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Sep 4, 2023

Nondestructive Mind Uploading and the Stream of Consciousness

Posted by in category: neuroscience

I’ve released my latest paper. Enjoy:

Abstract.


A common interpretation of wakeful, nondestructive mind uploading is that the person with the postoperative original body exclusively persists the preoperative identity and that the person with the upload’s body is some sort of identity copy. A frequent argument supporting this claim is that the preoperative person’s stream of consciousness attaches exclusively to the postoperative person with the original body. By implication, the person with the upload’s body spawns a new stream of consciousness, implying copy identity status. I argue that this is not the best metaphysical model of what happens in nondestructive uploading in the context of a stream of consciousness interpretation, and defend an alternative model which has generally received little attention in the existing literature: the branching identity model.

Sep 4, 2023

How virtual reality is changing medical care

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, virtual reality

From training medical students to helping surgeons perform operations using the latest tech, virtual reality (VR) is pushing the boundaries in medical care ever further, with the help of IEC Standards.

Sep 4, 2023

North Korean malicious package targets Windows

Posted by in category: cybercrime/malcode

A malicious campaign targeting MacOS, Linux, and Windows systems has been attributed to the North Korean threat group Lazarus. Cybersecurity researchers at ReversingLabs made the disclosure after tracking VMConnect for about a month.

ReversingLabs first spotted the VMConnect campaign in early August. Cybersecurity researcher and blogger Karlo Zanki described it as consisting of two dozen “malicious Python packages” posted on the openly accessible PyPI software repository.

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Sep 4, 2023

Transformers Revolutionized AI. What Will Replace Them?

Posted by in categories: biological, robotics/AI

If modern artificial intelligence has a founding document, a sacred text, it is Google’s 2017 research paper “Attention Is All You Need.” This paper introduced a new deep learning architecture known as the transformer, which has gone on to revolutionize the field of AI over the past half-decade.

The generative AI mania currently taking the world by storm can be traced directly to the invention of the transformer. Every major AI model and product in the headlines today—ChatGPT, GPT-4, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, GitHub Copilot, and so on—is built using transformers.

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Sep 4, 2023

Racially biased AI can lead to false arrests, warns expert

Posted by in categories: law, robotics/AI

Racially biased artificial intelligence (AI) is not only misleading, it can be right down detrimental, destroying people’s lives. This is a warning University of Alberta Faculty of Law assistant professor Dr. Gideon Christian issued in a press release by the institution.

Christian is most notably the recipient of a $50,000 Office of the Privacy Commissioner Contributions Program grant for a research project called Mitigating Race, Gender and Privacy Impacts of AI Facial Recognition Technology. The initiative seeks to study race issues in AI-based facial recognition technology in Canada. Christian is considered an expert on AI and the law.

“There is this false notion that technology unlike humans is not biased. That’s not accurate,” said Christian, PhD.

Sep 4, 2023

Space research says you shouldn’t use your phone before sleep

Posted by in categories: mobile phones, space

Two new sleep studies on the International Space Station are helping astronauts and folks here on earth get a better night’s rest.

“Have you ever been told not to look at your phone before bed? This is because the blue light affects your Circadian rhythm — your natural response to changes of daylight,” reads a European Space Agency (ESA) X post from Friday.


Two studies: Circadian light and sleep in orbit

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Sep 4, 2023

Physicists observe enigmatic ‘Alice Rings’ for the first time

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics

For the first time, physicists from Finland and the United States have observed a special kind of magnetic monopole called an “Alice Ring.”

A team of researchers from the United States and Finland have observed enigmatic “Alice Rings” in super cold gas for the first time. A strange kind of circular magnetic monopoles, “Alice Rings” are a kind of quantum phenomenon that has, until now, only existed in theory. Various forces and particles can arise from the quantum machinery, theoretically including monopoles.

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Sep 4, 2023

Researchers make major dissipative Kerr soliton breakthrough

Posted by in categories: computing, innovation

New research may lead to highly precise, power-efficient light measurement tools, driving advancements in various technology fields.

Researchers have discovered a way to improve optical frequency combs to measure light waves with much higher precision than previously accomplished. This could lead to the development and improvement of devices that require such precision, like atomic clocks. The researchers showed that dissipative Kerr solitons (DKSs) can create chip-based optical frequency combs with enough output power for use in optical atomic clocks and other practical applications.

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Sep 4, 2023

ISRO puts Chandrayaan-3 rover in sleep mode to survive lunar night

Posted by in category: space

The lander and the rover, which landed on the Moon on August 23, were designed to operate for only one lunar day.

As the lunar day draws to a close, ISRO has decided to put its Chandrayaan-3 rover Pragyan in sleep mode to conserve its battery and protect it from the extreme cold of the lunar night. The rover, which has completed its assigned tasks, is now parked safely and has transmitted the data collected by its payloads to the lander, which in turn relays it to Earth.


Credits: ISRO/twitter.

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Sep 4, 2023

MIT’s next-gen gravitational-wave detector will replace LIGO

Posted by in category: futurism

Angela Nguyen, Virginia Kitchen, Eddie Anaya, California State University Fullerton / Cosmic Explorer via MIT news.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently unveiled its plans to build the next-generation gravitational-wave detector that aims to pick up ripples in space-time from the early universe.