By Matthew Gault Published January 8, 2025 | Comments (1) | The interface reserachers used to make genrative AI agents. Stanford University image. Stanford University researchers paid 1,052 people $60 to read the first two lines of The Great Gatsby to an app. That done, an AI that looked like a 2D sprite from an SNES-era Final Fantasy game asked the participants to tell the story of their lives. The scientists took those interviews and crafted them into an AI they say replicates the participants behavior with 85% accuracy.The study, titled Generative Agent Simulations of 1,000 People, is a joint venture between Stanford and scientists working for Googles DeepMind AI research lab. The pitch is that creating AI agents based on random people could help policymakers and business people better understand the public. Why use focus groups or poll the public when you can talk to them once, spin up an LLM based on that conversation, and then have their thoughts and opinions forever? Or, at least, as close an approximation of those thoughts and feelings as an LLM is able to recreate. This work provides a foundation for new tools that can help investigate individual and collective behavior, the papers abstract said.How might, for instance, a diverse set of individuals respond to new public health policies and messages, react to product launches, or respond to major shocks? The paper continued. When simulated individuals are combined into collectives, these simulations could help pilot interventions, develop complex theories capturing nuanced causal and contextual interactions, and expand our understanding of structures like institutions and networks across domains such as economics, sociology, organizations, and political science.All those possibilities based on a two-hour interview fed into an LLM that answered questions mostly like their real-life counterparts. Much of the process was automated. The researchers contracted Bovitz, a market research firm, to gather participants. The goal was to get a wide sample of the U.S. population, as wide as possible when constrained to 1,000 people. To complete the study, users signed up for an account in a purpose-made interface, made a 2D sprite avatar, and began to talk to an AI interviewer. The questions and interview style are a modified version of that used by the American Voices Project, a joint Stanford and Princeton University project thats interviewing people across the country.Each interview began with the participants reading the first two lines of The Great Gatsby (In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that Ive been turning over in my mind ever since. Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, he told me, just remember that all the people in this world havent had the advantages that youve had.) as a way to calibrate the audio.According to the paper, The interview interface displayed the 2-D sprite avatar representing the interviewer agent at the center, with the participants avatar shown at the bottom, walking towards a goal post to indicate progress. When the AI interviewer agent was speaking, it was signaled by a pulsing animation of the center circle with the interviewer avatar. The two-hour interviews, on average, produced transcripts that were 6,491 words in length. It asked questions about race, gender, politics, income, social media use, the stress of their jobs, and the makeup of their families. The researchers published the interview script and questions the AI asked.Those transcripts, less than 10,000 words each, were then fed into another LLM that the researchers used to spin up generative agents meant to replicate the participants. Then researchers put both the participants and AI clones through more questions and economic games to see how theyd compare. When an agent is queried, the entire interview transcript is injected into the model prompt, instructing the model to imitate the person based on their interview data, the paper said. This part of the process was as close to controlled as possible. Researchers used the General Social Survey (GSS) and the Big Five Personality Inventory (BFI) to test how well the LLMs matched their inspiration. It then ran participants and the LLMs through five economic games to see how theyd compare.Results were mixed. The AI agents answered about 85% of the questions the same way as the real-world participants on the GSS. They hit 80% on the BFI. The numbers plummeted when the agents started playing economic games, however. The researchers offered the real-life participants cash prizes to play games like the Prisoners Dilemma and The Dictators Game. In the Prisoners Dilemma, participants can choose to work together and both succeed or screw over their partner for a chance to win big. In the Dictators Game, the participants have to choose how to allocate resources to other participants. The real-life subjects earned money over the original $60 for playing these. Faced with these economic games, the AI clones of the humans didnt replicate their real-world counterparts as well. On average, the generative agents achieved a normalized correlation of 0.66, or about 60%.The entire document is worth reading if youre interested in how academics are thinking about AI agents and the public. It did not take long for researchers to boil down a human beings personality into an LLM that behaved similarly. Given time and energy, they can probably bring the two closer together. This is worrying to me. Not because I dont want to see the ineffable human spirit reduced to a spreadsheet, but because I know this kind of tech will be used for ill. Weve already seen stupider LLMs trained on public recordings tricking grandmothers into giving away bank information to an AI relative after a quick phone call. What happens when those machines have a script? What happens when they have access to purpose-built personalities based on social media activity and other publicly available information? What happens when a corporation or a politician decides the public wants and needs something based not on their spoken will, but on an approximation of it?Daily NewsletterYou May Also Like By Jorge Jimenez Published January 5, 2025 By Sherri L Smith Published January 4, 2025 By Matthew Gault Published January 3, 2025 By Florence Ion Published January 1, 2025 By Thomas Maxwell Published December 30, 2024 By Kyle Barr Published December 27, 2024

By AJ Dellinger Published January 8, 2025 | Comments (1) | GDPR illustration featuring a lock surrounded by the 12 gold stars of the European Union Alain Pitton/NurPhoto via Getty Images The European Union has investigated itself and foundactual wrongdoing! For the first time ever, the EU has been found to have violated its own privacy rules established by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and will have to pay a fine, per a ruling handed down by the EU General Court. The victim of the EUs brazen disregard for the law was a German citizen who used the Sign in with Facebook option when registering for a conference through a European Commission webpage. When the user clicked that button, data about their device, browser, and IP address were transferred through a content delivery network managed by Amazon Web Services and eventually found its way to servers operated by Facebooks parent company Meta Platforms in the United States. The court determined this transfer of data took place without proper safeguards, which amounts to a breach of GDPR rules, and the EU was ordered to pay a fine of 400 (about $412) directly to the person who brought the case. GDPR, the reason that every website now asks you if youd like to accept cookies, has been a thorn in the sides of tech companies since first going into effect back in 2018. The set of stringent data privacy rules designed to regulate the amount of personal data that companies can collect from users and give individuals more control over how their information is accessed and used has been the impetus for a number of major penalties paid out by Big Tech firmsparticularly Meta.Just last year, Meta got slapped with a $1.3 billion fine for failing to sufficiently protect the data of European users from American intelligence agencies when transferring the data to US servers. Previously, Meta got hit with a $417 million fine under GDPR rules for violating the privacy of underage users on Instagram and $232 million for failing to transparently disclose how it processes WhatsApp data. While Meta isnt alone in getting these slightly pricey wrist slaps (Amazon got itself a $887 million penalty in 2021, for example), its fitting that it was a Facebook login option that got the EU in hot water with itself.GDPR has been a bit of a mixed bag since its implementation. Its undoubtedly grabbed some headlines with major fines aimed at Silicon Valley giants. But enforcement can take forevereven the EUs first self-imposed fine for violating one persons privacy took over two years to process. More than three in four data protection authorities have complained of a lack of budget and personnel to track down violations, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the byzantine list of laws has not actually done much to curb the invasive practices of surveillance capitalism. The EU has some work to do. Maybe it can start by following its own rules.Daily NewsletterYou May Also Like By Lucas Ropek Published January 8, 2025 By Todd Feathers Published October 29, 2024 Tech NewsTech Policy European Courts Find U.S. Cant Be Trusted to Process and Store Data By Shoshana Wodinsky Published July 16, 2020 Tech NewsPrivacy and Security European Authorities Ban Dirty Cookie Practices in GDPR Update By Shoshana Wodinsky Published May 6, 2020

House for Two Brothers / Pablo Bris MarinoSave this picture! Pablo Bris MarinoHousingColmenar de Oreja, SpainArchitects: Pablo Bris MarinoAreaArea of this architecture projectArea:1593 ftYearCompletion year of this architecture project Year: 2024 PhotographsPhotographs:Pablo Bris MarinoManufacturersBrands with products used in this architecture project Manufacturers: Cermica Millas, Codalmha, GrupoHYT, ROCKWOOL, Termiglass Lead Architect: Pablo Bris Marino More SpecsLess SpecsSave this picture!Text description provided by the architects. The project is developed on a rectangular plot of about 1000 m2 in the Balcn del Tajo urbanization, near Aranjuez city. The plot drops 5 meters between the short sides. The views to the south are excellent, as you can see a very extensive landscape, with the Tajo river in the background. The program is for two independent houses, one small, like an apartment, for a lifelong friend, Luis, who lives alone; and the other with two bedrooms, for his sister, his partner and his daughter. Also a common warehouse and small swimming pool.Save this picture!Save this picture!The project tries to take advantage of the views to the south and east, and to give the greatest degree of independence and privacy to both homes. Life outside the home are privileged or at least equated to life inside.Save this picture!Save this picture!Despite focusing the project to be as economical as possible, the budgets we had were exorbitant, always above 2000 euros per square meter. The decision is made to self-build. There will be no construction company, no subcontractors, no construction manager, only the project management, a formworker then unemployed, Roberto, who will act as manager, and Luis, my friend, with no knowledge of construction, who will work as a laborer.Save this picture!The construction systems are chosen for their ease of execution and are at the service of maintaining the most comfortable temperature possible inside the house with the lowest possible expenditure. The roof and the faade are ventilated. Both contribute to the good hygrothermal functioning of the envelope, which has proven to be very easy to heat in winter (a single pellet stove per house) and very cool in summer.Save this picture!The structure is made of load-bearing walls, which will be visible to the interior. The faade and roof are made of white sheet metal, chosen to be as reflective as possible, to avoid overheating in summer.Save this picture!Save this picture!The construction management has not been conventional at all. Beyond any justification for a result that we consider reasonable, no detail or finish is understandable without taking into account the circumstances described. The price of the final construction is around 1200 euros/m2, including the pool and the urbanization of the plot.Save this picture!Project gallerySee allShow lessProject locationAddress:C/ Almonte 40, Balcn del Tajo Urbanization. Colmenar de Oreja, Madrid, SpainLocation to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.About this officePablo Bris MarinoOfficeMaterialsMaterials and TagsPublished on January 08, 2025Cite: "House for Two Brothers / Pablo Bris Marino" [Casa para dos hermanos / Pablo Bris Marino] 08 Jan 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1025392/house-for-two-brothers-pablo-bris-marino&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save!ArchDaily?You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream

Learn how to bring your Unreal Engine 5 materials to life with the power of Sequencer! In this tutorial, you'll discover how to dynamically change material properties over time, creating captivating visual effects.We'll showcase this technique by animating an ancient obelisk. As a mysterious robot approaches, the symbols on the obelisk will magically begin to glow, changing color and intensity.You'll learn how to:Create custom material parameters for control over color and intensity.Bring these parameters into Sequencer.Add keyframes to animate material properties over time.Create dynamic and visually stunning effects in your Unreal Engine 5 projects.The obelisk used in this video is an artwork by Fardin Shahriyari. You can check out more of their amazing work here: https://www.artstation.com/pikakostudio A huge thanks to CGLib team for this amazing Robot Character: https://www.fab.com/listings/69240f43-d821-4d4c-b5bd-e51eb28cac5c Don't forget to like and subscribe for more Unreal Engine 5 tutorials and tips!

Atmospheric photo of the site at dusk, showing the location at the convergence of two gorges. 2023 excavations of inner fortress are visible in foreground. Credit: Nathaniel Erb-SatulloShareDrone photographs taken of a 3,000-year-old mega fortress nestled deep in the Caucasus Mountains reveal the settlement is actually 40 times larger than archaeologists once thought. New aerial images of the Dmanisis Gora settlement, located in present-day Georgia, show a large land area well guarded by steep gorges and plastered with various stone structures and field systems. Though the structures inner fortress has been well-documented for several years, new mapping made possible thanks to a simple hobbyist drone helped redraw the Bronze Age monuments boundaries. Researchers shared their findings this week in the journal Antiquity.The Dmanisis Gora is one of several documented fortresses that popped between the Middle East and the Eurasian Steppe sometime between 1,500 and 500 BCE. Until now, most of the archaeological research on this particular fortress focused on its more well preserved inner areas. The fortress is made up of two distinct areas: a core inner fortress that researchers say show signs of year-round residential use and a more sprawling outer area that may have been used more occasionally by roaming pastoral groups. When researchers from Cranfield University began excavating that area in 2018, they quickly saw evidence of outer walls and other structures that suggested the actual border of the fortress could be much larger. But they couldnt accurately tell just how much larger it was without an aerial view.That was what sparked the idea of using a drone to assess the site from the air, Cranfield Forensic Institute Senior Lecturer in Architectural Science Erb-Satullo said in a statement.Photo of 1 km long outer fortification wall. Power/telephone line poles for scale. Credit: Nathaniel Erb-Satullo Erb-Satullo and his colleague acquired a DJI Phantom 4 RTK drone, equipped it with a high-quality camera, and flew it over the area. The drone snapped roughly 11,000 images which were combined together and run through software to create a digital map of the areas filled with elevation models and topographical detail. The new map showed a much larger outer that circled around the inner fortress. Aerial views from the drone revealed a roughly 1-kilometer-long fortification wall snaking around the fortress that wasnt immediately visible to the naked eye. Previously unobserved graves, field systems, and other structures were also illuminated thanks to the drone.The use of drones has allowed us to understand the significance of the site and document it in a way that simply wouldnt be possible on the ground, Erb-Satullo added.Researchers then compared their new drone-based map to other aerial photographs of the area captured by a Cold War-era spy plane nearly 50 years ago. Those images had been classified until 2013. Looking at those two images side by side helped the team better understand how the landscape has changed and to what extent parts of it might have eroded as a byproduct of modern agricultural practices.Drones are helping archeologists redraw maps and uncover lost settlementsDrones have become incredibly useful tools in archeologists arsenal thanks to their ability to quickly obtain aerial views of areas that might otherwise be obstructed. Falling prices in consumer hobbyist drones, many originating from China, have made the technology far more accessible to a wider swath of researchers. Theyve already yielded spectacular findings. In 2015, a team of researchers from Colorado State University used a drone equipped with LiDAR to help map out a pair of hidden medieval cities in the mountainous area of Uzbekistan. Another drone LiDAR was used several years later to reveal the remains of an ancient island settlement hidden off of the Florida Gulf coast possibly dating back to 1200 CE. Archaeologists similarly used a drone to uncover the eroded remains of a large pre-Columbian earthworks buried beneath a field in southeastern Kansas.

Don't expect any findings until sometime in 2027. Credit: Deposit PhotosShareAirline companies must adhere to the Federal Aviation Administrations detailed safety regulations (approximately 403 pages worth of them) before their planes are allowed to transport passengers. But nowhere in those guidelines is there an explicit cap on cabin temperatures during boarding outside an improbable failure conditionan omission that continues to result in sweaty, potentially dangerous situations for both travelers and flight attendants. On Tuesday, however, the FAA announced that its finally looking into the matter. Or, at least, theyre about to look into it.The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024, passed by Congress last May, directs the FAA to collaborate with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) on a 12-month-long study focused on frequently sweltering cabin conditions. In particular, researchers are charged with investigating the health and safety impacts of unsafe cabin temperature with respect to passengers and crewmembers during each season in which the study is conducted. This will include reviewing the existing (and often nebulous) industry organization standards regarding safe air temperatures and humidity levels, then recommending any necessary changes to the US Department of Transportation.Congress gave the FAA and NASEM two years to figure out a plan, and according to an update on January 7, theyre readying to begin investigations in the near future.The FAA has engaged the NASEM and has met to discuss and plan this research effort, the administration reported this week, adding that they will finalize an agreement and funding for the project after defining the scope. Get the Popular Science newsletter Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. By signing up you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.Unfortunately, thats about where the available details stop. According to the FAA Reauthorization Acts two-year deadline for planning the study, coupled with the one-year-long study itself, air travelers can expect findings no earlier than sometime in 2027. Once the FAA and NASEM complete their study, the results must be in front of the future Dept. of Transportation Secretary within eight months.When asked what flyers can expect inside airplane cabins in the meantime, an FAA spokesperson informed Popular Science that such details are beyond their control.Aircraft are certified to operate within certain temperatures. Our regulations make sure the aircraft and installed equipment stick to those set standards for cabin air quality and temperature control, the spokesperson wrote in an email, adding that, The Department of Transportation regulates passenger comfort. The Dept. of Transportation did not respond to questions at the time of writing.In the meantime, at least, theres a way to help the people most exposed to these problematic conditions. Back in 2018, the multiple transportation unions collaborated to release 2Hot2Cold, an app that allows anyone to record cabin temperatures and when they occurred for regulators to review. Over 4,025 submissions have been received so far, roughly 79 percent of which fell between 80-99 degrees Fahrenheit.

The lush forests of Switzerland are not the first place that bioluminescent organisms come to mind. However, a forest in a Zurich neighborhood is home to a bioluminescent mushroom that glows green. The mushrooms newly discovered bioluminescence is described in a study recently published in the journal Mycoscience. Get the Popular Science newsletter Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. By signing up you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.What is bioluminescence?Bioluminescence is a chemical process where living organisms generate light. Jellyfish, fireflies, fungi, and more are all known to emit their very own glow. The Greek philosopher Aristotle observed bioluminescent fungi over 2,000 years ago, and he called them a cold fire emanating from decaying wood.Although the biological mechanism behind this glow is now fairly well understood, its ecological function remains elusive. Some glowing mushrooms are believed to attract insects to disperse spores, but bioluminescence occurring in parts of the fungi that are underground does not fit this hypothesis.It seems that bioluminescence has been maintained for a long time, so we assume it has some function, Renate Heinzelmann, a study co-author mycologist at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, said in a statement. But its still a mystery.[ Related: Surprise! These sea cucumbers glow. ]Finding the fungusThe mushroom was initially spotted by artists and study co-authors Heidy Baggenstos and Andreas Rudolf. The pair have been working with bioluminescent organisms for over a decade.We want to show that these bioluminescent mushrooms are present in Swiss forests and that we do not have to travel far to find them, Baggenstos said in a statement.Baggenstos and Rudolf were walking through a forest in Zurichs Albisrieden neighborhood when they spotted some green light through their camera. Similar to the northern lights, fungus natural light is sometimes so weak that it cant be seen with the naked eye and requires a camera to be visible.M. crocata growing on decaying wood. CREDIT: Baggenstos/Rudolf. Nowadays we always have our mobile phones or a flashlight, but to see bioluminescence in the forest, it has to be pitch black, said Rudolf.They collected some samples of the glowing specimen, originally thinking it was a known bioluminescent species called Mycena haematopus. In their well-lit studio, the artists realized that it was another species called the saffron drop bonnet mushroom (Mycena crocata). While this mushroom is known for its saffron-coloured milk, it had not previously been described as bioluminescent.Baggenstos and Rudolf Heinzelmann to further characterize the discovery. The artists first used long exposure photographs and a luminometera device that amplifies weaker light more than a camera doesto measure how much light is emitted by different parts of the mushroom.Most of the experiments were conducted by the artists, said Heinzelmann. They collected the samples, took the photographs, and made the light measurements.An underground glowIn fungi, the key step towards bioluminescence occurs when the enzyme luciferase converts light-emitting compound called luciferin into an unstable product. This conversion then releases energy in the form of light when it decays. Unlike with fluorescence, this process does not need an external source of light.The light measurements showed that the recognizable fruiting body of M. crocata that stands apart from the stipe base, is non-luminous. Instead, the fungis myceliumthe underground network of filaments similar to plant roots that absorb nutrientsis the most bioluminescent. As a result, the decaying wood M. crocata grows on can also glow green when it is split open. This green glow can last up to four hours when the wood typically dries. When Baggenstos and Rudolf grew pure mycelia cultures, they remained bioluminescent for up to 164 days in optimal conditions.Bioluminescence is sometimes observed at the base of the mushrooms stipe. CREDIT: Baggenstos/Rudolf. Heinzelmanns Genetic experiments confirmed the species identity and the presence of bioluminescence-related genes in all of the fungi of the Mycena genus that glow.There will constantly be more bioluminescent species discovered, Heinzelmann predicts, Bioluminescence is under-researched, and the more people look, the more they will find.

Nature, Published online: 08 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-024-08316-wExamination of the sulfur and copper contents of global cratonic peridotites combined with new high-pressure experiments shows that the migration of carbonated melts towards cratonic margins explains the co-location of magmatic metal deposits with carbonatites.

Nature, Published online: 08 January 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00031-4We highlight some Nature Briefing stories from the end of 2024, including the retraction saga of a controversial COVID study, the skins surprise immune-system and the running ability of our ancient relatives.

Nature, Published online: 08 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-024-08295-yProximity ferroelectricity is reported in wurtzite heterostructures, which enables polarization reversal in wurtzites without the chemical or structural disorder that accompanies elemental substitution.