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One of the most dreaded effects of the bite of the brown recluse spider (Loxosceles spp) is the appearance of a necrotic skin lesion, but a clinical study by Brazilian researchers recently reported in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases shows that the problem can be solved by administering antivenom, especially if this is done within 48 hours of the incident.

An antivenom produced by Butantan Institute, an arm of the São Paulo State Department of Health, was used in the study. As the authors of the paper explain, there is no consensus regarding the to avoid necrosis and ulceration in cases of brown recluse spider bites.

A 2009 study involving rabbits showed that necrotic lesions were approximately 30% smaller even when the antivenom was administered 48 hours after the animals were bitten.

If you watched the debate live, you know that, at the very end, I wanted to reply to a point made by Susan but couldn’t, since we ran out of time. The goal of this essay is to put my reply on the record in writing, so to take it out of my system. Before I do that, however, I need to give some context to those who didn’t watch the debate live and don’t have a subscription to the IAI to watch it before reading this essay. If you did watch the debate, you can skip ahead to the section ‘My missing reply.

Context

In a nutshell, my position is that we have no reason to believe that silicon computers will ever become conscious. I cannot refute the hypothesis categorically, but then again, I cannot categorically refute the hypothesis of the Flying Spaghetti Monster either, as the latter is logically coherent. Appeals to logical coherence mean as little in the conscious AI debate as they do in the Flying Spaghetti Monster context. The important point is not what is logically coherent or what can be categorically refuted, but what hypothesis we have good reasons to entertain.

The AI company has earlier created something similar earlier, they have in the past used AI-generated form letters and chatbots to help secure and recovers people’s fund for onboarding wifi that failed to work.

Many people have reacted to this new innovation citing that it may be injurious to lawyers’ legal business, particularly lawyers who have no knowledge about artificial intelligence.

Introducing the 15 finalist teams who are developing physical avatar systems to make human telepresence and interaction possible across the globe. From performing life changing operations, caretaking, disaster relief, or simply bridging the distance for social connection, these robotic avatars will allow us to expand our physical reach and evolve the way we communicate and interact remotely. Learn more about next phase of the $10M ANA Avatar XPRIZE https://www.xprize.org/prizes/avatar/articles/ana-avatar-xpr…-finalists.

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