AI Skills Intro by Ignacio de Gregorio

Some good thoughts on uses and direction.

The AI skills you MUST learn in 2023

Putting you ahead of the curve with real examples

By Ignacio de Gregorio

You won’t be substituted by AI, but you will be substituted by a human that knows how to leverage AI.

Same outcome, but a totally different course of action.

You shouldn’t fear AI by itself, but you should be shitting in your pants if you’ve seen ChatGPT and other Generative AI models and you haven’t started thinking how can you incorporate them into your daily work.

But you can start changing this as soon as… today, as the answer to this issue is known, and goes by the name of Prompting.

A skill so powerful that I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it becomes a standard requirement in job descriptions in almost every industry, and an insanely valuable competitive edge over others if you harness its power.

Embrace or die

Mckinsey, the most prestigious consulting company in the world, sometimes referred directly to as ‘the Firm’, categorized economic activity more than ten years ago into three categories: production, transactions, and interactions.

Finally exploring the unexplored

For production, we all know how machines and robots have completely revolutionized how we generate products, and AI has helped by making these processes more efficient.

With transactions, digitalization, and more specifically, automation with technologies like RPA, are making them a much more streamlined process, with AI enabling the automation of more complex processes.

But until now, interactions were an untouched economic activity for AI, as the results of applying AI in these cases were, well… mild.

Generative AI has completely changed that.

Now, companies are completely confident that AI is going to take over how humans interact with others and with machines, and are ready to fully embrace it.

Thus, if that fact becomes a competitive advantage for your career or a complete burden, will depend ultimately on your capacity to learn this key skill.

This one will hit you close

Let’s see some examples of what I mean:

Many writers, especially newspapers, are already generating a considerable part of their writings using AI and then editing it using humans.

Marketers are generating impressive copy using AI, or leveraging the model’s ample knowledge for idea brainstorming

Companies are already rethinking how ChatGPT can be used for the automation of complex tasks before considered impossible to automate, with action transformers already making an appearance

Companies are also studying ways to how ChatGPT can revolutionize customer service with tailored chatbot solutions

But Generative AI isn’t only impacting how humans perform their day-to-day work, it’s also going to impact how companies operate.

Internet-native companies will become AI-native

Microsoft, by acquiring a majority stake in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT or DALL-E, has recently announced the inclusion of ChatGPT into Azure, its cloud computing service.

This is a huge deal, as it allows any company using Microsoft’s cloud services to easily leverage ChatGPT into their systems.

But that isn’t enough for Microsoft.

They also are embedding ChatGPT into its search engine, Bing, and to all its Office365 software suite. Yes, your PowerPoints, Excels, or your Words, among others, will also leverage ChatGPT to enhance your experience.

Needless to say, ordinary people don’t realize what’s coming, and, for that reason, many of them will quickly miss this life-changing opportunity I’m presenting to you today.

Because striving for the continuous reinvention of your skills is a must in the tech-driven world we happen to live in.

You shouldn’t feel tempted to embrace AI, you should be feel forced to do so.

The impact of AI on our daily interactions will be so huge that lots of AI-based jobs will surge as demand for AI experts will soar.

And by experts I don’t mean AI researchers or scientists; simply people that have become experts in applying these technologies.

And that leads you to Prompting.

But what on Earth is this?

Learning to speak to AI

To understand how powerful a skill prompting will be, we need a quick summary of what Generative AI actually is.

AI is a transformer, but not the way you think it is

Generative AI models are models that, when receiving a text prompt, give an output related to that input, be that an image, written text, spectrograms, or others, depending on the use case.

These AI models, at least the most successful ones, fall into the category of Large Language Models, transformer models that use an attention mechanism to work.

In layman’s terms, these models are capable of understanding context from inputs in a much more efficient way using this attention mechanism, which allows them to understand the context and what parts of the input matter the most. This makes these models much more memory-efficient than past models.

But this raises a question. How do we teach context to AI models?

The answer to this question is text embeddings, the hidden power behind ChatGPT and other generative models.

Can China overtake the US in the AI Marathon?

ChatGPT: Can China overtake the US in the AI marathon?

By Derek Cai & Annabelle Liang in  BBC News

Artificial intelligence has emerged as enough of a concern that it made it onto what was already a packed agenda at the G7 summit at the weekend.

Concerns about AI's harmful impact coincide with the US' attempts to restrict China's access to crucial technology.

For now, the US seems to be ahead in the AI race. And there is already the possibility that current restrictions on semiconductor exports to China could hamper Beijing's technological progress.

But China could catch up, according to analysts, as AI solutions take years to be perfected. Chinese internet companies "are arguably more advanced than US internet companies, depending on how you're measuring advancement," Kendra Schaefer, head of tech policy research at Trivium China tells the BBC.

However, she says China's "ability to manufacture high-end equipment and components is an estimated 10 to 15 years behind global leaders."

The Silicon Valley factor

The US' biggest advantage is Silicon Valley, arguably the world's supreme entrepreneurial hotspot. It is the birthplace of technology giants such as Google, Apple and Intel that have helped shape modern life.

Innovators in the country have been helped by its unique research culture, says Pascale Fung, director of the Center for Artificial Intelligence Research at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Researchers often spend years working to improve a technology without a product in mind, Ms Fung says.

OpenAI, for example, operated as a non-profit company for years as it researched the Transformers machine learning model, which eventually powered ChatGPT.

"This environment never existed in most Chinese companies. They would build deep learning systems or large language models only after they saw the popularity," she adds. "This is a fundamental challenge to Chinese AI."

US investors have also been supportive of the country's research push. In 2019, Microsoft said it would put $1bn (£810,000) in to OpenAI.

"AI is one of the most transformative technologies of our time and has the potential to help solve many of our world's most pressing challenges," Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said.

China's edge

China, meanwhile, benefits from a larger consumer base. It is the world's second-most populous country, home to roughly 1.4 billion people.

It also has a thriving internet sector, says Edith Yeung, a partner at the Race Capital investment firm.  ... '  (more)

Space Logistics

Northrup Grumman advances:

What is SpaceLogistics?

SpaceLogistics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Northrop Grumman, provides cooperative space logistics and in-orbit satellite servicing to geosynchronous satellite operators using its fleet of commercial servicing vehicles—the Mission Extension Vehicle, the Mission Robotic Vehicle and the Mission Extension Pods.

Pioneering a New Market in Space

SpaceLogistics currently provides in-orbit satellite servicing to geosynchronous satellite operators using the Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV)™ which docks with customers’ existing satellites providing the propulsion and attitude control needed to extend their lives. This enables satellite operators to activate new markets, drive asset value and protect their franchises.  ... ' 

Mission Extension Vehicle

The Mission Extension Vehicle-1 (MEV-1), the industry’s first satellite life extension vehicle, completed its first docking to a client satellite, Intelsat IS-901 on February 25, 2020. MEV is designed to dock to geostationary satellites whose fuel is nearly depleted. Once connected to its client satellite, MEV uses its own thrusters and fuel supply to extend the satellite’s lifetime. When the customer no longer desires MEV’s service, the spacecraft will undock and move on to the next client satellite. The second Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV-2) launched August 15, 2020 with the Northrop Grumman-built Galaxy 30 satellite. MEV-2 docked with the Intelsat IS-1002 satellite on April 12, 2021.  ... '

Yann LeCun's Bold New Vision for the Future of AI

Like LeCun's views they are always interesting, inspired us early on in AI.   His connection to Meta is interesting given his generally very practical views.

Yann LeCun's Bold New Vision for the Future of AI

By MIT Technology Review, June 28, 2022,  Meta AI Chief Scientist Yann LeCun.

"This idea that we're going to just scale up the current large language models and eventually human-level AI will emerge—I don't believe this at all, not for one second." -Yann LeCun

Yann LeCun, chief scientist at Meta's artificial intelligence (AI) lab and one of the world's most influential AI researchers, has a bold new vision for the next generation of AI. In a draft document shared with MIT Technology Review, LeCun sketches out an approach that he thinks will one day give machines the common sense they need to navigate the world.

"Getting machines to behave like humans and animals has been the quest of my life," he says. LeCun thinks that animal brains run a kind of simulation of the world, which he calls a world model.

From MIT Technology Review

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Digital Ad Industry

Another thing we dabbled with.  We had lots and lots of ads in archives. How do you use and reuse them efficiently

How the digital ad industry can guide the ways AI transforms businesses.  in Venturebeat.

When Microsoft-funded lab OpenAI launched ChatGPT in February, millions of people realized almost overnight what tech professionals have understood for a long time: Today’s AI tools are advanced enough to transform daily life as well as an incredibly broad range of industries. Microsoft’s Bing leaped from a distant second place in search to a much higher-profile level. Concepts like large language models (LLMs) and natural language processing are now part of mainstream discussion. 

However, with the spotlight also comes scrutiny. Regulators around the world are taking note of AI’s risks to user privacy. The Elon Musk-backed Future of Life Institute amassed 1,000 signatures from tech leaders asking for a six-month pause on training AI tools that are more advanced than GPT-4, which powers ChatGPT.

As heady as legal and engineering matters may be, the basic ethical questions are easily digestible. If developers need to take a summer vacation from working on AI advancements, will they shift focus to making sure AI upholds ethical guidelines and user privacy? And at the same time, can we control the potentially disruptive effects AI may have on where ad dollars are spent and how media is monetized? 

Google, IBM, Amazon, Baidu, Tencent, and an array of smaller players are working on — or already launching, in Google’s case — similar AI tools. In an emerging market, it’s impossible to predict which products will come to dominate and what the outcomes will look like. This underscores the importance of protecting privacy in AI tools right now — planning for the unknown before it happens.

Join us in San Francisco on July 11-12, where top executives will share how they have integrated and optimized AI investments for success and avoided common pitfalls.

As the digital advertising industry eagerly looks to AI applications for targeting, measurement, creative personalization and optimization and more, industry leaders will need to look closely at how the tech is implemented. Specifically, we’ll need to look at the use of personally identifiable information (PII), the potential for accidental or intentional bias or discrimination against underrepresented groups, how data is shared through third-party integrations and worldwide regulatory compliance.

Search vs. AI: The great spend re-allocation?

As far as ad budgets are concerned, it’s easy to imagine how a “search vs. AI” face-off might look. It’s very convenient to have all of the information you’re seeking collected in one place via AI rather than rephrasing search queries and clicking through links to zero in on what you’re really looking for. If we see a generational shift in how users discover information, that is, if young people accept AI as a central part of the digital experience going forward, non-AI search engines are threatened with vanishing relevance. This could have a great impact on the value of search inventory and the ability of publishers to monetize traffic from search.

Search remains the driver of a significant share of traffic to publisher sites, even with the ongoing movement of publishers to foster audience loyalty through subscriptions. And now that advertising is making its way into AI chat — Microsoft, for example, has been testing the placement of ads in Bing chat — publishers are questioning how AI providers may share revenue with the sites from which their tools source information. It’s safe to say publishers will be looking at another set of data black boxes from walled gardens on which they rely for revenue. In order to thrive in this uncertain future, publishers need to lead conversations to make sure stakeholders across the industry understand what we’re rushing into .... ' 

RIP Again for the Metaverse?

 Does the emergence of AI methods make any difference, I have been asked.   Paused for now?

RIP Metaverse   By Business Insider, May 9, 2023

The Metaverse, once the hottest idea in tech, is headed to the industry's graveyard of failed fads.

Credit: Robyn Phelps/Insider

The Metaverse, the once-buzzy technology that promised to allow users to hang out awkwardly in a disorientating video-game-like world, has died after being abandoned by the business world. It was three years old.

The capital-M Metaverse, a descendant of the 1982 movie "Tron" and the 2003 video game "Second Life," was born in 2021 when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg changed the name of his trillion-dollar company to Meta. After a much-heralded debut, the Metaverse became the obsession of the tech world and a quick hack to win over Wall Street investors. The hype could not save the Metaverse, however, and a lack of coherent vision for the product ultimately led to its decline. Once the tech industry turned to a new, more promising trend — generative AI — the fate of the Metaverse was sealed.

The Metaverse is now headed to the tech industry's graveyard of failed ideas. But the short life and ignominious death of the Metaverse offers a glaring indictment of the tech industry that birthed it.

From Business Insider

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Sample Virtual Worlds Examined

For an upcoming effort I have been asked for an overview of Virtual-Meta worlds and their potential uses in areas like retail and beyond. Recall we worked with IBM on an experiment with 'Second Life' in the 80s.   Below are a list of such worlds, only a few that I have looked at,  via ChatGPT.  Looking in particular how these do/can link with AI enhancement. 

There are many virtual worlds that exist, each with their own unique features and user communities. Here are some examples of popular virtual worlds:

1. Second Life: As mentioned earlier, Second Life is a virtual world where users can create their own avatars and explore a vast virtual world.

2.Minecraft: While Minecraft is primarily a game, it can also be considered a virtual world. In Minecraft, users can build and explore their own virtual environments, and interact with other players in multiplayer mode.

3.Roblox: Roblox is a platform that allows users to create and play their own games, as well as socialize and interact with other users in a virtual world.

4.VRChat: VRChat is a virtual reality platform where users can create and customize avatars, explore virtual worlds, and interact with other users in real-time.

5. IMVU: IMVU is a virtual world where users can create and customize avatars, socialize with other users, and even shop for virtual goods using real money.

6. Entropia Universe: Entropia Universe is a virtual world where users can explore a vast universe, hunt creatures, mine resources, and even engage in real-money transactions.

7. Kaneva: Kaneva is a virtual world that allows users to create and customize avatars, explore virtual environments, and interact with other users in real-time.

These are just a few examples of the many virtual worlds that exist. Each virtual world has its own unique features and user community, and users can choose to participate in the virtual world that best fits their interests and preferences.

Metaverse Seoul?

 Have seen this kind of thing proposed way back, can it work?

Metaverse Seoul: How One City Used Citizen Input to Pilot a Government-Run Metaverse

In May 2022, the Seoul Metropolitan Government in Seoul, Korea launched the pilot of Metaverse Seoul, a virtual version of Seoul’s mayor’s office. As they worked towards building a broad, immersive, online government platform, they hoped to gain insights from citizens about everything from popular local tourist sites that could be experienced virtually to government services that could be delivered in the metaverse. But to do that, the team had to figure out how to solicit ideas from citizens and then determine which ideas to put to use. Professor Mitchell Weiss discusses their approach, as well as questions relating to his research on public entrepreneurship and what he calls “possibility government,” in his case, “Metaverse Seoul.”

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Brian Kenny:

In April of 2006, Beth Goza, a programmer at Linden Lab, excitedly showed off her image on the cover of BusinessWeek Magazine. But only those who understood Beth's true passion would've recognized the image as her, because it was actually an image of her avatar, Kealiaha Trudeau, who resided in Second Life, a virtual 3-D world that many considered to be the stepping off point for the Metaverse. Launched in 2003, Second Life allowed users to interact with each other in real time. The open source virtual world hosted a thriving economy that scaled quickly on the wings of user generated content. The site plateaued at about a million users by 2006, but proved too technically clunky for the casual user. But Second Life stoked the imagination of a generation of digital natives, who now have the benefit of working with significantly advanced technology, to create virtual worlds that might in some ways surpass the real thing. Today on Cold Call, we've invited Professor Mitchell Weiss to discuss his case entitled, “Metaverse Seoul.” I'm your host Brian Kenny, and you're listening to Cold Call on the HBR Presents Network. Mitch Weiss studies digital transformation and innovation ecosystems and is an expert on public entrepreneurship. He also holds the record for most appearances on Cold Call at six.  ...

Robots Under the Ice

 New dimensions of exploration.

Robot provides unprecedented views below Antarctic ice shelf

By James Dean, Cornell Chronicle, March 2, 2023

High in a narrow, seawater-filled crevasse in the base of Antarctica’s largest ice shelf, cameras on the remotely operated Icefin underwater vehicle relayed a sudden change in scenery.

Walls of smooth, cloudy meteoric ice abruptly turned green and rougher in texture, transitioning to salty marine ice.

Nearly 1,900 feet above, near where the surface of the Ross Ice Shelf meets Kamb Ice Stream, a U.S.-New Zealand research team recognized the shift as evidence of “ice pumping” – a process never before directly observed in an ice shelf crevasse, important to its stability.

Britney Schmidt’s Icefin team, Click to open gallery view

Credit:Icefin/NASA PSTAR RISE UP/Schmidt

Members of Britney Schmidt’s Icefin team after completing their first mission exploring conditions beneath Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf, near where it meets Kamb Ice Stream, in December 2019.

“We were looking at ice that had just melted less than 100 feet below, flowed up into the crevasse and then refrozen,” said Justin Lawrence, visiting scholar at the Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S). “And then it just got weirder as we went higher up.”

The Icefin robot’s unprecedented look inside a crevasse, and observations revealing more than a century of geological processes beneath the ice shelf, are detailed in “Crevasse Refreezing and Signatures of Retreat Observed at Kamb Ice Stream Grounding Zone,” published March 2 in Nature Geoscience.

The paper reports results from a 2019 field campaign to Kamb Ice Stream supported by Antarctica New Zealand and other New Zealand research agencies, led by Christina Hulbe, professor at the University of Otago, and colleagues. Through support from NASA’s Astrobiology Program, a research team led by Britney Schmidt, associate professor of astronomy and earth and atmospheric sciences in A&S and Cornell Engineering, was able to join the expedition and deploy Icefin. Schmidt’s Planetary Habitability and Technology Lab has been developing Icefin for nearly a decade, beginning at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Combined with recently published investigations of the fast-changing Thwaites Glacier – explored the same season by a second Icefin vehicle – the research is expected to improve models of sea-level rise by providing the first high-resolution views of ice, ocean and sea floor interactions at contrasting glacier systems on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Thwaites, which is exposed to warm ocean currents, is one of the continent’s most unstable glaciers. Kamb Ice Stream, where the ocean is very cold, has been stagnant since the late 1800s. Kamb currently offsets some of the ice loss from western Antarctica, but if it reactivates could increase the region’s contribution to sea-level rise by 12%.

“Antarctica is a complex system and it’s important to understand both ends of the spectrum – systems already undergoing rapid change as well as those quieter systems where future change poses a risk,” Schmidt said. “Observing Kamb and Thwaites together helps us learn more.”

NASA funded Icefin’s development and the Kamb exploration to extend ocean exploration beyond Earth. Marine ice like that found in the crevasse may be an analog for conditions on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, the target of NASA’s Europa Clipper orbital mission slated for launch in 2024. Later lander missions might one day search directly for microbial life in the ice.

Commercial Sat Constellations

Been following for some time,   Current and future plans.   Have watched many launches. Ultimate data leverage goals

In  McKinsey:  Expectations versus reality: Commercial-satellite constellations

April 14, 2023 | Commentary

By  Ryan Brukardt,  Jesse Klempner, and Brooke Stokes

Many commercial-satellite operators are still creating overly ambitious plans, but more companies are now making steady progress toward their launch goals.

Interest in building and launching commercial-satellite constellations continues to be high because of recent technological advances and cost reductions, combined with better access to capital. While some industry analysts feared that private investment in the space sector would plummet from the record highs achieved in 2021, the decrease in 2022 was less severe than expected and capital inflows were the second-highest on record. Excitement about commercial-satellite constellations spans multiple sectors, with companies exploring wide-ranging use cases, ranging from national security to climate monitoring to improve life on Earth.

McKinsey Global Private Markets Review 2023: Private markets turn down the volume

In 2021, we conducted an analysis to determine if constellation operators were able to translate their ambitious plans for satellite count and launch into reality. The results showed that operators had not yet placed an asset in orbit in more than half of the announced constellations. We conducted an updated analysis in early 2023 to determine whether interest in satellite constellations remains strong and whether operators are now more successful in achieving their goals. Three findings stand out (exhibit):   ... '  (much more) 

Ian Hogarth Says Slow Down in The Financial Times

He writes: We must slow down the race to God-like AI

I’ve invested in more than 50 artificial intelligence start-ups. What I’ve seen worries me

Ian Hogarth,  APRIL 13 2023

We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Artificial intelligence news every morning.

The writer of this essay is an investor and co-author of the annual “State of AI” report

On a cold evening in February I attended a dinner party at the home of an artificial intelligence researcher in London, along with a small group of experts in the field. He lives in a penthouse apartment at the top of a modern tower block, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city’s skyscrapers and a railway terminus from the 19th century. Despite the prime location, the host lives simply, and the flat is somewhat austere.

During dinner, the group discussed significant new breakthroughs, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DeepMind’s Gato, and the rate at which billions of dollars have recently poured into AI. I asked one of the guests who has made important contributions to the industry the question that often comes up at this type of gathering: how far away are we from “artificial general intelligence”? AGI can be defined in many ways but usually refers to a computer system capable of generating new scientific knowledge and performing any task that humans can.

Most experts view the arrival of AGI as a historical and technological turning point, akin to the splitting of the atom or the invention of the printing press. The important question has always been how far away in the future this development might be. The AI researcher did not have to consider it for long. “It’s possible from now onwards,” he replied.

This is not a universal view. Estimates range from a decade to half a century or more. What is certain is that creating AGI is the explicit aim of the leading AI companies, and they are moving towards it far more swiftly than anyone expected. As everyone at the dinner understood, this development would bring significant risks for the future of the human race. “If you think we could be close to something potentially so dangerous,” I said to the researcher, “shouldn’t you warn people about what’s happening?” He was clearly grappling with the responsibility he faced but, like many in the field, seemed pulled along by the rapidity of progress.

When I got home, I thought about my four-year-old who would wake up in a few hours. As I considered the world he might grow up in, I gradually shifted from shock to anger. It felt deeply wrong that consequential decisions potentially affecting every life on Earth could be made by a small group of private companies without democratic oversight. Did the people racing to build the first real AGI have a plan to slow down and let the rest of the world have a say in what they were doing? And when I say they, I really mean we, because I am part of this community.

My interest in machine learning started in 2002, when I built my first robot somewhere inside the rabbit warren that is Cambridge university’s engineering department. This was a standard activity for engineering undergrads, but I was captivated by the idea that you could teach a machine to navigate an environment and learn from mistakes. I chose to specialise in computer vision, creating programs that can analyse and understand images, and in 2005 I built a system that could learn to accurately label breast-cancer biopsy images. In doing so, I glimpsed a future in which AI made the world better, even saving lives. After university, I co-founded a music-technology start-up that was acquired in 2017.

Since 2014, I have backed more than 50 AI start-ups in Europe and the US and, in 2021, launched a new venture capital fund, Plural. I am an angel investor in some companies that are pioneers in the field, including Anthropic, one of the world’s highest-funded generative AI start-ups, and Helsing, a leading European AI defence company. Five years ago, I began researching and writing an annual “State of AI” report with another investor, Nathan Benaich, which is now widely read. At the dinner in February, significant concerns that my work has raised in the past few years solidified into something unexpected: deep fear.

A three-letter acronym doesn’t capture the enormity of what AGI would represent, so I will refer to it as what is: God-like AI. A super intelligent computer that learns and develops autonomously, that understands its environment without the need for supervision and that can transform the world around it. To be clear, we are not here yet. But the nature of the technology means it is exceptionally difficult to predict exactly when we will get there. God-like AI could be a force beyond our control or understanding, and one that could usher in the obsolescence or destruction of the human race.

Recently the contest between a few companies to create God-like AI has rapidly accelerated. They do not yet know how to pursue their aim safely and have no oversight. They are running towards a finish line without an understanding of what lies on the other side.

How did we get here? The obvious answer is that computers got more powerful. The chart below shows how the amount of data and “compute” — the processing power used to train AI systems — has increased over the past decade and the capabilities this has resulted in. (“Floating-point Operations Per Second”, or FLOPS, is the unit of measurement used to calculate the power of a supercomputer.) This generation of AI is very effective at absorbing data and compute. The more of each that it gets, the more powerful it becomes.

Record Network Sync Beyween National Labs

Record Network Sync Between National Labs

PRESS RELEASE | ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY

Quantum network between two national labs achieves record synch

BY JOHN SPIZZIRRI| JUNE 27, 2022 in anl.gov

Quantum collaboration demonstrates in Chicagoland the first steps toward functional long-distance quantum networks over deployed telecom fiber optics, opening the door to scalable quantum computing.

To test the synchronicity of two clocks — one at Argonne and one at Fermilab — scientists transmitted a traditional clock signal (blue) and a quantum signal (orange) simultaneously between the two clocks. The signals were sent over the Illinois Express Quantum Network. Researchers found that the two clocks remained synchronized within a time window smaller than 5 picoseconds, or 5 trillionths of a second. (Image by Lee Turman, Argonne National Laboratory.)

The world awaits quantum technology. Quantum computing is expected to solve complex problems that current, or classical, computing cannot. And quantum networking is essential for realizing the full potential of quantum computing, enabling breakthroughs in our understanding of nature, as well as applications that improve everyday life.

But making it a reality requires the development of precise quantum computers and reliable quantum networks that leverage current computer technologies and existing infrastructure.

“To have two national labs that are 50 kilometers apart, working on quantum networks with this shared range of technical capability and expertise, is not a trivial thing.” — Panagiotis Spentzouris, head of the Quantum Science Program at Fermilab

Recently, as a sort of proof of potential and a first step toward functional quantum networks, a team of researchers with the Illinois‐Express Quantum Network (IEQNET) successfully deployed a long-distance quantum network between two U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) laboratories using local fiber optics.

The experiment marked the first time that quantum-encoded photons — the particle through which quantum information is delivered — and classical signals were simultaneously delivered across a metropolitan-scale distance with an unprecedented level of synchronization.

The IEQNET collaboration includes the DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator and Argonne National laboratories, Northwestern University and Caltech. Their success is derived, in part, from the fact that its members encompass the breadth of computing architectures, from classical and quantum to hybrid.

“To have two national labs that are 50 kilometers apart, working on quantum networks with this shared range of technical capability and expertise, is not a trivial thing,” said Panagiotis Spentzouris, head of the Quantum Science Program at Fermilab and lead researcher on the project. ​“You need a diverse team to attack this very difficult and complex problem.”

And for that team, synchronization proved the beast to tame. Together, they showed that it is possible for quantum and classical signals to coexist across the same network fiber and achieve synchronization, both in metropolitan-scale distances and real-world conditions.

Classical computing networks, the researchers point out, are complex enough. Introducing the challenge that is quantum networking into the mix changes the game considerably.

When classical computers need to execute synchronized operations and functions, like those required for security and computation acceleration, they rely on something called the Network Time Protocol (NTP). This protocol distributes a clock signal over the same network that carries information, with a precision that is a million times faster than a blink of an eye.  ...  '  

Pausing AI is a Bad idea. I agree.

Sure, we should allocate time to make it safer, and more useful.   But that is already happening.    Lets not let China and Russia get ahead.  Unless they are pausing too?  

Pausing AI is a Bad Idea.    By SpencerAnte   in  FastCompany

The gloves are coming off in the fight over the future of AI. 

On Tuesday, the Future of Life Institute, a futurist nonprofit backed by the Musk Foundation, published an open letter calling for a six-month pause on training AI systems more powerful than OpenAI’s leading GPT-4 service. 

“Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable,” declares the letter, which has been signed by several thousand people, including Elon Musk himself, Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, AI researchers Yoshua Bengio and Gary Marcus, and historian Yuval Noah Harari. “AI labs and independent experts should use this pause to jointly develop and implement a set of shared safety protocols for advanced AI design and development that are rigorously audited and overseen by independent outside experts.”

While there’s no doubt that AI should be developed in a way that is safe, responsible, and transparent, putting the most critical technology of our age in a timeout is an unviable solution that could weaken our country at a critical moment. 

For starters, it would be an unprecedented move, coming just when AI is beginning to show incredible promise after decades of unfulfilled hype. It would also be nearly impossible to enforce and a gut punch to innovation—the engine of our economy. 

While the letter has been signed by some notable AI experts, other AI researchers criticized the approach and said it overlooked harms and risks posed by current AI, like requiring more transparency of AI training data and decision-making of large language models. Computer scientist Andrew Ng, founder of Google Brain, called the moratorium “a terrible idea” on Twitter because government intervention would be the only possible way to enforce it. 

“I’m seeing many new applications in education, healthcare, food, . . . that’ll help many people. Improving GPT-4 will help,” he tweeted. “Let’s balance the huge value AI is creating versus realistic risks. To advance AI safety, regulations around transparency and auditing would be more practical and make a bigger difference.”

Imagine people asking Netscape, Microsoft, and Mozilla to stop the development of the Web browser back in the mid-1990s. Would that have been the right move to address real concerns about online child pornography and indecent speech? Absolutely not. Those issues were more effectively addressed by industry, lawmakers, the courts, and regulators, ultimately being resolved through a landmark Supreme Court decision that enshrined the value of free speech on the internet. 

Second, the U.S. is engaged in a competition with China to lead the AI market. Thanks to recent innovation of U.S.-based OpenAI, other U.S. multinationals like Microsoft, Google and Meta, and a bevy of startups, the U.S. may have retaken the lead in this race in which experts said China was ahead just a few years ago. But the pace of AI innovation is accelerating at a rate not seen since the boom of mobile computing. Consider that it took just under four months for OpenAI to release GPT-4 after its groundbreaking release of ChatGPT. 

If the U.S. and its leading corporations paused AI development for six months while China raced ahead, it would put our country at a disadvantage and create a potential opening for our primary global adversary. Imagine if China’s AI leapfrogged the US during this pause, and the long term harm that could bring to democracy and geopolitical security.    .... ' 

Driving Value with the Metaverse in the Enterprise

Irving talks some of the work that IBM did with the Virtual World  'Second Life' in the mid 2000's at IBM which we also participated in, a nice look with lots of interesting links.  This also fills me in on lots of later work, such as metaverse located meetings and task interactions.  Could not get our folks interested  Much of that was documented in this blog.  Is the addition can AI 'Enhancement' enough to make the proposition much more interesting?  Will search, examine these for later comment.

A collection of observations, news and resources on the changing nature of innovation, technology, leadership, and other subjects      By Irving Wladawsky-Berger 

Driving Value with the Metaverse in the Enterprise     (much more at the link)

A killer app is an IT application whose value to individuals and companies is relatively simple to explain, its use is fairly intuitive, and the application turns out to be so useful that it can singlehandedly propel the success of a new product or service. Word processing and spreadsheets, for example, were major factors in the widespread adoption of personal computers in the 1980s.

I got interested in 3D immersive environments in the mid-2000s when IBM launched an exploratory initiative on the topic. As part of these efforts, we conducted a number of experiments on Second Life, a platform that allowed its users to develop a variety of virtual world applications. We built a number of workplace applications, including virtual meetings, and online events, and even built a virtual replica of Beijing’s Forbidden City in partnership with the Palace Museum that was opened to the public. But, despite our high expectations, we couldn’t find any compelling enterprise killer apps, and after about three years, the project was dissolved. In the ensuing years, 3D immersive technologies and applications continued to advance, but mostly focused on video-games and related industries.

The past few years have seen a surge of interest in the metaverse and extended reality. “After desktop computing, the consumer internet and the smartphone boom, the consumer-computing industry is past due its Next Big Thing,” wrote The Economist in  “A reality check for the metaverse is coming,” an article in its 2022 year-end issue. “[A]n internet which is still largely flat — based on two-dimensional text, images and video — is ripe for replacement with one that is three-dimensional and immersive.” ... ' 

Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP)

 Spent most of my early optimization career doing this kind of problem.    Here a technical introduction. Still has lots of value.   I post it here both for nostalgic and real life problem solving uses. Lots of software out there to help too.  Have you used it? 

Mixed Integer Linear Programming: Formal definition and solution space  in TowardsDataScience.   By István Módos 

Theoretical foundations on how MILP is defined and how its solution space looks like visually

This post is a continuation of the series (previous post) on the theory and applications of Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP). Today, we look at  the formal, general definition of MILP,

how its space of feasible solutions looks like.

The first part describes how MILP models look in general, what are and are not valid MILP expressions. The second part shows a little bit of theory behind MILP, which will be useful in the future posts when we will be talking about the actual algorithm for solving MILP  ....

 This is quite a long post, so grab a coffee and dive in!  ... ' 

----------------------------------------------------------

ChatGPT Says:

MILP stands for Mixed-Integer Linear Programming, which is a type of mathematical optimization problem. In MILP, the objective function and the constraints are linear, and some of the variables are integer (i.e., they can only take on integer values). The remaining variables are allowed to take on real values.

MILP is a powerful tool for solving a wide range of problems that involve both discrete and continuous decision variables. Examples of applications of MILP include resource allocation, scheduling, production planning, and portfolio optimization.

Solving a MILP problem involves finding the values of the decision variables that optimize the objective function while satisfying the linear constraints. MILP solvers use a variety of algorithms and techniques, such as branch-and-bound, cutting planes, and heuristics, to efficiently search the solution space and find the optimal solution or a good approximation to it.       END

Green eats the future

 Broader look at research work being done of interest. More at the link

Green eats the future, feeding the world  in Fraunhofer Magazine

Without algae there would be no life on earth. Every second molecule of oxygen that we breathe comes from them. Algae could also become more important as food in the future. Fraunhofer researchers are working on professional cultivation and the extraction of numerous proteins and other nutrients.

Web special Fraunhofer magazine 3.2022

The United Nations calculated that the eight billionth person was born on November 15th. The world population has doubled in just 50 years. Even if the growth has now slowed down significantly: 8.5 billion people are forecast for 2030 and 9.7 billion for 2050. More people means: less farmland, less drinking water and less food per capita. The climate crisis means that the shortage situation is getting worse. Due to desertification, i.e. the deterioration of the soil to the point of desertification, arable land the size of Bavaria is lost worldwide every year. Already a third of the fertile soil has become unusable in the past 40 years - a result of the overexploitation as arable land and pasture. The German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) estimates that around 70 percent more food will be needed by 2050 than today. Aquatic organisms, which quite wrongly still lead a niche existence, especially in the European food industry, could help: algae. Algae contain as much protein as soy, plenty of valuable fiber and minerals, and vitamin B12, which is otherwise only found in animal products. The superfood needs neither fresh water nor land. It grows sustainably in the sea or is cultivated as a unicellular microalgae in mostly closed systems. Algae contain as much protein as soy, plenty of valuable fiber and minerals, and vitamin B12, which is otherwise only found in animal products. The superfood needs neither fresh water nor land. It grows sustainably in the sea or is cultivated as a unicellular microalgae in mostly closed systems. Algae contain as much protein as soy, plenty of valuable fiber and minerals, and vitamin B12, which is otherwise only found in animal products. The superfood needs neither fresh water nor land. It grows sustainably in the sea or is cultivated as a unicellular microalgae in mostly closed systems.   .. ' 

GE Invents 'Immortal Battery'

Quite the claim ...  Something we can use!

GE Research Developing the IMMORTAL Battery and Self-Healing Metals to Expand Operational Lifetime of Critical Military Systems   From Ge.com

Materials

Awarded two projects totaling $11 million through the Defense Advanced Research Agency’s (DARPA) Morphogenic Interfaces (MINT) program

First project involves designing a material for lithium- ion batteries that allows it to last virtually indefinitely

Second project involves the creation of new barriers to enable robust corrosion protection of aluminum metals

GE Research uniquely bringing together deep expertise in metals, biology, chemistry, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and mathematics to make certain metals virtually impenetrable to corrosion and degradation.

Could lead to unprecedented advancements in extending the lifetime and durability of cars, planes, buildings, and other critical infrastructure

NISKAYUNA, NY – January 11, 2023 -  Can certain types of metals self-heal like the human body does from a cut or broken bone?  Could they be engineered to withstand corrosion and never degrade? GE Research has been awarded two projects through DARPA’s visionary MINT program aiming to develop batteries and certain metal materials that may last virtually forever. These efforts are all part of meeting the Agency’s goal of extending the operational life of critical systems and infrastructure.

Introduced last year, DARPA’s MINT program is funding new material innovations that are patterned after how human cells and tissue form in a process known as morphogenesis. It is believed that new materials can be engineered to mimic key characteristics of human tissue such as self-healing to improve their longevity and durability.  GE Research has put together two strong multidisciplinary technical teams that will bridge the worlds of biology and materials science in the effort to create materials that mimic human nature.

The first project, entitled the InterMetallic MORphogen Tailored Activity Lithium (IMMORTAL) Battery, is a $6 million effort to develop a new intermetallic solid/solid charge transfer interface material to improve the performance of lithium- ion batteries and enable them to last virtually forever.  GE Research and its partners, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Michigan, University of California Santa Barbara, and Storagenergy, a leader in advanced lithium battery technologies, will employ AI and machine learning models, mathematics, chemistry, biology, materials science, and deep experience in battery technology to develop and demonstrate an IMMORTAL Battery prototype.  ... ' 

Planning for algae as Food

World Population and how to feed it  ... 

Green eats the future

Feeding the world

Without algae there would be no life on earth. Every second molecule of oxygen that we breathe comes from them. Algae could also become more important as food in the future. Fraunhofer researchers are working on professional cultivation and the extraction of numerous proteins and other nutrients.

Web special Fraunhofer magazine 3.2022

The United Nations calculated that the eight billionth person was born on November 15th. The world population has doubled in just 50 years. Even if the growth has now slowed down significantly: 8.5 billion people are forecast for 2030 and 9.7 billion for 2050. More people means: less farmland, less drinking water and less food per capita. The climate crisis means that the shortage situation is getting worse. Due to desertification, i.e. the deterioration of the soil to the point of desertification, arable land the size of Bavaria is lost worldwide every year. Already a third of the fertile soil has become unusable in the past 40 years - a result of the overexploitation as arable land and pasture. The German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) estimates that around 70 percent more food will be needed by 2050 than today. Aquatic organisms, which quite wrongly still lead a niche existence, especially in the European food industry, could help: algae. Algae contain as much protein as soy, plenty of valuable fiber and minerals, and vitamin B12, which is otherwise only found in animal products. 

The superfood needs neither fresh water nor land. It grows sustainably in the sea or is cultivated as a unicellular microalgae in mostly closed systems. Algae contain as much protein as soy, plenty of valuable fiber and minerals, and vitamin B12, which is otherwise only found in animal products. The superfood needs neither fresh water nor land. It grows sustainably in the sea or is cultivated as a unicellular microalgae in mostly closed systems. Algae contain as much protein as soy, plenty of valuable fiber and minerals, and vitamin B12, which is otherwise only found in animal products. The superfood needs neither fresh water nor land. It grows sustainably in the sea or is cultivated as a unicellular microalgae in mostly closed systems.   .... ' 

On Ray and Path Tracing

Representing 3D Objects.

What Is Path Tracing?

March 23, 2022 by Brian Caulfield

Turn on your TV. Fire up your favorite streaming service. Grab a Coke. A demo of the most important visual technology of our time is as close as your living room couch. Propelled by an explosion in computing power over the past decade and a half, path tracing has swept through visual media. It brings big effects to the biggest blockbusters, casts subtle light and shadow on the most immersive melodramas and has propelled the art of animation to new levels.

Path tracing is going real time, unleashing interactive, photorealistic 3D environments filled with dynamic light and shadow, reflections and refractions.

So what is path tracing? The big idea behind it is seductively simple, connecting innovators in the arts and sciences over the span half a millennium.

What’s the Difference Between Rasterization and Ray Tracing?

First, let’s  define some terms, and how they’re used today to create interactive graphics — graphics that can react in real time to input from a user, such as in video games.

The first, rasterization, is a technique that produces an image as seen from a single viewpoint. It’s been at the heart of GPUs from the start. Modern NVIDIA GPUs can generate over 100 billion rasterized pixels per second. That’s made rasterization ideal for real-time graphics, like gaming.

Ray tracing is a more powerful technique than rasterization. Rather than being constrained to finding out what is visible from a single point, it can determine what is visible from many different points, in many different directions. Starting with the NVIDIA Turing architecture, NVIDIA GPUs have provided specialized RTX hardware to accelerate this difficult computation. Today, a single GPU can trace billions of rays per second.

Being able to trace all of those rays makes it possible to simulate how light scatters in the real world much more accurately than is possible with rasterization. However, we still must answer the questions, how will we simulate light and how will we bring that simulation to the GPU?

What’s Ray Tracing? Just Follow the String

To better answer that question, it helps to understand how we got here.

David Luebke, NVIDIA vice president of graphics research, likes to begin the story in the 16th century with Albrecht Dürer — one of the most important figures of the Northern European Renaissance — who used string and weights to replicate a 3D image on a 2D surface.

Dürer made it his life’s work to bring classical and contemporary mathematics together with the arts, achieving breakthroughs in expressiveness and realism.

The string’s the thing: Albrecht Dürer was the first to describe what’s now known as “ray tracing,” a technique for creating accurate representations of 3D objects on a 2D surfaces in Underweysung der Messung (Nuremberg, 1525),f15

In 1525 with Treatise on Measurement, Dürer was the first to describe the idea of ray tracing. Seeing how Dürer described the idea is the easiest way to get your head around the concept.

Just think about how light illuminates the world we see around us. Now imagine tracing those rays of light backward from the eye with a piece of string like the one Dürer used, to the objects that light interacts with. That’s ray tracing.

Ray Tracing for Computer Graphics    .... 

TikTok Eating the Internet

Evolution. Does it deliver customers online?

How TikTok Ate the Internet

By The Washington Post, October 18, 2022

In five years, TikTok, once written off as a silly dance-video fad, has become one of the most prominent, discussed, distrusted, technically sophisticated and geopolitically complicated juggernauts on the Internet.

On the night Shelby Renae first went viral on TikTok, she felt so giddy she could barely sleep. She'd spent the evening painting her nails, refreshing her phone between each finger — 20,000 views; 40,000 — and by the next morning, after her video crossed 3 million views, she decided it had changed her life.

She didn't really understand why it had done so well. The 16-second clip of her playing the video game "Fortnite" was funny, she thought — but not, like, millions-of-views funny. She wasn't a celebrity: She grew up in Idaho; her last job was at a pizza shop. But this was just how the world's most popular app worked. TikTok's algorithm had made her a star.

Now 25, she spends her days making TikTok videos from her apartment in Los Angeles, negotiating advertising deals and always chasing the next big hit. Many days, she feels drained — by the endless scramble for new content; by the weird mysteries of TikTok's algorithm; by the stalkers, harassers and trolls. Yet still, in her off hours, she does what all her friends do: watches TikTok. "It will suck you in for hours," she said.

From The Washington Post

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