Alterslash

the unofficial Slashdot digest
 

Contents

  1. Canada Plans ‘Nuclear Renaissance’ With Up To 10 Reactors Built By 2040
  2. NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Arrives In Florida
  3. GM Installs Robots At Flagship EV Factory After Laying Off 1,300 Workers
  4. Microsoft Accidentally Breaks Replying To an Email On Outlook
  5. Following User Outcry, AMD Reinstates Memory Encryption In Consumer CPUs
  6. Valve Will Finally Let You Build Your Own Steam Machine With SteamOS For Desktop
  7. Google Invests $75 Million In A24 To Develop AI-Powered Filmmaking Tools
  8. Some Electricians Think Building Data Centers Is For Sellouts
  9. Valve Prices the Steam Machine At $1,049
  10. AI Law Firm Wins UK Court Case For First Time
  11. 2,000 Retired Google Pixel Phones Get a Second Life As a Private Cloud
  12. Ubisoft Co-Founder Claude Guillemot Dies In Plane Crash
  13. Several US States Bet That AI Can Solve Their Prison Recidivism Crisis
  14. ‘Tutor’ Who Took Online Tests for 124 Students Jailed for Three Years
  15. TikTok Shows 3x More AI Slop Than YouTube, Report Finds

Alterslash picks up to the best 5 comments from each of the day’s Slashdot stories, and presents them on a single page for easy reading.

Canada Plans ‘Nuclear Renaissance’ With Up To 10 Reactors Built By 2040

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Canada has unveiled a national strategy to build up to 10 new nuclear reactors over the next 15 years as it seeks to double electricity-grid capacity by 2050. Energy Minister Tim Hodgson called it a plan for a “new civilian nuclear renaissance.”

“If our goal is to double our grid and build a low-carbon economy in less than 25 years, there is no credible plan to do that without nuclear energy and the clean, reliable baseload power it provides,” Hodgson said. “There is no credible plan for Canada to become an energy superpower if we choose not to build upon one of the strongest energy advantages we have.” CBC News reports:
The strategy calls for construction to start on two new large-scale reactors by 2035, for five more to be planned or under development by 2040 and for at least one reactor to be under construction outside Ontario by 2035. It also calls for a Canadian-made microreactor to be finalized by 2035 and deployed to a remote community by the late 2030s. […] Right now, Canada has four nuclear power plants — three in Ontario and one in New Brunswick — which generate about 15 per cent of Canada’s electricity.

A new proposed facility at the existing nuclear plant in Darlington, Ont., would see the first small modular reactor in the G7, capable of producing up to 300 megawatts per unit. Saskatchewan is also looking at the potential to bring small nuclear reactors online by the mid 2030s. The energy deal between Ottawa and Alberta also committed to collaborating on developing a strategy to build a nuclear power plant. Officials from Natural Resources Canada told reporters in a background briefing that construction of the reactors outlined in the new national strategy could cost more than $100 billion. The strategy does not say how Canada would pay for them, though an official pointed to the Canadian Infrastructure Bank and the Canada Growth Fund as possible funding sources. Hodgson said the strategy would double the 90,000 jobs in Canada’s nuclear sector “over the coming decades.”

The plan also looks to expand sales of Candu reactors to new export markets. It says the government wants to break into at least four new international markets by 2040 and “engage six to 10 new nuclear entrant markets over a 15-year horizon, cementing Canada as their partner of choice.” Thirty Candu reactors currently operate around the world, including in South Korea, China, India, Argentina, Pakistan and Romania, and there are plans to build two more. […] “Reactor exports are not transactional. They establish multi-decade partnerships, creating durable geopolitical and commercial relationships that advance Canada’s broader foreign policy interests,” the strategy says. “As Canada works to diversify its trading relationships and strengthen ties with middle powers, Candu can be a central instrument of that strategy.”

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Arrives In Florida

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has arrived at Kennedy Space Center ahead of a Falcon Heavy launch targeted for no earlier than August 30. The observatory will survey the sky about 1,000 times faster than Hubble with a field of view at least 100 times wider, helping scientists study dark matter, dark energy, and exoplanets. Spaceflight Now reports:
NASA’s next great observatory, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, arrived at the Kennedy Space Center aboard the agency’s massive Pegasus barge late Sunday morning. The spacecraft was nestled inside its protective case, which NASA nicknamed the “Chariot” in keeping with the “Roman” theme. That said, telescope is named not for the ancient empire, but instead for NASA’s first Chief of Astronomy, Nancy Grace Roman. “She was a key person in our exploration of space. She understood that in order to better understand the universe, you have to go in space,” said Lucas Paganini, the program executive for Roman. “That’s why she’s called the ‘Mother of Hubble’ because she made Hubble possible.”

[…] Roman is designed to operate near a fixed point in space called Lagrange Point 2, about 1.5 million km away from the Earth on the side opposite the Sun. It’s designed to operate there for a minimum of five years, but Paganini said with the propellant onboard, it will likely last for 10 years or more. The telescope is+ equipped with a 300 megapixel camera called the Wide Field Instrument, which features 18 detectors. It was developed by BAE Systems (formerly Ball Aerospace). “It’s going to allow us to observe at least 100 times wider field of view than what we can do with Hubble. Same resolution, but a wider area, 1000 times faster,” Paganini said. “So what takes Roman a year to observe, it would take Hubble thousands of years. So it’s definitely much more efficient.”

The observatory also features a chronograph instrument, developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which will allow Roman to observe the faint light of exoplanets near their stars. Paganini said Roman will also help scientists better understand dark matter and dark energy, the combination of which he calls the “dark universe.” “100 years ago, we discovered that the universe was expanding. 25 years ago, we discovered that it was expanding at an accelerated pace and that’s what led to a Nobel Prize,” Paganini said. “What we don’t quite know yet is if that acceleration is changing in ways. We don’t know if it’s actually dark energy, what is producing it, or is it simply that we don’t understand gravity at all. “So eventually, we’ll see if the laws of physics that we use these days are the right ones for what we are observing. But at the end is, we’re trying to understand a very human question, which is where do we come from and where are wea heading in this universe that is our neighborhood?”

Chronograph ?

By dargaud • Score: 4, Informative Thread
More likely a coronograph to hide the light from the star and see around it without being blinded.

GM Installs Robots At Flagship EV Factory After Laying Off 1,300 Workers

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:
Dozens of new robot arms have been installed at General Motors’ flagship electric vehicle factory in Detroit — even as 1,300 workers remain out of work following what was supposed to be a temporary layoff. The latest automation push has spurred union pushback over a potentially existential issue for automakers and their workers. General Motors installed approximately 50 robot arms at GM’s Factory Zero plant in Detroit, Michigan, according to reporting by Crain’s Detroit Business. Made by the Japanese robotics company FANUC, the robots are designed to help attach various components to vehicles during the assembly line process. But leaders at United Auto Workers (UAW), the primary US union for autoworkers, reacted with anger to the new robotic presence, given how GM has not yet called back any of the workers affected by supposedly temporary layoffs in March.

More than 1,000 union members are still “laid off indefinitely,” James Cotton, president of UAW Local 22, told The Detroit News. He said that the company could bring some of those members back to work instead of installing the 50 robots. The temporary layoffs were preceded by permanent layoffs involving another 1,200 workers at GM’s Factory Zero in October 2025. Many automakers, including Stellantis NV and Ford Motor Company, have deployed assembly-line robots, such as Fanuc robot arms, as they push to automate more of their US operations. Hyundai Motor Company plans to deploy Atlas humanoid robots made by Boston Dynamics — which Hyundai acquired in 2020 — to start working in the automaker’s flagship EV facility in Georgia by 2028.
“Technological development has the capability of making work safer for the working class and enabling workers to have a shorter work week without losing pay,” said Andrew Bergman, a Local 22 member and union organizer who was among those laid off by GM. “But in the bosses’ and billionaires’ hands it’s used to pad profits and lay off workers.”

Re:The purpose of a factory is not to provide jobs

By SeaFox • Score: 5, Informative Thread

That’s OK but the only reason many people buy American cars and trucks is to support American jobs.

Those people are morons. Plenty of “foreign” (Toyota, Honda) vehicles are made is factories in the Midwest and southern U.S. where Americans are put to work, while many models of “domestic” brands (Ford, Chevy) are actually made in Mexico and imported to the U.S. (Thanks, NAFTA!) The idea an “American brand” is putting Americans to work and foreign brands do not is a falsehood the U.S. automakers are happy to encourage to help their businesses.

Re:70% of middle class jobs lost since 1980

By dunkelfalke • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

What comes next is the realisation that the majority of the labour force is not needed, but the whole society is completely unprepared for this.

Re:The purpose of a factory is not to provide jobs

By Fons_de_spons • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

The purpose of a factory is not to provide jobs.
It’s intended to made widgets that can then be sold at a profit.

It absolutely makes sense to replace workers with robots from the perspective of a single company. If you broaden the perspective, you end up in existential questions. What is the purpose of life. What is the purpose of 7 000 000 000 people? What do we do with “obsolete” people, people who do not contribute to the economy.
That is when the hard questions emerge. Too easy to hide behind a single company then. “Let the government figure it out! Not my concern!”. If you do not engage there, it will become your concern whether you want it or not, long term. Lets fantasize a bit. Let’s make it extreme. AI takes over, robots do 95% of the work. That includes maintaining robots. It could go two ways I guess. We all live a life long vacation, or it polarizes in haves and have nots. With the way things are set up now, it will go in the haves have nots direction. That is brutal. That is a total disrespect for human life. We better start thinking of a social welfare program or it is going to be very ugly.
We have been here before. Basically when steam engines and machinery improved our living standards. In my country, that is when socialism emerged in the government. After a lot of bloodshed. Let’s try to avoid the bloodshed this time. Let’s, for once, let reason rule, not hormones.

Re:The purpose of a factory is not to provide jobs

By serviscope_minor • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

The purpose of a factory is not to provide jobs.

It’s intended to made widgets that can then be sold at a profit.

It’s not a social welfare program.

Only kinda. Let me remind you there is no natural right to limited liability companies. They exist purely (in principle) for the benefit of society.

Re:The purpose of a factory is not to provide jobs

By ArchieBunker • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

So what’s your suggested alternative?

GM keep 1300 workers and bonuses for the suits decrease by 0.1%?

Microsoft Accidentally Breaks Replying To an Email On Outlook

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Microsoft has accidentally introduced a bug in Outlook for Mac that omits the original message from email replies, making it difficult for recipients to follow conversation history. Until Microsoft releases a fix, its suggested workaround is to roll back from version 16.110 and disable automatic updates, which is “great for users in full control of their devices — not so good for anyone with a managed device,” notes The Register. “Administrators with fleets of Macs running Outlook should brace for helpdesk tickets.” From the report:
In some instances, having a user copy and paste the salient bits of the email they are responding to might not be such a bad thing. We’ve all had emails that required epic amounts of scrolling to find what started the conversation, so forcing users to think about what they actually need to include is no bad thing. However, disrupting user workflows without warning — well, that is undoubtedly a bad thing.

This is, after all, one of the most basic things an email client needs to do, so shipping a product with a bug that breaks this functionality says more about Microsoft’s approach to quality than anything else.

Re:But I doubt it.

By Anonymous Coward • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt. Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur?

But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure.

At vero eos et accusamus et iusto odio dignissimos ducimus qui blanditiis praesentium voluptatum deleniti atque corrupti quos dolores et quas molestias excepturi sint occaecati cupiditate non provident, similique sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollitia animi, id est laborum et dolorum fuga. Et harum quidem rerum facilis est et expedita distinctio. Nam libero tempore, cum soluta nobis est eligendi optio cumque nihil impedit quo minus id quod maxime placeat facere possimus, omnis voluptas assumenda est, omnis dolor repellendus.

Why should I skip past boilerplate and old information to get to the important part?

Re:But I doubt it.

By rta • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Perhaps they were trying to get rid of their god-damned forced top-posting.

Think of it as a reply with the previous conversation as an “FYI” attachment if you need to review context.

In practice it works well, imo.
In most simple cases you already know the context so don’t need it. And if you do you can look down.

And if you get forwarded an email or added to a convo mid thread, it’s good to be able to first see the latest message to get some idea why you got the thing or what the request is, and then you can dive into the bg below. And yes in many of these cases i will scroll all the way down and read “up” which is not ideal but it’s fine since it’s relatively rare compared to the other usecase.

Pretty weird use case!

By BenBoy • Score: 5, Funny Thread
It’s a pretty weird use case in an email client, replying to a message. Small wonder it was apparently left off of their automated regression suite, ja?

Or

By hcs_$reboot • Score: 5, Informative Thread

workaround is to roll back from version 16.110

or just install Thunderbird.

Re:But I doubt it.

By JimWise • Score: 5, Funny Thread

T > Perhaps they were trying to get rid of their god-damned forced top-posting.
h >
i > A: Because we read from top to bottom, left to right.
s > Q: Why should I start my reply below the quoted text?
    >
i > A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
s > Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
    >
w > A: The lost context.
h > Q: What makes top-posted replies harder to read than bottom-posted?
y >
    > A: Yes.
I > Q: Should I trim down the quoted part of an email to which I’m replying?
    > —
s > “National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity.” - Celine’s First Law
i
d
e
-
p
o
s
t

Following User Outcry, AMD Reinstates Memory Encryption In Consumer CPUs

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Last week, AMD was found to have stripped memory encryption from its consumer CPUs without any warning or notice. Now, following a wave of backlash on social media, the chipmaker has now reinstated the protection, though it still hasn’t explained why the safeguard was disabled in the first place. Ars Technica reports:
Following the revelation, social media was deluged by comments from AMD consumers decrying the move. They noted that AMD’s quiet removal of TSME after supporting it for so long seemed underhanded. The move came solely as a result of firmware changes made in a recent update. With no physical changes required to silicon, continued support was largely, if not purely, a matter of will rather than a necessity required by changes to hardware. The critics called on AMD to reverse the move.

Over the weekend, AMD said it planned to do just that in a firmware update scheduled for release next month. More often than not, the chipmaker refers to TSME as Memory Guard. “Regarding certain non-PRO Ryzen 9000-series desktop processors, a BIOS option to enable Memory Guard was previously available but was removed in a recent update,” AMD said in an email. “Based on valuable community feedback, we will reinstate this option in an upcoming BIOS release in July.”

The company has yet to explain why it removed the protection. Critics speculate that AMD dropped it in an attempt to steer customers toward more costly CPUs. It’s possible, though, that there were less nefarious reasons, such as the difficulty of continued support as chip designs changed. Another possibility is that AMD made the move for performance reasons. Encrypting and decrypting data in memory creates latency. Slowdowns are the enemy of gamers, one of the more popular customer segments using the 9000-line of Ryzen processors. Since many gamers already voluntarily disabled TSME and had little need for it in the first place, AMD may not have considered the change of much consequence.

FBI

By topham • Score: 3 Thread

You’ll understand if you think about it

Bitlocker

By SumDog • Score: 3 Thread
Nightmare Eclipse showed us Bitlocker is a joke. It’s not remotely real encryption and easily breakable .. on Win11/2025 server, NOT Win 10. This wasn’t an exploit. It was a backdoor. Meanwhile Veracrypt needed a public backlash to get their dev signing keys reinstated so people could get their updated kernel drivers on Windows (and remember, TrueCrypt its predecessor mysteriously disappeared in 2012 with the former author telling people to use BitLocker instead!)

Now we have this. The answer should be obvious: there is a concerted effort to remove all real encryption, security and privacy from our software. This isn’t incompetency mistaken for malice. This has to be intentional.

Re:Bitlocker

By Waccoon • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
Oh, there’s plenty of real encryption, security, and privacy in our software. It’s just not there to benefit the end user.

Valve Will Finally Let You Build Your Own Steam Machine With SteamOS For Desktop

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
With the price of the new Steam Machine starting at $1,049, you might want to consider making your own Steam Machine instead. An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge:
Valve says that “starting with the SteamOS 3.8 release, you can put together your own Steam Machine using whatever PC parts you want.” SteamOS 3.8.10 launched last week with a slew of updates, including “improved compatibility with recent Intel and AMD platforms.” Alongside that improved compatibility, Valve is giving gamers the green light to install SteamOS on their own desktops. In an interview with The Verge, Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais said Valve has been “rolling out improvements to [SteamOS] so it’s more compatible with desktop hardware,” including eventual support for Nvidia graphics. Griffais says Valve has “a growing team” working on Nvidia driver support for SteamOS, adding, “We’re collaborating with Nvidia very closely.” While he mentioned that Nvidia support might not come this year, Griffais emphasized that “it’s certainly something that we’re working on in the background.”

It’s technically been possible to run SteamOS on your own hardware for a while now, but compatibility has been mostly limited to AMD systems. So far installing it has also required using a Steam Deck recovery image, a process that, speaking from experience, is much less straightforward than the installation process for most other Linux distributions. Trying to run SteamOS on Intel or Nvidia hardware has not been easy so far. According to Griffais, Valve is working to change that, which could mean that down the line, you’ll be able to run SteamOS on just about any gaming PC hardware you want, including Nvidia.

For the more immediate future, Griffais says SteamOS in its current state should offer a “good experience” on console-like PC setups: “If you have something that is similar to the use case of a Steam Machine, where you have a PC that’s gonna be plugged into a TV, and has a single hard drive that you’re not going to try and dual boot [] you can put SteamOS on there, and you’ll have an experience that is very similar to a Steam Deck docked or a Steam Machine, with some caveats, of course,” like a lack of HDMI-CEC support. But “the core bits of the experience are there. The SteamOS graphics driver, the shader precompilation […] you can get at all of that with the SteamOS.”
Griffais says SteamOS does not yet offer an easy way to dual-boot alongside Windows or another operating system, but envisions “a time where it’s a better experience to install on your desktop and have it coexist with a different operating system.”

Re:Datacenters have effectively killed gaming

By sound+vision • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

The article quotes that $1000 figure as if it’s something outlandish. It was a normal price for lower-mid-tier gaming PC last year. And this year the $1000 mark is more of a floor, a minimum you have to spend to get a gaming PC. Anything under that, you might as well get a Playstation. Although those are raising up now too.

Re:“Finally?”

By thecombatwombat • Score: 4, Informative Thread

If only there were some sort of linked article that explained. Maybe /. could link to such articles, and then if people looked past the headline, they would know what’s what?

We could have some sort of phrase, maybe an acronym that . . . Nah.

“It’s technically been possible to run SteamOS on your own hardware for a while now, but compatibility has been mostly limited to AMD systems. So far installing it has also required using a Steam Deck recovery image, a process that, speaking from experience, is much less straightforward than the installation process for most other Linux distributions. Trying to run SteamOS on Intel or Nvidia hardware has not been easy so far.”

Re:Year of the Linux Desktop

By OrangeTide • Score: 4, Funny Thread

If their not editing Xorg config to add modelines, then is it really Linux anymore?

Google Invests $75 Million In A24 To Develop AI-Powered Filmmaking Tools

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Google is investing roughly $75 million in A24 as part of a research partnership with DeepMind to develop AI-powered filmmaking tools and workflows. “The deal represents the latest marriage between a Hollywood studio and AI in an era where companies have oscillated between partnerships and lawsuits,” reports Variety. From the report:
A24 partner Scott Belsky, who leads the studio’s technology division A24 Labs, told the Journal the studio’s Google partnership differed from other deals because AI developers mistakenly advertised their products as a means to make films cheaper and faster. His division is developing applications for AI-generated storyboards, another reimagination of the production process that has seen filmmakers like Martin Scorsese rubber-stamp.
“We think there are better uses that preserve creative control and support risk-taking,” said Belsky, arguing the new tools “won’t look anything like the prompted generation type of AI that people feel uncomfortable with.”

It’s not the way that it looks

By ebunga • Score: 3 Thread

It’s the fact that it’s AI slop you dullards.

Re:It’s not the way that it looks

By omnichad • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

The most boring part of filmmaking is matching up picture and audio from a dozen or more takes in line with the storyboard. I think it would be great to see AI take raw footage and build a skeleton project file with all of the different takes matched up with their respective audio and cut to fit the rough storyboard. Then you spend your time and resources on the actual creative parts. These are already the lowest paid people involved in a film anyway and they probably don’t exactly enjoy the work.

Re:It’s not the way that it looks

By ceoyoyo • Score: 4, Insightful Thread

Scanning for Starbucks cups, flagging possible continuity errors, pose estimation and tracking for motion capture, inserting CGI, rendering, there are all sorts of boring tasks that could be automated or improved if already automated.

Missing the point as usual

By flibbidyfloo • Score: 4, Insightful Thread
Once again, the non-creatives like Belsky completely fail to understand why creatives (and those sympathetic) are upset about Ai. It’s not because the prompt-generated garbage is garbage. And if he thinks CEOs and bean counters won’t push to use the Ai to save money by cutting staff and creative budgets, he’s delusional or willfully stupid. First they came for the storyboard artists, and I said nothing, because who the F*ck cares about storyboards?

Won’t matter to me

By Black Parrot • Score: 3, Insightful Thread

I haven’t been to the cinema since 2917, because everything was already too boring and predictable to watch. Let alone pay for.

Some Electricians Think Building Data Centers Is For Sellouts

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired:
As Big Tech dumps billions of dollars into America’s data center buildout, a slew of opportunities have opened up to the electricians wiring these massive facilities. In some cases, the scale of the projects and the demanding construction timelines are fueling talent wars for the industry’s best and brightest. The US-based International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) has argued that its workers are “powering the AI Revolution,” and a set of “Data Center Principles” published in March argues that union labor is “essential to the future of AI.” Tech companies are trying to meet the moment: Meta recently announced a skilled trade academy program, and Google committed $50 million to help train people in skilled trades.

But amid growing national opposition to data centers, debates over the ethics of the massive buildout have started to pop up in some online pockets of the community. Threads about how AI will affect the economy now pepper r/electricians, a subreddit with around half a million monthly visitors. Some users wonder whether the work will eventually prompt widespread job losses. Others aren’t sure if their labor makes them complicit in the damage done to local communities or whether it’s unethical to take on data center work. For some, the answer is a firm no. Ultimately, they argue, work is work.
An anonymous Midwest electrician who spoke to Wired acknowledged concerns about scams, corporate greed, and AI’s impact on workers, but said he views data centers as an important source of career advancement. “This is most likely going to be a major part of our future. And if you can’t beat them, join them,” he said.
An electrician named Ryan, meanwhile, is strongly opposed to working on data centers because he distrusts the corporations and political environment driving AI development. Still, if the facilities are going to be built, he would prefer union workers construct them. “If they’re going to get built, I’d rather they go union,” he said.

Jesse, an IBEW electrician, sympathizes with communities negatively affected by data centers but does not believe the electricians building them should be blamed. In his view, opposition should instead be directed toward policymakers and the project approval process. “I think it’s ridiculous if, to build a data center or any kind of a business, you’re going to significantly impact the lives of that community in a negative way,” he told Wired.

An electrician named Dante echoed some of those sentiments, arguing that data center work is no more ethically compromised than many other commercial construction projects. “We’re almost always working for the worst possible people in the end, but we all need a paycheck,” he said. He added that such projects are “essentially the same kind of work,” typically performed for wealthy corporations seeking to become even richer.

Re: Is vice signaling the new virtue signaling?

By Misagon • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

I would say that recent developments have made Godwin’s Law obsolete.

Not everyone can be enlightened

By argStyopa • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

Let’s keep our focus on the people behind these projects, shall we? Not the caterers, the electricians, the plumbers, or the company that mows their lawn. They’re just trying to pay the bills man.

Yes, I get it, if it’s your holy mission to oppose AI datacenters sure, you go right ahead and chain yourself to the front gate. But the fact is that most people don’t have the luxury to morally evaluate their job for nuances of “whatever is bothering reddit today”.

Re:It’s the water: Re:Is vice signaling

By Jumperalex • Score: 4, Informative Thread

The answer is land cost, power access and cost, tax incentives, zoning. In no particular order.

Or said another way, until recently the impact of water-over-use was an external cost in the decision process. Just like power over-use was. Now they both are being factored into permitting requirements and that means cost have the costs finally.

By costs here I don’t mean the rates they negotiate for consumption of either water or power. I mean the cost of scaling production and distribution to prevent everyone else having to pay more because a data center was allowed to come in and spike demand without and investment in supply growth / demand efficiency.

Re:Just accel the move from Blue to Red states

By dfghjk • Score: 5, Informative Thread

There are no high paying jobs in data centers, just destruction of quality of life for locals. Perfect for red states, they are accustomed to being shit on, they vote for it.

Re: Is vice signaling the new virtue signaling?

By drinkypoo • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

Godwin’s law obviously has no modern relevance given that it was invented for USENET and that was effectively destroyed.

Now seriously though it never spoke to whether or not the comparisons to Hitler were apt, as that is situational, only that they would occur.

And sidebar, Mike Godwin explicitly stated that such a comparison is apt when it comes to der pedofuhrer. Just like to toss that in there.

Valve Prices the Steam Machine At $1,049

Posted by BeauHD View on SlashDot Skip
Valve’s new Steam Machine will launch June 29 starting at $1,049 and go up from there depending on the configuration. Although it costs considerably more than the PS5 ($599.99) and Xbox Series X ($649.99), “the value proposition for the Steam Machine is that it can play your library of Steam games you may have accumulated over years (or even decades), rather than just PlayStation games, and it’s also a full Linux PC that you can customize to your heart’s content,” reports The Verge. “Valve also says that it’s selling the Steam Machine for the cost of its components alone instead of subsidizing the price.” From the report:
You can now register your interest to buy a Steam Machine as part of a reservation system. To offer a fair playing field for people who want to buy one, Valve will randomize everyone in the queue on Thursday at 1PM ET. After that, anyone who registers their interest will be added to the end of the waitlist. The first emails giving people the opportunity to buy will go out on June 29th.

Valve will sell four configurations of the Steam Machine:
- A 512GB model for $1,049
- A 512GB model with a bundled Steam Controller for $1,128
- A 2TB model for $1,349
- A 2TB model with a bundled Steam Controller for $1,428

Re:Expesnive controller

By Himmy32 • Score: 5, Informative Thread

For comparison the Switch 2 joycons are $99.99 and the PS5 DualSense is $84.99.

When you think about all that’s jammed into them these days, Hall-effect/magnetic joysticks so there isn’t drift issues, touchpads, a battery, gyros, haptic feedback, and the microcontroller. It’s easier to understand why it costs a little more than a rectangle with a couple red buttons of yesteryear.

And why force people to buy a controller if they are going to just use mouse / keyboard or are happy buying a cheapo corded controller?

Re:Expesnive controller

By GoJays • Score: 4, Informative Thread
Pick up an 8BitDo wireless controller for $40 (CAD).

Ryzen/AMD 16/8GB

By bill_mcgonigle • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

Skipping the paywalled article I found these specs and was underwhelmed.

Sure it looks fine for playing mid games but my guess was something unique, unified RAM or a clever bus or something. It seems like a decently tuned Ryzen build. I do like the lower TDP on the CPU which should be doing less work.

A nice form factor for those who don’t build their own.

Hopefully this is their entre into the PC world and v2 will have more innovations.

What’s most cool is the generation of teenagers who will have default Arch/KDE instead of default Windows.

An investment really

By CEC-P • Score: 5, Funny Thread
I heard that every single one comes with a signed statement from Sam Altman stating that it is 100% guaranteed to go up in price by 2029 or your money back!

Re:Expesnive controller

By organgtool • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
And the Steam controller is purported to use TMR sensors. I just put TMR sensors in my PS5 controller (it was the fourth one to get stick drift) and I’m hoping that should solve the issue permanently. I haven’t noticed a difference in gameplay, but they’re supposed to last a long time rather than the terrible potentiometers in the OEM controller. And the process of replacing the sticks was a bit of a nightmare, so I appreciate when a company uses quality parts from the start.

AI Law Firm Wins UK Court Case For First Time

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Garfield AI, the UK’s first regulator-approved AI law firm, has won its first court case after helping a freelancer recover 7,000 pounds in unpaid fees. “I was owed money for work I had done, but it felt like the process of recovering it could be too stressful, expensive and time-consuming,” said Tamires Camal Taquidir, a freelancer who had provided HR-related services to a hospitality business. “Garfield made it possible for me to pursue the claim and keep going. When the counterclaim was brought, it was intended to intimidate me, but I knew I had accessible, cost-effective and competent support. I’m delighted by the result.” Computer Weekly reports:
After attempting to resolve a dispute over paid fees without court action, Camal Taquidir […] used Garfield AI to help her pursue the case in court. She was able to generate pre-action correspondence, and then prepare and issue court proceedings. The AI legal assistant conducted all of the legal work preceding the court trial. The defendant instructed solicitors and brought a counterclaim, which the claimant disputed with the support of Garfield AI.

The claimant continued to trial, including dealing with document production, the preparation witness statements and trial bundles. Garfield then instructed a junior, shortly before the trial began. She won the claim over unpaid fees following a three-hour trial at Wandsworth County Court. The claimant paid around 400 pounds in Garfield AI fees to recover the 7,000 pounds owed, while the defendant instructed both a solicitor and a barrister. […] Following a three-hour trial at Wandsworth County Court on 14 May 2026, in which both sides were represented by barristers, the court found in favor of the claimant, awarding 7,000 pounds and dismissing the counterclaim.

£400 total?

By algaeman • Score: 3 Thread
I understand that the AI fees are low, but how did they get a barrister in court for three hours for £400? Is there actually someone out there that is desperate for courtroom experience such that they will take a £100 an hour fee?

The law is made of words

By MpVpRb • Score: 3 Thread

LLMs are good with words
I suspect that LLMs will be very good at the law once their accuracy improves

AI Lawyers do their homework?

By argStyopa • Score: 3 Thread

If an LLM attorney is smart enough to actually check that the cases they reference actually exist, we can be confident than they’re better than a certain percent of human lawyers.

Sigh.

By ledow • Score: 4, Informative Thread

“Following a three-hour trial at Wandsworth County Court on 14 May 2026, in which both sides were represented by barristers, the court found in favor of the claimant,”

So… no… AI didn’t win a case.

2,000 Retired Google Pixel Phones Get a Second Life As a Private Cloud

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UC San Diego researchers are working with Google to build a private cloud from 2,000 retired Pixel Fold motherboards, demonstrating how discarded smartphones could provide useful, low-cost computing capacity. “The full smartphone cluster is expected to launch this fall,” reports The Register. “Depending on how well the initial phase goes, we’re told the cluster could grow even larger.” From the report
Once the phone’s motherboards have been extracted from their shells, the researchers say that the chips hiding within remain more than potent enough to be useful for a variety of tasks. In many cases, the single-threaded performance of these chips is as good as, if not better than, what you’d find from a many-cored datacenter chip. The Pixel Fold smartphones, which will form the basis of the cluster, are powered by a Google Tensor G2 processor with two 2.85 GHz Cortex-X1, two 2.35 GHz Cortex-A78 and four 1.80 GHz Cortex-A55 Arm cores, a Mali-G710 MP7 GPU, and 12 GB of system memory. Early benchmarking using the SPEC suite suggests that 25-50 phones should deliver performance similar to that of a conventional server.

The major challenge, instead, is distributing workloads across multiple devices, each of which has a handful of cores of one or more varieties, and most have 8-12 GB of memory. UCSD researchers are approaching this challenge from a couple of different angles. The first is by targeting applications that can easily fit within a single device. The second is using Kubernetes to orchestrate container deployments across clusters of 25-50 phones. For this to work, the devices first need to be flashed with a Linux operating system suitable for the job. While Android makes for a great handheld experience, it is not intended for server duty. In the blog post, researchers note that Android includes functionality intended to stop rogue applications from chewing up excessive amounts of memory and draining your battery. In server context, these safety mechanisms are no longer necessary.

[Ryan Kastner, an associate professor of computer science at UCSD] told us this was by no means an easy task, but the team has made steady progress toward getting Linux running smoothly on these devices, including support for the phone’s onboard GPUs. Access to some functionality, like the chip’s integrated tensor processing unit, remains elusive. Clustering these devices will require networking the phones together. Normally these devices would connect over cellular or Wi-Fi, but at this scale, this not only isn’t practical, but also has implications for security, he explained. Instead, the team will employ PCBs that both supply power and break out wired Ethernet networking.

The researchers suggest that many EdTech, grading, and research workloads commonly run by universities in the cloud are small enough to run on the cluster without issue. “The vast majority of these applications are within the capabilities of a single smartphone to host, with the standard grading backend running on small cloud instances,” a blog post detailing the planned deployment reads. “Early experiments show that even a moderately-sized cluster of 20 phones is capable of supporting peak submission rates for a 75+ student class.”

Memory prices

By gurps_npc • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

Given that the price of memory is so high that cell phone production is dropping like a stone, it is clear to me that used cellphones will end up being worth a lot more - both for this kind of networked computing and merely to remove and reuse parts

Obligatory

By killmenow • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
Imagine a beowulf cluster…

Re:Obligatory

By rta • Score: 5, Funny Thread

Imagine a beowulf cluster…

came to say the same, but TFA DID imagine it!

and it’s some sort of /. crime that the line didn’t make it into TFS.

Alongside traditional IT applications, the cluster will also support exploration into parallel computing and systems programming, which sounds an awful lot like the smartphone equivalent of the Beowulf clusters of the ‘90s, which saw researchers cobble together supercomputers from consumer PCs.

Ubisoft Co-Founder Claude Guillemot Dies In Plane Crash

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch:
Claude Guillemot, co-founder of French video game company Ubisoft, died Friday at the age of 69. According to French media (via Bloomberg), Guillemot died in a plane crash in the French resort town of La Baule. He was one of two people aboard the plane, both of whom died.

Guillemot founded Ubisoft with his four brothers in 1986. Since then, the company has published the Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Prince of Persia, and Tom Clancy video game franchises, as well as many other titles. The family retains control of Ubisoft, and Guillemot’s brother Yves is still CEO. Guillemot was also chairman of Guillemot Corp., which makes gaming and audio accessories.
“Ubisoft was deeply saddened to learn of the death of Claude Guillemot, co-founder of the group and chairman of Guillemot Corp., in an accident,” Ubisoft said in a statement. “Our thoughts are with his family and loved ones during this difficult time. No further statements will be made at this time.”

Several US States Bet That AI Can Solve Their Prison Recidivism Crisis

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot Skip
America’s state prison systems need ways “to keep people from returning to prison,” reports the Wall Street Journal, “when an estimated 40% end up back behind bars within three years.”
Part of the problem comes in the form of filing cabinets, manila folders and legacy digital databases. In other words, records for a single prisoner might be kept in a dozen places… Now a group of 19 prison systems are tackling the problem with digital tools and artificial intelligence in some cases. They are contracting with San Francisco nonprofit Recidiviz, whose computer systems bring together prisoner data from its disparate sources into digital dashboards. From there, corrections staff can see information — such as court records and notes from parole-board hearings — about a prisoner or parolee all in one place.

The company says its efforts are working: Recidivism has fallen 16% in the prison population its systems track. It is the result of “just streamlining these workflows and knitting someone’s journey together end to end,” says Clementine Jacoby, chief executive officer of Recidiviz. Some criminal-justice groups show that recidivism is trending downward in general, though most of that data is nearly a decade old… The statistics from 11 states stop at 2019, and for four states stop at 2016. With 10 other states, no data was reported.

Re:Betteidge’s law

By lucifuge31337 • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
There’s also another thing at play for the ones who would be otherwise redeemable: most prisons are hellholes of punishment, not rehabilitation. If you choose to run a system that way do not be surprised that the likely outcome of people who have been in the system for any real lengh of time is recidivism.

Re:ok cool

By SumDog • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
I think the idea is identifying people most likely to succeeded and get them out. This makes slightly more sense for LLMs, if you’re just talking about reading a lot of public data for people who have no right to privacy anyway due to the harm they caused others.

16% sounds pretty low, but it’s probably reasonable. There are a lot of people in prison who can’t be let out. I’m sorry, you stab someone, the chance of rehabilitation is very low. If they get 20 years, they need to stay in 20 years. Maybe they’ll be too old to hurt anyone then, or the time will make them realize how shit they are. Most often a lot, they’ll commit a violent crime again and then won’t get out ever. I think of this tragic case of a woman who befriended her mom’s killer and was then murdered by him after she helped him get parole:

https://people.com/crime/ark-w…

There is a kind of suicidal empathy in wanting to help everyone on the street or in the prison system. It denies the realize that for over half the people on the street, they have literally fucked over all their friends, all their family members and anyone who could possibly help them. Their friends are now others on the street who have done the same. Some people don’t get in the loop. One of my best friends is a court reporter, and despite all the awful stuff she has to record, she also sees people who come into the court room, cleaned up, their lives turned around and coming off probation. So people can turn around their lives, but they have to want it.

I’m just glad this article wasn’t about trying to use AI chatbots to directly change behavior of inmates. That would just be straight up AI-psychosis talk.

Re:We know how, just don’t want to.

By gurps_npc • Score: 5, Informative Thread

1) You have been tricked by conservative propaganda. Cashless bail did not increase the rate of crime as compared to cash bail.

2) NY law (and NJ and Illinois) explicitly refused to release violent offenders on cashless bail. California does NOT have a cashless bail law, but the state supreme court has encouraged judges to set cashless bail for non-violent offenders. Both states have explicit language about non-violent only..

3) There were cases when people arrested for non-violent crimes were released on bail and then committed violent offense. There were also cases where the legal definition of violent offenders were … arguable. But the law said no violent offenders could be released and that law was followed.

4) The real question is, do you think poor people should have no rights and upon being arrested should have to wait in jail for a year or more just because they are poor? You do realize that this will a) cause innocent people to plead guilty to a crime they did not commit if it means they get out of jail in 6 months rather than waiting there a year before they go to trial. b) will destroy their lives even if they are found innocent because a year in jail awaiting trial means they lose their job, house, girlfriend/wife, all while getting assaulted by real criminals, trained by real criminals on how to commit crime and finally JOIN criminal gangs to survive.

5) If you release more people on bail, the number of crimes go up, obviously. This does not mean cashless bail is a bad idea or causing a problem. The question is not whether cashless bail releases commit crimes, but instead Whether people released on cashless bail commit more crimes than people released on cash bail. The answer to that is no. People released on cashless bail are no more likely to commit more crimes than people released on cash bail. The number is about 17% of people released - for both cash bail and cashless bail.

6) If you think the bail system in general is too lenient, you have a better argument, given that 17% commit more crimes.

7) However the real problem is the time spent in jail before trial. Justice should happen in less than 3 months, not more than 12.

8) Cashless bail for non-violent offenders reduces the number of people that end up becoming hardened criminals. That has been proven repeatedly.

9)Most importantly states with cashless bail have LOWER crime rates than states that require cash bail.

There is no way us liberals from NJ (217 violent crimes per 100,000), Illinois (218/100k), and NY (380/100k) are going to follow the advice of idiots from Texas (389/100k), Missouri (462/100k) or Louisiana (519/100k).

NJ and Illinois are just too good at crime prevention to care what the conservatives say. NY (and California) are middle of the pack and might listen, but not likely when idiots talk dumb shit and make up lies.

Re:No AI required

By thegarbz • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

There are some things where I think it’s fair to never trust that person fully again. Ever.

Trust should be limited to the activity you can’t be trusted. Where I live employers can request from the police an approval. But that approval is compared to the requested job position.

E.g. if a bank askes the police for this history of a convicted paedophile, they will get a reply saying there’s nothing of concern in the history. Likewise if a school asks about the criminal history of someone committed of money laundering they’ll also be told there’s nothing of concern. On the flip side if the school asks about the paedophile or the bank asks about the money launderer they’ll get a hit saying the person has a criminal past related to their job application.

Re:Here’s a thought

By jenningsthecat • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

Interesing that you think universal health care will make criminals become less criminal. How exactly would that work, in practice?

Universal healthcare prevents a LOT of people from becoming criminals. Just try to successfully hold down a job when you’re suffering from extreme shortness of breath or chronic pain from herniated discs. People in those situations can’t even work as Walmart greeters because they can’t stand up for hours at a time, if at all. No job, no money - so how do you eat, and where do you sleep? What would YOU do if you found yourself in that position?

Sure, many of those “too sick to work” people are also too sick to commit crimes, especially violent ones - but they may have dependent families who are also desperate. And even those who manage to get healthcare are effectively trading their homes and jobs for the “luxury” of having their illnesses treated. The illness may be gone; but so is the old job, along with the home that would allow them to keep their shit together long enough to get a new one.

Then, there are crippling psychological and psychiatric disorders. And again, the same downward spiral - no work, no money, no home, and crime to merely stay alive. For some people, crime is the only way to keep body and soul together between the time they can’t afford treatment and the time they either die or end up in the “justice” system.

It’s also not unheard of for people to commit crimes specifically so they can be put in prison, because they can’t figure out any other way to get medical treatment and/or to be housed, clothed, and fed. Just let that sink in for a moment.

‘Tutor’ Who Took Online Tests for 124 Students Jailed for Three Years

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A private tutor who charged money to take dozens of exams for students and submit coursework for them “has been jailed for three years,” reports the BBC, “after his scam earned him £300,000.”
Shahid Adnan completed assignments and online tests for more than 120 students at Liverpool John Moore’s University, the Crown Prosecution Service said. The 43-year-old, of Lysander Close, Liverpool, was caught in February 2023 after a student handed in a USB drive containing suspicious coursework to Dr Tom Berry of the university’s school of computer science and mathematics. Berry’s checks revealed the drive was used by Adnan with documents linked to a company he set up called Study Sharp Ltd.

Excel spreadsheets containing details of other students, their study modules, coursework due dates, and their personal login credentials were also found. Further checks confirmed suspicions that Adnan was accessing the university’s network to submit fraudulent work and sit examinations on behalf of students… [I]nvestigations led police to believe Adnan may have been doing work for 124 students at universities all over the world.
The BBC also interviewed detective sergeant Adam Dagnall from Merseyside Police’s cybercrime unit, who said Adnan was living a lavish lifestyle “well beyond” his stated occupations as a private tutor and Amazon delivery driver. His bank accounts held more than £2m ($2,645,100 USD).

Re:Does this mean Sam Altman’s going to prison?

By gijoel • Score: 5, Insightful Thread
Not really, cheating on exams can tarnish academic integrity and is a menace to society at large. Do you want to have heart surgery performed by someone who didn’t know their shit, and cheated on their exams? Do you want to drive over a bridge design by a guy who doesn’t understand structural analysis, or be represented by someone who faked their way through law school?

Besides which academic reputation is worth a lot to university and colleges, and they know it. If they didn’t stomp on this now their reputation will turn to shit, and no one will want to enroll there. That can have a big impact on enrollment numbers and by extension their bottom line.

Lastly, why the fuck should someone too lazy to do the work do as well as or better than someone who busted their balls studying for those subjects?

Why is a person at university?

By Bruce66423 • Score: 5, Interesting Thread

The ideal answer is that the person is really interested in the subject they are studying and want to know a lot more.

The honest answer is that society forces them to go to university as the next step towards a high paying job. The fact that it’s also a chance to PARTY is probably also significant!

For the person whose only motivation is the latter, then the logic of cheating is overwhelming; they don’t really believe that they need the stuff they are being taught, so why bother to play nicely?

The AI challenge, on top of the pandemic’s revelation that an awful lot can be done on line, is raising all these hard questions which nobody wants to face. However to some extent it is merely clarifying the questions which were already being raised about the degree to which a university education has become a weapon in the arms race of getting the first job. Once you start to see the university industry as arms salesmen in a war, it’s a lot easier to disregard their self serving claims to be making a meaningful contribution to our culture. Of course SOME are doing things of value - especially in STEM - but overall?

Perhaps the answer is for major companies to announce that they are going to recruit high school graduates with good SATs results for in house apprenticeships that will lead to management. Unfortunately most seem to be continuing to use a degree as the first jump for candidates to get over…

Re:Does this mean Sam Altman’s going to prison?

By dargaud • Score: 5, Informative Thread

[…] Do you want to have heart surgery performed by someone who didn’t know their shit, and cheated on their exams? Do you want to drive over a bridge design by a guy who doesn’t understand structural analysis, or be represented by someone who faked their way through law school? […]

Indeed. It is a well known ‘secret’ that other student(s) took Trumps’ finals in his place, paid for by his father. The world would be a much better place if this particular scam hadn’t happened. Here on finals they check your identity papers (real ones, not an easily fakeable driver’s license).

Re:Does this mean Sam Altman’s going to prison?

By geekmux • Score: 4 Thread

Have you watched the TV series “The Audacity” wherein the Silicon Valley founder protagonist tells his daughter about getting into Stanford, “Cheaters don’t lose and losers don’t cheat”?

Was that before or after the after-school special starring Mossimo Giannulli telling the story of how he got ass-raped in prison for the crime of lying on college entrance exams and paying for a rowing scholarship?

Maybe we should ask the felon wife actress who doesn’t act anymore about stories that end appropriately.

Consequences?

By GeekWithAKnife • Score: 4, Interesting Thread
Are the people that had achieved degrees and other certification in a fraudulent fashion going to be stripped of those and potentially fired or expelled?

This is not an isolated incident and there have been many stories of people achieving via fraudulent means and consequently we are all worse off for it. IMO they need to be named and shamed. Stripped of whatever they gained by cheating.

Many years ago we had a new guy with a Masters in networking. Didn’t know what are the network ranges for class A, B or C were. Couldn’t say what the difference is between TCP & UDP. Had no idea about subnetting etc etc. His masters seemed more related to social networking.

Ultimately an individual that gets certified or qualified in a fraudulent fashion is genuinely cheating themselves. They always run the risk of ventually getting found out and sometimes in very embarrassing fashion.

P.S. - we trained LLMs on human data…is it a wonder why they are sometimes dishonest?

TikTok Shows 3x More AI Slop Than YouTube, Report Finds

Posted by EditorDavid View on SlashDot
“About 59% of TikTok videos served to a new account’s For You feed are AI slop,” writes Search Engine Journal, “according to a report from Kapwing, the video creation tool company. That’s roughly three times the rate Kapwing found on YouTube.”
The company manually reviewed over 10,000 TikTok videos across 20 categories and ran a separate fresh-account test, counting AI-generated content in the first 500 For You videos. Kapwing ran the same fresh-account test on YouTube and found that 104 of the first 500 Shorts, or 21%, were AI slop. On TikTok, 294 of 500 For You videos hit that threshold…

Of the 2,000 videos Kapwing reviewed in TikTok’s Kids category, 57% were AI slop. That was the highest rate of any category in the analysis. The highest-rate tag was #cartoonkids, where 97 of 100 featured videos were AI-generated. Tags like #cartoons and #babysong both reached 83%, and #forkids came in at 79%. After Kids, the next highest AI slop rates were in Science and Education (35%), Health (33%), and History (33%). All three are categories where visual illustration and voiceover narration make up much of the content.

On the other end, categories where on-camera presence or physical demonstration are central had the lowest rates. Fashion came in at 1.3%, Music at 1.5%, and Fitness at 1.6%.
The article notes that by last November, TikTok “had already labeled 1.3 billion videos as AI-generated, according to the report.”

Must be mostly slop then

By caseih • Score: 4, Interesting Thread

Because Youtube is about half AI slop these days. At least given the kinds of video topics I might be interested in. It’s kind of discouraging. Some of them actually are now marked as AI generated. I generally stop watching channels that I find or suspect are AI, even if the material appears to be accurate. I just can’t support creators who don’t actually create.

Is this a surprise?

By jenningsthecat • Score: 5, Insightful Thread

I’ve never experienced TikTok; but everything I’ve heard leads me to believe that even before AI became so pervasive,` the platform had way, way more slop than YouTube. Presumably, a greater affinity for slop in general implies a greater incidence of AI slop.

I just checked TikTok - they right

By TheMiddleRoad • Score: 3 Thread
TikTok indeed is a shithole with a lot of AI slop, way more than I ever run into on YouTube. A whole lot of uncanny valley shit, and a lot of shit past that into more believable quality, but still AI.

TikTok was already Slop !!!

By bsdetector101 • Score: 4, Insightful Thread
Hard to say that AI slop made it worse !!!

Doesn’t TikTok Basically Demand You Post Slop?

By jhuebel • Score: 3 Thread

I mean, it’s built on the idea of creating very short form videos. With the advent of 10-second AI video generation, TikTok is basically the perfect fit for it. Someone can just keep feeding AI prompts and indiscriminately posting the resulting videos. There’s almost zero thought process required. But if some of the videos hit… profit! There’s no downside for the AI slop factory.