iPhone 14 Pro users are growing increasingly concerned about the state of their iPhone’s battery health. A number of iPhone 14 Pro users have taken to Twitter, Reddit, and more to share screenshots of their deteriorating battery capacity – less than one year after the iPhone 14 Pro was officially launched.
Nuno Teixeira created this Apple+Zeiss mirrorless camera concept:
Zeiss has been rumored to have exited the photography business after they have not announced any new photography lenses in over 4 years now:
More reports that Zeiss has existed the photography industry
RIP Zeiss ZX1: the 37.4MP $6,000 full-frame fixed lens camera nobody wanted
Flashback: Zeiss has still not announced any new photography lenses in 3 years
The post Apple+Zeiss mirrorless camera concept appeared first on Photo Rumors.
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Cortana is Microsoft’s virtual assistant, which was introduced in 2014 back when Windows Phone was still a thing. Similar to Siri, Cortana lets users perform a number of tasks using voice commands. But it seems Microsoft is giving up on its old virtual assistant, as the latest Windows 11 update kills the Cortana app. The reason? The company will now bet on AI instead.
During today’s press conference in which Hollywood actors confirmed that they were going on strike, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s chief negotiator, revealed a proposal from Hollywood studios that sounds ripped right out of a Black Mirror episode.
In a statement about the strike, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) said that its proposal included “a groundbreaking AI proposal that protects actors’ digital likenesses for SAG-AFTRA members.”
When asked about the proposal during the press conference, Crabtree-Ireland said that “This ‘groundbreaking’ AI proposal that they gave us yesterday, they proposed that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get one day’s pay, and their companies should own that scan, their image, their likeness and should be able to use it for the rest of eternity on any project they want, with no consent and no compensation. So if you think that’s a groundbreaking proposal, I suggest you think again.”
The use of generative AI has been one of the major sticking points in negotiations between the two sides (it’s also a major issue behind the writers strike), and in her opening statement of the press conference, SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher said that “If we don’t stand tall right now, we are all going to be in trouble, we are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines.”
The SAG-AFTRA strike will officially commence at midnight tonight.
Disclosure: The Verge’s editorial staff is also unionized with the Writers Guild of America, East.
Finnish schools are considering banning mobile phone usage due to a downward trend of focused learning.
The Programme for International Student Assessment explained that the country’s performance peaked in 2006 but has since seen a decline in results. Finland’s new right-wing government aims to pass a new law that bans students’ mobile phones.
Speaking on Monday, the Finnish government said, “The government will reinforce the powers of teachers and principals to intervene in activities that disrupt teaching during school hours.”
“We will make the necessary legislative amendments to enable more efficient restrictions in cases such as the use of mobile devices during the school day so that pupils and students can better concentrate on teaching,” it added.
In addition, Finland’s government is providing €200 million funding top-up for basic education to ensure students acquire the basic skills in reading, writing and mathematics.
The post Schools in Finland to ban usage of mobile phones first appeared on IceNews - Daily News. Взято отсюдаFew things say summer in the U.S. like the great American road trip. It’s almost a national rite of passage dating back to Model T days, with Americans hitting the wide-open road across the 3,000 miles stretching from sea to shining sea.
From mountain roads to stunning seaside escapes, there’s no shortage of fantastic road trip-worthy routes across the U.S.
Here are 10 road trips through Florida, Oregon, California and many other beautiful destinations that you can take any time of year.
This aptly titled highway crosses over the turquoise waters separating the Atlantic Ocean from the Gulf of Mexico via a series of 42 bridges, including the iconic Seven Mile Bridge, Florida’s longest. The 100-mile journey, lined with palms and native flora, hosts retro motels, shell shops and an impressive array of fauna.
The drive takes about four hours round trip, starting from Florida City. However, you can easily extend it by starting in Miami, heading 40 miles south to Homestead for a trip to Everglades National Park, Knaus Berry Farm for cinnamon rolls and the Robert Is Here Fruit Stand for tropical provisions and smoothies before meandering down the coral cay archipelago to Key West. Note that Knaus Berry Farm is open from November through mid-April during the area’s farming season.
Related: Battle of the Key Largo beachfront hotels: Baker’s Cay and Playa Largo
Spanning 469 miles from Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina and Tennessee, the Blue Ridge Parkway is home to some of the oldest mountains in the world.
The area is lush and green from spring through summer and equally beautiful in autumn (especially from late October to mid-November) when the landscape is painted with fiery shades of red, yellow and orange.
Consider a stop in Asheville, North Carolina, a mountain town known for some of the best food and craft beer in the Southeast, along the way.
Related: Upscale stay but missing amenities: My time at The Foundry Hotel in Asheville
Dating back to 1926, Route 66 is one of America’s original highways, with well-preserved historic sites and wide-open landscapes, where you’ll find distinctive landmarks at each stop along the way.
In the 1940s and ’50s, the 2,500-mile stretch of road from Chicago to Santa Monica, California, was the American road trip. Though it’s changed since then, you’ll still find plenty of Americana stops during your drive, including the World’s Largest Catsup Bottle in Collinsville, Illinois.
The section of road lying next to Interstate 40 through New Mexico and Arizona is particularly picturesque and features several notable landmarks, including Arizona’s Jack Rabbit Trading Post, a popular pitstop for travelers for more than a half-century. New Mexico’s 400-mile section is lined with Native American monuments and centuries-old ruins like Laguna Pueblo, and in Amarillo, Texas, the famous Cadillac Ranch art installation features rows of graffiti-painted Cadillacs sticking end-first out of the ground. Just a 12-minute drive from the Cadillacs, you’ll find killer brisket at Tyler’s Barbecue.
In general, spring through fall is the best time to travel Route 66. Keep in mind that while many of the road trips listed are clearly delineated from start to finish, Route 66 isn’t indicated as a single route on contemporary maps, so you’ll want to use a resource like Historic 66 to get turn-by-turn directions.
Related: Here’s how you can see the spectacular California superbloom
What the Pacific Coast Highway is to the Pacific Ocean the Great River Road is to the Mississippi River. Starting in northern Minnesota, the Great River Road nearly spans the width of the U.S., stretching more than 2,000 miles and ending around New Orleans.
Like Route 66, it’s not just one road but rather a series of roads that follows the eastern and western sides of the Mississippi River through Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi.
Each state along the Great River Road has its own interpretative center educating travelers about the route’s history: In Mississippi, you’ll find the Vicksburg National Military Park Visitor Center; Missouri is where you can check out the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum; and in Iowa, there’s the 200-mound-strong, prehistoric Effigy Mounds National Monument.
Consider a fall or spring road trip for the best weather.
Though there’s some debate, the California Department of Transportation says the Pacific Coast Highway officially starts at Dana Point in Orange County and stops 150 miles later in Oxnard. However, we’d argue that the 1,650 miles from San Diego to Olympic National Park in Washington is worth driving.
Sweeping views from high above the blue-green Pacific Ocean make the PCH one of the most beautiful road trips, with a few state parks along the way. Point Lobos State Natural Reserve is known for viewings of sea otters, seals and whales, while Garrapata State Park is renowned for its redwood groves. Just south of Garrapata is the most photographed icon of the PCH: Bixby Creek Bridge, one of the world’s tallest single-span concrete arch bridges.
From there, the largest concentration of stops is in and around the coastal area of Big Sur. Enjoy a glass of wine, lunch or both at the European-style Nepenthe restaurant, where spectacular views of over 60 miles of coastline await patrons. Grab a quick nosh at Big Sur Bakery before pausing at the McWay Falls overlook or taking a peek at the sunset through Keyhole Arch on Pfeiffer Beach.
Just past the southern end of Big Sur is Hearst Castle, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst’s 1920s-style Spanish Colonial Revival property that’s open to the public.
Related: 12 stops to make on your Southern California family road trip
Dating back to 1913, the Historic Columbia River Highway was the first designated scenic highway in the U.S. This 75-mile route, beginning east of Portland, Oregon, in Troutdale and continuing on to The Dalles, can be driven in a day.
Must-see features of this stunning thoroughfare include its numerous waterfalls, such as Shepperd’s Dell and the 620-foot-tall Multnomah Falls, plus scenic vistas like Chanticleer Point (one of the first overlooks you’ll encounter traveling east) and Crown Point (one of the most photographed spots along the Columbia River). If time permits, stop at some of the historical landmarks along Lewis and Clark’s journey, such as Rooster Rock State Park, Cascade Locks and the Rock Fort Campsite in The Dalles.
Spring through fall is the best time to visit this heavily forested area, though fall will afford you the most colorful views.
Though no longer an official U.S. national park road, U.S. Route 89 (formerly known as the National Park to Park Highway) is ripe for those wishing to take the road less traveled. Start this journey in Arizona, moving through Utah and up to Wyoming until you get to Montana.
As you travel U.S. Route 89, you’ll pass 150 towns, cities and reservations, as well as seven national parks (including the Grand Canyon, Glacier and Yellowstone) and three geographic regions (Basin and Range National Monument, the Colorado Plateau and the Rocky Mountains).
While going from border to border is an option, those looking for a quicker route can consider a shorter stretch that takes you from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to Glacier National Park.
The 53-mile Going-to-the-Sun Road is the only road through Glacier National Park. It’s also one of the most narrow and winding thoroughfares on this list, rewarding travelers with some of the most epic natural landscapes in the country.
From the Jackson Glacier Overlook and the route’s highest point, the 6,646-foot-tall Logan Pass, you might even spot some mountain goats. The road also runs by several lakes, including Lake McDonald and St. Mary Lake, and majestic waterfalls like McDonald Falls and Bird Woman Falls.
The road’s accessibility is dependent on the amount of snow from the previous winter. It usually opens by the first of June and stays open until October. The busiest traffic times are from late June through late August.
Beginning near the Canadian border at Fort Kent, Maine, historic U.S. Route 1 spans nearly 2,500 miles along the Atlantic coast of New England, passing through a slew of East Coast destinations — including New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. — before ending in Key West, Florida.
In New Hampshire, you’ll find Colonial towns such as 400-year-old Portsmouth, a harborside locale full of charming restaurants, inns and shops. There’s also Salem, Massachusetts, famous for its witch trials (and home to the Salem Witch Museum). Additionally, drivers can check out Newport, Rhode Island, which is known for historical mansions like The Breakers, the lavish summer “cottage” of Cornelius Vanderbilt II.
Farther south, U.S. Route 1’s highlights include northern Virginia’s Mount Vernon, the one-time home of former President George Washington, and South Carolina’s more than 45,000-acre Carolina Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge.
If you’re starting this route in New England, consider driving in late September or early October. You’ll not only enjoy the spectacular fall colors but will also avoid worrying about getting snowed in.
Though you could complete the Acadia All-American Road in half a day, there’s a lot to see in its 40 miles through Acadia National Park. The scenic byway starts at U.S. Route 3 just south of Trenton, crossing the bridge onto the 108-square-mile Mount Desert Island.
Highlights of the Acadia All-American Road include Bass Harbor Head Light Station, a lighthouse that dates back to the mid-1800s, and Cadillac Mountain, the park’s highest point. The latter includes interconnected carriage roads and old stone bridges, most of which are closed off to cars.
To explore these areas, bring your bicycles or rent them in the island’s seaside community of Bar Harbor. For food, there’s nothing better than fresh seafood at Bar Harbor’s Thirsty Whale Tavern.
During the summer months, the scenic byway can be very crowded. The colorful foliage of late fall (rather than earlier in the season) can offer gorgeous scenery with fewer tourists.
Related: A daytrip to Maine: The fun way we used the elusive Delta companion certificate
Whether you are road-tripping this summer or prefer to hit the road this fall, remember these trips. No matter which routes you choose to traverse, keep in mind that the journey isn’t solely about the main highlights; the lesser-known destinations you find along the way are an equally important part of the road trip experience.
Related reading:
Spencer Spellman and Sara Ventiera previously contributed reporting.
Взято отсюдаUPS tentatively agreed to equip its delivery trucks with air conditioning for the first time following union negotiations between the company and the Teamsters. “Air conditioning is coming to UPS, and Teamster members in these vehicles will get the relief and protection they’ve been fighting for,” said Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien. However, the agreement only requires AC in new delivery vehicles purchased after January 1st, 2024, meaning it won’t likely spell relief for drivers this summer.
In addition to air conditioning, UPS agreed to install cab fans for additional airflow in its delivery vehicles, and the company will install a second fan in those without AC by June 1st, 2024. New vehicles will also get exhaust shields to minimize heat conduction from the powertrain to the van’s floor; existing package cars will add them within 18 months of contract ratification. Finally, new and existing trucks will get air intake vents that bring fresh air from the vehicle’s front to the cargo area to help reduce the sauna-like conditions that can develop in the vehicles’ package-storage areas.
Unless you know someone who works for UPS, you may not have realized the company’s iconic brown delivery vans lacked air conditioning. Unfortunately, it’s common practice: Standard USPS delivery trucks, introduced in 1987, also lack AC. (The Postal Service’s next-generation fleet of delivery vehicles, which begin arriving this year, finally add proper cooling.) According toNBC News, over 100 UPS workers have been hospitalized for heat-related illnesses in recent years. Especially as climate change begins to show its teeth in tangible ways (record-setting temperatures and smokey summer air becoming the new normal in many regions), it’s a sad commentary on big business that the countless drivers delivering our packages often have to suffer through sweltering heat to complete their routes.
The negotiations are part of union negotiations between UPS and the Teamsters. UPS agreeing to the most basic of heat-safety essentials may help avoid a strike, which union members began voting on last week. The union is scheduled to announce the results of the strike authorization vote (which won’t necessarily lead to a work stoppage if approved) on Friday.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ups-tentatively-agrees-to-add-air-conditioning-to-its-trucks-170010514.html?src=rss Взято отсюдаAI-assisted vocals aren't just for bootleg songs. Paul McCartney has revealed to BBC Radio 4 that he's using AI to turn a John Lennon demo into one last song for The Beatles. The technology helped extract Lennon's voice to get a "pure" version that could be mixed into a finished composition. The piece will be released later this year, McCartney says.
McCartney didn't name the song, but it's believed to be "Now and Then," a 1978 love song Lennon put on cassettes meant for the other former Beatle. The Guardian notes the tune was considered for release as a reunion song alongside tracks that did make the cut, such as "Free As A Bird," but there wasn't much to it — just a chorus, a crude backing track and the lightest of verses. The Beatles rejected it after George Harrison thought it was bad, and the electrical buzz from Lennon's apartment didn't help matters.
The inspiration for the revival came from dialog editor Emile de la Rey's work on the Peter Jackson documentary Get Back, where AI separated the Beatles' voices from instruments and other sounds. The tech provides "some sort of leeway" for producing songs, McCartney adds.
To date, music labels typically haven't been fond of AI due to copyright clashes. Creators have used algorithms to have famous artists "sing" songs they never actually produced, such as a recently pulled fantasy collaboration between Drake and The Weeknd. This, however, is different — McCartney is using AI to salvage a track that otherwise wouldn't have reached the public. It won't be surprising if other artists use the technique to recover work that would otherwise sit in an archive.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/paul-mccartney-is-using-ai-to-create-a-final-song-for-the-beatles-133839244.html?src=rss Взято отсюда
«Илон Маск, вы можете выкупить ВОЗ у Билла Гейтса и сделать из неё организацию про здоровье? — А сколько она стоит?»: Маск увидел новую высоту
Написал xaerostar на mp.d3.ru / комментировать
Взято отсюдаhttps://idiod.video/gla9yc.mp4
Настоящий итальянец.
«Этот парень Обама слегка загоревший», «Представитель парламента Германии подошел бы на роль надсмотрщика концлагеря в кино», «Когда оппозиция говорит, чтобы я шел домой, это приводит меня в замешательство, потому что я не знаю, в какой дом мне идти, ведь у меня их двадцать», «Если я вижу красивую девушку, я говорю – лучше любить девушек, чем быть геем»: Экс–премьер и самый веселый политик Италии Сильвио Берлускони, трижды возглавлявший правительство страны, умер на 87–м году жизни.
Написал xaerostar на mp.d3.ru / комментировать
Взято отсюдаНам не дано познать задачу создателя. Но по косвенные признакам уже довольно давно можно предположить, что эксперимент с человеческой цивилизацией не бесконечен. Причем вне зависимости от конкретной причины окончания этого эксперимента вполне очевидно, что люди уничтожат себя сами. И никакие всадники Апокалипсиса не понадобятся. Ну, разве что объявить о том, что уже будет ясно и без них.
А тем, кто читает новости, никакие всадники не нужны уже и сейчас.
Вот, скажем, издание Wired пишет о том, что у людей, которые живут, скажем так, в провинции у моря, то есть — вдали от современных технологий, мозг стареет медленнее, чем у тех, кто вовлечен в привычный нам медиа-круговорот.
Постоянное использование социальных сетей вызывает фрагментацию внимания, снижение стратегического мышления а, как следствие, снижение когнитивных возможностей вообще. К тому же виртуальная социализация не стимулирует человека к тому, о чем в известном фильме говорит Ипполит — к тому, чтобы совершать безумные поступки и лазить в окна к любимым женщинам. То есть, чем дальше мы идем по дороге мессенджеров и алгоритмически составленных лент социальных сетей, а также искусственного интеллекта, который создает за нас всё, что угодно — тем больше мы тупеем.
Но мало того! Группа ученых из Германии и Испании экспериментально выяснила, что чем более высокие показатели интеллекта у человека, тем дольше он решает ту же самую задачу, которую может решить человек с более низким уровнем интеллекта. Ну просто потому, что человек, отягощенный знаниями, больше перебирает в голове возможные варианты. А человек попроще принимает решение быстро и интуитивно. И в общем случае эти решения одинаково эффективны.
Понимаете? Не понимаете? Человечество эволюционирует в обратную сторону. Я уже как-то рассказывал вам, что у людей от постоянного смотрения в экран смартфона сзади начал расти рог, как у динозавра. Ну, чтобы склоненную голову уравновешивать.
А теперь мы видим, что чем выше человек забирается на пресловутую пирамиду Маслоу — тем тупее он становится. И тем больше проигрывает внутривидовую борьбу тем, кто на пирамиду не лезет.
Фрэнсис Фукуяма 30 лет назад объявил миру о том, что история закончилась, потому что демократия победила.
Он ошибался. Просто не знал ничего об интернете, смартфонах и социальных сетях.
А мы знаем.
Взято отсюдаIn tech we are all, ultimately, parasites. As Drupal creator Dries Buytaert said years ago, we are all more “taker” than “maker.” Buytaert was referring to common practice in open source communities: “Takers don’t contribute back meaningfully to the open source project that they take from,” hurting the projects upon which they depend. Even the most ardent open source contributor takes more than she contributes.
This same parasitic trend has played out for Google, Facebook, and Twitter—each dependent on others’ content—and is arguably much more true of generative AI (GenAI) today. Sourcegraph developer Steve Yegge dramatically declares, “LLMs aren’t just the biggest change since social, mobile, or cloud—they’re the biggest thing since the World Wide Web,” and he’s likely correct. But those large language models (LLMs) are essentially parasitic in nature: They depend on scraping others’ repositories of code (GitHub), technology answers (Stack Overflow), literature, and much more.
Amazon might be planning to offer Prime subscribers a pretty significant perk: free cell phone service. According to Bloomberg, the company is talking with multiple US-based carriers about offering cheap — around $10 a month — or even free phone service to Prime customers. Right now, Amazon is supposedly negotiating with the three major US carriers (Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile) as well as the Dish Network, though it sounds like talks with AT&T have fallen off in recent weeks.
It'll likely be a while before this potential offering launched, as Bloomberg says that talks have only been ongoing for about six to eight weeks and they could still be scrapped. But given how expensive mobile plans can get, this could be a potentially interesting offer for Amazon customers. Of course, that would require a further commitment to Amazon, which already has its fingers in a frankly absurd number of different businesses.
So far, there are no details on what Amazon's service might look like — whether it would offer the same level of service as you'd get going directly through Verizon, T-Mobile or AT&T. Specifically, carriers tend to offer more data at 5G speeds depending on what plan its users choose; there are also a ton of perks that carriers tend to include these days like Netflix from T-Mobile or Apple Music or Disney+ on Verizon.
But it's not hard to imagine that a lot of customers would trade some of those perks or even less high-speed data to get mobile service for free. That's assuming they're OK tying yet another part of their digital lives to Amazon — but if you're already hooked on Prime, this could make for a compelling new part of Amazon's subscription plan.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-is-reportedly-trying-to-offer-prime-subscribers-free-cell-phone-service-140026387.html?src=rss Взято отсюдаUS Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has stated in an advisory that "we cannot conclude social media is sufficiently safe for children and adolescents." Murthy argued that the potential harms of social media outweigh the benefits for younger users.
Citing "a substantial review of the available evidence” on the impact of social media, the advisory says "there are ample indicators" it can "have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents." It states that, according to Pew Research, as much as 95 percent of US teens aged 13 to 17 use social media while 19 percent said they were on YouTube "almost constantly."
"Children and adolescents who spend more than 3 hours a day on social media face double the risk of mental health problems including experiencing symptoms of depression and anxiety," the advisory reads. "This is concerning as a recent survey showed that teenagers spend an average of 3.5 hours a day on social media."
The advisory calls on tech companies to take "immediate action to mitigate unintended negative effects" of online interactions. It also asks lawmakers to "strengthen protections to ensure greater safety for children and adolescents interacting with all social media platforms."
However, some evidence suggests that social media can be a net benefit for teens. According to a recent Pew Research study, most say they're more connected to their friends through social media. The study indicated that a majority of 13 to 17-year-olds in the US felt that social media provided them with a space to express their creativity, find support and feel more accepted.
Murthy acknowledged that social media can provide benefits to younger users. However, he has been sounding the alarm bell about youth and teen use of such services for some time.
In January, he told CNN that 13 was "too early" for young people to be on social media (companies in that space typically don't allow under 13s to use their services without consent from a parent or guardian). “If parents can band together and say you know, as a group, we’re not going to allow our kids to use social media until 16 or 17 or 18 or whatever age they choose, that’s a much more effective strategy in making sure your kids don’t get exposed to harm early,” Murthy told the broadcaster.
There have certainly been well-documented instances of social media negatively impacting teens' mental health. Still, the advisory is being published at a time when there is a growing appetite among lawmakers for regulating teen use of social media.
A bill was introduced to the Senate last month that aims to block teens from using social media without parental consent (Utah and Arkansas have both passed statewide legislation on that front). A separate Senate bill called the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) aims to force social media companies to add more protections for younger users. The bill was reintroduced after it failed to reach the Senate floor last year.
Critics say such legislation can infringe on the right to privacy and freedom of speech, among other concerns. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, among others, has argued that social media parental consent laws deprive both young people and adults of their First Amendment rights. As for KOSA, American Civil Liberties Union senior policy counsel Cody Venzke said the bill's “core approach still threatens the privacy, security and free expression of both minors and adults by deputizing platforms of all stripes to police their users and censor their content under the guise of a ‘duty of care.’”
With the rise of ChatGPT, Bard and other large language models (LLMs), we've been hearing warnings from the people involved like Elon Musk about the risks posed by artificial intelligence (AI). Now, a group of high-profile industry leaders has issued a one-sentence statement effectively confirming those fears.
Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.
It was posted to the Center for AI Safety, an organization with the mission "to reduce societal-scale risks from artificial intelligence," according to its website. Signatories are a who's who of the AI industry, including OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and Google DeepMind head Demis Hassabis. Turing Award-winning researchers Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, considered by many to be the godfathers of modern AI, also put their names to it.
It's the second such statement over the past few months. In March, Musk, Steve Wozniak and more than 1,000 others called for a six-month pause on AI to allow industry and public to effectively catch up to the technology. "Recent months have seen AI labs locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one – not even their creators – can understand, predict, or reliably control," the letter states.
Though AI is not (likely) self-aware as some have feared, it already presents risks for misuse and harm via deepfakes, automated disinformation and more. The LLMs could also change the way content, art and literature are produced, potentially affecting numerous jobs.
US President Joe Biden recently stated that "it remains to be seen" if AI is dangerous, adding "tech companies have a responsibility, in my view, to make sure their products are safe before making them public... AI can help deal with some very difficult challenges like disease and climate change, but it also has to address the potential risks to our society, to our economy, to our national security." In a recent White House meeting, Altman called for regulation of AI due to potential risks.
With a lot of opinions floating around, the new, brief statement is mean to show a common concern around AI risks, even if the parties don't agree on what those are.
"AI experts, journalists, policymakers, and the public are increasingly discussing a broad spectrum of important and urgent risks from AI," a preamble to the statement reads. "Even so, it can be difficult to voice concerns about some of advanced AI’s most severe risks. The succinct statement below aims to overcome this obstacle and open up discussion. It is also meant to create common knowledge of the growing number of experts and public figures who also take some of advanced AI’s most severe risks seriously."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai-presents-risk-of-extinction-on-par-with-nuclear-war-industry-leaders-say-114025874.html?src=rss Взято отсюдаAdd Eric Schmidt to the list of tech luminaries concerned about the dangers of AI. The former Google chief tells guests at The Wall Street Journal's CEO Council Summit that AI represents an "existential risk" that could get many people "harmed or killed." He doesn't feel that threat is serious at the moment, but he sees a near future where AI could help find software security flaws or new biology types. It's important to ensure these systems aren't "misused by evil people," the veteran executive says.
Schmidt doesn't have a firm solution for regulating AI, but he believes there won't be an AI-specific regulator in the US. He participated in a National Security Commission on AI that reviewed the technology and published a 2021 report determining that the US wasn't ready for the tech's impact.
Schmidt doesn't have direct influence over AI. However, he joins a growing number of well-known moguls who have argued for a careful approach. Current Google CEO Sundar Pichai has cautioned that society needs to adapt to AI, while OpenAI leader Sam Altman has expressed concern that authoritarians might abuse these algorithms. In March, numerous industry leaders and researchers (including Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak) signed an open letter calling on companies to pause AI experiments for six months while they rethought the safety and ethical implications of their work.
There are already multiple ethics issues. Schools are banning OpenAI's ChatGPT over fears of cheating, and there are worries about inaccuracy, misinformation and access to sensitive data. In the long term, critics are concerned about job automation that could leave many people out of work. In that light, Schmidt's comments are more an extension of current warnings than a logical leap. They may be "fiction" today, as the ex-CEO notes, but not necessarily for much longer.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/former-google-ceo-says-ai-poses-an-existential-risk-that-puts-lives-in-danger-141741870.html?src=rss Взято отсюда
US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy has issued a new public advisory warning that “there are ample indicators that social media can also have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.”
Although the report says social media can provide benefits to younger users and cautions that more research is needed to fully understand its impact, it says America needs to “urgently take action to create safe and healthy digital environments that minimize harm and safeguard children’s and adolescents’ mental health and well-being during critical stages of development.”
The report notes that advisories from the Surgeon General like the one issued today represent an attempt to call attention to “an urgent public health issue” and recommend how it could be tackled. Axios notes that Murthy’s recommendations aren’t binding, but that they can shift public debate and provide evidence to lawmakers and regulators to help them to begin addressing an issue.
The advisory comes as attempts to make social media safer for children and teenagers are gathering pace in the US and around the world with legislation such as the UK’s Online Safety Bill. The Surgeon General has previously called youth mental health “the defining public health issue of our time,” according to NBC News. “Adolescents are not just smaller adults,” Murthy told The New York Times in an interview. “They’re in a different phase of development, and they’re in a critical phase of brain development.”
The report says “a highly sensitive period of brain development” happens between the ages of 10 and 19, coinciding with a period when up to 95 percent of 13 to 17 year olds and nearly 40 percent of 8 to 12 year olds are using social media. But the Advisory notes that frequent use of such platforms can impact the brain development, affecting areas associated with emotional learning, impulse control, and social behavior. Murthy has previously said he believes even 13 years old is “too early” for children to be using social media.
The Advisory calls attention to a number of interrelated harms that social media may be contributing to. It calls attention to “extreme, inappropriate, and harmful content” that it says “continues to be easily and widely accessible by children and adolescents,” and also cites studies suggesting a link between high usage of social media and symptoms of depression and anxiety.
However, the advisory also outlines several potential benefits of social media, particularly for marginalized groups. “Studies have shown that social media may support the mental health and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, transgender, queer, intersex and other youths by enabling peer connection, identity development and management, and social support,” the report says, noting that online communities can also provide support for youths from racial and ethnic minorities.
“Different children and adolescents are affected by social media in different ways, based on their individual strengths and vulnerabilities, and based on cultural, historical, and socio-economic factors,” the report notes. “There is broad agreement among the scientific community that social media has the potential to both benefit and harm children and adolescents.”
The Advisory offers recommendations for policymakers, technology companies, and researchers on how the harms it cites could be addressed going forward. A common thread among them is to fund and enable more research into the impacts of social media usage, and for social media companies themselves to be more transparent in sharing data with outside experts. But there are also recommendations for lawmakers to develop stronger health and safety standards for social media products, and introduce stricter data privacy controls. Technology companies themselves, meanwhile, are urged to assess the risks their products might pose and attempt to minimize them.
Finally, although the report notes that “the onus of mitigating the potential harms of social media should not be placed solely on the shoulders” of either parents and caregivers or children themselves, it also offers some advice on how to foster a healthier relationship with social media by, for example, reporting cyberbullying and online abuse or establishing boundaries between online and offline activities.
“What kids are experiencing today on social media is unlike anything prior generations have had to contend with,” Murthy said in an interview with Axios.
“We’ve got to do what we do in other areas where we have product safety issues, which is to set in place safety standards that parents can rely on, that are actually enforced,” he told the NYT.
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