Editor/publisher Neil Clarke “said he recently had to temporarily shutter the online submission form for his science fiction and fantasy magazine, Clarkesworld,” reports CNN, “after his team was inundated with a deluge of ‘consistently bad’ AI-generated submissions.”

“They’re some of the worst stories we’ve seen, actually,” Clarke said of the hundreds of pieces of AI-produced content he and his team of humans now must manually parse through. “But it’s more of the problem of volume, not quality. The quantity is burying us.” “It almost doubled our workload,” he added…

Clarke said he and his team turned to AI-powered detectors of AI-generated work to deal with the deluge of submissions but found these tools weren’t helpful because of how unreliably they flag “false positives and false negatives,” especially for writers whose second language is English. “You listen to these AI experts, they go on about how these things are going to do amazing breakthroughs in different fields,” Clarke said. “But those aren’t the fields they’re currently working in.”

They’re not the only ones concerned, according to the article. the secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development “recently said the intergovernmental organization has found that AI can improve some aspects of job quality, but there are tradeoffs.”

“Workers do report, though, that the intensity of their work has increased after the adoption of AI in their workplaces,” Cormann said in public remarks, pointing to the findings of a report released by the organization. The report also found that for non-AI specialists and non-managers, the use of AI had only a “minimal impact on wages so far” — meaning that for the average employee, the work is scaling up, but the pay isn’t.

Ivana Saula, the research director for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, said that workers in her union have said they feel like “guinea pigs” as employers rush to roll out AI-powered tools on the job. And it hasn’t always gone smoothly, Saula said. The implementation of these new tech tools has often led to more “residual tasks that a human still needs to do.” This can include picking up additional logistics tasks that a machine simply can’t do, Saula said, adding more time and pressure to a daily work flow… “It’s never just clean cut, where the machine can entirely replace the human,” Saula told CNN. “It can replace certain aspects of what a worker does, but there’s some tasks that are outstanding that get placed on whoever remains.”

Workers are also “saying that my workload is heavier” after the implementation of new AI tools, Saula said, and “the intensity at which I work is much faster because now it’s being set by the machine.” She added that the feedback they are getting from workers shows how important it is to “actually involve workers in the process of implementation.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Workers Complain AI is Actually Increasing the ‘Intensity’ of Their Work

In 2015 the founders of “Solar AquaGrid” proposed water-saving solar panels to shade irrigation canals, but they “couldn’t get anyone to commit,” remembers the Associated Press.

But “fast forward eight years,” and you’ll find them “preparing to break ground on the first solar-covered canal project in the United States.”

The idea is simple: install solar panels over canals in sunny, water-scarce regions where they reduce evaporation and make electricity. A study by the University of California, Merced gives a boost to the idea, estimating that 63 billion gallons of water could be saved by covering California’s 4,000 miles of canals. Researchers believe that much installed solar would also generate a significant amount of electricity.

But that’s an estimate — neither it, nor other potential benefits have been tested scientifically. That’s about to change with Project Nexus in California’s Central Valley…

They thought research from a reputable institution might do the trick, and [in 2021] got funding for UC Merced to study the impact of solar-covered-canals in California… Around the same time, the Turlock Irrigation District, an entity that also provides power, reached out to UC Merced. It was looking to build a solar project to comply with the state’s increased goal of 100% renewable energy by 2045. But land was very expensive, so building atop existing infrastructure was appealing. Then there was the prospect that shade from panels might reduce weeds growing in the canals — a problem that costs this utility $1 million annually…
The state committed $20 million in public funds, turning the pilot into a three-party collaboration among the private, public and academic sectors. About 1.6 miles (2.6 kilometers) of canals between 20 and 110 feet wide will be covered with solar panels between five and 15 feet off the ground. The UC Merced team will study impacts ranging from evaporation to water quality, said Brandi McKuin, lead researcher on the study. “We need to get to the heart of those questions before we make any recommendations about how to do this more widely,” she said.
“California isn’t first with this technology,” the article points out, since India “pioneered it on one of the largest irrigation projects in the world…” But soon even more U.S. canals may be getting solar panels.

Arizona’s Gila River Indian Community “received funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to install solar on their canals in an effort to save water to ease stress on the Colorado River. And one of Arizona’s largest water and power utilities, the Salt River Project, is studying the technology alongside Arizona State University.
And a group of more than 100 climate advocacy groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity and Greenpeace, have now sent a letter to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Bureau Commissioner Camille Touton urging them “to accelerate the widespread deployment of solar photovoltaic energy systems” above the Bureau’s canals and aqueducts. Covering all 8,000 miles of Bureau-owned canals and aqueducts could “generate over 25 gigawatts of renewable energy — enough to power nearly 20 million homes — and reduce water evaporation by tens of billions of gallons.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – America’s First Solar Panel-Covered Irrigation Canals Planned in California, Arizona

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes:

The number one movie in North America is Warner Bros. Discovery’s Barbie, which Deadline reports has teamed up with Oppenheimer to fuel a mind-blowing $300M+ box office weekend. [“Oppenheimer Shatters Expectations with $80 Million Debut,” read the headline at Variety.]

Now it seems everybody is trying to tap into Barbie buzz, including Microsoft’s Xbox [which added Barbie and Ken’s cars to Forza Horizon 5] and even Microsoft-backed education nonprofit Code.org. (“Are your students excited about Barbie The Movie? Have them try an HourOfCode [programming game] with Barbie herself!”).

The idea is to inspire young students to become coders. But as Code.org shares Instagram images of a software developer Barbie, Slashdot reader theodp remembers when, nine years ago, Code.org’s CEO “took to Twitter to blast Barbie and urge for her replacement.”

They’d joined a viral 2014 Computer Engineer Barbie protest that arose in response to the publication of Barbie F***s It Up Again, a scathing and widely reported-on blog post that prompted Mattel to pull the book Barbie: I Can Be a Computer Engineer immediately from Amazon. This may have helped lead to Barbie’s loss of her crown as the most popular girls’ toy in the ensuing 2014 holiday season to Disney’s Frozen princesses Elsa and Anna, and got the Mattel exec who had to apologize for Computer Engineer Barbie called to the White House for a sit down a few months later. (Barbie got a brainy makeover soon thereafter)…

The following year, Disney-owned Lucasfilm and Code.org teamed up on Star Wars: Building a Galaxy with Code, a signature tutorial for the 2015 Hour of Code. Returning to a Disney princess theme in 2016, Disney and Code.org revealed a new Hour of Code tutorial featuring characters from the animated film Moana just a day ahead of its theatrical release. It was later noted that Moana’s screenwriters included Pamela Ribon, who penned the 2014 Barbie-blasting blog post that ended Barbie’s short reign as the Hour of Code role model of choice for girls.

Interestingly, Ribon seems to bear no Barbie grudges either, tweeting on the day of the Barbie movie release, “I was like holy s*** can’t wait to see it.”

To be fair, the movie’s trailer promises “If you hate Barbie, this movie is for you,” in a deconstruction where Barbie is played by D.C. movies’ “Harley Quinn” actress Margot Robbie (Suicide Squad, Birds of Prey), whose other roles include Tonya Harding and the home-wrecking second wife in The Wolf of Wall Street.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Code.org Embraces Barbie 9 Years After Helping Take Her Down

Leaving a Ubisoft account inactive for too long “apparently puts it at risk of permanent deletion,” writes PC Gamer, calling the policy “a customer-unfriendly practice.”

A piracy and anti-DRM focused Twitter account, PC_enjoyer, recently shared a screenshot of a Ubisoft support email telling the user that their Ubisoft account had been suspended for “inactivity,” and would be “permanently closed” after 30 days. The email provided a link to cancel the move. Now, that sounds like a phishing scam, right? I and many commenters wondered that, looking at the original post, but less than a day later, Ubisoft’s verified support account responded to the tweet, seemingly confirming the screenshotted email’s legitimacy.
“You can avoid the account closure by logging into your account within the 30 days (since receiving the email pictured) and selecting the Cancel Account Closure link contained in the email,” Ubisoft Support wrote. “We certainly do not want you to lose access to your games or account so if you have any difficulties logging in then please create a support case with us.”

I was unable to find anything regarding account closure for inactivity in Ubisoft’s US terms of use or its end user licence agreement, but the company does reserve the right to suspend or end services at any time. Ubisoft has a support page titled “Closure of inactive Ubisoft accounts.” The page first describes instances where the service clashes with local data privacy laws, then reads: “We may also close long-term inactive accounts to maintain our database. You will be notified by email if we begin the process of closing your inactive account.”
This page links to another dedicated to voluntarily closing one’s Ubisoft account, and seems to operate by the same rules: a 30-day suspension before permanent deletion. “As we will be unable to recover the account once it has been closed, we strongly recommend only putting in the request if you are absolutely sure you would like to close your account.”

“If you have a good spam filter or just reasonably assume it’s a phishing attempt, then you might one day try your old games and find they’re just gone,” worries long-time Slashdot reader Baron_Yam. “If you’re someone who still plays games from decades ago every so often, this is a scenario you might want to think about.”

The site Eurogamer reports that when a Twitter user complained that “I lost my Ubisoft account, and all the Ubisoft Steam game[s] I’ve bought are now useless”, Ubisoft Support “responded to say that players can raise a ticket if they would like to recover their account.”

The original tweet now includes this “reader-added context” supplied by other Twitter users — along with three informative links:

For added context, Ubisoft can be required under certain data protection laws, such as the GDPR, to close inactive accounts if they deem the data no longer necessary for collection.

Ubisoft has claimed they don’t close accounts that are inactive for less than 4 years.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Ubisoft Will Suspend and Then Delete Long-Inactive Accounts

Amazon has already cut 27,000 jobs in the past few months. Now the Associated Press reports that Amazon “is asking some corporate workers to relocate to other cities as part of its return-to-office policy, which mandates workers to be in the office three days a week.”
An Amazon spokesperson confirmed on Friday that relocations are happening but would not comment on reports by several news outlets that the tech giant was requiring some workers in smaller offices to move to main offices located in bigger cities. Amazon didn’t provide details on the number of employees that will be required to relocate. Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser said the company will provide “relocations benefits” to workers who are asked to move and consider requests for exceptions on a case-by-case basis…

Citing internal messages, Business Insider reported earlier Amazon employees who refuse to relocate near main offices of their teams are being told they either have to find a new job internally or leave the company through a “voluntary resignation.”

“There’s more energy, collaboration, and connections happening since we’ve been working together at least three days per week,” an Amazon spokesperson told the Associated Press, adding “we’ve heard this from lots of employees and the businesses that surround our offices.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Some Amazon Workers Asked to Relocate to Other Cities in Return-to-Office Effort