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Mar 1, 2023

President Joe Biden’s $39 billion semiconductor project is open for business

Posted by in category: computing

The Commerce Department opened up its application process for companies vying for a share of chip funding to boost US competitiveness with China.

The Biden administration launched its massive effort to outcompete China in semiconductor manufacturing Tuesday, offering $39 billion in funding incentives for companies seeking to build manufacturing plants in the US.

Authorized by the CHIPS and Science Act last year, the Commerce Department opened the application process Tuesday for companies jockeying for a share of the funding.

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Mar 1, 2023

OpenAI debuts Whisper API for speech-to-text transcription and translation

Posted by in categories: internet, robotics/AI

To coincide with the rollout of the ChatGPT API, OpenAI today launched the Whisper API, a hosted version of the open source Whisper speech-to-text model that the company released in September.

Priced at $0.006 per minute, Whisper is an automatic speech recognition system that OpenAI claims enables “robust” transcription in multiple languages as well as translation from those languages into English. It takes files in a variety of formats, including M4A, MP3, MP4, MPEG, MPGA, WAV and WEBM.

Countless organizations have developed highly capable speech recognition systems, which sit at the core of software and services from tech giants like Google, Amazon and Meta. But what makes Whisper different is that it was trained on 680,000 hours of multilingual and “multitask” data collected from the web, according to OpenAI president and chairman Greg Brockman, which lead to improved recognition of unique accents, background noise and technical jargon.

Mar 1, 2023

OpenAI launches an API for ChatGPT, plus dedicated capacity for enterprise customers

Posted by in categories: business, robotics/AI

To call ChatGPT, the free text-generating AI developed by San Francisco-based startup OpenAI, a hit is a massive understatement.

As of December, ChatGPT had an estimated more than 100 million monthly active users. It’s attracted major media attention and spawned countless memes on social media. It’s been used to write hundreds of e-books in Amazon’s Kindle store. And it’s credited with co-authoring at least one scientific paper.

But OpenAI, being a business — albeit a capped-profit one — had to monetize ChatGPT somehow, lest investors get antsy. It took a step toward this with the launch of a premium service, ChatGPT Plus, in February. And it made a bigger move today, introducing an API that’ll allow any business to build ChatGPT tech into their apps, websites, products and services.

Mar 1, 2023

Addressing criticism, OpenAI will no longer use customer data to train its models

Posted by in categories: law, policy, robotics/AI

As the ChatGPT and Whisper APIs launch this morning, OpenAI is changing the terms of its API developer policy, aiming to address developer — and user — criticism.

Starting today, OpenAI says that it won’t use any data submitted through its API for “service improvements,” including AI model training, unless a customer or organization opts in. In addition, the company is implementing a 30-day data retention policy for API users with options for stricter retention “depending on user needs,” and simplifying its terms and data ownership to make it clear that users own the input and output of the models.

Greg Brockman, the president and chairman of OpenAI, asserts that some of these changes aren’t changes necessarily — it’s always been the case that OpenAI API users own input and output data, whether text, images or otherwise. But the emerging legal challenges around generative AI and customer feedback prompted a rewriting of the terms of service, he says.

Mar 1, 2023

Chainlink’s new platform lets web3 projects connect to Web 2.0 systems like AWS and Meta

Posted by in category: futurism

Chainlink, a web3 services platform, is launching a self-service, serverless platform to help developers connect their decentralized applications (dApps) or smart contracts to any Web 2.0 API, the company exclusively told TechCrunch.

The new platform, Chainlink Functions, also lets builders run customizable computations on Web 2.0 APIs within minutes through its network, Kemal El Moujahid, chief product officer at Chainlink Labs, told TechCrunch.

“Our goal is to enable developers to combine the best of web3 smart contracts with the power of Web 2.0 APIs,” El Moujahid said. “What this creates is a massive opportunity to build apps that combine the best of smart contracts and Web 2.0.”

Mar 1, 2023

Imagination makes us human — this unique ability to envision what doesn’t exist has a long evolutionary history

Posted by in categories: evolution, neuroscience

You can easily picture yourself riding a bicycle across the sky even though that’s not something that can actually happen. You can envision yourself doing something you’ve never done before – like water skiing – and maybe even imagine a better way to do it than anyone else.

Imagination involves creating a mental image of something that is not present for your senses to detect, or even something that isn’t out there in reality somewhere. Imagination is one of the key abilities that make us human. But where did it come from?

I’m a neuroscientist who studies how children acquire imagination. I’m especially interested in the neurological mechanisms of imagination. Once we identify what brain structures and connections are necessary to mentally construct new objects and scenes, scientists like me can look back over the course of evolution to see when these brain areas emerged – and potentially gave birth to the first kinds of imagination.

Mar 1, 2023

A Human Family Still Walks on All Fours, Suggesting Backwards Evolution

Posted by in category: evolution

Some scientists offer another explanation.

Mar 1, 2023

AGI 22 Opening Message | Ben Goertzel — Open Ended Motivations for AGI

Posted by in categories: blockchains, information science, robotics/AI, singularity

The opening keynote for the AGI-22 conference by Dr. Ben Goertzel, titled “Open-ended Motivations for AGI”, recorded on August 20th, 2022.

SingularityNET is a decentralized marketplace for artificial intelligence. We aim to create the world’s global brain with a full-stack AI solution powered by a decentralized protocol.

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Mar 1, 2023

March 2023 Skywatching Calendar: Worm Moon and 4 More Celestial Events You Can’t Miss

Posted by in category: space

Two bright planets meet, a stunning star appears, and the Worm Moon rises.


If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, you’re probably starting to see the first signs of spring. March marks the official change of seasons, with spring beginning at the vernal equinox in just a few weeks.

But before we can officially say goodbye to winter, there are a few exciting events happening in the night sky that you don’t want to miss. A stunning conjunction, the return of a bright star, and the Worm Moon will all make an appearance soon.

Continue reading “March 2023 Skywatching Calendar: Worm Moon and 4 More Celestial Events You Can’t Miss” »

Mar 1, 2023

Japan’s new supercomputer will forecast heavy rains 6 hours in advance

Posted by in categories: climatology, supercomputing, sustainability

The new supercomputer system can predict the occurrence of linear rainbands, which are clouds that trigger heavy rain, leading to natural disasters.

Trust Japan to get a supercomputer to predict heavy rain and other natural disasters like landslides and flooding.

Japan has always had to deal with natural disasters as the island is located along an area where several tectonic plates meet. The country is highly vulnerable to natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and natural disasters. These have only been exacerbated due to climate change.