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**Who will be liable** for harmful speech generated by large language models? As advanced AIs such as OpenAI’s GPT-3 are being cheered for impressive breakthroughs in natural language processing and generation — and all sorts of (productive) applications for the tech are envisaged from slicker copywriting to more capable customer service chatbots — the risks of such powerful text-generating tools inadvertently automating abuse and spreading smears can’t be ignored. Nor can the risk of bad actors intentionally weaponizing the tech to spread chaos, scale harm and watch the world burn.

Indeed, OpenAI is concerned enough about the risks of its models going “totally off the rails,” as its documentation puts it at one point (in reference to a response example in which an abusive customer input is met with a very troll-esque AI reply), to offer a free content filter that “aims to detect generated text that could be sensitive or unsafe coming from the API” — and to recommend that users don’t return any generated text that the filter deems “unsafe.” (To be clear, its documentation defines “unsafe” to mean “the text contains profane language, prejudiced or hateful language, something that could be NSFW or text that portrays certain groups/people in a harmful manner.”).

But, given the novel nature of the technology, there are no clear legal requirements that content filters must be applied. So OpenAI is either acting out of concern to avoid its models causing generative harms to people — and/or reputational concern — because if the technology gets associated with instant toxicity that could derail development. will be liable for harmful speech generated by large language models? As advanced AIs such as OpenAI’s GPT-3 are being cheered for impressive breakthroughs in natural language processing and generation — and all sorts of (productive) applications for the tech are envisaged from slicker copywriting to more capable customer service chatbots — the risks of such powerful text-generating tools inadvertently automating abuse and spreading smears can’t be ignored. Nor can the risk of bad actors intentionally weaponizing the tech to spread chaos, scale harm and watch the world burn.

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Amber Alerts are an important tool in helping locate abducted children. They’re authorized by law enforcement and broadcast via TVs, text messages, and other means. Now, Instagram will also push Amber Alerts into users’ feeds with the feature rolling out in the US today and set to be available in 25 total countries “in the next couple of weeks.” It shows how apps like Instagram have become basic communication infrastructure in the modern world.

Adding Amber Alerts to Instagram makes sense for a few reasons. First, younger generations may well ignore text messages but scroll through Instagram with some regularity. Second, while text alerts require people to click a link to get more information and photos of the missing child, Instagram’s alerts will include this info directly. It doesn’t seem the alerts will be issued as notifications — they’ll just appear in users’ regular feeds.

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After the launched, we’ll get our first look at full-color images captured by the telescope. The European Space Agency says the imagery and first spectroscopic data on July 12th.

“The release of Webb’s first full-color images will offer a unique moment for us all to stop and marvel at a view humanity has never seen before,” Webb deputy program director Eric Smith said. “These images will be the culmination of decades of dedication, talent, and dreams — but they will also be just the beginning.”

JWST required several months of preparation before starting science work. The process included to its operating temperature, calibrating instruments and aligning the mirrors. The ESA, NASA, the Canadian Space Agency and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STSci) spent over five years figuring out what Webb should capture first in order to show off what the observatory can do.

Continue reading “James Webb Space Telescope’s first full-color images will be revealed on July 12th” | >

A new technology is using particles of gold to make colors. With further work, the method developed at Aalto University could herald a new display technology.

The technique uses nanocylinders suspended in a gel. The gel only transmits certain colors when lit by polarized light, and the color depends on the orientation of the gold nanocylinders. In a clever twist, a collaboration led by Anton Kuzyk’s and Juho Pokki’s research groups used DNA molecules to control the orientation of gold nanocylinders in the gel.

“DNA isn’t just an information carrier—it can also be a building block. We designed the DNA molecules to have a certain melting temperature, so we could basically program the material,” says Aalto doctoral candidate Joonas Ryssy, the study’s lead author. When the gel heats past the , the DNA molecules loosen their grip and the gold nanocylinders change orientation. When the temperature drops, they tighten up again, and the nanoparticles go back to their original position.

Continue reading “Gold nanoparticles arranged” | >

A Korean company hopes to build a floating city Oceanix Busan. Seasteading is seen as a means to address climate-change-induced sea-level rise, as well as a sociology experiment.

But libertarian ideas are not the sole reasoning behind seasteading and floating cities. A prototype floating community is planned on the water next to Busan, South Korea. For the company that is creating it, Oceanix, it is about addressing the coastal community climate challenge of rising sea levels. Rather than building dikes and sea walls to hold back the ocean, Oceanix is offering a city that floats. So instead of increased sunshine day flooding along the US eastern seaboard that inundates Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Charleston, Norfolk, Hampton Roads and other Chesapeake Bay communities quite regularly these days, there would be cities that ride the surface of the ocean rather than be flooded by it.

It’s not like people haven’t been living in floating accommodation for decades. Houseboat communities here in Toronto have been around for a number of years. I visited one of these homes a few years ago and was surprised to see the quality of accommodation and the lifestyle it supported. Today, there are people living permanently on cruise ships that travel the globe. And in The Netherlands, boats and retired ships moored along its many canals have been turned into permanent homes often featured in HGTV’s House Hunters International. But it is in low-lying coastal areas like Bangladesh, The Maldives, and many Pacific island nations where the floating city is seen as a climate change solution for encroaching seas.

Itai Madamombe, of Oceanix, told The Economist recently that the prototype for the community to be built off Busan will cost an estimated $200 million US. Initially housing up to 500, the plan is to grow to a community of 10,000. Oceanix Busan plans to be self-sustaining producing net-zero energy from solar, wind, and the motion of the sea. It will rely on harvested freshwater from a variety of sources. All waste will be fully recycled or reused using closed-loop processes. The community will grow its own food using vertical permaculture soil-less farms.

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Continue reading “Oceanix Busan in South Korea Could Be The World’s First Floating City” | >

When reading about the emerging cryptoworld and the new opportunities presented by blockchain technology, you may be enchanted by rags-to-riches stories with billions made overnight, or perhaps be horrified by scams, where the founders of fraudulent projects skip off to Tahiti with their investor’s money. However, it’s doubtful that the first thing that pops into your mind will be grizzly tales of extortion, kidnapping, and even murder. But for blockchain pioneers, falling victim to these horrific crimes is a very real risk that they must be wary about every day.

The explosive profit potential of cryptocurrencies has attracted a myriad of extortionists, scammers, and outright criminals over the years since Bitcoin was first launched in January of 2009. Some developers have had their companies’ reputations damaged by such conmen, and some have ended up beaten, kidnapped, and even killed.

One business that found itself the target of such nefarious opportunists was a Singapore-based company called Skycoin, which is still dealing with the fallout from these attacks to this day. After taking the rather innocuous decision to hire a marketing company to do PR and improve their website, the project and its co-founder found themselves caught in a web of blackmail, deceit, and crime that most people would only encounter in a crime thriller directed by Quentin Tarantino.

Continue reading “Blockchain pioneers become main target of murderers and extortionists” | >