks after its release. He says the chatbot transformed their workdays overnight. "It was like discovering a video game cheat," says Matt. "I asked a really technical question from my PhD thesis, and it provided an answer that no one would be able to find without consulting people with very specific expertise. I knew it would be a game changer."

Day-to-day tasks in his fast-paced environment – such as researching scientific topics, gathering sources and producing thorough presentations to clients – suddenly became a breeze. The only catch: Matt and his colleague had to keep their use of ChatGPT a closely guarded secret. They accessed the tool covertly, mostly on working-from-home days.

"We had a significant competitive advantage against our colleagues – our output was so much faster and they couldn't comprehend how. Our manager was very impressed and spoke about our performance with senior management," he says.

Whether the technology is explicitly banned, highly frowned upon or giving some workers a covert leg up, some employees are searching for ways to keep using generative AI tools discreetly. The technology is increasingly becoming an employee backchannel: in a February 2023 study by professional social network Fishbowl, 68% of 5,067 respondents who used AI at work said they don't disclose usage to their bosses.

Even in instances without workplace bans, employees may still want to keep their use of AI hidden, or at least guarded, from peers. "We don't have norms established around AI yet – it can initially look like you're conceding you're not actually that good at your job if the machine is doing many of your tasks," says Johnson. "It's natural that people would want to conceal that."

As a result, forums are popping up for workers to swap strategies for keeping a low profile. In communities like Reddit, many people seek methods of secretly circumventing workplace bans, either through high-tech solutions (integrating ChatGPT into a native app disguised as a workplace tool) or rudimentary ones to obscure usage (adding a privacy screen, or discreetly accessing the technology on their personal phone at their desk).

Even though the writers strike that crippled talk shows has lifted, the three co-head writers for Drew Barrymore’s daytime show have declined to return, sources close to the production said.

It was not clear from the sources why the three writers are not returning.

The production sources said offers were extended to all three when they could be extended after the end of the strike, which was lifted on Sept. 27, and all three declined.

Barrymore was criticized after she announced in September that she would resume “The Drew Barrymore Show,” a daytime talk show, even though the strike by the Writers Guild of America had not yet been resolved.

Barrymore was dropped as the host of the National Book Awards in response.

She later walked back the decision, apologized to anyone who felt hurt, and said she would wait to resume production until the strike was over.

Police in eastern Pakistan have smashed an illegal organ harvesting ring, arresting eight people for surgically removing kidneys from hundreds of patients for wealthy people needing a transplant, authorities said Monday.

The alleged gang leader, identified as “Dr Fawad,” is accused of conducting 328 operations on people to remove their kidney and selling them to clients for up to 10 million Pakistani rupees ($34,000) each, said Mohsin Naqvi, the chief minister of Pakistan’s Punjab province.

Fawad was allegedly assisted in the operations by an unnamed car mechanic who administered the anesthesia, Naqvi said.

The chief minister said the gang lured patients from hospitals and performed the operations privately in the region of Taxila, the city of Lahore and in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Suicide bombings ripped through two religious ceremonies in Pakistan Friday, killing at least 56 people and injuring dozens more as worshipers celebrated the birthday of the Prophet Mohammad, according to police and local officials.

At least 52 people were killed and a further 50 wounded by an explosion at a religious procession in the Mastung district of the southwestern Balochistan province, Assistant Commissioner Atta Ul Munim told CNN.

Hours later, a separate blast took place during Friday prayers at a mosque near Peshaway City in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing at least four people and injuring 11. The explosion caused the roof of the mosque to collapse, but it was not clear how many people remained inside.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for either of the explosions, which struck during a restive period in Pakistan, as it has weathered a surge of militant attacks in the buildup to general elections being held in January.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol warned on Wednesday that his country and its allies “will not stand idly by” if North Korea receives Russian help to boost its weapons of mass destruction – just days after the leaders of the two nuclear-armed nations held a closely watched summit.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un traveled to Russia last week for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin. Ahead of the meeting US officials warned that the two leaders could strike a deal that would provide weapons for Moscow to use in its grueling war against Ukraine – and that could see sanction-hit Pyongyang gain access to vital Russian technology.

Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Yoon declared: “While military strength may vary among countries, by uniting in unwavering solidarity and steadfastly adhering to our principles, we can deter any unlawful provocation.”

He also called to reform the UN Security Council – of which Russia is a member – saying such a move “would receive a broad support” if Moscow did supply Pyongyang with information in exchange for weapons.

“It is paradoxical that a permanent member of the UN Security Council, entrusted as the ultimate guardian of world peace, would wage war by invading another sovereign nation and receive arms and ammunition from a regime that blatantly violates UN Security Council resolutions,” Yoon said.

Archaeologists have discovered the oldest evidence yet of a wooden structure crafted by the hands of a human ancestor. Two tree trunks, notched like Lincoln Logs, were preserved at the bottom of the Kalambo River in Zambia. If the logs' estimated 476,000-year-old age is correct, it means that woodworking might predate the emergence of our own species, Homo sapiens, and highlights the intelligence of our hominin ancestors.

Archaeologists unearthed the logs at Kalambo Falls, on Lake Tanganyika in northern Zambia, a site that has been investigated by scientists since the 1950s. Previous excavations around a small lake just upstream from the falls yielded stone tools, preserved pollen and wooden artifacts that have helped researchers understand more about human evolution and culture over the span of hundreds of thousands of years.

But a new analysis of five modified pieces of wood from Kalambo is pushing back the earliest occupation of the site and giving researchers new insight into the minds of our Middle Pleistocene (781,000 to 126,000 years ago) ancestors.

In a new study published Wednesday (Sept. 20) in the journal Nature, researchers led by Larry Barham, a professor in the Department of archaeology, classics, and Egyptology at the University of Liverpool in the U.K, detail the wooden objects they unearthed. These include two that were found with stone tools below the river and three that were covered in clay deposits above the river level. These wooden artifacts survived over hundreds of thousands of years due to the permanently elevated water table.

Through luminescence dating of sand samples from the site, which involves measuring how long ago the sand grains were exposed to light, Barham and his colleagues found three clusters: a cut log and a tapered piece of wood dating to 324,000 years ago; a digging stick dating to 390,000 years ago; and a wooden wedge and two overlapping logs dating to 476,000 years ago.

A Malaysian man who sold a dozen black rhino and white rhino horns to a confidential source was sentenced to a year and a half in a U.S. prison Tuesday, federal prosecutors in New York said. Teo Boon Ching, known as the "Godfather," had pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy to commit wildlife trafficking, the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan said in a statement.

"As long as you have cash, I can give you the goods in 1-2 days," Ching, 58, told the confidential source during a meeting in Malaysia in 2019, according to prosecutors.

The Malaysia meetings lasted for two days, and during that time, Ching described himself as a "middleman" who buys rhino horns poached by co-conspirators in Africa and ships them to customers around the world, according to prosecutors. Ching also sent the source photos of rhino horns that were for sale.

Later that year, authorities directed the source to buy 12 rhino horns from Ching, which were delivered to the source in a suitcase. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lab confirmed two of the horns were from a black rhino, which the World Wildlife Fund considers to be critically endangered, and the other 10 horns were from white rhinos, which are not considered to be endangered but are instead "near threatened," according to the group.

Ching was arrested in Thailand in 2022 and eventually extradited to the U.S. According to prosecutors, he conspired to traffic approximately 480 pounds of poached rhino horns worth about $2.1 million.

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said on Friday that he will seek the help of government experts on extremism in the wake of a series of school arsons. Officials believe the attacks are connected to a controversial sexual education school program.

De Croo spoke just hours after a sixth school in the French-speaking Wallonia region was torched this week. Signs protesting the so-called Evras program were discovered in some of the schools, according to authorities.

The program is a required four hours of training for students aged 11 to 12 and 15 to 16, intended to help them develop their relational and sexual lives. The program had been around and available for all age groups for years, but was not compulsory until now.

De Croo said he has asked the body in charge of processing intelligence on “terror, extremism and radicalization” to analyze the situation, and Verlinden said she’s asked the federal police to provide support to local forces in the affected region.

No one has claimed responsibility for the fires set to the six schools, and no suspect have been arrested. This year, around 100,000 students in the Wallonia-Brussels federation are required to attend the two sessions for a total of four hours of training.

Protests, with a few hundred people taking part, have also been organized in Brussels.

Several Islamic groups have also condemned the program in a joint statement, fearing it will favor “hypersexualization” of children.

Rumors about the nature of Evras have also been spreading on the internet.

De Croo said that sexual education has been provided in Belgium for half a century and warned that the country will not take steps backwards.

“It’s not new, it’s the basis of sexual health, but also the basis for our children to be are aware of their rights and (physical) integrity,” he added.

The U.N. World Food Program (WFP), the largest anti-hunger initiative around the globe, is grappling with the worst funding shortage in its 60-year history and "we are in a desperate situation," Executive Director Cindy McCain said on Sunday.

"It's a combination of things -- it's COVID, it's climate change, it's conflict and also the cost of being able to do business," McCain told ABC "This Week" co-anchor Jonathan Karl about the reasons behind the lack of money. "Those things combined and, of course, a world that has kind of grown tired of all this. There's a great malaise right now within countries about foreign aid and giving."

"The bottom line is those that are going to suffer [are] those who can't afford to," McCain said.

In September, the WFP said it "has been struggling to meet the global need for food assistance .... And for the first time ever, WFP has seen contributions decreasing while needs steadily increase." The organization has already had to make "significant cuts in hot spots such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Jordan, Palestine, South Sudan, Somalia, and Syria."

Videos posted online on Sunday showed the iconic Greater Nile Petroleum Oil Company Tower engulfed in flames.

"This is truly painful," said Tagreed Abdin, an architect of the building, in a post on Twitter.

Air strikes and ground battles have continued in Khartoum and other towns and cities since fighting broke out in April.

Over one million people have been forced to flee the country, the UN has said.

Located near the River Nile, the 18-storey oil firm skyscraper is one of the most recognisable landmarks in Khartoum.

Ms Abdin said it defined the skyline of the city, and lamented "such senseless destruction".