Lifeboat Foundation

OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, spent a good part of the summer on a weeks-long outreach tour, glad-handing politicians and speaking to packed auditoriums around the world. But Sutskever is much less of a public figure, and he doesn’t give a lot of interviews.

He is deliberate and methodical when he talks. There are long pauses when he thinks about what he wants to say and how to say it, turning questions over like puzzles he needs to solve. He does not seem interested in talking about himself. “I lead a very simple life,” he says. “I go to work; then I go home. I don’t do much else. There are a lot of social activities one could engage in, lots of events one could go to. Which I don’t.”

But when we talk about AI, and the epochal risks and rewards he sees down the line, vistas open up: “It’s going to be monumental, earth-shattering. There will be a before and an after.”

A new study published in Nature Communications delves into the manipulation of atomic-scale spin transitions using an external voltage, shedding light on the practical implementation of spin control at the nanoscale for quantum computing applications.

Spin transitions at the atomic scale involve changes in the orientation of an atom’s intrinsic angular momentum or spin. In the atomic context, spin transitions are typically associated with electron behavior.

In this study, the researchers focused on using electric fields to control the spin transitions. The foundation of their research was serendipitous and driven by curiosity.

In a new collaboration, two research groups, one led by Francesca Ferlaino and one by Markus Greiner, have joined force to develop an advanced quantum gas microscope for magnetic quantum matter. This state-of-the-art instrument reveals intricate dipolar quantum phases shaped by the interactions as reported in Nature.

Magnetic atoms are central to Ferlaino’s research on unexplored quantum matter. At both the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Department of Experimental Physics at the University of Innsbruck, the experimental physicist and her team achieved the first Bose-Einstein condensate of erbium in 2012. In 2019, she led one of the teams observing for the first time supersolid states in ultracold quantum gases of magnetic atoms.

At Harvard University, German experimental physicist Markus Greiner is the pioneer of optical techniques allowing for the direct observation of individual atoms. Using high-resolution microscopy, the Harvard team has unveiled many exotic phenomena in strongly correlated ultracold atoms, as anti-ferromagnetic phases in 2017.

Acoustic resonators, found in devices like smartphones and Wi-Fi systems, degrade over time with no easy way to monitor this degradation. Researchers from Harvard SEAS and Purdue University have now developed a method using atomic vacancies in silicon carbide to measure the stability of these resonators and even manipulate quantum states, potentially benefiting accelerometers, gyroscopes, clocks, and quantum networking.

Acoustic resonators are everywhere. In fact, there is a good chance you’re holding one in your hand right now. Most smartphones today use bulk acoustic resonators as radio frequency filters to filter out noise that could degrade a signal. These filters are also used in most Wi-Fi and GPS

GPS, or Global Positioning System, is a satellite-based navigation system that provides location and time information anywhere on or near the Earth’s surface. It consists of a network of satellites, ground control stations, and GPS receivers, which are found in a variety of devices such as smartphones, cars, and aircraft. GPS is used for a wide range of applications including navigation, mapping, tracking, and timing, and has an accuracy of about 3 meters (10 feet) in most conditions.

Having more pixels could advance everything from biomedical imaging to astronomical observations.

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and their colleagues have built a superconducting camera containing 400,000 pixels — 400 times more than any other device of its type.

Superconducting cameras allow scientists to capture very weak light signals, whether from distant objects in space or parts of the human brain. Having more pixels could open up many new applications in science and biomedical research.

Physicists, building on Lev Landau’s theory of quasiparticles, used ultracold quantum gases to simulate electron behavior in solids. Their recent experiment revealed that these quasiparticles can have both attractive and repulsive interactions, underscoring the significance of quantum statistics.

An electron moving through a solid generates a polarization in its environment due to its electric charge. In his theoretical considerations, the Russian physicist Lev Landau extended the description of such particles by their interaction with the environment and spoke of quasiparticles. More than ten years ago, the team led by Rudolf Grimm at the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQQOI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) and the Department of Experimental Physics of the University of Innsbruck succeeded in generating such quasiparticles for both attractive and repulsive interactions with the environment.

For this purpose, the scientists use an ultracold quantum gas consisting of lithium and potassium atoms in a vacuum chamber. With the help of magnetic fields, they control the interactions between the particles, and by means of radio-frequency pulses push the potassium atoms into a state in which they attract or repel the lithium atoms surrounding them. In this way, the researchers simulate a complex state similar to the one produced in the solid state by a free electron.

Summary: AI’s remarkable abilities, like those seen in ChatGPT, often seem conscious due to their human-like interactions. Yet, researchers suggest AI systems lack the intricacies of human consciousness. They argue that these systems don’t possess the embodied experiences or the neural mechanisms humans have. Therefore, equating AI’s abilities to genuine consciousness might be an oversimplification.

Key Facts:

Acoustic resonators are everywhere. In fact, there is a good chance you’re holding one in your hand right now. Most smart phones today use bulk acoustic resonators as radio frequency filters to filter out noise that could degrade a signal. These filters are also used in most Wi-Fi and GPS systems.

Acoustic resonators are more stable than their electrical counterparts, but they can degrade over time. There is currently no easy way to actively monitor and analyze the degradation of the material quality of these widely used devices.

Now, researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), in collaboration with researchers at the OxideMEMS Lab at Purdue University, have developed a system that uses atomic vacancies in silicon carbide to measure the stability and quality of acoustic resonators. What’s more, these vacancies could also be used for acoustically-controlled quantum information processing, providing a new way to manipulate quantum states embedded in this commonly-used material.

AI has exploded onto the scene in recent years, bringing both promise and peril. Systems like ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion showcase the tremendous potential of AI to enhance productivity and creativity. Yet they also reveal a dark reality: the algorithms often reflect the same systemic prejudices and societal biases present in their training data.

While the corporate world has quickly capitalized on integrating generative AI systems, many experts urge caution, considering the critical flaws in how AI represents diversity. Whether it’s text generators reinforcing stereotypes or facial recognition exhibiting racial bias, the ethical challenges cannot be ignored.

From generating text that furthers stereotypes to producing discriminatory facial recognition results, biased AI poses ethical and social challenges.

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