Cortical Labs and other startups are building computers that incorporate human neurons. It’s claimed that these systems can be trained to perform game-playing tasks significantly faster than traditional AI. https://theconversation.com/tech-firms-are-making-computer-chips-with-human-cells-is-it-ethical-183394
“The wider AI research community is an almost-optimal engine of apocalypse.” https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mF8dkhZF9hAuLHXaD/reshaping-the-ai-industry
Dyson Reveals Its Big Bet…Robots: “Dyson has signaled it is placing a ‘big bet’ on producing robots capable of household chores by 2030, as it looks to move beyond the vacuum cleaners, fans and dryers that made its founder one of the wealthiest British businessmen. The company, founded by billionaire Sir James Dyson, on Wednesday published photographs of robot arms being used in household settings, including cleaning furniture, a claw picking up plates, and a hand-like machine picking up a teddy bear.” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/may/25/dyson-reveals-its-big-bet-robots
“A Face Search Engine Anyone Can Use Is Alarmingly Accurate” [New York Times] https://archive.ph/GeMmS
The Big New Idea for Making Self-Driving Cars That Can Go Anywhere [Technology Review] https://archive.ph/kUuAs
Walmart Is Expanding Its Drone Deliveries to Reach 4 Million Households https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/24/23139767/walmart-drone-delivery-service-expansion-six-states-droneup-packages
Atomic clocks keep time accurately to within 1 second every 33 billion years. Nuclear clocks could blow them all away. https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/nuclear-clock/
Niantic Positions Itself as a Capable Rival to Apple, Meta in Coming AR Wars https://www.fastcompany.com/90755291/niantic-positions-itself-as-a-capable-rival-to-apple-meta-in-coming-ar-wars
Science is political - and that's a bad thing https://stuartritchie.substack.com/p/science-is-political?s=r
Majority of Scots want UK to retain nuclear weapons and stay in Nato, poll finds https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/majority-scots-want-uk-retain-26921554.amp
“The researchers … found that almost all of [advanced Russian weapons] included parts from companies based in the US and the EU: microchips, circuit boards, engines, antenna and other equipment.” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/02/business/economy/russia-weapons-american-technology.html
Taiwan Restricts Russia, Belarus to CPUs Under 25 MHz Frequency https://www.tomshardware.com/news/taiwan-restricts-exports-of-25mhz-cpus-to-russia
Suppose we detected a habitable planet 20 light-years from Earth. Would it be technically feasible to send a projectile to crash onto the planet with some inscribed data surviving the atmospheric entry?
Note that it doesn't matter how long it will take the projectile to reach the planet. And it won't have to contain any technology. It could simply be a tungsten rod with some symbols carved in it.
If this was possible, we could launch thousands of such projectiles on a collision course with potentially habitable planets. Even if humanity goes extinct, these artifacts would serve as gravestones that might last billions of years notifying the universe that we once existed.
Note that this doesn't run into the problem of notifying hostile aliens of our location because by the time it would reach them we would either be dead or powerful enough that it would make no difference.
Here is a reminder that a lot of amazing AI tools have already reached the consumer but most people have no idea that they exist.
For example, did you know those voice assistants can now instantly extract a lot of facts from the web such as a doctor's phone number and opening hours?
re 20 light years from earth, the answer is yes. but your intuition is wrong about 1000s crashing into a planet. If the sun were size of a marble, the nearest star would be 300 miles away. space is big, stars are tiny, planets are incredibly super tiny. You can't throw 1000 objects 300 miles and expect to hit a marble.
now this can still be done pretty cheap, but you'd need have a nuclear powered energy source to steer. maybe just enough power to have a sensor and rotate a solar sail would work.