Skip Navigation
Espiritdescali Espiritdescali @futurology.today
Posts 453
Comments 124
www.bbc.co.uk US tech giants announce AI plan worth up to $500bn

OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank join forces to build artificial intelligence infrastructure.

US tech giants announce AI plan worth up to $500bn
5

Digital driving licences to be introduced in the UK this year

www.bbc.co.uk Digital driving licences to be introduced this year

The government says technology should "make people's lives easier" but any system won't be mandatory.

Digital driving licences to be introduced this year
1
Randomized, controlled trial of students using GPT-4 as tutor in Nigeria. 6 weeks of after-school AI tutoring = 2 years of typical learning gains, outperforming 80% of other educational interventions.
  • Capitalism will fix this (bizarrely). Making AI more efficent (read more profitable) is on LOTS of peoples minds right now.

    Whether it's more efficent chips, better algorithms or whatever, rest assured, LOTS of effort is going into it.

    Our environment will still be destroyed, but it won't be AI that does it, just boring greed

  • Randomized, controlled trial of students using GPT-4 as tutor in Nigeria. 6 weeks of after-school AI tutoring = 2 years of typical learning gains, outperforming 80% of other educational interventions.
  • In the real world, it depends on if humans are available to do the tutoring. Even if human tutors are better than AI, AI is better than no tutor.

  • Artificial Intelligence: Plan for Gov to 'unleash AI' across UK revealed

    www.bbc.co.uk Artificial Intelligence: Plan to 'unleash AI' across UK revealed

    Leading tech firms are said to have committed £14bn towards the project, which could create more than 13,000 jobs.

    Artificial Intelligence: Plan to 'unleash AI' across UK revealed
    3
    www.salesforceben.com Salesforce Will Hire No More Software Engineers in 2025, Says Marc Benioff

    Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff announces no new software engineer hires – see how AI is shaping the company's future.

    Salesforce Will Hire No More Software Engineers in 2025, Says Marc Benioff
    6
    www.bbc.co.uk Nasa's Parker Solar Probe attempts closest ever approach to Sun

    The hope is the probe could help us to better understand how the Sun works.

    Nasa's Parker Solar Probe attempts closest ever approach to Sun
    1
    Hugging Face is open-sourcing the improved reasoning ability of OpenAI’s o1 model, that the latter expects to make money off.
  • Do these open source models have access to the same volume of training data that the commercial models have?

  • Private mission to moon to pave way for humanity's return to lunar surface
  • A private mission to the moon will launch next month to pave the way for humanity's return to the lunar surface.

    Ghost Riders in the Sky - the mission name chosen by US start-up Firefly Aerospace - will target a landing in the Sea of Crisis, a dark patch the size of Britain on the near-side of the moon.

    The Blue Ghost lunar lander will carry 10 scientific instruments and technology demonstrations to the surface as part of NASA's partnership with commercial operators.

    Jason Kim, chief executive officer of Firefly Aerospace, said the space agency had paid a fixed price of $101m (£80m) for the mission, a low cost only achievable with technology innovation.

    "We believe in a future of a very robust lunar economy," he said.

    "It is the gateway to other planets, like Mars. And so enabling the frequency of very affordable and high science-value missions is what private industry is doing with this first Blue Ghost mission."

    The spacecraft, which is the size of a large shed, will launch from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida in mid-January, or soon after, and take 45 days to reach the moon.

    It'll land autonomously on shock-absorbing feet and short legs to reduce the risk of it toppling over, a fate suffered by Intuitive Machine's Nova-C spacecraft in the south pole region of the moon last February.

    Mission will study lunar dust

    Several of its technology demonstrations are for dealing with regolith, or lunar dust.

    A 'PlanetVac' will vacuum up and analyse lunar samples and an electromagnetic dust shield will be tested to see if it can protect delicate instruments.

    Ryan Watkins, a NASA programme scientist, said: "The moon is quite a dusty area. As we design technologies for the lunar surface, regolith needs to be better understood.

    "Lunar dust can affect mechanical components and human health, so we need to know how to account for its effects."

    Recording a lunar sunset in high-definition

    Blue Ghost will remain operational on the surface for 14 days.

    One of its final tasks will be to record high-definition video of a lunar sunset.

    It should provide the first quality imagery of the lunar glow, a phenomenon caused by dust particles floating several centimetres above the surface.

    Mr Kim said the video would be a fitting tribute to the last man to walk on the moon, who sketched what he saw in the fading light.

    "We expect to capture a phenomenon seen and documented by Eugene Cernan during his final steps of Apollo 17, where he observed a glow as the lunar dust levitated on the lunar surface," he said.

  • news.sky.com Private mission to moon to pave way for humanity's return to lunar surface

    A private spacecraft the size of a large shed will launch from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida early next year and take 45 days to reach the moon.

    Private mission to moon to pave way for humanity's return to lunar surface
    1
    news.sky.com New test uses AI to detect breast cancer at earliest stage yet

    The new test works by shining a laser beam into the patient's blood plasma, then using AI to interpret the results - with incredibly high accuracy reported in the pilot.

    New test uses AI to detect breast cancer at earliest stage yet
    0
    Are there more than 25 General purpose technologies?
  • For those that don't want to click the X link:

    General purpose technologies are the closest thing we have to magic.

    Each has given us more with less - and propelled civilization forward. Check out this list of 24 over the last 10,000 years

    • Domestication of plants
    • Domestication of animals
    • Smelting of ore
    • Money
    • Wheel
    • Writing
    • Bronze
    • Iron
    • Water wheel
    • Three-masted sailing ship
    • Printing
    • Factory system
    • Steam Engine
    • Railways
    • Steamship
    • Internal combustion engine
    • Electricity
    • Automobile
    • Airplane
    • Mass production
    • Computer
    • Lean production
    • Internet
    • Biotechnology

    AND we have AI, the ultimate meta-technology...

    the real question is how many further general-purpose technologies it can unlock in turn.

  • Make some Predictions for 2025, that we can revisit in 12 months to see who is right.
  • Climate

    • 2024 hottest year on record (so far)
    • COP30 a failure
    • Large storms / floods destroy portion of a US city
    • Oil and Gas continues to expand

    AI / Tech

    • AI roll out continues and more and more businesses shed staff for AI
    • No sign of AGI
    • No significant roll out of AI powered robots other than in isolated cases

    Economy

    • Bitcoin hits $200k at some point in 2025
    • Global Inflation Down
    • Global Interest rates Down
    • Inequality continues to rise globally

    War

    • More conflict in middle east, potentially China joins fray somewhere
    • Stalemate in Ukraine, no formal end to war

    Medicine

    • Neuralink/BCI makes progress but nothing groundbreaking

    Energy

    • Solar / Wind continues to expand, prices drop further
    • Fusion 30 years away
  • A new discovery about early life on Earth has big implications for the search for life on exoplanets; it suggests microbial life may be very common in the Universe and/or widely seeded via Panspermia.
  • The problem with panspermia is that it doesn't solve the problem of how life started, it just moves the problem to a different planet/asteroid. We still don't understand what the initial impetus was

  • futurism.com Murdered Insurance CEO Had Deployed an AI to Automatically Deny Benefits for Sick People

    Before United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was murdered, a lawsuit filed against the firm revealed just how bad its claims-denying was.

    Murdered Insurance CEO Had Deployed an AI to Automatically Deny Benefits for Sick People
    58
    AGI Alignment – Cosmic vs Anthropocentric
  • One argument for gun ownership is that good people with guns can stop bad people with guns, or at least make them pause and think. This type of arms race argument is fairly prevalent in the US. I can imagine the same argument being made for AI: let’s just make more AGI’s, but friendly ones to fight off the bad ones!

    This type of argument ends very badly in practice though, as witnessed by gun crime in the US!

  • 1

    New findings from Sam Altman's basic-income study challenge one of the main arguments against the idea

    7
    www.gov.uk Diamonds are forever? World-first carbon-14 diamond battery made

    The world's first carbon-14 diamond has been produced with the potential to provide power for thousands of years.

    Diamonds are forever? World-first carbon-14 diamond battery made
    2
    ChatGPT’s $8 Trillion Birthday Gift to Big Tech: Two years in, generative AI’s value to the world is still unclear. But these charts show that it’s been a bonanza for the largest tech firms.
  • “I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes”

  • www.theguardian.com New powder that captures carbon could be ‘quantum leap’ for industry

    A ‘covalent organic framework’ can be used to capture carbon to store it or convert it for industrial use

    New powder that captures carbon could be ‘quantum leap’ for industry
    14

    Uranus and Neptune May Conceal Vast Oceans of Water

    2
    A Study Says Gray Hair May Be Reversible
  • Cosmetics industry is massive, people are willing to pay for their vanity.

  • Ozempic Could Crush the Junk Food Industry. But It Is Fighting Back.

    16
    16
    www.theguardian.com ‘An AI Fukushima is inevitable’: scientists discuss technology’s immense potential and dangers

    Experts are optimistic about energy and drug production breakthroughs but also fear its potential misuse

    ‘An AI Fukushima is inevitable’: scientists discuss technology’s immense potential and dangers
    3

    A Washington county shifted to a 4-day workweek. It could be the future of work | CNN Business

    2

    US Unveils Plan to Triple Nuclear Power By 2050 as Demand Soars

    9
    www.lavanguardia.com Spain is aging: 15% fewer children and 35% more people over 80 years old than ten years ago

    The Spanish population is now close to 49 million people due to the arrival of foreigners

    Spain is aging: 15% fewer children and 35% more people over 80 years old than ten years ago
    6
    www.nature.com World-first stem-cell treatment restores vision in people

    The treatment, given to four people with damaged corneas, seems safe but needs to be tested in larger trials.

    World-first stem-cell treatment restores vision in people
    1
    Climate change is contributing to drought in the American West even without rainfall deficits, scientists find
  • It still amazes me that Hurricane Helene hit Florida, Georgia and Carolina and those states still voted for a Climate Change Denier

  • Anthropic's latest advance with AI, where it can operate on-screen software, shows us how future AI can replace much of today's human knowledge work.
  • There is a tsunami coming in the workplace, you can already buy a humanoid robot for $16k (1), which is less than the cost of an employee. When these robots can become actually useful (instead of marketing material) businesses who use labour will not think twice about swapping over. What do we do when unemployment goes up to 25%, 50% etc

    (1) https://www.unitree.com/mobile/g1

  • Melting Arctic sea-ice could affect global ocean circulation, study warns
  • I’ve seen more and more concern about the AMOC slowdown. Wouldn’t be good if that goes away. Talking a change of -10c in Europe