Author: M Barbu
Charting a Course for AI in Science
Rather than haphazardly using artificial intelligence for research, scientists and decisionmakers should take a deliberative approach.
Artificial intelligence is reshaping the scientific enterprise. From our perch at the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), a tech policy research organization at Georgetown University, we are witnessing this change through two lenses simultaneously. As researchers, we study AI, including large language models (LLMs) like those that power ChatGPT, and scientific models like AlphaFold; we also monitor the science and tech landscape, including trends in AI’s development. Our ability to do this work relies in part on designing, testing, and implementing AI-enabled methods. AI is thus both our research subject and one of our research tools. Our work brings us face-to-face with the tensions that arise when figuring out what AI-enabled science can—and should—look like.
Voici comment Poutine et Xi peuvent sauver l’Occident de lui-même
Le récent sommet entre Vladimir Poutine et Xi Jinping a semé une nouvelle vague de panique dans les milieux politiques et médiatiques occidentaux. Des deux côtés de l’Atlantique, le partenariat croissant entre la Russie et la Chine est systématiquement décrit comme une alliance autoritaire complotant contre le « monde libre ». Les gros titres regorgent de mises en garde contre un nouvel axe anti-occidental. Les think tanks adoptent un ton apocalyptique. Les commentateurs libéraux évoquent une nouvelle Guerre froide.
What Was the Cuban Revolution? The Dream Is Dying but the Myth Will Persist
Just how and when the Cuban dictatorship will disappear is impossible to predict: a deal with Donald Trump to build hotels in Varader; the Marines welcomed by crowds on the Havana Malecón; popular protests overwhelming an army unwilling to fire on its people; a real, necessary and desirable peaceful transition to democratic rule and economic reform. Dozens of experts and pundits have lost their shirts betting on the regime’s demise since 1959. The convergence of new factors, however, suggests that Cuba has entered a new and probably terminal phase. Its economic collapse, the end of the Venezuelan subsidy, the Trump administration’s willingness and ability to squeeze it further, the growing discontent and protests of the island’s inhabitants, are all factors that were absent in prior decades.
The Pope Says AI Is Babel: We Are Already Inside the Tower
The Vatican’s new AI warning is not about machines. It is about the oldest human temptation: building a tower, summoning a voice, and mistaking the vessel for the source.
The Vatican just did something historical and culturally important, regardless of your religious or secular beliefs.
Putin’s stagnation: police in Russia again disperse concerts, and metalworkers are fined for tattoos and clothes
Over the past year in Russia, the security forces have disrupted a series of punk and metal concerts. 35 years after the collapse of the USSR, representatives of subcultures are again persecuted in Russia – those who were previously called “informals”. Concerts are banned and dispersed, songs are censored, and for improper clothes are fined. The police and judges rely on anti-extremist legislation, which is increasingly tightening. Objects of repression are not necessarily young rebellious, sometimes quite loyal to the state of age. The current bans are even tougher than the Soviet ones.
Limited Intelligence: How Civil Society Is Trying to Take Control of AI
The break in the contract between the Pentagon and Anthropic has become one of the biggest scandals around the ethics of the use of AI technology. The more rapidly the artificial intelligence market is developing, the more acute the question of ethical limitations of digital algorithms is. Most states have not been able to develop legislation governing AI technology, and their developers are resisting any attempt to impose restrictions on their work. While states fail, civil society takes care of this burden: we are talking about such tools as civil audit of AI technologies, the development of ethical codes and licenses, collective testing and pressure through the media.
On Defense and Offense: Revisiting Clausewitz, Mao Zedong and Thucydides
“No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.” Patton’s remark, while it had not advanced the study of war by any measure, stated what had been the objectives of military commanders of history: to defeat the enemy and preserve their own forces. Clausewitz, in order to elaborate the importance of attack and defense to the theory of war, said it longer and more philosophically: “as I have not overthrown my opponent I am bound to fear he may overthrow me” [and one third of his first chapter of the first book of On War].[1]