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FediVerse services via jerry…

Due to popular demand, here is a list of the fedi-services that are part of the infosec.* family: 1 - https://infosec.exchange - Glitch-soc fork of Mastodon (this instance does not block threads.net) 2 - https://relay.infosec.exchange - Activitypub relay 3 - https://video.infosec.exchange - Peertube instance (like youtube) 4 - https://infosec.press - WriteFreely blog* 5 - https://pixel.infosec.exchange - Pixelfed instance (like instagram) 6 - https://matrix.infosec.exchange - Synapse (with sliding sync) homeserver* 7 - https://infosec.place - Akkoma instance (like mastodon) 8 - https://infosec.town - iceshrimp instance (like mastodon) 9 - https://infosec.pub - Lemmy instance (like reddit) 10 - https://fedia.io - General interest mbin instance (also like reddit) 11 - https://fedia.social - General interst Iceshrimp instance 12 - https://elk.infosec.exchange - Elk web interface for Mastodon 13 - https://books.infosec.exchange - Bookworym instance (like goodreads
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Ephaptic fields

Some theories compare the brain to a computer, with neurons as stand-ins for transistors. Other theories believe the brain to be non-algorithmic, and that consciousness perhaps has a quantum quality. But one theory in particular is gaining some experimental traction as of late. It explores how human consciousness could be explained through the electromagnetic fields — known as “ephaptic fields” —produced by neurons through synaptic firing. These fields are what allow an electroencephalogram (EEG), for example, to pick up brain activity. “The ‘ephaptic’ in ephaptic coupling simply means touching ,” Tamlyn Hunt, an affiliate guest in psychology at University of California Santa Barbara’s META lab, wrote in an opinion article published in Scientific American . “Though not well-known, the effects of ephaptic fields result from the textbook electric and magnetic interactions that power our cells.”
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Hmmmm

A trickle is becoming a flood for Bluesky, the social media company that has seen spectacular growth since the presidential election .  On Tuesday, the microblogging platform hit 20 million users, after averaging 1 million new users per day over the past five days. According to a Nov. 13 post by Bluesky CEO Jay Graber, the site had 6 million users in late August, nearly 11 million in late October and hit 15 million users on Nov. 15.  It added another 5 million users in just five days, with the explosive growth seen since Nov. 5, the day of the election, accelerating.
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Rufus, such beanie! 🏕️

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Olaf Lipinski

"While we may be unable to study the true evolution of human language, perhaps a simulation could provide some insights .  "That’s where AI comes in — a fascinating field of research called emergent communication, which I have spent the last three years studying. "To simulate how language may evolve, we give AI agents simple tasks that require communication, like a game where one robot must guide another to a specific location on a grid without showing it a map.  "We provide (almost) no restrictions on what they can say or how —we simply give them the task and let them solve it however they want. "Because solving these tasks requires the agents to communicate with each other, we can study how their communication evolves over time to get an idea of how language might evolve." 
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HarperCollins haz guardrails

HarperCollins, one of the biggest publishers in the world, made a deal with an “artificial intelligence technology company” and is giving authors the option to opt in to the agreement or pass, 404 Media can confirm .  A spokesperson for HarperCollins told 404 Media in a statement:  “HarperCollins has reached an agreement with an artificial intelligence technology company to allow limited use of select nonfiction backlist titles for training AI models to improve model quality and performance. While we believe this deal is attractive, we respect the various views of our authors, and they have the choice to opt in to the agreement or to pass on the opportunity. "HarperCollins has a long history of innovation and experimentation with new business models. Part of our role is to present authors with opportunities for their consideration while simultaneously protecting the underlying value of their works and our shared revenue and royalty streams. This agreement, with its limited scope
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Sandro Contenta

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Center of a clique

Unifying nature’s fundamental forces —gravity, electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces —was a goal that eluded Albert Einstein .  If Langlands’ theories help make it happen, the cosmic symmetry will come with a poetic touch: Langlands’ office in Princeton is the same one Einstein occupied during the later part of his two decades at the Institute for Advanced Studies, until his death in 1955. “He’s like a modern-day Einstein,” says Frenkel, author of Love and Math, a book about the Langlands Program. “But everybody knows about Einstein and nobody knows about Langlands. Why is that?” That kind of talk makes Langlands cringe. He’s sure of his achievements but skeptical about their value in the real world. Pure math is an adventure of the mind, unconcerned with applications.  He’s even uncomfortable with the program that bears his name, believing its expansion into the field of differential geometry —a branch that uses calculus to study the properties of geometric shapes —has
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Beautiful mathematics

A group of nine mathematicians has proved the geometric Langlands conjecture, a key component of one of the most sweeping paradigms in modern mathematics. The proof represents the culmination of three decades of effort, said Peter Scholze, a prominent mathematician at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics who was not involved in the proof. “It’s wonderful to see it resolved.” The Langlands program, originated by Robert Langlands in the 1960s, is a vast generalization of Fourier analysis, a far-reaching framework in which complex waves are expressed in terms of smoothly oscillating sine waves. The Langlands program holds sway in three separate areas of mathematics: number theory, geometry and something called function fields. These three settings are connected by a web of analogies commonly called mathematics’ Rosetta stone. Now, a new set of papers has settled the Langlands conjecture in the geometric column of the Rosetta stone. “In none of the [other] settings has a result as comp
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Langlands

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COP29 roundtable: AI

As the use of digital products and services grows, so does the amount of energy and water used, and e-waste produced. Growing levels of digitization demand more energy, which raises greenhouse gas emissions.   AI programmes need servers that run around the clock. These servers and the data centres that house them use a lot of electricity. In addition, even more energy is required to cool the data centers. These and other issues were debated at a high-level COP29 roundtable on digitization for climate action. 
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Thinkering

Tinkering is not just about our mental thoughts, and often involves a physical component.   Children often engage in discovery learning by touching objects (hopefully not the hot stove), and figuring out how things work by taking them into their own hands. For example, “thinkering” is a word introduced by Michael Ondaatje in the book, The English Patient . It refers to the creation and understanding of concepts in the mind while one is tinkering with the hands. When we physically engage with things, especially with our hands and through touch , we generate a great variety of sensory images in our minds. We connect our sensory experiences with our mental thoughts and generate visual representations of what is often an abstract concept.  These images allow us to better understand our world, and also generate creative thoughts that shape new inventions and ways to solve old problems. 
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Microglia

"Microglia, the innate immune cells of the brain, influence Alzheimer’s disease (AD) progression and are potential therapeutic targets.   "However, microglia exhibit diverse functions, the regulation of which is not fully understood, complicating therapeutics development.  "To better define the transcriptomic phenotypes and gene regulatory networks associated with AD, we enriched for microglia nuclei from 12 AD and 10 control human dorsolateral prefrontal cortices (7 males and 15 females, all aged >60 years) before single-nucleus RNA sequencing.  "Here we describe both established and previously unrecognized microglial molecular phenotypes, the inferred gene networks driving observed transcriptomic change, and apply trajectory analysis to reveal the putative relationships between microglial phenotypes.  "We identify microglial phenotypes more prevalent in AD cases compared with controls.  "Further, we describe the heterogeneity in microglia subclusters
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Proverb 27: AI

"Without education, you're not going anywhere in this world."  —Malcolm X
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Mike Loukides 🧠

O'REILLY's Radar trends to watch :  Little Language Models is an educational program that teaches young children about probability, artificial intelligence, and related topics. It’s fun and playful and can enable children to build simple models of their own. Grafana and NVIDIA are working on a large language model for observability , apparently given the awkward name LLo11yPop . The model aims to answer natural language questions about system status and performance based on telemetry data. Google is open-sourcing SynthID, a system for watermarking text so AI-generated documents can be traced to the LLM that generated them. Watermarks do not affect the accuracy or quality of generated documents. SynthID watermarks resist some tampering, including editing. Mistral has released two new models, Ministral 3B and Ministral 8B. These are small models, designed to work on resource-limited “edge” systems. Unlike many of Mistral’s previous small models, these are not ope
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Manon Bischoff

"Short-term change in the direction of a magnetic field (or another parameter) describes a closed curve in this space —just like my circular path on the globe. Because this parameter space is usually curved, this leaves traces in the wave function. "'The geometric phase can therefore be regarded as the best answer the system can offer to the question ‘What path in parameter space did the system take?' Berry wrote in his 1988 Scientific American article . 'In this sense it is a kind of quantum memory .' "Berry had thus revealed a profound connection between quantum systems and geometry, which turned out to be extremely valuable.  "The Berry phase, named after him, can be used to explain phenomena such as the quantum Hall effect, which occurs in certain solids and raised many questions before Berry’s discovery. "All of this is extremely exciting. For me, however, the most impressive thing is that Berry established the new research field of geomet
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Iconic Listening Experience 🥀

The late Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia’s estate has recreated his voice using AI in partnership with Eleven Labs .  The singer-songwriter’s voice can now read to ElevenReader app users their choice of audiobooks, articles, poetry, PDFs, and more through what Eleven calls the Iconic Listening Experience, Billboard reported.  Garcia’s voice is available in 32 different languages. This is not the first voice added to the list of personalities available to use through the AI company’s app, as its repertoire also includes Judy Garland, James Dean, Burt Reynolds, and Sir Laurence Olivier.  Garcia’s recent vocal replication was possible through a collaboration between Garcia’s estate and ElevenLabs.  The Jerry Garcia Foundation, co-founded by his daughter Keelin Garcia, is also considering Garcia’s voice model for narrated documentaries or audio art exhibits.  
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Elon wants to restrain AI

Elon Musk’s influence on a Donald Trump administration could lead to tougher safety standards for artificial intelligence, according to a leading scientist who has worked closely with the world’s richest person on addressing AI’s dangers. Max Tegmark said Musk’s support for a failed AI bill in California underlined the billionaire’s continued concern over an issue that did not feature prominently in Trump’s campaign. However, Musk has warned regularly that unrestrained development of AI —broadly, computer systems performing tasks that typically require human intelligence —could be catastrophic for humanity.  Last year, he was one of more than 30,000 signatories to a letter calling for a pause in work on powerful AI technology.
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Reasoning to reshape AI

Artificial intelligence companies like OpenAI are seeking to overcome unexpected delays and challenges in the pursuit of ever-bigger large language models by developing training techniques that use more human-like ways for algorithms to think. A dozen AI scientists, researchers and investors told Reuters they believe that these techniques, which are behind OpenAI's recently released o1 model, could reshape the AI arms race, and have implications for the types of resources that AI companies have an insatiable demand for, from energy to types of chips. OpenAI declined to comment for this story.  After the release of the viral ChatGPT chatbot two years ago, technology companies, whose valuations have benefited greatly from the AI boom, have publicly maintained that “scaling up” current models through adding more data and computing power will consistently lead to improved AI models.
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Bullfrog

Amid a rising tide of low-cost weaponized adversary drones menacing American troops abroad, the US military is pulling out all the stops to protect its forces from the ever-present threat of death from above .  But between expensive munitions, futuristic but complicated directed energy weapons, and its own growing drone arsenal, the Pentagon is increasingly eyeing an elegantly simple solution to its growing drone problem: reinventing the gun. At the Technology Readiness Experimentation (T-REX) event in August, the US Defense Department tested an artificial intelligence-enabled autonomous robotic gun system developed by fledgling defense contractor Allen Control Systems dubbed the Bullfrog . Consisting of a 7.62-mm M240 machine gun mounted on a specially designed rotating turret outfitted with an electro-optical sensor, proprietary AI, and computer vision software, the Bullfrog was designed to deliver small arms fire on drone targets with far more precision than the average US service m
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Learn About

"Google has launched an experimental new AI tool called Learn About, which is different from the chatbots we’re used to, like Gemini and ChatGPT .  "It’s built on the LearnLM AI model that Google introduced this spring, saying it’s grounded in educational research and tailored to how people learn. The answers it provides have more visual and interactive elements with educational formatting. "We tested Learn About and Google Gemini with a simple prompt: 'How big is the universe?' Both answered that 'the observable universe' is 'about 93 billion light-years in diameter.' "However, while Gemini opted to show a Wikipedia-provided diagram of the universe and a two-paragraph summary with links to sources, Learn About emphasized an image from the educational site Physics Forums and added related content that was similarly focused more on learning than simply offering facts and definitions."
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Go Fish 🦹‍♂️

A few months ago, Anthropic quietly hired its first dedicated "AI welfare" researcher, Kyle Fish, to explore whether future AI models might deserve moral consideration and protection, reports AI newsletter Transformer .  While sentience in AI models is an extremely controversial and contentious topic, the hire could signal a shift toward AI companies examining ethical questions about the consciousness and rights of AI systems. Fish joined Anthropic's alignment science team in September to develop guidelines for how y and other companies should approach the issue.    The news follows a major report co-authored by Fish before he landed his Anthropic role: Titled " Taking AI Welfare Seriously  [pdf]," the paper warns that AI models could soon develop consciousness or agency —traits that some might consider requirements for moral consideration. But the authors do not say that AI consciousness is a guaranteed future development.
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Chat AI 13

AI cats trying to prompt herder…
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