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Jun 28, 2022

If the Ocean Continues to Warm, Fish May No Longer Be on the Menu

Posted by in categories: climatology, existential risks, sustainability

Climate change is already had a serious impact on global food production — from making food less nutritious to messing with the growing season of plants, to even pushing some crop species towards extinction. On top of that, the world’s oceans are already stressed by overfishing, with over 70 percent of the world’s fish stocks fully exploited, over-exploited, or depleted.

The combination of overuse and climate change could prove deadly for global food security. And by the time 2,300 rolls around, it will be too late to mitigate the impact of human activity on our food sources, both those on land and those under the sea.

Jun 28, 2022

Chinese Scientists Create System to Care For Embryos in Artificial Womb

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, robotics/AI

Parents of the future rejoice! Scientists in China have developed an AI nanny that they say could one day take care of human fetuses in a lab.

Researchers in Suzhou, China, claim to have created a system that can monitor and care for embryos as they grow into fetuses while growing inside an artificial womb, The South China Morning Post reports.

Jun 28, 2022

Chinese researchers build robot nanny for embryos in artificial womb

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, law, robotics/AI

Technology won’t be a problem for its future application, but legal and ethical concerns might, warns Beijing-based researcher.

Jun 28, 2022

As Crisis Deepens, Tesla Rescinds Job Offers to People Who’d Already Accepted Them

Posted by in categories: economics, Elon Musk, robotics/AI

After announcing at the beginning of the month that the company would be cutting 10 percent of its workforce due to CEO Elon Musks’s “bad feeling about the economy, Tesla’s job slash is in full swing. According to Insider, many newer employees — including workers who had not even begun their newly-accepted positions just yet — are bearing the brunt of the mass layoffs.

“Damn, talk about a gut punch,” wrote Iain Abshier, a brand-new Tesla recruiter, in a LinkedIn post last week. “Friday afternoon I was included in the Tesla layoffs after just two weeks of work.”

Continue reading “As Crisis Deepens, Tesla Rescinds Job Offers to People Who’d Already Accepted Them” »

Jun 28, 2022

Police in China Stalk Citizens With Surveillance That Predicts Future Crime

Posted by in categories: government, surveillance

Police in China are putting surveillance on the future with footage, data and patterns of residents and reporting troublemakers to the government.

Jun 28, 2022

Dyslexia Actually Grants Special Powers, Researchers Say

Posted by in categories: futurism, neuroscience

As much as 20 percent of the global population could actually be better at exploration and curiosity, according to a new study published this week.

A team of Cambridge scientists published research in the journal Frontiers of Psychology earlier today that raises the possibility that dyslexia, which affects an estimated one in five people worldwide, could actually help the human species adapt and ensure future success.

“The deficit-centered view of dyslexia isn’t telling the whole story,” lead author Helen Taylor said in a statement accompanying the paper. “This research proposes a new framework to help us better understand the cognitive strengths of people with dyslexia.”

Jun 28, 2022

Police Arrest Two for Plan to Harvest Child’s Organs

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

A Nigerian senator and his wife were arressted in the UK for trying to harvest organs from a child. Human organ harvest is common globally.

Jun 28, 2022

Google Engineer Says Lawyer Hired

Posted by in categories: physics, robotics/AI

Suspended Google engineer Blake Lemoine made some serious headlines earlier this month when he claimed that one of the company’s experimental AIs called LaMDA had achieved sentience — prompting the software giant to place him on administrative leave.

“If I didn’t know exactly what it was, which is this computer program we built recently, I’d think it was a seven-year-old, eight-year-old kid that happens to know physics,” he told the Washington Post at the time.

The subsequent news cycle swept up AI experts, philosophers, and Google itself into a fierce debate about the current and possible future capabilities of machine learning, other ethical concerns around the tech, and even the nature of consciousness and sentience. The general consensus, it’s worth noting, was that the AI is almost certainly not sentient.

Jun 28, 2022

AI Dreamed Up a Bizarre Nightmare Creature That Doesn’t Actually Exist… We Hope

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Straight from the depths of AI hell hails Crungus — or somewhere like that, because until a few days ago, nobody knew this thing existed.

Jun 28, 2022

Startup Says It’s Honing in on Simple Solution for Practical Fusion Power

Posted by in categories: nuclear energy, sustainability

Yet another startup says it’s nearing tests for a system that could once and for all prove the technology can actually generate more energy than it consumes, The New York Times reports.

Seattle-based startup Zap Energy says its approach to fusion energy — potentially an entirely green source of renewable energy — is far simpler and cheaper than other attempts.

But critics are crying foul, arguing that we’re merely stuck in yet another round of “fusion energy fever,” according to the report.