Lifeboat Foundation

Google is secretly showing off an AI tool that can produce news stories to major newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.

The tool, dubbed Genesis, can digest public information and generate news content, according to reporting by the New York Times, in yet another sign that AI-generated — or at least AI-facilitated — content is about to flood the internet.

Google is stridently denying that the tool is meant to replace journalists, saying it will instead serve as a “kind of personal assistant for journalists, automating some tasks to free up time for others.”

A film that has spawned a thousand imitations but never been bettered — Mamoru Oshii’s legendary anime film GHOST IN THE SHELL returns in a stunning new edition remastered by Oshii himself. Set in a re-imagined Hong Kong at a time when cyberspace is expanding into human reality, the story follows top cyberwarrior Major Motoko Kusanagi as she hovers on the border of total immersion in the digital world.

The prospect of a quantum internet, connecting quantum computers and capable of highly secure data transmission, is enticing, but making it poses a formidable challenge. Transporting quantum information requires working with individual photons rather than the light sources used in conventional fiber optic networks.

To produce and manipulate individual photons, scientists are turning to quantum light emitters, also known as color centers. These atomic-scale defects in semiconductor materials can emit single photons of fixed wavelength or color and allow photons to interact with electron spin properties in controlled ways.

A team of researchers has recently demonstrated a more effective technique for creating quantum emitters using pulsed ion beams, deepening our understanding of how quantum emitters are formed. The work was led by Department of Energy Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) researchers Thomas Schenkel, Liang Tan, and Boubacar Kanté who is also an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California, Berkeley.

A new robotic platform developed at the University of Chicago can adapt to its surroundings in real time for applications in unfamiliar environments.

The platform, dubbed the Granulobot, consists of many identical motorized units each a few centimeters in diameter. The units are embedded with a Wi-Fi microcontroller and sensors and use magnets to engage other units.

Continue reading “Shape-Shifting Robot Swarms Self-Assemble, Adapt to the Unfamiliar” »

Following several launch delays last week, the week of Aug. 21 through Aug. 27 is set to see seven launches marking the 129th through 135th orbital launch attempts of 2023.

Starting the week off, SpaceX will launch two back-to-back Starlink missions from Space Launch Complex (SLC) 4 East at the Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) and from SLC-40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS). Next, Russia will launch its Progress resupply mission, followed by Rocket Lab’s launch of “We Love the Nightlife.” SpaceX will then launch the Crew-7 mission from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A); JAXA will launch the SLIM and XRISM mission; SpaceX is expected to end the week off with another Starlink mission from SLC-40.

Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 7–1

Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer the future; it’s the everyday. We’ve become so accustomed to tapping into it for day-to-day tasks like searching the internet or choosing a movie to watch we barely even register that we’re using it.

Now, the advent of generative tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard means that the power and transformative potential of AI is in the hands of every business, big or small.

Every day I work with businesses that are finding exciting new ways to put this technology to work. This can involve creating exciting new services, driving improved efficiency, or even disrupting entire industries.

Continue reading “Why Every Company Needs A Chief AI Officer” »

Autistic individuals will soon be able to practice and improve their social skills through realistic conversations with avatars powered by generative AI technology.

Autism is a developmental disorder that affects how people interact and communicate, often hindering diagnosed individuals in social situations. In many cases, autistic individuals struggle to initiate conversations, respond to the initiations and non-verbal cues of others, maintain eye contact, and take on another person’s perspective.

The web-based Skill Coach application developed by Israeli startup Arrows lets users engage in conversations in a variety of scenarios – from chatting with a stranger in a café to making small talk with a work colleague.

As AI-generated content fills the Internet, it’s corrupting the training data for models to come. What happens when AI eats itself?