Category Archives: Singularity

A renowned theoretical computer science expert recently released an astonishing physics pre-print paper that tosses fuel on the fiery debate over whether humans could use wormholes to traverse the universe or not.

Dont worry, Ill explain what this has to do with self-aware robots in due course.

First, however, lets lay the foundation for our speculation with a quick glance at this all-new wormhole theory.

The pre-print paper comes courtesy of French researcher Pascal Koiran. According to them, if you apply a different theoretical math metric to our understanding of gravity at the edge of a black hole, you get a different theoretical output. Whodathunkit?

Per an article by astrophysicist Paul Sutter on LiveScience:

Koiran found that by using the Eddington-Finkelstein metric, he could more easily trace the path of a particle through a hypothetical wormhole. He found that the particle can cross the event horizon, enter the wormhole tunnel and escape through the other side, all in a finite amount of time. The Eddington-Finkelstein metric didnt misbehave at any point in that trajectory.

Until now, the Schwartzchild interpretation of black holes has made it seem like wormholes would be intraversible by any form of matter the old nothing can escape a black hole, not even light chestnut.

But the new theory says otherwise. And that seems like it should be awesome. In a few thousands years our species might be capable of journeying to the edge of time, space, and reality using magical wormhole portal guns la Rick Sanchez.

But lets take a closer look at the research, shall we?

Per Koirans pre-print paper:

We show that the particle reaches the wormhole throat for a finite value t1 of the time marker t, and continues its trajectory across the throat for t>t1. Such a behavior does not make sense in Schwarzschild time since it would amount to continuing the trajectory of the particle beyond the end of time.

The two different methods for simulating the potential path of a particle traversing a wormhole may require completely different interpretations of how time works in our universe.

If nothing canescape a blackhole, we can assume the entrance to every wormhole is permanently stuck on infinite pause in both time and space.

However, if we assume that something can escape a black hole, we may need to rethink our entire understanding of space-time.

In a universe where time itself can escape a black hole through discrete physical processes, some of our assumptions about observer theory (which states that particles, when observed, behave as waves) could be flawed.

Modern artificial neural networks, like the kinds that power deepfakes technology, GPT-3, and facial recognition systems, are a rudimentary attempt to imitate the machinations of the organic neural network running inside our human brains.

The ultimate goal is achieving human-level AI, also known as artificial general intelligence (AGI). However, the worlds foremost leading experts cant quite agree on exactly how were supposed to achieve this.

Its impossible to tell if were actually making progress towards AGI. It could happen tomorrow, in 100 years, or never.

One educated guess we can make, however, is that its unlikely well get there with a binary neural network running classical algorithms.

We live in a quantum universe. Whether you believe in wormholes or not is inconsequential to the fact that any attempt at recreating the human brains organic neural network through binary representation is unlikely to result in a functional facsimile.

But even an advanced quantum neural network could fail to produce AGI if the laws of physics prevent it. What if theres no way to make a machine experience the passage of time?

Our current understanding of time is essential to how we interpret the math of physics. For instance, the unit of measurement called a meter that we apply to distance is currently defined by how far light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458th of a second.

So how far is a meter at the edge of a black hole? In a universe where discrete units of time-space cant escape a black hole, the space between two points in the event horizon of singularity is operationally infinite.

The physics surrounding this version of our universe would imply that time can be disrupted. And, like all permutable things in our universe, it should be subject to observer theory.

In essence, by defining a quantum AI, we might be producing the necessary observations to manifest a temporal wave in our robots processing power. And that would, theoretically, mean the machine could experience a singular moment of self-awareness. Hence the term AI singularity.

In this version of the universe, were rooting for a paradigm where nothing can escape a black hole.

Heres why: (theoretically, at least) time has to either be a construct of reality we observe stuff, those observations are sequenced, those sequences are continuously measured in retrospect, we agree time has passed or it has to be a discrete thing that exists in the universe as tangibly as protons and electrons do.

If it can escape a black hole, that indicates its observer-independent and, thus, likely discrete.

In a universe where space-time is as real as atoms, the trick to sentience might involve discovering a method by which to tap in to space-times ground truth in the same way humans apparently do.

You know how some apps wont work if your computers time and date arent set properly? That, but for the entire universe.

Another way to put this would be: you can call it the missing piece, the quantum question, or a soul but a universe where time itself exists independent of our observations is one where, for whatever reason, our particular biology is inexplicably special.

Far out right?

Then again, maybe Koiran is wrong. Maybe the laws of physics make it theoretically impossible to traverse a wormhole. Maybe they dont even exist!

In which case, no, you cant have the last 10 minutes of your life back.

But you can read the research in full here.

Read more here:

How the laws of physics could prevent AI from gaining sentience - TNW

General information

Singularity (Sisi) is a publictest serverforEVE Onlinethat is used by both CCP developers and EVE players to test changes and new features before they are released to theTranquilityserver. Test servers have a very strict set ofrules.

Its primary function is to provide a test environment as close as possible to the live environment of Tranquility. For this purpose, the Tranquility database is "mirrored" (copied) over to the Singularity server once every few months (or more often, if needed by the CCP Quality Assurance department). For testing the performance of the server and client with many players at the same place (especially fleet-fights) there are periodicalmass testingevents.

Hint:Please keep in mind that most new features on the server are stillin developmentand not set in stone. They will most likely be changed and tweaked further. If you find bugs pleasereportthem. If you have more feedback please post it in theTest Server Feedback Forum.

In order to access the Singularity server you need to have an account on Tranquility. The account needs to have been created before the time when the current mirror was taken. The account state will be the same as it was when the mirror was taken.

With the EVE launcher (for both Windows and Mac) it is very easy to connect to Singularity:

Just select "Singularity" in the server drop-down menu and then login with your account. Everything else (creating and patching of the client) is done by the launcher.

You can copy your client settings through "manage profiles" in the launcher, if you want to do so.

The petition system is not used on Singularity and Game Masters will not be able to address issues related to Singularity. If you need assistance, contact one of the CCP or ISD staff present on the server, or post in theTest Server Feedback Forum

There is an ingame channel namedSingularitywhere players on the test server exchange information. You may also find volunteers and developers there.The local-channel ofM-OEE8 is also a good location for finding other players, volunteers and developers.

If you want to be moved toM-OEE8 or some other destination, type/movemeinto any chat channel. More details and several other commands can be found atSingularity player commands.

For several issues (like requests for account reactivation) it is also a good idea to check theTest Server Feedback Forum. There you can also discuss new changes on the test server or possible problems.

The Singularity server runs on a multi-node server cluster, similar to TQ, but with lower numbers. The number of nodes may vary, as the development team will add or remove hardware resources from the cluster depending on testing requirements.

The process of "mirroring" consists of taking an exact copy of the Tranquility database, including character and account data, like a snapshot. This copy is then processed by theCCPDeployment team and allstarbasesare removed, in order to prevent players from spying on their positions and then using this information on the live server. Basic moon minerals are available in all moons, to help testing and prevent moon scouting on thetest server. All accounts are edited so they don't expire. Agent memory (bothstandingand loyalty points) are removed. S&I jobs are removed (because jobs instarbaseswould get stuck). All assets of structures is moved into asset safety. The market is seeded so that all market items cost 100ISKand are in plentiful supply. At least one station per constellation is market seeded like this. In addition there are some other internal adjustments. This entire process can take up to 3 days, then the Singularity server is open for public.

After a mirroring process, the Tranquility and Singularity databases are separate and distinct and no synchronization between them will occur until the next mirror is taken from Tranquility and deployed on Singularity. Character progression on Singularity will be independent of Tranquility - players can effectively train two different sets of skills on the same character, if they so wish. Actions taken on the Singularity server will not affect your account or character on the Tranquility server.

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Singularity - EVE Community

In 1903, the Wright brothers showed the world the first sustained flight. In less than 60 years, Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space and orbited the Earth.

In 1993, Tim Berners-Lee made public the source code for the World Wide Web. Thirty years later, everything from our fridges to our watches are plugged in.

In 1953, Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, and Francis Crick discovered the double-helix of DNA. Within 50 years, we mapped the human genome. Twenty years later, we are using CRISPR to edit DNA.

In 1992, Gary Kasparov laughed at how embarrassing his computer chess opponent was. Within five years, he was beaten by one.

Technology has a habit of running away from us. When a breakthrough occurs or a floodgate opens, explosive, exponential growth often follows. And, according to futurologist Ray Kurzweil, we are only an historical moment away from The Singularity.

The Singularity, for Kurzweil, is defined as a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed. The idea is that discovery and progress will explode with unexpected fury. We often fail to appreciate what exponential growth actually means and how rapidly it brings about change. For instance, if we were to double the processing power of a computer every year, within seven of these doublings, our computers power would have increased 128-fold.

There are more innovators and scientists today, and they have more efficient tools and methods. The conclusion that Kurzweil draws is that technological advancement is now doubling every decade (though he fails to cite a source for that). According to him, we are only a few decades from the point when things really take off when we enter a breathtakingly abrupt, and completely transformed, new world.

For some, this Singularity will be a utopia. For others, it will be a Terminator-style nightmare. Kurzweil is certainly of the former. Kurzweil sees the weakness in our human frailty, or what he calls 1.0 biological bodies. Yes, we have Rembrandt, Newton, and Saint-Sans, but it is also true that much human thought is derivative, petty, and circumscribed. Which is why the Singularity cannot come fast enough. It is time to ditch these lumbering flesh-sacs of violent barbarity.

Kurzweil sees the universe in terms of six great epochs. They begin with physics and chemistry in creating the universe. Then, carbon-based compounds became more and more intricate, until life emerged. Eventually, intelligence evolved, as did the human brain, which then allowed us to create greater and greater technology.

And so, we arrive at our epochal moment. The next great leap for the universe will be when humans and technology merge. This does not mean using Google Maps to find your way home; it means that our very biology will become enmeshed with the technology we create. It is the age of bionics. As such, the machines we make will allow us to transcend the human brains limitations of a mere hundred trillion extremely slow connections and overcome age-old human problems and vastly amplify creativity. It will be a transcendent, next-stage humanity with silicon in our brains and titanium in our bodies.

Whether this means an evil, god-like elite enslaving us all or some omni-pleasant idyll, Kurzweil is (uncharacteristically) unsure.

How likely is all this? What cold water might there be to throw on it?

The first idea to challenge is how likely it is that technology will progress in a way that will lead to either general artificial intelligence or sophisticated bionic enhancements to our own minds. Most of Kurzweils estimates (as well as those of other futurologists like Eliezer Yudkowsky) are built on previous and existing hardware developments. But, as philosopher David Chalmers argues, The biggest bottleneck on the path to AI is software, not hardware. Having a mind, or general human intelligence, involves all manner of complicated (and unknown) neuroscientific and philosophical questions, so hardware extrapolation is not a good guide here. Having a mind is a different kind of step altogether; it is not like doubling flash drive memory size.

Second, there is no necessary reason that there will be exponential growth of the kind futurologists depend on. Past technological advances do not guarantee similar future advances. There is also the law of diminishing returns. It could be that even though we have more collective intelligence working more efficiently, we still get less out of it. Apple, today, is the richest company in the world with the finest minds in computer science working for them. Yet, it is plainly obvious that the most recent iDevices seem less exciting or innovative than their previous renditions.

Kurzweil and his supporters may well reply that a world of enhanced intelligence in which we might see a 20 percent increase in intelligence is surely outside the remit of diminishing returns. As Chalmers points out, Even among humans, relatively small differences in design capacities (say, the difference between Turing and an average human) seem to lead to large differences in the systems that are designed. There might be a cap or diminishing return to what existing human intelligence can achieve, but what about when we can enhance this?

A third objection is that there are a lot of situational or event-type obstacles that can conceivably get in the way of the Singularity. It might be that there is a terrible, slate-wiping global war. Or another pandemic might wipe most of us out. Maybe nanotechnology turns our brains to mush. Perhaps AI wreaks terrible disasters on the world. Or maybe we simply run out of the resources required to build and develop technology. Taken alone, each of these might pose trifling chances, but when you stack up all the possible dead ends and setbacks, it is enough to question how foregone a conclusion the Singularity really is.

How you view Kurzweil will depend largely on your existing biases and perhaps how much science fiction you have read. It is certainly true to say that technology in the last century has increased at a rate far beyond that of past centuries and millennia. The world of the 2020s is unrecognizable compared to that of the 1920s. Our great-great-grandfathers would look at the world today as they would an H.G. Wells novel.

But, it is equally true that there are many obstacles in the way of unlimited technological progress. We ultimately do not know if this rocket is going to take off or if it does, whether it will hit a very hard glass ceiling.

Jonny Thomson teaches philosophy in Oxford. He runs a popular Instagram account called Mini Philosophy (@philosophyminis). His first book isMini Philosophy: A Small Book of Big Ideas.

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The Singularity: When will we all become super-humans? - Big Think

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Recently there has been a lot of discussion around singularity and whether we soon will be entering a phase where artificial general intelligence will become reality. However, before we delve deep into the philosophical and ethical implications of singularity, we have to understand what it really is, its actual limitationsand why it may happen in a way that is different than anticipated.

Singularity is the notion that the exponential acceleration of technological development will lead to a situation where artificial intelligence supersedes human intelligence and will eventually escape our control. Some even predict catastrophic consequences for humanity where machines will become the dominant specieson this planet. This may seem a bit far-fetched, at least for the near future, given that advancements in hardware development and robotics are not catching up with software when it comes to artificial general intelligence. However, one can argue that the recent hype and developments surrounding the metaverse will definitely open the door to the rethink of Singularity. But what is the metaverse, and why is it such a big deal?

Recent market analysis has estimated that the metaverse market opportunity could be around $800 billion by 2024. This could be seen as an expected meteoric rise for the metaverse, given such an estimated market size; however, the question that many people are asking is,what is the metaverse?

Presently, there isn't a single definition; if you think about todays internet as a virtual two-dimensional (2D) space where you can produce and share content,create valueand connect with anyone anywhere, then the metaverse may be thought of as a virtual three-dimensional (3D) space where you can do everything that you can do in today's internet while being fully immersed (through VR/AR) in that space exactly as you would be in the real world, but in a virtual realistic graphics-driven manner while being able to interact, connect, transactand create with others.

Simply put, existing in the metaverse is the equivalent of living inside the internet. This opens the possibility of the creation of a new world, a new economyand new possibilities.

However, unlike the internet, the VR immersion would trick the human brain into releasing the same chemicals (endorphins, serotonin, dopamine) the same way as you would in the real world, which will make it more naturaland more realisticfor humans to inhabit than the internet. It's a virtual environment where you can interact with people in a digital space. It is going inside the internet instead of just looking at it!

Today, some may think that VR is for video gamers; buthistorically, games have always preceded mainstream adoption. Space Invaders and Super Mario were played way before we started using Google. The same applies to VR: it is simply a gateway into the metaverse.

To elaborate on this point more, If we think about it, we have had mainframe computers thatevolved to personal computers, which then evolved to mobile devices. In the case of the metaverse however, the leap or the iteration does not necessarily go to a faster device. Instead, to virtual simulations of virtual worlds and virtual environments where through VR and AR, we can finally make it possible to buy things in the real world through these environments. But, in particular, also to buy things that just happen to exist in these virtual environments. Connecting computers to the internet has catapulted them to mainstream use and marked the beginning of the dot-com era, and the last 15 years were clearly shaped by the mobile phone, which led to full mass adoption.

This makes the metaverse a very practical concept. It's not just VR concerts, 3D gatheringsor digital assets, the metaverse is an idea that brings these concepts together and tries to explain how they are all connected.

Matthew Ball, an outspoken proponent of the metaverse, has outlined a few key ideas that show what this evolved form of the internet will look like.He identified that the metaverse is permanent, which means it will never reset, pauseor exit. He also identified that the metaverse will be live (in real-time) as much of the internet today is designed for asynchronous use (think YouTube videos). There will also be no limit on concurrent users: this is one of the most difficult problems from a technical point of view (think ZOOM calls). Because of the massive parallelism, the metaverse experience will be very different from the internet today.

However, the most important observation is that the metaverse will have a fully functional economy. The internet is fast becoming the best place to make money; almost every business has gone online, but the digital economy still has a long way to go. Most transactions are still fragmented, especially in virtual spacesand investments in digital goods are still in their infancy. Furthermore, due to the potential for interoperability between different providers, user-generated content will play a huge role in the metaverse.

Related:The New Wave of Web 3.0MetaverseInnovations

One of the most important elements is the payments infrastructure, which will undoubtedly be one of the cornerstones of the metaverse. The ability to buy, selland most importantly, own things in the metaversecould be the most transformative part of this new era. This will lead to a situation where decentralized ledger technologies or blockchains will actually be the most practical, if not ultimate, solution for value exchange and for storing value. The opportunities for economic growth will be unfathomable, as this is literally creating a new worldwhere users will interact, transact, own, exchangeand share economic value.

This opens a whole new door for cryptocurrencies thatpolicymakers are still struggling to regulate in the realworld; how then can they be well-regulated in a metaverse?

Covid-19 has highlighted the fact that we have already migrated our life to the digital world: we work, transact businessand communicate online. The next frontier will be to existinside this digital world that has taken shape around us.

Related:5 Reasons Why NFTs Are TheMetaverse'sIdeal Revenue Model

As mentioned at the start of this article, it may still be hard to create human-looking android machines that will take over the real world. However, in a world where everything is digital, it will not be difficult to create intelligent self-replicating agents that can send and learn from their environment, and evolveto take over its environment. The metaverse will provide just that.

Decades ago, The Godfather of AI Marvin Minsky introduced the concept of the society of mind, where our cognitive processes and cognitive architecture arenot confined to one particular place and arenot isolated processes; it is the collective behaviors of many subtly ingrained concepts that our minds are capable of. Obviously intelligence, when polluted with negative traits like greed, avarice and vindictiveness, can become a curse to mankind.

While this is not a new concept in the domain of AI, it assumes great significance, given that our brains are massively complex networks of hundreds of billions of neurons that are in constant communication with each other.It is what helps humans to understand what is going on.Neurons start triggering and responding to a multitude of fast-paced reactions, setting up patterns within the brain that subsequently decide the course of actions to be performed by our mind and body in perfect unison. Historically, AI experts have tried to replicate this process using artificial neural networks (ANNs), but this was mere software-based trickery to simulate the human brain.

This is now changing rapidly as the hardware design is starting to transition, with the advancement of Neuromorphic computingin which traditional semiconductor architectures are being disrupted and re-engineered to mimic the structure of the human brain, where processing and memory are being combined in one unit, the neural structure that Marvin Minsky created and many other structures areslowly becoming a reality from a hardware standpoint. This in turn is already making AI faster, betterand more general. This is incredibly exciting because if used properly, it will produce applications that are incredibly intelligent and may eventually supersede human level general intelligence.

This is particularly relevant for the metaverse, which will not only be a place where avatar-wearing humans are interacting with other avatar-wearing humans in a virtual 3D space, but will potentially be the first place and chance where artificially intelligent agents can finally exhibit a quasi-human behavior, without the physical limitations of building an actual humanoid robot in the real world. With the advancements in AI, and specifically Neuromorphic computing, which is accelerating the approach of artificial general intelligence (AGI), we may witness a metaverse where an AI is indistinguishable from a human!

Related:Why the Time Is Right for Businesses to Start Making the Move to the ...

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Singularity Is Fast Approaching, and It Will Happen First in the Metaverse - Entrepreneur

SAN SEBASTIN, Spain, Nov. 11, 2021 Multiverse Computing today announced a partnership with IonQ, the leader in trapped-ion quantum computing, which will enable financial services organizations to model risk more accurately and quickly than ever before using the IonQ Quantum Cloud platform within Singularity, Multiverses financial solution.

The partnership combines IonQ, offering the worlds most advanced quantum hardware architecture, with the simplicity and ease-of-use that Multiverse Computing customers have come to rely upon for complex financial modeling. Using this integrated system, financial institutions can model real-life financial problems such as Fair Price calculations, portfolio creation and optimization, ETF replication, risk valuation, and many other simulations with unprecedented speed and accuracy.

Singularity already allows analysts and other users to model problems directly within spreadsheets and other familiar tools. With the new integration, financial institutions can now take advantage of IonQs industry-leading hardware without ever writing a line of code allowing them to leverage the power of quantum computing in everyday financial simulations.

The integration will dramatically increase the accessibility of quantum computing for financial professionals, including those without technical backgrounds or understanding of how quantum computers operate.

We are excited to announce IonQ as a preferred quantum compute partner for our Singularity platform, said Enrique Lizaso, CEO of Multiverse Computing. Together, our two platforms will allow us to develop joint solutions to interesting, real-life problems in finance. Singularity will put the power of cutting-edge quantum computing in the hands of financial professionals quickly and easily, without the need for them to learn quantum mechanics. Contrary to conventional wisdom that beneficial applications are years away, quantum computing in finance is here, and it means business.

Financial simulations are central to the global economy, and spreadsheets are the de facto tool for these analyses, said Peter Chapman, CEO of IonQ. This integration with Multiverse brings the worlds most powerful quantum hardware to the native application for finance professionals so that they dont need to be technical to leverage our computers. It is an important early step towards bringing quantum computing into everyday workflows.

The application of quantum computing in the financial industry is accelerating rapidly, driven by the potential for quantum to deliver competitive advantages and significant value. Together, IonQ and Multiverse Computing will help their clients to use quantum solutions specifically designed to address critical problems whose solutions were previously out of reach.

About Multiverse Computing

Multiverse Computingis a leading quantum software company that applies quantum and quantum-inspired solutions to tackle complex problems in finance to deliver value today and enable a more resilient and prosperous economy. The companys expertise in quantum control and computational methods as well as finance means it can secure maximum results from current quantum devices. Its flagship product, Singularity, allows financial professionals to leverage quantum computing with common software tools. The company is headquartered in San Sebastian, Spain with offices in Toronto, Canada and Paris.

About IonQ

IonQ, Inc. is a leader in quantum computing, with a proven track record of innovation and deployment. IonQs next-generation quantum computer is the worlds most powerful trapped-ion quantum computer, and IonQ has defined what it believes is the best path forward to scale. IonQ is the only company with its quantum systems available through the cloud on Amazon Braket, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, as well as through direct API access. IonQ was founded in 2015 byChristopher MonroeandJungsang Kimbased on 25 years of pioneering research. To learn more, visitwww.ionq.com.

Source: Multiverse Computing

See the original post:

Multiverse Computing Partners with IonQ to Bring Quantum Computing to Global Finance - HPCwire

Its crunch time on climate change, and companies, governments, philanthropists, and NGOs around the world are starting to take action, be it through donating huge sums of money to the cause, building a database for precise tracking of carbon emissions, creating a plan for a clean hydrogen economy, or advocating for solar geoengineeringamong many other initiatives.

But according to Nvidia, to really know where and how to take action on climate change, we need more data, better modeling, and faster computers. Thats why the company is building what it calls the worlds most powerful AI supercomputer dedicated to predicting climate change.

The system will be called Earth-2 and will be built using Nvidias Omniverse, a multi-GPU development platform for 3D simulation based on Pixars Universal Scene Description. In a blog post announcing Earth-2 late last week, Nvidias founder and CEO Jensen Huang described his vision for the system as a digital twin of Earth.

Digital twins arent a new concept; theyve become popular in manufacturing as a way to simulate a products performance and tweak the product based on feedback from the simulation. But advances in computing power and AI mean these simulations have become much more granular and powerful, with the ability to drive meaningful changeand thats just what Huang is hoping for with Earth-2.

We need to confront climate change now. Yet, we wont feel the impact of our efforts for decades, he wrote. Its hard to mobilize action for something so far in the future. But we must know our future todaysee it and feel itso we can act with urgency.

Plenty of climate models already exist. They quantify factors like air pressure, wind magnitude, and temperature and plug them into equations to get a view of climate patterns in a given region, representing those regions as 3D grids. The smaller the region, the more accurate a model can be before becoming unwieldy (in other words, models must solve more equations to achieve higher resolution, but trying to take on too many equations will make a model so slow that it stops being useful).

This means most existing climate models lack both granularity and accuracy. The solution? A bigger, better, faster computer. Greater resolution is needed to model changes in the global water cycle, Huang wrote. Meter-scale resolution is needed to simulate clouds that reflect sunlight back to space. Scientists estimate that these resolutions will demand millions to billions of times more computing power than whats currently available.

Earth-2 will employ three technologies to achieve ultra-high-resolution climate modeling: GPU-accelerated computing; deep learning and breakthroughs in physics-informed neural networks; and AI supercomputersand a ton of data.

The ultimate aim of this digital twin of our planet is to spur action that will drive meaningful change, both in terms of mitigating the negative impacts of climate change on populations and mitigating climate change itself. Extreme weather events like hurricanes, wildfires, heat waves, and flash floods are increasingly taking lives, damaging property, and forcing people to flee from their homes; youve doubtless seen the dire headlines and heartbreaking images on the news. If we could accurately predict these events much further in advance, those headlines would change.

Huang hopes Nvidias model will be able to predict extreme weather changes in designated regions decades ahead of time. People would then know to either not move to certain areas at all, or to build the infrastructure in those areas in a way thats compatible with the impending climate events. The model will also aim to help find solutions, running simulations of various courses of actions to figure out which would have the greatest impact at the lowest cost.

Nvidia has not shared a timeline for Earth-2s development nor when the supercomputer will be ready to launch. But if its Cambridge-1 supercomputer for healthcare research is any indication, it wont be all that long; Cambridge-1 took just 20 weeks to build and is ranked as one of the 50 fastest computers in the world.

In any case, there seems to be no lack of dedication or urgency to get Earth-2 up and running. Huang concluded, All the technologies weve invented up to this moment are needed to make Earth-2 possible. I cant imagine a greater or more important use.

Image Credit: geralt / 23615 images

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Nvidia's New Supercomputer Will Create a 'Digital Twin' of Earth to Fight Climate Change - Singularity Hub

With the pace of emissions reductions looking unlikely to prevent damaging climate change, controversial geoengineering approaches are gaining traction. But aversion to even studying such a drastic option makes it hard to have a sensible conversation, say researchers.

Geoengineering refers to large-scale interventions designed to alter the Earths climate system in response to global warming. Some have suggested it may end up being a crucial part of the toolbox for tackling global warming, given that efforts to head off warming by reducing emissions seem well behind schedule.

One major plank of geoengineering is the idea of removing excess CO2 from the atmosphere, either through reforestation or carbon capture technology that will scrub emissions from industrial exhausts or directly from the air. There are limits to nature-based CO2 removal, though, and so-called negative emissions technology is a long way from maturity.

The other option is solar geoengineering, which involves deflecting sunlight away from the Earth by boosting the reflectivity of the atmosphere or the planets surface. Leading proposals involve injecting tiny particles into the stratosphere, making clouds whiter by spraying sea water into the atmosphere, or thinning out high cirrus clouds that trap heat.

In theory, this could reduce global warming fairly cheaply and quickly, but interfering with the Earths climate system carries unpredictable and potentially enormous risks. This has led to widespread opposition to even basic research into the idea. Earlier this year, a test of the approach by Swedens space agency was cancelled following concerted opposition.

But this lack of research means policymakers are flying blind when weighing the pros and cons of the approach, researchers write in a series of articles in the latest issue of Science. They outline why research into the approach is necessary and how social science in particular can help us better understand the potential trade-offs.

In an editorial, Edward A. Parson from the University of California, Los Angeles, notes that critics often point to the fact that solar geoengineering is a short-term solution to a long-term problem that is likely to be imperfect and whose effects could be uneven and unjust. More importantly, if solar geoengineering becomes acceptable to use, we may end up over-relying on it and putting less effort into emissions reductions or carbon removal.

This point is often used to argue that solar geoengineering can never be acceptable, and therefore research into it isnt warranted. But Parson argues that both the potential harms and benefits of solar geoengineering are currently hypothetical due to a lack of research.

Rejecting an activity due to unknown harms might be justified in extreme circumstances and when the alternative is acceptable, he writes. But the alternative to solar geoengineering is potentially catastrophic climate changeunless we drastically ramp up emissions reductions and removals, which is far from a sure thing.

Part of the rationale for preventing solar geoengineering research is that it will drive socio-political lock-in that makes its deployment more likely. But Parson points out that rather than preventing its deployment, blocking research into solar geoengineering may actually lead to less-informed, more dangerous deployments by desperate policymakers further down the line.

One way to overcome some of the resistance to research in this area might be to make the debate around it more constructive, writes David W Keith from Harvard University in a policy paper. And the best way to do that is to disentangle the technical, political, and ethical aspects of the debate.

Appraising the pros and cons of solar geoengineering involves many different fields, from engineering to climate science to economics. But often, experts in one of these areas will give an overall judgment on the technology despite not being in a position to assess critical aspects of it.

Therefore, experts should make sure to disaggregate their judgments into those that are based on their expertise and those that arent, says Keith. He also provides a taxonomy of concerns on which expert opinion would be useful, including the physical risks posed by solar geoengineering, the potential that it could be deployed unjustly, the possibility it could be weaponized, and the idea that it could prove a slippery slope to climate enhancement.

Making this debate more informed wont only involve more studies into the technicalities of solar geoengineering. There also needs to be an expansion in social science research to assess what the benefits and drawbacks might be and where they will fall, write the authors of a second policy paper.

While rough estimates put the cost of implementing solar geoengineering at five billion dollars a year, the authors point out that this only covers engineering. Making sound decisions around deployment will also require detailed measures of the physical and socioeconomic impacts of solar geoengineering to assess its benefits and costs, both in different areas and over different timescales.

Unless the world develops a coordinated approach to deploying solar geoengineering, it will also be important to study the options and incentives that will govern the decisions of state or non-state actors to deploy it. This could give insights into the potential triggers for unilateral deployment and what might be done to discourage it.

Whether these calls for more research will be heeded is uncertain, but momentum does seem to be building. And given our lackluster progress on heading off climate change, it may be unwise to take any of our cards off the table.

Image Credit: Pete Linforth from Pixabay

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In the beginning, there was well, maybe there was no beginning. Perhaps our universe has always existed and a new theory of quantum gravity reveals how that could work.

Reality has so many things that most people would associate with sci-fi or even fantasy, said Bruno Bento, a physicist who studies the nature of time at the University of Liverpool in the U.K.

In his work, he employed a new theory of quantum gravity, called causal set theory, in which space and time are broken down into discrete chunks of space-time. At some level, theres a fundamental unit ofspace-time, according to this theory.

Bento and his collaborators used this causal-set approach to explore the beginning of the universe. They found that its possible that the universe had no beginning that it has always existed into the infinite past and only recently evolved into what we call theBig Bang.

Quantum gravity is perhaps the most frustrating problem facing modern physics. We have two extraordinarily effective theories of the universe: quantum physics andgeneral relativity. Quantum physics has produced a successful description of three of thefourfundamental forces of nature(electromagnetism, the weak force and the strong force) down to microscopic scales. General relativity, on the other hand, is the most powerful and complete description ofgravityever devised.

But for all its strengths, general relativity is incomplete. In at least two specific places in the universe, themathof general relativity simply breaks down, failing to produce reliable results: in the centers of black holes and at the beginning of the universe. These regions are called singularities, which are spots in space-time where our current laws of physics crumble, and they are mathematical warning signs that the theory of general relativity is tripping over itself. Within both of these singularities, gravity becomes incredibly strong at very tiny length scales.

As such, to solve the mysteries of the singularities, physicists need a microscopic description of strong gravity, also called a quantum theory of gravity. There are lots of contenders out there, includingstring theoryand loopquantum gravity.

And theres another approach that completely rewrites our understanding of space and time.

In all current theories of physics, space and time are continuous. They form a smooth fabric that underlies all of reality. In such a continuous space-time, two points can be as close to each other in space as possible, and two events can occur as close in time to each other as possible.

But another approach, called causal set theory, reimagines space-time as a series of discrete chunks, or space-time atoms. This theory would place strict limits on how close events can be in space and time, since they cant be any closer than the size of the atom.

For instance, if youre looking at your screen reading this, everything seems smooth and continuous. But if you were to look at the same screen through a magnifying glass, you might see the pixels that divide up the space, and youd find that its impossible to bring two images on your screen closer than a single pixel.

This theory of physics excited Bento. I was thrilled to find this theory, which not only tries to go as fundamental as possible being an approach to quantum gravity and actually rethinking the notion of space-time itself but which also gives a central role to time and what it physically means for time to pass, how physical your past really is and whether the future exists already or not, Bento told Live Science.

Causal set theory has important implications for the nature of time.

A huge part of the causal set philosophy is that the passage of time is something physical, that it should not be attributed to some emergent sort of illusion or to something that happens inside our brains that makes us think time passes; this passing is, in itself, a manifestation of the physical theory, Bento said. So, in causal set theory, a causal set will grow one atom at a time and get bigger and bigger.

The causal set approach neatly removes the problem of the Big Bang singularity because, in the theory, singularities cant exist. Its impossible for matter to compress down to infinitely tiny points they can get no smaller than the size of a space-time atom.

So without a Big Bang singularity, what does the beginning of our universe look like? Thats where Bento and his collaborator, Stav Zalel, a graduate student at Imperial College London, picked up the thread, exploring what causal set theory has to say about the initial moments of the universe. Their work appears in a paper published Sept. 24 to the preprint databasearXiv. (The paper has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.)

The paper examined whether a beginning must exist in the causal set approach, Bento said. In the original causal set formulation and dynamics, classically speaking, a causal set grows from nothing into the universe we see today. In our work instead, there would be no Big Bang as a beginning, as the causal set would be infinite to the past, and so theres always something before.

Their work implies that the universe may have had no beginning that it has simply always existed. What we perceive as the Big Bang may have been just a particular moment in the evolution of this always-existing causal set, not a true beginning.

Theres still a lot of work to be done, however. Its not clear yet if this no-beginning causal approach can allow for physical theories that we can work with to describe the complex evolution of the universe during the Big Bang.

One can still ask whetherthis [causal set approach] can be interpreted in a reasonable way, or what such dynamics physically means in a broader sense, but we showed that a framework is indeed possible, Bento said. So at least mathematically, this can be done.

In other words, its a beginning.

Paul M. Sutter is a research professor in astrophysics at the Institute for Advanced Computational Science at Stony Brook University and the Flatiron Institute in New York City. Find Paul on Twitter @PaulMattSutter

A version of this article was originally posted at Live Science and is reposted here with permission. Find Live Science on Twitter @LiveScience

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COMPUTING

Hologram-in-a-Box Can Teleport You AnywhereJohn Boyd | IEEE SpectrumARHT Media, based in Toronto, Canada, andPORTL Inc., a start-up in Los Angeles, have begun shipping portable plug-and-play, cabinet-based holoportal systems the size of a telephone booth. In both cases, a person in a studiothe presentercan appear in full-size, lifelike 3D form and interact with people anywhere in the world where one or more booths are hooked up to the companies networks via the internet.

Helion Secures $2.2B to Commercialize Fusion EnergyHaje Jan Kamps | TechCrunchHelion, as a company, has been focusing less on fusion as a science experiment and more on a more important question: Can their technology generate electricity at a commercial and industrial scale? Some projects in the fusion space talk about heat, or energy, or other things. Helion is focused on electricity generation. Can we get it out fast, at a low cost? Can we get it to industrial-scale power? asks David Kirtley, Helions co-founder and CEO.

Hackers Are Stealing Data Today So Quantum Computers Can Crack It in a DecadePatrick Howell ONeill | MIT Technology ReviewFaced with this harvest now and decrypt later strategy, officials are trying to develop and deploy new encryption algorithms to protect secrets against an emerging class of powerful machines. That includes the Department of Homeland Security, which says it is leading a long and difficult transition to what is known as post-quantum cryptography.

Tagalong Robots Follow You to Learn Where You GoKhari Johnson | Ars TechnicaFollower robots have been tapped forsenseless pursuitslike carrying a single bottle of water, but robots can also carry tools in a warehouse or just-picked fruit from an orchard to a packing station.Artificially intelligentmachines trained to follow people or other machines can transform how we think about everyday objects, likecarry-on luggageora set of golf clubs. Now the makers of follower robots want to coordinate movement around the modern workplace.

Planetary Scientists Recreate Arrakis From Dune, and It Really Is a HellholeGeorge Dvorsky | GizmodoBy modifying a well-known climate model and applying it to the fictional world of Arrakis, a group of scientists has shown that Frank Herberts depiction of a desert planet in the book seriesDune was surprisingly apt, though with some surprising differences.

Why Cant People Teleport?Jorge Cham and Daniel Whiteson | WiredWhoever said its the journey, not the destination clearly never had to sit in traffic every day and never got stuck in a middle seat on a transatlantic flight. What if you could just appear where you want to go, without going through all the places in between? Set your phasers on stun, because we are going to beam you up on the physics of teleportation.

US Astronomers Want a Giant Telescope to Hunt Earth-Like PlanetsTatyana Woodall | MIT Technology ReviewSignificantly larger than the Hubble Space Telescope, it will be able to observe planets that are fainter than their star by a factor of at least 10 billion. This will profoundly change the way astronomers view the known universe. Today, the estimated cost for the project is around $11 billion, and if its approved by NASA, a potential launch isnt slated until the early 2040s.

Facebook to Stop Using Facial Recognition, Delete Data on Over 1 Billion PeopleTim de Chant | Ars Technicaover the years, facial recognition became a headache for the company itselfit drew regulatory scrutiny along with lawsuits and fines that have cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars. Today, Facebook (which recently renamed itself Meta)announcedthat it would be shutting down its facial recognition system and deleting the facial recognition templates of more than 1 billion people.

Cars Are Going Electric. What Happens to the Used Batteries?Gregory Barber and Aarian Marshall | WiredUsed electric vehicle batteries could be the Achilles heel of the transportation revolutionor the gold mine that makes it real. By the end of the decade, the International Energy Agency estimates there will be between 148 million and 230 million battery-powered vehicles on the road worldwide, accounting for up to 12 percent of the global automotive fleet. The last thing anyone wants is for those batteries to become waste.

The United Nations Could Finally Create New Rules for SpaceRamin Skibba | WiredThe proposal to create a process for preventing military confrontations and misunderstandings in orbit would be the first major step in more than 40 years. If we dont get this right, we risk getting into conflict, because people dont have rules of the road at the moment. So thats what we want to create, but it takes time, says David Edmondson, the UKs policy head of space security and advanced threats.

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While getting humans to Mars is likely to be one of the grandest challenges humanity has ever undertaken, getting them back could be even tougher. Researchers think sending genetically engineered microbes to the Red Planet could be the solution.

Both NASA and SpaceX are mulling human missions to Mars in the coming decades. But carrying enough fuel to make sure its a round trip adds a lot of extra weight, which dramatically increases costs and also makes landing on the planet much riskier.

As a result, NASA has been investigating a variety of strategies that would make it possible to produce some or all of the required fuel on Mars using locally-sourced ingredients. While the planet may be pretty barren, its atmosphere is 95 percent carbon dioxide and there is abundant water ice in certain areas.

That could provide all the ingredients needed to create hydrocarbon rocket fuels and the liquid oxygen needed to support combustion. The most ambitious of NASAs plans would be to use electrolysis to generate hydrogen and oxygen from water and then use the Sabatier reaction to combine the hydrogen with Martian CO2 to create methane for use as a fuel.

The technology to do that at scale is still immature, though, so the more likely option would see methane shipped from Earth and oxygen generated in place using solid oxide carbon dioxide electrolysis (SOCE). That would still require 7.5 tons of fuel and 1 ton of SOCE equipment to be transported to Mars, though.

Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology have outlined a new strategy in a paper in Nature Communications, which would use genetically engineered microbes to produce all the fuel and oxygen required for a return trip on Mars.

Carbon dioxide is one of the only resources available on Mars, first author Nick Kruyer said in a press release. Knowing that biology is especially good at converting CO2 into useful products makes it a good fit for creating rocket fuel.

The researchers proposal involves building four football fields worth of photobioreactorsessentially liquid-filled transparent tubeswhich will be used to grow photosynthetic cyanobacteria.

While it is possible to get these microbes to produce fuels themselves, they are fairly inefficient at it. So instead, they will be fed into another reactor where enzymes will break them down into simple sugars, which are then fed to genetically modified E. coli bacteria that produce a chemical called 2,3-butanediol.

On Earth this chemicalis primarily used to make rubber, and burns too inefficiently to be used as a fuel. But thanks to Mars low gravity, it is more than capable of powering a rocket engine there, and also uses less oxygen than methane.

You need a lot less energy for lift-off on Mars, which gave us the flexibility to consider different chemicals that arent designed for rocket launch on Earth, said Pamela Peralta-Yahya, who led the research.

The process also generates 44 tons of excess oxygen that could be used for life support. The one catch is that if the system was built with todays state-of-the-art technology, it would require 2.8 times as much material to be delivered to Mars compared to the most likely NASA strategy.

However, once there it would use 32 percent less power, and resupply missions would only need to carry 3.7 tons of nutrients and chemicals rather than 6.5 tons of methane every time. And modeling studies suggest that by optimizing the biological processes involved and designing lighter-weight materials, a future system could actually weigh 13 percent less than the NASA solution and use 59 percent less power.

The biggest barrier at the minute might be the fact that current NASA regulations prohibit sending microbes to Mars due to fears of contaminating the pristine environment. The researchers acknowledge that they will have to develop foolproof biological containment strategies before the proposal could be seriously considered.

But if we want to make round trips to Mars a regular feature in the future, then it appears inevitable that we will need an approach that makes use of local resources. Given that microbes have already developed efficient ways for turning air and water into useful chemicals, it seems like a no-brainer to bring them along for the ride.

Image Credit: NASA

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