The coming year is going to see the first sweeping AI laws enter into force, with global efforts to hold tech companies accountable.
In 2023, AI policy and regulation went from a niche, nerdy topic to front-page news.
New AI-generated digital replicas of real experts expose an unnerving policy gray zone. Washington wants to fix it, but it’s not clear how.
SpaceX is aiming to launch another batch of Starlink v2 Mini satellites from the Space Launch Complex 40 launchpad. This Booster, B1058, will try to launch and land for a record-breaking 19th time.\
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Window Opens: December 22nd at 11PM EST (04:00 UTC on the 23rd)\
Window Closes: December 23rd at 3:31AM EST (08:31 UTC)\
Primary T0: December 22nd at 11:00PM EST (04:00 UTC on the 23rd)\
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Mission: F9 launch of 23 Starlink v2 Mini satellites \
Target orbit: 285km perigee, 293km apogee, 43 degree inclination.\
Booster: B1058-19; 49d 3h 22min 40s turnaround\
Booster history: Demo-2, Anasis II, SL v1.0–12, CRS-21, Transporter-1, SL v1.0–20, SL v1.0–23, SL v1.0–26, SL 4–1, Transporter-3, SL 4–8, SL 4–17, SL 4–21, SL 4–2, SL 4–37, SL 6–5, SL 6–17, SL 6–26.\
Booster recovery: Droneship Just Read The Instructions (JRIT) located 629km downrange\
Fairing recovery: Bob\
Rocket trajectory: Southeast passing north of Bahamas\
Stubby nozzle: NO\
Stats: \
· SpaceX’s 95th launch of the year and the 6th launch of the month\
· 262nd Falcon orbital launch since Amos 6, F9’s 282nd orbital flight.\
· SpaceX’s 161st launch from SLC-40\
· 71st landing on JRTI out of 72 attempts\
· 181st successful landing since the last failed one\
· 55th launch dedicated to Starlink Gen 2 and 129th launch dedicated to Starlink overall.\
· First Falcon booster to fly for a 19th time\
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For its latest Hyperspace Challenge accelerator, the U.S. Space Force selected three startups specializing in satellite propulsion, picks reflecting the military’s growing interest in nimble satellites that can maneuver to outplay adversaries.
This marks a shift for the Pentagon, which traditionally has launched satellites into orbit and restricted their movements to conserve fuel. But with rivals fielding maneuverable spacecraft, U.S. officials are calling for a shift to “dynamic space operations,” enabled by autonomous refueling and other in-orbit services.
“Having the ability to refuel would really open new possibilities,” said John Plumb, assistant secretary of defense for space policy. He said the Pentagon is encouraged to see commercial companies developing technologies for in-orbit logistics that also have significant utility for the military.
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This has been one of the craziest years in AI in a long time: endless product launches, boardroom coups, intense policy debates about AI doom, and a race to find the next big thing. But we’ve also seen concrete tools and policies aimed at getting the AI sector to behave more responsibly and hold powerful players accountable. That gives me a lot of hope for the future of AI.
In November 2022, OpenAI launched ChatGPT.
From President Biden’s executive order on AI to the E.U. AI Act, governments scrambled to regulate AI this year.
Elucidating human contact networks could help predict and prevent the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and future pandemic threats. A new study from Scripps Research scientists and collaborators points to which public health protocols worked to mitigate the spread of COVID-19—and which ones didn’t.
In the study, published online in Cell on December 14, 2023, the Scripps Research-led team of scientists investigated the efficacy of different mandates—including stay-at-home measures, social distancing and travel restrictions —at preventing local and regional transmission during different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic.
They found that local transmission was driven by the amount of travel between locations, not by how geographically nearby they were. The study also revealed that the partial closure of the U.S.-Mexico border was ineffective at preventing cross-border transmission of the virus. These findings, in combination with ongoing genomic surveillance, could help guide public health policy to prevent future pandemics and mitigate the new “endemic” phase of COVID-19.
Twenty-four years ago, Ray Kurzweil predicted computers would reach human-level intelligence by 2029. This was met with great concern and criticism. In the past six months technology experts have come around to agree with him. According to Kurzweil, over the next two decades, AI is going to change what it means to be human. We are going to invent new means of expression that will soar past human language, art, and science of today. All of the concepts that we rely on to give meaning to our lives, including death itself, will be transformed.\
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Speakers:\
Ray Kurzweil\
Inventor, Futurist \& Best-selling author of ‘The Singularity is Near’\
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Reinhard Scholl\
Deputy Director, Telecommunication Standardization Bureau\
International Telecommunication Union (ITU)\
Co-founder and Managing Director, AI for Good\
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The AI for Good Global Summit is the leading action-oriented United Nations platform promoting AI to advance health, climate, gender, inclusive prosperity, sustainable infrastructure, and other global development priorities. AI for Good is organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) – the UN specialized agency for information and communication technology – in partnership with 40 UN sister agencies and co-convened with the government of Switzerland.\
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If we’re not careful, Microsoft, Amazon, and other large companies will leverage their position to set the policy agenda for AI, as they have in many other sectors.
A recent study published in IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems discusses how artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to control microgrids in the event of a long-term power outage caused by natural disasters or human error. This study was conducted by a team of researchers at UC Santa Cruz and holds the potential to improve power restoration techniques, which are traditionally controlled by local utility companies. One benefit of microgrids is they can function to power a small area, such as a town, until the primary utility source comes back online.
“Nowadays, microgrids are really the thing that both people in industry and in academia are focusing on for the future power distribution systems,” said Dr. Yu Zhang, who is an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC Santa Cruz and co-author on the study.
For the study, the researchers used an AI-based approach to develop a novel method where microgrids could draw power from renewable energy sources while being disconnected from the primary utility source, known as “islanding mode”, but can also function while being connected to the source, as well. This new method, which they refer to as constrained policy optimization (CPO), uses a machine learning algorithm that learns from outside input, such as real-time changes in environmental or power conditions, and makes the best-informed decisions on what to do next.
