Tesla to Disrupt UK Energy Market with Launch of New Household Electricity Supplier
Tesla Electric seeks executive ‘with healthy scepticism of status quo’ to manage entry into UK energy market
Tesla plans to enter the UK energy market by offering electricity to homes and establishing "virtual power plants." The company aims to support the transition to 100% renewable energy by enabling customers with Tesla products to store and sell electricity to the grid at optimal market prices.
Weekend Discussion Thread: Let's Wrap Our Minds Around the Concept of Superintelligent AI
Hey all! This weekend, let's delve into the mind-boggling concept of superintelligent AI. What does it mean to have an intelligence surpassing our own? How would we even recognize it? Can our limited human comprehension grasp what it has to teach us?
Join in the discussion and share your thoughts, highlight interesting articles or simply engage in speculative fiction:
What investments in energy and raw materials will be required for developing superintelligent AI? Is it ethical to dedicate finite earth resources to developing superintelligent AI amidst the urgent backdrop of climate change?
Will this technology perpetuate societal inequalities? Or is superintelligence the answer to these (and other) global challenges?
Let's explore who will have access to this superintelligence. Will those who can communicate with and interpret superintelligent AI attain a prophet-like social status? Will we need to develop other AI to interpret super AI for us?
Please do share your thoughts or pose your own questions - this should be a good one!
EU Commission Proposes Rule Change to Enable Gene Editing in Crop Plants Comparable to Conventional Breeding
After the long-running virtual exclusion of genetic engineering in agriculture in Europe, change is now in the air, with the European Commission putting forward a proposal to update EU rules to reflect the greater precision of new gene editing techniques.
The European Commission has presented a proposal to modernise EU regulations on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to incorporate new gene editing techniques.
Under the proposal, genetically modified plants obtained through methods like CRISPR will be exempt from GMO rules as long as the modifications are comparable to those achievable through conventional breeding techniques.
This change aims to foster innovation in agriculture by recognising the precision and potential benefits of gene editing technologies; which can enhance crop resilience, pest resistance, yield, and sustainability.
This was kinda blissful to watch and enjoy the commentary, although I'm not quite sure about this particular piece of "advanced motoring"! 😆
OpenAI Announces New Team to Align Superintelligent AI with Human Values
We need scientific and technical breakthroughs to steer and control AI systems much smarter than us. To solve this problem within four years, we’re starting a new team, co-led by Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike, and dedicating 20% of the compute we’ve secured to date to this effort. We’re looking for e...
OpenAI's Superalignment team will address the core technical challenges of controlling superintelligent AI systems and ensuring their alignment with human values and goals.
To accomplish this, they are developing a 'human-level automated alignment researcher,' which itself is an AI. This automated researcher will utilize human feedback and assist in evaluating other AI systems, playing a critical role in advancing alignment research. The ultimate aim is to build AI systems that can conceive, implement, and develop improved alignment techniques.
OpenAI's hypothesis is that AI systems can make faster and more effective progress in alignment research compared to humans. Through collaboration between AI systems and human researchers, continuous improvements will be made to ensure AI alignment with human values.
So, using AI to control other AI; what do you think?
UK Government and BioNTech Partner for Trials of Personalised Cancer Immunotherapies
Ground-breaking new cancer treatments have moved a step closer with the signing of a major agreement between the government and BioNTech SE.
The UK government has partnered with BioNTech to conduct trials of personalised mRNA-based cancer immunotherapies. These trials aim to provide precision immunotherapies to treat cancer patients and offer personalized treatments for up to 10,000 patients by 2030. BioNTech will establish a regional hub and labs in Cambridge, staffed with over 70 highly skilled scientists. The collaboration will also involve the creation of a Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad (CVLP) to identify eligible patients for potential trials. Clinical trials have already begun, with further enrollment expected from 2026 onwards.
Low Suphur Shipping Rules Might be Exacerbating Global Warming
Carbon Brief analyses the likely side-effects of regulations to reduce the sulphur content of marine fuels.
The unintentional consequence of lowering sulphur content in marine fuel, as part of clean air regulations, is a weakened cooling effect caused by sulphur particles in ships' exhaust fumes, according to a new model. This inadvertently exacerbates warming, potentially raising global temperatures by 0.05C by 2050. Other factors, including an underwater volcano eruption, Saharan dust absence, and El Niño, are also contributing to the ongoing ocean heatwave.
Climate Change Protests vs Rising Temperatures: What's Your Take?
Hey, c/science! Let's kick off with your take on two recent but linked events. Over the past few days, the Earth has experienced its hottest ever recorded temperatures, breaking records from at least 1979 and possibly longer. At the same time, climate change protestors from Just Stop Oil have been interrupting the Ashes and now Wimbledon.
The question is: do they have a point? It's an interesting juxtaposition to me that news reports highlighting the rising temperatures this week appeared, almost without irony, alongside vox pops from people expressing how unfair it is to ruin a good day out.
What do you think about this situation? Do the climate change protestors have a valid point? Does the government need to take even more drastic steps to address climate change, or do you feel it's unfair or disproportionate to disrupt events like Wimbledon?
Welcome science community! What do you want to see here? What rules are we comfortable with?
Let's use this thread to share ideas about the sidebar content: I think content guidelines are helpful, so I suggest:
Let's aim for a unique community experience. Suggest we encourage discussions and contributions that go beyond mainstream news; let's not simply mirror the BBC science news section.
Embrace the UK perspective. While it's not essential, we should encourage posts and discussions that highlight the UK perspective and interests in science. This can include UK-based research, events, or scientific achievements.
Adopt the Bill & Ted rule: be excellent to each other!
Thoughts?
Do we want a science community?
I've got an itch to make one, but I suppose it wouldn't strictly all be UK-centric content, although that's not to say that UK doesn't produce plenty of great science.
I suppose my argument would be that it seems healthy for the fediverse to have similar, but distrubited communities and it's something that would hopefully be engaging for people here.
If it's not outside the scope of this instance then I might just go-ahead and see if the thing gets traction. Happy to mod it; my credentials are that I'm a scientist in my day job and I used a run a fairly popular e/n blog back in the day.
Thoughts?
I've been listening to LBC on the drive to/from work for over a decade probably. I feel like they always get the right mix of something interesting to listen to and just enough crackpot callers to provide entertainment value.
My daughter (8) enjoys gymnastics, so she's pretty strong and agile.
The other week, a boy she knows from school decided to challenge her to a chase game in the park ("I'm going to GET you"), so she sprints to this big climbing frame, monkeys up one side of it, climbs hand over hand across the horizonal ladder thing, swings up to the platform at the top and then looks back to see if he's behind her..
..he's still struggling to get up the first part of the climbing frame
and I laughed to myself and thought: "yeah, just keep leaving the boys in the dust".
That was a proud dad day.
Was reflecting today just how great "Let's Get Rocked" went over, and what a great moment "Love Bites" was when people got their phone lights on. Have also been playing "Kick" non-stop. Really an incredible gig! What were your fav bits?
NHS saved the sight in my left eye following a horrendous viral infection about 20 years ago. It was the first time I remember feeling in absolute awe of a system that got me from GP to Consultant to urgent treatment and back to health with abolsutely nothing to pay; totally incredible.
I'm also old enough to remember family GPs, no telephone queues for an appointment at 8am and not being made to feel that you are nothing more than an incovenience.
I would vote for a truly competent government of any colour that could drag the NHS out of its grave and make it the thriving, efficient and well-resourced organisiation that we all deserve it to be.
That said, I'm hugely skeptical that the NHS is coming back from what appears to be a managed decline; even Tony Blair was in the news recently saying that he thinks there should be an expanded role for the private sector in healthcare - and I think that the New Labour government did really good things with the NHS; certainly from a point of use perspective.
Instead, what I now understand about private medical insurance is that they won't cover pre-existing conditions, so (and I'm sorry to say), my strong advice to all you healthy young people of the fediverse is to take-out some private health insurance now; when you don't need it, to ensure that you can get the prompt medical treatment you need later in life when shit starts going wrong.
Finally! Somewhere to share my love of the Wrestle Force youtube channel
Don't even remember how I found it, but WF is a Brit wrestling promotion that I've enjoyed for a long time through their youtube channel; lots of updates and always enjoyable match commentary.
These types of shows were my first introduction to pro wresting back in the day, and I'll always have a soft spot for them. Any other good ones out there?
Yeah there was a real mix of ages at Def too and such a great atmosphere. Enjoy Kiss!
What are the main issues currently facing the UK economy?
NIESR is the UK's oldest independent research institute, specialising in economic and social analysis.
In this article, NIESR economists discuss stubborn inflation, fuelled by rising food and service costs and a labour shortage exacerbated by high rates of long-term illness. Not forgetting the impact of continuous interest rate hikes, which are now at their highest since 2008. But the economists suggest these rates are likely peaking and inflation should slowly fall.
Are they right to be expressing cautious optimism? What's your take?