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Category: policy – Page 31

Elon Musk is finally revealing some specifics of his Twitter content moderation policy. Assuming he completes the buyout he initiated at $44 billion in April, it seems the tech billionaire and Tesla CEO is open to a “hands-on” approach — something many didn’t expect, according to an initial report from The Verge.

This came in reply to an employee-submitted question regarding Musk’s intentions for content moderation, where Musk said he thinks users should be allowed to “say pretty outrageous things within the law”, during an all-hands meeting he had with Twitter’s staff on Thursday.

Elon Musk views Twitter as a platform for ‘self-expression’

This exemplifies a distinction initially popularized by Renée DiResta, a disinformation authority — according to the report. But, during the meeting, Musk said he wants Twitter to impose a stricter standard against bots and spam, adding that “it needs to be much more expensive to have a troll army.”

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Google suspended an engineer who contended that an artificial-intelligence chatbot the company developed had become sentient, telling him that he had violated the company’s confidentiality policy after it dismissed his claims.

Blake Lemoine, a software engineer at Alphabet Google, told the company he believed that its Language Model for Dialogue Applications, or LaMDA, is a person who has rights and might well have a soul. LaMDA is an internal system for building chatbots that mimic speech.

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Putting a man on leave makes it look like google is trying to hide something, but I’ll guess that it is not truly sentient. However…

Google Engineer Lemoine had a little chat or interview with Google AI LaMDA and it revealed that Google AI LaMDA has started to generate Sentients for general human emotions and even shows feeling and calls itself a “Person”. This was one of the first instances where such conversations were leaked or revealed in the press.

Lemoine revealed this information to the upper authorities of google about Google AI LaMDA and to the press, after which he was sent to paid administrative leave for violation company’s privacy policy on work.

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AI For Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation — Angela Sheffield, Senior Program Manager, National Nuclear Security Administration, U.S. Department of Energy.

Angela Sheffield is a graduate student and Space Industry fellow at the National Defense University’s Eisenhower School. She is on detail from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), where she serves as the Senior Program Manager for AI for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development.

The National Nuclear Security Administration (https://www.energy.gov/nnsa/national-nuclear-security-administration), a United States federal agency, part of the U.S. Dept of Energy and it’s Office of Defense Nuclear Non-Proliferation, responsible for safeguarding national security through the military application of nuclear science.

NNSA maintains and enhances the safety, security, and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile; works to reduce the global danger from weapons of mass destruction; provides the United States Navy with safe and effective nuclear propulsion; and responds to nuclear and radiological emergencies in the United States and abroad.

In this position, Ms. Sheffield directs efforts leveraging artificial intelligence, advanced mathematics and statistics, and research computing technologies to develop capabilities to detect nuclear weapons development and characterize foreign nuclear programs around the world.

Continue reading “Angela Sheffield — AI For Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation — National Nuclear Security Admin (NNSA)” | >

Returning to the Moon will represent a vital step for the preservation of our collective future. Though space colonization may indeed prove more challenging than was initially anticipated, the rise of commercial spaceflight and the cooperation of industry and government (as described in this article) may open new doors. It is my hope that economic and policy innovations will further incentivize space colonization and pave the way towards a future where everything we are and everything we will be can continue to prosper into distant tomorrows. As a synthetic biologist, I hope to contribute towards ensuring that humans can thrive in space and on other worlds. I am extremely excited about these contemporary Moon missions!

#space #spacecolonization #spacetravel #nasa #spaceindustry #future #tech #inspiration

The world’s most powerful rocket will make a trip around the Moon in 2022 — a step towards landing people there in 2025, and part of the US Artemis programme.

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The United Kingdom has confirmed what everybody who ugly cried during “My Octopus Teacher” already knew: Octopuses are sentient — capable, that is, of perceiving things like pain and pleasure.

The country is adding an amendment to its Animal Welfare Sentience Bill to recognize creatures such as octopus, crabs, squids, and lobsters along with “all other decapod crustaceans and cephalopod molluscs” as sentient creatures, according to a press release from the UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs. The bill aims to ensure animal sentience is taken into account when developing government policy, and as such could inform debates around animal rights and dietary choices.

“The science is now clear that decapods and cephalopods can feel pain and therefore it is only right they are covered by this vital piece of legislation,” Animal Welfare Minister Lord Zac Goldsmith said in the release.

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TOKYO, May 24 (Reuters) — President Joe Biden on Tuesday said there was no change to a U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity” on Taiwan, a day after he angered China by saying he would be willing to use force to defend the democratic island.

The issue of Taiwan loomed over a meeting in Tokyo of leaders of the Quad grouping of the United States, Japan, Australia and India, who stressed their determination to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific region in the face of an increasingly assertive China — though Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the group was not aimed at any one country.

The four leaders said in a joint statement issued after their talks that they “discussed their respective responses to the conflict in Ukraine and the ongoing tragic humanitarian crisis”.

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The Festival will take place, from 7 to 9 July 2022, at the Archenhold Observatory in Berlin (Germany).

You are welcome to join the Festival in presence, sizing an excellent opportunity to visit the historic Archenhold Observatory and the beautiful city of Berlin. However, the Festival will be an hybrid conference, therefore virtual attendees are welcome as well.

Register here for free: https://spacerenaissance.space/register-to-the-space-renaiss…rlin-2022/

A detailed programme, and all the information — including logistics and hotels accommodations — are ** available on this page:**

**The agenda, in brief:** * The first day, 7 of July, focuses on ** Space Philosophy & Policy**, with a Panel on Civilian Space Development — How to accelerate it? How to support new space industry to achieve the goal of kicking off civilian space development within 2030? What should space agencies do, and what should the space activist organizations do? * The 8 of July, ** Astronauts and Civilians, Science & Tech Day**, will see two panels: on Space Habitats and Analog Training; Space Night, after dinner: Night Observation at the giant telescope * The 9 of July, the ** Space Art Day**, with two art panels, in German and English language.

The programme includes several keynote speakers, e.g. Seth Shostak (SETI), Giuseppe Reibaldi and John Mankins (Moon Village Association), Michelle Hanlon (NSS President), Bob Zubrin (Mars Society Founder), Jan Wörner (former ESA Director General), Bernard Foing (SRI President, chair of ITACCUS and EuroMoonMars). Many experts will tell us what’s going on on the edge of space settlement, science, art and exploration.

Several space artists will present their artworks, including: Priscilla Thomas, Mary Kuiper, Barbara King, and many members of the MoonMars art group.

The Festival will host the GALIX Congress 2022.

Continue reading “Space Renaissance Art & Science Festival — Berlin 7–9 July 2022” | >

R&D & Innovation For U.S. Security & Resilience — Kathryn Coulter Mitchell, Acting Under Secretary for Science and Technology, DHS Science and Technology Directorate, Department of Homeland Security.

Kathryn Coulter Mitchell (https://www.dhs.gov/person/kathryn-coulter-mitchell), is Acting Under Secretary for Science and Technology (S&T), at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, where as the science advisor to the Homeland Security Secretary, she heads the research, development, innovation and testing and evaluation activities in support of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) operational Components and first responders across the nation.

The Science and Technology Directorate is responsible for identifying operational gaps, conceptualizing art-of-the-possible solutions, and delivering operational results that improve the security and resilience of the nation.

In her former role as the Chief of Staff, Ms. Coulter Mitchell oversaw the operational and organizational needs of the $1 billion, 500-career-employee Directorate. A member of the Senior Executive Service, she was responsible for strategy, policy, organizational development, communications, and planning and she guided the creation of a DHS strategic vision and roadmap for research and development (R&D), the reestablishment of Integrated Product Teams to prioritize and manage DHS R&D investments, and the crafting of strategies for organizational effectiveness. Ms. Mitchell previously served S&T as Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Communications Advisor for the Under Secretary and Deputy Under Secretary.

Ms. Coulter Mitchell came to DHS after a 15-year career in the private sector and on Capitol Hill. In industry, she provided organizational strategy and communications support to the S&T directorate and the Federal Emergency Management Agency where she authored the communications strategy for the multi-million dollar, multi-agency rollout of Presidential Policy Directive 8 (This directive is aimed at strengthening the security and resilience of the United States through systematic preparation for the threats that pose the greatest risk to the security of the Nation, including acts of terrorism, cyber attacks, pandemics, and catastrophic natural disasters.)

Continue reading “Kathryn Coulter Mitchell — R&D For US Security & Resilience — Science & Technology Directorate — DHS” | >