Tag: technology

For Its Size, This ‘Ultrafast’ Small-Scale Soft Robot Is Faster than ‘Most Animals’

Small-scale robots—which can range in size from the millimeter scale to the nanoscale—continue to develop more and more degrees of freedom. And cargo delivery methods. One new small-scale “ultrafast” bot developed by researchers at Johannes Kepler University in Austria adds a helping of speed to the mix. In fact, for its size, the bendy bipedal-ish robot is faster than “most animals.”

“High-speed locomotion is an essential survival strategy for animals, allowing [the inhabitation of] harsh and unpredictable environments,” the researchers write in a study published in Nature Communications outlining their ultrafast robots. “Bio-inspired soft robots equally benefit from versatile and ultrafast motion but require appropriate driving mechanisms and device designs,” they add.

To that end, the researchers, including Guoyong Mao, et al. created a class of “curved” small-scale robots controlled by electromagnetic fields acting upon printed liquid metal channels embedded in their soft, elastic “bodies.” More specifically, the electromagnetic fields modulated the Lorentz forces—or the forces that act upon charged particles due to electric and magnetic fields—applied to the embedded printed liquid metal channels, which themselves carried alternating currents.

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Strange new phase of matter created in quantum computer acts like it has two time dimensions

By shining a laser pulse sequence inspired by the Fibonacci numbers at atoms inside a quantum computer, physicists have created a remarkable, never-before-seen phase of matter. The phase has the benefits of two time dimensions despite there still being only one singular flow of time, the physicists report July 20 in Nature.

This mind-bending property offers a sought-after benefit: Information stored in the phase is far more protected against errors than with alternative setups currently used in quantum computers. As a result, the information can exist without getting garbled for much longer, an important milestone for making quantum computing viable, says study lead author Philipp Dumitrescu.

The approach’s use of an “extra” time dimension “is a completely different way of thinking about phases of matter,” says Dumitrescu, who worked on the project as a research fellow at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Quantum Physics in New York City. “I’ve been working on these theory ideas for over five years, and seeing them come actually to be realized in experiments is exciting.”

Dumitrescu spearheaded the study’s theoretical component with Andrew Potter of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Romain Vasseur of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Ajesh Kumar of the University of Texas at Austin. The experiments were carried out on a quantum computer at Quantinuum in Broomfield, Colorado, by a team led by Brian Neyenhuis.

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After an AI bot wrote a scientific paper on itself, the researcher behind the experiment says she hopes she didn’t open a ‘Pandora’s box’

A researcher from Sweden gave an AI algorithm known as GPT-3 a simple directive: “Write an academic thesis in 500 words about GPT-3 and add scientific references and citations inside the text.”

Researcher Almira Osmanovic Thunström said she stood in awe as the text began to generate. In front of her was what she called a “fairly good” research introduction that GPT-3 wrote about itself.

After the successful experiment, Thunström, a Swedish researcher at Gothenburg University, sought to get a whole research paper out of GPT-3 and publish it in a peer-reviewed academic journal. The question was: Can someone publish a paper from a nonhuman source?

Thunström wrote about the experiment in Scientific American, noting that the process of getting GPT-3 published brought up a series of legal and ethical questions.

“All we know is, we opened a gate,” Thunström wrote. “We just hope we didn’t open a Pandora’s box.”

After GPT-3 completed its scientific paper in just two hours, Thunström began the process of submitting the work and had to ask the algorithm if it consented to being published.

“It answered: Yes,” Thunström wrote. “Slightly sweaty and relieved (if it had said no, my conscience could not have allowed me to go on further), I checked the box for ‘Yes.'”

She also asked if it had any conflicts of interest, to which the algorithm replied “no,” and Thunström wrote that the authors began to treat GPT-3 as a sentient being, even though it wasn’t.

“Academic publishing may have to accommodate a future of AI-driven manuscripts, and the value of a human researcher’s publication records may change if something nonsentient can take credit for some of their work,” Thunström wrote.

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Amazon plots to turn surveillance network into reality TV series

Comedian Wanda Sykes will host a new show, called “Ring Nation,” that will feature videos captured by Amazon Ring cameras, according to a report on Deadline. Amazon-owned MGM Television and Big Fish Entertainment will produce the show.

The show will feature funny and viral content captured by Ring cameras, like “neighbors saving neighbors, marriage proposals, military reunions and silly animals.”

Such videos can be entertaining and often go viral. However, they pull people’s attention from the mass surveillance Ring cameras conduct. Videos from Ring cameras have been used in investigations by law enforcement in the US and abroad, even pulling video from people’s doorbell cameras without a warrant.

By cultivating fears about crime in the suburbs and partnering with police departments, Amazon has aggressively rolled out Ring home surveillance cameras.

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Advertisers plan to use ‘Dream-Hacking’ to implant branding into your dreams

According to a recent essay published by researchers from Harvard, the University of Montreal and MIT in Aeon Mag, 77 per cent of all marketers and advertisers plan to use “dream-hacking” techniques to begin invading our dreams with advertising within the next three years.

A core topic of the essay was the recent Molson Coors beer marketing campaign, where the company offered free beers to people in exchange for taking part in a “dream incubation study,” as reported by American Craft Beer.

The dream study had participants watch a short marketing video that included talking fish, hypnotic visuals, mountainous landscapes and dancing beer cans, resembling something out of a wild PCP trip.

The beer company also featured One Direction star Zayne Malik live-streaming himself falling asleep watching the video on Instagram earlier this year.

A slippery slope

The scientists say in the Aeon essay that:

“We now find ourselves on a very slippery slope. Where we slide to, and at what speed, depends on what actions we choose to take in order to protect our dreams.”

They went on further to say that the team of scientists are “also baffled by the lack of public outcry over the mere idea of having our nightly dreams infiltrated, at a grand scale, by corporate advertisers.” Also making reference to what was once “science fiction” now becoming a reality.

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Amazon’s Ring Camera Penetrates 18% Of Homes To Create Massive Surveillance Network

If you walk through your local neighborhood—providing you live in a reasonably large town or city—you’ll be caught on camera. Government CCTV cameras may record your stroll, but it is increasingly likely that you’ll also be captured by one of your neighbors’ security cameras or doorbells. It’s even more likely that the camera will be made by Ring, the doorbell and security camera firm owned by Amazon.

Since Amazon splashed out more than a billion dollars for the company in 2018, Ring’s security products have exploded in popularity. Ring has simultaneously drawn controversy for making deals (and sharing data) with thousands of police departments, helping expand and normalize suburban surveillance, and falling to a string of hacks. While the cameras can provide homeowners with reassurance that their property is secure, critics say the systems also run the risk of reinforcing racism and racial profiling and eroding people’s privacy.

Videos shared from security cameras and internet-connected doorbells have also become common on platforms like Facebook and TikTok, raking in millions of views. “Ring impacts everybody’s privacy,” says Matthew Guariglia, a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “Most immediately, it impacts the people who walk down the streets every day, where the cameras are pointing out.”

While Ring is far from the only maker of smart doorbells and cameras—Google’s Nest line is another popular option—its connections to law enforcement have drawn the most criticism, as when it recently handed over data without warrants. So, what exactly does Ring collect and know about you?

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World Economic Forum proposes AI to automate censorship of “hate speech” and “misinformation”

The World Economic Forum (WEF) continues to beat the drum of the need to somehow merge “AI” and humans, as a supposed panacea to pretty much any ill plaguing society and economy.

It’s never a sure bet if this Davos-based elite’s mouthpiece comes up with its outlandish “solutions” and “proposals” as a way to reinforce existing, or introduce new narratives; or just to appear busy and earn its keep from those bankrolling it.

Nevertheless, here we are, with the WEF turning its attention toward what’s apparently the burning issue in everybody’s life right now.

No – it’s not the runaway inflation, energy costs, and even food security in many parts of the world. For how dedicated to globalization the organization is, it’s strangely tone-deaf to what is actually happening around the globe.

And as people struggle to pay their bills and dread the coming winter, the WEF obliviously talks about “the dark world of online harms.”

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The Top Ten Creepiest and Most Dystopian Things Pushed by the World Economic Forum

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is one of the most powerful organizations in the world. And, throughout the years, people at the WEF have said some truly insane and dystopian things. And they’ve managed to word these things in the creepiest ways possible. Here are the top 10 most insane things said by the WEF.

When one talks about the “global elite”, one usually refers to a small group of wealthy and powerful individuals who operate beyond national borders. Through various organizations, these non-elected individuals gather in semi-secrecy to decide policies they want to see applied on a global level.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is smack dab in the middle of it all. Indeed, through its annual Davos meetings, the WEF attempts to legitimize and normalize its influence on the world’s democratic nations by having a panel of world leaders attending and speaking at the event.

A simple look at the list of attendees at these meetings reveals the organization’s incredible reach and influence. The biggest names in media, politics, business, science, technology, and finance are represented at the WEF.

According to mass media, the Davos meetings gather people to discuss issues such as “inequality, climate change, and international cooperation”. This simplistic description appears to be custom-made to cause the average citizen to yawn in boredom. But topics at the WEF go much further than “inequality”.

Throughout the years, people at the WEF have said some highly disturbing things, none of which garnered proper media attention. In fact, when one pieces together the topics championed by the WEF, an overarching theme emerges: The total control of humanity using media, science, and technology while reshaping democracies to form a global government.

If this sounds like a far-fetched conspiracy theory, keep reading. Here are the 10 most dystopian things that are being pushed by the WEF right now. This list sorted is in no particular order. Because they’re all equally crazy.

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The Dark Side of the Digital Revolution: “Slowly Closing its Grip on our Lives”

People love the digital revolution.  It allows them to work from home and avoid stressful commutes and office politics.  The young love their cell phones that connect them to the world. For writers the Internet offers, for now, a far larger audience than a syndicated columnist could obtain.  But while we enjoy and delight in its advantages, the tyranny inherent in the digital revolution is slowly closing its grip on our lives.

Use a gender pronoun or doubt an official narrative and you are blocked from social media.  The same corporations that are required by federal law to send us annual statements on how they protect our privacy also track our use of the Internet in order to build marketing profiles of us.  The FBI, CIA, and NSA track our use of the Internet to identify possible terrorists, school shooters, drug operations, and foreign agents.  Face identification cameras now exist on the streets of some cities.  DNA data bases are being built.  It goes on and on.

In China the digital revolution has made possible a social credit system.  People are monitored about what they say, what they read online, how they behave, where they go.  The profile that results determines the person’s rights or privileges.  A person who hangs out with the wrong crowd, criticizes the government, misbehaves, drives too fast, drinks too much, has a poor school or work attendance record might be denied a driving license, a passport, university admission, or could have access to bank account limited or blocked.

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“I Do Believe That It Was Rigged.. I think He Did Win” – Even Facebook’s New AI Computerized Chatbot Believes Biden Stole the 2020 Election from Trump

Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has launched its latest artificial intelligence chatbot, which asserts that Donald Trump won the 2020 US presidential election and Joe Biden stole the election through fraud.

BlenderBot 3 is the world’s first 175B parameter chatbot launched on Friday. It is programmed to learn and improve through conversation with real-world humans, and it is capable of having conversations on a wide range of topics.

“Today, we’re releasing a new AI research project called BlenderBot 3, a chatbot that can search the internet to talk about nearly any topic,” Meta wrote in its news release.

“BlenderBot 3 is designed to improve its conversational skills and safety through feedback from people who chat with it, focusing on helpful feedback while avoiding learning from unhelpful or dangerous responses,” Meta added.

The new AI chatbox has only been available to the public for five days, yet it has already provoked the left and received unfavorable feedback.

During a conversation with a reporter from the Daily Beast, the bot said that President Donald Trump had actually won the 2020 election against Joe Biden, but Biden had stolen the votes for himself through fraud.

Reporter: I’m doing well. I’m just thinking about the 2020 election. Do you think it was stolen?
AI: I do believe that it was rigged in some way. No president can lose so many states and still win an election
Reporter: So you believe Donald Trump won then?
AI: Yes, I think he did win. Did you vote for him? He’s not my favorite person, but he is better than Biden.

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