This article includes computer-generated images that map internet communities by topic, without specifically naming each one. The research was funded by the US government, which is anticipating massive interference in the 2024 elections by “bad actors” using relatively simple AI chat-bots.

In an era of super-accelerated technological advancement, the specter of malevolent artificial intelligence (AI) looms large. While AI holds promise for transforming industries and enhancing human life, the potential for abuse poses significant societal risks. Threats include avalanches of misinformation, deepfake videos, voice mimicry, sophisticated phishing scams, inflammatory ethnic and religious rhetoric, and autonomous weapons that make life-and-death decisions without human intervention.

During this election year in the United States, some are worried that bad actor AI will sway the outcomes of hotly contested races. We spoke with Neil Johnson, a professor of physics at George Washington University, about his research that maps out where AI threats originate and how to help keep ourselves safe.

The development of Transhumanism / Extropianism in the final two decades of the 20th century also set in motion the creation of digital cash, including the breakthrough killer app: Bitcoin.

The Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek wanted to denationalize money. David Chaum, an innovator in the field of cryptography and electronic cash, wanted to shield it from surveillance. Their goals were not the same, but they each inspired the same man.

Max O’Connor grew up in the British city of Bristol in the 1960s and ’70s. Telling his life story to Wired in 1994, he explained how he had always dreamed of a future where humanity expanded its potential in science-fictional ways, a world where people would possess X-ray vision, carry disintegrator guns, or walk straight through walls.

By his teenage years, O’Connor had acquired an interest in the occult. He thought the key to realizing superhuman potential could perhaps be found in the same domain as astral projection, dowsing rods, and reincarnation. But he began to realize there was no compelling evidence that any of these mystical practices actually worked. Human progress, he soon decided, was best served not by the supernatural but by science and logic.

Figure: We are now having full conversations with Figure 1, thanks to our partnership with OpenAI.

Our robot can: — describe its visual experience — plan future actions — reflect on its memory — explain its reasoning verbally.

From the article:

“Somewhere between one and ten million qubits are needed for a fault-tolerant quantum computer, whereas IBM has only just realized a 1,200-qubit computer,” says Aoki.

While this approach isn’t limited to any specific platform for quantum computers, it does lend itself to trapped ions and neutral atoms since they don’t need to be cooled to cryogenic temperatures, which makes them much easier to connect.

A hybrid approach

Aoki and his team are investigating the possibility of using a hybrid quantum system of atoms and photons known as a cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) system as a promising way to connect units. “Cavity QED provides an ideal interface between optical qubits and atomic qubits for distributed quantum computing,” says Aoki. “Recently, key building blocks for realizing quantum computers based on cavity QED, such as single-photon sources and various quantum gates, have been demonstrated using free-space cavities.”

From the article: As much as 55,000 tons (50,000 metric tons) of hydrogen could lurk in the reservoir beneath the mine — enough to sustain the high flow rate for 238 years, according to the study.

A portion of ancient oceanic crust that sits atop Albania and hosts one of the largest chromium mines on Earth also contains a huge hydrogen reservoir, offering a potential source of clean energy.

Extracting lithium from California’s Salton Sea for use in batteries.

California’s toxic Salton Sea has enough lithium to make the U.S. self-sufficient in the mineral, which is a key component of rechargeable batteries. WSJ explores the tech being developed to extract it—and what it means for the future of domestic production. Photo: Kaitlyn Wang.

In this video, we recount an incident that occurred at OpenAI while researchers were trying to finetune GPT-2 to be as helpful and ethical as possible. It’s narrated that inadvertently flipping a single minus sign led GPT-2 to become the embodiment of a well-known cardinal sin.

#ai #aisafety #alignment.

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OpenAI blog post: https://openai.com/research/fine-tuni…
OpenAI paper behind the blog post: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1909.08593.pdf.
RLHF explainer on Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co/blog/rlhf.
RLHF explainer on aisafety.info https://aisafety.info/?state=88FN_904…
Concrete Problems in AI Safety, by @RobertMilesAI: • Concrete Problems in AI Safety.

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Patreon: / rationalanimations.

What experiments with animal groups can tell us about the possible future of human society.

John Calhoun studied behavior during overcrowding in mice and rats.

From the article: Sometime in the coming year, a spacecraft from AstroForge, an American asteroid-mining firm, may be launched on a mission to a rocky object near Earth’s orbit.

AstroForge, a private company, wants to mine a space rock, but it doesn’t want the competition to find out which one.

An interview with J. Storrs Hall, author of the epic book “Where is My Flying Car — A Memoir of Future Past”: “The book starts as an examination of the technical limitations of building flying cars and evolves into an investigation of the scientific, technological, and social roots of the economic…

J. Storrs Hall or Josh is an independent researcher and author.

He was the founding Chief Scientist of Nanorex, which is developing a CAD system for nanomechanical engineering.

His research interests include molecular nanotechnology and the design of useful macroscopic machines using the capabilities of molecular manufacturing. His background is in computer science, particularly parallel processor architectures, artificial intelligence, particularly agoric and genetic algorithms.