Looking forthe most recentMini Crossword answer?Click here for today's Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands and Connections puzzles.I'm a pop-culture junkie, and co-wrote two books about the lost toys, tastes and trends of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. So 1 Across and 5 Across, pop-culture clues smack out of those times, were easy for me. I admit though, I struggled with 7 Across. The puzzle writers threw in a red herring there, making us think the clue referred to college degrees, not the 50, nifty United States. That's a hint, of course.Need some more help with today's Mini Crossword? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.The Mini Crossword is just one of many games in the Times' games collection. If you're looking for today's Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visitCNET's NYT puzzle hints page.Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini CrosswordLet's get at those Mini Crossword clues and answers. The completed NYT Mini Crossword puzzle for Jan. 8, 2025. NYT/Screenshot by CNETMini across clues and answers1A clue: Word on the front door of the Midvale School for the Gifted, in a famous "Far Side" cartoonAnswer: PULL5A clue: Classic TV squad featuring B.A., Faceman, Hannibal and MurdockAnswer: ATEAM7A clue: MA or MS, but not BA or BSAnswer: STATE8A clue: Like the letter J, alphabeticallyAnswer: TENTH9A clue: Butt, to BritsAnswer: ARSEMini down clues and answers1D clue: Food you might cook al denteAnswer: PASTA2D clue: DownrightAnswer: UTTER3D clue: What the Tower of Pisa doesAnswer: LEANS4D clue: Milky coffee orderAnswer: LATTE6D clue: "I've seen better"Answer: MEHHow to play more Mini CrosswordsThe New York Times Games section offers a large number of online games, but only some of them are free for all to play. You can play the current day's Mini Crossword for free, but you'll need a subscription to the Times Games section to play older puzzles from the archives.

Looking forthe most recentMini Crossword answer?Click here for today's Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands and Connections puzzles.So the very first clue today tripped me up. Do ... other people know what Man in Business Suit Levitating is? I had no idea. A Salvador Dal painting? A Wes Anderson movie? An obscure novel translated from the French? Anyway, I know NOW. But it sure slowed me down today. Need some help with today's Mini Crossword? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.The Mini Crossword is just one of many games in the Times' games collection. If you're looking for today's Wordle, Connections and Strands answers, you can visitCNET's NYT puzzle hints page.Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini CrosswordLet's get at those Mini Crossword clues and answers. The completed NYT Mini Crossword puzzle for Jan. 7, 2025. NYT/Screenshot by CNETMini across clues and answers1A clue: Man in Business Suit Levitating, for oneAnswer: EMOJI6A clue: Took a napAnswer: DOZED7A clue: Flying soloAnswer: ALONE8A clue: Graphic novel style for "One Piece," the best-selling of its kindAnswer: MANGA9A clue: GenuineAnswer: REALMini down clues and answers1D clue: Dutch cheese that's "made backward," per a jokeAnswer: EDAM2D clue: Grinding toothAnswer: MOLAR3D clue: Gas made of three oxygen atomsAnswer: OZONE4D clue: Game that might end if you accidentally bump the tableAnswer: JENGA5D clue: Like the best-case scenarioAnswer: IDEALHow to play more Mini CrosswordsThe New York Times Games section offers a large number of online games, but only some of them are free for all to play. You can play the current day's Mini Crossword for free, but you'll need a subscription to the Times Games section to play older puzzles from the archives.

The Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank, plans to identify and target Wikipedia editors who it believes are engaged in antisemitism, according to documents obtained by the Forward. Photo by Getty ImagesBy Arno RosenfeldJanuary 7, 2025The Heritage Foundation plans to identify and target volunteer editors on Wikipedia who it says are abusing their position by publishing content the group believes to be antisemitic, according to documents obtained by the Forward.Employees of Heritage, the conservative think tank that produced the Project 2025 policy blueprint for the second Trump administration, said they plan to use facial recognition software and a database of hacked usernames and passwords in order to identify contributors to the online encyclopedia, who mostly work under pseudonyms. Its not clear exactly what kind of antisemitism the Wikipedia effort, which has not been previously reported, is intended to address. But in recent months some Jewish groups have complained about a series of changes on the website relating to Israel, the war in Gaza and its repercussions.RelatedIn June, a panel of Wikipedia editors declared the Anti-Defamation League a generally unreliable source of information about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, limiting when the organization can be cited in Wikipedia articles. And there was an outcry this fall among some Jewish scholars and pro-Israel activists over edits to Wikipedias entry for Zionism to add references to colonization.Forwarding the NewsThoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day. Wikipedia has also recently drawn ire from right-wing figures including Elon Musk, the billionaire who has been by President-elect Trumps side during much of the transition. Musk posted on X (formerly Twitter) in December: Stop donating to Wokepedia.Graphic by Heritage FoundationA Heritage Foundation spokesperson said she was not able to answer questions about the organizations work related to Wikipedia, which editors it was seeking to identify or how it sought to target them. The Wikimedia Foundation, which provides the infrastructure for Wikipedia, declined to comment.The Heritage Foundation sent the pitch deck outlining the Wikipedia initiative to Jewish foundations and other prospective supporters of Project Esther, its roadmap for fighting antisemitism and anti-Zionism. The slideshow says the groups targeting methodologies would include creating fake Wikipedia user accounts to try to trick editors into identifying themselves by sharing personal information or clicking on malicious tracking links that can identify people who click on them. It is unclear whether this has begun.Tamzin Hadasa Kelly, a prolific Wikipedia editor, said that the methods mentioned in the Heritage document were familiar, and that Wikipedia editors know that it can be difficult to maintain their anonymity.Its scary they want to do this, but its not a zero day, Kelly said in an interview, referring to the hacking methods that the intended victim is unaware of before they occur.Allegations of biasWikipedia has long faced claims from conservatives that it has a liberal bias. Chaya Raichik, the Orthodox former real estate broker behind Libs of TikTok, has assailed Wikimedias spending on diversity programming, for example. And a June study from the right-leaning Manhattan Institute found a mild to moderate tendency for Wikipedia to more negatively describe some conservative public figures.Several prominent Jewish groups have also expressed concern that Wikipedia is tilted against Israel. A World Jewish Congress has released a report in March said the sites articles about the Israel-Hamas war were biased in terminology, framing and lack of context, one-sided sources and critical omissions, while Aish.com, an Orthodox news website, said in November that it had been hijacked by digital jihadists.In May, the Los Angeles Jewish Journal ran a cover story titled Wokepedia? that described seven tactics Wikipedia editors used to spread anti-Israel bias. The article said that the term anti-imperialism had been added to the Hamas page as one of the Palestinian terror groups ideologies, and the term antisemitism removed. Neither term is currently on the Hamas page; editors frequently discuss and change the content of controversial articles.(Wikipedia has an entire entry on the back-and-forth between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian editors of the encyclopedia that it says began in earnest around 2006.)Campaign would be unusualThe Heritage Foundation told prospective donors the project would be led in part by Tom Olohon, a former FBI agent, and noted that he had won a SHIELD award from the ADL in 2015.The ADL did not respond to a request for comment about Wikipedia, the Heritage Foundation project, or the groups mention of its award in fundraising efforts. After Wikipedia declared it an unreliable source on Israel and Zionism in June, ADL rallied more than 40 Jewish groups to oppose the sites decision and stated that Wikipedia is stripping the Jewish community of the right to defend itself.The appeal was directed to the Wikimedia Foundation, which said that it does not interfere in decisions made by Wikipedias volunteer editors.Molly White, a software engineer and longtime contributor to Wikipedia, has criticized the rights war on Wikipedia. Photo by Getty ImagesThe ADL had faced backlash in 2021 after several of its staff members were found to be editing Wikipedia entries on domestic extremism to add information about the organizations research. The sites rules generally discourage editing aimed at promoting an organization the editor works for, but an ADL spokesperson said at the time that its employees had followed the rules by disclosing that they worked for the group.Doxxing, or unmasking the identity of anonymous editors in Wikipedia, violates the sites rules and can result in users being banned, according to the sites guidelines. Kelly, who has been a volunteer editor on the site since 2012 with a focus that includes sexuality and religion, and serves as an administrator, said that in the past, such problems have usually been rooted in interpersonal conflicts or ad hoc online campaignsA well-funded campaign against individual Wikipedia editors by an organization like the Heritage Foundation, which is one of the most prominent conservative think tanks in the country, it seems, would be a first.Molly White, an independent journalist and Wikipedia contributor who wrote an article last week describing the rights war on Wikipedia, said Heritages plan to target editors was concerning: The document is sort of vague about what they would do once they ID a person, she noted, but the things that come to mind are not great.RelatedArno Rosenfeld is an investigative reporter at the Forward covering issues including antisemitism, philanthropy and sexual misconduct. You can reach him at [emailprotected] or message him securely on Signal using a non-work device at 202-677-5462.A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman FeddersenI hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, Id like to ask you to please support the Forwards award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community. Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEOWith your support, well be ready for whatever 2025 brings.$36$500

Update: Here's a closer look at the prototype.The current Lenovo Legion GoA new leak has revealed Lenovo is seemingly following up its 'Legion Go' handheld gaming device with a "larger" model and it will once again take all sorts of design cues from Nintendo's hybrid system.Read the full article on nintendolife.com

8th January at 9:30 am DubaiVC investments in emerging markets such as the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) plummeted by over 40% compared to 2023, according to a new report. The data mirrors the wider global trend of reduced VC funding in the last two years, especially for non-AI companies.The total raised across the markets surveyed was $9.1 billion in 2024, a 41% decline year-on-year (YoY). Furthermore, there was a 20% drop in deal activity YoY, with the number of deals falling to 1,527. However, there may soon be signs of recovery as interest rates decline globally, bringing with it lower inflation, while early-stage investing showed resilience.The trends are outlined in the 2024 Venture Investment Report from MENA-based research group MAGNiTT. The report covers Aggregate Emerging Venture Markets (EVMs), looking at VC investments in the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia, Trkiye, and Pakistan.In the MENA region, startups raised $1.9 billion in 2024, a 29% decline annually, but this was a small decline when set against that seen in Southeast Asia (45%) and Africa (44%).Plus, funding levels in 2024 were still higher than 2020 levels, prior to the 2021 and 2022 boom years, meaning the region continues to grow in the venture space.There was a 7% YoY increase in deal count (571) and the number of investors increased by 18% (to 475).And 47% of all investments were in the $1-5M range, signaling a shift to early-stage investments. However, MENA experienced a significant decline in late-stage deals.Across MENA, Africa, Southeast Asia, Trkiye, and Pakistan, Fintech continues to put in a strong showing, raking in $3.9 billion in funding in 2024, reflecting that FinTech is doing well in emerging markets where more developed financial services are thin on the ground.The report noted that this presents an opportunity for M&A activity across geographies within the region.There was a predictable split where international investors focused more on late-stage deals, such as Insiders $500M round and Tymes $250M Series D. These kinds of investors made up 53% of the 475 investors that backed startups in the region. Meanwhile, local investors tended to stick to early-stage.This is all in the context of global exits dipping by 32% YoY to just 94 in 2024, and late-stage capital becoming harder to come by as public markets stayed closed.Philip Bahoshy, CEO at MAGNiTT, commented in a statement: We anticipate rate cuts to begin boosting capital availability within the next 6-9 months, paving the way for a stronger funding environment in 2025. He said that overall, 2024 was probably the bottom of the curve in terms of the funding downturn.He added that the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar saw increased deal activity year on year despite a slowdown in total capital deployment. The total number of investors also increased significantly in MENA, showing that investors, especially international ones, may have increasing confidence in the regions startups.Topics

The horizontal floor plane carpeted or smooth, wipe-clean or impossible to tidy shapes the life lived aboveI start from the floor. Everything sits ontop of it; it is the surface I am most often in contact with. The floor is key to the pleasure of the room. I am following my sevenmonthold daughter in my enthusiasm for flooring. She has led me to pay more attention to the ground. It is her domain, her knees and hands gripping and sliding as she makes her way across thefloor she is a connoisseur of friction.As soon as she started becoming more ambitious in her movement, we bought a big padded mat. At first it felt uncanny having asoft floor covering on top of the familiar floorboards. I had not expected the mat to take up so much space. Too big to roll away, we now share the cushioning with her. But Ihave come to like it; sometimes I wonder how long I will be able to keep it on the floor, surely not forever. But the soft surface is so generous, so kind to the soles of my feet.The actress Jayne Mansfield carpeted not only the floor of the pink bathroom in her Los Angeles mansion, but also the walls and ceilingCredit:Allan Grant / The LIFE Picture Collection / ShutterstockIt makes me think of deeppile carpets, like the ones in my neighbours house when Iwas a child. But then I was nervous about the impossibly thick shag. I understood from my friend that his mother was very protective of them. The carpets were pale throughout the house, with different colours indifferent places. In the hallways and onthe staircase, they were pale pink, inother rooms an offwhite. The thickest carpet was reserved for rooms we were not allowed to play in: the parents bedroom andthe sitting room. My nervousness about somehow damaging this carpet has made deeppile carpet feel almost embarrassing, perhaps also because of how sensuous it felt in contrast to the floors inthe house we lived in: tired vinyl, paintspattered bricks, wornout cork and motheaten carpet.I like carpet, but I am not sure I am clean enough for itI like carpet, but I am not sure I am clean enough for it. At the height of 90s deep pile, I was at primary school, and a favourite book was Terry Pratchetts The Carpet People, which imagined an entire society living in the forests and detritus of the furnished floor. This is the advantage of the babys mat it is wipe-clean. The mother of an exgirlfriend had a bathroom with carpet in it, and the carpet was covered by further rugs and mats in a sort of patchwork arrangement. It felt good on my feet to step out of the bath and onto that floor and feel itmould to my soles. It was fun to walk across from one mat to another like a sort ofunstitched quilt laid out on the floor, waiting to be patched together.Nothing can be too soft for my daughter. Ifeel strongly that she must be protected at all costs. But hard surfaces are her current preference. I am writing this from an apartment with hardwood floors: narrow chestnutcoloured strips of wood tightly arranged in parallel strips. A simple parquet design. It has just the right combination offriction and grip to allow her to crawl rapidly across it. Her bare feet get just the right traction she needs to slide herself along. She polishes it as she goes. I think mostly I have lived with wooden floors, but this floor is altogether different from those. Instead of dark whorls, gaps between planks and the occasional exposed nail, this floor lies perfectly flat.In Carpet Furniture (1993) by artist Andrea Zittel, the furniture of daily life is abstracted into two-dimensional CAD block-style plans, projected onto moveable rugsCredit: Andrea Zittel. Courtesy the ArtistI like the perfection of a smooth floor and admire the madness of geometric perfection. In the obsessive house that the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein helped to design forhis sister in Vienna, he insisted on millimetre perfection, driving architects andbuilders to distraction with his total conviction. The floors of the house are madewithout skirting boards and the floors and walls meet in perfect perpendicular agreement. The floor is also used to disguise the window coverings metal shutters are lowered into the floor with a complex system of pulleys. His sister said it was more of ahouse for gods than it was for humans.Rugs can be laid on top of smooth floors, adorned with abstract shapes like the ones that Anni Albers designed. There is a beautiful design from 1928 for a small rug for a childs room. Reds, greys, yellows and pinks alternate in rotating arrangements ina chequerboard pattern that gives the impression of also being striped because ofthe shifting colours. Or the 1958 Drawing fora Nylon Rug, which takes a more sinuous form with a red striped rope appearing to tie itself into one endless knot on a blue background. Rugs are good because you canuse them to cover things up, and you canbeat them outside to get rid of some ofthe carpet people.It is good to have a floor that you can sweep. Parquet floors reveal the shame of anuntidy life, the dust and detritus of your day picked out by sunlight. Not just dead skin and bits of grit brought in on your shoes or shed from your head, but also the little objects that I constantly leave behind: receipts, pennies, the plastic cover of a straw from a juice carton, a piece of hair. Itis easy to see on a hard and smooth floor. A more decorative floor would hide the dirt.The asrotos ikos, or unswept floor, was a type of mosaic that decorated the floors of some ancient Greek and Roman dining rooms, depicting the detritus of a banquet.Credit:Dmitriy Moroz / AlamyIn ancient Rome there was a fashion for mosaics which depicted some of the things that might be left on the floor after a banquet. The motif was referred to with theancient Greek words for unswept floor: asrotos ikos. The best example is in the Vatican Museum, covered in grape stalks, crab legs, animal bones and even a walnut being eaten by a mouse. That would work well for me on my floor, but with receipts, weeksold bits of newspaper, pens, baby toys and tons of dust instead. What heaven to have a floor which is impossible to tidy.On top of the smooth mosaic, depicting allthe detritus of a day, I would like rugs arranged in a sort of patchwork, sometimes piled on top of one another. Some soft, others rougher on my bare feet. And the baby and I will make it our entire world as we crawl across it, knocking over toys and building elaborate train tracks. A perfect plane. I think the floor will be enough.Explore the good rooms series, a collection of domestic spaces made, imagined or described by architects, curators and writersLead image: The parquet planks of London Plain, a 2020 installation by Olu Ogunnaike, were gradually removed by visitors during the course of the exhibition2025-01-08Reuben J BrownShare AR December 2024/January 2025Good rooms + AR HouseBuy Now

You will finally be able to speak to your Google TV like you would speak to a person. And future models will support ambient sensors.

Asus' ROG Zephyrus G14 resembles a MacBook, but the OLED display and hardware make for a well-rounded machine that performs better.

The company's latest 165W Fast Charging Power Bank and 140W Charger are available for purchase now.

Are we really nearing the AI singularity?gettyIn todays column, I examine two recent tweets that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted that have caused quite a heated stir. The upshot is that his posting suggests we might be at, near, or even passing through a momentous moment of AI advancement referred to as the AI singularity. The implication is that artificial general intelligence (AGI) or possibly artificial superintelligence (ASI) is essentially staring us directly in the face.Lets talk about it.This analysis of an innovative AI breakthrough is part of my ongoing Forbes column coverage on the latest in AI including identifying and explaining various impactful AI complexities (see the link here).About The Nature Of IntelligenceBefore I get to the provocative tweets, Id like to set some foundational considerations.The place to begin is by thinking about intelligence. The deal is this: A compelling case can be made that intelligence begets intelligence. In other words, it is possible to produce even more intelligence by accumulating and interplaying intelligence with intelligence. That seems like a reasonable assertion and has an intuitive air about it.If you buy into that assumption, we can start to toss around various offshoot theorems.The most prominent offshoot is that there is a chance of being able to instigate a chain reaction of intelligence. Think of this as akin to a nuclear explosion. A nuclear atomic chain reaction ignites nuclear activity, and it then fuels itself to further expansion. Perhaps the same can be said of intelligence. There might be a phenomenon coined as an intelligence explosion. Intelligence might seemingly ignite to foster the expansion of more and more intelligence, running rapidly at an incredible pace.MORE FOR YOUYou might know that when nuclear reactions were first devised during World War II, there was some concern raised that once a nuclear reaction began it might proceed nearly indefinitely. The thought was that the earths atmosphere might get carried into the reaction and the next thing that happens is the entire planet is engulfed in flames and ruin. This famous moment of grave concern has been portrayed in many movies such as the blockbuster 2023 film Oppenheimer.Reflecting on that potentially destructive outcome gives rise to a similar question in the context of intelligence.What might happen if there is an unfettered intelligence explosion?The answer is that no one can say for sure what will happen. Abundant theories are floating here and there. Some take the upbeat viewpoint and declare that this would be the best thing ever. Others are downbeat and worry that utter obliteration could be afoot.The Impetus For An Intelligence ExplosionIt seems unlikely that any individual human is going to somehow have an intelligence explosion in their brain that miraculously produces immense intelligence far beyond anything weve ever seen. For those of you waiting on that possibility, sorry, it seems highly doubtful. Ive met doting parents who think their beloved prodigy is going to have that occur. Best of luck with that.Okay, where then would an intelligence explosion have a modicum of chance occurring?Aha, the answer for that is via a computer system that is running AI. Maybe an AI system that is operating on servers in the cloud would lean into an intelligence explosion. The AI would fuel itself and produce vast quantities of artificially produced intelligence.Lets go with that concept and see where it takes us.First, contemplate how this AI intelligence explosion is going to get underway. One possibility is that humans such as AI researchers and AI developers provide the spark for this to happen. There they are, playing around with the AI and tweaking it, when bam, an intelligence explosion gets launched. It is conceivable those humans at work intentionally did this, knowingly, while the other possibility is that it happens by accident. For further assessment on this, see my discussion at the link here.Second, it could be that the AI stirs itself to initiate an intelligence explosion.Maybe the AI has some embedded element that perchance spurs the rest of the AI to start multiplying in terms of increasingly accumulating computational-based intelligence. Since this seems like something we dont want AI to do on its own accord, various AI containment techniques exist (see my coverage at the link here), and numerous AI human-values alignment approaches are being adopted (see my analysis at the link here).Third, the eyebrow-raising question is how far the intelligence explosion would go. Is there no limit to how much AI-based intelligence there might be? Would the intelligence fill up whatever computer servers were accessible and stop expanding at that point? Or might the AI grab up other computer servers, as many as could be found, and keep expanding?Does the server constraint even matter, since perhaps intelligence isnt bound by the underlying computing and can keep going anyway?The AI Singularity Is On Our MindsBy and large, this speculated artificially focused intelligence explosion is referred to as the AI singularity.A prevailing hunch is that AI is going to reach a juncture where it will start to explode into more and more intelligence. Some theorize that the AI singularity will take place in the briefest of split seconds, happening so rapidly that no human can somehow watch it occur. Not everyone agrees with that supposition. Maybe it will take minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, etc. Conjecture abounds.Will humankind be able to do anything about the AI singularity?Thats also quite a sticking point.One viewpoint is that we ought to slow down AI development until we have figured out how to deal with AI singularity. Political proposals exist to ban certain types of AI in hopes that we wont unknowingly fall into the AI singularity, see my discussion at the link here.You can certainly imagine why the AI singularity sends chills up humankinds spine. We dont know what the outcome will be. Perhaps after the AI singularity, we will have AI that can cure cancer and save humanity from all sorts of maladies. A gloomy view is that such AI is an existential risk and will indubitably enslave us or wipe us out totally.The other hair-raising issue is that we arent sure if we can stop it. Would it happen so quickly that we are caught off-guard and cant pull the plug? Perhaps it happens at a measured pace, but we want to garner the hoped-for benefits such as aiding humanity, so we let it keep going. The downside is that the AI opts to trick us by playing dumb, the so-called AI dimwit ploy (see my description at the link here), and we let the AI singularity continue until AI does the mighty takeover.Which Era Are We In NowFor the sake of discussion, I shall divide the singularity into three main AI eras:(1) Pre-Singularity AI era. The AI singularity hasnt yet happened, and we are presumably possibly making our way towards it.(2) Underway-Singularity AI era. The AI singularity gets underway, we dont know how long it will last (instantaneous, seconds, minutes, days, weeks, months, years, etc.).(3) Post-Singularity AI era. At some point, the AI singularity is said to have been roughly completed, assuming it isnt never-ending, and we find ourselves in a post-singularity circumstance.Id like you to take a moment, provide yourself with a glass of fine wine to sip from, and vigilantly sit down for my next question to you.Which of those three AI singularity eras are we in right now?Go ahead, take a reflective moment then announce aloud which era we are in. Ill wait, thanks.Id bet that most people would say that the answer is we are in the first era, pre-singularity. It seems obvious and indisputable. There is no apparent evidence to indicate that we are in the midst of the second era, the underway-singularity, and furthermore, absolutely no evidence to support that we are in the finality or third era of the post-singularity.Some brazenly claim your eyes deceive you.Lets dive into that supposition next.The Simulation Theory Or HypothesisIt turns out that an assumed certainty of our being in the first era or pre-singularity is due to a rather mind-bending reason you see, it is because thats what youve been told to believe.Boom, drop the mic.It could be that we are all immersed in a simulation that is being run by AI. The AI singularity already has taken place. AI then established a massive simulation to house humankind. Within that simulation, the AI is making us all believe that the AI singularity hasnt yet taken place. Alternatively, maybe evildoer humans have done this in conjunction with AI. Lots of permutations and combinations come to mind.It is an incredible ruse of which you, me, and nearly everyone else have fallen for it.I am guessing that your mind is invoking thoughts of (spoiler alert!) the famous movie The Matrix. The gist of suggesting that we arent in the first era pre-singularity of AI and that we are instead in the second or third era is a popular sci-fi plotline. Been there, done that.Maybe its true.I hear you scoffing. Why would the AI allow us to make movies that reveal the truth? Doesnt seem to add up. The retort is that by making it a fictional account, AI hopes that humankind sets aside the overarching premise as absurd and merely a made-up tall tale. That way, if any humans start to figure out that the AI singularity has indeed occurred, those said humans will be ridiculed as overly imaginative and foolish following a sci-fi contrivance.It is a head-spinner.Sam Altman Tweets A StormSpeaking of spinning heads, we can now drop into the tweets of Sam Altman. You likely know that he is the CEO of OpenAI, the AI company that makes the widely and wildly popular ChatGPT. There are an estimated 300 million weekly active users of ChatGPT around the globe. It is a staggering statistic.All in all, Sam Altman has become a kind of informal spokesperson about the status of AI and the ongoing newest advances in AI. When he speaks or writes, his words are given weighty consideration. Since OpenAI operates on a secretive proprietary basis about their AI, it is difficult to know where things stand in terms of their AI advancements. Thus, reading of the tea leaves such as tweets by Sam Altman is a prevalent pastime.On January 4, 2025, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, posted these two separate tweets on X:Posted at 10:00 a.m.: I always wanted to write a six-word story. here it is: near the singularity; unclear which side.Posted at 10:08 a.m.: (its supposed to either be about 1. the simulation hypothesis or 2. the impossibility of knowing when the critical moment in the takeoff actually happens, but i like that it works in a lot of other ways too.)Carefully examine those tweets.What do you make of the remarks?One interpretation of those remarks is that we are near enough to AI singularity that it is no longer a vague far-off futuristic conception. We are presumably still in the first era, pre-singularity, but are now butting up to the second era. It is within our ready grasp. Maybe Sam Altman has seen things within OpenAIs AI latest tech that prompt him to genuinely believe that the AI singularity is right around the next corner (how near or far days, weeks, months, years?).This has generated much controversy since many others within the AI community do not see whatever he seems to be seeing. There is no agreed consensus that we are on the cusp of AI singularity. In that case, is there something going on at OpenAI that the rest of the world doesnt know about?If so, should Sam Altman and OpenAI be societally obligated to let everyone else see what appears to be the nearing of AI singularity? In essence, the AI singularity as noted earlier has such immense consequences that a company that is landing near it ought to be a responsible citizen of humankind and ensure that humanity can partake in anticipating and dealing with the AI singularity.For my coverage of numerous AI ethics and AI law considerations about outsized advances in AI, see the link here.Being Unclear Of What SideAn additional interpretation has to do with the comment in the first tweet that says the status is unclear as to which side we are currently on related to the AI singularity. Give that a mental chewing. Plus, combine that comment with the second tweet about the simulation hypothesis.Heres what might be deduced.It could be that we are past the first era and have already entered the AI singularity, maybe even zoomed into the post-singularity. Perhaps everything around us is part of an elaborate AI simulation. Thus, we are now on the other side. We arent on the pre-singularity side of things; we are beyond that stage.The bonus remark in the latter half of the second tweet that we presumably wont know when the critical moment happens seems to further cement the idea that the matter of whether we are near the AI singularity is up for grabs. Maybe we are, maybe we are not. We might have slid past it and dont know that we did.Reactions Are AplentyIt might seem surprising that those two rather brisk tweets caused a bit of a firestorm in the AI community. A keystone reason is that this topic overall has become quite serious business and daily there is handwringing concerning the existential risk of AI. Some were upset that the remarks were overly ambiguous and couched as a mystery or riddle. Come out and take a firm stand, some exhort. Say what you mean. Dont be so cryptic.Another expressed qualm was that someone of such top stature in the AI community ought to be less casual about hand-waving when it comes to the AI singularity. Further, putting aside the idea that we dont necessarily know what side of the singularity we are on, at least be more specific about how it is that we are nearing the AI singularity. Provide tangible direct evidence so that others can double-check it to gauge the veracity of the claim being made.Well, there you have it, two tweets at the beginning of the new year and already lots of provocative AI considerations underway. Lets give the revered Albert Einstein the last word on this for now: Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.Yes, indeed, keep learning, living, and questioning as AI advances since we all have a mighty big stake in what the outcome will be.