Gag Reel

Last week, Boston Dynamics shared a video of its humanoid robot Atlas showing off in a mock construction site. The crafty bipedal bot navigated a series of obstacles to toss a bag of tools to a human construction worker up on some scaffolding a, and then performed a deft backflip for good measure.

But, as suspected, it took the robot a few takes before it could do the whole performance flawlessly.

On Thursday, Boston Dynamics tweeted out a video of some behind the scenes bloopers, and they're absolutely comical. Though whether you're laughing because you find Atlas adorable or because you're fueled by fear of such eerily humanoid robots that could end up being our "Terminator"-style oppressors — well, we won't judge.

When we stick the landing every time, it’s time to move on to the next trick. Check out our blog to learn how we push Atlas to the limits and why it matters. https://t.co/WuhZO6baRr pic.twitter.com/cR00NKgvp6

— Boston Dynamics (@BostonDynamics) January 26, 2023

Safety First

Atlas miserably fails in all sorts of ways that most of us can probably relate to, like tripping over itself while scooting backwards and then falling on its ass. Or doing an impressive trick like a backflip and then fumbling its celebration right after. Or just, y'know, freezing up when everyone's watching.

In addition to reminding us that these robots have a way to go before becoming humanity's unerring arbiters, Atlas's workplace mishaps also spotlight the multiple OSHA violations identified after the original video's release.

Take Atlas jauntily galloping up to an unsecured plank of wood serving as a bridge and then immediately tumbling off on a step that completely misses. That's why you have walkways that are at least a foot and a half wide, provide guard rails, and provide fall protection in case everything goes wrong.

There's also when Atlas seems to lose its bearings after doing a backflip — you're supposed to train employees so they know not to do something so reckless on a construction site.

More on robots: Scientists Create Shape-Shifting Robot That Can Melt Through Prison Bars

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Hilarious Video Shows Boston Dynamics Robot Failing Horribly

The genes of people who live to be over the age of 100 could one day help others stay heart-healthy for longer, according to some exciting new research.

A team of British and Italian researchers has found that a specific mutated gene in so-called "superagers" who make it into their centenarian years could be used to help those with heart failure turn back the clock by ten years, as detailed in a groundbreaking study published in the journal Cardiovascular Research.

Building on the discovery of the longevity-associated gene variant known as BPIFB4 in 2018, the researchers conducted experiments on human cells in test tubes and later on mice to see if the genes were still able to turn back the biological clock when introduced in a lab instead of being inherited.

Incredibly, they found that its introduction to damaged cells can both halt and even reverse heart aging.

"The cells of the elderly patients, in particular those that support the construction of new blood vessels, called 'pericytes', were found to be less performing and more aged," said Monica Cattaneo, a researcher at the MultiMedica Group in Italy and co-author, in a press release.

"By adding the longevity gene/protein to the test tube, we observed a process of cardiac rejuvenation: the cardiac cells of elderly heart failure patients have resumed functioning properly, proving to be more efficient in building new blood vessels," Cattaneo added.

The researchers also found that those same cells seemed to have reduced expression of BPIFB4 as well. In other words, people who tend to develop heart problems may actually be missing this key longevity protein.

As University of Bristol professor and co-author Paolo Madedu notes, these findings suggest that introducing a protein to the cells of patients with heart problems may be an alternative to gene therapy, which, in spite of being a promising branch of medical treatment, still carries a number of associated risks, including the potential of developing cancer.

"Our findings confirm the healthy mutant gene can reverse the decline of heart performance in older people," Madedu said in the press release. "We are now interested in determining if giving the protein instead of the gene can also work."

Obviously, this kind of potential treatment will take many years to perfect — but regardless, this could be a huge win in the war against heart disease.

More on genetics: Scientists Think Gregor Mendel Would Be "Happy" That They Dug Up His Body to Study His Genetics

The post "Superager" Genes Can Shave a Decade Off Heart Age, Scientists Say appeared first on Futurism.

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"Superager" Genes Can Shave a Decade Off Heart Age, Scientists Say

Assignment Intelligence

A mother whose teen son struggles with a learning disability urged him to turn in an essay written by ChatGPT  — and she makes a compelling case for the tech's helpfulness in that context.

Although her high school senior son was relinquished from additional support from his education system in middle school, his mother, Karen Brewer, wrote for Medium's "Illumination" vertical that nevertheless, "writing his thoughts on paper is still an extremely challenging task for him."

Imagine her shock when, after reading over an assignment he wrote, she found a "well-written and descriptive essay." While she initially suspected plagiarism, she was fascinated when he fessed up to having used OpenAI's powerful ChatGPT text generator — though not altogether surprised, given that her son has loved computers and coding since childhood.

Reasonable Conflict

Brewer immediately found herself "morally conflicted."

"On the one hand, I was proud of him for searching for a tool to help him complete the project," she wrote. "On the other hand, he bypassed using the skills needed to write a paper independently."

Ultimately, she decided that he should turn in the paper written by the AI, on which he got a score of 80. Brewer said that while she understood it exists in a "gray area" for educators, she sees it as something of a natural progression from the other types of tech today's students use, from digital presentations to websites like Canvas used to assign and retrieve assignments.

AI Assist

This honest and heartfelt essay is an interesting example of a concerned parent coming out in favor of AI assistance in education, especially for kids struggling with learning disabilities — a take that heretofore has been missing from the raging discourse surrounding ChatGPT and AI in general as the technology progresses so rapidly.

As Brewer writes, going to school today is vastly different than it was for her in the 1980s and 90s, a time when kids with learning disabilities were significantly less understood and accommodated, and all too often left behind.

"The future is here," the mother wrote. "It will be up to humans to set parameters around this type of technology."

That's a reasonable take if we've ever seen one.

More on the AI freakout: News Site Admits AI Journalist Plagiarized and Made Stuff Up, Announces Plans to Continue Publishing Its Work Anyway

The post Mom Encourages Teen to Turn in Essay Generated With ChatGPT appeared first on Futurism.

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Mom Encourages Teen to Turn in Essay Generated With ChatGPT

Earthbound

The European Space Agency has shown off a concept for an eight-foot robotic arm, designed to pick up samples of Martian soil — small containers previously prepared by NASA's Perseverance rover — and put them inside a rocket to blast back off the Red Planet.

While NASA has made progress in collecting over half a dozen samples with its rover, it's only a tiny part of a much larger ambitious mission, an exciting endeavor to return the first-ever Martian samples to Earth that's been in the works for what feels like an eternity.

Grippy Hands

The gadget, dubbed the Sample Transfer Arm (STA), plays a crucial role in NASA and the ESA's plan to return the first Martian samples back to Earth.

The STA is designed to be operated autonomously and will have seven degrees of freedom. It will also be outfitted with two cameras and "a myriad of sensors," according to the ESA.

Best of all, it will also feature a hand-like gripper, making it the ultimate interplanetary picker-upper.

All this equipment will work in tandem to allow the STA to pick up tubes left behind by Perseverance, put them inside a special container, and close the lid in anticipation of launching back off the Martian surface.

Return Leg

The ESA is planning to launch three separate missions before 2030 to return the samples. They'll involve a Rube Goldberg machine of landing, collecting, and storing the samples before delivering them back to Earth.

It's a multi-leg journey: first, the ESA's Mars Ascent Vehicle will launch the samples into orbit, where the ESA's Earth Return Orbiter will rendezvous with the basketball-sized container before making its long journey back home.

In short, there's a lot that can wrong. But given the bright minds at both the ESA and NASA, there might just be a chance we could soon be examining the first Martian samples returned to Earth in history.

READ MORE: The Sample Transfer Arm – A helping hand for Mars [ESA]

More on the mission: New Details Emerge About NASA's Lab to House Martian Samples

The post European Space Agency Shows Off Concept for Martian Sample Picker-Upper appeared first on Futurism.

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European Space Agency Shows Off Concept for Martian Sample Picker-Upper

Rock And Roll

NASA has announced that it's setting up a facility specifically designed to house Mars rock samples collected by its Perseverance Mars rover — which may contain traces of ancient Martian life.

According to the agency, the new facility will be located at the Johnson Space Center in Houston and will be geared towards "receiving and curating" the extremely rare rocks as safely as possible.

Known as the Mars Sample Receiving (MSR) project, this endeavor is, per NASA, "expected to be the most complex robotic space flight campaign ever attempted," and is scheduled to kick off in about a decade once the samples make their way back to Earth.

It certainly won't be an easy task. The samples, which are being prepared by NASA's rover on the Martian surface, will have to be picked up by the European Space Agency's rover, which is still in development, before making their long journey back home.

Look Alive

Not everybody is happy about the prospect of bringing Martian rocks to Earth.

Scientists have raised concerns with NASA's previous plans to have the Air Force house the samples over fears that the military could end up mishandling potentially dangerous alien contaminants.

"I think that it's a very low probability that there's anything living at the surface of Mars," Louisiana State University geologist Peter Doran told NPR last May. "But there is a possibility."

In an effort to quell these fears, NASA claims in a factsheet that scientists "have found an extremely low likelihood that samples collected from areas on Mars like those being explored" because Martian samples had already been crashing to Earth in the form of meteorites.

In short, we should just be glad the task will be in the hands of the actual experts and not some random military dudes.

More on Mars rocks: NASA Discovers Precious Gemstones on Mars

The post NASA Setting Up Facility For Mars Rock Samples That Might Contain Alien Life appeared first on Futurism.

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NASA Setting Up Facility For Mars Rock Samples That Might Contain Alien Life

Catch Em Cold

The James Webb Space Telescope, which at this point can safely be described as an inveterate record breaker, has spotted yet another superlative cosmic curiosity: the coldest ice in the known universe.

According to a new study published in the journal Nature Astronomy, that interstellar ice got as cold as minus 440 degrees Fahrenheit — just under 11 Kelvin, and spitting distance from absolute zero.

The frigid formations were found as part of a star-forming molecular cloud residing in a region of space called Chamaeleon I, in the southern reaches of the Chamaeleon constellation, approximately 500 light years from Earth. Thanks to the Webb's powerful Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and a healthy, illuminating backdrop of starlight, astronomers were able to spot the frozen molecules that would have hitherto gone unnoticed.

"The ices show up as dips against a continuum of background starlight," said study co-author Klaus Pontoppidan from the Space Telescope Science Institute in a statement. "In regions that are this cold and dense, much of the light from the background star is blocked, and Webb's exquisite sensitivity was necessary to detect the starlight and therefore identify the ices in the molecular cloud."

Ice Spice

Tantalizingly, the ice also includes vital elements to forming a habitable planet, collectively known as CHONS: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur. Some, the scientists found, came in the form of organic molecules like methanol and possibly ethanol, as well as other compounds essential to life including carbon dioxide, ammonia, methane, and of course, water.

And that could have massive implications on our understanding of the occurrence of life in the universe, the scientists say.

"Our identification of complex organic molecules, like methanol and potentially ethanol, also suggests that the many star and planetary systems developing in this particular cloud will inherit molecules in a fairly advanced chemical state," explained study co-author Will Rocha, an astronomer at Leiden Observatory, in the statement. "This could mean that the presence of precursors to prebiotic molecules in planetary systems is a common result of star formation, rather than a unique feature of our own solar system."

The scientists were also able to measure the amount of sulfur trapped in the icy dust for the first time, and while the amount was less than expected, they believe that indicates that other CHONS are still present but are trapped in more solid materials and thus avoid detection.

Some details to iron out notwithstanding, the findings may prove essential in understanding the formation of organic molecules.

"These observations open a new window on the formation pathways for the simple and complex molecules that are needed to make the building blocks of life," said study lead author and Leiden astronomer Melissa McClure.

More on the James Webb's findings: James Webb Captures Its First Look At Saturn's Most Mysterious Moon

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James Webb Discovers Coldest Ice in Known Universe, Harboring Molecules Essential For Life

It's a No

As some publishers are publicly — or secretly – moving to incorporate AI into their written work, others are drawing lines in the sand.

Among the latter group is Springer Nature, arguably the world's foremost scientific journal publisher. Speaking to The Verge, the world's largest scientific publishing house announced a decision to outlaw listing ChatGPT and other Large Language Models (LLMs) as coauthors on scientific studies — a question that the scientific community has been locking horns over for weeks now.

"We felt compelled to clarify our position: for our authors, for our editors, and for ourselves," Magdalena Skipper, editor-in-chief of Springer Nature's Nature, told the Verge.

"This new generation of LLMs tools — including ChatGPT — has really exploded into the community, which is rightly excited and playing with them," she continued, "but [also] using them in ways that go beyond how they can genuinely be used at present."

Mixed Response

Importantly, the publisher isn't outlawing LLMs entirely. As long as they probably disclose LLM use, scientists are still allowed to use ChatGPT and similar programs as assistive writing and research tools. They just aren't allowed to give the machine "researcher" status by listing it as a co-author.

"Our policy is quite clear on this: we don't prohibit their use as a tool in writing a paper," Skipper tells the Verge. "What's fundamental is that there is clarity. About how a paper is put together and what [software] is used."

"We need transparency," she added, "as that lies at the very heart of how science should be done and communicated."

We can't argue with that, although it's worth noting that the ethics of incorporating ChatGPT and similar tools into scientific research isn't as simple as making sure the bot is properly credited. These tools are often sneakily wrong, sometimes providing incomplete or flat-out bullshit answers without sources or in-platform fact-checking. And speaking of sources, text-generators have also drawn wide criticism for clear and present plagiarism, which, unlike regular ol' pre-AI copying, can't be reliably caught with plagiarism-detecting programs.

It's Complicated

And yet, some arguments for ChatGPT's use in the field are quite compelling, particularly as an assistive English tool for researchers who don't speak English as a first language.

In any case, it's complicated. And right now, there's no good answer.

"I think we can safely say," Skipper continued, "that outright bans of anything don't work."

More on AI: BuzzFeed Announces Plans to Use OpenAI to Churn Out Content

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Largest Publisher of Scientific Journals Slaps Down on Scientists Listing ChatGPT as Coauthor

A form of electric propulsion known as Hall thrusters — a type of ion thruster — may actually pack more bang for the buck than expected.

Hall thrusters have conventionally been used to adjust the orbit of satellites. But according to a new study, they could also be scaled up for interplanetary commutes like a crewed mission to Mars, something that was considered unlikely until now.

The belief so far has been that Hall thrusters — which work by accelerating ionized particles of gas like xenon using a magnetic field — can't drive enough propellant atoms at smaller sizes. In other words, they're fairly weak, and getting more power out of them would require a larger Hall thruster too impractical to fit on crewed spacecraft.

"People had previously thought that you could only push a certain amount of current through a thruster area, which in turn translates directly into how much force or thrust you can generate per unit area," explained study author Benjamin Jorns, an associate professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Michigan, in a statement.

The bottleneck arises from a function that Jorns calls a "buzz saw" surrounding the channel that the propellant atoms are driven through. That saw is needed to turn those atoms into positively charged ions that produce thrust.

But anything more than the small amounts currently used — and the buzz saw falls apart, leaving you with a useless neutral gas, in addition to overheating the engine.

"It's like trying to bite off more than you can chew," Jorns elaborated. "The buzz saw can't work its way through that much material."

Jorns didn't accept that common thinking, however. He and his team simply souped up a xenon-powered Hall thruster by about a hundred times and tried cooling it with water. Surprisingly, they found that it still operated at 49 percent efficiency and outputted up to 37.5 kilowatts, compared to its original efficiency of 62 percent when operating at only a measly nine kilowatts.

This time, using the lighter noble gas krypton as a propellant, they were able to reach 45 kilowatts, with an even greater efficiency of 51 percent, while producing 1.8 Newtons of thrust — not far off from the most powerful Hall thruster in the world, the X3, which is far larger. That's certainly punching above its weight.

"This is kind of a crazy result because typically, krypton performs a lot worse than xenon on Hall thrusters," said Leanne Su, an aerospace engineer at the University of Michigan, in the statement.

"So it's very cool and an interesting path forward to see that we can actually improve krypton's performance relative to xenon by increasing the thruster current density."

Their findings show that it may be possible to use smaller Hall thrusters for crewed spacecraft in the future, as large ones don't leave much room for their passengers. According to Jorns, crews could reach Mars or even the far side of the Sun using an array of thrusters that produce about a megawatt's worth of thrust.

But the next hurdle, Jorns said, is figuring out how to cool them in space — which is a lot harder, given the lack of atmosphere for exhausting generated heat.

More on space: European Space Agency Halts Plans to Send Astronauts to Chinese Space Station

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Test Suggests Ion Thrusters Could Power Crewed Interplanetary Missions

The AI is here, and it’s pumping out articles — inaccurate, messily copied, poorly disclosed ones — at a rate that I probably couldn’t achieve even if I skipped sleep, gave up eating, abdicated all hobbies and responsibilities, and forwent all those other annoying little human things that seem to get in the way of the glorious goal of making my company money. 

That’s right. I work for Red Ventures, the company that owns the tech news site CNET, the financial advice sites Bankrate and CreditCards.com, and many more — sites the company is now pumping full of articles churned out by a shadowy AI system.

If you think about it, it makes laughable sense that CNET and Bankrate’s first attempt at a bot fell on its face. It’s just an algorithm. All it can do is spit out things that sound approximately right, lacking the inconvenient context of truth that a human with expertise would figure out. 

A human freelancer might have a typo here or there, or maybe a misconception about APR versus APY. But an article by an AI can be total, authoritative-sounding gibberish. The poor editor in charge of fact-checking whatever the Machine produces isn’t looking for a needle in a haystack; they’re faced with a stack of needles, many of which look remarkably like hay. 

The funny thing about it is that up until now, it’s been going down with very little fanfare for us employees. Each monthly meeting before the media storm, they gave us an update on how the Machine is progressing, usually in juxtaposition to how long it takes a human writer and editor to produce an article. 

Look here. The bar graph shows a tall red line for Writing Time when it’s a human. The AI has a little sliver, hugging the ground like a stump. Isn’t that efficient?

But now look at Editing Time. The human writer is midway up the graph. They’re only human, after all. The AI’s bar, however, stretches high — it’s more than the combined writing and editing time for the humans. 

We’re safe. I breathe a sigh of relief. 

A month passes. They give us an update. The AI’s editing time is down a little more. Week by week, month by month, the tree is chopped shorter and shorter. Soon, it’s not only efficient — it’s sufficient. 

Are you a current or former employee of Red Ventures? We'd love to hear from you: tips@futurism.com. We can keep you anonymous.

I had no idea when they started publishing articles with the AI. I don’t think many writers did. Maybe they were trying to avoid a fuss. Maybe they were just testing the waters. 

Now the cat’s out of the bag. Readers are angry, journalists are angry, the staff here are angry, and higher-ups are sending out mass messages and holding meetings and promising us that it’ll all pass. 

Because it’s going to pass, of course. The AI will continue whether morale improves or not. They’ve all but said it aloud. We’ve thrown those darn inefficient humans under the bus, they say, for not minding the bot well enough, and we’re so, so very sorry we were caught — I mean, we made those mistakes. We’ll do better. Be nice to us and our algorithm, pretty pretty please.

I’m going to do you a favor by telling you to drop the pretense of Red Ventures being a good or ethical or caring company when it’s using AI. The AI’s work is riddled with errors that will convince trusting readers to make bad financial decisions. It has the potential to be racist and biased. And it’s clearly plagiarizing from other sources. 

But we aren’t the bad guys. Trust us on this one. At least, that’s what they’re telling us.

There’s an argument out there that claims text-generating AI is going to benefit humanity in the long run. How, you may ask? By robbing writers of their livelihoods? By recruiting an algorithm to craft stories, a core part of the human experience? By severing us further from human connection — the art of learning, of teaching, of writing by humans for humans?

Sure, it’ll make it easier to write SEO bait. But I really don’t think that was benefitting our species in the first place. 

I’m friends with a lot of artists from college. They’re all in despair, of course, as they watch DALL-E and Midjourney and Stable Diffusion rip off their work and make perverted copies of a skill they took years to practice.

The book cover and movie poster and featured image commissions they used to pay the rent are going to disappear soon. No point in paying some pesky human and waiting for weeks when you can generate the image you want with a click. 

Some of you might laugh at the idea of an AI taking us writers’ jobs. Don’t be ridiculous! It’s just going to supplement our jobs and let us focus on the real stories. Obviously. 

And they’re right, in the sense that employers aren’t going to suddenly fire every writer and editor on staff because of AI. Few things happen all at once. 

It’s going to squeeze. It’s already happening. The water is heating up. The sea is up to our knees, and it’ll keep rising. Writers are going to leave and they aren’t going to be replaced. Layoffs and resizings and restructurings will continue, and the sites will be told to do more with less, like it’s always been after the company decides to lean up.

But not to worry! We have the AI. We can hit our KPIs. We might have lost half the staff, but we can still keep up our outputs and clock out on time. Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine.

And what’s happening here is going to happen at other companies. The story will repeat. Someone else is going to have the same concerns I do. If they’re brave enough, they’ll even say it aloud. Few people will listen. Maybe higher-ups will respond with platitudes about Transparency and Responsibility and promise that it’s not as bad as everyone says it is. 

Then a week later, there will be another meeting. Your clicks are down, the executives say. You haven’t published enough. You’re not up to standard. We know you can do better. Make it happen. 

And so it marches on, directed by the banal evil of numbers. 

I wonder about what the future will be like for my children. I wonder if they’ll have the same dreams of being a writer like I did when I was young. I wonder if that job will even be there when they grow up. Twenty years from now, will they cut their teeth on freelancing, learning and developing their style and getting their beat? 

Or will it all be dried up? Will the door be closed forever, the ladder pulled up behind us, the last writers, our words used to feed the ever-starving algorithm? 

(Of course, I’m just one of those silly folks filled with fear, uncertainty, doubt and misinformation about AI. C’mon, guys, Pet the wolf. It’s fine, it’s got sheep’s wool over it. Aren’t those big ol’ teeth just darling?)

I wonder what the executives in charge of the pop companies thought about what would happen when they switched to plastic bottles. Did they think of the floods of unrecyclable waste their product would end up producing? Did they think of the microplastics in the sand and in human placentas? Did they think of the Pacific Garbage Patch?

Of course they didn’t. They thought of how nice and cheap and lightweight plastic is. They thought of how much they’d save on shipping. They thought of the goal all these companies think of when the Sun sets: Money. 

Is this how we want to be known? Red Ventures is going to be the company that led the charge on AI content. We’re the dam breaker, the Pandora’s box opener, the scientists who didn't stop to think if they should. What a legacy!

Other sites are going to follow. Some have already. Google’s going to be clogged with AI-generated content of dubious accuracy. Will it turn into an endless prism of echoes, as the algorithm scrapes articles from other algorithm-generated articles, over and over again? Will the cultural vernacular be changed when the majority of content we read is filled with the syntax and semantics of a robot?

I’m reading about teachers scrambling to find bot-checking tools to scan their students’ assignments. It’s easy to throw a prompt into ChatGPT and have it spit out a five-paragraph analysis, after all. 

What’s the point of learning how to write, anyway, if we have a bot to do it for us? Why paint a picture when typing a prompt into Midjourney takes moments? Why chew food when there’s Soylent?

Let me be clear: I don’t hate AI. I am not a Luddite. I think machine learning could have the potential to solve some of humanity’s greatest problems, to free people from misery, and lift us to heights we never could have dreamed of. 

But that’s not what AI is being used for now. All it’s doing is forcing writers away from their jobs, delivering a worse product to readers, and putting more money into corporate pockets off the hard work of others. 

It’s unstoppable, of course. Red Ventures doesn’t care. They never will, no matter how much they say they do or will. Why would they? They’ve discovered the Infinite Journalist, capable of pumping out masses of content for pennies.

Red Ventures won’t listen, no matter how many ethical issues people rightfully raise. The only things they pay attention to are user clicks, revenue, legislation, and whatever Google decrees. 

It’s my hope beyond hope that Google in particular will take a stance on this, if only to avoid its search results becoming clogged with garbage from an algorithmically-generated echo chamber. Time will tell. 

I started my job wanting to write for people. I wanted to help them, to guide them, to reassure them that even in times of layoffs, even in economic turmoil, even in disasters and emergencies and everything else they could still dig themselves out of debt, they could still pull through and buy a house and build credit and fulfill the American dream. 

Now it all feels false. The writer is vestigial, an obstacle, mere fodder for the Machine. The audience is mere fodder for clicks. Maybe that’s how it always was. 

I’m sure this is going to make a lot of people angry. Is there such a thing as loyalty when employees can go around writing long-winded essays about their companies being part of systematic, technology-fuelled devastation? Then again, loyalty goes both ways. And I know where Red Ventures’ lies.

And at least I could make them angry in the only way I know. Loquaciously, selfishly, human.

More on CNET: CNET's Article-Writing AI Is Already Publishing Very Dumb Errors

The post I Work for CNET’s Parent Company. Its AI-Generated Articles Disgust Me. appeared first on Futurism.

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I Work for CNET’s Parent Company. Its AI-Generated Articles Disgust Me.

Tesla Flambé

Seemingly without warning, a Tesla Model S "spontaneously" burst into flames while cruising down a California highway, according to the Sacramento Metro Fire District.

The Tesla was traveling at "freeway speeds," the fire district said in a Facebook post, until the driver noticed heavy black smoke emerging from the undercarriage. Fortunately, the motorist was able to pull over and exit the vehicle unharmed, but the flames continued to intensify, devouring the vehicle's front end.

A crew of firefighters used jacks to expose the Tesla's underside and extinguish the lithium ion battery blaze. Putting it out, though, required considerable effort.

Over the course of an hour, it took 6,000 gallons of water from three fire engines to subdue the flames because the Tesla's battery cells continued to combust.

"For reference, a fully involved traditional combustion vehicle can be extinguished with a single fire engine's 700 gallon water supply," the district wrote.

The vehicle battery compartment spontaneously caught fire while it was traveling freeway speeds on EB Hwy 50. The fire was extinguished with approx 6,000 gallons of water, as the battery cells continued to combust. Thankfully no injuries were reported. pic.twitter.com/PRmlWzQdXS

— Metro Fire of Sacramento (@metrofirepio) January 29, 2023

Fire Sale

Lithium ion battery fires are notoriously difficult to extinguish. In addition to containing combustible and flammable materials like graphite and electrolytes, their cathodes also release oxygen as they continue to burn, making their fires formidably self-sustaining.

That's why using fire foam to smother the flames is ineffective, the district notes in a tweet.

As of now, it's unclear why the Tesla battery spontaneously went up in flames, especially since, according to the firefighters, the vehicle was undamaged prior to the fire.

Usually, a lithium battery fire is spurred by a collision, but a short circuit or excessively high temperatures could also cause a battery to combust.

Tesla cars are no strangers to suddenly combusting. In 2019, after several headline-making reports of parked Teslas catching fire seemingly without warning, the automaker released a software update "out of an abundance of caution" to improve the batteries' safety.

More on Tesla: Of Course Elon Musk Is Pushing The Cybertruck Back Again, What Did You Expect?

The post Tesla "Spontaneously" Bursts Into Flames While Driving Down Freeway appeared first on Futurism.

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Tesla "Spontaneously" Bursts Into Flames While Driving Down Freeway

My Bad

International mining giant Rio Tinto has admitted to misplacing a "highly radioactive" object along an 870-mile Western Australian highway, several outlets report. But if it's any consolation, they're very, very sorry.

"We are taking this incident very seriously," Rio Tinto head of iron ore Simon Trott said in a Sunday statement to the media. "We recognize this is clearly very concerning and are sorry for the alarm it has caused in the Western Australian community."

Princess and the Pea

At just eight millimeters in length, the object in question — a tiny "widget," as Bloomberg put it, containing the radioactive isotope caesium-137 — is roughly the size of a pea. All to say: not exactly the easiest thing to recover from an unknown spot on an 870-mile-long stretch of roadway.

"If you dangled a magnet over a haystack," Andrew Stuchbery, head of the Australian National University's department of Nuclear Physics and Accelerator Applications, told Reuters, "it's going to give you more of a chance."

And despite its puny size, this object — which is a component of a larger device that measures the density of iron ore — isn't benign. It emits radiation "equal to ten X-rays per hour," according to Reuters. And while anyone who drives past it won't be hit with too much radiation, overexposure or mishandling could reportedly cause radiation burns or even radioactive sickness.

"It's quite radioactive so if you get close to it, it will stick out," Stuchbery added.

Regardless of the challenges they face in the search for the radioactive capsule, Australian authorities seem to be in good spirits, with emergency services personnel telling the BBC that their chances of success are "pretty good." Noted.

Apology Tour

This isn't the only recent Rio Tinto scandal in the area. Back in 2020, the company came under fire for damaging two Aboriginal heritage sites, including a cave in the Juukan Gorge that showed signs of occupation dating back 46,000 years  — and had a 4,000-year-old genetic link to its present-day owners. The mining corp said it was "sorry" for that, too.

In any case, we hope that the radioactive pea is discovered before it causes anyone any harm. But we're sure that if it does, a Rio Tinto apology will be very quick to follow.

READ MORE: Rio Tinto apologizes for loss of tiny radioactive capsule in Australian outback [Reuters]

More on radioactive things: Authorities Seize "Atomik" Booze Made near Chernobyl Disaster

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Miners Say "Sorry" for Losing Highly Radioactive Object Along Highway

German automaker Mercedes-Benz claims to have achieved Level 3 autonomy — "conditionally automated" vehicles that can monitor their driving environment and make informed decisions on behalf of the driver, but still require humans to occasionally take over — in the United States, an incremental but noteworthy step towards a future void of steering wheels and foot pedals.

"It is a very proud moment for everyone to continue this leadership and celebrate this monumental achievement as the first automotive company to be certified for Level 3 conditionally automated driving in the US market," said Mercedes-Benz USA CEO Dimitris Psillakis in a statement.

Last year, Mercedes showed off the new feature, a part of its Drive Pilot system, suggesting drivers could play a game of Tetris while they bomb down the highway — but the technology still comes with plenty of caveats in 2023.

The company's Level 3 autonomy-capable software was recently approved for use in Nevada, but only up to speeds of 40 mph.

Mercedes is trying to position itself as the pioneer in the autonomous driving space, which has been dominated by the likes of Tesla, General Motors, and Ford.

For those keeping count, Level 3 is one level above Tesla, which has only achieved Level 2 autonomy with its Autopilot driver assistance software suite — despite Musk's empty promises of bringing fully self-driving vehicles to the roadways.

Level 3 is still a far cry from the kind of robust self-driving feature featured in sci-fi, and in many ways remains very similar to Level 2 systems currently being used on the road. It can keep the car in the lane, adjust speed depending on the vehicle in front of it, and even make lane changes.

But there's one notable exception: drivers don't strictly have to keep their eyes on the road at all times, which could free them up to read articles or play video games on the infotainment screen.

Not everybody agrees that Level 3 is a sensible step forward. As The Verge reports, the likes of Waymo and Cruise have argued that jumping to Level 4 technology — systems that could allow a driver to take a nap — from Level 2 makes a lot more sense as the handoff between humans and their software-based assistants can be imperfect or even prove fatal.

There are a lot more carmakers gunning to bring Level 3 autonomy to US roads. Ford, Audi, BMW, and Volvo, all have claimed to already be working on similar technologies.

But whether it's a step in the right direction — or even more of a distraction for drivers on the road — remains to be seen.

READ MORE: Mercedes-Benz is the first to bring Level 3 automated driving to the US [The Verge]

More on self-driving: Godfather of Self-Driving Cars Says the Tech Is Going Nowhere

The post Mercedes Claims to Have Achieved Level 3 Automation, Beating Tesla appeared first on Futurism.

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Mercedes Claims to Have Achieved Level 3 Automation, Beating Tesla

Step-by-Step

A new report from Semafor alleges that Silicon Valley darling and ChatGPT creator OpenAI has been making major moves to hire an "army" of outside contractors to better train a model how to code — an operation that could ultimately render entry-level coding jobs extinct.

The company, per Semafor, has brought on roughly 1,000 of these contractors — most of whom live "in regions like Latin America and Eastern Europe," according to sources familiar with the matter — in the past six months. About 60 percent of those hired were reportedly brought to do data labeling work, while the other 40 percent are computer programmers tasked with making software engineering datasets to train OpenAI's models on.

"A well-established company," reads a translated Spanish-language OpenAI job listing posted by an outsourced recruiter, according to Semafor, "which is determined to provide world-class AI technology to make the world a better and more efficient place, is looking for a Python Developer."

During the interview process, prospects are reportedly asked to complete unpaid five-hour-long coding exams that involve identifying basic coding problems and providing solutions, explaining their step-by-step thinking in written English. One of OpenAI's products, Codex, is an AI-powered text-to-code generator designed to translate written word into functioning computer programs.

"They most likely want to feed this model with a very specific kind of training data," an anonymous South American programming applicant told Semafor, "where the human provides a step-by-step layout of their thought process."

Join the Club

Codex has been mostly trained on code taken from GitHub, a practice that has offered the model some success as an assistive program, autocompleting and spell-checking code with some proficiency. GitHub — notably owned by Microsoft, OpenAI's financial overlord — even offers a Codex-powered "Copilot," which is basically like Grammarly for programmers.

The work of these recently-hired contractors, however, would almost certainly take that type of AI to the next level.

Knowing what a line of code might look like is one thing. Having a nuanced understanding of why and how a program needs to be written is entirely another, and by quietly outsourcing human engineers' thought processes, OpenAI seems intent on closing that gap.

And while these machines likely won't be writing any high-level programs anytime terribly soon, it feels fair to say that programmers looking for lower-level coding work should be wary of job prospects in the near future. Sorry, y'all — we hate to see anyone else join that party.

READ MORE: OpenAI has hired an army of contractors to make basic coding obsolete [Semafor]

More on OpenAI contractors: OpenAI Apparently Paid People in the Developing World $2/Hour to Look at the Most Disturbing Content Imaginable

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OpenAI Reportingly Hiring "Army" of Devs to Train AI to Replace Entry-Level Coders

The Skeptics Guide to the Future: What Yesterdays Science and Science Fiction Tell Us About the World of Tomorrow  Next Big Idea Club Magazine

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The Skeptics Guide to the Future: What Yesterdays Science and Science Fiction Tell Us About the World of Tomorrow - Next Big Idea Club Magazine

You have probably heard about a trend called breatharianism, a 'diet' claiming that humans can sustain themselves without food and water, surviving on only light and air. This is a potentially lethal practice and several practitioners have, quite obviously, died because of it. Animals and humans are heterotrophic organisms, unable to produce their own food, thus they depend on organic sources to provide it.

Plants, on the other hand, are autotrophic organismsthat are able to produce food out of inorganic matter. With photosynthesis, they convert water, minerals and sunlight into glucose and oxygen. Plants use glucose as their source of energy needed for growth and life. Their role in the life cycle is important, because they serve as a source of food and oxygen for other living organisms.

But nature never fails to surprise us, sometimes ''the laws'' can be broken. Scientists have found some animals that can, just like plants, survive on photosynthesis:

Sea Slug(Elysia chlorotica) is an extraordinarily beautiful slug living in the waters of the east coast of the United States and Canada. It's distinctive feature is green colored, leaf-shaped body. The slug eats algae (Vaucheria litorea), but it's not it's only source of energy!

It seems like this slug stole photosynthetic organelles (chloroplasts) and some genes from the algae, which enables them to live without eating! They can spend their days laying out in the sun and, just like plants and green algae, get their energy through photosynthesis. The symbiosis that enables algae's chloroplasts to work for slug is called kleptoplasty.

Pea Aphid (Acyrthospihon pisum) is an insect living worldwide that feeds on plants (legumes). Even though they may look like any other insect, unpleasant or even terrifying to some, they truly are amazing.

Pea Aphids are capable of producing carotenoids, pigments found in chloroplasts (photosynthetic organelles) and chromoplasts, giving them orange-reddish colour and helping chlorophyll with photosynthesis. In aphids, carotenoids are responsible for their colour, some of them don't have it and are white. It also seems like carotenoids serve not only as a beauty compound, but they can also be usedto convert sunlight into energy. However, these correlations are not yet clear and well researched.

Spotted Salamander (Ambystoma maculatum), just like the sea slug, it lives in symbiotic relationship with algae. They were found in embryos of the animal. The salamander's embryos are found in clear colored eggs, laid by the females on the underwater plants, close to the surface, so that the light can reach them.

It seems like green algae help embryos get much-needed energy for growth and development from sunlight, whileproviding anextra source of energy(this, in turn,increases theirchances ofsurvival). Spotted Salamanders are the highest developed animal species and the only ones among all vertebrae, that can directly benefit from photosynthesis. Usually, the immune system of highly developed organisms will prevent such symbiotic behavior.

These special animals just show how complex the living world is, and that the line between plants and animals may not be so well-defined. It makes us wonder where evolution will take us in the next few billions of years (if we last that long) Maybe one day, even humans could benefit from photosynthesis. Just imagine the possibilities that this kind of life opens.

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Incredible Creatures that Use Photosynthesis For Energy - Futurism

Electric Bus concept with individual-wheel drive and x-by-wire system makes it the ultimate city beast  Yanko Design

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Electric Bus concept with individual-wheel drive and x-by-wire system makes it the ultimate city beast - Yanko Design

Meat and Greet

Behold, ethical omnivores: the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given a key go-ahead to what could be the first lab grown meat product bound for human consumption in the US.

The decision, a first for cultivated meat in the US, paves the way for Californian startup Upside Foods to start selling its lab-grown chicken product domestically — meaning that now, it only needs approval from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) before the ersatz chicken can hit restaurant menus.

"The world is experiencing a food revolution and the [FDA] is committed to supporting innovation in the food supply," FDA officials said in a statement. "The agency evaluated the information submitted by Upside Foods as part of a pre-market consultation for their food made from cultured chicken cells and has no further questions at this time about the firm’s safety conclusion."

Upside Foods' products were evaluated via a process in which manufacturers divulge the production process to the agency for review, along with a sample. If everything looks good after inspection, the FDA then sends back a "no further questions" letter to the company.

"We are thrilled at FDA's announcement," said Upside director of communications David Kay in an email to Reuters. "This historic step paves the way for our path to market."

Going Protein

Lab meat like Upside's aren't a plant-based imitation, unlike popular vegan alternatives such as Beyond Burgers. Instead, they're made from real animal cells grown in bioreactors, sparing the lives of actual livestock.

But while at a cellular level the meat may be the same, customers will definitely notice a difference in price. For now, cultivating meat remains an extremely expensive process, so pending USDA approval notwithstanding, it could still be a while before you see it hit the shelves of your local grocer.

To let eager, early customers try out the lab meat, Upside, which already announced its collaboration with Michelin star chef Dominique Crenn last year, will be debuting its chicken at specific upscale restaurants.

"We would want to bring this to people through chefs in the initial stage," CEO Uma Valeti told Wired. "Getting chefs excited about this is a really big deal for us. We want to work with the best partners who know how to cook well, and also give us feedback on what we could do better."

While the FDA's thumbs-up only applies to a specific product of Upside's, it's still a historic decision, signalling a way forward for an industry that's rapidly accruing investment.

Updated to clarify details regarding the FDA's evaluation of the product.

More on lab grown meat: Scientists Cook Comically Tiny Lab-Grown Hamburger

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FDA Gives First Go Ahead for Lab Grown Meat Product

Welp, that didn't take long. The first civil suit against the still-imploding crypto exchange FTX was just filed in a Florida court, accusing FTX, disgraced CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, and 11 of the exchange's many celebrity ambassadors of preying on "unsophisticated" retail investors.

The list of celeb defendants impressive — honestly, it reads more like an invite list to a posh award show than a lawsuit.

Geriatric quarterback Tom Brady and soon-to-be-ex-wife Gisele Bündchen lead the pack, followed by basketball players Steph Curry and Udonis Haslem, as well as the Golden State Warriors franchise; tennis star Naomi Osaka; baseballers Shoehi Ohtani, Udonis Haslem, and David Ortiz; and quarterback Trevor Laurence.

Also named is comedian Larry David — who starred in that FTX Super Bowl commercial that very specifically told investors that even if they didn't understand crypto, they should definitely invest — and investor Kevin O'Leary of "Shark Tank" fame.

"The Deceptive and failed FTX Platform," reads the suit," "was based upon false representations and deceptive conduct."

"Many incriminating FTX emails and texts... evidence how FTX’s fraudulent scheme was designed to take advantage of unsophisticated investors from across the country," it continues. "As a result, American consumers collectively sustained over $11 billion dollars in damages."

Indeed, a number of FTX promos embraced an attitude similar to the cursed Larry David commercial. In one, Steph Curry tells viewers that with FTX, there's no need to be an "expert," while a Naomi Osaka promotion pushed the idea that crypto trading should be "accessible," "easy," and "fun."

It's also worth noting that this isn't the first suit of its kind. Billionaire Mark Cuban, also of "Shark Tank" fame, was named in a class action lawsuit launched against the bankrupt lender Voyager in August, while reality TV star Kim Kardashian was recently made to pay a roughly $1.2 million fine for hawking the "EthereumMAX" token without disclosing that she was paid to do so.

The FTX suit, however, appears to be the most extensive — and high-profile — of its kind. And while a fine for a million or two is basically a one dollar bill to this tax bracket, $11 billion, even if split amongst a group of 11 exorbitantly wealthy celebs, is a more substantial chunk of change.

Of course, whether anyone actually ever has to pay up remains to be seen. Regardless, it's still a terrible look, and real people got hurt. If there's any defense here, though? At least they didn't promise to be experts.

READ MORE: FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried hit with class-action lawsuit that also names Brady, Bündchen, Shaq, Curry [Fox Business]

More on the FTX crash: Experts Say Sam Bankman-fried's Best Legal Defense Is to Say He's Just Really, Really Stupid

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Celebrities Are Officially Being Sued by FTX Retail Investors

Big Baby

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's name has clearly lost its luster among the parents of newborns.

According to BabyCenter's review of the data the name "Elon" has cratered in popularity over the last year, dropping from 120 babies per million in 2021 to just 90 babies per million, falling in the popularity rankings by 466 spots.

The name had seen a meteoric rise over the last seven or so years, but is currently falling out of favor big time, plummeting back down to 2019 levels.

The read? It seems like Musk's public reputation has been taking a significant hit.

Name Game

There are countless reasons why Musk could be less popular public figure than he was three years ago.

Especially since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Musk emerged as a controversial figure, speaking out against vaccinations and lockdowns. He has also become synonymous with an unhealthy work culture, firing practically anybody standing in his way and forcing his employees to work long hours.

The fiasco surrounding Musk's chaotic takeover of Twitter has likely only further besmirched his public image.

For reference, other baby names that have fallen out of fashion include "Kanye" — almost certainly in response to the travails of rapper Kanye West, who's had a years-long relationship with Musk — which fell a whopping 3,410 spots over the last year.

More on Elon Musk: Sad Elon Musk Says He's Overwhelmed In Strange Interview After the Power Went Out

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"Elon" Plummets in Popularity as a Baby Name for Some Reason

Italian Import

Carbon dioxide has a bad rep for its role in driving climate change, but in an unexpected twist, it could also play a key role in storing renewable energy.

The world's first CO2 battery, built by Italian startup Energy Dome, promises to store renewables on an industrial scale, which could help green energy rival fossil fuels in terms of cost and practicality.

After successfully testing the battery at a small scale plant in Sardinia, the company is now bringing its technology to the United States.

"The US market is a primary market for Energy Dome and we are working to become a market leader in the US," an Energy Dome spokesperson told Electrek. "The huge demand of [long duration energy storage] and incentive mechanisms like the Inflation Reduction Act will be key drivers for the industry in the short term."

Storage Solution

As renewables like wind and solar grow, one of the biggest infrastructural obstacles is the storage of the power they produce. Since wind and solar sources aren't always going to be available, engineers need a way to save excess power for days when it's less sunny and windy out, or when there's simply more demand.

One obvious solution is to use conventional battery technology like lithium batteries, to store the energy. The problem is that building giant batteries from rare earth minerals — which can be prone to degradation over time — is expensive, not to mention wasteful.

Energy Dome's CO2 batteries, on the other hand, use mostly "readily available materials" like steel, water, and of course CO2.

In Charge

As its name suggests, the battery works by taking CO2, stored in a giant dome, and compressing it into a liquid by using the excess energy generated from a renewable source. That process generates heat, which is stored alongside the now liquefied CO2, "charging" the battery.

To discharge power, the stored heat is used to vaporize the liquid CO2 back into a gas, powering a turbine that feeds back into the power grid. Crucially, the whole process is self-contained, so no CO2 leaks back into the atmosphere.

The battery could be a game-changer for renewables. As of now, Energy Dome plans to build batteries that can store up to 200 MWh of energy. But we'll have to see how it performs as it gains traction.

More on batteries: Scientists Propose Turning Skyscrapers Into Massive Gravity Batteries

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Startup Says It's Building a Giant CO2 Battery in the United States