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An excellent overview of the story of how the U.S. responded to the COVID-19 pandemic along with suggestions for ways to continue making strides in combatting SARS-CoV-2 as well as how we may prepare for future emerging pathogens. The article provides an interesting case study on mechanisms of large-scale human organization, examines ways that we have succeeded in managing so many moving pieces, and explores ways that we could do better in the future. #nih #health #medicine #government #biotechnology


Investment, collaboration, and coordination have been key.

Francis Collins [email protected], Stacey Adam, […], Christine Colvis, Elizabeth Desrosiers, […], Ruxandra Draghia-Akli, Anthony Fauci, Maria Freire, Gary Gibbons, Matthew Hall, […], Eric Hughes, Kathrin Jansen, Michael Kurilla, H. Clifford Lane, Douglas Lowy, Peter Marks, Joseph Menetski, William Pao, Eliseo Pérez-Stable, Lisa Purcell, Sarah Read, Joni Rutter, Michael Santos, Tara Schwetz, Jeffrey Shuren, Timothy Stenzel, Paul Stoffels, Lawrence Tabak, Karen Tountas, Bruce Tromberg, David Wholley, Janet Woodcock, and John Young +29 authors +27 authors +22 authors fewer Authors Info & Affiliations

Science.

In the world of self-driving, the strong leaders are now Google/Alphabet’s Waymo, and GM’s Cruise. Both are headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, and both have thus been keen to deploy in the city of San Francisco itself. No wonder, it’s their hometown. Driving it is a challenge but an important one to handle. On the other hand, it doesn’t snow, though it faces fog. It’s a city that already has many people who don’t own cars, and it was the birthplace of ride-hail, first with the now-defunct Sidecar, then Lyft and Uber. It makes a lot of sense that they both want to be there.

Even so, the city of San Francisco and it’s agencies have not been too happy with the pilot deployments of these companies and recently wrote letters hoping to slow them down. This article examines the conflict between the companies and their city, considering not just the particular points of contention, but also what sort of relationship makes sense here and how to resolve conflicts going forward.

San Francisco doesn’t have the authority to regulate driving. That’s the California DMV. Ride services are under the authority of the California Public Utilities Commission. The federal government regulates the making, importing and selling of vehicles and keeping them safe.

The zombie fungus from “The Last of Us”… IS REAL! Join us, and find out more!

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In this video, Unveiled takes a closer look at the Cordyceps and Ophiocordyceps fungi — otherwise known as the zombie ant fungus! This gruesome parasite is the inspiration for “The Last of Us”, the hit video game and TV adaptation… but, what’s REALLY incredible is that it’s NOT science fiction! It really exists on Earth! So, how worried should we be?

This is Unveiled, giving you incredible answers to extraordinary questions!

When U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss decided to deliver a speech on a bill that would create a U.S.-Israel artificial intelligence center, he opted to let the AI do the talking.

The brief two-paragraph speech read by the Massachusetts Democrat on the floor of the U.S. House on Wednesday was generated by the online AI chatbot ChatGPT. His staff said they believe it’s the first time an AI-written speech was read in Congress.

Auchincloss said he prompted the system in part to “write 100 words to deliver on the floor of the House of Representatives” about the legislation. Auchincloss said he had to refine the prompt several times to produce the text he ultimately read.

ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence tool that has been used in everything from high school essays to a speech on the floor of Congress, has added another accomplishment to its résumé: passing exams from law and business schools.

The AI tool was presented with several tests from both the University of Minnesota’s law school and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, passing them all.

That said, the AI didn’t necessarily ace the exams with flying colors. The chatbot answered 95 multiple choice questions and 12 essay prompts across 4 of UM’s law school tests, averaging about a C+ performance overall. The tech did better in Wharton’s business management course exam, scoring between a B to B-.

In the meetings, Altman told policymakers that OpenAI is on the path to creating “artificial general intelligence,” a term used to describe an artificial intelligence that can think and understand on the level of the human brain.


The OpenAI CEO is talking to members of Congress about the uses and limits of the artificial intelligence tool that’s all the rage.

Welcome to the exponential upward curve phase of the Technological Singularity, folks.


Three months before ChatGPT debuted in November, Facebook’s parent company Meta released a similar chatbot. But unlike the phenomenon that ChatGPT instantly became, with more than a million users in its first five days, Meta’s Blenderbot was boring, said Meta’s chief artificial intelligence scientist, Yann LeCun.

“The reason it was boring was because it was made safe,” LeCun said last week at a forum hosted by AI consulting company Collective[i]. He blamed the tepid public response on Meta being “overly careful about content moderation,” like directing the chatbot to change the subject if a user asked about religion. ChatGPT, on the other hand, will converse about the concept of falsehoods in the Quran, write a prayer for a rabbi to deliver to Congress and compare God to a flyswatter.

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Boeing has come up with a new advanced airlifter concept with stealth features to meet the growing need for more durable cargo and tanker planes.

Boeing has shown an idea for a tactical, stealth-capable cargo plane with a blended wing body, or BWB. It comes almost two weeks after Frank Kendall, the secretary of the U.S. Air Force, said that having more airlifters and aerial refueling tankers that can survive will be important in future high-end conflicts against near-peer adversaries, especially China.

The company has been funding this project internally up until this point.


A congressman wants it approved by Congress.

Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif, hopes to get a nod from Congress to support regulating artificial intelligence by using an AI tool to write a resolution calling for the same. He will introduce a nonbinding measure that would direct the House to consider artificial intelligence, a bill fully written by ChatGPT, an online AI chatbot.

With a basic prompt, Congressman Ted Lieu generated a standard congressional resolution supporting Congress’s focus on AI without specifying that it was written using AI.


PhonlamaiPhoto/iStock.

After years of delay under government pressure, Apple said Wednesday that it will offer fully encrypted backups of photos, chat histories and most other sensitive user data in its cloud storage system worldwide, putting them out of reach of most hackers, spies and law enforcement.

Maybe a New iPhone is a good idea for a second phone.


The one service Apple offered that could not be encrypted was iCloud. Now that will change.