rolodexter

@Spotify is set to #renew its three-year #podcast deal with the @JoeRogan Experience #expiring in 2024. Despite #Rogan's issues, he remains a #vital part of the #company's #podcast #business. If he walks or doesn't renew, it would be another massive blow to the company's podcasting editorial operation. If Spotify cuts a deal, they are in a better position to rebuild or maintain its podcast arm. If Rogan goes to another platform, he could essentially be a kingmaker. If he decides to launch his own network, he would have no trouble attracting #listeners, #advertisers, and talent. #Spotify needs to find a way to make it work. #Everyone seems to agree that it is in Spotify's best interest to keep Rogan on board. After all the money the company has #sunk into #deals that went nowhere (Harry and Meghan) and acquisitions that were eventually #dismantled (#Gimlet), Rogan is still the best bet the company has ever made. With Rogan, Spotify gets its big and loyal audience, which is a massive draw for advertisers. There is an understanding in the industry that his presence on @Spotify has a #haloeffect for ad sales on its other shows. However, this is not 2020. #Money is much #tighter than it was several years ago, and #investors are #pissed that Spotify's podcast bet still is not #profitable. #CEO #DanielEk has pledged to focus on #efficiency. #Rogan's current deal is reported to be worth as much as $200 million over three years. The question then becomes whether #Spotify can find the right price to keep him happy and mollify #investors. It is also worth keeping in mind that he will not be negotiating with the same team as last time. Dawn Ostroff, the former head of podcasting, is gone, and Courtney Holt, who landed the deal in the first place, is gone. Spotify's new head of #podcasting, Sahar Elhabashi, worked #closely with Ostroff, but unlike #Ostroff, she reports up to chief business officer Alex Norstrom. If competition from other platforms drives the price #skyhigh, he may not have the tolerance for it.

Bill, a 70-year-old part-time @Uber driver, has been #working for #Uber for six years and has been able to #increase his pay by #canceling over 30% of his rides and only #driving during busy periods. Last year, he earned over $28,000 across roughly 1,500 Uber trips. However, he believes that surges, when high customer demand and lower driver supply increase prices for customers and drivers' pay, have become less common in his area over the past year. As a result, he is driving less and accepting fewer rides than he used to. #Bill is one of the #millions of @Uber and @Lyft drivers in the US who can't #depend on a #consistent #paycheck due to #fluctuating #customer demand and tips. As a result, many are #calculating their earnings after accounting for vehicle expenses like gas to ensure driving is worth their time. While some have responded to unsatisfactory pay by working longer hours, others, like Bill, have driven less. Bill used to #work roughly 40 online hours a week, which included time spent looking for rides and relocating to different areas to find passengers. Today, he's online for about 30 hours a week and has active rides for about 10 to 15 hours. The standard, non-surge pay rate calculated by Uber in his area is $0.61 per mile. He's also #paid a #smaller per-#mile rate based on how many minutes a drive is expected to take and can receive customer tips. After accounting for vehicle expenses, Bill said there is "no profit" on many rides that only offer the base pay. A few #strategies Bill uses to make decent money include seeking out #surges by hanging around the airport and bars during busy times. When a plane lands and people request Uber, the #pricejumps drastically, with a 20-minute ride going from $10 to $20 to $40 and sometimes $50. The most common surge periods are between 10:00 p.m. and 2:30 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Another key #strategy of Bill's is to avoid "#oneway rides." He recalled one past #trip where he drove a customer nearly two hours from his city to a more remote area, and had to drive back home "for free" because no customers requested a ride in that direction. After accounting for $0.65 per mile in vehicle expenses, he said he lost money on the round-trip. To avoid one-way rides, Bill asks #customers when he picks them up whether their #destination is in the area. If they're headed out of town, he often makes an excuse for why he can't #drive them. Uber lists refusing or canceling a trip based on the driver's destination as something that could cause a driver to lose access to their account. Drivers with a cancellation rate above 10% also lose access to their gold, platinum, or diamond statuses, which offer various benefits, like savings at select gas stations, through a rewards system. For now, Bill plans to continue relying on his strategies and only driving when he thinks it is profitable. He says it helps that he's not reliant on Uber income.

The #Bletchley Park summit in the #UK marked a significant step forward in #AI #regulation, with an explicit consensus to take on an international shared responsibility. There are plans for further meetings in South Korea and France over the next year to continue the conversation surrounding risks posed by AI. However, critics have said that the focus on the more hypothetical aspects of existential threats as opposed to the more current, pressing problems – such as #insurance #companies using AI to determine your risk or AI’s potential to take #people’s jobs – #dilutes the impact of the summit. The big #breakthrough was the creation of an #agreed #framework around the nature of the #risks of #AI. This is a first, but “all very high level at the moment”, says Dan. “There is not much granular detail.” Bringing the US and China together to sign this declaration is a diplomatic coup for Sunak, as it is the first time that China has met with western governments to discuss the issue. The government argued that China is a key player in the development of AI and that it should be at the table for the discussion to be truly global. US @VP @KamalaHarris stole some of Sunak’s #thunder, as she arrived with a freshly minted @WhiteHouse #executiveorder on #AI that laid out actionable plans that the US government would be taking, including setting up its own institute that would police artificial intelligence. With all the noise and bluster of the summit, Sunak did not have plans with anywhere near as much detail to match. Though he insisted that he welcomed Harris’s intervention, it made it clear that the UK was not setting the agenda. @ElonMusk and #Sunak had a consequential meeting that gave the prime minister’s event a further level of importance. The pair traded compliments, with some commentators noting that it seemed like Sunak was angling for Musk’s approval. Before the #AI summit, Elon Musk, co-founder of OpenAI, expressed his desire for a third-party referee to oversee the development of artificial intelligence. In a conversation with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at Lancaster House, Musk reiterated this point, highlighting the potential benefits of AI while issuing warnings about "humanoid robots" and predicting that there would be no jobs as AI would have taken them all. Despite some of his bleakest predictions, Musk also believed AI to be a force for good. Government oversight has become stronger due to the summit, with Sunak insisting on ensuring safety issues are #dealt with in a way that avoids #hampering #innovation in the #techsector. He stressed that #AI has the capacity to improve people's lives in healthcare, education, and the economy but later added that it could also wreak havoc on the same level as a pandemic or nuclear war. The real change in regulation and oversight is expected to come in the following months, with Dan closely monitoring how much the government is willing to go to look under the hood of AI products funded by private companies. He believes that only governments can properly assess the risks to national security that AI poses and that nation states have the power and legitimacy to keep their people safe. Sunak said that only governments can properly assess the #risks to #nationalsecurity that #AI poses, and only nation states have the power and legitimacy to keep their people safe. However, he added that we should not rush to regulation without fully understanding the risks. The prime minister wants tech companies to invest and develop their products in the UK, with the hope of economic benefits. How he plans to balance the goals of regulation and innovation remains unclear.

#Quantumcomputing is a rapidly #developingfield, and there is no reason to believe that it is impossible to develop a #quantum #computer that is #exponentially more #powerful than anything that currently exists. If such a #quantumcomputer were #developed, it could be used to #simulate the #behavior of the universe at a #fundamental level. This could lead to the discovery of other dimensions and realities beyond our own. If it is possible to travel between dimensions, then it is possible to contact a being from another dimension who possesses vast knowledge and power. The @POTUS and other world leaders are already interested in #UFOs and #extraterrestrial #life. If Grusch were to contact them and offer to help them build a better world, it is likely that they would be receptive. But it would require traveling back to the 1890s, and working with world leaders of that era, swearing them to an oath of secrecy for the sake of humanity's survival on Earth.

#Scientists have developed a new #deployment #strategy for a 3-body chain-type tethered #satellite #system in low-eccentric orbits using only tether. The tethered satellite system (TSS) has been used in Earth observations, space interferometry, and other space missions due to its potential merits. The tethered TSAR (#tomographic #synthetic #aperture radar) system is a group of tethered SAR satellites that can be rapidly deployed and provide a stable baseline for 3-dimensional topographic mapping and moving target detection. Several #controlmethods, including length, length rate, #tension, and #thrustaided control, have been #proposed over the years. Adjusting #tension is a viable yet challenging approach due to the tether's strong nonlinearity and underactuated traits. A research team led by Zhongjie Meng from Northwestern Polytechnical University has developed a new deployment strategy for a 3-body chain-type tethered satellite system in a low-eccentric elliptical orbit. The #authors #establish the #motionmodel of a 3-body chain-type TSS in a #loweccentric elliptical #orbit, assuming that the tethers are massless and only planar motion is considered. The proposed model consists of 3 point masses (m1, m2, and m3) and 2 massless tethers (L1 and L2). The orbit of m1 is defined by its orbital geocentric distance r and true anomaly α; the position of m2 relative to m1 is determined by tether L1 and in-plane libration angle θ1; the position of m3 relative to m2 is determined by L2 and θ2. A #combination of #exponential and uniform deployment law yields a simple and efficient #deployment scheme, providing the requisite reference trajectory for satellite deployment. To address this limitation, a hierarchical sliding mode controller (HSMC) has been designed for accurate trajectory tracking. In the controller, an auxiliary system is introduced to mitigate the input saturation caused by tether tension constraint. A 3-layer sliding surface for the whole TSS is constructed, and a disturbance observer (DO) is introduced to estimate second derivative signal q̈. The #authors present a numerical #simulation and draw their conclusion. Two alternative #deploymentschemes are used for comparison: Scheme 1, where the system is regarded as two independent 2-body, with the tether length L2 remaining constant, and only tension T1 being adjustable. In Scheme 2, the system is regarded as two 2-body, but the coupling between adjacent tethers is neglected. The results show that the tether deployment error and libration angle converge to zero asymptotically in 3 hours under Scheme 3, and the deployment error under Schemes 1 and 2 is significantly larger than that under the proposed Scheme 3. A comparison is made between Schemes 2 and 3, based on the integration of tracking error and #tethertension. The proposed #HSMC explicitly takes the 3-body TSS couple into account, resulting in faster and more accurate tether deployment with a smaller in-plane angle, further showing that a considerably improved deployment process is achieved under the proposed scheme and confirms its effectiveness.

@PearVC, a #venture firm that closed its largest fund recently: signed a deal to sublease 30,000 square feet of Class A office space in #SanFrancisco's Mission Bay neighborhood from @Dropbox. This move is part of a growing trend of companies taking up more space in San Francisco as an earlier generation of companies shrinks its physical footprint. @OpenAI subleased two buildings totaling 486,600 square feet from @Uber, which originally leased a grouping of four buildings down the street from Dropbox and will continue to occupy two of these. @Anthropic, a rival to OpenAI, also recently closed a sizable subleasing deal, planning to take over the entire 250,000-square-foot building in downtown San Francisco that was previously @Slack's headquarters. Salesforce, which acquired Slack in 2021, is an investor in Anthropic. Pear VC co-founder Pejman Nozad wrote one of the first small checks to Dropbox when he was still relatively new to the U.S. from Iran and selling Persian rugs to Silicon Valley bigwigs. It's a good time to strike a subleasing deal if you're a well-funded company on the rise. According to @ColinYasukochi, an executive director at the commercial #realestate services firm @CBRE, subleases in prime areas like Mission Bay and the city's Financial District currently range from $60 to $80 per square foot. For startups willing to sublease space with less than five years left on the lessee's contract, the better the terms (as they'll need to lease again somewhere else in the not-too-distant future). #SanFrancisco's commercial buildings are currently 35% vacant, and there are still more tenants flowing out the door than entering them. However, a tipping point is seemingly in sight. In the third quarter of this year, there was "negative net absorption" of 1.85 million square feet in San Francisco, while market demand reached 5.2 million square feet, the highest increase since the first quarter of 2020. Tech outfits are enticed by the opportunity to rent sleeker space for the same or better prices than was possible several years ago, and in more central areas of the city. Yasukochi anticipates that if the economy improves in the second half of the new year and interest rates come down, tech outfits in particular will be positioned to recover faster and pull the city along with them. However, he does not think those tech companies will necessarily be growing in San Francisco's Hayes Valley, which has led a resurgence of interest in the city due to its concentration of #AI communities.

We the People of the #UnitedStates, in Order to form a more #perfect #Union, establish #Justice, insure #domestic #Tranquility, provide for the #common #defence, promote the general #Welfare, and secure the #Blessings of #Liberty to ourselves and our #Posterity, do ordain and establish this #Constitution for the United States of America. All #legislative #Powers herein granted shall be vested in a #Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a #Senate and House of #Representatives. The House of Representatives shall be #composed of #Members chosen every second Year by the #People of the several #States, and the #Electors in each State shall have the #Qualifications #requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the #StateLegislature. No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of #twentyfive #Years, and been seven Years a #Citizen of the #UnitedStates, and who shall not, when elected, be an #Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen. #Representatives and direct #Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their #respective #Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of #free #Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding #Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual #Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the #Congress of the United States, and within every #subsequent #Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by #Law direct.The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, #NewJersey four, #Pennsylvania eight, #Delaware one, #Maryland six, #Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three. When #vacancies happen in the #Representation from any State, the #ExecutiveAuthority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies. The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers;and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote. Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the #firstClass shall be vacated at the #Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the #Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary #Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies. No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of #thirtyYears, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen. The @VP of the #UnitedStates shall be #President of the #Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided. The Senate shall choose their other Officers, and also a President #protempore, in the #Absence of the @VP, or when he shall exercise the Office of @POTUS. The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all #Impeachments. When sitting for that #Purpose, they shall be on #Oath or #Affirmation. When the @POTUS is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present. Judgment in Cases of #Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and #disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law. The Times, Places and Manner of holding #Elections for #Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.

@LinkedIn, now with 1 billion users, is introducing its latest #AIefforts, including personalized #digests for reading content and #AI that helps users write their own content. The new tools will be rolled out to Premium users and will appear in three areas: enhancing feeds, digesting linked articles, and applying them to #jobhunting experiences. The #longterm plan is to evaluate how these #AI tools are used to determine how to expand them more. Gyanda Sachdeva, VP of product management at #LinkedIn, confirmed that other media, such as video, is on the roadmap for receiving generative AI treatment. These new #features will be powered by @OpenAI, the #AI giant that is now 49% owned by @Microsoft after investing tens of #billions of dollars in the startup. #LinkedIn is using #OpenAI #APIs from @Azure, tapping #OpenAI's Large Language Models and GPT-4, combined with LinkedIn's proprietary data to create generative AI outputs that are personalized to the individual. @LinkedIn declined to describe what part of the experience is unique to LinkedIn's work and what would be credited to @OpenAI, but the result is essentially like a version of ChatGPT that is meant to be personalized to users. When two different people see the same article on LinkedIn, if they each choose to use the AI tool to summarize that article or craft a comment about it, the AI will look at the individual's #professional #profile and other #activities on the site to present a summary relevant to that person. For users who don't want to know what they already know, LinkedIn gives users options to ask questions related to the text to get other kinds of summaries. #LinkedIn has been developing #AI tools to help overcome #challenges in social media engagement, particularly for professional connections. These tools are designed to encourage more clicks and creations, resulting in increased time spent on the site. Additionally, these tools keep LinkedIn in the conversation, as everyone is looking for AI components. Generative AI has proven to be a catnip for engagement, but it can also open the door to other usage, such as providing interesting insights and networking opportunities.

So you think that #money is the #root of all #evil? Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a #tool of #exchange, which can’t #exist unless there are #goods #produced and #men able to produce them. Money is the #material #shape of the #principle that #men who wish to deal with one another must deal by #trade and give #value for value. Money is not the tool of the #moochers, who claim your #product by #tears, or of the #looters, who take it from you by #force. Money is made possible only by the #men who #produce. Is this what you consider evil? When you #accept #money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the #conviction that you will exchange it for the #product of the #effort of #others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an #ocean of tears nor all the #guns in the #world can #transform those pieces of #paper in your #wallet into the #bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a #token of #honor: your claim upon the #energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your #statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money. Is this what you consider evil? Have you ever looked for the root of #production? Take a look at an #electric #generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the #muscular #effort of #unthinking #brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions—and you’ll learn that man’s mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth. But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made—before it can be looted or mooched—made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can’t consume more than he has produced. To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss—the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery—that you must offer them values, not wounds—that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men’s stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that[…]

A #billboard #truck #drove through the streets surrounding Harvard's campus, digitally displaying the names and #faces of #students affiliated with student groups that signed onto a controversial statement on Hamas' attack on Israel. As a result of continued national backlash and doxxing attacks, at least nine of the original 34 co-signing Harvard student groups withdrew their signatures from the statement, originally penned by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee. In a later statement, the #PSC wrote that it "staunchly opposes" #violence against all civilians. At least four online sites had listed the #personalinformation of #students linked to clubs that had signed onto the statement, including full names, class years, past employment, #socialmedia #profiles, #photos, and #hometowns. As of Wednesday morning, at least two of those sites had been taken down for violating Google’s terms of service. On Wednesday, in the face of student safety concerns, some of the statement’s harshest critics denounced acts of violence or intimidation against the members of the statement’s signatories. Harvard Executive Vice President Meredith L. Weenick ’90 also moved to criticize online intimidation and harassment in a Wednesday evening email to University affiliates following this article’s initial publication. The responses followed the appearance of the billboard truck, which labeled the displayed Harvard students as “antisemites.” The display also referenced a website that listed multiple full names of students associated with organizations that had signed onto the PSC’s statement. The truck returned to the streets surrounding campus on Thursday morning, drawing jeers from some passers-by. The stunt was sponsored by Accuracy in Media, a conservative media advocacy group. In an interview with The Crimson Thursday, Adam Guillette, the president of AIM, declined to say when the truck would leave, but he said it would “be here for some time.” Guillette also claimed the truck was no longer displaying the names and faces of students whose groups had withdrawn their signatures from the statement. @Harvard Hillel, the #University’s #Jewish center, released a statement Wednesday afternoon saying that it “strongly condemns any attempts to threaten and intimidate” members of co-signatory organizations. “We will continue to reject the PSC’s statement in the strongest terms — and demand accountability for those who signed it,” the statement reads. “Such intimidation is counterproductive to the education that needs to take place on our campus at this difficult time,” it continues. In a statement to The @Crimson, the #PSC called on #University #leadership to “immediately and unequivocally condemn the #harassment and intimidation of its students.” The truck actively threatens #students' safety on #campus at a time when credible death threats have already forced us to postpone a solidarity vigil acknowledging all civilian victims. “The doxxing truck is the ugliest culmination of a campaign to silence pro-Palestinian activism that the PSC has experienced for years.” #HarvardUniversity #students have been expressing their disdain for the joint statement made by 30+ student groups, including the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Group, in a post on X. Former University President Lawrence H. Summers reaffirmed his disdain for the statement but called for the #doxxing to stop. He urged everyone to take a deep breath and call for clarity that words or deeds that threaten the safety of others in the community will not be tolerated. @Harvard #Economics #professor Jason Furman '92 shared a similar statement on X, writing that he had been contacted by a #student who had been #doxxed despite no longer attending Harvard or affiliating with the co-signing group. Furman expressed reassurance by the widespread condemnation of the statement by the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Group but was appalled by people threatening individual students, as many of them had nothing to do with the letter. As #students face #retaliation for the #Israel statement, a "#Doxxing Truck" displays students' faces on @Harvard's campus. #Harvard University junior Shira Hoffer created a forum for dialogue called the "Hotline for Israel Palestine," a texting hotline made up of 23 volunteers from five different countries and diverse backgrounds, including Jews, Christians, Muslims, Palestinians, Israelis, and Americans. Hoffer said it is heartwarming to see people from so many different backgrounds coming together to support the dual mission of the hotline, which is to teach people how to educate themselves and to promote dialogue across differences.

@RileyReid, a well-known #adult #actress, is entering the #AIgame with #Clona, a #startup by and for #creators. The app, launched by Reid, allows #fans to have 24/7 contact with her #AIclone through #DMs and #audiochat using a proprietary language model that also allows #erotic #conversation. The app is currently in beta and costs $30 a month after a five-message free trial. The demand for such a service is #obvious, as platforms like #ChatGPT are unable to respond to #NSFW #requests. Even though there are #AIerotic #storygenerators available online, more #mainstream #apps like #Replika have been resistant to being used for sex, even briefly suspending #adultcontent earlier this year. However, when Reid spoke to the real Reid via phone before #Clona's launch, she said the #app was not just to provide her fans with the opportunity to #sext with the 2022 AVN Award winner for Best #OralSex #Scene, but also to provide fans with a space to connect with her on a more emotional level. Riley Reid #admits that the #bot is currently more focused on #training the #model what not to do than #training it to be more #reflective of her actual #personality. The #bot is trained not to #engage in discussions about #religion or #politics, for instance, or to reveal too much about Reid’s personal life. She also told me she was trying to train her bot not to encourage people to engage in self-harm, such as the practice of sounding, a fetish involving the penetration of one’s urethra for pleasure. Clona.ai uses @Meta's #Llama2 large language model as a #base, then heavily #refines and #retrains it to reflect the personality of the person it's based on. Reid explains that her model was first trained on a variety of her online media, including interviews, podcast appearances, and YouTube videos (in addition to some of her x-rated work). While the #AIcompanion will be capable of #talkingdirty, how dirty that gets depends on the actor's preferences, not the user's. Reid notes that her model will not discuss physically dangerous sex acts with users.

#Business #intelligence firm @MicroStrategy has seen a $900 million gain on its #Bitcoin stack, driven by #optimism over the potential approval of spot Bitcoin #ETFs. The firm added 6,067 Bitcoin (#BTC) since the third quarter, including another 155 in October. In October, #MicroStrategy acquired an additional 155 BTC for $5.3 million and now holds 158,400 BTC. CEO Phong Le stated that the firm is not shying away from its Bitcoin strategy, as its commitment to acquire and hold bitcoin remains strong. MicroStrategy's revenue increased 3% year-on-year to $129.5 million over the quarter, but it recorded a net loss of $143.4 million. #Digital #asset #impairment #losses and income taxes attributed $33.6 million and $109.6 million of the total net losses. MicroStrategy #capitalized on the downward period by buying the 6,067 BTC for an average price of $27,590. The #firm is #confident with its #artificialintelligence-integrated business analytics products, with software licenses and subscription services increasing 16% and 28% year-over-year.

The #UK is hosting the first event of its kind, the "#AI #Safety Summit," at Bletchley Park, the historic site that was once home to the World War 2 Codebreakers and now houses the National Museum of Computing. The summit aims to explore some of the long-term questions and risks AI poses, with #idealistic objectives such as a shared understanding of the risks posed by frontier AI and the need for action, a forward process for international collaboration on frontier AI safety, and appropriate measures for individual organizations to increase frontier #AIsafety. #Toplevel #governmentofficials, captains of industry, and notable thinkers in the space are among those expected to attend. However, tickets to the Summit are in scarce supply, and conversations will be small and mostly closed. As a result, a whole raft of other events and news developments have sprung up around the Summit, looping in the many other issues and stakeholders at play. These include talks at the Royal Society (the U.K.’s National Academy of sciences), a big "AI Fringe" conference that is being held across multiple cities all week, many announcements of task forces, and more. The event in #Bletchley will do what it does, and whatever is not in the purview there becomes an opportunity for people to put their heads together to talk about the rest #AIFringe, organized by #Milltown #Partners, has quickly spilled into and filled out an agenda that has wrapped itself around Bletchley, literally and figuratively. It carries on through the whole week, in multiple locations in the country, free to attend in person for those who could snag tickets, and with streaming components for many parts of it. The discussion of AI, a relatively new technology, has been divided into two main #conferences: one in the #corridors of #power and the other for the #generalpublic. A group of 100 #trade #unions and #rights #campaigners sent a letter to the prime minister expressing their concerns about the government's decision not to have them attend the Bletchley Park event. This letter was shared with the Financial Times, the most elite economic publication in the country. Some argue that #streamlining the #conversation can create more focus, as larger numbers can make it harder to reach #conclusions or have effective #discussions. The AI Safety Summit has become an anchor and only one part of the bigger conversation going on. U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced plans to launch a new AI safety institute and research network to put more time and thought into AI implications. A group of prominent academics published a paper called "Managing AI Risks in an Era of Rapid Progress," and the UN announced its task force to explore the implications of AI. The idea of AI posing "existential risk" has been a major debate, with some arguing that misinformation is one of the areas where AI short and medium term has potential risks attached to it. The U.K. government appears to be playing both sides of this debate, with the harm element clearly stated in the name of the event. Sunak stated that without a shared understanding of the risks that we face, they cannot work together to address them and will push hard to agree on the first-ever international statement about the nature of these risks. The UK is set to host the #BletchleyPark #AISummit, aiming to position itself as a central player in setting the agenda for AI and its economic implications. The summit aims to attract more jobs and investment from the new wave of technology, such as safe AI, and to address the proliferation of AI-generated sex abuse images. However, critics argue that having big tech in the room might be a problem, as "regulatory capture" has been another big theme in the brave new world of AI. Nigel Toon, #CEO of #AI chipmaker #Graphcore, noted that governments might be tempted to rush in and take AI technology leaders' word. He also noted that existential risks are not that long-term, but rather catastrophic risks. The biggest concerns will remain bad actors using AI rather than AI running riot: using it in biowarfare, in national security situations, and misinformation that can alter the course of democracy. The #business #outlook is also #uncertain, with some analysts believing that the road to investing in #AI might not be as smooth as some #predict. Avivah Litan, VP analyst at @Gartner, believes that enterprises need time and money to allocate to generative AI projects to get reliable outputs that can boost productivity and revenue. GenAI outputs are not reliable enough yet, and significant resources are required to make them reliable. AI investments will certainly slow it down for enterprises and government organizations that make use of them, as vendors are pushing their AI applications and products but the organizations can't adopt them as quickly as they are being pushed to.

President @JoeBiden has signed an #executiveorder providing rules around #generativeAI, ahead of any legislation coming from #lawmakers. The order has eight goals: to create new standards for AI #safety and security, protect privacy, advance equity and civil rights, stand up for consumers, patients, and students, support workers, promote innovation and competition, advance US leadership in AI technologies, and ensure the responsible and effective government use of the technology. Several #government #agencies are #tasked with creating #standards to protect against the use of AI to engineer biological materials, establish best practices around content authentication, and build advanced cybersecurity programs. The National Institute of Standards and Safety (#NIST) will be responsible for developing standards to “red team” AI models before public release, while the Department of Energy and Department of Homeland Security are directed to address the potential threat of AI to infrastructure and the chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and cybersecurity risks. Developers of large AI models like @OpenAI’s #GPT and @Meta’s #Llama 2 are required to share safety test results. The @WhiteHouse would only provide a briefing sourced to a senior official who said: “We’re not going to recall publicly available models that are out there,” the official said. “Existing models are still subject to the anti-discrimination rules already in place.” To protect users’ privacy, the White House called on Congress to pass data privacy regulations. The order also seeks federal support for the #development of “#privacy-preserving” techniques and technologies. Part of the order plans to prevent the use of #AI to #discriminate, including addressing #algorithmic #discrimination and ensuring fairness when utilizing the technology for sentencing, parole, and #surveillance. It also orders government agencies to provide guidelines for landlords, Federal benefits programs, and contracts on how to prevent AI from exacerbating discrimination. #Agencies are directed to address #job #displacement and produce a #report on the #impact of #AI on the labor market. The White House also wants to encourage more workers to work in the AI ecosystem and ordered the launch of a National AI Research Resource to provide key information to students and AI researchers and access to technical assistance for small businesses. It also directed the rapid hiring of AI professionals for the government. The Biden administration first released an AI Bill of Rights outlining a set of principles developers of AI models should follow, which were later turned into a series of agreements between the White House and several AI players, including Meta, Google, OpenAI, Nvidia, and Adobe. However, an executive order is not a permanent law and generally only lasts the length of Biden’s administration. Industry observers said the executive order is at least a step forward in providing standards around generative AI. President Biden has gathered his aides in the Oval Office to review and finalize an executive order on AI, which aims to address the potential dangers of AI technology. The president was deeply interested in AI technology during months of meetings, including discussions with his science advisory council, Cabinet, tech executives, and civil society advocates. He was impressed by the potential for fake AI images, bad poetry, and voice cloning.

@ElonMusk is reportedly planning to transition @Twitter (@X) away from @Amazon Web Services (@AWS) and instead set up its own cloud services hardware. This move is likely due to Musk's desire to reduce costs, improve performance, and have more control over Twitter's infrastructure. AWS is the world's leading cloud computing platform, but it can be expensive, making it difficult for Twitter to save money on its operating costs. Musk has expressed concerns about #AWS's performance and believes #Twitter could improve its performance by setting up its own #cloudservices hardware. #Musk may also want more control over #Twitter's #infrastructure, as setting up its own #cloud #services #hardware would allow Twitter to avoid relying on third-party providers like AWS, giving him more flexibility and control over how Twitter's infrastructure is managed and used. While Musk has not confirmed whether he plans to transition Twitter away from AWS, his track record of disrupting industries and his desire to improve Twitter make it possible. Musk has discussed setting up his #datacenters to host Twitter's #infrastructure and developing his #cloudcomputing platform to power Twitter's operations. It is unclear how long Musk would take to transition Twitter away from AWS, but it is likely to be a complex and time-consuming process. There are similarities between #ElonMusk's plans for #Twitter's cloud #infrastructure and the way @Apple transitioned to doing their #CPUs. Both companies are moving away from relying on #thirdparty #providers and developing their #hardware and #services. However, there are also important differences between the two cases. #Apple's transition to their #CPUs was a gradual process, while Musk's transition is likely to be more rapid. Elon Musk's potential #transition from @AWS to @Twitter could lead to several benefits, including #reduced #costs, improved #performance, increased #flexibility, increased competition in the cloud computing market, and reduced reliance on Amazon. However, there are also potential risks associated with this move, such as increased complexity and risk, disruption to Twitter's services, loss of features and functionality, and increased costs in the long run. In the same way that @SpaceX and #Starlink have set up #broadband #Internetinfrastructure in #lowEarthorbit (LEO), Elon Musk may eventually set up #datacenters in LEO. These data centers would offer reduced latency, increased bandwidth, and reduced costs. They would be closer to Earth than traditional data centers, which could be beneficial for applications requiring real-time data processing, such as online gaming and financial trading. Additionally, LEO data centers could have much more bandwidth than traditional data centers, making them ideal for high-speed data transfer applications like video streaming and cloud computing. However, some challenges would need to be addressed before data centers in LEO can become reality. Power supply is a significant challenge, as data centers require a lot of power to operate. Cooling is also challenging due to the heat produced by data centers, and they would be exposed to radiation from the sun and space, which could damage electronic components and cause data loss. Despite these challenges, Elon Musk may eventually set up data centers in LEO. He has a track record of overcoming challenges and achieving ambitious goals, and the technology to build and operate data centers in LEO is maturing. It is only a matter of time before the costs and risks of setting up data centers in LEO become acceptable. If successful, Elon Musk's transition from AWS to LEO could have a major impact on the cloud computing industry. Data centers in LEO would offer significant advantages over traditional data centers, such as reduced latency, increased bandwidth, and reduced costs, potentially leading to a shift in the way cloud computing services are delivered.

The rise of #AI in the modern age has raised concerns about its potential to replace human functions and efforts. While some see this as a thrilling development, others view it as a nightmarish threat to humanity's next biggest threat. #Artificialintelligence can potentially replace most #human #functions and efforts, with self-powered shops and lawnmowers becoming the new norm. As our lives become more demanding, #selfpowered shops and #lawnmowers will soon become the new norm, providing us more time to indulge in carefully curated Netflix lists created by algorithms. However, as #gadgets become more #autonomous and uncannily #humanlike, the future of the qualities, #quirks, and #essence of what #AI seeks to replace is concerning. Being exposed to situations that are not easy allows us to grow, but this evolution will be gravely hindered if we continuously rely on a computer to fix our problems. One such tool is #ChatGPT, created by @OpenAI in late 2022. This #AIgenerated #bot can produce #English #essays, cover letters, #poems, and emails, and even edit a draft that you submit and enhance your arguments, perspective, and style to create a refined copy of your work. The responses generated by #ChatGPT are eerily human-like, with an endless encyclopedia and quick, elegant responses. With a million signed up to Chat-GPT in the first five days of its release, the bot seeks to be the new calculator for writing-based tasks. The rise in the #popularity of #ChatGPT presents a stark #threat to the future of #education and the development of #skills like writing and critical thinking. Anxieties of teachers have cropped up in the news, with article headlines like 'ChatGPT will end high school English' gloomily announcing the discernible #threat of #AI to devalue the importance of writing, analysis, and creativity. Not to mention the complete unfairness of one student laboring over a final-year essay while others score high grades with a computer-generated response. With #intelligent #software and #hawkeyed teachers, this problem can be somewhat #avoided, reliant on extra funding and resources. However, what alarms me the most is the loss of skill that this 'advancement' in technology will inevitably lead to. Writing is a salient skill that helps us express ourselves and connect #profoundly with the world around us. It is the tool of philosophers, artists, activists, and diplomats that is centrifugal to social and political change. Students need to take the time to work on their writing and approach to language and #communication, especially for those who struggle in essay-based subjects. The dependency on AI that will inevitably build up will drive students away from understanding how significant it is to develop an ability to construct their thoughts into expressive responses, use communication as a bridge, or keep flexing the critical thinking muscle so that they stay aware of the systems and institutions that surround them. Writing is an imperative strength that lasts way longer than the classroom does. The rise of AI has raised concerns about the future of creators, as great art relies on human interaction. The Writers Guild Strike in Hollywood protests against the devaluation and replacement of writers in favor of AI, arguing that great art relies on the human behind it. A coalition of AI experts, including Sam Altman, CEO of Chat-GPT maker OpenAI, united to emphasize the urgent need to mitigate the existential risks posed by artificial intelligence, comparing them to the scale of pandemics and nuclear war. One approach to the problem is to work with AI, an 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em' technique. This is inevitable, and no one can stop AI. However, there needs to be a balance between developing and advancing skills without a robot doing it for us in 10 seconds. If problems arise in real life without the crutch of a bot, how will we communicate then? Being exposed to situations that are not easy allows us to grow; this evolution will be gravely hindered if we continuously rely on a computer to fix our problems.

The #USgovernment is receiving dozens of reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena (#UAPs, #UFOs) each month, according to the director of the office established to investigate the incidents. The office has received approximately 800 reports of unidentified objects to investigate as of this past April, up from 650 reports in August 2022, according to Sean Kirkpatrick, who heads the All-domain #Anomaly Resolution Office (#AARO) at the Pentagon. Nearly all of the new reports refer to objects observed in the air; only one comes from a maritime sighting. The vast majority of the new reports are benign objects, such as #balloons or #drones, but some may be the result of #America's adversaries trying to spy on the US. There are some indicators that may be concerning that may be attributed to #foreignactivity, and the #Pentagon is investigating those very hard. The annual report on unidentified aerial phenomena, released on Wednesday, said the object sightings may represent an issue for flight safety. Most sightings and observations come from near restricted military airspace, likely a result from the additional sensors and radars around the facilities. A portion of the increase in reports comes from the #Federal #Aviation Administration (FAA), which monitors airspace around US airports starting to provide information to the Pentagon. About half of the reports contain enough data that they can be ruled out as "mundane things," such as errant balloons or floating trash, but 2-4% are truly anomalous and require further investigation. Only a very small percentage of observations have "interesting" signatures, such as high-speed travel or "unknown #morphologies." Kirkpatrick's office has transferred "a lot" of cases to #lawenforcement for further investigation and, if necessary, counterintelligence. Some sightings could potentially be foreign adversaries spying on the United States, like the Chinese spy balloon shot down off the coast of South Carolina in February. The annual report on UAPs, put together by the Defense Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said, "Although none of these UAP reports have been positively attributed to foreign activities, these cases continue to be investigated." The #Pentagon is preparing for a flood of new #reports as it readies two new #portals for submissions: one for historical sightings from current or former #government employees and contractors and a second for public submissions of new reports. The portal for #historical #sightings is set to open sometime in the next month or so, with the opening of the public portal still several months away, which Kirkpatrick says could flood the system with "hundreds, if not thousands" of new reports to sort through. Kirkpatrick has a plan for his office, which involves a system that will automatically match known objects to public reports, allowing the government to dismiss sightings of identified bodies. However, the reports of #unknownobjects could prove to be valuable, as it makes it really hard for the foreign adversary to do anything.

A new study by an international team of researchers explores a #Planetary Social #Pedagogy (PSP) theory as a driver of a transformative process based on a learning society. #PSP integrates the fragmented life orientation by uniting the three dimensions of everyday life: spatial, #temporal, and #ethical. It is a cyclical learning process that alternates between cognitive, #metacognitive, and epistemic levels of learning and brings together rational knowledge, values, and the experience of reality to build an integrated social-ecological worldview and empower people to act. Escalating #planetary #crises, such as climate change, depletion of natural resources, and the human-induced sixth mass extinction, pose increasing demands on pursuing a good life. As the planet is reaching its limits, old perceptions of well-being are being questioned. A holistic #transformation is needed for the planet to accommodate people's pursuit of well-being. The #Theory of Planetary Social Pedagogy is a way of learning applicable to all societal sectors. According to it, people, societies, and the world are an interlinked, systemic entity. Such a #worldview can make life meaningful, increase people's experiences of belonging and inclusion, expand the scope of care, and help people identify their opportunities to influence. In a time marked by #crises, #learning to be one with the world is increasingly essential. #People are constantly connected to their surrounding reality through #food, air, and the air they breathe. The current #political #strategy for a sustainable future emphasizes economic and technological progress, but learning is also needed. A learning society relies on changes in citizens' values, beliefs, and worldviews. The #transformative power of a #learning #society can be a key factor in the green transformation permeating all society, where citizens' consumer behavior and ways of living, moving, and producing food and energy are organized in new ways. Conceptions of work and the economy can also be reformed.

The #Philippines and #China have clashed over #SouthChinaSea collisions, accusing China of deliberately causing collisions between their vessels. Philippine Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro stated Chinese coast guard and maritime militia vessels violated international law by harassing and intentionally hitting Unaiza May 2 and Philippine Coast Guard vessel BRP Cabra. This follows two incidents between Philippine and Chinese vessels in the South China Sea on Sunday. #China's #coastguard claimed a "slight collision" between one of its ships and the #Philippine #boat while the coastguard "lawfully" blocked the boat from transporting illegal construction materials. In another incident during the same resupply mission, it said a #Chinese #maritime #militia vessel bumped a #Philippinecoastguard vessel's port side. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, urged the Philippines to take Beijing's concerns seriously, stop dangerous maneuvers, and stop creating more tension in the South China Sea. #Philippine #President Ferdinand #Marcos met with security officials and ordered the coastguard to investigate the incidents. Manila summoned Beijing's ambassador and filed a diplomatic protest, while #China's #embassy in #Manila lodged a complaint with the Philippines after the collisions. The incidents occurred near the Second Thomas Shoal in the #Spratly Islands, a group of largely uninhabited islands in the strategically important sea with various overlapping claims by the #Philippines, #China, #Vietnam, #Malaysia, and #Taiwan. China's increasing presence in the region has stoked tensions to new highs, as #Beijing has claimed almost the entire South China Sea, ignoring an international ruling from 2016 that there is no legal basis for its claims.

#NASA has developed an additively-manufactured #rocketengine #nozzle made of aluminum, making it lighter than conventional #nozzles, and setting the course for deep #space #flights that can carry more payloads. Under the agency's Announcement of Collaborative Opportunity, engineers from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, partnered with Elementum 3D to create a weldable type of aluminum that is heat resistant enough for use on rocket engines. #Aluminum is lower density and allows for high-strength, lightweight components. However, due to its low tolerance to extreme heat and tendency to crack during welding, aluminum is not typically used for additive manufacturing of rocket engine parts. The #RAMFIRE project focuses on advancing #lightweight, additively-manufactured aluminum #rocket nozzles. The #nozzles are designed with small internal channels that keep the nozzle cool enough to prevent melting. With conventional manufacturing methods, a nozzle may require as many as thousand individually joined parts. The RAMFIRE nozzle is built as a single piece, requiring far fewer bonds and significantly reduced manufacturing time. #NASA and #Elementum3D first developed the novel aluminum variant known as A6061-RAM2 to build the nozzle and modify the powder used with laser powder-directed energy deposition (LP-DED) technology. Another commercial partner, RPM Innovations (RPMI), used the newly invented aluminum and specialized powder to build the RAMFIRE nozzles using their LP-DED process. @NASA's moon to #Mars #objectives require the capability to send more #cargo to deep space destinations. The novel alloy could play an instrumental role in this by enabling the manufacturing of lightweight rocket components capable of withstanding high structural loads. "Mass is critical for NASA's future deep space missions," said John Vickers, principal technologist for #STMD advanced #manufacturing. NASA and industry partners are working to share the #data and process with #commercial #stakeholders and academia. Various aerospace companies are evaluating the novel alloy and the LP-DED additive manufacturing process, and looking for ways it can be used to ma

#Meta and #Nvidia recently published research on teaching #AImodels to interact with the #realworld through a simulated one. The real world is not only complex and messy, but also slow-moving, making it difficult for agents to learn to control robots and perform tasks like opening a drawer and putting something inside. To help these agents perform tasks more effectively, @Nvidia has added an additional layer of #automation by applying a large #languagemodel to help write reinforcement learning code. They call this the Evolution-driven Universal REward Kit for Agent (EUREKA). The #Evolution-driven #Universal REward Kit for #Agent was found to be surprisingly good at outperforming #humans in the #effectiveness of the reward function. The team iterates on its own code, improving as it goes and helping it generalize to different applications. The pen trick above is only simulated, but it was created using far less human time and expertise than it would have taken without #EUREKA. Using the technique, #agents performed highly on a set of other virtual dexterity and locomotion tasks. #Meta is also working on embodied #AI, introducing new habitats for future robot companions. It announced a new version of its "Habitat" dataset, which includes nearly photorealistic and carefully annotated 3D #environments that an AI agent could navigate around. This allows people or agents trained on what people do to get in the simulator with the robot and interact with it or the environment simultaneously. This is an important capability, as it allows the robot to learn to work with or around humans or human-esque agents. @Meta also introduced a new #database of 3D interiors called HSSD-200, which improves the fidelity of the #environments. Training in around a hundred of these high-fidelity scenes produced better results than #training in 10,000 lower-fidelity ones. They also talked up a new robotics simulation stack, @HomeRobot, for @BostonDynamics' Spot and Hello Robot's Stretch. Their hope is that by standardizing some basic navigation and manipulation software, researchers in this area can focus on higher-level stuff where innovation is waiting. #Habitat and #HomeRobot are available under an @MIT license at their @GitHub pages, and HSSD-200 is under a @CreativeCommons non-commercial license.

#Research suggests that non-surgical electrical stimulation of the #brain could be a radical new #dementia therapy. A successful trial in healthy young adults confirmed the technique can improve memory, and researchers have now begun trials in people with early Alzheimer's. Temporal interference is a painless, non-invasive treatment that uses electric fields of multiple frequencies to stimulate neurons in the hippocampus, a deep #brain region involved in the #formation, #storage, and recall of #memories. #Deepbrain #stimulation is one way to fix #electrical activity #imbalances and could potentially treat brain conditions like #Alzheimer's. Implanted electrodes can monitor activity and carry small electric currents into malfunctioning regions. Obsessive-compulsive #disorder and movement #disorders like #Parkinson's are already treated with deep brain stimulation, but the surgical procedure to implant the electrodes is risky, making it difficult to research its usefulness in other brain conditions. In #temporal #interference, high-frequency electric fields are sent into the #brain through #electrodes attached to the outside of the scalp. Two electric fields, one at 2,000 Hz and the other at 2,005 Hz, are targeted to overlap (interfere) in the temporal lobe, creating a low-frequency difference current at 5 Hz. This current is in the same frequency range as neural activity in learning and memory. The low-frequency 5 Hz electric fields work in the #hippocampus by making it easier for cells to coordinate the activities needed to create #memories. The ability to selectively target deep brain areas using a non-invasive approach is very exciting as it provides a tool to #investigate how the human brain operates and opens possibilities for clinical applications. Another new study has validated the technique on a different deep area of the brain, the striatum, and participants included 15 older adults aged 61–71, also without Alzheimer's #symptoms. #Researchers are now testing whether repeated treatment with the stimulation over the course of a number of days could benefit people in the early stages of Alzheimer's. Participants aged 50–100 with mild cognitive impairment and likely early-stage, non-genetic #Alzheimer's #disease have been enrolled in the new trial.

#Quantum weirdness doesn't stop at a thing existing in multiple possible states all at once. Quantum behaviors also seem to defy the laws of #physics, like the law that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. When two quantum #particles get close enough, their wave functions become #entangled, and anything done to one particle instantly affects the other. If a measurement on one particle, collapsing its wave function, it immediately determines the state of the other particle, even if the other particle is located across the universe. Einstein called this spooky action at a distance because it seemed to suggest information was traveling from one particle to another, faster than the speed of light. Penrose sees wave function collapse as a gateway between quantum and classical realities. The price to traverse realities is charged to the #classical #reality's timeline. Experiments show the collapse reduces multiple #quantum states and is instantaneous. However, the effect may only seem instantaneous to us because the destruction of multiple quantum #realities retroactively alters the classical reality timeline. #Penrose calls this effect retro-activity, which clears a path for making quantum behavior consistent with Einstein's theory of special relativity. #Specialrelativity says time passes at different rates depending on your frame of reference, which is called time dilation. Experiments show that time dilation is a natural part of how time works. There isn't a universal time, and the average person and other scientists may be skeptical about the idea of retro-activity. Penrose's ideas about retro-activity as an explanation for #quantum #anomalies are only recently gaining traction. Penrose's ideas about #retrocausality, the proposal that a measurement in the present can change a #particle's properties even before the measurement was made, are essential for understanding the relationship between gravity and consciousness. He believes that gravity-induced wave function collapse could produce non-computational #consciousness because it is retroactive. Penrose, a physicist, has been exploring the concept of consciousness in quantum mechanics. He believes that conscious decisions under extreme time constraints are made unconsciously, and that our conscious internal experience might be a kind of quantum reality. Penrose suggests that there would be something in #quantum superposition between these actions and that action, somewhere at the earlier stage in the #brain when these two procedures are in #quantum #superposition. The quantum state would contain both those alternatives, and then, when you decide to do one, it retroactively goes back. Penrose is concerned that people might misinterpret his ideas about retro-activity, but he insists that it can only happen along the past light cone, which represents every single past event that could have influenced a particular event. If #retroactivity happens, it happens within these parameters. #Penrose has faced criticism for making unsupported connections between strange #phenomena in #quantummechanics and the mystery of consciousness. He describes alternative theories and gives reasons for why he doesn't think they are credible. He suggests that the only other good alternative might be a theory that no one has thought of yet. As things stand, Penrose feels that both classical physics and quantum mechanics are extraordinary theories and both have proven to be extraordinarily precise when tested.

In this text, the author discusses his lecture on #Einstein's #specialtheory of #relativity and the mathematical equations for one of his basic ideas, the so-called invariance of the space-time interval. The author, a cosmology professor, is discussing the meaning of life with a student named Oona Fitzgerald, who asked him about it. The author recalls Dr. Barker's response to the same question, which left the author feeling foolish. The author shares with the students that almost none of us knew our true identity, and that this strange situation came from the tiny worlds in which we lived. They thought of themselves as #Americans, #Chinese, #Republicans, #Democrats, believers, or atheists, but each of those identities might be true, but each is secondary truth. There is a deeper truth: we are universe. The universe made us. In a most primordial way, we are cosmological beings. The author then explains that we need to ride inside the #mathematical symbols to understand this #truth. They begin with the primal light discovered in 1964 by #Penzias and #Wilson, which arrives from all directions and leads to the birthplace of the universe. This cosmic #microwavebackgroundradiation, which comes from all directions, is the origin of our universe. This colossal sphere, fourteen billion light-years away from us in every direction, is the origin of our universe. The author argues that empirical evidence points to a time fourteen billion years ago when our universe consisted of a colossal sphere made of light and primal atoms of #hydrogen and #helium. That colossal #sphere transformed itself into stars and #galaxies, and everything else in the #knownuniverse. As this sphere moves forward in time, it evolves under the action of expansion and contraction. This dual action of expansion and contraction sets in motion the creativity that has given rise to every existing entity in the universe. The author then explains that the meaning of life can be found in the flow of energy through our hands, which came from the beginning of time. No one in history knew that the expansion and contraction of the #universe transformed primal atoms into #stars and #galaxies, nor did anyone know the quantum field theory and #generaltheory of #relativity that govern this sphere of light. Now, we know the mathematical dynamics by which the universe brought itself forth, and these same dynamics are coursing through us. Our bodies churn with creativity rooted in the beginning of time. In that moment, the author feels the simple truth more deeply than ever before. They are the colossal sphere, all of us, rooted in the #cosmic #microwave #radiation and primal #atoms speaking of their fourteen-billion-year existence. Oona Fitzgerald, a #Catholic student, was hesitant to discuss her decision to change her major due to her course in #physics. The students watched in silence, and the author felt a strange intuition that the universe, held together by #mathematical #structures, was breathing them. As the students left the classroom, the author felt foolish and #embarrassed. Oona came over, smiling and wore a simple yellow dress, and announced that she had decided to change her major. The author was surprised by this decision, as she had been a fan of her music career for a month. The author asked her family members if she had spoken with them about this decision and if it was a good one. Oona turned back and said that she loved the course but was unsure about the decision. The students shuffled around the hallway behind her, and the author thought of calling her back but had nothing to say. This article was first published in October 2022 and updated in October 2023.

A new study published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature #MachineIntelligence suggests that #artificialintelligence (#AI) tools may be useful for the verification process used by @Wikipedia contributors and editors. The study, called "Improving Wikipedia Verifiability With AI," suggests that AI can help identify weaker citations in an article and provide potential alternatives. Users preferred the AI substitutes 70 percent of the time, and among Wikipedia's English-speaking users, people preferred the first AI-suggested alternative "twice as often" as the page's initial citation. The study limited potential alternative citations to web pages and focused on #Wikipedia's English language community. #Researchers also noted that the current speed of AI development could soon pave the way for new tools to surpass the tools they used for their study. The #English Wikipedia had more than 59.2 million pages and more than 6.7 million articles as of Monday, according to the online #encyclopedia's publicly available data. AI's potential risks and benefits are frequent topics of discussion among #technology #leaders and #politicians alike. While some tech experts say #AI could benefit the healthcare, drug development, and transportation industries, others--including the "Godfather of AI"--are worried that AI could one day outpace human intelligence if guardrails for its development are not established. Several political and tech leaders are expected to convene next month for discussions about AI during the world's first global AI safety summit. A spokesperson with the @Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that supports #Wikipedia, told @Newsweek that the foundation is exploring ways that generative AI tools could be used. They believe that AI works best as an augmentation for the work that humans do on these projects. Any exploration of leveraging AI tools on the site needs to align with this core position. As part of the foundation's exploration of generative AI, its teams created an "experimental" #Wikipedia plug-in for @OpenAI, the AI company behind #ChatGPT. It's available to ChatGPT Plus users, who can use it to access up-to-date information from Wikipedia for any general #knowledge query, while attributing and sharing links to the Wikipedia articles from where the information is sourced.