An artist cancelled their Duolingo and Audible subscriptions to protest the companies' decisions to use more AI. "If enough people leave, hopefully they kind of rethink this," the artist tells the Washington Post.

And apparently, many more people feel the same way...

In thousands of comments and posts about Audible and Duolingo that The Post reviewed across social media — including on Reddit, YouTube, Threads and TikTok — people threatened to cancel subscriptions, voiced concern for human translators and narrators, and said AI creates inferior experiences. "It destroys the purpose of humanity. We have so many amazing abilities to create art and music and just appreciate what's around us," said Kayla Ellsworth, a 21-year-old college student. "Some of the things that are the most important to us are being replaced by things that are not real...."

People in creative jobs are already on edge about the role AI is playing in their fields. On sites such as Etsy, clearly AI-generated art and other products are pushing out some original crafters who make a living on their creations. AI is being used to write romance novels and coloring books, design logos and make presentations... "I was promised tech would make everything easier so I could enjoy life," author Brittany Moone said. "Now it's leaving me all the dishes and the laundry so AI can make the art."
But will this turn into a consumer movement? The article also cites an assistant marketing professor at Washington State University, who found customers are now reacting negatively to the term "AI" in product descriptions — out of fear for losing their jobs (as well as concerns about quality and privacy). And he does predict this can change the way companies use AI.
"There will be some companies that are going to differentiate themselves by saying no to AI." And while it could be a niche market, "The people will be willing to pay more for things just made by humans."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://slashdot.org/story/25/06/21/1755225/what-if-customers-started-saying-no-to-ai?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

alternative_right writes: We certainly weren't looking for it. What we have confirmed is that metals have their own intrinsic, natural ability to heal themselves, at least in the case of fatigue damage at the nanoscale.' While the observation is unprecedented, it's not wholly unexpected. In 2013, Texas A&M University materials scientist Michael Demkowicz worked on a study predicting that this kind of nanocrack healing could happen, driven by the tiny crystalline grains inside metals essentially shifting their boundaries in response to stress... That the automatic mending process happened at room temperature is another promising aspect of the research. Metal usually requires lots of heat to shift its form, but the experiment was carried out in a vacuum; it remains to be seen whether the same process will happen in conventional metals in a typical environment.

A possible explanation involves a process known as cold welding, which occurs under ambient temperatures whenever metal surfaces come close enough together for their respective atoms to tangle together. Typically, thin layers of air or contaminants interfere with the process; in environments like the vacuum of space, pure metals can be forced close enough together to literally stick.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/06/21/054219/a-cracked-piece-of-metal-self-healed-in-experiment-that-stunned-scientists?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

As recently as 2021, GM "all but eliminated" hybrids from its future product plans, reports the New York Times. "But then a funny thing happened."
Car shoppers balked at the high prices of fully electric models and the challenges of charging them. In the last few years, sales of electric vehicles have grown at a much slower rate than automakers once expected. And hybrids have stepped in to fill the gap, accounting for a large and growing share of new car sales... In the first three months of this year, hybrids — including cars that can and cannot be plugged in — made up about 14 percent of all light vehicles sold in the United States, according to the Department of Energy. That was around twice the market share of fully electric vehicles in that period...

Several automakers are slowing the introduction of new electric vehicles, and have accelerated development of new hybrids.

Robb Report looks at the current status of hybrids — and a possible future:

"The charging infrastructure in most countries is not yet mature enough to support convenient mass adoption of battery-electric vehicles, and in some territories never will be," says Jonathan Hall, head of research and advanced engineering at U.K.-based consulting group Mahle Powertrain....

Porsche, active in this space since 2010, just hybridized its iconic 911 for this model year. Lamborghini also joined the trend with the debut of its 1,000 hp Revuelto hybrid in 2023. "The company doesn't plan to give up the internal-combustion engine anytime soon," says CTO Rouven Mohr. "We are also considering synthetic fuels to keep ICE vehicles running after 2030."

Hall concurs: "With the emergence of bio-based and even fully synthetic fuels, the link between the ICE and climate change can be broken." Combined with the development of better batteries, this progressive hybrid model could offer the best of both worlds for years to come.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/06/22/0616202/americans-are-buying-twice-as-many-hybrids-as-fully-electric-vehicles-is-the-next-step-synthetic-fuels?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"When Apollo astronauts stumbled across shimmering orange beads on the moon, they had no idea they were gazing at ancient relics of violent volcanic activity," writes ScienceDaily.

These glass spheres, tiny yet mesmerizing, formed billions of years ago during fiery eruptions that launched molten droplets skyward, instantly freezing in space. Now, using advanced instruments that didn't exist in the 1970s, scientists have examined the beads in unprecedented detail. The result is a remarkable window into the moon's dynamic geological history, revealing how eruption styles evolved and how lunar conditions once mirrored explosive events we see on Earth today...
Analyses of orange and black lunar beads have shown that the style of volcanic eruptions changed over time. "It's like reading the journal of an ancient lunar volcanologist," said Ryan Ogliore [an associate professor of physics at Missouri's Washington University, which has a large repository of lunar samples that were returned to Earth].
"The beads are tiny, pristine capsules of the lunar interior..." says Ogliore. "We've had these samples for 50 years, but we now have the technology to fully understand them..."

"The very existence of these beads tells us the moon had explosive eruptions, something like the fire fountains you can see in Hawaii today."

Thanks to Slashdot reader alternative_right for sharing the news.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/06/22/0358233/tiny-orange-beads-found-by-apollo-astronauts-reveal-moons-volcanic-past?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

The goal isn't to stop generative music, but to make it traceable, reports the Verge — "to identify it early, tag it with metadata, and govern how it moves through the system...."

"Detection systems are being embedded across the entire music pipeline: in the tools used to train models, the platforms where songs are uploaded, the databases that license rights, and the algorithms that shape discovery."

Platforms like YouTube and [French music streaming service] Deezer have developed internal systems to flag synthetic audio as it's uploaded and shape how it surfaces in search and recommendations. Other music companies — including Audible Magic, Pex, Rightsify, and SoundCloud — are expanding detection, moderation, and attribution features across everything from training datasets to distribution... Vermillio and Musical AI are developing systems to scan finished tracks for synthetic elements and automatically tag them in the metadata. Vermillio's TraceID framework goes deeper by breaking songs into stems — like vocal tone, melodic phrasing, and lyrical patterns — and flagging the specific AI-generated segments, allowing rights holders to detect mimicry at the stem level, even if a new track only borrows parts of an original. The company says its focus isn't takedowns, but proactive licensing and authenticated release... A rights holder or platform can run a finished track through [Vermillo's] TraceID to see if it contains protected elements — and if it does, have the system flag it for licensing before release.

Some companies are going even further upstream to the training data itself. By analyzing what goes into a model, their aim is to estimate how much a generated track borrows from specific artists or songs. That kind of attribution could enable more precise licensing, with royalties based on creative influence instead of post-release disputes...

Deezer has developed internal tools to flag fully AI-generated tracks at upload and reduce their visibility in both algorithmic and editorial recommendations, especially when the content appears spammy. Chief Innovation Officer Aurélien Hérault says that, as of April, those tools were detecting roughly 20 percent of new uploads each day as fully AI-generated — more than double what they saw in January. Tracks identified by the system remain accessible on the platform but are not promoted... Spawning AI's DNTP (Do Not Train Protocol) is pushing detection even earlier — at the dataset level. The opt-out protocol lets artists and rights holders label their work as off-limits for model training.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike for sharing the article.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/06/22/1747250/how-the-music-industry-is-building-the-tech-to-hunt-down-ai-generated-songs?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

How AI will reshape the future of work? The Washington Post looks at India's $280 billion call-center and "business process outsourcing" industry, which employs over 3 million people.

2023 saw the arrival of a real-time "accent-altering software" — now used by at least 42,000 call center agents:

Those who use the software are engaging in "digital whitewashing," critics say, which helps explain why the industry prefers the term "accent translation" over "accent neutralization." But companies say it's delivering results: happier customers, satisfied agents, faster calls.

Many are not convinced. Whatever short-term gains automation may offer to workers, they say, it will ultimately eliminate far more jobs than it creates. They point to the quality assurance process: When callers hear, "this call may be monitored," that now usually refers to an AI system, not a human [which now can review all calls for compliance and tone]... "AI is going to crush entry-level white-collar hiring over the next 24 to 36 months," said Mark Serdar, who has spent his career helping Fortune 500 companies expand their global workforce. "And it's happening faster than most people realize...." Already, chatbots, or "virtual agents," are handling basic tasks like password resets or balance updates. AI systems are writing code, translating emails, onboarding patients, and analyzing applications for credit cards, mortgages and insurance. The human jobs are changing, too. AI "co-pilots" are providing call center agents with instant answers and suggested scripts. At some companies, bots have started handling the calls.

There is no shortage of ominous predictions about the implications for India's labor force. Within a year, there will only be a "minimal" need for call centers, K Krithivasan, CEO of Indian IT company Tata Consultancy Services, recently told the Financial Times. The Brookings Institution found 86 percent of customer service tasks have "high automation potential." More than a quarter of jobs in India have "high exposure" to AI, the International Monetary Fund has warned. "There is a rapid wave coming," said Pratyush Kumar, co-founder of Sarvam, a leading Indian AI firm, which recently helped a major insurance provider make 40 million automated phone calls informing enrollees that their insurance program was expiring. He said corporate clients are all asking him to help reduce headcount...

While AI may be phasing out certain jobs, its defenders say it is also creating different kinds of opportunities. Teleperformance, along with hundreds of other companies, has hired thousands of data annotators in India — many of them women in small towns and rural areas — to label training images and videos for AI systems. Prompt engineers, data scientists, AI trainers and speech scientists are all newly in demand... At some firms, those who previously worked in quality assurance have transitioned to performance coaching, said [Sharath Narayana, co-founder of AI speech tools company Sanas], whose previous firm, Observe.ai, also built QA software. Still, he admits, 10 to 20 percent of workers he observed "could not upskill at all" and were probably let go.
Even the most hopeful admit that workers who can't adapt will fall behind. "It's like the industrial revolution," said Prithvijit Roy, Accenture's former lead for its Global AI Hub. "Some will suffer."

The article also notes that while Indian universities produce over a million engineering graduates each year, "placement rates are falling at leading IT firms; salaries have stagnated."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/06/22/197235/how-will-ai-impact-call-center-jobs-in-india?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

With no one behind the steering wheel, a Tesla robotaxi passes Guero's Taco Bar in Austin Texas, making a right turn onto Congress Avenue.

Today is the day Austin became the first city in the world to see Tesla's self-driving robotaxi service, reports The Guardian:

Some analysts believe that the robotaxis will only be available to employees and invitees initially. For the CEO, Tesla's rollout is slow. "We could start with 1,000 or 10,000 [robotaxis] on day one, but I don't think that would be prudent," he told CNBC in May. "So, we will start with probably 10 for a week, then increase it to 20, 30, 40."

The billionaire has said the driverless cars will be monitored remotely... [Posting on X.com] Musk said the date was "tentatively" 22 June but that this launch date would be "not real self-driving", which would have to wait nearly another week... Musk said he planned to have one thousand Tesla robotaxis on Austin roads "within a few months" and then he would expand to other cities in Texas and California.

Musk posted on X that riders on launch day would be charged a flat fee of $4.20, according to Reuters. And "In recent days, Tesla has sent invites to a select group of Tesla online influencers for a small and carefully monitored robotaxi trial..."

As the date of the planned robotaxi launch approached, Texas lawmakers moved to enact rules on autonomous vehicles in the state. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, on Friday signed legislation requiring a state permit to operate self-driving vehicles. The law does not take effect until September 1, but the governor's approval of it on Friday signals state officials from both parties want the driverless-vehicle industry to proceed cautiously... The law softens the state's previous anti-regulation stance on autonomous vehicles. A 2017 Texas law specifically prohibited cities from regulating self-driving cars...

The law requires autonomous-vehicle operators to get approval from the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles before operating on public streets without a human driver. It also gives state authorities the power to revoke permits if they deem a driverless vehicle "endangers the public," and requires firms to provide information on how police and first responders can deal with their driverless vehicles in emergency situations. The law's requirements for getting a state permit to operate an "automated motor vehicle" are not particularly onerous but require a firm to attest it can safely operate within the law... Compliance remains far easier than in some states, most notably California, which requires extensive submission of vehicle-testing data under state oversight.

Tesla "planned to operate only in areas it considered the safest," according to the article, and "plans to avoid bad weather, difficult intersections, and will not carry anyone below the age of 18."

More details from UPI:

To get started using the robotaxis, users must download the Robotaxi app and use their Tesla account to log in, where it then functions like most ridesharing apps...
"Riders may not always be delivered to their intended destinations or may experience inconveniences, interruptions, or discomfort related to the Robotaxi," the company wrote in a disclaimer in its terms of service. "Tesla may modify or cancel rides in its discretion, including for example due to weather conditions." The terms of service include a clause that Tesla will not be liable for "any indirect, consequential, incidental, special, exemplary, or punitive damages, including lost profits or revenues, lost data, lost time, the costs of procuring substitute transportation services, or other intangible losses" from the use of the robotaxis.

Their article includes a link to the robotaxi's complete Terms of Service:
To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Robotaxi, Robotaxi app, and any ride are provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, either express or implied... The Robotaxi is not intended to provide transportation services in connection with emergencies, for example emergency transportation to a hospital... Tesla's total liability for any claim arising from or relating to Robotaxi or the Robotaxi app is limited to the greater of the amount paid by you to Tesla for the Robotaxi ride giving rise to the claim, and $100... Tesla may modify these Terms in our discretion, effective upon posting an updated version on Tesla's website. By using a Robotaxi or the Robotaxi app after Tesla posts such modifications, you agree to be bound by the revised Terms.

[ Read more of this story ]( https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/06/22/2021234/tesla-begins-driverless-robotaxi-service-in-austin-texas?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.

"The worlds of Linux and Windows finally came together in real life..." writes The Verge:

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, have surprisingly never met before. That all changed at a recent dinner hosted by Sysinternals creator Mark Russinovich... "No major kernel decisions were made," jokes Russinovich in a post on LinkedIn.

More from the Linux news blog Linuxiac:

The man on the left is Mark Russinovich, a software engineer, author, and co-founder of Sysinternals, now CTO of Azure, Microsoft's cloud computing platform. He has become synonymous with deep Windows diagnostics and cloud-scale management. In the late 1990s, his suite of tools (Process Explorer, Autoruns, Procmon) revolutionized the way administrators and security professionals understood Windows internals.

The man on the far right is another living legend: Dave Cutler. Let me put it this way — he's one of the key people behind OpenVMS and the brilliant lead architect who designed Windows NT's kernel and hardware-abstraction layer — technologies that remain at the heart of every current Windows release, from server farms to laptops. So, it's no surprise that people often call him the "father of Windows NT."

[ Read more of this story ]( https://linux.slashdot.org/story/25/06/22/2131259/linus-torvalds-photographed-with-bill-gates---for-the-first-time-ever?utm_source=atom1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed ) at Slashdot.