Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt compared AI to nuclear weapons and called for a deterrence regime similar to the mutually-assured destruction that keeps the world’s most powerful countries from destroying each other. Schmidt talked about the dangers of AI at the Aspen Security Forum at a panel on national security Read more…
“It appears that we need the First Law of Robotics NOW!” quips Slashdot reader Bruce66423. During a tournament in Moscow, a chess-playing robot fractured a 7-year-old boy’s finger when the youngster attempted a quick move without giving the device enough time to finish its task. On July 19, at the Read more…
“Record-breaking heat across Texas has pushed its fragile power grid to the brink,” reports NBC News. “But extreme temperatures are doing something else in the famously pro-business state: stirring opposition to energy-guzzling crypto miners who’ve flocked there seeking low-cost energy and a deregulatory stance.” Ten industrial-scale crypto miners will consume Read more…
Blake Lemoine, the Google engineer who publicly claimed that the company’s LaMDA conversational artificial intelligence is sentient, has been fired, according to the Big Technology newsletter, which spoke to Lemoine. In June, Google placed Lemoine on paid administrative leave for breaching its confidentiality agreement after he contacted members of the Read more…
By shining a laser pulse sequence inspired by the Fibonacci numbers at atoms inside a quantum computer, physicists have created a remarkable, never-before-seen phase of matter. The phase has the benefits of two time dimensions despite there still being only one singular flow of time, the physicists report July 20 Read more…
The Moon isn’t necessarily there if you don’t look at it. So says quantum mechanics, which states that what exists depends on what you measure. Proving reality like that usually involves the comparison of arcane probabilities, but physicists in China have made the point in a clearer way. They performed Read more…
Dutch reforestation company Land Life started what has become a 35,000 acre forest fire in Spain earlier this week. The fire started in Bubierca, a province of Zaragoza, the capital of autonomous community Aragon, when a Land Life contractor planting trees accidentally set off sparks that ignited nearby plant life. Read more…