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Sep 1, 2024

AI Models Scaled Up 10,000x Are Possible by 2030, Report Says

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

“If pursued, we might see by the end of the decade advances in AI as drastic as the difference between the rudimentary text generation of GPT-2 in 2019 and the sophisticated problem-solving abilities of GPT-4 in 2023,” Epoch wrote in a recent research report detailing how likely it is this scenario is possible.

But modern AI already sucks in a significant amount of power, tens of thousands of advanced chips, and trillions of online examples. Meanwhile, the industry has endured chip shortages, and studies suggest it may run out of quality training data. Assuming companies continue to invest in AI scaling: Is growth at this rate even technically possible?

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Sep 1, 2024

Model Suggests Spewing Metal Nanorods into Mars’ Atmosphere could Warm the Planet by 30K

Posted by in categories: engineering, environmental, nanotechnology, space

A small team of engineers and geophysicists from Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Central Florida has found, via modeling, that creating millions of metal nanorods from material on the Martian surface and then blasting them into the atmosphere would be a more efficient way to heat the planet than generating greenhouse gases. Their paper is published in the journal Science Advances.

Science fiction writers have for many years envisioned a future when Mars is made habitable through terraforming techniques, allowing humans to survive without the need for special buildings and spacesuits. Recently, scientists have begun looking at the possibility, though most project ideas are far less ambitious.

Instead of completely transforming the planet, many are looking at simply warming it up a bit to make it more habitable. Most such ideas have centered on releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to capture more heat from the sun. Unfortunately, there are few ingredients on the Martian surface that could be used to create and release such gases.

Sep 1, 2024

Do Plastics Cause Autism? Here’s what the latest study really says

Posted by in categories: materials, neuroscience

A study out recently has prompted much media attention about the role of plastics in developing autism.

In particular, the study focused on exposure to a component of hard plastics—bisphenol A, or BPA—in the womb and the risk of boys developing this neurodevelopmental disorder.

Importantly, the study doesn’t show plastics containing BPA cause autism.

Sep 1, 2024

The universe had a secret life before the Big Bang, new study hints

Posted by in category: alien life

The secrets of black holes and dark matter could lie before the Big Bang, a new study of “bouncing” cosmology hints.

Sep 1, 2024

NIST publishes first set of ‘finalized’ post-quantum encryption standards

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, encryption, information science, policy, quantum physics

The three final algorithms, which have now been released, are ML-KEM, previously known as kyber; ML-DSA (formerly Dilithium); and SLH-DSA (SPHINCS+). NIST says it will release a draft standard for FALCON later this year. “These finalized standards include instructions for incorporating them into products and encryption systems,” says NIST mathematician Dustin Moody, who heads the PQC standardization project. “We encourage system administrators to start integrating them into their systems immediately.”

Duncan Jones, head of cybersecurity at the firm Quantinuum welcomes the development. “[It] represents a crucial first step towards protecting all our data against the threat of a future quantum computer that could decrypt traditionally secure communications,” he says. “On all fronts – from technology to global policy – advancements are causing experts to predict a faster timeline to reaching fault-tolerant quantum computers. The standardization of NIST’s algorithms is a critical milestone in that timeline.”

Sep 1, 2024

What Are the Causes of Human Progress?

Posted by in categories: economics, innovation

Summary: Human progress requires a culture of openness to change and innovation, which historically has been rare and resisted by established elites. Periods of remarkable achievement, like that seen in Enlightenment Europe, occurred when societies embraced new ideas and allowed for intellectual and economic freedom. The key to sustained progress lies in maintaining a culture of optimism and a politico-economic system that encourages innovation rather than suppressing it.

To make progress, we must do something differently from what we did yesterday, and we must do it faster, better, or with less effort. To accomplish that, we innovate, and we imitate. That takes a certain openness to surprises, and that openness is rare. It is difficult to come up with something that never existed. It’s also dangerous, since most innovations fail.

If you live close to subsistence level, you don’t have a margin for error. So, if someone wants to hunt in a new way or experiment with a new crop, it is not necessarily popular. There is a reason why most historical societies that came up with a way of sustaining themselves tried to stick to that recipe and considered innovators troublemakers.

Sep 1, 2024

62-Year Old Dave Pascoe: Slowing Aging Inside And Out

Posted by in categories: life extension, media & arts

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

Sep 1, 2024

California’s “AI Safety” Bill Will Have Global Effects

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

The recently passed bill will impact most large AI firms in the world.

Sep 1, 2024

First-ever higher-order topological quantum magnet demonstrated

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics

Topological quantum magnets are advanced materials that exhibit quantum behavior. Additionally, the magnetic spins of their particles are arranged in a way that creates stable and robust topological states.

These topological states are resistant to any external disturbances. Additionally, the spins in these materials can be entangled. This means they are deeply connected on a quantum level, and therefore don’t easily lose their quantum properties.

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Sep 1, 2024

A bio-inspired vision sensor that can detect spectrally distinctive features

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, transportation

The ability to detect objects in settings with unfavorable lighting, for example at night, in shadowed locations or in foggy conditions, could greatly improve the reliability of autonomous vehicles and mobile robotic systems. Most widely employed computer vision methods, however, have been found to perform under poor lighting.

Researchers at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University recently introduced a new bio-inspired vision sensor that can adapt to the spectral features of the environments it captures, thus successfully detecting objects in a wider range of lighting conditions. This newly developed sensor, introduced in a paper published in Nature Electronics, is based on an array of photodiodes arranged back-to-back.

“In a previous paper in Nature Electronics, we presented a simple in-sensor light intensity adaptation approach to improve the recognition accuracy of machine vision systems,” Bangsen Ouyang, co-author of the paper, told Tech Xplore.

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