Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Blog – Page 8849

This is the first Russian x-risks newsletter, which will present news about Russia and global catastrophic risks from the last 3 months.

Given the combination of high technological capabilities, poor management, high risk tolerance and attempts to catch up with West and China in the military sphere, Russia is prone to technological catastrophes. It has a 10 times higher level of aviation catastrophes and car accidents than developed countries.

Thus it seems possible that a future global catastrophe may be somehow connected with Russia. However, most of the work in global catastrophic and existential risk (x-risks) prevention and policy efforts are happening in the West, especially in US, UK and Sweden. Even the best policies adopted by the governments of these countries may not help if a catastrophe occurs in another country or countries.

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Computer vision is one of the most popular applications of artificial intelligence. Image classification, object detection and object segmentation are some of the use cases of computer vision-based AI. These techniques are used in a variety of consumer and industrial scenarios. From face recognition-based user authentication to inventory tracking in warehouses to vehicle detection on roads, computer vision is becoming an integral part of next-generation applications.

Computer vision uses advanced neural networks and deep learning algorithms such as Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), Single Shot Multibox Detector (SSD) and Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN). Applying these algorithms requires a thorough understanding of neural network architecture, advanced mathematics and image processing techniques. For an average ML developer, CNN remains to be a complex branch of AI.

Apart from the knowledge and understanding of algorithms, CNNs demand high end, expensive infrastructure for training the models, which is out of reach for most of the developers.

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Researchers from Chalmers University of Technology and Politecnico di Milano have identified a crucial new aspect of charge density modulations in cuprate high critical temperature superconductors. They have identified a new electron wave which could help reveal some of the mysteries about superconducting materials. The findings are published in the journal Science.

High critical temperature superconductors have a variable charge density, meaning that their electrical charge is unevenly distributed. This partly results from what are known as ‘charge density waves’, which were discovered a few years ago. But these have only been observed to exist sporadically, under certain conditions. Therefore, they were not believed to be a contributing factor to the materials’ superconducting properties.

What the researchers have now discovered, however, is an additional aspect to the variable charge density, which they term “charge density fluctuations”. These have been identified as an additional charge modulation, collective and with a shorter correlation length. They are very pervasive, meaning that compared to the conventional charge density waves, they are present at a much greater range of temperatures, up to room temperature and beyond, and at different levels of oxygen doping.

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The second half of humanity is joining the internet. People in countries like India will change the internet, and it will change them. Read more from The Economist here: https://econ.st/2zVWeQQ

Click here to subscribe to The Economist on YouTube: https://econ.st/2xvTKdy

L.O. Two simple letters that marked one of the biggest changes in human history. In 1969 programmers were trying to type “login”.

50 years later and half the world is now online. But that half is primarily from the rich world. How will the second half of humanity coming online change the internet and how will the internet change them?

India’s internet penetration was pretty low until very recently with the launch of a new mobile network called Reliance Jio, with incredibly cheap phones and incredibly cheap data prices. Reliance Jio launched aggressively in 2016 offering subsidised handsets and free data to hook people in. India went from being a relatively expensive place to consume data to being the cheapest in the world. Prices crashed by 94%

Continue reading “The internet’s second revolution | The Economist” | >