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Category: alien life – Page 8
Creating superhuman AI
Posted in alien life, mathematics, physics, robotics/AI
This conversation between Max Tegmark and Joel Hellermark was recorded in April 2024 at Max Tegmark’s MIT office. An edited version was premiered at Sana AI Summit on May 15 2024 in Stockholm, Sweden.
Max Tegmark is a professor doing AI and physics research at MIT as part of the Institute for Artificial Intelligence \& Fundamental Interactions and the Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines. He is also the president of the Future of Life Institute and the author of the New York Times bestselling books Life 3.0 and Our Mathematical Universe. Max’s unorthodox ideas have earned him the nickname “Mad Max.”
Joel Hellermark is the founder and CEO of Sana. An enterprising child, Joel taught himself to code in C at age 13 and founded his first company, a video recommendation technology, at 16. In 2021, Joel topped the Forbes 30 Under 30. This year, Sana was recognized on the Forbes AI 50 as one of the startups developing the most promising business use cases of artificial intelligence.
Timestamps.
Surprisingly, your past, present, and future could be happening right now, all at the same time.
The block universe theory suggests that time doesn’t flow and all moments—past, present, and future—exist simultaneously in a four-dimensional space. This challenges our conventional experience of time as a linear progression. According to Dr. Kristie Miller, traveling to the past or future might be possible, but changing events isn’t; you’d only fulfill what’s already set. Critics argue that the future can’t be predetermined, with models like the evolving block universe proposing a growing spacetime block. While the debate continues, this theory reshapes our understanding of time and existence. Don’t forget to share your thoughts and join the discussion below!
We seem to experience time as moving in a single direction. After all, we can’t just leap forward to the future or revisit our past whenever we wish. Every minute of every day seems to push us forward, dragging us through life towards an inevitable end. At least, that’s the traditional perception of time. But what if your present, past, and future all exist simultaneously? From this perspective, time wouldn’t flow at all.
How can the metal content of stars influence the formation of Earth-like exoplanets? This is what a recent study published in The Astronomical Journal hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated the minimum amount of metals a star can possess (also called metallicity) that are needed for Earth-like planets to form in small orbits like our own. This study holds the potential to help researchers better understand the necessary conditions for Earth-like exoplanets to form, along with gaining new insights into the formation and evolution of other exoplanets.
This research builds off previous studies that hypothesized a correlation between star’s low metallicity and the formation of exoplanets smaller than Saturn or Neptune. For this new study, the researchers used computer models built from exoplanet data obtained by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission to ascertain a metallicity cutoff where the formation of Earth-like exoplanets become impossible. In the end, the researchers indicated that a threshold between-0.75 and-0.5 metallicity is where Earth-like exoplanets can form.
“In a similar stellar type as our sample, we now know not to expect planet formation to be abundant once you pass a negative 0.5 metallicity region,” said Dr. Kiersten Boley, who recently completed her PhD at The Ohio State University and is lead author of the study. “That’s kind of striking because we actually have data to show that now. You don’t want to search areas where life wouldn’t be conducive or in areas where you don’t even think you’re going to find a planet. There’s just a plethora of questions that you can ask if you know these things.”
Imagine aliens finding the golden record only to search earth and find a floating sign in space saying “301 moved permanently”.
TL;DR
The concept of a stellar engine, as discussed on Kurzgesagt’s YouTube channel, proposes using thrusters to move our entire solar system. The Shkadov Thruster, a passive solar sail system, would harness the Sun’s energy to propel the system, but it would be extremely slow, potentially moving 100 light-years in 230 million years. To increase speed, astrophysicist Matthew Caplan designed an active engine using the Bussard ramjet concept, known as the Caplan Thruster, which could move the solar system 50 light-years in a million years. This engine uses the Sun’s materials for fusion propulsion, generating thrust to push the Sun.
The secrets of black holes and dark matter could lie before the Big Bang, a new study of “bouncing” cosmology hints.
An exploration of new findings regarding the last universe common ancestor of life, or LUCA, and abiogenesis in general.
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“For the most part, we think of the deep sea as a place where decaying material falls down and animals eat the remnants. But this finding is recalibrating that dynamic,” said Dr. Jeffrey Marlow.
What can deep ocean life teach us about finding life on other worlds? This is what a recent study published in Nature Geoscience hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated how “dark oxygen” —which is oxygen produced without sunlight—is produced by deep sea creatures that reside within the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) which is approximately 12,000 to 18,000 feet beneath the ocean’s surface and completely dark. This study holds the potential to help researchers better understand the conditions for life and where else we might find these conditions on worlds outside Earth.
For the study, the researchers used deep-sea chambers on the seafloor to measure changes in oxygen levels, which the team initially hypothesized was caused by the microbial life and other creatures living between the rocks, the latter of which are millions of years old. Along with thinking the local life produced the oxygen, the team also hypothesized the life consumed it, as well, resulting decreased oxygen levels. However, after 48 hours of collecting data, the researchers the oxygen levels increased, indicating that something else was producing oxygen at these extreme depths so far from the Sun.
The researchers found that these million-year-old rocks, called polymetallic nodules, were responsible for producing the oxygen, which the team has since dubbed dark oxygen since these ocean depths are so far down that no sunlight can reach it. With these incredible findings, the researchers postulate that dark oxygen could help explain why and how life can survive at such extreme depths, and potentially help astrobiologists find life on other world, including Jupiter’s moon, Europa, and Saturn’s moon, Enceladus.
What were galaxies like in the early universe? This is what a recent study published in The Astronomical Journal hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated the formation and evolution of galaxies in the early universe, as recent studies have suggested they were much larger than cosmology models had simulated. This study holds the potential to help researchers better understand the conditions in the early universe and how life came to be.
“We are still seeing more galaxies than predicted, although none of them are so massive that they ‘break’ the universe,” said Katherine Chworowsky, who is a PhD student at the University of Texas at Austin and lead author of the study.
For the study, the researchers used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to peer deep into the universe’s past and observe some of the earliest galaxies to ascertain their sizes and whether they are as massive as recent studies have suggested. After analyzing the data, the researchers discovered that black holes residing at the center of these galaxies are creating false brightness and sizes, meaning these galaxies are much smaller than previously thought, thus reducing the panic within the scientific community regarding cosmological models. However, this study does suggest further research is necessary regarding star formation and evolution within these galaxies.