A debate/discussion on ASI (artificial superintelligence) between Foresight Senior Fellow Mark S. Miller and MIRI founder Eliezer Yudkowsky. Sharing similar long-term goals, they nevertheless reach opposite conclusions on best strategy.
“What are the best strategies for addressing risks from artificial superintelligence? In this 4-hour conversation, Eliezer Yudkowsky and Mark Miller discuss their cruxes for disagreement. While Eliezer advocates an international treaty that bans anyone from building it, Mark argues that such a pause would make an ASI singleton more likely – which he sees as the greatest danger.”
What are the best strategies for addressing extreme risks from artificial superintelligence? In this 4-hour conversation, decision theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky and computer scientist Mark Miller discuss their cruxes for disagreement.
They examine the future of AI, existential risk, and whether alignment is even possible. Topics include AI risk scenarios, coalition dynamics, secure systems like seL4, hardware exploits like Rowhammer, molecular engineering with AlphaFold, and historical analogies like nuclear arms control. They explore superintelligence governance, multipolar vs singleton futures, and the philosophical challenges of trust, verification, and control in a post-AGI world.
Moderated by Christine Peterson, the discussion seeks the least risky strategy for reaching a preferred state amid superintelligent AI risks. Yudkowsky warns of catastrophic outcomes if AGI is not controlled, while Miller advocates decentralizing power and preserving human institutions as AI evolves.
Spintronics, or spin-electronics, is a revolutionary approach to information processing that utilizes the intrinsic angular momentum (spin) of electrons, rather than solely relying on electric charge flow. This technology promises faster, more energy-efficient data storage and logic devices. A central challenge in fully realizing spintronics has been the development of materials that can precisely control electron spin direction.
In a new development for spin-nanotechnology, researchers led by Professor Young Keun Kim of Korea University and Professor Ki Tae Nam of Seoul National University have successfully created magnetic nanohelices that can control electron spin.
This technology, which utilizes chiral magnetic materials to regulate electron spin at room temperature, has been published in Science.
Researchers at The City College of New York have shown how a quantum emitter, the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond, interacts in unexpected ways with a specially engineered photonic structure when moved around with a scanning tip.
The study, led by Carlos A. Meriles—Martin and Michele Cohen Professor of Physics in the Division of Science—and titled “Emission of Nitrogen–Vacancy Centres in Diamond Shaped by Topological Photonic Waveguide Modes,” appears in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
What has long been considered a drawback of the NV center—its broad and messy emission spectrum—turns out to enable a new type of coupling that reshapes its light in ways not seen before. This discovery has fundamental importance for quantum information technologies, since such coupling could help overcome longstanding challenges like spectral diffusion and open pathways toward robust spin–photon and spin–spin entanglement on a chip.
With the power to rewrite the genetic code underlying countless diseases, CRISPR holds immense promise to revolutionize medicine. But until scientists can deliver its gene-editing machinery safely and efficiently into relevant cells and tissues, that promise will remain out of reach.
Now, Northwestern University chemists have unveiled a new type of nanostructure that dramatically improves CRISPR delivery and potentially extends its scope of utility.
Called lipid nanoparticle spherical nucleic acids (LNP-SNAs), these tiny structures carry the full set of CRISPR editing tools—Cas9 enzymes, guide RNA and a DNA repair template—wrapped in a dense, protective shell of DNA. Not only does this DNA coating shield its cargo, but it also dictates which organs and tissues the LNP-SNAs travel to and makes it easier for them to enter cells.
China’s.
Discover how nanotubes can revolutionize insulation in aerospace and energy sectors by resisting over 4,700°F.
Quantum technologies, devices that work by leveraging quantum mechanical effects, could outperform classical technologies in some fields and settings. The so-called spin (i.e., intrinsic angular momentum) carried by quantum particles is central to the functioning of quantum systems, as it can store quantum information.
To reliably share quantum information across a network, however, spins need to be linked to photons (i.e., particles of light). For decades, engineers and quantum physicists have thus been trying to devise approaches to interface spins and photons.
One strategy to achieve this entails the use of quantum dots, nanoscale semiconductor structures that can trap electrons or holes in distinct energy levels. When placed in carefully engineered optical resonators known as microcavities, these structures can generate individual photons. Nonetheless, ensuring that the coherence of spins is not disrupted by magnetic noise originating from nearby nuclear spins and thus facilitating the preservation of quantum information over time has so far proved challenging.
Nearly a decade after they first demonstrated that soft materials could guide the formation of superconductors, Cornell researchers have achieved a one-step, 3D printing method that produces superconductors with record properties.
The advance, detailed in Nature Communications, builds on years of interdisciplinary work led by Ulrich Wiesner, the Spencer T. Olin Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and could improve technologies such as superconducting magnets and quantum devices.
Wiesner and colleagues reported in 2016 the first self-assembled superconductor using block copolymers—soft, chain-like molecules that naturally arrange themselves into orderly, repeating nanoscale structures. By 2021, the group found that these soft material approaches could produce superconducting properties on par with conventional methods.
Quantum dots – semiconductor nanostructures that can emit single photons on demand – are considered among the most promising sources for photonic quantum computing.
However, every quantum dot is slightly different and may emit a slightly different color, according to a team at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, which has developed a technique to improve multi-photon state generation. The Innsbruck team states that, “the different forms of quantum dot means that, to produce multi-photon states we cannot use multiple quantum dots.”
Usually, researchers use a single quantum dot and multiplex the emission into different spatial and temporal modes, using a fast electro-optic modulator. But a contemporary technological challenge: faster electro-optic modulators are expensive and often require very customized engineering. To add to that, it may not be very efficient, which introduces unwanted losses in the system.
Nature Publishing: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41534-025-01083-0
Security wise: The team’s work combines years of research in quantum optics, semiconductor physics, and photonic engineering to open the door for next-generation quantum computers andunwanted losses in the system.
Communications. Here’s what you need to know. Securities IO: https://www.securities.io/passive-two-photon-quantum-dots-secure-communication
According to the World Health Organization, over 15 million people worldwide are living with spinal cord injuries, with the majority resulting from traumatic causes such as falls, road traffic accidents, and violence.
Currently, spinal cord injuries cannot be fully cured, so treatment focuses on stabilizing the patient, preventing further damage, and maximizing function. Emergency care often involves immobilizing the spine, reducing inflammation, and sometimes performing surgery to repair fractures or relieve pressure.
Rehabilitation includes physical and occupational therapy, as well as assistive devices like wheelchairs and braces. While experimental therapies—including stem cells and robotic devices—are being explored, no treatment yet reliably restores full spinal cord function.
Spinal cord injuries are one of the few human injuries where the body cannot naturally heal itself, and the tissue is both structurally complex and extremely sensitive.
“The spinal cord transmits electrical signals from the brain to all parts of the body. When it is severed by trauma—such as a car accident, a fall, or a combat injury—the chain is broken. Think of an electrical cable that has been cut: when the two ends no longer touch, the signal cannot pass, and the patient remains paralyzed below the injury,” explained Professor Tal Dvir, head of the Sagol Center for Regenerative Biotechnology and the Nanotechnology Center at Tel Aviv University, who is leading the effort. Dvir is also the chief scientist at Matricelf, the Israeli biotech company commercializing the technology.
Tel Aviv University announced on Wednesday that the surgery will take place in Israel, marking a historic milestone in regenerative medicine.