Lifeboat Foundation

A team of researchers give a spin to Tetris, and make observations as people play the game.

We live in a world run by machines. They make important decisions for us, like who to hire, who gets approved for a loan, or recommending user content on social media. Machines and computer programs have an increasing influence over our lives, now more than ever, with artificial intelligence (AI) making inroads in our lives in new ways. And this influence goes far beyond the person directly interacting with machines.

A Cornell University-led experiment in which two people play a modified version of Tetris revealed that players who get fewer turns perceived the other player as less likable, regardless of whether a person or an algorithm allocated the turns.

Continue reading “How is human behaviour impacted by an unfair AI? A game of Tetris reveals all” »

In a wide-ranging and historic congressional hearing Tuesday, the creator of the world’s most powerful artificial intelligence called on the government to regulate his industry.

“There should be limits on what a deployed model is capable of and then what it actually does,” declared Sam Altman, CEO and cofounder of OpenAI, referring to the underlying AI which powers such products as ChatGPT.

He called on Congress to establish a new agency to license large-scale AI efforts, create safety standards, and carry out independent audits to ensure compliance with safety thresholds.

Continue reading “OpenAI’s Sam Altman To Congress: Regulate Us, Please!” »

The theory of relativity works well when you want to explain cosmic-scale phenomena—such as the gravitational waves created when black holes collide. Quantum theory works well when describing particle-scale phenomena—such as the behavior of individual electrons in an atom. But combining the two in a completely satisfactory way has yet to be achieved. The search for a “quantum theory of gravity” is considered one of the significant unsolved tasks of science.

This is partly because the mathematics in this field is highly complicated. At the same time, it is tough to perform suitable experiments: One would have to create situations in which phenomena of both the relativity theory play an important role, for example, a spacetime curved by heavy masses, and at the same time, quantum effects become visible, for example the dual particle and wave nature of light.

At the TU Wien in Vienna, Austria, a new approach has now been developed for this purpose: A so-called “quantum simulator” is used to get to the bottom of such questions: Instead of directly investigating the system of interest (namely quantum particles in curved spacetime), one creates a “model system” from which one can then learn something about the system of actual interest by analogy. The researchers have now shown that this quantum simulator works excellently.

EPFL researchers have created novel protein binders that can seamlessly attach to important targets, including the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the official name of the virus strain that causes coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Previous to this name being adopted, it was commonly referred to as the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), the Wuhan coronavirus, or the Wuhan virus.

Vital funding supports’s exciting and lifechanging work on Total Artificial Heart for the first in human early feasibility studies.

It looks like a science experiment. And in some ways, it is. But Quantinuum’s new computer is commercially available and already has customers.

Researchers at TU Wien (Vienna) have developed a groundbreaking oxygen-ion battery, which boasts exceptional durability, eliminates the need for rare elements, and solves the problem of fire hazards.

Lithium-ion batteries, while commonplace in today’s world – powering everything from electric vehicles to smartphones – aren’t necessarily the optimal solution for all applications. Researchers at TU Wien have made a breakthrough by creating an oxygen-ion battery that offers several significant advantages. While it may not match the energy density of lithium-ion batteries, its storage capacity doesn’t diminish irreversibly over time, making it capable of an exceptionally long lifespan as it can be regenerated.

Moreover, the fabrication of oxygen-ion batteries doesn’t require scarce elements and involves non-combustible materials. The innovative battery concept has already led to a patent application, filed in collaboration with partners in Spain. These oxygen-ion batteries could provide an outstanding solution for large-scale energy storage systems, such as those required to hold electrical energy from renewable sources.

Times of 0–60 mph simply aren’t enough when you get into the peak-performance, hypercar segment of electric vehicles. The Rimac Nevera has already done an excellent job demonstrating that it’s one of the highest-performing vehicles on the planet, but any doubt should now be dissolved as the electric hypercar smashed through 23 performance records – in just a single day, a record in it of itself.

Since its founding in Croatia in 2009, Rimac Automobili has been developing some of the most exciting and technologically advanced electric hypercars. Rimac’s first EV, the Concept_One, was introduced in 2016 and is considered one of the world’s fastest production vehicles at the time, although its production consisted of a mere eight vehicles.

Continue reading “Rimac Nevera electric hypercar sets 23 records in single day, including fastest 0-249 mph time” »

Scientists have typically used precious metal catalysts, such as platinum to accelerate the separation of water into hydrogen and oxygen. The Curtin team found that by adding nickel and cobalt to cheaper catalysts, they could enhance their performance, making them worth exploring as a commercially viable alternative. The researchers published the results of their findings in the journal Nano Energy.