Artificial Intelligence
Jeff Bezos Desires to Construct an ‘Artificial General Engineer’Cade Metz | The Latest York Times ($)
“‘All societal wealth is driven by invention,’ [Bezos] said in an interview with The Latest York Times. ‘Six thousand years ago, anyone invented the plow, and all of us got wealthier. Then, much later, anyone invented the steam engine, and all of us got wealthier.’ …’What Prometheus seeks to do,’ he added, ‘is to supply a set of tools that dramatically accelerates that invention loop.'”
Computing
Why Orbital Data Centers Are Harder Than Silicon Valley ThinksAndrew Cavalier | IEEE Spectrum
“Proponents tout the various wonders of computing in space: abundant solar energy, free cooling, and freedom from Earth-based disturbances like earthquakes, floods, and protesters. But a sober have a look at the physics of space-based computing paints a way more nuanced picture.”
Biotechnology
Longevity Startup Doses First Human in Bid to Reverse Age-Related Sight LossIsabella Ward | Wired ($)
“It’s the first-ever cellular-rejuvenation therapy using this technology to receive FDA clearance to enter human clinical trials, and hence the primary likelihood to check whether the technology can ‘ameliorate human disease,’ in accordance with Life Biosciences cofounder David Sinclair, who can also be a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School.”
Future
AI Absolutism Is Breaking Our Brains. The Apocalyptic Future We’re Being Sold Isn’t InevitableSamantha Oltman | The Guardian
“Contradictory as they might be, all these arguments and anxieties fit neatly into the overarching message of the people constructing this technology: AI’s dominance is inevitable. Get on board otherwise you can be left behind. …[But] the version of AI that we’re being sold doesn’t should be the version we buy. Nor does it must be the story we consider in.”
Energy
Commonwealth Fusion Makes the Physics Case for Its 400 MW ReactorJohn Timmer | Ars Technica
“In response to our greatest models, developed using real-world data from multiple tokamaks, ARC should have the option to repeatedly trigger fusion reactions that release more energy than we put into them. But there’s ‘working’ from a physics perspective, and ‘working’ from a market perspective. …the funds are going to be the toughest risk to retire and should require having ARC operate for a long time before we’ve got a definitive answer.”
Artificial Intelligence
Google DeepMind Is Frightened About What Happens When Tens of millions of Agents Begin to InteractWill Douglas Heaven | MIT Technology Review ($)
“In response to Rohin Shah, who directs the corporate’s AGI safety and alignment research, the mass-market arrival of agents that may perform tasks without human oversight and follow instructions given to them by other agents creates a complete latest class of risk.”
Future
Meta Deletes Face-Recognition System From Its Smart Glasses App After Wired ReportDhruv Mehrotra | Wired ($)
“Someday after Wired revealed that Meta had quietly embedded an unreleased face-recognition system into an app installed on greater than 50 million phones, the corporate removed it, in accordance with a Wired evaluation of the most recent version’s code. …The version published the day of Wired’s report included several code libraries explicitly named for face recognition. Friday’s release includes none of them.”
Space
A Falcon 9 Booster Turns 5 Years Old—and Just Set a Remarkable Reuse RecordEric Berger | Ars Technica
“Since [SpaceX’s] Booster 1067 made its debut in June 2021, [ULA] has flown its workhorse Atlas V rocket a complete of twenty-two times and the Vulcan rocket 4 times, and the Delta IV Heavy vehicle made its final three flights. So within the time that this single Falcon 9 first stage has flown and landed 35 times, its competitor company has made 29 total launches. Put one other way, this rocket has put more mass into orbit than greater than two dozen expendable rockets over half a decade of effort.”
Artificial Intelligence
Why Apple’s Slow-And-Regular AI Bet Is Beginning to Look Pretty SmartLucas Ropek | TechCrunch
“In brief, Apple is spending less, making more, and now launched a set of AI features that—for a lot of iPhone users—will feel indistinguishable from the opposite AI applications already available to them through the App Store. If that doesn’t exactly count as ‘winning the AI race,’ it could be the smartest approach to run it.”
Future
Who Will Actually Thrive within the Hybrid AI-Human Work ForceStaff | The Latest York Times ($)
“The transformation that’s coming goes to happen on the planet because it is familiar to us today, and each single day will feel familiar. And there’ll be tiny, tiny changes along the margin. There’ll be tiny bits of automation along the margins. And 10, 15, 20 years later, we’ll look back and we’ll say, My god, every thing is different. But you’ll never notice it happening. That’s the best way it at all times goes.”