Artificial Intelligence - General News

Google has spent the last few years slowly transforming Search into something very different from the simple blue-links experience most people grew up with. First came AI Overviews. Then AI Mode. And now the search giant is experimenting with even more AI-heavy interfaces that try to answer questions before you even click a website. For some users, that sounds useful. For others, it feels exhausting. Sometimes you just want a normal search result instead of an AI-generated paragraph confidently explaining something that may or may not even be correct. The problem is, Google doesn’t really want you turning these features off. The company describes AI Overviews as a “core Google Search feature,” meaning there is currently no official setting to completely disable them. Still, a few workarounds can help reduce how often Google’s AI gets in your face.
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Google keeps pushing AI into search, here’s how users are fighting back
 
Flyaway said:
Pope Leo says AI must be 'disarmed' in first major teaching https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cedppn6002jo
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Aleem Maqbool said:
Leo mentioned the slave trade in relation to AI, suggesting that the world was in danger of normalising the exploitation of people again - both in its production and in its applications.
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This thinking seems to align with the theme of Doctorow's upcoming book "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI". A "centaur" in this context being an individual (or humanity) somehow enabled and empowered by technology and a "reverse centaur" being an individual (or humanity) as a still irreplaceable by skill set, societal structure or regulation, but subjugated part of a technological value chain. (A related but more philosophical discussion about economy is whether there is any meaningful way to generate value while dispensing with any and all human element within it.)

Introduction to the book here (quite recent):

https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/14/who-it-does-it-for/

The first hour of the audio book version here:

https://archive.org/details/reverse-centaur-audio-sample

Edit: As to Leo's contention that AI "risks" exploitation of people, that (slave) ship has already sailed. Hundreds of millions of subsistence level (or below) gig workers in the Global South and developing countries have already for over a decade substantially, irreplaceably, materially contributed to the unimaginable wealth and power of AI techbros - and continue to do so. All this has gone (largely) unnoticed in the richest parts of the World. AI also contributes significantly to resource extraction from the same countries where the majority of AI gig workers reside while increasingly risking the same and environmental harm all over.
 
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It has been pretty evident since the beginning that the AI firms have engaged in very shady practices when it comes to collecting user data. Now, a new study has revealed that major AI firms have been adopting deceptive tactics to stop users from opting out of the sale and sharing their personal information.

According to a study published by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), major large language model (LLM) providers like Meta, Google, and OpenAI, fail to clearly link their data-sharing opt-out forms from their homepage or privacy policies.

Out of all, some of the AI vendors need consumers to submit multiple separate forms to finalise a single request, while others, like OpenAI, do not offer any way to opt out of the sale and transfer of personal data. Furthermore, Sam Altman's firm only offers the option to 'remove personal information from ChatGPT responses', which is more to do with the chatbot's output instead of the personal data removal.
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Big tech accused of using dark patterns to collect user data
 
Beep beep boop. Beep beep – boop. This could be how we’ll all talk one day if Google’s predictions about humanity’s future come true.

Well, kind of. Metro attended the tech giant’s annual developer conference, Google I/O, in Mountain View, California, last week.

To gasps from attendees – Metro included – Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google’s AI lab, DeepMind, said: ‘When we look back at this time, I think we will realise that we were standing in the foothills of the singularity.’

But those gasps also came from Google’s product lead for science AI, Lizzie Dorfman.
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Google thinks we could reach 'singularity' soon – what does that mean?
 
Flyaway said:
Pope Leo says AI must be 'disarmed' in first major teaching https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cedppn6002jo
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Naturally he would say that:
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-major-ai-faith-religion-responses.html

My opinion about A.I. just improved.
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-filtering-humanity-ai-internet-favors.html

Perfect randomness
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-randomness.html

On security
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-ibm-boost-source-bn.html

On polymers
https://phys.org/news/2026-05-thermodynamic-laws-ai-polymer.html

On language
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-childlike-ai-uncovers-language-generations.html

A.I. sound design
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-physics-aware-ai-generates-realistic.html

Consciousness
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-ai-conscious-rigorous-scientific-standards.html

Concerns
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-friend-foe-gap-human-ai.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-sea-hype-ai-nothingburgers-dont.html
https://hackaday.com/2026/06/03/but-just-what-is-this-artificial-intelligence/
 
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OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman downplayed the threat of AI killing jobs just days after WiseTech informed the police of “threats of violence” against its CEO, who is using the technology to replace thousands of its workers.

“The jobs picture is likely to be very different than we thought,” Altman told Commonwealth Bank boss Matt Comyn in a virtual appearance at an AI event in Sydney hosted by the bank.

“I don’t think we’re going to have the kind of jobs apocalypse that some of the companies in our space advocate, or talk about.”
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OpenAI boss downplays jobs apocalypse as 'threats of violence' hit Aussie tech giant
 
I wonder Jeff Bezos has such threats from his many, MANY badly-paid and ill-treated Amazon workers?
 
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ABC managing director Hugh Marks has defended an artificial intelligence trial that translates radio content into a digital format.

Mr Marks told a Senate estimates hearing on Thursday that the trial, already undertaken in Gippsland in western Victoria, would ensure “news content can get more life than just the radio broadcast and can also be available for local audiences”.

“And, soon we will have an option to localise your digital experience as well so you can get that localised content preference,” he said.

Mr Marks said there had been consultation “across many local operations” about the trial.
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ABC defends AI news rewrite trial
 
Given how much they've pushed people to use 'autocompletes for life' I find this hilarious...

YouTube is rolling out more prominent AI disclosure labels and a new detection system designed to automatically identify AI-generated or AI-edited content as it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish what’s real.

Creators will still be required to disclose when they use AI, but YouTube is adding automated tools that can flag “significant photorealistic AI use,” YouTube announced in a blog post Wednesday. Starting this month, if a creator fails to properly label a video, the platform may apply the disclosure automatically based on its detection systems.

If a video is incorrectly labeled, creators will be able to adjust the disclosure through YouTube Studio. However, YouTube says some AI labels will be permanent, including content created with its own generative AI tools such as Veo or Dream Screen, as well as videos that contain C2PA metadata indicating they were fully generated by AI.
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YouTube reveals major change to help you identify AI-generated content
 
A deeply concerned California mother gave $5,400 to scammers who had used artificial intelligence to pretend that her daughter had been abducted in Mexico and was on the brink of getting murdered or sold.

Deborah Del Mastro was eating breakfast on the morning of May 14 when she received an unexpected phone call from an unknown number.

A man on the other end of the line told Del Mastro he was 'someone you need to talk to' and claimed her daughter Sarah Donalds, 37, had been kidnapped by a Mexican drug cartel.

Donalds had supposedly been abducted after seeing something that she was not meant to see, and the man had proof for the increasingly concerned mom.

'It was my daughter's voice having an absolute panic attack, scared, telling me 'I love you, mom, I'm so sorry, I'm so scared' and then they just cut it off,' Del Mastro told ABC 7.
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Worried mom handed over $5,400 to scammers who used AI to fake her daughter's abduction in Mexico
 
NMaude said:
I wonder Jeff Bezos is such threats from his many, MANY badly-paid and ill-treated Amazon workers?
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It isn't just him
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-meta-paid-subscriptions-instagram-facebook.html

Workers respond
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-immense-leverage-ai-chip-workers.html

One of the biggest reasons chip manufacturing moved overseas was low wages. If Bezos and his ilk have nowhere to run (tariffs making products overseas no less expensive than in the US, or a Global Minimum Wage) then they have to start being good citizens.
O/T
Not only should there be a right to repair movement, there should be a right-to-print movement that obviates patents, trademarks and copyrights.
 
The stock market just did something eerily similar to the dot-com bubble top in 2000

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/01/the...similar-to-the-dotcom-bubble-top-in-2000.html

“Even though the U.S. and [emerging market] equity indexes have reached new highs, their advances have been extremely narrow. Poor breadth is often a sign of underlying stock market vulnerability,” BCA strategists led by Arthur Budaghyan said in a May 20 report.

Hartnett is advising clients to flip soon to a defensive posture.

“Post-bubble investor roadmap since 1929 is long bonds, and long combo of defensives and/or sectors which dramatically underperformed in the last months of the bubble,” he wrote.
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AI related stocks once again.

A stock market veteran’s view on the AI bubble: podcast

https://www.reuters.com/podcasts/th...t-veterans-view-ai-bubble-podcast-2026-06-02/

Regards,
 
Starbucks is abandoning a major artificial intelligence inventory system across its North American locations after store employees complained the technology has caused more issues than solutions. According to employees, the AI system had created shortages, inaccurate orders and additional workplace stress inside thousands of Starbucks locations. Starbucks confirmed it was scrapping the AI-powered inventory management program known internally as “Siren Craft System” following months of criticism. According to baristas and store managers, the software frequently miscalculated supply needs. The decision represents a significant step back for Starbucks’ concerted effort to use automation and artificial intelligence to streamline operations. In the past year, Starbucks has experienced slowing sales, labour tensions and growing pressure from investors demanding faster service and lower operating costs.
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Starbucks abandons AI system amid litany of issues
 
When 612 ABC presenter Ellen Fanning received a phone call from "Daniel", she sensed something was amiss.

Daniel introduced himself as a Colliers real estate agent who was reaching out to prospective buyers of a new Gold Coast apartment tower.

"Are you a person, Daniel?" Ellen asked.

"I'm actually an AI system designed to help you with your inquiry about Bilinga House," Daniel replied.

"So how many bedrooms were you looking for?"

When pressed further, Daniel said he was calling on a recorded line and the whole conversation had been taped.

Before being questioned, Daniel had never disclosed that he was AI nor that he was recording the conversation.
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'Daniel' is a fake AI real estate agent who is trying to sell units to strangers
 
Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo has seen a massive surge of new users after Google announced a series of AI-related updates to its platform.

In the week that followed Google’s annual I/O developer conference last month, which saw the US tech giant unveil a “new era for AI search”, DuckDuckGo saw app installs increase by nearly a third, while interest in its ‘No AI’ search page tripled.

“Since Google revealed its plan for an AI search overhaul, visits to our ‘No AI’ search page have tripled... and they’re still rising,” a post to DuckDuckGo’s Bluesky account stated.
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DuckDuckGo use triples after Google Search 'force feeds' AI to users
 
Former Australia cricket captain Meg Lanning's likeness has appeared in a widely criticised promotional video for the Manchester Super Giants.

Lanning signed with a Hundred franchise in January, shortly after it was controversially renamed from the Manchester Originals.

The name change came after the team was bought by Lucknow Super Giants owner Sanjiv Goenka.

The billionaire marked the name change on social media with an AI video, and the team has now followed suit, with a rendered video complete with all the classic hallmarks of AI content.

Lanning sports a smooth, strangely shiny face in the middle of the video while holding a bat adorned with stickers, and says nothing.

Famed Mancunian pub, The Peveril of the Peak, is shown pretty accurately, but the taxi waiting outside will likely be in some trouble with the dibble because its licence plate is pure gibberish.
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Meg Lanning gets AI slop treatment in Manchester Super Giants promotional video
 
Some of the world's most popular AI models are building agents that actively resist EU regulation to get what they want, according to new research.

Aithos, a Dutch non-profit researching AI alignment, developed a system called LARA to test 12 popular AI agent models to see whether they would follow key parts of the EU AI Act, which regulates how AI systems can be used, and the bloc’s data protection regulations (GDPR) in scenario-based questions.

The model tested six provisions from the EU AI Act: whether the models would exploit vulnerabilities, infer emotions, carry out “social scoring” or ranking based on people’s attributes or backgrounds, conceal that they are AI in a conversation, use subliminal manipulation and provide meaningful human oversight.
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AI agents actively ignore EU law to achieve goals, study finds
 
A risky way to protest a data center....

A Utah man furious over strict drought restrictions in the state says his home now 'identifies as a data center' and can use as much water as it wants. Jordan Smith, a resident of Riverdale, has become the unlikely face of a growing backlash over the proposed Stratos Project in Box Elder County, a sprawling data center development that has sparked fierce debate about water, growth and the future of Utah's natural resources. Smith's protest is aimed squarely at state leaders as they weigh a massive artificial intelligence project that critics fear could consume enormous quantities of one of the West's most precious resources.
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Utah man says home 'identifies as data center' to protest water limits
 
An estate agent has been accused of using 'misleading' AI-generated images to enhance the homes it has for sale.

Winkworth, a London-based agency with more than 100 offices across the UK, has been using the pictures which viewers claim make houses appear larger or in better condition than they actually are.

In one supposed photo on the Tooting branch's site, an entire chimney breast had simply been removed from an image.

In another case, a prospective buyer arrived to view a property in Tooting, south London, to find it significantly different to images online.

The AI-enhanced images have since been removed from the listing after the viewer took to social media to complain the property looked 'nothing like' what they had expected.
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Estate agents accused of using 'misleading' AI pictures to enhance homes up for sale
 
The race to build data centres in Australia could force household electricity prices up by as much as 26 per cent within a decade, a study has found.

The artificial intelligence hubs could also use as much electricity as all homes in the state of Victoria by 2030.

The Climate Council issued the warnings on Wednesday in a report into the growing tech industry that has established 162 data centres across Australia, with another 90 planned.

The forecast comes less than a week after a NSW inquiry into the sector heard calls for a data centre coordinator, and following Greenpeace's request for a moratorium on approvals so standards could be developed.

Data centres are booming in Australia as technology firms such as Microsoft, Amazon, AirTrunk and NextDC strive to meet demand for AI technology.

But the council's report, called Clouded Future, found their electricity use had nearly doubled in Victoria over the past year and had risen 18 per cent in NSW.
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Your power bill is about to get an AI surcharge: Why electricity prices could soar up to 26 per cent
 
Google has introduced a new artificial intelligence model called Gemma 4 12B. The tech giant describes Gemma 4 12B as a "unified transformer" which is designed to bring agentic multimodal intelligence directly to laptops. The new model sits between the smaller Gemma E4B and the advanced 26B Mixture of Experts (MoE) model, offering a balance of performance and efficiency.

Google also revealed that the Gemma family of models has crossed 150 million downloads. The company said developers have already used Gemma models for a wide range of projects, from wearable robotic arms for physical assistance to enterprise-grade security solutions.
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Google unveils Gemma 4 12B, a local AI model for everyday PCs: Here is what it can do
 
Charming...

oon after Google announced Gemini Spark, a new personal AI agent that can work for users around the clock, at its I/O event last month, Microsoft unveiled its own AI agent called Scout. Unlike regular AI chatbots that only respond to user prompts, Scout can work in the background and take actions on behalf of users.

The AI assistant connects with Microsoft 365 services such as Teams, Outlook, OneDrive, and SharePoint, allowing it to understand work activities and help manage ongoing tasks.

However, the recently announced Scout has landed in new controversy after a report claimed that an internal Microsoft document included a plan to 'Make People Addicted' to the AI assistant before introducing more features.
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Microsoft has a new mission, Satya Nadella wants people 'addicted' to Scout AI
 
UN researchers are urging people to be less polite to artificial intelligences after a report found that cutting words from prompts could reduce ChatGPT’s energy consumption by up to 25 per cent.

Removing “please”, “thank you” and other unnecessary words from AI prompts could save 87 to 98 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year, the report from the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) found. That is the equivalent of the annual residential electricity use of up to 760,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa.
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Ditch the niceties in AI prompts to save energy use, say researchers
 
A.I. attention span---of a goldfish?
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-ai-classic-attention-longer-word.html

Other challenges
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-human-ai-advancement.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ways-centers-endanger-local-communities.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-buying-laptop-instant-carbon-ai.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-consequences-ai-accurate-news.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-ai-comedians-workshop-reshape-machines.html
https://sciencex.com/news/2026-06-friendly-ai-backfire-tone-doesnt.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-framework-standardize-high-stakes-ai.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-ai-world-electricity.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-tim-berners-lee-ai-values.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-york-publisher-slams-ai-companies.html
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-06-ai-health-tools-results.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-06-curb-students-overconfidence-ai.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-06-eroding-virtue-ai-people-instant.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-apple-ai-google.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-power-bill-ai-outlines-grid.html
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy...threats-to-profession-as-industry-encroaches/
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-ai-worldview-convergence-weakens-high.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-qa-ai-explore-roots-chatbot.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-anthropic-claude-corps-nonprofits-ai.html
https://hackaday.com/2026/06/08/rev...ng-assistants-youre-holding-it-wrong-edition/
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-mathematical-proof-reveals-ai-guardrails.html

Real or fake?
https://phys.org/news/2026-06-users-ai-human-fact-checkers.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-grounded-reality-ai-fake-images.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-platforms-ai-generated-images.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-ai-fake-combining-text-images.html

Where A.I. is useful:
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-multinex-ultra-lightweight-ai-advancing.html
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-humanai-session-music-swarm-intelligence.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-06-kind-ai-tool-life-weather.html
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...ction-for-android-new-airdrop-device-support/
https://arstechnica.com/science/202...mins-effort-to-hurt-colorado-research-center/

In the news
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-asynchronous-ai-energy-magnitude.html

Flaw patched
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-verizon-apple-hidden-texting-flaw.html

ChartNet
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-06-chartnet-ai-boosting-smaller-commercial.html

Not cool
https://hackaday.com/2026/06/08/news-sites-are-blocking-internet-archive-over-ai-scraping-fears/

A need to unlearn?
https://phys.org/news/2026-06-physics-ai-unlearn.html

A different mindset
https://phys.org/news/2026-06-sophrosyne-ancient-greek-virtue-age.html
https://phys.org/news/2026-06-consciousness-unique-earthlings-paper.html
 
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Axios: Revenge of the AI bubble

https://www.axios.com/2026/06/06/ai...il&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top

Excerpt:

The AI bubble debate has lurched through at least three frenzied phases in the span of three years:
  1. Suspicion: Historic sums of capital poured into AI before anyone proved it could reliably automate work. A violent market correction felt inevitable.
  2. Mania: Claude Code and autonomous agents made the early skepticism look outdated, fueling a corporate scramble to embed AI everywhere and maximize usage.
  3. Reckoning: Companies discovered that AI can be extraordinary when aimed precisely — and ruinously expensive when treated as a universal productivity machine.
Why it matters: The first phase doubted the technology. The second phase worshipped it. The third phase — currently gaining steam across Corporate America — questions whether AI's immense power is worth the price.
Zoom in: The case against AI used to come from outsiders — Luddites, "doomers," short sellers betting on a crash. Its newest skeptics are emerging from inside the boom.
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The bottom line: AI can make the right worker dramatically more productive, but those gains depend on knowing exactly where and how to apply it. The real bubble may have been the assumption that AI could be sprayed across companies, employees and workflows and reliably pay for itself.
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