.jpg "Trae Stephens Has Built AI Weapons and Worked for Donald Trump. As He Sees It, Jesus Would Approve")
When I wrote about Anduril in 2018, the company explicitly said it wouldn’t build lethal weapons. Now you are building fighter planes, underwater drones, and other deadly weapons of war. Why did you make that pivot? We responded to what we saw, not only inside our military but also across the world. We want to … Read more
A group of sex industry professionals and advocates issued an open letter to EU regulators on Thursday, claiming that their views are being overlooked in vital discussions on policing AI technology despite also being implicated in AI’s momentous rise. In response to European internet regulations, a collective of adult industry members—including sex workers, erotic filmmakers, … Read more
The first wave of major generative AI tools largely were trained on “publicly available” data—basically, anything and everything that could be scraped from the internet. Now, sources of training data are increasingly restricting access and pushing for licensing agreements. With the hunt for additional data sources intensifying, new licensing startups have emerged to keep the … Read more
When is it OK to kill an alien life-form? In the movies, the answer is usually pretty simple: It’s OK in self-defense, especially if it inspires a rousing speech about human exceptionalism. But in the real world, the choice is neither straightforward nor abstract. Many missions to neighboring worlds could, accidentally or intentionally, disrupt extraterrestrial … Read more
WASHINGTON — In an unusual public statement on Tuesday, the House Ethics Committee said it is expanding an investigation into Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) amid allegations of sexual misconduct, drug use and a range of other eyebrow-raising claims. The committee said it has spoken with more than a dozen witnesses, issued 25 subpoenas and reviewed … Read more
Would it be too disruptive if protests staged sit-ins or chained themselves to the doors of AI developers, one member of the Discord asked. “Probably not. We do what we have to, in the end, for a future with humanity, while we still can.” Meindertsma had been worried about the consequences of AI after reading … Read more
OpenAI released draft documentation Wednesday laying out how it wants ChatGPT and its other AI technology to behave. Part of the lengthy Model Spec document discloses that the company is exploring a leap into porn and other explicit content. OpenAI’s usage policies curently prohibit sexually explicit or even suggestive materials, but a “commentary” note on … Read more
The White House has issued new rules aimed at companies that manufacture synthetic DNA after years of warnings that a pathogen made with mail-order genetic material could accidentally or intentionally spark the next pandemic. The rules, released on April 29, are the result of an executive order signed by President Joe Biden last fall to … Read more
Philosopher Nick Bostrom is surprisingly cheerful for someone who has spent so much time worrying about ways that humanity might destroy itself. In photographs he often looks deadly serious, perhaps appropriately haunted by the existential dangers roaming around his brain. When we talk over Zoom, he looks relaxed and is smiling. Bostrom has made it … Read more
Voice synthesis has come a long way since 1978’s Speak & Spell toy, which once wowed people with its state-of-the-art ability to read words aloud using an electronic voice. Now, using deep-learning AI models, software can create not only realistic-sounding voices but can also convincingly imitate existing voices using small samples of audio. Along those … Read more
