Tag: technology

AlphaFold found thousands of possible psychedelics. Will its predictions help drug discovery?

Researchers have used the protein-structure-prediction tool AlphaFold to identify1 hundreds of thousands of potential new psychedelic molecules — which could help to develop new kinds of antidepressant. The research shows, for the first time, that AlphaFold predictions — available at the touch of a button — can be just as useful for drug discovery as experimentally derived protein structures, which can take months, or even years, to determine.

The development is a boost for AlphaFold, the artificial-intelligence (AI) tool developed by DeepMind in London that has been a game changer in biology. The public AlphaFold database holds structure predictions for nearly every known protein. Protein structures of molecules implicated in disease are used in the pharmaceutical industry to identify and improve promising medicines. But some scientists had been starting to doubt whether AlphaFold’s predictions could stand in for gold standard experimental models in the hunt for new drugs.

“AlphaFold is an absolute revolution. If we have a good structure, we should be able to use it for drug design,” says Jens Carlsson, a computational chemist at the University of Uppsala in Sweden.

Keep reading

New British laser weapon in successful high power firing

During a trial at the MOD’s Hebrides Range, the DragonFire laser directed energy weapon (LDEW) system achieved the UK’s first high-power firing of a laser weapon against aerial targets.

The range of DragonFire is classified, but it is a line-of-sight weapon and can engage with any visible target.

  • First high-power firing of a laser weapon against aerial targets
  • Laser boasts pinpoint accuracy and low long-term costs

“DragonFire exploits UK technology to be able to deliver a high power laser over long ranges. The precision required is equivalent to hitting a £1 coin from a kilometre away. Laser-directed energy weapons can engage targets at the speed of light, and use an intense beam of light to cut through the target, leading to structural failure or more impactful results if the warhead is targeted.

Firing it for 10 seconds is the cost equivalent of using a regular heater for just an hour. Therefore, it has the potential to be a long-term low-cost alternative to certain tasks missiles currently carry out. The cost of operating the laser is typically less than £10 per shot.”

Keep reading

Miami Police Used Clearview AI Facial Recognition in Arrest of Homeless Man

Facial recognition technology is increasingly being deployed by police officers across the country, but the scope of its use has been hard to pin down.

In Miami, it’s used for cases big and exceedingly small, as one case Reason recently reviewed showed: Miami police used facial recognition technology to identify a homeless man who refused to give his name to an officer. That man was arrested, but prosecutors quickly dropped the case after determining the officer lacked probable cause for the arrest. 

The case was barely a blip in the daily churn of Miami’s criminal justice system, but it shows the spread of facial recognition technology and the use of retaliatory charges against those who annoy the police.

Lisa Femia, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which advocates for digital privacy rights, calls the case “a particularly egregious example of mission creep with facial recognition technology.”

“It’s often advertised as a way for law enforcement to solve the worst of the worst crimes,” Femia says. “And instead we have law enforcement here using it to harass the homeless.”

According to a police incident report, a man, who Reason is not identifying because he was ultimately not prosecuted, was sleeping on a bench in a parking garage at Miami International Airport on the morning of November 13, 2023, when he was approached by a Miami-Dade County police officer.

“While on routine patrol at the Miami International Airport I observed defendant sleeping on a bench in the Dolphin garage, covered with a blanket and unbagged personal items on airport luggage cart,” the officer wrote in his report. “The bench is provided for passengers waiting for vehicles to and from the airport. It is not designated for housing.”

The report notes that Miami-Dade police have been directed to address homelessness at the airport and that the officer initiated contact to see if the man had been previously issued a trespass warning.

The man didn’t have an ID, and he gave the officer a fake name and 2010 date of birth.

“Defendant was obviously not a 13-year-old juvenile,” the report says. “I provided defendant several opportunities to provide correct information and he refused.”

Under Florida law, police can demand identification from a pedestrian only when there is reasonable suspicion that they have committed a crime. For example, two Florida sheriff’s deputies were disciplined in 2022 after they arrested a legally blind man for refusing to show his ID.

This officer had other means at his disposal, though. “I identified defendant via facial recognition from Clearview, with assistance from C. Perez, analyst at the MDPD real time crime center,” the report says.

Keep reading

Oops: Failed U.S. Moon Lander Now Hurtling Back TOWARDS Earth

The NASA-backed Peregrine One moon lander is now hurtling back towards Earth after last week failing on its historic journey.

Astrobotic, which had been hoping to hoping to land the first American-made spacecraft on the Moon in more than 50 years, predicts its spacecraft will likely burn up in the atmosphere in the next few days, the BBC reports.

Experts had been working with NASA and other space companies to find the most safe and responsible way of ending Peregrine’s mission.

“The team is currently assessing options and we will update as soon as we are able,” the company noted in a social media post.

Keep reading

Bill Gates Hopes AI Can Reduce “Polarization,” Save “Democracy,” Ignores Censorship Implications

The notion that whoever controls and shapes AI could potentially wield significant influence over large swathes of society could be one of the most alarming and prominent over the next few years.

In a recent episode of “Unconfuse Me with Bill Gates,” Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, and tech billionaire Bill Gates controversially delved into the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool for maintaining democracy and promoting world peace.

The discussion was aired on January 11, 2024.

Read the transcript for the episode here.

The conversation explored the idea of using artificial intelligence as an instrument to foster unity in society, enhance global amity, and help overcome geopolitical polarization.

Microsoft, founded by Gates, and OpenAI, whose CEO Altman is currently working closely with Microsoft, are promoters of using AI to solve global issues.

Gates spoke excitedly on the topic: “I do think AI, in the best case, can help us with some hard problems…Including ‘polarization’ because potentially that breaks democracy and that would be a super bad thing.”

In addition to resolving polarization, the two heavyweights also discussed the notion of AI potentially acting as a peacemaking tool.

Keep reading

Elizabeth Warren’s Terrible Model for Tech Regulation

The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), which existed for about a century before being mercifully put out to pasture in 1995, is one of the best historical examples of how governmental attempts at regulating the economy can backfire.

Created with the stated goal of protecting consumers from the competitive interests of Gilded Age railroad barons, the ICC was quickly captured by the very special interests it sought to control, then helped entrench a railroad cartel. At the height of its powers, the ICC tried to limit the use of trucks for hauling freight (an effort that thankfully failed) and used its influence to have a critic of the railroad monopoly committed to an asylum.

Naturally, some senators see the ICC as the ideal model for a new agency aimed at regulating Big Tech. Bad ideas never seem to truly die in Washington.

While promoting their bipartisan bill to ramp up federal regulation of successful tech companies in The New York Times, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R–S.C.) and Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) pointed to the ICC as one model for what they aim to do. “It’s time to rein in Big Tech,” they argued, “and we can’t do it with a law that only nibbles around the edges of the problem.” Warren has also invoked the ICC in posts on X (formerly known as Twitter) and in public comments calling for tighter federal control over companies like Amazon and Facebook.

Indeed, their bill wouldn’t nibble. It would create a new federal commission to regulate online platforms. The Digital Consumer Protection Commission would have concurrent jurisdiction (which really means overlapping and duplicative mandates) with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Department of Justice. In the senators’ telling, this newfangled ICC would aim to “preserve innovation while minimizing harm presented by emerging industries.”

That’s far from the whole story of the original ICC.

Keep reading

DARPA’S MYSTERIOUS X-PLANE WILL REVOLUTIONIZE FLIGHT BY BREAKING THIS CENTURY-OLD AVIATION DESIGN PARADIGM

DARPA is preparing to revolutionize flight as it moves forward with the development of its experimental X-plane, which the agency says will upend a century of flight technology with an aircraft featuring no moving control surfaces.

The X-65, a technology demonstrator with a 30-foot wingspan weighing slightly more than 7000 pounds, is expected to be capable of reaching Mach 0.7.

The agency has been working with its partners at Aurora Flight Sciences, who were recently given the green light to construct a full-scale experimental aircraft that will demonstrate the company’s novel active flow control (AFC) actuators for its flight control system.

Utilizing an innovative design that controls the flow of air over an aircraft’s surface, the recent award granted to Aurora represents the third phase of DARPA’s Control of Revolutionary Aircraft with Novel Effectors (CRANE) program.

Keep reading

OPENAI QUIETLY DELETES BAN ON USING CHATGPT FOR “MILITARY AND WARFARE”

OPENAI THIS WEEK quietly deleted language expressly prohibiting the use of its technology for military purposes from its usage policy, which seeks to dictate how powerful and immensely popular tools like ChatGPT can be used.

Up until January 10, OpenAI’s “usage policies” pageOpens in a new tab included a ban on “activity that has high risk of physical harm, including,” specifically, “weapons development” and “military and warfare.” That plainly worded prohibition against military applications would seemingly rule out any official, and extremely lucrative, use by the Department of Defense or any other state military. The new policyOpens in a new tab retains an injunction not to “use our service to harm yourself or others” and gives “develop or use weapons” as an example, but the blanket ban on “military and warfare” use has vanished.

The unannounced redaction is part of a major rewrite of the policy page, which the company said was intended to make the document “clearer” and “more readable,” and which includes many other substantial language and formatting changes.

Keep reading

“Disinformation Doomsday Scenario”: AI-Powered Propaganda Is The Latest Threat To Humanity (That Must Be Censored)

The Trump-Russia hoax was one of the most notable disinformation operations in modern history. A major component of the hoax was the notion that Russia had influenced the 2016 US election through disinformation, and tricked the American public into electing Donald Trump.

In the fullness of time of course, it was revealed that the Clinton campaign, Obama administration, and their allies in corporate media had peddled fabricated information themselves. Yet, the threat of ‘disinformation’ has blossomed into an entire ecosystem of collaboration between governments and private think tanks which has been used to censor free speech around the globe. 

To that end, the World Economic Forum from has now declared “Disinformation” to be the world’s greatest threat according to their 2024 “Global Risks Report,” which will obviously require more control over free speech.

Keep reading