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Dec 12, 2021

Reddit-trained artificial intelligence warns researchers about… itself

Posted by in categories: ethics, habitats, robotics/AI

But wait, should we believe it?


An artificial intelligence warning AI researchers about the dangers of AI sounds like the setup of a delightful B movie, but truth is often stranger than fiction.

A professor and a fellow at the University of Oxford came face to face with that reality when they invited an AI to participate in a debate at the Oxford Union on, you guessed it, the ethics of AI. Specifically, as Dr. Alex Connock and Professor Andrew Stephen explain in the Conversation, the prompt was “This house believes that AI will never be ethical.” The AI, it seems, agreed.

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Dec 12, 2021

DeepMind debuts a massive language A.I. that beats GPT-3 on some tasks

Posted by in categories: quantum physics, robotics/AI

The company belatedly gets into the race to build bigger, better language models despite ethical concerns.


A team at Harvard has documented a new state of matter which could advance quantum technology.

Dec 12, 2021

Never before seen state of matter could advance quantum tech

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics

Physicists from Harvard University have documented a new state of matter which could significantly advance quantum technology, according to a new paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Science earlier this month.

The state of matter they found is called quantum spin liquid, which has special properties that produce long-range quantum entanglement — a phenomenon in which particles’ states are connected even when the particles are separated by distance.

Quantum spin liquid was first predicted by physicist Philip W. Anderson about 50 years ago, in 1973, but has never been observed in experiments.

Dec 12, 2021

3 overlooked factors may be why Mars lost its water

Posted by in category: space

Scientists know that Martian dust storms drive the planet’s ongoing dehydration, but just how the water gets to the upper atmosphere remains a mystery.

Dec 12, 2021

A vaccine to eliminate aged cells

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

Japanese researchers have demonstrated a vaccine to remove senescent cells in mice. These so-called ‘zombie cells’ are a key driver of the aging process.

Dec 12, 2021

Remember the Sony rootkit scandal? It was almost much worse

Posted by in category: futurism

That time Rootkitting for Dummies might as well have been in Microsoft’s Plus! Pack.

Dec 12, 2021

Clearview’s AI facial recog technology set to be patented

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Plus: DeepMind’s latest language model research and more.

Dec 12, 2021

Discovering Dark Matter: New Clue From Mysterious Clouds Circling Spinning Black Holes

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

Gravitational waves are cosmic ripples in the fabric of space and time that emanate from catastrophic events in space, like collisions of black holes and neutron stars — the collapsed cores of massive supergiant stars. Extremely sensitive gravitational-wave detectors on Earth, like the Advanced LIGO

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a large-scale physics experiment and observatory supported by the National Science Foundation and operated by Caltech and MIT. It’s designed to detect cosmic gravitational waves and to develop gravitational-wave observations as an astronomical tool. It’s multi-kilometer-scale gravitational wave detectors use laser interferometry to measure the minute ripples in space-time caused by passing gravitational waves. It consists of two widely separated interferometers within the United States—one in Hanford, Washington and the other in Livingston, Louisiana.

Dec 12, 2021

Six Hurricane-Faring Autonomous Drones to Collect Data in Gulf Stream Region

Posted by in categories: climatology, drones, robotics/AI, sustainability

The same Saildrones captured the first-ever video from inside a major hurricane from sea level in September.

Six autonomous Saildrones are taking off on a six-month journey to tackle some of Earth’s most challenging ocean conditions, in order to improve climate change and weather forecast computer models, reported CNN.

They will travel to the Gulf Stream throughout the winter months where they will collect data about the process by which oceans absorb carbon (carbon uptake). So far, the numbers on this type of activity have only been estimates produced by statistical methods that cannot, therefore, be relied upon.

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Dec 12, 2021

Samsung and IBM Could Break the Nanosheet Threshold in Chips With ‘Vertically Stacked Transistors’

Posted by in categories: computing, materials

This design can either double the performance of chips or reduce power use by 85%.

In May of 2021, we brought you a breakthrough in semiconductor materials that saw the creation of a chip that could push back the “end” of Moore’s Law and further widen the capability gap between China and U.S.-adjacent efforts in the field of 1-nanometer chips.

The breakthrough was accomplished in a joint effort, involving the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), National Taiwan University (NTU), and the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), which is the world’s largest contract manufacturer of advanced chips. At the core of the breakthrough was a process that employs semi-metal bismuth to allow for the manufacture of semiconductors below the 1-nanometer (nm) level.

Continue reading “Samsung and IBM Could Break the Nanosheet Threshold in Chips With ‘Vertically Stacked Transistors’” »