In a mark of how twisted the online right has become, far-right YouTuber Jean-François Gariépy, whose own wife disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 2023 and was never found, wondered openly whether Schaffer was smart enough to murder his spouse without being discovered
The Bill seeks to control "space invaders"—of the terrestial kind—and other electronic games. The motivation is not any whim of mine, but the fact that some months ago the head teacher of Cumnock academy, in my constituency, drew to my attention the increasingly harmful effects on young people of addiction to "space invader" machines. Since then, I have seen reports from all over the country of young people becoming so addicted to these machines that they resort to theft, blackmail and vice to obtain money to satisfy their addiction.
You leave food out and it gets moldy. Leave out an insecure server, and you'll find a moldbot growing in it. The internet has become ambiently suffuse with them, and they are endemic. They are impossible to fully remove. No one knows where they came from, but there's no getting rid of them now.
AI-generated “slop” is often seen as digital pollution. We argue that this dismissal of the topic risks missing important aspects of AI Slop which deserve rigorous study. AI Slop serves a social function: it offers a supply-side solution to a variety of problems in cultural and economic demand—that, collectively, people want more content than humans can supply. AI Slop is not mere digital detritus; in many cases, it has its own aesthetic value. Like other “low” cultural forms initially dismissed by critics, it offers a legitimate means of collective sense-making, with the potential to express meaning and identity. We identify […]
Amazon has purchased an additional 10 Falcon 9 launches from SpaceX as part of its efforts to accelerate deployment of its broadband satellite constellation.
Epstein forwarded Kotick’s message to Holman, who reacted by saying, "I'm all for indoctrinating kids into an economy. You gotta love how his [e]xample for 'real world rewards' is 'virtual items in games.'"
The idea of an Epstein class is helpful because one can be misled by the range of people to whom Mr. Epstein ingratiated himself. Republicans. Democrats. Businesspeople. Diplomats. Philanthropists. Healers. Professors. Royals. Superlawyers. A person he emailed at one moment was often at war with the ideas of another correspondent
Last night, I was taken aback to discover that my name appears in the Epstein Files, in 26 different documents. This is despite the fact that I met Jeffrey Epstein a grand total of zero times, and …
The economic case for building 80,500 sqm of commercial, lab, and creative space (plus 40 homes) is clear cut. The impressive thing about the proposed Shoreditch Works development in Hackney is they’ve figured out a way to do it that the public seems to actually like. The public might like it, but their opinion isn’t the important one. Hackney’s planning officers have recommended that councillors refuse the scheme planning permission.
the next era of the big platforms is shaping up to one of increasing isolation, of passive consumption stripped of any sense of shared culture, and of, to borrow a term, comprehensive “unconnection,” not as a condition to be corrected — at least by other people — but as a goal nearly achieved.
Sam Altman, toward the end of last year, told me that AGI is under-defined. And what he wishes everybody could agree to was that we’ve sort of whooshed by AGI and we move towards superintelligence. Do you agree? I’m sure he does wish that, but absolutely not. I don’t think AGI should be turned into a marketing term for commercial gain. I think there has always been a scientific definition of that. My definition is a system that can exhibit all the cognitive capabilities humans can, and I mean all.
Landlords around the country have noticed the rise of queueing at pubs, with a growing number of people – usually a younger cohort – electing to wait in a single file line, standing one behind the other, before being called forward to order as if going through border control.
But beyond the elite academies nurturing budding prodigies, and high-stakes tournaments offering the prospect of cash prizes, corporate sponsorships and social media fame, a more modest but notably important outcome has emerged from the humble game of chess in India. It is one in which clubs and districts around the country are sponsoring tournaments and collaborating with chess academies to expand access to the game, recognizing it presents a pathway to educational advancement and a route out poverty for the communities they serve.
The "effect size" of the best antidepressants on depression, vs placebo, is around 0.4. (On average; some people respond much better or much worse.) This is like going from a C to a C+. In contrast: the effect size of 1500 mg/day of "≥60% EPA" Omega-3 supplements is a bit higher, around 0.6. This is like going from a C to a B–. (With uncertainty; at worst, Omega-3's "only" on par with antidepressants.)
Genie 3, Google DeepMind’s revolutionary world model that turns text prompts and images into interactive, 3D simulations. Unlike standard video or image generators, Genie 3 allows you to literally step inside a photo and walk through a universe created on the fly.
