It takes massive amounts of energy to power the data center brains of popular artificial intelligence models. That demand is only growing. In 2024, many of Silicon Valley’s largest tech giants and hoards of budding, well-funded startups have (very publically) aligned themselves with climate action–awash with PR about their sustainability…
Read MoreDrones offer a glimpse inside Fukushima nuclear reactor 13 years after disaster
A team of miniature drones recently entered the radioactive ruins of one of Fukushima’s nuclear reactors in an attempt to help Japanese officials continue planning their decades’ long cleanup effort. But if the images released earlier this week didn’t fully underscore just how much work is still needed, new footage…
Read MoreVernor Vinge, influential sci-fi author who warned of AI ‘Singularity,’ has died
Vernor Vinge, prolific science-fiction writer, professor, and one of the first prominent thinkers to conceptualize the concepts of a “Technological Singularity” and cyberspace, has died at the age of 79. News of his passing on March 20 was confirmed through a Facebook post from author and friend David Brin, citing…
Read More‘Cyberflasher’ sent to prison for the first time in England
England’s court system has sentenced a “cyberflasher” to over a year in prison—a first for the country after its Online Safety Act went into effect on January 31. The 39-year-old culprit—already a registered sex offender—recently admitted in court to sending explicit photos of himself in February to both an adult…
Read MoreWikipedia Has A Gender Gap Problem, Study Claims
BARCELONA, Spain — For over two decades, Wikipedia has served as a go-to source of information for countless people. Serving as the internet’s free-to-use encyclopedia, it isn’t a stretch to say Wikipedia has changed how people create, gather, share, and learn new information. However, researchers from the University of Barcelona point…
Read MoreCrypto scammers flooded YouTube with sham SpaceX Starship livestreams
YouTube is flooded with fake livestream accounts airing looped videos of “Elon Musk” supposedly promoting crypto schemes. Although not the first time to happen, the website’s layout, verification qualifications, and search results page continue to make it difficult to separate legitimate sources from the con artists attempting to leverage today’s…
Read MoreWhen steering balls of poop, dung beetles use the stars to navigate
What’s the weirdest thing you learned this week? Well, whatever it is, we promise you’ll have an even weirder answer if you listen to PopSci’s hit podcast. The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week hits Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts every-other Wednesday morning. It’s your…
Read MoreAirbnb finally bans all indoor security cameras
Certain Airbnb hosts will need to make a few adjustments to their properties. On Monday, the short-term rental service announced it is finally prohibiting the use of all indoor security cameras, regardless of room location. For years, hosts could install video cameras in “common areas” such as living rooms, kitchens,…
Read MoreHow social media helps wildlife trafficking thrive in plain sight
This article was originally featured on Hakai Magazine, an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems. Read more stories like this at hakaimagazine.com. In the summer of 2020, Jennifer Pytka spent three and a half hours a day sleuthing the internet for evidence of wildlife trafficking. She’d type กระเบนท้องน้ำ, a Thai…
Read MoreChatGPT’s accuracy has gotten worse, study shows
A pair of new studies presents a problematic dichotomy for OpenAI’s ChatGPT large language model programs. Although its popular generative text responses are now all-but-indistinguishable from human answers according to multiple studies and sources, GPT appears to be getting less accurate over time. Perhaps more distressingly, no one has a…
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