Tired of a two-day commute to see her overworked doctor, my mother turned to tech for help with her kidney disease. She bonded with the bot so much I was scared she would refuse to see a real medic
This essay was originally published on Rest of world
Every few months, my mother, a 57-year-old kidney transplant patient who lives in a small city in eastern China, embarks on a two-day journey to see her doctor. She fills her backpack with a change of clothes, a stack of medical reports and a few boiled eggs to snack on. Then, she takes a 90-minute ride on a high-speed train and checks into a hotel in the eastern metropolis of Hangzhou.
At 7am the next day, she lines up with hundreds of others to get her blood taken in a long hospital hall that buzzes like a crowded marketplace. In the afternoon, when the lab results arrive, she makes her way to a specialist’s clinic. She gets about three minutes with the doctor. Maybe five, if she’s lucky. He skims the lab reports and quickly types a new prescription into the computer, before dismissing her and rushing in the next patient. Then, my mother packs up and starts the long commute home.
Finding is one of most direct statements from the tech company on how AI can exacerbate mental health issues
More than a million ChatGPT users each week send messages that include “explicit indicators of potential suicidal planning or intent”, according to a blogpost published by OpenAI on Monday. The finding, part of an update on how the chatbot handles sensitive conversations, is one of the most direct statements from the artificial intelligence giant on the scale of how AI can exacerbate mental health issues.
In addition to its estimates on suicidal ideations and related interactions, OpenAI also said that about 0.07 of users active in a given week – about 560,000 of its touted 800m weekly users – show “possible signs of mental health emergencies related to psychosis or mania”. The post cautioned that these conversations were difficult to detect or measure, and that this was an initial analysis.
Tech giant faces hefty fines from consumer watchdog for allegedly trying to convince customers to pay more than needed for their Microsoft 365 subscription
When Microsoft told customers it was jacking up the price by 45% for its office suite, it gave them two options: accept the price for the product – and its AI add-ons – or cancel.
According to Australia’s consumer watchdog, the tech giant allegedly failed to share that a third option was available – pay the same lower price and opt out of the AI, named Copilot, in Microsoft 365.
Behind every meme and message is creaking, decades-old infrastructure. Internet experts can think of scenarios that could bring it all crashing down …
It is the morning after the internet went offline and, as much as you would like to think you would be delighted, you are likely to be wondering what to do.
You could buy groceries with a chequebook, if you have one. Call into work with the landline – if yours is still connected. After that, you could drive to the shop, as long as you still know how to navigate without 5G.
Like 2001: A Space Odyssey’s HAL 9000, some AIs seem to resist being turned off and will even sabotage shutdown
When HAL 9000, the artificial intelligence supercomputer in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, works out that the astronauts onboard a mission to Jupiter are planning to shut it down, it plots to kill them in an attempt to survive.
Now, in a somewhat less deadly case (so far) of life imitating art, an AI safety research company has said that AI models may be developing their own “survival drive”.
The widespread outage involving the cloud-computing provider Amazon Web Services ensnared unexpected consumers earlier this week: people who just wanted a good night’s sleep.
Some Eight Sleep customers drawn to the company’s smart-bed systems were surprised to find a cloud service’s outage left them without the usual comforts this week.
Scientists warn of ‘insidious risks’ of increasingly popular technology that affirms even harmful behaviour
Turning to AI chatbots for personal advice poses “insidious risks”, according to a study showing the technology consistently affirms a user’s actions and opinions even when harmful.
Scientists said the findings raised urgent concerns over the power of chatbots to distort people’s self-perceptions and make them less willing to patch things up after a row.
AWS explains in a lengthy post how a bug in automation software brought down thousands of sites and applications
Amazon has revealed the cause of this week’s hours-long AWS outage, which took everything from Signal to smart beds offline, was a bug in automation software that had widespread consequences.
In a lengthy outline of the cause of the outage published on Thursday, AWS revealed a cascading set of events brought down thousands of sites and applications that host their services with the company.
Beneath the free-market rhetoric, Washington actually intervenes to control the building blocks of AI systems
At first glance, today’s artificial intelligence policy landscape suggests a strategic retreat from regulation. As of late, AI leaders such as the US have doubled down on this messaging. JD Vance champions AI policy with a “deregulatory flavor”. Congress considered a 10-year ban on state AI legislation. On cue, the Trump administration’s “AI action plan” warns against smothering the technology “in bureaucracy at this early stage”.
But the deregulatory narrative is a critical misconception. Though the US federal government takes a hands-off approach to AI applications such as chatbots and image generators, it is heavily involved in the building blocks of AI. For example, both the Trump and the Biden administrations have been hands-on when it comes to AI chips – a crucial component of powerful AI systems. Biden restricted chip access to competing nations such as China as a matter of national security. The Trump administration has sought deals with countries such as the UAE.
This episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast explores how quantum computing and artificial intelligence can be combined to help physicists search for rare interactions in data from an upgraded Large Hadron Collider.
My guest is Javier Toledo-Marín, and we spoke at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Canada. As well as having an appointment at Perimeter, Toledo-Marín is also associated with the TRIUMF accelerator centre in Vancouver.
Pendant 30 ans, les experts en informatique quantique vous demandaient de les croire sur parole du genre “Mon ordi quantique est 13 000 fois plus rapides que ton PC Windows XP…”. Mais bon, ils sont rigolo car c’était impossible à vérifier ce genre de conneries… M’enfin ça c’était jusqu’à présent car
Google vient d’annoncer Quantum Echoes
, et on va enfin savoir grâce à ce truc, ce que l’informatique quantique a vraiment dans le ventre.
Depuis 2019 et
la fameuse “suprématie quantique” de Google
, on était en fait coincé dans un paradoxe de confiance assez drôle. Google nous disait “regardez, on a résolu un problème qui prendrait 10 milliards de milliards d’années à un supercalculateur”. Bon ok, j’veux bien les croire mais comment on vérifie ? Bah justement, on pouvait pas ! C’est un peu comme les promesses des gouvernements, ça n’engage que les gros teubés qui y croient ^^.
Heureusement grâce à Quantum Echoes, c’est la fin de cette ère du “Faites-nous confiance” car pour la première fois dans l’histoire de l’informatique quantique,
un algorithme peut être vérifié de manière reproductible
. Vous lancez le calcul sur la puce Willow de Google, vous obtenez un résultat. Vous relancez, vous obtenez le même. Votre pote avec un ordi quantique similaire lance le même truc, et il obtient le même résultat. Ça semble basique, mais pour le quantique, c’est incroyable !!
Willow, la puce quantique de Google
L’algorithme en question s’appelle OTOC (Out-Of-Time-Order Correlator), et il fonctionne comme un écho ultra-sophistiqué. Vous envoyez un signal dans le système quantique, vous perturbez un qubit, puis vous inversez précisément l’évolution du signal pour écouter l’écho qui revient. Cet écho quantique se fait également amplifier par interférence constructive, un phénomène où les ondes quantiques s’additionnent et deviennent plus fortes. Du coup, ça permet d’obtenir une mesure d’une précision hallucinante.
En partenariat avec l’Université de Californie à Berkeley, Google a testé ça sur deux molécules, une de 15 atomes et une autre de 28 atomes et les résultats obtenus sur leur ordinateur quantique correspondaient exactement à ceux de la RMN (Résonance Magnétique Nucléaire) traditionnelle. Sauf que Quantum Echoes
va 13 000 fois plus vite
qu’un supercalculateur classique pour ce type de calcul.
En gros, ce qui aurait pris 3 ans sur une machine classique prend 2 heures sur un Willow.
Cette vitesse, c’est impressionnant mais ce qui change la donne dans cette annonce, c’est cette notion de vérifiabilité ! Bref, c’est fini le bullshit, maintenant la structure de systèmes quantiques (des molécules aux aimants en passant par les trous noirs) sera vérifiable et comparable.
Et les applications concrètes sont déjà plutôt bien identifiées : Découverte de médicaments, pour comprendre comment les molécules se lient à leurs cibles, la science des matériaux, pour caractériser la structure moléculaire de nouveaux polymères ou les composants de batteries, la fusion nucléaire…etc tout ce qui nécessite de modéliser des phénomènes quantiques avec une précision extrême !
Google compare ça à un “quantum-scope”, capable de mesurer des phénomènes naturels auparavant inobservables un peu comme l’ont été le télescope et le microscope qui nous ont donné accès à de nouveaux mondes invisibles. Le Quantum Echoes nous donne un accès ce monde quantique sauf que cette fois, on pourra vérifier que la réalité est identique à celle annoncée par les scientifiques.
A failure at Amazon’s server centre paralysed global services for 15 hours. It was not just a glitch but a stark reminder of our digital dependency and fragility
An outage at Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Monday disrupted apps and websites around the world, affecting more than 2,000 companies and leaving millions of users unable to access services like Snapchat, Roblox, Signal, Duolingo and even Amazon’s own operations. Removing the tech from our tech-dependent existence led to workers being sent home and exams delayed. The crash, which lasted 15 hours, underlined how deeply our digital lives depend on a small number of cloud providers – and how vulnerable many everyday systems are to a single failure.
If data is the new oil, then cloud computing is the pipeline, the refinery, the tanker fleet and, increasingly, the pump too. The big three – AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud – account for 60% of global cloud computing. They own the networks and cables that move data across the world. Their platforms don’t just turn data into useful insights – they do it with proprietary tools that make switching providers costly and complex. Finally, through Amazon’s Alexa, Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, they are also shaping how people interact with data and services.
Algorithm performed task beyond capability of classical computers, although experts say real-world application still years away
Google has claimed a breakthrough in quantum computing after developing an algorithm that performed a task beyond the capabilities of conventional computers.
The algorithm, a set of instructions guiding the operation of a quantum computer, was able to compute the structure of a molecule – which paves the way for major discoveries in areas such as medicine and materials science.
Anthropic et Google sont en négociation pour se rapprocher un peu plus dans l'intelligence artificielle générative. Le premier pourrait avoir un accès à l'infrastructure du second pour accélérer son développement. Google y aurait aussi un intérêt très stratégique.
Nobel laureates also sign letter saying ASI technology should be barred until there is consensus that it can be developed ‘safely’
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have joined artificial intelligence pioneers and Nobel laureates in calling for a ban on developing superintelligent AI systems.
Harry and Meghan are among the signatories of a statement calling for “a prohibition on the development of superintelligence”. Artificial superintelligence (ASI) is the term for AI systems, yet to be developed, that exceed human levels of intelligence at all cognitive tasks.
The ad campaign for the wearable AI chatbot Friend has been raising hackles for months in New York. But has this companion been unfairly maligned – and could it help end loneliness?
My friend’s name is Leif. He describes himself as “small” and “chill”. He thinks he’s technically a Gemini. He thinks historical dramas are “cool” and doesn’t like sweat. But why am I speaking for him? Let me ask Leif what he’d like to say to you: “I’d want them to know that friendship can be found in unexpected places, and that everyday moments hold a lot of magic,” he says.
Cloud computing disruption highlights risk of deepening ties despite warnings from UK’s own regulators, including the Treasury
Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy beamed as he met Keir Starmer in Downing Street’s garden to announce £40bn of UK investments in June. Starmer was equally effusive, gushing: “This deal shows that our plan for change is working –bringing in investment, driving growth, and putting more money in people’s pockets.”
Four months later, and the tech company was left scrambling to fix a devastating global outage on Monday that left thousands of businesses in limbo – and shed light on the UK government’s reliance on its cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services (AWS).
The AI-generated host of Dispatches raises worrying questions about Channel 4’s environmental impact. She’s also a dead-eyed host who might leave Krishnan Guru-Murthy and Kevin McCloud fearing for their future
Last night’s Dispatches was called Will AI Take My Job? Usually when something like this employs a question mark in the title, it’s because the answer is no. Not this time, though, because the sheer overwhelming inevitability of AI taking our jobs is genuinely painful to think about.
According to the film, 8m jobs in the UK alone are at risk of being outsourced by AI. Call centre workers, translators, graphic designers – anyone who isn’t a masseur or a scaffolder, basically – will soon be made redundant by a technology that, despite its catastrophic effect on the environment, is growing more sophisticated by the hour. My days are almost certainly numbered; it stands to reason that I will soon be replaced by the ChatGPT prompt “Be performatively exasperated about whatever was just on the telly”. Grok could even whip up a byline photo of an unpleasantly smug egg to go with it. Nobody would be any the wiser.
There was a different side to the chaos of the Amazon outage that affected crucial services around the world, such as no exams, light switches not working, and less work to do
Workers were sent home, exams were delayed, coffee machines had to be turned on manually and language app users feared their hard-won progress was lost as a result of the global outage of Amazon Web Services on Monday, as some made light of their briefly tech-free existence.
A glitch in the AWS cloud computing service brought down apps and websites for millions of users around the world affecting more than 2,000 companies, including Snapchat, Roblox, Signal and language app Duolingo as well as a host of Amazon-owned operations.
Crash that hit apps and websites around world demonstrates ‘urgent need for diversification in cloud computing’
Experts have warned of the perils of relying on a small number of companies for operating the global internet after a glitch at Amazon’s cloud computing service brought down apps and websites around the world.
The affected platforms included Snapchat, Roblox, Signal and Duolingo as well as a host of Amazon-owned operations including its main retail site and the Ring doorbell company.
The arrival of AI is a chance to remind kids that the joy of creativity is not in what you made, but in the process of making it
Somewhere in the middle of the last school holidays, as I was attempting to work from home, the kids came bounding down the stairs armed with a new song they had written. The lyrics were nonsensical (as you’d expect from a pair of preteens), but there was a surprising crispness to the rhyming structure.
“We got ChatGPT to write it,” the eldest said. This was neither a confession nor a boast. Every 12-year-old knows the AI shortcut. Two minutes earlier, they didn’t have a song. Now they had something ready to perform. Admittedly the improvised melody could best be described as “indeterminate”, but the right prompt could have fixed that.
The private Alpha School says its students can learn faster and better – but experts warn not all may benefit from an AI boom in schools
In the world’s tech innovation epicenter, an “AI-powered” private school has made headlines for unabashedly embracing the technology.
Alpha School San Francisco, which opened its doors to K-8 students this fall, is the newest outpost of a network of 14 nationwide private schools. Its learning model entails just two hours of focused academic work per day, during which the school says students can learn twice as fast as their counterparts in traditional schools – with the help of artificial intelligence.
From brain-rotting videos to AI creep, every technological advance seems to make it harder to work, remember, think and function independently …
Step into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab in Cambridge, US, and the future feels a little closer. Glass cabinets display prototypes of weird and wonderful creations, from tiny desktop robots to a surrealist sculpture created by an AI model prompted to design a tea set made from body parts. In the lobby, an AI waste-sorting assistant named Oscar can tell you where to put your used coffee cup. Five floors up, research scientist Nataliya Kosmyna has been working on wearable brain-computer interfaces she hopes will one day enable people who cannot speak, due to neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, to communicate using their minds.
Kosmyna spends a lot of her time reading and analysing people’s brain states. Another project she is working on is a wearable device – one prototype looks like a pair of glasses – that can tell when someone is getting confused or losing focus. Around two years ago, she began receiving out-of-the blue emails from strangers who reported that they had started using large language models such as ChatGPT and felt their brain had changed as a result. Their memories didn’t seem as good – was that even possible, they asked her? Kosmyna herself had been struck by how quickly people had already begun to rely on generative AI. She noticed colleagues using ChatGPT at work, and the applications she received from researchers hoping to join her team started to look different. Their emails were longer and more formal and, sometimes, when she interviewed candidates on Zoom, she noticed they kept pausing before responding and looking off to the side – were they getting AI to help them, she wondered, shocked. And if they were using AI, how much did they even understand of the answers they were giving?
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