Google wants you to chat with its AI chatbot at your own risk

New Delhi, Aug 27 (IANS) Google has opened its experimental artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot for the public and you can now register to chat with the AI-driven bot trained on the company's controversial language model.

Google has already warned that early previews of its LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) model "may display inaccurate or inappropriate content".

'AI Test Kitchen' by Google is an app where people can learn about, experience, and give feedback on Google's emerging AI technology.

"Our goal is to learn, improve and innovate responsibly on AI together. We'll be opening up to small groups of people gradually," said the company.

According to Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, 'AI Test Kitchen' is "meant to give you a sense of what it might be like to have LaMDA in your hands".

The ability of these language models to generate infinite possibilities shows potential, "but it also means they don't always get things quite right".

"And while we've made substantial improvements in safety and accuracy in the latest version of LaMDA, we're still at the beginning of a journey," said Google.

"We've added multiple layers of protection to the AI Test Kitchen. This work has minimised the risk, but not eliminated it," it added.

Both Google and Meta (formerly Facebook) have unveiled their AI conversational chatbots, asking the public to give feedback.

The initial reports are scary as the Meta chatbot named BlenderBot 3 thought Mark Zuckerberg is "creepy and manipulative" and Donald Trump will always be the US president.

Meta said last week that all conversational AI chatbots are known to sometimes mimic and generate unsafe, biased or offensive remarks.

"BlenderBot can still make rude or offensive comments, which is why we are collecting feedback that will help make future chatbots better," the company mentioned in a blogpost.

Last month, Google fired an engineer over breaching its confidentiality agreement after he made a claim that the tech giant's conversation AI is "sentient" because it has feelings, emotions and subjective experiences.

Lemoine also interviewed LaMDA, which came with surprising and shocking answers.

(Except for the headline, the rest of this IANS article is un-edited)

For more technology news, product reviews, sci-tech features and updates, keep reading Digit.in

from Machine Learning and AI News https://ift.tt/BC2KeZE

American researchers develop durable coating that kills Covid virus

New York, Aug 27 (IANS) There may soon be a new weapon in the battle against Covid in the form of a durable coating, thanks to Indian-American researchers, that can quickly kill bacteria and viruses on surfaces, and keep killing them for six months or longer.

The coating, which is clear and can be brushed or sprayed on, gets its durability and germ-killing power by combining tried-and-true ingredients in a novel way.

It uses antimicrobial molecules derived from tea tree oil and cinnamon oil, both used for centuries as safe and effective germ killers that work in under two minutes, according to the study led by Anish Tuteja, a professor of material science and engineering at University of Michigan, published in the journal Matter.

"Disinfectant cleaners can kill germs in only a minute or two but they dissipate quickly and leave surfaces vulnerable to reinfection. We do have long-lasting antibacterial surfaces based on metals like copper and zinc, but they take hours to kill bacteria. This coating offers the best of both worlds," said Tuteja.

The research team included associate professor of materials science and engineering and biomedical engineering, Geeta Mehta and materials science and engineering PhD students Abhishek Dhyani and Taylor Repetto.

The coating's durability comes from polyurethane, a tough, varnish-like sealer that's commonly used on surfaces like floors and furniture.

The coating proved deadly to SARS-CoV-2 virus, E. coli, MRSA and a variety of other pathogens.

It killed 99.9 per cent of microbes even after months of repeated cleaning, abrasion and other punishment on real-world surfaces like keyboards, cell phone screens and chicken-slathered cutting boards.

The coating could be a game changer in traditionally germ-laden public spaces like airports and hospitals.

"The antimicrobials we tested are classified as 'generally regarded as safe' by the FDA, and some have even been approved as food additives," Tuteja said.

"Polyurethane is a safe and very commonly used coating. But we did do toxicity testing just to be sure, and we found that our particular combination of ingredients is even safer than many of today's antimicrobials," he mentioned.

The coating could keep killing germs for six months or longer before its oil begins to evaporate and reduce its disinfectant power.

But even then, said Tuteja, it can be recharged by wiping it with fresh oil; the new oil is reabsorbed by the surface, starting the cycle again.

Tuteja estimates that the technology could be commercially available within a year, as it has been licensed to Hygratek, a spinoff company that Tuteja founded with assistance from Innovation Partnerships at the university.

The University of Michigan has applied for a patent based on this technology.

(Except for the headline, the rest of this IANS article is un-edited)

For more technology news, product reviews, sci-tech features and updates, keep reading Digit.in

from Science and Technology News https://ift.tt/0OEZsqN

Shopping on Twitter can bring individual or societal harm to users

New Delhi, Aug 27 (IANS) Twitter shopping, which allows brands to list items for sale and tag products at the top of a merchant's profile, has content moderation risks and can lead to 'individual or societal harm', the media reported.

According to an internal company memo, obtained by The Verge, several elements of Twitter's e-commerce tool are categorised as "high" under "risk assessment".

"One high-risk concern is that merchant-generated fields like shop names and descriptions could be used by bad actors in harmful ways," read the memo.

Unlike Instagram, Twitter users can't buy the product directly on the platform as clicking on items for sale takes them to the merchant's website.

A key upcoming feature of Twitter's shopping is shareability, and the memo also listed this feature as high risk.

It said the shareability feature "could lead to harmful content being amplified further, increasing the visibility of content that violates Twitter rules".

"Shareable Shops therefore increase the likelihood that users may see violative Shops, or violative goods contained in a Shop," the memo read.

"It may also incentivise bad actors to amplify harmful or violative goods by tweeting and sharing their own Shop."

A company spokesperson said in a statement that the memo "was part of a new feature assessment led by the product trust team".

"We're always working to improve the safety of our service and that is particularly true for the addition of new products and features," the spokesperson said.

Twitter's shop feature allows anyone with a professional account selling items in the US to manually add products for sale to their profile.

(Except for the headline, the rest of this IANS article is un-edited)

For more technology news, product reviews, sci-tech features and updates, keep reading Digit.in

from Apps News https://ift.tt/SB9wrqX

NASA gears up to send a megarocket to deep space on Aug 29

Washington, Aug 27 (IANS) The US space agency is geared up to send its debut Space Launch System (SLS) mission called Artemis I into deep space on Monday that will perform a long orbit around the Moon before coming back to Earth.

The uncrewed Artemis I mission has a two-hour launch window that opens at 8:33 a.m. EDT (6 p.m. India time) on August 29 from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39B in Florida in the US.

Artemis I will lay the foundation for a sustained long-term presence on and around the Moon.

"The SLS rocket and integrated Orion spacecraft will help us get a feel for what astronauts will experience on future flights. Artemis I is an important step in NASA's long-term goals for space exploration, paving the way for us to land the first woman and the first person of colour on the Moon," the space agency said in a statement.

The primary goal of Artemis I is to thoroughly test the integrated systems before crewed missions by operating the spacecraft in a deep space environment, testing Orion's heat shield, and recovering the crew module after reentry, descent, and splashdown.

The US space agency last week identified 13 candidate landing regions near the lunar south pole, as it prepares to send humans back to the Moon under the Artemis programme in 2024.

Each region contains multiple potential landing sites for Artemis III, which will be the first of the Artemis missions to bring the crew to the lunar surface.

(Except for the headline, the rest of this IANS article is un-edited)

For more technology news, product reviews, sci-tech features and updates, keep reading Digit.in

from Apps News https://ift.tt/3zSCidn

Some environmentalists are sadly anti-human: Elon Musk

San Francisco, Aug 27 (IANS) Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Saturday slammed some environmentalists for being "anti-human" when it comes to increasing nuclear power generation that could replace fossil fuels in the future.

In a tweet, Musk said that the countries should be increasing nuclear power generation.

"It is insane from a national security standpoint and bad for the environment to shut them down," said Musk.

A Twitter follower replied, saying that nuclear is clean, efficient and could replace fossil fuels entirely if it was embraced but is not happening "because so-called environmentalists aren't pro clean energy, they are anti-human".

Musk posted: "Some (environmentalists) are indeed sadly anti-human".

A clean energy advocate, he has said time and again that it's a mistake to stigmatise nuclear energy, especially as renewables like solar and batteries are still ramping up.

In July this year, he said that "I'm actually pro-nuclear as well".

"I think nuclear has a bad rap. People shouldn't be shutting down nuclear power stations, in my view, unless they're in a location that's prone to natural disasters. In which case, you know you can't just be like, 'we're just waiting for the real but once in a century situation'," he said during an interview on the 'Getting Stoned' podcast.

"Like the Fukushima situation. Well, you know there's a lot of tsunamis and stuff, so it's probably not great to have nuclear power where there's natural disasters. But for example, in places like France or Germany and many parts of the US, there's really no meaningful risk of a natural disaster that could affect nuclear power plants. So we shouldn't shut them down in that case," Musk had stressed.

According to him, efforts to shut down nuclear power plants are "crazy" and "madness."

(Except for the headline, the rest of this IANS article is un-edited)

For more technology news, product reviews, sci-tech features and updates, keep reading Digit.in

from Apps News https://ift.tt/9JldCjh

New Meta VR headset set to launch in Oct: CEO

San Francisco, Aug 26 (IANS) Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has confirmed that the tech giant's upcoming virtual reality (VR) headset will arrive this year in October.

According to Zuckerberg's statements on Joe Rogan's podcast, the headset would probably launch around the company's annual Connect event, reports The Verge.

"For the next device that's coming out in October, there are a few big features," Zuckerberg was quoted as saying.

He proceeded to describe new social options that would be enabled by eye and facial tracking, the report said.

"The ability to now have kind of eye contact in virtual reality," Zuckerberg said as part of the feature list.

"Have your face be tracked so that way your avatar -- it is not just this still thing, but if you smile or if you frown or if you pout, or whatever your expression is, have that translate in real-time to your avatar," he added.

The headset, most likely codenamed "Project Cambria", is supposed to be "significantly" more expensive than the existing Quest, which recently got a price hike to $399.

As per the report, the tech giant had previously stated that the device will be released sometime this year.

(Except for the headline, the rest of this IANS article is un-edited)

For more technology news, product reviews, sci-tech features and updates, keep reading Digit.in

from VR and AR News https://ift.tt/eVcYUpG

NASA detects carbon dioxide in exoplanet atmosphere in 1st clear evidence

Washington, Aug 26 (IANS) NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has captured the first-ever clear evidence for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet outside the solar system.

The finding, to be published in the journal Nature, offers hope that in the future, Webb may be able to detect and measure carbon dioxide in the thinner atmospheres of smaller rocky planets.

This observation of a gas giant planet named 'WASP-39 b' which is orbiting a Sun-like star 700 light-years away provides important insights into the composition and formation of the planet, the US space agency said in a statement late on Thursday.

"As soon as the data appeared on my screen, the whopping carbon dioxide feature grabbed me. It was a special moment, crossing an important threshold in exoplanet sciences," said Zafar Rustamkulov, a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University.

WASP-39 b is a hot gas giant with a mass roughly one-quarter that of Jupiter (about the same as Saturn) and a diameter 1.3 times greater than Jupiter.

Previous observations from other telescopes, including NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, revealed the presence of water vapor, sodium, and potassium in the planet's atmosphere.

Webb's unmatched infrared sensitivity has now confirmed the presence of carbon dioxide on this planet as well.

"Detecting such a clear signal of carbon dioxide on WASP-39 b bodes well for the detection of atmospheres on smaller, terrestrial-sized planets," said Natalie Batalha of the University of California at Santa Cruz, who leads the team.

Understanding the composition of a planet's atmosphere is important because it tells us something about the origin of the planet and how it evolved.

"Carbon dioxide molecules are sensitive tracers of the story of planet formation," said Mike Line of Arizona State University.

(Except for the headline, the rest of this IANS article is un-edited)

For more technology news, product reviews, sci-tech features and updates, keep reading Digit.in

from Science and Technology News https://ift.tt/z89drTi