bangladesh bet365
The U.S. Department of Justice and Google both delivered closing arguments in the U.S. antitrust trial concerning Google’s ad business. As with , the federal government argued that Google’s monopoly of this market is illegal. And as with that case, , in this case three businesses tied to online advertising. “Google is once, twice, three times a monopolist,” DOJ prosecutor Aaron Teitelbaum told Judge Leonie M. Brinkema today, referring to the three related Google ad businesses it’s accused of abusing, DoubleClick, Google Ads, and AdX (AdExchange). “These are the markets that make the free and open internet possible ... [But] for more than a decade, Google has rigged the rules of [ad] auctions.” “Google’s conduct is a story of innovation in response to competition,” Google lead lawyer Karen Dunn retorted in an equally pithy summary. Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday — get free copies of Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (normally $9.99) as a special welcome gift! , and . In both cases, regulators have proactively suggested that because of the scope of its dominance and abuses. In the most recent quarter, 66 percent of Google’s revenues, or almost $66 billion, came from advertising. But this antitrust case concerns only a small percentage of that: Ad revenues from Google Search and YouTube are not part of the complaint, and won’t be impacted if Google loses this case. But Google losing seems like a solid bet. During the September trial, the government argued that Google owns 87 percent of the market for selling online ads, and that it has consisted closed the vice on competition by illegally favoring its own services while raising feeds and lowering payouts to websites and other online publishers that rely on this income to survive. And it produced an internal Google email claiming that the three ad businesses it owned were similar to “if Goldman or Citibank owned the NYSE [New York Stock Exchange].” Google’s argument, that it has innovated and has competition, is about as specious as it is obvious. But the online giant says that this business is relatively tiny if you factor in all forms of advertising. And it blames “handful of rivals and several mammoth publishers” for the complaints that led them to the trial. Unlike the Judge overseeing Google’s search case, this one is going to wrap up quickly: Judge Brinkema will rule on the case before the end of the year and then schedule remedy hearings, if necessary, in early 2025. Paul Thurrott is an award-winning technology journalist and blogger with 30 years of industry experience and the author of 30 books. He is the owner of and the host of three tech podcasts: with Leo Laporte and Richard Campbell, , and with Brad Sams. He was formerly the senior technology analyst at Windows IT Pro and the creator of the SuperSite for Windows from 1999 to 2014 and the Major Domo of Thurrott.com while at BWW Media Group from 2015 to 2023. You can reach Paul via , or . Join the crowd where the love of tech is real - become a Thurrott Premium Member today! Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each FridayOTTAWA — The RCMP will create a new aerial intelligence task force to provide round-the-clock surveillance of Canada’s border using helicopters, drones and surveillance towers. The move is part of the federal government’s $1.3-billion upgrade to border security and monitoring to appease concerns of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump about the flow of migrants and illegal drugs. Trump has threatened to impose a 25 per cent tariff on all Canadian and Mexican exports to the U.S. as soon as he is inaugurated next month unless both countries move to improve border security. Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc says he has discussed parts of the plan with American officials and that he is optimistic about its reception. Canada will also propose to the United States to create a North American “joint strike force” to target organized crime groups that work across borders. The government also intends to provide new technology, tools and resources to the Canada Border Services Agency to seek out fentanyl using chemical detection, artificial intelligence and canine teams. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 17, 2024. Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press
Blinken Comes Under Fire Over State Department 'Therapy Sessions' After Trump Win
The societal fractures in the U.S. healthcare systems are clear, and it’s time to radically rethink how we approach health and wellbeing. Beyond treating disease or managing symptoms — it’s a systemic and multidimensional shift toward holistic health that’s needed. To address human existence's intertwined physical, mental, and social dimensions, we must expand our vision of health care, incorporating universal access and a 360-degree understanding of humanity’s complexities. That same multidimensional, holistic logic must be applied to the system itself. The potential of pro-social AI — artificial intelligence designed for human and planetary well-being — offers an innovative, and pragmatic pathway. Walking that path is not only ethical but essential for creating systems that are efficient, sustainable, and aligned with the real needs of individuals and society. Moreover, it is a business-savvy approach that addresses the inefficiencies in the U.S. healthcare system. Lets see why: The Multidimensional Nature Of Human Health Health is far more than the absence of disease. It encompasses the interplay of aspirations, emotions, thoughts, and sensations at the individual level while also reflecting the dynamics of our communities, cultures, economies, and the environment. Current healthcare systems often operate in silos, addressing only isolated aspects of this spectrum. This narrow focus fails to address the root causes of crises like mental health struggles, systemic inequities, or the societal alienation that can contribute to acts of violence. Pro-social AI addresses these challenges by considering four key dimensions at the individual level: At the collective level, pro-social AI integrates: This multidimensional perspective ensures that health interventions are technologically advanced and attuned to the human experience and societal context. By aligning with these dimensions, pro-social AI becomes a pragmatic tool to create impactful and equitable solutions. Universal Health Care: A Foundational Step Universal health care must become the cornerstone of this new approach. Access to affordable, high-quality care should not be a privilege but a fundamental right. Yet universal health care alone is insufficient; it must be designed to recognize and respond to human needs and societal influences. This requires: The inefficiencies of the U.S. healthcare system highlight this transformation's financial and societal urgency. U.S. healthcare expenditures total over $4 trillion . Differently said, 1 out of 5 dollars of the nation’s GDP goes to health care. This starkly contrasts with countries like Germany and Japan, which achieve better health outcomes while spending significantly less as a percentage of GDP. This disparity underscores, on the one hand, the need for more effective, integrated systems that prioritize prevention and holistic care and, on the other hand, the possibility of making that happen. The Potential Of Pro-Social AI Pro-social AI — AI systems that are tailored, trained, tested and targeted to bring out the best in and for people and planet — offers a unique opportunity to achieve this transformation. Unlike traditional AI systems focused on efficiency or profitability, pro-social AI prioritizes ethical, equitable, and sustainable outcomes. Here’s how it can reshape health care: Personalized, Holistic Care: By leveraging multidimensional data, pro-social AI can develop individualized care plans that address a person’s physical, mental, and social health needs. For instance, AI can identify patterns linking stress and physical health issues, offering preventive strategies tailored to the individual. Mental Health Support: Pro-social AI can provide scalable mental health resources, from chatbots offering empathetic listening to systems that alert caregivers to early warning signs of crises. Community Engagement: AI-driven tools can help communities identify and address systemic health disparities, creating targeted programs for underserved populations and fostering stronger social cohesion. Policy Insights: Pro-social AI can analyze societal trends to inform policies that address health inequities and social determinants, ensuring that resources are allocated where they are most needed. Designing Health Systems With Humanity in Mind To move from vision to reality, we must embrace a paradigm shift that integrates universal health care with the principles of holistic health and pro-social AI. Policymakers, health care providers, and technologists must collaborate to: Embed Holistic Principles: Design health care systems that address physical, mental, and social dimensions, recognizing the interconnected nature of human experience. That same holistic philosophy must becomes part of the training of health care professionals at all levels. Leverage Pro-Social AI: Develop and deploy AI systems that align with ethical principles and prioritize equity, inclusivity, and sustainability. Educate and Empower: Equip individuals and communities with the knowledge and tools to participate actively in their health and wellbeing. Foster Collaboration: Build partnerships across sectors to integrate health, technology, and social systems for collective impact. A healthcare system anchored in holistic principles and powered by pro-social AI offers a radical solution that could become part of 2025. By embracing a multidimensional understanding of health and leveraging technology for social good, we can move beyond treating symptoms to fostering true human flourishing — for individuals, communities, and the planet. It might sound naive, yet taking this approach to scale is not only ethically sound but also a pragmatic necessity for a more sustainable and equitable future. Furthermore, it is a financially prudent strategy, reducing inefficiencies in healthcare spending and aligning resources with outcomes that truly matter.Blind man evicted from council home while he was in hospital with terminal illnessUK to scrap warships, military helicopters and fleet of drones to save money despite threats abroad
AP Business SummaryBrief at 2:41 p.m. ESTMensah, a redshirt freshman with three years of eligibility remaining, told ESPN on Wednesday he has transferred to Duke. He attended the Blue Devils men's basketball game against Incarnate Word on Tuesday night. The Blue Devils (9-3) will face Mississippi in the Gator Bowl, but without 2024 starting quarterback Maalik Murphy and backup Grayson Loftis, who also entered the portal. Mensah, viewed as one of the top players in the portal, threw for 2,723 yards and 22 touchdowns and completed 65.9% of his passes. He led the Green Wave to a 9-4 record and the American Athletic Conference championship game, where they lost 35-14 to Army. Tulane will play Florida in the Gasparilla Bowl on Sunday. Van Buren, Mendoza and Locke announced on social media they had entered the portal. Van Buren started eight games as a true freshmen for the Bulldogs. He threw for 1,886 yards on 55% passing with 16 total touchdowns and seven interceptions for the Bulldogs (2-10, 0-8 Southeastern Conference). He took over as the starter when Blake Shapen suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in a 45-28 loss to Florida on Sept. 21. Shapen has said he plans to return next season. Van Buren, a 6-foot-1, 200-pound passer from St. Frances Academy in Maryland, had two 300-yard performances for the Bulldogs, including 306 yards and three touchdown passes in a 41-31 road loss against Georgia. Mendoza threw for 3,004 yards in 2024 with 16 TDs, six interceptions and a 68.7 completion percentage. "For the sake of my football future this is the decision I have reached," he posted. Locke passed for 1,936 yards with 13 touchdowns and 10 interceptions for Wisconsin this season. He said he will have two years of eligibility remaining at his next school. ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Michigan cornerback Will Johnson has joined defensive tackle Mason Graham in the NFL draft. Johnson declared for the draft on Wednesday, one day after Graham decided he would also skip his senior season with the Wolverines. Both preseason All-America players are expected to be first-round picks. Johnson was limited to six games this year due to an injury. He had two interceptions, returning them both for touchdowns to set a school record with three scores off interceptions. Johnson picked off nine passes in three seasons. Graham played in all 12 games this season, finishing with 3 1/2 sacks and seven tackles for losses. He had 18 tackles for losses, including nine sacks, in his three-year career. Tennessee running back Dylan Sampson is The Associated Press offensive player of the year in the Southeastern Conference and South Carolina defensive lineman Kyle Kennard is the top defensive player. Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia was voted the top newcomer on Wednesday while the Gamecocks' Shane Beamer is coach of the year in voting by the panel of 17 media members who cover the league. Sampson led the SEC and set school records by rushing for 1,485 yards and 22 touchdowns. He is tied for third nationally in rushing touchdowns, recording the league's fifth-most in a season. Sampson was chosen on all but two ballots. Mississippi wide receiver Tre Harris and his quarterback, Jaxson Dart, each got a vote. Kennard led the SEC with 11-1/2 sacks and 15-1/2 tackles for loss. He also had 10 quarterback hurries and forced three fumbles. Beamer led the Gamecocks to just their fifth nine-win season, including a school-record four wins over Top 25 opponents. They've won their last six games and ended the regular season with a win over eventual ACC champion Clemson. South Carolina plays Illinois on Dec. 31 in the Citrus Bowl. Pavia helped lead Vandy to its first bowl game since 2018 after transferring from New Mexico State. He passed for 2,133 yards and 17 touchdowns with four interceptions. He ran for another 716 yards and six touchdowns, directing an upset of Alabama. AMES, Iowa — Matt Campbell, who led Iowa State to its first 10-win season and became the program's all-time leader in coaching victories, has agreed to an eight-year contract that would keep him with the Cyclones through 2032. University president Wendy Wintersteen and athletic director Jamie Pollard made the announcement Wednesday, four days after the Cyclones lost to Arizona State in the Big 12 championship game. “Given all the uncertainty currently facing college athletics, it was critical that we moved quickly to solidify the future of our football program,” Pollard said. “Matt is the perfect fit for Iowa State University and I am thrilled he wants to continue to lead our program. Leadership continuity is essential to any organization’s long-term success." The Cyclones won their first seven games for their best start since 1938 and are 10-3 heading into their game against Miami in the Pop Tarts Bowl in Orlando, Florida, on Dec. 28. BRIEFLY FLAG PLANT: Ohio Republican state Rep. Josh Williams said Wednesday on social media he's introducing a bill to make flag planting in sports a felony in the state. His proposal comes after the Nov. 30 fight at the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry football game when the Wolverines beat the Buckeyes 13-10 and then attempted to plant their flag at midfield. MALZAHN: Gus Malzahn, who resigned as UCF’s coach last month to become Mike Norvell’s offensive coordinator at Florida State, said he chose to return to his coaching roots rather than remain a head coach distracted by a myriad of responsibilities.
Penn State kicks off Sunshine Slam by cruising past FordhamFormula 1 expands grid to add General Motors' Cadillac brand and new American team for 2026 season
Ameriprise Financial Inc. stock rises Wednesday, still underperforms marketNone
New mobile coverage checker launched in Monmouthshirehilosopher Shannon Vallor and I are in the British Library in London, home to 170 million items—books, recordings, newspapers, manuscripts, maps. In other words, we’re talking in the kind of place where today’s artificial intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT come to feed. Sitting on the library’s café balcony, we are literally in the shadow of the Crick Institute, the biomedical research hub where the innermost mechanisms of the human body are studied. If we were to throw a stone from here across St. Pancras railway station, we might hit the London headquarters of Google, the company for which Vallor worked as an AI ethicist before moving to Scotland to head the Center for Technomoral Futures at the University of Edinburgh. Here, wedged between the mysteries of the human, the embedded cognitive riches of human language, and the brash swagger of commercial AI, Vallor is helping me make sense of it all. Will AI solve all our problems, or will it make us obsolete, perhaps to the point of extinction? Both possibilities have engendered hyperventilating headlines. Vallor has little time for either. She acknowledges the tremendous potential of AI to be both beneficial and destructive, but she thinks the real danger lies elsewhere. As she explains in her 2024 book , both the starry-eyed notion that AI thinks like us and the paranoid fantasy that it will manifest as a malevolent dictator, assert a fictitious kinship with humans at the cost of creating a naïve and toxic view of how our own minds work. It’s a view that could encourage us to relinquish our agency and forego our wisdom in deference to the machines. It’s easy to assert kinship between machines and humans when humans are seen as mindless machines. Reading I was struck by Vallor’s determination to probe more deeply than the usual litany of concerns about AI: privacy, misinformation, and so forth. Her book is really a discourse on the relation of human and machine, raising the alarm on how the tech industry propagates a debased version of what we are, one that reimagines the human in the guise of a soft, wet computer. If that sounds dour, Vallor most certainly isn’t. She wears lightly the deep insight gained from seeing the industry from the inside, coupled to a grounding in the philosophy of science and technology. She is no crusader against the commerce of AI, speaking warmly of her time at Google while laughing at some of the absurdities of Silicon Valley. But the moral and intellectual clarity and integrity she brings to the issues could hardly offer a greater contrast to the superficial, callow swagger typical of the proverbial tech bros. “We’re at a moment in history when we need to rebuild our confidence in the capabilities of humans to reason wisely, to make collective decisions,” Vallor tells me. “We’re not going to deal with the climate emergency or the fracturing of the foundations of democracy unless we can reassert a confidence in human thinking and judgment. And everything in the AI world is working against that.” To understand AI algorithms, Vallor argues we should not regard them as minds. “We’ve been trained over a century by science fiction and cultural visions of AI to expect that when it arrives, it’s going to be a machine mind,” she tells me. “But what we have is something quite different in nature, structure, and function.” Rather, we should imagine AI as a mirror, which doesn’t duplicate the thing it reflects. “When you go into the bathroom to brush your teeth, you know there isn’t a second face looking back at you,” Vallor says. “That’s just a reflection of a face, and it has very different properties. It doesn’t have warmth; it doesn’t have depth.” Similarly, a reflection of a mind is not a mind. AI chatbots and image generators based on large language models are of human performance. “With ChatGPT, the output you see is a reflection of human intelligence, our creative preferences, our coding expertise, our voices—whatever we put in.” Even experts, Vallor says, get fooled inside this hall of mirrors. Geoffrey Hinton, the computer scientist who shared this year’s Nobel Prize in physics for his pioneering work in developing the deep-learning techniques that made LLMs possible, at an AI conference in 2024 that “we understand language in much the same way as these large language models.” Hinton is convinced these forms of AI don’t just blindly regurgitate text in patterns that seem meaningful to us; they develop some sense of the meaning of words and concepts themselves. An LLM is trained by allowing it to adjust the connections in its neural network until it reliably gives good answers, a process that Hinton to “parenting for a supernaturally precocious child.” But because AI can “know” vastly more than we can, and “thinks” much faster, Hinton concludes that it might ultimately supplant us: “It’s quite conceivable that humanity is just a passing phase in the evolution of intelligence,” at a 2023 MIT Technology Review conference. “Hinton is so far out over his skis when he starts talking about knowledge and experience,” Vallor says. “We know that the are only superficially analogous in their structure and function. In terms of what’s happening at the physical level, there’s a gulf of difference that we have every reason to think makes a difference.” There’s no real kinship at all. I agree that apocalyptic claims have been given far too much airtime, I say to Vallor. But some researchers say LLMs are getting more “cognitive”: OpenAI’s latest chatbot, model o1, is said to work via a series of chain-of-reason steps (even though the company won’t disclose them, so we can’t know if they resemble human reasoning). And AI surely does have features that can be considered aspects of mind, such as memory and learning. Computer scientist Melanie Mitchell and complexity theorist r have that, while we shouldn’t regard these systems as minds like ours, they might be considered minds of a quite different, unfamiliar variety. “I’m quite skeptical about that approach. It might be appropriate in the future, and I’m not opposed in principle to the idea that we might build machine minds. I just don’t think that’s what we’re doing right now.” Vallor’s resistance to the idea of stems from her background in philosophy, where mindedness tends to be rooted in experience: precisely what today’s AI does not have. As a result, she says, it isn’t appropriate to speak of these machines as thinking. Her view collides with the 1950 paper by British mathematician and computer pioneer Alan Turing, “Computing machinery and Intelligence,” often regarded as the conceptual foundation of AI. Turing asked the question: “Can machines think?”—only to replace it with what he considered to be a better question, which was whether we might develop machines that could give responses to questions we’d be unable to distinguish from those of humans. This was Turing’s “ ,” now commonly known as the Turing test. But imitation is all it is, Vallor says. “For me, thinking is a specific and rather unique set of experiences we have. Thinking without experience is like water without the hydrogen—you’ve taken something out that loses its identity.” Reasoning requires concepts, Vallor says, and LLMs don’t those. “Whatever we’re calling concepts in an LLM are actually something different. It’s a statistical mapping of associations in a high-dimensional mathematical vector space. Through this representation, the model can get a line of sight to the solution that is more efficient than a random search. But that’s not how we think.” They are, however, very good at . “We can ask the model, ‘How did you come to that conclusion?’ and it just bullshits a whole chain of thought that, if you press on it, will collapse into nonsense very quickly. That tells you that it wasn’t a train of thought that the machine followed and is committed to. It’s just another probabilistic distribution of reason-like shapes that are appropriately matched with the output that it generated. It’s entirely post hoc.” The pitfall of insisting on a fictitious kinship between the human mind and the machine can be discerned since the earliest days of AI in the 1950s. And here’s what worries me most about it, I tell Vallor. It’s not so much because the capabilities of the AI systems are being overestimated in the comparison, but because the way the human brain works is being so diminished by it. “That’s my biggest concern,” she agrees. Every time she gives a talk pointing out that AI algorithms are not really minds, Vallor says, “I’ll have someone in the audience come up to me and say, ‘Well, you’re right but only because at the end of the day our minds aren’t doing these things either—we’re not really rational, we’re not really responsible for what we believe, we’re just predictive machines spitting out the words that people expect, we’re just matching patterns, we’re just doing what an LLM is doing.’” Hinton has suggested an LLM can have feelings. “Maybe not exactly as we do but in a slightly different sense,” Vallor says. “And then you realize he’s only done that by stripping the concept of emotion from anything that is humanly experienced and turning it into a behaviorist reaction. It’s taking the most reductive 20th-century theories of the human mind as baseline truth. From there it becomes very easy to assert kinship between machines and humans because you’ve already turned the human into a mindless machine.” It’s with the much-vaunted notion of artificial general intelligence (AGI) that these problems start to become acute. AGI is often defined as a machine intelligence that can perform any intelligent function that humans can, but better. Some believe we are already on that threshold. Except that, to make such claims, we must redefine human intelligence as a subset of what we do. “Yes, and that’s a very deliberate strategy to draw attention away from the fact that we haven’t made AGI and we’re nowhere near it,” Vallor says. Silicon Valley culture has the features of religion. It’s unshakeable by counterevidence or argument. Originally, AGI meant something that misses nothing of what a human mind could do—something about which we’d have no doubt that it is thinking and understanding the world. But in , Vallor explains that experts such as Hinton and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT, now define AGI as a system that is equal to or better than humans at calculation, prediction, modeling, production, and problem-solving. “In effect,” Vallor says, Altman “moved the goalposts and said that what we mean by AGI is a machine that can in effect do all of the economically valuable tasks that humans do.” It’s a common view in the community. Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, has written the ultimate objective of AI is to “distill the essence of what makes us humans so productive and capable into software, into an algorithm,” which he considers equivalent to being able to “replicate the very thing that makes us unique as a species, our intelligence.” When she saw Altman’s reframing of AGI, Vallor says, “I had to shut the laptop and stare into space for half an hour. Now all we have for the target of AGI is something that your boss can replace you with. It can be as mindless as a toaster, as long as it can do your work. And that’s what LLMs are—they are mindless toasters that do a lot of cognitive labor without thinking.” I probe this point with Vallor. After all, having AIs that can beat us at chess is one thing—but now we have algorithms that write convincing prose, have engaging chats, make music that fools some into thinking it was made by humans. Sure, these systems can be rather limited and bland—but aren’t they encroaching ever more on tasks we might view as uniquely human? “That’s where the mirror metaphor becomes helpful,” she says. “A mirror image can dance. A good enough mirror can show you the aspects of yourself that are deeply human, but not the inner experience of them—just the performance.” With AI art, she adds, “The important thing is to realize there’s nothing on the other side participating in this communication.” What confuses us is we can feel emotions in response to an AI-generated “work of art.” But this isn’t surprising because the machine is reflecting back permutations of the patterns that humans have made: Chopin-like music, Shakespeare-like prose. And the emotional response isn’t somehow encoded in the stimulus but is constructed in our own minds: Engagement with art is far less passive than we tend to imagine. But it’s not just about art. “We are meaning-makers and meaning-inventors, and that’s partly what gives us our personal, creative, political freedoms,” Vallor says. “We’re not locked into the patterns we’ve ingested but can rearrange them in new shapes. We do that when we assert new moral claims in the world. But these machines just recirculate the same patterns and shapes with slight statistical variations. They do not have the capacity to make meaning. That’s fundamentally the gulf that prevents us being justified in claiming real kinship with them.” I ask Vallor whether some of these misconceptions and misdirection about AI are rooted in the nature of the tech community itself—in its narrowness of training and culture, its lack of diversity. She sighs. “Having lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for most of my life and having worked in tech, I can tell you the influence of that culture is profound, and it’s not just a particular cultural outlook, . There are certain commitments in that way of thinking that are unshakeable by any kind of counterevidence or argument.” In fact, providing counterevidence just gets you excluded from the conversation, Vallor says. “It’s a very narrow conception of what intelligence is, driven by a very narrow profile of values where efficiency and a kind of winner-takes-all domination are the highest values of any intelligent creature to pursue.” But this efficiency, Vallor continues, “is never defined with any reference to any higher value, which always slays me. Because I could be the most efficient at burning down every house on the planet, and no one would say, ‘Yay Shannon, you are the most efficient pyromaniac we have ever seen! Good on you!’” People really think the sun is setting on human decision-making. That’s terrifying to me. In Silicon Valley, efficiency is an end in itself. “It’s about achieving a situation where the problem is solved and there’s no more friction, no more ambiguity, nothing left unsaid or undone, you’ve dominated the problem and it’s gone and all there is left is your perfect shining solution. It is this ideology of intelligence as a thing that wants to remove the business of thinking.” Vallor tells me she once tried to explain to an AGI leader that there’s no mathematical solution to the problem of justice. “I told him the nature of justice is we have conflicting values and interests that cannot be made commensurable on a single scale, and that the work of human deliberation and negotiation and appeal is essential. And he told me, ‘I think that just means you’re bad at math.’ What do you say to that? It becomes two worldviews that don’t intersect. You’re speaking to two very different conceptions of reality.” Vallor doesn’t underestimate the threats that ever-more powerful AI presents to our societies, from our privacy to misinformation and political stability. But her real worry right now is what AI is doing to our notion of ourselves. “I think AI is posing a fairly imminent threat to the existential significance of human life,” Vallor says. “Through its automation of our thinking practices, and through the narrative that’s being created around it, AI is undermining our sense of ourselves as responsible and free intelligences in the world. You can find that in authoritarian rhetoric that wishes to justify the deprivation of humans to govern themselves. That story has had new life breathed into it by AI.” Worse, she says, this narrative is presented as an objective, neutral, politically detached story: It’s just . “You get these people who really think that the time of human agency has ended, the sun is setting on human decision-making—and that that’s a good thing and is simply scientific fact. That’s terrifying to me. We’re told that what’s next is that AGI is going to build something better. And I do think you have very cynical people who believe this is true and are taking a kind of religious comfort in the belief that they are shepherding into existence our machine successors.” Vallor doesn’t want AI to come to a halt. She says it really could help to solve some of the serious problems we face. “There are still huge applications of AI in medicine, in the energy sector, in agriculture. I want it to continue to advance in ways that are wisely selected and steered and governed.” That’s why a backlash against it, however understandable, could be a problem in the long run. “I see lots of people turning against AI,” Vallor says. “It’s becoming a powerful hatred in many creative circles. Those communities were much more balanced in their attitudes about three years ago, when LLMs and image models started coming out. There were a lot of people saying, ‘This is kind of cool.’ But the approach by the AI industry to the rights and agency of creators has been so exploitative that you now see creatives saying, ‘Fuck AI and everyone attached to it, don’t let it anywhere near our creative work.’ I worry about this reactive attitude to the most harmful forms of AI spreading to a general distrust of it as a path to solving any kind of problem.” While Vallor still wants to promote AI, “I find myself very often in the camp of the people who are turning angrily against it for reasons that are entirely legitimate,” she says. That divide, she admits, becomes part of an “artificial separation people often cling to between humanity and technology.” Such a distinction, she says, “is potentially quite damaging, because technology is fundamental to our identity. We’ve been technological creatures since before we were . Tools have been instruments of our liberation, of creation, of better ways of caring for one another and other life on this planet, and I don’t want to let that go, to enforce this artificial divide of humanity versus the machines. Technology at its core can be as humane an activity as anything can be. We’ve just lost that connection.” Posted on Philip Ball is a freelance writer based in London, and the author of many books on science and its interactions with the broader culture. His latest book is . Cutting-edge science, unraveled by the very brightest living thinkers.NEW YORK , Nov. 25, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against WM Technology, Inc. ("WM" or the "Company") (NASDAQ: MAPS ). Such investors are advised to contact Danielle Peyton at [email protected] or 646-581-9980, (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll-free, Ext. 7980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and the number of shares purchased. The class action concerns whether WM and certain of its officers and/or directors have engaged in securities fraud or other unlawful business practices. You have until December 16, 2024 , to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class if you are a shareholder who purchased or otherwise acquired WM securities during the Class Period. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained a t www.pomerantzlaw.com . . [Click here for information about joining the class action] On August 9, 2022 , WM disclosed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") that its board of directors had received an internal complaint relating to "the calculation, definition, and reporting of [its] MAUs [monthly active users]", a self-described key operating metric for the Company. Specifically, WM reported that "growth of our monthly active users, reported as MAUs, has been driven by the purchase of pop-under advertisements," but that "internal data suggests that the vast majority of users who are directed . . . via pop-under advertisements close the site without clicking on any links." On this news, WM's stock price fell $0.87 per share, or 25.14%, to close at $2.59 per share on August 10 , 2022. Then, on September 24, 2024 , the SEC issued a litigation release (the "Release") in which it announced that it had "charged [WM], its former CEO, Christopher Beals , and its former CFO, Arden Lee , for making negligent representations in WM Technology's public reporting of [MAUs] for WM Technology's online cannabis marketplace." The Release also noted that the SEC had instituted a related settled administrative proceeding against WM Technology" and that the Company had "agreed to pay a civil penalty of $1,500,00 ." On this news, WM's stock price fell $0.012 per share, or 1.29%, to close at $0.92 per share on September 25, 2024 . The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York , Chicago , Los Angeles , London , and Paris is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz , known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud , breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com . Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes. CONTACT: Danielle Peyton Pomerantz LLP [email protected] 646-581-9980 ext. 7980 SOURCE Pomerantz LLPCES 2025: What to Expect From the Giant Tech Expo
Hegseth meets with moderate Sen. Collins as he lobbies for key votes in the SenateANN ARBOR, Mich. — Michigan's defense of the national championship has fallen woefully short. The Wolverines started the season ranked No. 9 in the AP Top 25, making them the third college football team since 1991 to be ranked worse than seventh in the preseason poll after winning a national title. Michigan (6-5, 4-4 Big Ten) failed to meet those modest expectations, barely becoming eligible to play in a bowl and putting the program in danger of losing six or seven games for the first time since the Brady Hoke era ended a decade ago. The Wolverines potentially can ease some of the pain with a win against rival and second-ranked Ohio State (10-1, 7-1, No. 2 CFP) on Saturday in the Horseshoe, but that would be a stunning upset. Ohio State is a 21 1/2-point favorite, according to the BetMGM Sportsbook, and that marks just the third time this century that there has been a spread of at least 20 1/2 points in what is known as "The Game." Michigan coach Sherrone Moore doesn't sound like someone who is motivating players with an underdog mentality. "I don't think none of that matters in this game," Moore said Monday. "It doesn't matter the records. It doesn't matter anything. The spread, that doesn't matter." How did Michigan end up with a relative mess of a season on the field, coming off its first national title since 1997? Winning it all with a coach and star player contemplating being in the NFL for the 2024 season seemed to have unintended consequences for the current squad. The Wolverines closed the College Football Playoff with a win over Washington on Jan. 8; several days later quarterback J.J. McCarthy announced he was skipping his senior season; and it took more than another week for Jim Harbaugh to bolt to coach the Los Angeles Chargers. In the meantime, most quality quarterbacks wanting to transfer had already enrolled at other schools and Moore was left with lackluster options. Davis Warren beat out Alex Orji to be the team's quarterback for the opener and later lost the job to Orji only to get it back again. No matter who was under center, however, would've likely struggled this year behind an offensive line that sent six players to the NFL. The Wolverines lost one of their top players on defense, safety Rod Moore, to a season-ending injury last spring and another one, preseason All-America cornerback Will Johnson, hasn't played in more than a month because of an injury. The Buckeyes are not planning to show any mercy after losing three straight in the series. "We're going to attack them," Ohio State defensive end Jack Sawyer said. "We know they're going to come in here swinging, too, and they've still got a good team even though the record doesn't indicate it. This game, it never matters what the records are." While a win would not suddenly make the Wolverines' season a success, it could help Moore build some momentum a week after top-rated freshman quarterback Bryce Underwood flipped his commitment from LSU to Michigan. "You come to Michigan to beat Ohio," said defensive back Quinten Johnson, intentionally leaving the word State out when referring to the rival. "That's one of the pillars of the Michigan football program. "It doesn't necessarily change the fact of where we are in the season, but it definitely is one of the defining moments of your career here at Michigan." AP Sports Writer Mitch Stacy in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report. Get local news delivered to your inbox!
Nearly 50 payloads safely splashed down to Earth on SpaceX's 31 st Commercial Resupply Services Mission for NASA KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. , Dec. 17, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Research that could enable early cancer detection, advance treatments for neurodegenerative conditions, and improve respiratory therapies returned from the International Space Station (ISS) on SpaceX's 31st Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) mission for NASA. SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft splashed down off the coast of Florida with nearly 50 biotechnology, physical science, and student research payloads sponsored by the ISS National Laboratory ® . These investigations are among those that leveraged the unique environment of the space station for the benefit of life on Earth: The ISS National Lab enables access and opportunity for researchers to leverage this unique orbiting laboratory for the benefit of humanity and to enable commerce in space. To learn more about ISS National Lab-sponsored investigations that flew on NASA's SpaceX CRS-31, please visit our launch page . Download a high-resolution image for this release: SpaceX Dragon Freedom spacecraft About the International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory: The International Space Station (ISS) is a one-of-a-kind laboratory that enables research and technology development not possible on Earth. As a public service enterprise, the ISS National Laboratory ® allows researchers to leverage this multiuser facility to improve quality of life on Earth, mature space-based business models, advance science literacy in the future workforce, and expand a sustainable and scalable market in low Earth orbit. Through this orbiting national laboratory, research resources on the ISS are available to support non-NASA science, technology, and education initiatives from U.S. government agencies, academic institutions, and the private sector. The Center for the Advancement of Science in SpaceTM (CASIS ® ) manages the ISS National Lab, under Cooperative Agreement with NASA, facilitating access to its permanent microgravity research environment, a powerful vantage point in low Earth orbit, and the extreme and varied conditions of space. To learn more about the ISS National Lab, visit our website . As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, CASIS ® accepts corporate and individual donations to help advance science in space for the benefit of humanity. For more information, visit our donations page . Media Contact: Patrick O'Neill 904-806-0035 PONeill@ISSNationalLab.org International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory Managed by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, Inc. (CASIS) 1005 Viera Blvd., Suite 101, Rockledge, FL 32955 • 321.253.5101 • www.ISSNationalLab.org View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/iss-national-lab-sponsored-projects-on-cancer-neurodegenerative-conditions-and-more-return-from-space-station-302334158.html SOURCE International Space Station National LabFoushee’s priorities of civil rights, civil liberties in House reportBlackbaud CFO Anthony Boor sells $848,536 in stock
Thousands of UK social media users experiencing ongoing Meta blackout