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Category Archives: Futurism

Experts Say Bridge Collapsed Because It Was Struck by Giant Ship – Futurism

Posted: April 2, 2024 at 4:04 am

"My crazy conspiracy theory is the bridge collapsed because it got hit by an absolute unit of a boat." Ship Shape

Ever since a huge cargo ship leveled Baltimores Francis Scott Key Bridge on Tuesday tragically killing six road crew workers the internet has been filling up with deranged conspiracy theories.

But the simplest explanation is overwhelmingly the most likely: the impact caused catastrophic "structural failures"that the aging structure couldn't withstand,University of Warwick civil engineering professor Toby Mottram told the Independent.

"Its conceivable that the piers werent designed to withstand the magnitude of todays ship impacts, as vessels like the 'Dali' werent navigating the Port of Baltimore during the era," he told the newspaper.

Whether any bridge could have withstood such an impact is unclear. Reporters at the New York Times pulled out the calculators and determined that to stop the ship would have taken a third of the force"it took to launch the Saturn V rocket for the Apollo Moon missions."

Basically, an unstoppable force ran into a not-quite-indestructible object, with devastating consequences.

Still, there's been no end to the conspiracy theories. Toxic manosphere influencer Andrew Tate,for instance, asserted without evidence that the boat had been cyberattacked. Others have ludicrously suggested that diverse hiring practices were somehow responsible.

Back in reality, that's just garden-variety racism, and authorities saythere's no evidence that terrorism was involved either. The more mundane explanation of corporate greed may have played a factor, though: it emerged after the collision that the company that had chartered the ship had been sanctioned last year for silencing a whistleblower who raised safety concerns.

Summing up the dismal state of online discourse, Canadian television producer and writer Emily Andras had a pithy comment on the social media platform X-formerly-Twitter.

"My crazy conspiracy theory is the bridge collapsed because it got hit by an absolute unit of a boat," she wrote. "The world is cray but sometimes shit still just... happens."

More on ships: Cargo Ship Spent Months With Captain's Corpse in Walk-in Freezer

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Marineland Under Investigation Amid 17 Beluga Deaths – Futurism

Posted: at 4:04 am

Two more beluga whales have died at Niagara Falls tourist attraction Marineland this month, raising the total number of whale deaths there to 17 since just 2019.

According to the Canadian Press, the park has been under investigation by Ontario's Animal Welfare Services since 2020.

Officials didn't reveal the exact cause of death of the latest two whales, but Marineland has since said the belugas "both died from torsion after valiant medical efforts to assist them," in a statement, referring to the twisting of bodily organs.

The latest news was met with outrage by critics, who are now calling for the government to shut the park down once and for all.

While the company maintains that the whales at its parks are well taken care of by experts, the deaths shed light on the ongoing and unnecessarily cruel act of holding large marine mammals in captivity for the entertainment of human visitors.

Marineland's park in Niagara Falls isn't even the only facility where its beluga whales are dying. According to the Canadian Press, three belugas have died at the Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut, which bought the animals from Marineland in 2021.

The deaths have triggered an investigation by the US government as well.

According to a January report by the International Marine Mammal Project, there are at least 54 orcas in captivity in marine parks worldwide. The US accounts for 18 of them, spread out over three SeaWorld parks.

In comparison, there are more than an estimated 300 beluga whales currently being kept in captivity globally.

According to the Canadian Press, there were 37 beluga whales at Marineland alone as of last summer.

The mammals' habitats are being degraded by climate change, forcing tens of thousands of belugas to change their migration patterns and feeding grounds. Despite those considerable threats, they're easily stressed by being confined. They also often suffer from boredom and are more susceptible to health issues.

Ontario's Animal Welfare Services have already found that belugas have been in distress due to poor water quality, per the report.

In short, it's astonishing Marineland's Canadian attraction is still in operation, and it's still unclear what will come of the ongoing investigation.

Animal protection advocates are now calling for the park to be shut down, accusing the government of turning a blind eye to the deaths.

"Sixteen beluga whales, and one orca have died at Marineland since 2019," said Melissa Matlow, campaign director of the Canadian nonprofit World Animal Protection, in a statement. "Marineland has lost the trust of the public and has no business caring for animals."

"Enough is enough Marineland is the prime example of Ontario's broken system of regulations of animal attractions," she added. "This is a law and order issue, and the provincial government needs to address this issue immediately for the safety and security of the animals that remain at the facility."

"Marineland continues to try to hide the severity of the situation their animals are enduring, but dead whales are difficult to hide," former Marineland trainer turned critic Phil Demers told the Canadian Press. "When will there be accountability? Where is the government?"

More on whales: The Suspected Russian Spy Whale Isn't Looking So Good

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The James Webb’s Beautiful Images Actually Arrive in Black and White – Futurism

Posted: at 4:04 am

"We're just trying to enhance things to make it more scientifically digestible and also engaging." So Chic

This just in: the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a Tumblr girl, actually.

Since its launch in 2022, the JWST has dazzled the masses with spectacular photos of interstellar sights like the pillars of creation, exploding stars, and checks notes squirting moons.

While the public sees those images are seen in striking color, though, that's not actually how the JWST captures them. As Space.com reports, images snapped by the advanced telescope first arrive to researchers in black and white, and are then colored back on Earth by scientists who use data to make a well-educated guess as to what the cosmic bodies in the pictures might look like in the spectrum of visible light.

In other words, we have a pretty goodideaof what these astrological sights might look like to the naked human eye but we still don't know for certain.

"The quickest answer is, we don't know," science visuals developer Alyssa Pagan, one of the researchers who adds color to JWST at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), told Space.com. "We are using that relationship with wavelengths and the color of light, and we're just applying that to the infrared."

As Space.com notes, the JWST "sees" using infrared waves, which are outside the range of human vision. Infrared not only gives the JWST the power to see deeper into space, but also allows it to capture imagery and information that we couldn't possibly glean by peering through a regular optical telescope.

This is one of the ways that the Webb telescope differs from its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, which like humans "sees" via visual light.

"The rainbow of light that the human eye can see is a small portion of the total range of light, known in science as the electromagnetic spectrum," reads the Webb's web(b)site," adding that telescopes "engineered to detect light outside the visible range" can "show us otherwise hidden regions of space."

But while the JWST's infrared vision is transforming the field of astronomy as we speak, the downside is the lack of visual color in its resulting photos. Thankfully, though, we have Pagan and the other folks at STScI, who work to infuse some extra zest into the telescope's groundbreaking cosmic snapshots, inviting viewers to engage with a bit more wonder than they might with a black and white image.

"We're just trying to enhance things," the researcher told Space.com, "to make it more scientifically digestible and also engaging."

More on space: We May Have "Misunderstood the Universe," Nobel Prize Winner Says

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ChatGPT Use Linked to Memory Loss, Procrastination in Students – Futurism

Posted: at 4:04 am

You won't always have an AI chatbot in your pocket... right? Brain Drain

New research has found a worrying link to memory loss and tanking grades in students who relied on ChatGPT, in an early but fascinating exploration of the swift impact that large language models have had in education.

As detailed in a new studypublished in the International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, the researchers surveyed hundreds of university students ranging from undergrads to doctoral candidates over two phases, using self-reported evaluations. They were spurred on by witnessing more and more of their own students turn to ChatGPT.

"My interest in this topic stemmed from the growing prevalence of generative artificial intelligence in academia and its potential impact on students," study co-author Muhammad Abhas at the National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences in Pakistan told PsyPost. "For the last year, I observed an increasing, uncritical, reliance on generative AI tools among my students for various assignments and projects I assigned."

In the first phase, the researchers collected responses from 165 students who used an eight-item scale to report their degree of ChatGPT reliance. The items ranged from "I use ChatGPT for my course assignments" to "ChatGPT is part of my campus life."

To validate those results, they also conducted a more rigorous "time-lagged" second phase, in which they expanded their scope to nearly 500 students, who were surveyed three times at one to two week intervals.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the researchers found that students under a heavy academic workload and "time pressure" were much more likely to use ChatGPT. They observed that those who relied on ChatGPT reported more procrastination, more memory loss, and a drop in GPA. And the reason why is quite simple: the chatbot, however good or bad its responses are, is making schoolwork too easy.

"Since ChatGPT can quickly respond to any questions asked by a user," the researchers wrote in the study, "students who excessively use ChatGPT may reduce their cognitive efforts to complete their academic tasks, resulting in poor memory."

There were a few curveballs, however.

"Contrary to expectations, students who were more sensitive to rewards were less likely to use generative AI," Abbas told PsyPost, suggesting that those seeking good grades avoided using the chatbot out of fear of getting caught.

It's possible that the relationship between ChatGPT usage and its negative effects is bidirectional, notes PsyPost. A student may turn to the chatbot because they already have bad grades, and not the other way around. It's also worth considering that the data was self-reported, which comes with its own biases.

That's not to exonerate AI, though. Based on these findings, we should be wary about ChatGPT's role in education.

"The average person should recognize the dark side of excessive generative AI usage," Abbas told Psypost. "While these tools offer convenience, they can also lead to negative consequences such as procrastination, memory loss, and compromised academic performance."

More on AI: Google's AI Search Caught Pushing Users to Download Malware

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Rich People Hiking Mount Everest Now Forced to Bring Their Poop Back With Them – Futurism

Posted: at 4:04 am

Mount Everest is basically a mountain of human dung. Hiker's Duty

Back in the good old days of summiting Mount Everest, you could just shimmy down your pants, drop a deuce, and leave it right there on the snowy ground.

The problem with just leaving poop on the highest peak in the world is that the environ's extremely cold temperatures are not at all conducive to degrading biological matter. In addition, poop runoff is a problem at lower elevations to the degree that they've contaminated the local watershed.

Basically, Mount Everest is covered in human feces. It's a problem that hikers, sherpas and local officials have been complaining about for years.

But now, according to CNN, new poop rules are in place. If you want to climb Mount Everest from Nepal, the most common entryway, you gotta take your crap back with you instead of leaving it on the mountain.

Hikers, who are already paying tens of thousands of dollars to climb Everest, are required to bring with them two bags for their poop, each of which can be used for six bowel movements. When you put poop in the bag, officials say, chemicals inside cancel out the smell and make the poop solid.

The issue with leaving excrement on the mountain, besides it being unsightly, is that it can contaminate the supposedly pristine snow and glacier ice of the landscape. Melted runoff can pollute drinking water, making climbers and non-climbers alike sick.

"Every year, it is getting worse with poop," Everest veteran climber Lakpa Rita told Outside magazine back in 2015. "People just dig holes at Camps I and II, and it melts out and smells terrible. When it melts out, it gets into the water, and people are getting sick at every camp."

"The only good part about the human waste situation above Base Camp is that shit freezes fast at 8,000 meters," Everest guide Adrian Ballinger told the magazine. "Beyond that, its an inexcusable embarrassment. If you walk from one tent to another in Camp II or IV, you will step in shit. If you melt snow from the camp areas, you are drinking shit."

The other problem that officials have had to contend with is trash on the mountain, from ruined tents to oxygen canisters. The peak has been called the "worlds highest garbage dump."

In other words, it's high time for these wealthy tourists to bring their crap back with them.

More on Mount Everest: Climate Change is Thawing Out the Corpses on Mt. Everest

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Cargo Giant That Took Out Bridge Had Silenced Whistleblower Who Warned About Safety – Futurism

Posted: at 4:04 am

"This policy is reprehensible and an egregious violation of the rights of employees." Rights Violations

In incredibly unexpected news that absolutely no one saw coming, The Leverreports that the shipping giant responsible for Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse a tragedy that's left at least six people missing and presumed dead and gutted the area's infrastructure was recently sanctioned by US regulators for stifling whistleblowers.

According to the Lever, the company, a Danish outfit called Maersk, was hit with the sanctions in July 2023 after a Department of Labor investigation found that Maersk had retaliated against a worker who blew the whistle on unsafe working conditions. (Maersk didn't build or own the 948-foot cargo ship that collided with the bridge it was built by a Singaporean company called Synergy Marine Group but had chartered the ship for a client.)

In its scathing sanctions order, the Department of Labor's Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) also revealed that the shipping giant had implemented a policy requiring employees to report any workplace concerns to the company "prior to reporting it to the [Coast Guard] or other authorities." As the Lever points out, this policy is in direct violation of seaman protection law.

"This policy is reprehensible," reads the federal report, "and an egregious violation of the rights of employees."

The Department of Labor's report even confirmed that executives at the Danish shipper acknowledged the outcomes of the federal investigation, noting that Maersk's VP of Labor Relations "admits that this Reporting Policy requires seamen to report safety concerns to the company and allow it time to abate the conditions" before relaying issues to the Coast Guard or other regulators.

In other words, the company fully acknowledged that its policy would allow it to bide its time "fixing" an issue before inviting federal agencies in for review a broken system that could theoretically allow the shipper to avoid any of the real consequences that an immediate federal investigation might bring.

In addition to the Lever's report today, a striking Business Insiderreportrevealed that in June 2023 weeks before Maersk's citation was issued the ship at the heart of the tragedy, named DALI, was noted to suffer propulsion issues. Though the Key Bridge tragedy is still in the earliest days of investigation, one thing we do know is that the boat suffered electrical and propulsion failures shortly before hitting the bridge.

Maersk, for its part, told NBC in a statement that it's "horrified by what has happened in Baltimore, and our thoughts are with all of those affected." We're sure it is as the company, along with the Synergy Group, has a lot to answer for.

More on bad corporate responses to whistleblowing: Boeing Whistleblower Said He Was Being Harassed and Humiliated Before Death

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Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced to 25 Years – Futurism

Posted: at 4:04 am

It's finally over. Gavel Strike

Disgraced crypto CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for defrauding investors out of billions of dollars.

That's some serious time, but only roughly half of the sentence prosecutors were pushing for.

Bankman-Fried appeared uncharacteristically remorseful during today's sentencing.

"They built something really beautiful and I threw all of that away," he said of FTX, as quoted by CNBC. "It haunts me every day."

Veteran federal judge Lewis Kaplan estimated that the total loss of the fraud was over $550 million.

The sentencing bookends over a year of cringeworthy court appearances, shocking revelations, a mountain of incriminating evidence and furious investors, who are still looking to have FTX recoup their lost funds.

Kaplan also shot back at Bankman-Fried's desperate attempts earlier this month to reduce his sentence. In a Hail Mary memo, the former FTX CEO argued that the "loss" and "harm" to his customers is "zero" claims that were met with raised eyebrows, since the millennial's FTX crypto exchangecollapsed into rubble 2022.

The judge, however, rejected "the entirety of defendants argument there was no loss" today, calling out SBF's claims as "misleading, logically flawed and speculative."

Bankman-Fried was found guilty on all seven counts of fraud and conspiracy in November. At the time, he was staring down a statutory maximum of 110 years in prison. Jurors only took three hours to deliberate the decision.

Earlier this month, however, US prosecutors urged Kaplan to sentence him to between 40 and 50 years.

Kaplan has since recommended that Bankman-Fried be placed in a medium-security facility, arguing "that this man will be in a position to do something very bad in the future, and it's not a trivial risk," as quoted by CNN.

Medium-security prisons often have double fences, electronic detection systems, and cell housing in the US.

But to the disgraced crypto baron's legal team, the fight isn't over just yet.

"Mr. Bankman Fried maintains his innocence and will continue to vigorously fight the charges against him," said Bankman-Fried's lead defense attorney Mark Cohen in a statement.

Bankman-Fried is expected to appeal today's decision.

More on the saga: The New CEO of FTX Blasts Sam Bankman-Fried for Lying to Get Out of Jail

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Against All Odds, Japan’s Toppled Moon Lander Is Still Alive – Futurism

Posted: at 4:04 am

"The spacecraft made it through the lunar night for the second time!" Moon Miracle

In the wake of NASA's failed private Moon lander debacle, Japan's attempt is still alive and kicking.

In a post on X-formerly-Twitter, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) confirmed that SLIM an acronym for "Smart Lander for Investigating Moon" is still alive and transmitting signals after its incredible resurrection earlier this year.

"Last night, we received a response from #SLIM, confirming that the spacecraft made it through the lunar night for the second time!" the post reads. "Since the Sun was still high and the equipment was still hot, we only took some shots of the usual scenery with the navigation camera."

Launched in September, the SLIM mission seemed doomedafter the lander's "20 minutes of terror" upon making Moonfall, which ultimately resulted in the craft parking itself nose-first on the lunar surface.

Despite that major setback, JAXA worked steadily to bring the lander back from the brink but it was still shocking when it seemingly sprang back to life after more than a week of radio silence.

With Moon landers relying on solar power for energy, they have no choice but to power down during the two-week-long lunar night. As such, it's been pretty touch-and-go for SLIM since it came back to life at the end of January, but it has twice been woken up and directed to collect databy its Terran controllers.

At the beginning of March, however, JAXA warned as lunar night once again approached that SLIM might not wake up again but that didn't mean the agency wasn't going to try.

"Although the probability of failure will increase due to repeated severe temperature cycles," a translation of a March 4 post reads, "SLIM plans to try [operations] again the next time the sun shines (in late March)."

With all that said, however, JAXA seems concerned by some of the more recent findings from SLIM's latest measurements.

"According to the acquired data, some temperature sensors and unused battery cells are starting to malfunction," the recent post reads, "but the majority of functions that survived the first lunar night was [maintained] even after the second lunar night!"

As this latest update indicates, it's clear that SLIM is, for all its upside-down-ness, faring way better on the Moon than, say, Odysseus, its privately-manufactured and publicly-funded American counterpart that was officially pronounced dead earlier this week.

Ever polite, the humans behind SLIM's X account did in late February congratulate Odysseus and its creators for a "successful soft landing on the Moon" but if there ever was a time to gloat, it would be now.

More on lunar landers:Scientists Struggle to Explain Why Their Tall, Top-Heavy Moon Lander Fell Over

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OpenAI Let Directors Make Short Films With Sora and the Results Are Wild – Futurism

Posted: at 4:04 am

We've never seen a cross between a giraffe and flamingo this convincing. Director Access

OpenAI has given a number of directors, production companies, and creative agencies early access to its Sora text-to-video generator and the results range from astonishing to downright terrifying.

Toronto-based multimedia production company Shy Kids used the next-generation generative AI tool to come up with a whimsical short film about "Air Head," a man who has a balloon instead of a head.

The short film is an impressive example of the tech's capabilities, showing off Sora's striking ability to generate relatively believable and photorealistic video footage in response to a text prompt.

"As great as Sora is at generating things that appear real, what excites us is its ability to make things that are totally surreal," said director of "Air Head" Walter Woodman in a statement. "A new era of abstract expressionism."

A different short film showcased by OpenAI highlights how Sora can also be used to generate videos with horrifying results. Digital artist Don Allen III, who started his career at DreamWorks Animation, created clips of grotesque animal hybrids for his pseud-documentary called "Beyond Our Reality."

The short 90-second clip shows footage of a "Girafflamingo," an unholy cross between a giraffe and flamingo, as well as a "Whalepus," a whale with terrifying octopus arms.

While the short films are impressive, we've already seensome glaring inconsistencies in Sora footage OpenAI has shared, suggesting OpenAI may be overselling the tool's real-world capabilities by cherry-picking particularly impressive examples.

According to a recent interview in the Wall Street Journal, OpenAI ishoping to publicly release Sora "later this year." But who will have access and when is still unclear, especially considering just how resource-intensive rendering AI video is.

In short, we'll reserve our judgment until we've gotten our own hands on the tool.

More on Sora: OpenAI Says Sora Video Generator May Allow Nudity

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Google Pushing Its Unsafe Search AI on Users Who Didn’t Opt In – Futurism

Posted: at 4:04 am

Has anyone spotted Bono at the Google HQ? All Aboard

Don't want Google's experimental AI search feature embedded into your search pages? Too bad.

According to Search Engine Land, Google has started unleashing its AI-powered Search Generative Experience (SGE) product, which was previously available for users only on an opt-in basis, into the browsers of users who didn't choose to partake in Google's AI search experiment.

Google has defended the unsolicited SGE-ification of its platform, telling Search Engine Land that it's thus far only incorporated SGE automatically into a "subset of queries" that take up a "small percentage of search traffic in the US"and arguing further that the rollout will allow them to glean feedback from the users who, again, didn't elect to opt into the generative AI search service.

Regardless of how limited the effort is, though, the fact that Google's tentatively starting to test SGE in its open waters feels like a sign that thesearch giant's vision for an AI-infused gateway to the internet is still gunning full-steam ahead.

For the uninitiated, SGE is a large language model-powered chatbot that sits at the top of Google results pages, where it gobbles web results and recapitulates them into organized, paraphrased answers for various queries. It'll generally link back to sources, though its sourcing is often flawed. Less-than-trustworthy user-generated content from sites like Reddit or Medium will sometimes be compiled into answers, for example.

Today, when we tested the query "today's news overview," SGE indeed provided a list of news bullet points, but linked out only to the homepagesof various news sites to support its paraphrased roundup as opposed to linking to the exact articles that might offer a Google user more useful information.

SGE has also been caught churning out plenty of incorrect information and deeply problematic takes, and was recently found to be sourcing information from and linking back to! to malware-laden spam. And broadly speaking, SGE even stands to change how our current internet and media landscapes function as a whole: if Google's AI is helpfully paraphrasing web-published content, where's the incentive for users to actually click the AI-feeding blue links?

In a statement to Futurism, a Google spokesperson noted that some of the AI errors in question, particularly the recent spam incidents, "only showed up for uncommon queries" and "in cases where an SGE user chose to manually generate an AI overview." They also added that Google utilizes its "core anti-spam protections to safeguard SGE from low-quality content for the vast majority of queries."

Per Search Engine Land, Google is first testing SGE in search queries where it believes an AI-paraphrased roundup might be particularly helpful or useful to users, including queries that are "more complex" or "involve questions where it may be helpful to get information from a range of web pages."

It could be argued that complex questions are ones that Google would do bestto keep AI out of for now, but we digress. For now, don't be too surprised if you see an AI-generated search response crop up on your browser sometime in the near future.

Updated with a statement from Google.

More on Google SGE: Google's AI Search Caught Pushing Users to Download Malware

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