Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 2474

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.

Read more | >

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.

Read more | >

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:

Read more | >

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 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.

Read more | >

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.

Read more | >

The trial has revealed that Google was concerned about losing its monopoly to Spotlight, an in-house search engine made by Apple.

Google and Apple compete on several fronts – operating systems, email, app stores, cloud computing, and photo apps. While Google leads in the market share of its phone operating system, Apple boasts of a line of very cool hardware tech. But they remain partners in one key area, which is also currently in the eye of the storm.

Google pays Apple for its search engine to be the default selection on iPhones. Its parent company, Alphabet, pays the iPhone maker upwards of $20 billion annually as part of the deal. In 2016, Apple reportedly was presented with a lucrative billion-dollar offer by Microsoft to replace Google with Bing in its phones. But Apple didn’t budge.

Read more | >

The latest round of restrictions has left a huge blow to China’s AI aspirations, as per reports.

China’s tech firms are allegedly racing to secure Nvidia’s crucial graphics processing units (GPUs) after the latest embargo by the US on the components that support AI tech.

The latest round of restrictions has dealt a huge blow to China’s AI aspirations, leaving companies struggling to secure key components, according to a news report by South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Friday.

Read more | >

Still, experts caution that Chinese firms remain years behind in producing the lithography systems needed to make real progress.

China’s top memory chip maker, Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC), has achieved a “surprise” breakthrough in producing the “world’s most advanced” 3D NAND memory chip, which is used in consumer devices like laptops and smartphones, a report by TechInsights.

Breaking the US sanctions barrier

The report (via SCMP), published on Wednesday, said that YMTC’s memory chip was found in a solid-state drive (ZhiTai Ti600 1TB) launched in July without much fanfare. The chip shows that YMTC has not given up on developing cutting-edge technology despite facing US sanctions that have restricted its access to essential equipment and components.

Continue reading “How China’s YMTC defied US sanctions with a chip breakthrough” | >

Researchers demonstrate how Text-to-SQL systems can lead to cyber attacks.

A team of researchers from the University of Sheffield has demonstrated that popular artificial intelligence applications like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, among five others, can be manipulated to produce potentially harmful Structured Query Language (SQL) commands and can be exploited to attack computer systems in the real world.

The applications they used in their study included BAIDU-UNIT, ChatGPT, AI2SQL, AIHELPERBOT, Text2SQL, and ToolSKE.

Read more | >

No AI announcements expected at Apple event on Monday.

Apple is reportedly spending a billion dollars a year in a major push for artificial intelligence. Over the last year, the AI boom has seen many of its tech adversaries investing millions and billions of dollars into large language models (LLMs) and conversational platforms.

Although the iPhone maker is hush about what is cooking in its AI laboratory, Interesting Engineering reported earlier that the company may be looking to revamp Siri with generative AI capabilities. Much like how OpenAI’s ChatGPT (Plus and Enterprise) can now generate content from voice commands, iPhone users could use Siri similarly.

Read more | >