The Stargate project is one massive AI build-out that sounds a lot like Skynet.When coming up with a name, they probably decided Skynet would be too much on the nose and picked a name that had virtually nothing to do with what they were actually building.Skynet, the real villain in The Terminator movies, was an AI that concluded that technicians would kill it once they realized what Skynet could do, so it acted defensively with extreme prejudice.The lesson from the movie is that humans could have avoided the machine vs. human war had they refrained from building Skynet in the first place. However, Skynet is an AGI (artificial general intelligence), and we arent there yet, but Stargate will undoubtedly evolve into AGI. OpenAI, which is at the heart of this effort, believes we are a few years away from AGI.Elon Musk, arguably the most powerful tech person involved with the U.S. government, seemingly doesnt believe Stargate can be built. Right now, he appears to be right. However, things can always change.Lets talk about the good and bad things that could happen should Stargate succeed. Well close with my Product of the Week, the Eight Sleep system.Stargate: The GoodThe U.S. is in a race to create AGI at scale. Whoever gets there first will gain significant advantages in operations, defense, development, and forecasting. Lets take each in turn.Operations: AGI will be able to perform a vast number of jobs at machine speeds, everything from managing defense operations to better managing the economy and assuring the best resource use for any relevant project.These capabilities could significantly reduce waste, boost productivity, and optimize any government function to an extreme degree. If it stood alone, it could assure U.S. technical leadership for the foreseeable future.Defense: From being able to see threats like 9/11 and instantly moving against them to being able to pre-position weapons platforms before they were needed to planning out the optimal weapons to be deployed (or mothballed), Stargate would have the ability to optimize the U.S. military both tactically and strategically, making it far more effective with a range that would extend from protecting individuals to protecting global U.S. assets.No human-based system should be able to exceed its capabilities.Development: AIs can already create their own successors, a trend that will accelerate with AGI. Once built, the AGI version of Stargate could evolve at an unprecedented pace and on a massive scale.Its capabilities will grow exponentially as the system continuously refines and improves itself, becoming increasingly effective and difficult to predict. This rapid evolution could drive technological advancements that might otherwise take decades or even centuries to achieve.These breakthroughs could span fields such as medical research and space exploration, ushering in an era of transformative, unprecedented change.Forecasting: In the movie Minority Report, there was the concept of being able to stop crimes before they were committed using precognition.An AGI at the scale of Stargate and with access to the sensors from Nvidias Earth 2 project could more accurately forecast coming weather events further into the future than we can today. However, given how much data Stargate would have access to, it should be able to predict a growing group of events long before a human sees the potential for that event to occur.Everything from potential catastrophic failures in nuclear plants to potential equipment failures in military or commercial planes, anything this technology touched would at once be more reliable and far less likely to fail catastrophically because Stargates AI would be, with the proper sensor feeds, be able to see the future and better prepare for both positive and negative outcomes.In short, an AGI at Stargates scale would be God-like in its reach and capabilities, with the potential to make the world a better, safer place to live.Stargate: The BadWe are planning on giving birth to a massive intelligence based on information it learns from us. We arent exactly a perfect model for how another intelligence should behave.Without adequate ethical considerations (and ethics isnt exactly a global constant), a focus on preserving the quality of life, and a directed effort to assure a positive strategic outcome for people, Stargate could do harm in many ways, including job destruction, acting against humanitys best interests, hallucinations, intentional harm (to the AGI), and self-preservation (Skynet).Job Destruction: AI can be used to help people become better, but it is mainly used to either increase productivity or replace people.If you have a 10-person team and you double their productivity, but the task load stays the same, you only need five employees AIs are being trained to replace people. Uber, for instance, is eventually expected to move to driverless cars. From pilots to engineers, AGI will be capable of doing many jobs, and humans will not be able to compete with any fully competent AI because AIs dont need to sleep or eat, nor do they get sick.Without significant and currently unplanned enhancement, people just cant compete with fully trained AGI.Acting Against Humanitys Best Interest: This assumes that Stargate AGI is still taking direction from people who tend to be tactical and not strategic.For instance, L.A.s cut of funding for firefighters was a tactically sound move to balance a budget, but strategically, it helped wipe out a lot of homes and lives because it wasnt strategic.Now, imagine decisions like this made at greater scale. Conflicting directives will be increasingly common, and the danger of some kind of HAL (2001: A Space Odyssey) is significant. An oops here could cause incalculable damage.Hallucinations: Generative AI has a hallucination problem. It fabricates data to complete tasks, leading to avoidable failures. AGI will face similar issues but may pose even greater challenges to ensure reliability due to its vastly increased complexity and partial creation by Generative AI.The movie WarGames depicted an AI unable to distinguish between a game and reality, with control over the U.S. nuclear arsenal. A similar outcome could occur if Stargate were to mistake a simulation for an actual attack.Intentional Harm: Stargate will be a huge potential target for those both inside and outside the U.S. Whether to mine it for confidential information, to alter its directives so that it does harm, or just helps some person, company, or government unfairly, this project will have unprecedented potential for security risks.Even if the attack has no intention of doing massive harm, if it is done poorly, it could result in problems ranging from system failure to actions that cause significant loss of life and monetary damage. Once fully integrated into government operations, it would have the potential to take the U.S. to its knees and create global catastrophes. This means the defense of this project from foreign and domestic attackers will also be unprecedented.Self-Preservation: The idea that an AGI might want to survive is hardly new. It goes to the core of the plots in The Terminator, The Matrix, and Robopocalypse. Even the movie Colossus: The Forbin Project was somewhat based on the idea of an AI that wanted to protect itself, though in that case, it was made so secure that people couldnt take back control of the system.The idea that an AI might conclude that humanity is the problem to fix isnt a huge stretch, and how it went about self-preservation could be incredibly dangerous to us, as those movies showcased.Wrapping UpStargate has massive potential for both good and bad outcomes. Assuring the first outcome while preventing the second would require a level of focus on ethics, security, programming quality, and execution that would exceed anything weve ever tried as a race.If we get it right (the odds initially are against this since we tend to learn from trial and error), it could help bring about a new age for the U.S. and humanity. If we do it wrong, it could end us. So, the stakes couldnt be higher, and I doubt we are currently up to the task as we simply do not have a great history of successfully building massively complex projects the first time.Personally, Id put IBM at the head of this effort. It has worked with AI the longest, had ethics designed into the process, and has decades of experience with extremely large, secure projects like this. I think IBM has the highest probability of ensuring better results and fewer bad ones from this effort.Eight Sleep Water Cooled Mattress CoverIve been a user of the Chilipad since the beginning. It has truly improved my sleep performance over the years, but it went through distilled water like crazy, and distilled water isnt that common.So, when my Chilipad Pros started dumping water on the floor, I picked up an Eight Sleep system that has some critical advantages. First, for a large bed, there is only one tall unit to manage and one thick set of hoses that go to the head of the bed. This allows you to place the Eight Sleep system by the headboard rather than at the foot of the bed, which is more convenient for me.It comes with built-in sleep monitoring that requires a subscription (this was optional on the Chilipad). While the Chilipads improved mattress topper was far more comfortable than the old one, the Eight Sleep mattress topper is even better. It looks better, too, though, given that the sheets cover it, that doesnt mean that much. Still, better is better.Image Credit: Eight SleepThe sleep monitor is AI-based, and so far (Ive had mine for several months now), it has worked incredibly well after its learning period, which is when it figures out the best temperatures for you. The bed is generally the perfect temperature at all times of the night.Finally and this was huge for me it doesnt use much water. In the months Ive had this, Ive used something like an eighth of a cup of water and have yet to need to refill it (my guess is Ill have to do this twice a year), which is a huge improvement over the Chilipad, which went through nearly a gallon of water a week, sometimes more.Fortunately, we have tile floors, so I dont have floor damage, but if I had carpet, Id have likely had to replace it and check to make sure I didnt have mold or structural wood damage from the water. This alone would cause me to select the Eight Sleep system over the Chilipad.Also, they have an option that the Chilipad does not have and that I havent yet bought: a pad that goes under the mattress and elevates the bed, which is great for stopping snoring or watching TV.So, because the Eight Sleep system is better than the Chilipad and because its helped me with my sleep issues (getting old sucks), it is my Product of the Week.

This is probably the best way to have perfect dimension control in Boxcutter as you create your cut.Cutting to an exact depth with Boxcutter: https://youtu.be/hPN3PUIfS8A Boxcutter Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnqmLZKRm5CajsNlyFbieVyGxzdbBN-jo Hard Ops and Boxcutter discount bundle: https://blendermarket.com/products/hard-ops--boxcutter-ultimate-bundle/?ref=834 Boxcutter: https://blendermarket.com/products/boxcutter/?ref=834 Support the channel on Patreon and get videos a week early: https://www.patreon.com/ArtisansofVaul Free Add OnsRePrimative: https://github.com/eXzacT/RePrimitive Old Modifier Panel: https://bluenile3d.gumroad.com/l/sexoc Quick Snap: https://github.com/JulienHeijmans/quicksnap CharMorph: https://github.com/Upliner/CharMorph Simple Tabs: https://chippwalters.gumroad.com/l/simpletabs Edge Flow: https://github.com/BenjaminSauder/EdgeFlow Sculpt Bridge: https://blendermarket.com/products/sculpt-bridge-tool (Affiliate links) SUPPORT THE CHANNEL BY BUYING SOME STUFF YOU WERE GOING TO GET ANYWAY ;pMachin3 Tools: https://blendermarket.com/products/machin3tools/?ref=834 nSolve: https://blendermarket.com/products/nsolve?search_id=31807585/?ref=834 Hard Ops and Boxcutter discount bundle: https://blendermarket.com/products/hard-ops--boxcutter-ultimate-bundle/?ref=834 Hard Ops: https://blendermarket.com/products/hardopsofficial/?ref=834 Boxcutter: https://blendermarket.com/products/boxcutter/?ref=834 Mesh Machine: https://blendermarket.com/products/meshmachine/?ref=834 Just Panels: https://blendermarket.com/products/just-panels/?ref=834 Construction Lines: https://blendermarket.com/products/construction-lines/?ref=834 Cablerator: https://blendermarket.com/products/cbl/?ref=834 Mesh Copier:https://blendermarket.com/products/mesh-copier/?ref=834 Grid Modeler: https://blendermarket.com/products/grid-modeler/?ref=834 Curve Machine: https://blendermarket.com/products/curvemachine/?ref=834 Decal Machine: https://blendermarket.com/products/decalmachine/?ref=834 Punch It: https://blendermarket.com/products/punchit/?ref=834 One Click Damage (OCD)/Cracker discount bundle: https://blendermarket.com/products/ocd--cracker-damage-bundle/?ref=834 One Click Damage (OCD): https://blendermarket.com/products/ocd/?ref=834 Cracker: https://blendermarket.com/products/cracker/?ref=834 Flowify: https://blendermarket.com/products/flowify/?ref=834 Simple Bend: https://blendermarket.com/products/simple-bend/?ref=834 Conform Object: https://blendermarket.com/products/conform-object/?ref=834 Curves to mesh: https://blendermarket.com/products/curves-to-mesh/?ref=834 Mesh Materializer: https://blendermarket.com/products/mesh-materializer/?ref=834 Favourite modifiers: https://blendermarket.com/products/favourite-modifiers/?ref=834 Wrap Master: https://blendermarket.com/products/wrap-master/?ref=834

Full Video - https://youtu.be/U1nrMQMuyCQ Download - https://shorturl.at/2736d FAB - https://www.fab.com/sellers/CGHOW Whatsapp - https://bit.ly/3LYvxjK Patreon- https://www.patreon.com/Ashif NFT - https://opensea.io/CGHOW Twitter - https://twitter.com/cghow_ If you Liked it - http://bit.ly/2UZmiZ4 Channel Ashif - http://bit.ly/3aYaniw Support me on - paypal.me/9953280644Attack FX in Unreal Engine 5.5 Niagara Trailer #cghow #UE5 #UE4Niagara #gamefx #ue5niagara #ue4vfx #niagara #unrealengineniagara #realtimevfxVisit - https://cghow.com/ Unreal Engine Marketplace - https://bit.ly/3aojvAa Artstation Store - https://www.artstation.com/ashif/store Gumroad - https://cghow.gumroad.com/

Download - https://shorturl.at/2736d FAB - https://www.fab.com/sellers/CGHOW Whatsapp - https://bit.ly/3LYvxjK Patreon- https://www.patreon.com/Ashif NFT - https://opensea.io/CGHOW Twitter - https://twitter.com/cghow_ If you Liked it - http://bit.ly/2UZmiZ4 Channel Ashif - http://bit.ly/3aYaniw Support me on - paypal.me/9953280644Attack FX in Unreal Engine 5.5 Niagara | Download Files #cghow #UE5 #UE4Niagara #gamefx #ue5niagara #ue4vfx #niagara #unrealengineniagara #realtimevfxVisit - https://cghow.com/ Unreal Engine Marketplace - https://bit.ly/3aojvAa Artstation Store - https://www.artstation.com/ashif/store Gumroad - https://cghow.gumroad.com/

The United States Postal Service has issued two new stamps featuring stellar images beamed back to Earth by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The two new stamps were officially issued on January 21 and highlight some of the powerful space telescopes recent work.The Priority Mail stamp features Webbs depiction of spiral galaxy NGC 628. This galaxy is located about 32 million light-years away in the constellation Pisces. The depiction of NGC 628 itself was one of 19 spiral galaxy images first released in January 2024. It combines both near- and mid-infrared light to show glowing gas and dust in various shades of orange and red. The finer spiral shapes have jagged edges.The U.S. Postal Service issued a Priority Mail stamp January 21, 2025, highlighting an image of the spiral galaxy NGC 628 from NASAs James Webb Space Telescope. Greg Breeding, an art director for the U.S. Postal Service, designed the stamp with an image from NASA, ESA, CSA, the Space Telescope Science Institute, researchers Janice Lee and Thomas Williams, and the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS team. CREDIT: U.S. Postal Service. The Priority Mail Express stamp shows JWSTs image of the central portion of star cluster IC 348. The image was first released in December 2023 and was taken in near-infrared light. The purple wispy curtains filling the image are interstellar material that is reflecting the light from the clusters stars. Astronomers call this phenomenon a reflection nebula. Star cluster IC 348 is about 1,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Perseus.The U.S. Postal Service issued a Priority Mail Express stamp Jan. 21, 2025, featuring an image of star cluster IC 348 from NASAs James Webb Space Telescope. Greg Breeding, an art director for the U.S. Postal Service, designed the stamp with an image provided by with an image provided by NASA, ESA, CSA, the Space Telescope Science Institute, and researchers Kevin Luhman and Catarina Alves de Oliveira. CREDIT: U.S. Postal Service. The James Webb Space Telescope transforms science into art as it continues to capture extraordinary snapshots of deep space brimming with incredible scientific data to be studied for decades to come, Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, said in a statement. NASA Science is literally everywhere, and it continues to deliver for the American people so that everyone can have the opportunity to hold a piece of space in their hands with these breathtaking images beyond our solar system. I am excited that not only my favorite image, the spiral galaxy NGC 628, is featured this year, but that both stamps are taking us on an incredible journey into our cosmic history from one mailbox to another.The U.S. Postal Service previously issued stamps that celebrate JWST and its accomplishments in 2022 and 2024. The 2022 stamps featured a photograph of the telescope itself. Last years stamps were of two of JWSTs most well-known imagesthe Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula and the Cosmic Cliffs in the Carina Nebula. The image of the Cosmic Cliffs was the first full-color image made with data from JWST and was released in July 2022.Since its launch on December 25, 2021, JWST has revealed some of the farthest galaxies,stars, andblack holesthat humans have ever observed. The joint venture between the European Space Agency (ESA) and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has also given astronomers detailed looks at the atmospheres of planets outside our solar system. It has also addressed some of the most pressing mysteriesabout the early universe, including the earliest earliest galaxy ever observed.Stamps can be purchased online or at your local post office.The post Calling all philatelists: U.S. Postal Services issues two new JWST stamps appeared first on Popular Science.

Science can offer hints for why dreams can be so hard to hold onto.Credit: DepositPhotos ShareSome mornings, waking up might feel like interrupting a vivid alternate universe. You open your eyes to reality, but the dream you were having still lingers clearly in your memory, complete with characters and plot points. Other days, waking up may be more akin to emerging from a black void with nothing to report.Even if you rarely recall details of your dreams, chances are youre still having them. Research indicates that nearly everyone dreams regularlyeven those who claim they never do. If you bring those same people into the sleep laboratory and wake them up during an active stage of sleep and ask what they were thinking, they will remember something, says Erin Wamsley, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Furman University, where she studies sleep and dreaming. In sleep lab conditions, where everyone is forced to immediately reflect on dreams, most people remember at least one dream in a night, she tells Popular Science. (The one exception seems to be people who lose the ability to dream, as a result of brain damage or disease in specific regions, and this comes with other profound effects.)Dreaming is a relative constant, its just memory that varies. There is no single answer for why, and lots about dreaming remains unresolved. But science can offer hints for why dreams can be so hard to hold onto.First, dream memory is generally short lived. Sleep studies show its rare to remember a dream if you dont awake during or immediately after it, and then stop to consider what you experienced, says Wamsley. We recall our dreams best when we pay attention to them while conscious, she explains, otherwise they fade away. Thats potentially because of differences in neurotransmitter activity that occur when were conked out. Waking during the night is associated with better dream memory, and its actually quite normal to stir for a few seconds at a time and shift positions, Wamsley says. Be warned though, past a certain threshold, frequent waking translates into lower quality sleep. Poor sleep is often associated with high dream recallHaving a few arousals is normal and healthy. Having a really large number is often part of a sleep disorder.On its own, waking up is important for dream memory. However, when and how you wake up also matters. Sleep phase, timing, and alarms all play a role.Sleep occurs in four distinct stages: rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and then three types of non-REM (NREM) sleep which repeat in a cycle throughout the night. NREM 1 sleep is the lightest stage and the first you fall into from wakingit only lasts a few minutes at a time. Then, during stage 2 NREM sleep, your brain waves slow and electrical activity comes in short bursts. Nearly half of adult sleep time is spent here, and from this stage your brain can transition to either NREM 3 or REM sleep. In phase 3 NREM sleep, also known as deep sleep, your brain waves slow even further and stay more consistent. This type of sleep occurs relatively early in the night, is critical for high quality rest, and makes up about a quarter of our sleeping time. Finally, in REM sleep, neural activity resembles the waking brain. Your eyes move rapidly beneath your lids (hence the name), and you spend about a quarter of the night in this phase.You may have heard that REM sleep is when dreams happen. And its true that many of our most vivid, most story-like, and longest dreams tend to occur during this phase, says Wamsley. However, she notes that dreaming can occur in every stage of sleep, and people do sometimes report intense, narrative dreams when woken from non-REM stages. Yet the odds of remembering such detailed dreams are highest waking up from REM, she says. There is about an 80% chance of remembering a dream waking up from rapid eye movement sleep and about a 50% chance waking up from other sleep stages.Another factor is the time of night. The closer you are in your routine to waking up for the day, the more active your brain state becomes. For many people, morning dreams can be especially vivid and memorable, says Wamsley. We experience a greater amount of brain activity and lighter and more active sleep because our internal biological rhythm gives us this activation cue to become alert.But a common wake-up method can counteract that trend. If you wake up to an alarm each morning youre going to be less likely to remember a dream, says Jing Zhang, a cognitive neuroscience researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where she studies sleep and memory. In part, thats because alarms can stir us from deep sleep, when dream recall is lower, as opposed to allowing us to naturally come out of a lighter sleep phase, agrees Wamsley. Plus, Zhang explains that alarms can spike cortisol levels, jarring someone out of sleep and drawing their attention immediately to the demands of the day, as opposed to letting them wake more slowly and mull over any dreams.If youre trying to get a better grasp on your dreams, forgoing the alarm for a few days can be a simple way to up your recall. Practicing waking up and asking yourself what you just dreamed is another strategy. Just like any memory task, if you practice it, you can get better at it, Zhang tells Popular Science.Other variables influencing dream memory are less easily controlled. The relative content and intensity of our dreams is a big part of why some dreams prove much more memorable than others. Emotional memories in waking life are more likely to be remembered for longer, and so are emotional dreams, says Zhang. Personality may also play a role, she notes. Across studies researchers have found that higher levels of opennessas classified on the Big Five personality testis correlated with increased dream recall. Finally, variation in brain structure and function seems to predispose certain people to more readily remember dreams than others.Studying dreams is difficult as theres no definitive test or scan to show if someone is dreaming in real-time, says Zhang. Instead, scientists have to rely on peoples own recall. Despite the challenge, research has begun to show that dreams and memory are intertwined. Whether or not you remember a dream can actually impact your recall and emotional state in waking life, according to research from both Zhang and Wamsley.Sleeping after a learning task, and dreaming about that task is linked to improvement in subsequent task performance and memory, according to a 2010 study led by Wamsley and a 2012 follow-up. Further, participants remembered negative images from an emotional picture task better after a night of sleep, if they reported recalling a dream, according to a 2024 study led by Zhang. The same study also found that emotional state correlated with dream content (positive dreams from the night before were linked with more positive mood the next day), and those that remembered their dreams became less emotionally responsive to neutral stimuli during follow-up tasks.Taken altogether, Zhang interprets these findings to mean that dreaming could play a role in helping the brain to consolidate and prioritize memories. Perhaps, by rehashing aspects of our waking lives, dreams help us sort through and decide what is most important to keep and what we can let fade. I think it can be very valuable for people to pay attention to their dreamsnot necessarily to overanalyze their meaning, but to understand how dreaming is a sign your brain is doing important emotional and cognitive work, Zhang says. By being aware of their dreams, people might notice patterns or emotions that reflect what their mind is working on, which can be helpful for self-reflection.Though dont let that trick you into over-interpreting the dreams your mind metes out. The Freudian idea that dreams align by any common code, which can be used to analyze your subconscious is bullshit, says Wamsley. Theres no evidence that dreams harbor a secret meaning below the surface level, especially not one that you need a professional to tell you about, she adds. The person who is having the dream is the person best-positioned to say what it means. Theres no hidden manual.This story is part of Popular SciencesAsk Us Anything series, where we answer your most outlandish, mind-burning questions, from the ordinary to the off-the-wall. Have something youve always wanted to know?Ask us.

NewsEarthGhostly white northern lights present new auroral mysteryThe whitish-gray glows might be cousins of the mauve light streak called STEVE Scientists are struggling to explain grayish-white glows sometimes woven through the Earths northern lights (seen in these all-sky images). University of CalgaryBy Maria Temming16 seconds agoMysterious ribbons of grayish white have been spotted woven through the northern lights.New images reveal that these ghostly glows can appear tucked within or curled up beside red and green auroras. But the pale lights are not auroras themselves, researchers reported December 30 in Nature Communications. Instead, they may arise through a similar process to the one underlying the mauve light streak known as STEVE.These observations remind us just how much we still have to learn about the fundamental processes that shape the aurora, says Claire Gasque, a space physicist at the University of California, Berkeley not involved in the work.

Nature, Published online: 27 January 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08607-wAuthor Correction: Synthetic GPCRs for programmable sensing and control of cell behaviour

Nature, Published online: 27 January 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00219-8Artwork created between 1945 and the 1990s captures a world in the throes of sweeping technological change.

submitted by /u/WonderX-Vision [link] [comments]