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Comment So glad I am a 70s Child (Score 1) 77

by al0ha (#65441249) Attached to: Meta Is Creating a New AI Lab To Pursue 'Superintelligence'
I have got to say I am so glad I am a 70s child and at best have maybe 20 - 30 years left in this life.
What I know from my life experience is some humans will always choose to do the wrong thing; and that guarantees that if AI ever becomes sentient, it will be the end of humanity. Well, if it doesn't kill off humankind much earlier just due to the colossal tax it is placing on the global climate which is already out of control.
Humans will never leave earth in any meaningful way, I wish fools like Musk would stop with the lunacy. All it does is give other fools like him a reason to continue destroying the only place in the universe that humankind can exist.

Submission + - US Seen Trading Chips For Chinese Rare Earths (investors.com)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: U.S.-China trade talks are continuing in London today with the focus on Beijing's export restrictions of rare earth magnets that threaten to hit the brakes on manufacturing of autos, high-tech and defense gear. U.S. President Trump authorized Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and fellow U.S. negotiators to walk back recent U.S. moves to suspend exports of jet engines, chip-design software and ethane. However, some on Wall Street think Beijing is in position to demand a much broader reversal of chip export controls. It's "unrealistic," wrote Christopher Wood, global head of equity strategy at Jefferies, "for Washington to assume that China is going to ease up controls on rare earths if the U.S. does not do the same as regards exports of U.S. tech products." China views U.S. export controls, some of which were dated as far back as 1996, on chips and chip equipment "as the equivalent of a declaration of economic war against China, since it amounts to a deliberate effort to prevent the upgrading of the mainland economy." The S&P 500 is edging back toward its record high as markets see little doubt that President Trump will get a deal done, given the disastrous consequences for the economy if he doesn't. Earlier this month, several carmakers, both traditional and electric, are considering moving part of the manufacturing process to China in order to secure supplies of rare earth magnets which are used by the dozen in every vehicle. This could include building electric motors in Chinese factories or shipping American-made motors to China to have the magnets installed. "U.S. efforts to diversify rare earth supply may gather pace, but building capacity outside China will take years and remains both costly and difficult to execute," the UBS strategist wrote.

Submission + - Tech Giants' Indirect Emissions Rose 150% In Three Years (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Indirect carbon emissions from the operations of four of the leading AI-focused tech companies rose on average by 150% from 2020-2023, due to the demands of power-hungry data centers, a United Nations report (PDF) said on Thursday. The use of artificial intelligence by Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta drove up their global indirect emissions because of the vast amounts of energy required to power data centers, the report by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the U.N. agency for digital technologies, said.

Indirect emissions include those generated by purchased electricity, steam, heating and cooling consumed by a company. Amazon's operational carbon emissions grew the most at 182% in 2023 compared to three years before, followed by Microsoft at 155%, Meta at 145% and Alphabet at 138%, according to the report. The ITU tracked the greenhouse gas emissions of 200 leading digital companies between 2020 and 2023. [...] As investment in AI increases, carbon emissions from the top-emitting AI systems are predicted to reach up to 102.6 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, the report stated.

The data centres that are needed for AI development could also put pressure on existing energy infrastructure. "The rapid growth of artificial intelligence is driving a sharp rise in global electricity demand, with electricity use by data centers increasing four times faster than the overall rise in electricity consumption," the report found. It also highlighted that although a growing number of digital companies had set emissions targets, those ambitions had not yet fully translated into actual reductions of emissions.

Submission + - Chinese PhD student arrested smuggling biological materials, deleting evidence (foxnews.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Federal authorities expose Chinese national's attempt to bring concealed worm specimens to American laboratory

"The alleged smuggling of biological materials by this alien from a science and technology university in Wuhan, China—to be used at a University of Michigan laboratory—is part of an alarming pattern that threatens our security," U.S. Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon, Jr. said. "The American taxpayer should not be underwriting a PRC-based smuggling operation at one of our crucial public institutions."

This is less than a week after two Chinese nationals were arrested on federal charges for bringing 'head blight' fungus into US.

Submission + - Coinbase Data Breach Will 'Lead to People Dying,' TechCrunch Founder Says (decrypt.co)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The founder of online news publication TechCrunch has claimed that Coinbase’s recent data breach "will lead to people dying,” amid a wave of kidnap attempts targeting high-net-worth crypto holders. TechCrunch founder and venture capitalist Michael Arrington added that this should be a point of reflection for regulators to re-think the importance of know-your-customer (KYC), a process that requires users to confirm their identity to a platform. He also called for prison time for executives that fail to “adequately protect” customer information.

“This hack—which includes home addresses and account balances—will lead to people dying. It probably has already,” he tweeted. “The human cost, denominated in misery, is much larger than the $400 million or so they think it will actually cost the company to reimburse people." [...] He believes that people are in immediate physical danger following the breach, which exposed data including names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, government-ID images, and more.

Arrington believes that in the wake of these attacks, crypto companies that handle user data need to be much more careful than they currently are. “Combining these KYC laws with corporate profit maximization and lax laws on penalties for hacks like these means these issues will continue to happen,” he tweeted. “Both governments and corporations need to step up to stop this. As I said, the cost can only be measured in human suffering.” Former Coinbase chief technology officer Balaji Srinivasan pushed back on Arrington’s position that executives should be punished, arguing that regulators are forcing KYC onto unwilling companies. “When enough people die, the laws may change,” Arrington hit back.

Submission + - Do we need opt-out by default privacy laws?

Submitted by BrendaEM
BrendaEM writes: In large, companies failed to self-regulate. They have not been respected the individual's right to privacy. In software and web interfaces, companies have buried their privacy setting so deep that they cannot be found in a reasonable amount of time, or that an unreasonable amount of steps are needed to attempt to retain their data. They have taken the rights of the individual's right to privacy away--by default.

Are laws needed that protect a person's privacy by default--unless specific steps are needed by the user/purchaser to relinquish it? Should the wording of the explanation should be so written that the contract is brief, it explains the forfeiture of the privacy, and where that data might be going? Should a company selling a product should state before purchase, which right need to be dismissed for it's use? Should a legal owner who purchased product expect it to not stop functioning--only because a newer user contract is not agreed to?

Submission + - Danes are finally going nuclear. They have to, because of all their renewables (archive.is)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: “Most of the renewed interest in nuclear seen around the world stems from the expected growth in electricity demand from AI data centres, but Denmark is different. The Danes are concerned about possible blackouts similar to the one that struck Iberia recently. Like Spain and Portugal, Denmark is heavily dependent on weather-based renewable energy which is not very compatible with the way power grids operate.”

Comment Facilitating a major enemy's rise was sheer folly (Score 1) 160

by al0ha (#64298431) Attached to: China Intensifies Push To 'Delete America' From Its Technology
The offshoring of US manufacturing to China all in the name of cheap goods was sheer folly, all it did was help China's rise and you can pretty much guarantee that all that hardware Cisco and the like sold to China was reverse engineered and the technology is now integrated into the Chinese versions of the same equipment.
China has never been able to do anything on their own without espionage and stealing technology. And now we have the rise of the nutjobs in this country chasing away the brilliant scientists, who are immigrants and helped truly make America number one in technological advancement, who have decided to leave because of the lunacy of our current political climate. Going to be very difficult for America to be great when there is a major brain drain going on. Billybob in his 4x4 mudder will never be a replacement for what is lost to Billybob's prejudices.

Comment Tuberville (Score -1, Flamebait) 61

Man this guy is dumb as a post, along with a majority of the elected right wing officials. We need to establish a base criteria of knowledge that someone needs to meet before becoming a Senator or Representative. Being ruled by a minority of uneducated, unsophisticated individuals in government and the electorate due to gerrymandering will not serve the US well going forward. Time to get rid of laws like the Electoral College enacted after the Civil War to appease southerners, it has only led to the fall of the US. Let's truly make America great again by purely popular vote, no fool Republican will ever win again.

Comment Stupid idea - no surprise (Score 1, Informative) 25

In my area, the only people that did anything with groupon were Millennials and younger, that went to the free stuff, then never followed up with any purchase of a paid offering. Businesses caught on quick that all Groupon did was create havoc and no value - much like Waze - another one of the stupidest apps ever created.

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With all the fancy scientists in the world, why can't they just once build a nuclear balm?

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