Monthly Archives: February 2024

Former West High student now heads tech startup making pharmaceuticals in space – Salt Lake Tribune

Posted: February 22, 2024 at 8:01 pm

This story is part of The Salt Lake Tribunes ongoing commitment to identify solutions to Utahs biggest challenges through the work of the Innovation Lab.

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If brains and ambition are all it takes, then Delian Asparouhov has already conquered the world.

Less than 12 years ago, Asparouhov was a student at Salt Lake Citys West High School with a head for numbers and a heart for space travel. Today, he is co-founder of his own company with a $100 million investment and a vision to make chemicals for pharmaceuticals in zero gravity.

That company, Varda Space Industries, is looking to complete its first mission Wednesday, landing its capsule in Utahs West Desert a couple of hours from the West High robotics lab.

It will be a homecoming of sorts for the Asparouhov, whose rise to the rarified world of technology finance has been anything but conventional.

[Read more about the capsules landing in Utah and what it could mean to pharmaceutical innovation.]

In between has been a short stint at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an arrest for hacking into MITs email system, a $100,000 fellowship from a national competition, and a partnership at Founders Fund, a premier San Francisco venture capital fund with $11 billion in tech investments.

And he just turned 30.

For Asparouhov, his ascent came from encouragement, and high expectations, from his parents. I started coding in fifth or sixth grade. I started doing more complex projects between ninth and 10th grade.

Asparouhov was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, to two brilliant mathematicians. His mother, Elena Asparouhova, was 21 and still in school at the University of Sofia. (In Bulgaria, womens last names often include an a at the end.) His father, Tihomir Asparouhov, a math prodigy who in 1990 won the gold medal in the International Mathematical Olympiad, was in graduate school in England.

Elena Asparouhova, who is now faculty chair of the University of Utahs Stena Center for Financial Technology and heads the U.s Laboratory for Experimental Economics and Finance, said that in many ways her mother, Delians grandmother, was his primary caretaker in Sofia as she was finishing school. She spent more time with him than I did at one time.

Both parents were admitted to doctoral programs at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

They arrived in the U.S. in their early 20s, Delian Asparouhov said, with about $300 and me in a stroller.

Day care in Pasadena was a scramble. The first stop was an all-Black church in Altadena, where Delian was the sole white student. That was followed by a period at a Spanish-speaking day care, where Delian had to pick up a third language on top of Bulgarian and English.

After living in Bulgaria, Asparouhova said, diversity was important.

When Delian was in fourth grade, they moved to Utah after Asparouhova received a faculty appointment at the U. The parents first put Delian in Rowland Hall, but he later moved to public school because his parents still desired more diversity.

And they pushed him into math contests. From an early age, he competed in MATHCOUNTS competitions in Utah and elsewhere.

He started in West Highs International Baccalaureate program in seventh grade and spent the next six years there, the longest he would attend any school. It was there that he met Dan McGuire, who was then a physics teacher at West and adviser to the schools robotics club.

(Dan McGuire) In this 2009 photo of the West High School robotics club, Delian Asparouhov is in the back row second from the right.

Over the course of the year, Mr. McGuire whupped me into shape and taught me physics, Asparouhov wrote years later. Mr. McGuire was never afraid to call me out if I was ever getting too full of myself. I dont think Ive ever learned so much in a single year while being in continuous fear.

Dan was incredible, said Asparouhova, calling him the one role model for her son.

For his part, McGuire remembers a shy kid who blossomed into a leader of the robotics club, where he was head of software.

He said Asparouhov was particularly effective at communicating. Having him do the engineering wasnt the best use of him. Everyone who worked with him agreed with that. He did the presentations, and he was really good at it.

He was also a natural leader, said McGuire, who has kept in touch with Asparouhov. Everyone who worked with him agreed with that. Im not sure he would have agreed at the time, but he understands it now.

In 2011, Asparouhov was one of two Utah students to win the Siemens Award for Advanced Placement, given to students who get perfect scores on all of their Advanced Placement exams.

(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Delian Asparouhov at West High School in 2011.

His next stop after graduation was MIT, where his tenure was short but eventful.

I was drunk one night at my fraternity, said Asparouhov, relaying the story of how, in 2013, he told his frat brothers that he could hack into MITs email system. He did exactly that and sent an institutionwide message saying classes would be canceled.

That was at 2 a.m. By 3 a.m., the police had shown up and arrested him.

His mother jumped on a plane to Boston to plead with university officials to let him stay. They agreed to that, but Asparouhov already had one foot out the door.

Thats because he was a finalist for a Thiel Fellowship. Created by and named for PayPal co-founder and tech investor Peter Thiel, the fellowship was originally called the 20 under 20 fellowship. It provides $100,000 in investment funds for young entrepreneurs to bypass college and move into the startup world.

Barely a week after his arrest, he was awarded the fellowship.

I was mortified, his mother said. My child cant be dropping out.

She sat down and wrote what she called the letter to the immigrant child, telling him his parents owe everything to higher education.

He replied by saying, Mother, you have two choices. Support me or move out of the way, Asparouhova said.

She came to terms with it. Hes blessed with not being the first generation. We had nothing to fall back on.

With the Thiel funding, the young Asparouhov launched a company called Nightingale, which had a software program aimed at helping diagnose autism. He later sold that company.

But he never left Thiels orbit. Thiel started Founders Fund, which manages more than $11 billion in investments in tech companies, and Asparouhov is one of a dozen partners at the fund.

He also is pursuing his dreams of space. His current venture, Varda Space Industries, is a startup that intends to produce pharmaceutical chemicals in zero gravity, meaning an orbiting lab.

Ive been thinking about this idea for about a decade, said Asparouhov, who is president of Varda, which he founded with business partner Will Bruey.

The companys first test flight launched last year, and the capsule is due to land Wednesday at the Utah Test and Training Range west of the Great Salt Lake. The capsule will be airlifted to Wendovers airport after it is recovered.

It has been great working with the leadership and staff at the Utah Test and Training Range and Dugway Proving Ground throughout this operation, said Asparouhov.

The maiden flight was mainly about proving the capabilities of the companys factory in a capsule, but Asparouhov said the firm is negotiating with major pharmaceutical companies for long-term contracts.

And he still wants to make it into space, although for now he is getting his flight fix from the Cessna he flies around the country.

Asparouhov said he had three dreams he wanted to realize by age 30: He wanted to be a partner in a $1 billion-plus investment fund (done), a founder of a $1 billion company (started, but not worth $1 billion ... yet), and becoming a father.

In December, he and his wife, Nadia, welcomed their firstborn, a son, Branislav Asparouhov.

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Former West High student now heads tech startup making pharmaceuticals in space - Salt Lake Tribune

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NASA’s Vision for the Future: A New Space Station by 2030 – Medriva

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With an ambitious vision for the future of space exploration, NASA plans to replace the International Space Station (ISS) by the end of 2030. The new space station will not only feature cutting-edge research facilities and a more adaptive infrastructure but also provide critical insights into the health impacts of space travel. The transition to a new space station marks a significant shift in NASAs strategy, allowing the agency to focus on deep space exploration while leveraging commercial entities for low-Earth orbit activities.

Launched in 1998, the ISS has been a pivotal part of space exploration, involving five space agencies in its assembly and maintenance. However, the ISS, designed in the 80s, has started to show its age. Structural limitations and outdated technology have made it increasingly costly to maintain. Additionally, security concerns have been raised due to cracks noted in one of the modules.

With the retirement of the ISS, NASA has turned its attention to commercial space stations. One example is Starlab, which has partnered with SpaceX to launch its entire space station, or at least the first module, into Low Earth Orbit in a single mission. This new station promises to have more than twice the useful space as the ISS, ready to host four crew members for microgravity research and advanced scientific discovery.

One of the significant aspects of the new space station will be its focus on health impacts of space travel. The lack of gravity in space leads to several health issues, including bone loss. The new station will provide a platform to conduct scientific research in various fields, addressing these health concerns and pushing the boundaries of our understanding of life in space.

The new space station marks the beginning of a new era in space exploration. It is expected to pave the way for human exploration deeper into space, with a focus on international cooperation. NASAs long-term goal is to put a station beyond low-Earth orbit, expanding the possibilities of what can be achieved in space.

However, as NASA transitions to commercial space stations, there are concerns that the US could fall behind in space research. China, for instance, has its own space station, Tiangong, with over 20 mini laboratories. By 2032, it is expected to host 1,000 experiments. Furthermore, China is leading in space patents, with its share tripling to 49% between 2010 and 2020. These dynamics underscore the importance of international cooperation in the future of space exploration.

The decision to replace the ISS with a new space station reflects a changing landscape in space exploration. As NASA shifts its focus to deep space and commercial entities take over low-Earth orbit activities, we stand on the precipice of a new era in space discovery. It remains to be seen how these changes will affect international cooperation and competition, but one thing is clear: the future of space exploration is brighter than ever.

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How antimatter engines could fly humans to other stars in just a few years – Business Insider Nederland

Posted: at 8:00 pm

Interstellar travel is only something humanity has achieved in science fiction like Star Trek's USS Enterprise, which used antimatter engines to travel across star systems.

But antimatter isn't just a sci-fi trope. Antimatter really exists.

Elon Musk has called antimatter power "the ticket for interstellar journeys," and physicists like Ryan Weed are exploring how to harness it.

Antimatter is made up of particles almost exactly like regular matter but with opposite electric charge. That means when antimatter contacts regular matter, they both annihilate and can produce enormous amounts of energy.

"Annihilation of antimatter and matter converts mass directly into energy," Weed, cofounder and CEO of Positron Dynamics, a company working to develop an antimatter propulsion system, told Business Insider.

Just one gram of antimatter could generate an explosion equivalent to a nuclear bomb. It's that kind of energy, some say, that could boldly take us where no one has gone before at record speed.

The benefit of all that energy is that it can be used to either accelerate or decelerate spacecraft at break-neck speeds.

For example, let's take a trip to our nearest star system, Proxima, about 4.2 light years away.

An antimatter engine could theoretically accelerate a spacecraft at 1g (9.8 meters per second squared) getting us to Proxima in just five years, Weed said in 2016. That's 8,000 times faster than it would take Voyager 1 one of the fastest spacecraft in history to travel about half the distance, according to NASA.

Even within our own solar system, an antimatter-powered spacecraft could reach Pluto in 3.5 weeks compared to the 9.5 years it took NASA's New Horizons probe to arrive, Weed said.

The reason we don't have antimatter engines, despite their tremendous capabilities, comes down to cost, not tech.

Gerald Jackson, an accelerator physicist who worked on antimatter projects at Fermilab, told Forbes in 2016 that with enough funding, we could have an antimatter spacecraft prototype within a decade.

The basic technology is there. Physicists armed with the world's most powerful particle accelerators have made antiprotons and antihydrogen atoms.

The issue is that this type of antimatter is incredibly expensive to make. It's considered the most expensive substance on Earth. Jackson gave us an idea of just how much an antimatter machine would cost to build and maintain.

Jackson is the founder, president, and CEO of Hbar Technologies, which is working on a concept for an antimatter space sail to decelerate spacecraft traveling 1% to 10% the speed of light a useful design for entering into orbit around a distant star, planet, or moon that you want to study.

Jackson said he's designed an asymmetric proton collider that could produce 20 grams of antimatter per year.

"For a 10-kilogram scientific package traveling at 2% of the speed of light, 35 grams of antimatter is needed to decelerate the spacecraft down and inject it into orbit around Proxima Centauri," Jackson told BI.

He said it would take $8 billion to build a solar power plant for the enormous energy needs of antimatter production and cost $670 million per year to operate.

The idea is just that, for now. "There is currently no serious funding for advanced space propulsion concepts," Jackson said.

However, there are other ways to produce antimatter. That's where Weed focused his work.

Weed's concept involves positrons, the antimatter version of an electron.

Positrons "are several thousand times lighter than antiprotons and don't pack quite as much punch when annihilating," Weed said.

The advantage, however, is that they occur naturally and don't need a giant accelerator and billions of dollars to make.

Weed's antimatter propulsion system is designed to use krypton-79 a form of the element krypton that naturally emits positrons.

The engine system would first gather high-energy positrons from krypton-79 and then direct them toward a layer of regular matter, producing annihilation energy. That energy would then trigger a powerful fusion reaction to generate thrust for the spacecraft.

While positrons may be less expensive to obtain than more powerful forms of antimatter, they are difficult to harness because they are highly energetic and need to be slowed down, or "moderated." So building a prototype to test in space is still beyond reach, cost-wise, Weed said.

Such is the case for all antimatter propulsion designs. Over the decades, scientists have proposed dozens of concepts, none of which have come to fruition.

For example, in 1953, Austrian physicist Eugen Snger proposed a "photon rocket" that would run on positron annihilation energy. And since the '80s, there's been talk of thermal antimatter engines, which would use antimatter to heat liquid, gas, or plasma to provide thrust.

"It's not sci-fi, but we aren't going to see it flying until there is a significant 'mission-pull,'" Weed said about his engine concept.

To build Weed's concept at the scale of a starship, "the devil's in the engineering details," Paul M. Sutter, an astrophysicist and host of "Ask a Spaceman" podcast, told BI.

"We're talking about a device that harnesses truly enormous amounts of energy, requiring exquisite balance and control," Sutter said.

That enormous energy is another obstacle holding us back from revolutionizing space travel. Because during testing, "if something goes wrong, these are big explosions," Steve Howe, a physicist who worked on antimatter concepts with NASA in the '90s, told BI.

"So we need an ability to test high energy density systems somewhere that don't threaten the biosphere, but still allow us to develop them," said Howe, who thinks the moon would make a good testing base. "And if something goes wrong, you melted a piece of the moon," and not Earth, he added.

Antimatter tends to bring out the imagination in everyone who works on them. "But, we need crazy but plausible ideas to make it further into space, so it's worth looking into," Sutter said.

Weed echoes the sentiment, saying "until there is a compelling reason to get to the Kuiper Belt, the Solar Gravitational Lens, or Alpha Centauri really quickly or perhaps we are trying to return large asteroids for mining progress will continue to be slow in this area."

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Lebanese Pro-Federalism Activist Alfred Riachi: Prior To October 7, The Standard Of Living In Gaza Was Pretty … – Middle East Media Research…

Posted: at 8:00 pm

Lebanese lobbyist Alfred Riachi, secretary-general of the Continual Federal Congress, discussed in a February 12, 2024 interview on OTV [Lebanon] the ramifications of Hamass October 7 attack. He said that prior to October 7, the standard of living in Gaza "seemed very reasonable." Riachi said that Hamas does not believe in pluralism and coexistence and that it is not that much better than ISIS. He stated that Israel has never attacked Lebanon unprovoked.

To view the clip of Lebanese pro-federalism activist Alfred Riachi, click here or below:

"Israel, Which You Refer To As 'Satan', Has Never Initiated An Attack Against Lebanon Without Us Giving It A Pretext First"

Alfred Riachi: "The State of Israel, which you refer to as 'Satan', has never initiated an attack against Lebanon, without us giving it a pretext first.

[...]

"What Hamas did... They entered Israel and killed 1,200 people. What did they gain from this? Did they expect Israel to welcome them with rice and flowers?"

Interviewer: "Hold on a minute. You make it sound as if Israel was peaceful, and out of nowhere Hamas entered, and how terrible what they did these innocent Israelis... These people were being killed, under siege, without water, medicine, or food for years and years. They were living in a big prison, on their own land."

Riachi: " I don't know... I watched many shows [about Gaza], and the standard living there seemed very reasonable.

[...]

"Hamas Do Not Believe In Pluralism And In Co-Existing With The Other... For Me Hamas Is Not Much Better Than ISIS"

"I view Hamas as an organization with religious ideology of exclusion. They do not believe in pluralism and in co-existing with the other. Regardless, of whether their cause is justified or not, for me Hamas is not much better than ISIS."

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The Potential Impact of ‘Disease X’ on Federalism in the U.S. – Medriva

Posted: at 8:00 pm

When the World Health Organization (WHO) introduced the term Disease X into their blueprint of diseases in February 2018, they were prophetically acknowledging the potential of an unknown pathogen causing a serious international epidemic. Fast forward to today, COVID-19, caused by an unknown etiology, perfectly fits the description of the first Disease X. This situation has sparked an intriguing discourse on the potential impact of a hypothetical Disease X on the concept of federalism in the United States. As we explore this thoughtful narrative, we will delve into the challenges posed by a nationwide health crisis to the federalist system, with particular emphasis on state autonomy, public health policy, and the role of the federal government.

The concept of Disease X represents the understanding that a severe global epidemic could be triggered by an unknown pathogen. This idea has been cemented by the COVID-19 pandemic. Programs like the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), with its 3.5 billion 5-year plan, and the US National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Pandemic Preparedness Plan, are aimed at shortening vaccine development timelines and preparing for potential pandemics. The Disease X Act of 2023 further expands priorities to include viral threats that could cause a pandemic.

The federalist design of US laws is a considerable impediment to implementing nationwide community mitigation measures for pandemics, according to a Stanford Law analysis. This structure presents a significant challenge during a nationwide health crisis. State autonomy and the division of power between state and federal governments can potentially hinder the coordination of a unified response to Disease X. This challenge is further complicated by legal reforms adopted by states, which imposed substantive and procedural restrictions on public health authority, such as prohibiting vaccines, mask mandates, and restricting religious gatherings.

The role of the federal government during a major health emergency is crucial. The U.S. CDC vaccine advisory committee, for instance, develops recommendations for U.S. immunizations. However, the applicability of these recommendations largely depends on the states once published in the CDCs MMWR. This dependency on state decisions underscores the delicate balance between state and federal authority during a health crisis. The impact of systematic racism, economic inequality, mass incarceration, and labor market inequalities on COVID-19 disparities further complicates this balance.

As we contemplate the future, the adoption of crisis communication strategies by local governments during pandemics is key. Factors such as school and business closures, efficacy beliefs, and community vulnerability significantly shape these efforts. Furthermore, funding from measures like the CARES Act can enhance local governments capacity to implement these strategies.

In conclusion, the potential impact of a hypothetical Disease X on the federalist system in the U.S. poses thought-provoking questions about state autonomy, public health policy, and the role of the federal government. While our current federalist system presents challenges, it also provides opportunities for adaptive strategies that can help the nation better prepare for future health emergencies.

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‘People’s Charter’ Puts Federalism at The Heart of Myanmar’s Democratic Future – The Irrawaddy

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The Peoples Representatives Committee for Federalism (PRCF) published its constitution for a federal democracy on Feb. 12.

The committee comprises 12 political parties: the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, Arakan League for Democracy, Karen National Party, Zomi Congress for Democracy, Democratic Party for a New Society, United Nationalities Democracy Party, Danu Nationalities Democracy Party, Daingnet National Development Party, Mro National Democracy Party, Karen National Party, Shan State Kokang Democratic Party and Mon Affairs Association.

Previously known as the PRF, the committee changed its name to PRCF in March 2021.

Sai Kyaw Nyunt, a joint secretary of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy, recently spoke with The Irrawaddy about the objectives of the constitution and its most important features.

What is the intention of publishing a constitution?

It has been nearly two years since we drafted the constitution in 2022. So, we decided that it was time to publish it.

What is the PRCF?

The PRCF was formed after the 2021 coup. It comprises primarily members of the United Nationalities Alliance and their partners.

The PRCF mentioned three main tasks in its statement about publishing its constitution. Can you elaborate on them?

We cant accept any form of dictatorship, either military dictatorship or civilian dictatorship. The conflict in our country since independence is deeply connected to the constitution. The 1974 constitution did not meet the wishes of the people and the same is true of the 2008 constitution.

In our view, federalism is the best [form of government] for this highly diverse and multi-ethnic country. But federalism alone is not enough. There must also be democracy. So, there is a need for a federal, democratic constitution. But again, a constitution alone is not enough. Peaceful co-existence is also critically important for us to come together to form and maintain a union.

How do you see the current political landscape in Myanmar?

Myanmar is at war now. We are politicians so we dont know much about military affairs. Military solutions alone cant solve problems in a country. Space for politics is necessary. It is more powerful than military action in terms of fulfilling the wishes of the people. We want things handled peacefully.

So, your political parties prefer non-violence?

We dont want to say which is right and which is wrong. I am only talking about our tendency. By political means, I mean you dont necessarily have to establish a party and contest the election. You may oppose the voting, and release statements about your views. These are all political means. Dialogue is also a political means. This is what we believe.

What drove the PRCF to design a constitution?

Eleven of the 12 organizations in the PRCF are political parties. We believe certain conditions must be met for our country to have greater peace and stability. So, we have designed the constitution, outlining the conditions that we think are necessary to have peace and stability. Those parties have won votes and support from people in their respective constituencies. So, we designed the constitution to convey our idea about an ideal union.

What are the salient points about your constitution?

We refer to four documents: the fundamental principles of the PRCF, the fundamental principles in a federal democracy charter, the constitution from the Federal Constitution Drafting and Coordinating Committee, and the constitution from the UNA and allies. Our constitution touches upon new topics, such as financial matters, relations between government agencies, and administration and public services.

So, is it fair to say the constitution drafted by the PRFC is one that reflects the federal democracy charter declared by anti-regime political forces?

We cant say so. Many organizations, including ethnic armed organizations, were involved in designing the federal democracy charter. Our constitution was drafted solely by PRCF members, but it can be used as a draft for all the stakeholders to discuss in the future.

Will you accept recommendations, if there are any, to your constitution?

We are willing to accept any recommendation that does not go against our principles.

The military regime upholds the 2008 Constitution. What will you say if they say they dont accept your constitution?

We represent people to a certain extent, and we live among the people. So, the constitution represents our view of what this country should be like. Everyone is aware that one group or organization representing all the others was not successful. We need to try to write a constitution that is acceptable to all by negotiating between all stakeholders.

How did stakeholders in the country respond to your constitution?

No one has yet strongly responded to our constitution. It was only published recently, and perhaps stakeholders are still studying it. Our constitution is largely based on documents of ethnic armed organizations, ethnic political organizations and ethnic Bamar organizations. So, there wont be much difference between ours and theirs.

There might be differences in the way we operate, but I dont think there will be much disagreement regarding policies. The policies of the regime and the military, however, can be markedly different from ours. In the future, we will have to accept what is best for the people.

What is the PRCFs next step?

We established political parties to do our share for the country. So, we will continue to work in our way to restore peace and build a country that all citizens want to see.

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Siddaramaiah vs Modi: The ‘cess-y’ mess in fiscal federalism – Deccan Herald

Posted: at 8:00 pm

Something unique and rare in Indian political history happened recently. Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, and many senior cabinet ministers went to Delhi and sat in a dharna for a My State My Tax protest. They were joined by ministers and leaders from the other southern states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu and supported in spirit by Telangana. It was an extraordinary development where democratically elected heads of Indias states were forced to go to Delhi to demand their share of tax revenues and taxation rights. No taxation without representation was the slogan for the American independence struggle against the British. Southern states in India are now protesting against Representation without taxation!

With the southern states protests and the Supreme Courts recent ruling, the late BJP finance minister Arun Jaitleys contribution of the phrases cooperative federalism and electoral bonds to Indias political lexicon have been rendered dubious and hollow by the Modi government.

Elected governments across the world rely on direct and indirect taxes for revenues to implement schemes and fulfil their electoral promises. As per the Constitution, state governments in India do not have powers to levy direct income and corporate taxes, unlike in other federal nations. After GST, state governments lost their exclusive powers for indirect taxes, too. They are only left with powers to tax sin goods, fuel, property, electricity, and agriculture, which constitute a small slice of overall tax revenues. To put it simply, post-GST, democratically elected state governments in India are forced to be almost entirely dependent on the Union government for resources.

To make matters worse, the Modi government, true to its governance style, has politicised Indias federalism through duplicitous means of cesses and surcharges to garner greater share of tax revenues for itself and minimise states share.

When a Karnataka resident buys a certain good or service and pays Rs 100 as central taxes on it, the Union government keeps Rs 58 of it and shares Rs 42 with the states. But for the same transaction, if Rs 100 is charged as cess by the Union government, then it gets to keep all of it and not have to share it with the states. This is a quirk and a relic of Indias historical taxation laws. So, a cooperative federalism-minded Union government will try to minimise cess and maximise tax revenues which can be shared with state governments for their governance. Unsurprisingly, the Modi government did the exact opposite in its decade-long tenure.

Cesses and surcharges have nearly doubled as a share of revenues from 12% to 20% of overall tax revenues during Modis tenure. In 2014, overall tax revenues collected by both the Union and state governments was Rs 18 lakh crore, which rose to about Rs 46 lakh crore by 2023. But a whopping 10% of this increase came from cesses and surcharges, depriving state governments of nearly Rs 3 lakh crore. This is a huge amount, and hence state governments are crying foul. This has impacted every state government but because of the extreme high-command culture and imposition of their will on BJP-ruled states, BJP Chief Ministers can only grumble in private rather than join Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Bengal and Telangana in an overt protest. The Modi governments cess mess has stained Indias fabric of federalism.

This deceit by the Modi government is what has angered the high tax-contributing southern states and prompted them to question the transfer of their tax revenues to poorer northern states. The average person in Karnataka or Tamil Nadu pays Rs 20,000 annually in taxes while the average person in Madhya Pradesh or Uttar Pradesh pays just Rs 4,500. But the average person in Bihar, UP or Madhya Pradesh get back Rs 260 for every Rs 100 they pay in taxes, while the average Kannadiga gets back only Rs 40. Over the course of Modis tenure, this gap has only widened, and little progress has been made in bridging either the fiscal or the development gap between the richer and poorer states. Now, the contributing states are questioning the need for such an extreme skew in the distribution of tax revenues.

The very idea of India as a Union of states is now precarious. There is a complete breakdown of trust and trustworthiness between the Union and states. This growing banyan tree of distrust between states was sown by the duplicitous fiscal approach of the Modi government, watered by the imposition of a one nation one policy framework, branched by the extreme politicisation of institutions such as ED, CBI, Income Tax, Election Commission, and tended by governor politics. It is no secret that most states harbour deep disenchantment with the Modi governments anti-federal style of governance. It so happens that the more developed southern states, which are not ruled by the BJP, are able to express their resentment more freely than their Maharashtra, Haryana and Gujarat counterparts.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman exemplifies this disdain for states, especially those that are governed by non-BJP parties, with her scornful public rebukes and shallow pomposity, evident in the white paper she released in parliament recently. It claimed that Indias economy and infrastructure have grown in the last decade, all due to the untiring efforts and the inordinate skills of Narendra Modi. It was like parents celebrating the growth in age of their child from 5 to 15 after a decade. Even if cricketer Ravindra Jadeja or actor Akshay Kumar had been Prime Minister in this period, GDP would have grown, more toilets and houses constructed, more airports, ports and highways built, and India would have been the Chair of the G-20. The real question is not whether the child has grown in age, which is largely inevitable, but how tall, healthy, and happy is the child for her age. Ask the states!

(Published 17 February 2024, 20:21 IST)

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Keyboard search warrants and the Fourth Amendment | Brookings – Brookings Institution

Posted: at 7:59 pm

Does a search warrant ordering Google to give law enforcement information regarding internet searches containing specific keywords made during a particular window of time violate the Fourth Amendment? This question was before the Colorado Supreme Court in 2023 and is now before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. The government generally needs a warrant to perform a search that infringes a reasonable expectation of privacy.

As the Supreme Court explained in a 1981 decision, the Fourth Amendment was intended partly to protect against the abuses of the general warrants that had occurred under English rule prior to 1776. A general warrant specified only an offensetypically seditious libeland left to the discretion of the executing officials the decision as to which persons should be arrested and which places should be searched.

To guard against this sort of misuse of government investigative power, the Fourth Amendment provides that search warrants can only be issued upon probable cause and that they must describe with particularity the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Probable cause and particularity in light of 21st century investigative technologies, such as keyword searches, raise novel and important questions that courts have only recently begun to consider.

The Colorado case, Colorado v. Seymour, arose from an investigation of a 2020 arson in which five people were killed. Police in Denver obtained a warrant requiring Google to provide the internet protocol (IP) addresses for devices, as well as a Google-assigned device identifier, for any Google accounts used to conduct searches for the homes address in the 15 days preceding the fire.

Given an IP address, it is often (though not always) straightforward to identify the specific electronic device involved and subsequently the person who was using that device. Using the information obtained pursuant to the warrant, police identified and charged a suspect with crimes including murder, arson, and burglary.

In an October 2023 ruling, the Colorado Supreme Court cast doubt on whether the Colorado suspect had a reasonable expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment for internet searches. However, the court found that the suspect had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his Google search history under article II, section 7 of the Colorado Constitution. While that portion of the Colorado Constitution has text very similar to the Fourth Amendment, the court cited Colorado case law stating that we are not bound by the United States Supreme Courts interpretation of the Fourth Amendment when determining the scope of state constitutional protections.

Given that the search implicated a reasonable expectation of privacy, the next question is whether the warrant met the particularity and probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment. With respect to particularity, the court conclude[d] that the warrant at issue adequately particularized the place to be searched and the things to be seized.

The court sidestepped the question of probable cause, writing that because resolution of this issue doesnt affect the outcome, we simply assume without deciding that the warrant lacked probable cause and was thus constitutionally defective.

Often, the exclusionary rule blocks federal and state prosecutors from using evidence collected in a manner that violates the Fourth Amendment. But there is an exception: If a court finds that law enforcement acted in good faith, the evidence can be presented at trial despite the constitutional violation. Invoking this good faith exception, the Colorado Supreme Court declined to suppress the evidence obtained using the keyword search warrant, concluding that law enforcement obtained and executed the warrant in good faith.

In the Pennsylvania case, Commonwealth v. Kurtz, investigators pursuing a rape investigation used a keyword search warrant to requiring Google to identify Google searches of the address of the crime scene in the hours preceding the crime. In response, Google provided an IP address from which a Google search of the address had been conducted in the relevant time frame. This information was among the evidence used to identify and then to convict the suspect in an October 2020 trial. The suspect then appealed to the Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

In April 2023 the appeals court considered and rejected the suspects assertion that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his internet search history:

We conclude that Appellant lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy concerning his Google searches of [the crime scene] address and his IP address. By typing in his search query into the search engine and pressing enter, Appellant affirmatively turned over the contents of his search to Google, a third party, and voluntarily relinquished his privacy interest in the search.

The appeals court then turned to probable cause, writing that even if Appellant did have a constitutionally cognizable privacy interest in his searches of [the] address, we would also find that the Google warrant was supported by probable cause. The appeals court did not address the question of particularity.

The suspect then appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which in October 2023 agreed to consider 1) whether there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in internet search queries and the IP address from which those queries are sent, and 2) whether the search warrant met the probable cause requirement. Notably, the good faith exception applied in the Colorado case is not recognized in Pennsylvania state courts in relation to protections in the state constitution from government searches. Thus, if the Pennsylvania Supreme Court determines that the warrant was unconstitutional due to lack of probable cause, the associated evidence will be suppressed.

While Colorado and Pennsylvania appear to be the first states where the states highest court is considering the constitutionality of keyword search warrants, the power of this investigative technique guarantees that this issue will reach other state supreme courts as well. In addition, it will increasingly arise in in federal courts.

At root is the question of whether keyword search warrants are general warrants, and thus by definition unconstitutional. In an amicus brief filed in January with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the Electronic Frontier Foundation argues that the answer is yes:

A warrant purporting to authorize a reverse keyword search is a digital analog to a warrant that authorizes officers to search every house in an area of a townsimply on the chance that they might find written material connected to a crime. Like the general warrants and writs of assistance used in England and colonial America, this warrants lack of particularity and overbreadth invites the police to treat it as an excuse to conduct an unconstitutional general search.

Government investigators using keyword search warrants will of course take a different view. They will argue, for instance, that the specific nature of the keywords in the warrant, plus the fact that it is limited to searches conducted in a limited window of time, means that it satisfies the particularity requirement. Of course, identifying the IP addresses that did conduct a Google search using specific keywords also requires determining that a vastly larger number of people did not conduct such a search. Investigators will have to explain why the process of making those negative determinations doesnt render the warrant unconstitutional. Investigators will also argue that the likelihood that perpetrators performed an internet search of the crime scene is high enough to satisfy probable cause.

Eventually, the U.S. Supreme Court may hear a keyword search warrant case, and if so, the resulting ruling could provide important consistency and clarity. Until then, there will likely be a range of outcomes from the different courts that engage with this important set of constitutionality questions.

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Just Published: "Terms of Service and Fourth Amendment Rights" – Reason

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In the last year or two, the U.S. Department of Justice has been arguing in federal courts of appeals that Terms of Service can narrow or eliminate Fourth Amendment rights in online accounts. If the government can win on this issue, it will largely defeat any claims to Fourth Amendment protection online. But as I argue in my just-published article, Terms of Service and Fourth Amendment Rights, 172 U. Pa. L. Rev. 287 (2024), these arguments are mistaken. Here's the abstract:

Almost everything you do on the Internet is governed by Terms of Service. The language in Terms of Service typically gives Internet providers broad rights to address potential account misuse. But do these Terms alter Fourth Amendment rights, either diminishing or even eliminating constitutional rights in Internet accounts? In the last five years, many courts have ruled that they do. These courts treat Terms of Service like a rights contract: by agreeing to use an Internet account subject to broad Terms of Service, you give up your Fourth Amendment rights.

This Article argues that the courts are wrong. Terms of Service have little or no effect on Fourth Amendment rights. Fourth Amendment rights are rights against the government, not private parties. Terms of Service can define relationships between private parties, but private contracts cannot define Fourth Amendment rights. This is true across the range of Fourth Amendment doctrines, including the "reasonable expectation of privacy" test, consent, abandonment, third-party consent, and the private search doctrine. Courts that have linked Terms of Service and Fourth Amendment rights are mistaken, and their reasoning should be rejected.

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Just Published: "Terms of Service and Fourth Amendment Rights" - Reason

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What is AI? A-to-Z Glossary of Essential AI Terms in 2024 – Tech.co

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A for Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)

AGI is a theoretical type of AI that exhibits human-like intelligence and is generally considered to be as smart or smarter than humans. While the term's origins can be traced back to 1997, the concept of AGI has fallen into the mainstream in recent years as AI developers continue to push the frontier of the technology forward.

For instance, in November 2023 OpenAI revealed it was working on a new AI superintelligence model codenamed Project Q*, which could bring the company closer to realizing AGI. It should be emphasized, however, that AGI is still a hypothetical concept, and many experts are confident the type of AI will not be developed anytime soon, if ever.

Big data refers to large, high-volume datasets, that traditional data processing methods struggle to manage. Big data and AI go hand in hand. The gigantic pool of raw information is vital for AI decision-making, while sophisticated AI algorithms can analyze patterns in datasets and identify valuable insights. When working together, they help users make more insightful revelations, much faster than through traditional methods.

AI bias occurs when an algorithm produces results that are systematically prejudiced against certain types of people. Unfortunately, AI systems have consistently been shown to reflect biases within society by upholding harmful beliefs and encouraging negative stereotypes relating to race, gender, and national identity.

These biases were emphasized in a now-deleted article by Buzzfeed, which displayed AI-generated Barbies from all over the world. The images supported a variety of racial stereotypes, by featuring oversexualized Caribbean dolls, white-washed Barbies from the global south, and Asian dols with inaccurate cultural outfits.

You've probably heard of this one, but it's still important to mention as no AI glossary can be considered complete without a nod to the generative AI chatbot that changed the game when it launched back in November 2022.

In short, ChatGPT is the product that has shifted the AI debate from the server room into the living room. It has done from artificial intelligence what the iPhone did for the mobile phone, bringing the technology into the public eye by virtue of its widely accessible model.

As we recently revealed in our Impact of Technology in the Workplace report, ChatGPT is easily the most widely used AI tool by businesses and may even be the key to unlocking the 4-day workweek.

Its influence may fade over time, but the world of AI will always be viewed through the prism of before and after ChatGPT's birth.

Standing for computing power', compute refers to the computational resources required to train AI models to perform tasks like data processing and making predictions. Typically, the more competing power used to train an LLM, the better it can perform.

Computing power relies on a lot of energy consumption, however, which is sparking concern among environmental activists. For instance, research has revealed that is takes 1GWh of energy to power responses for ChatGPT daily, which is enough energy to power 30,000 US households.

Diffusion models represent a new tier of machine learning, capable of generating superior AI-generated images. These models work by adding noise to a dataset before learning to reverse this process.

By understanding the concept of abstraction behind an image, and creating content in a new way, diffusion models create images that are more sharpened and refined than those made by traditional AI models, and are currently being deployed in a range of AI image tools like Dall-E and Stable Diffusion.

Emergent behavior takes place when AI models produce an unanticipated response outside of its creator's intention. Much of AI is so complex its decision-making processes still can't be understood by humans, even its creators. With AI models as prominent as GPT4 recently exhibiting emergent capabilities, AI researchers are making an increased effort to understand the how and the why behind AI models.

Facial recognition technology relies on AI, machine learning algorithms, and computer vision techniques to process stills and videos of human faces. Since AI can identify intricate facial details more efficiently than manual methods, most facial recognition systems use an artificial neural network called convolutional neural network (CNN) to enhance its accuracy.

Generative AI is a catch-all term that describes any type of AI that produces original content like text, images, and audio clips. Generative AI uses information from LLMs, and other AI models, to create outputs, and powers responses made by chatbots like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok,

Chatbots don't always produce correct or sane responses. Oftentimes, AI models generate incorrect information but present it as facts. This is called AI hallucination. Hallucinations take place when the AI model makes predictions based on the dataset it was trained on, instead of retrieving actual facts.

Most AI hallucinations are minor and may even be overlooked by the average user. However, sometimes hallucinations can have dangerous consequences, as false responses produced by ChatGPT have previously been exploited by scammers to trick developers into downloading malicious code.

Bearing similarities to AGI, the intelligence explosion is a hypothetical scenario where AI development becomes uncontrollable and poses a threat to humanity as a result. Also referred to as the singularity, the term represents an existential threat felt by many about the rapid and largely unchecked advancement of the technology.

Jailbreaking is a form of hacking with the goal of bypassing the ethical safeguards of AI models. Specifically, when certain prompts are entered into chatbots, users are able to use them free of any restrictions.

Interestingly, a recent study by Brown University found that using languages like Hmong, Zulu, and Scottish Gaelic was an effective way to jailbreak ChatGPT. Learn how to jailbreak ChatGPT here.

As AI continues to automate manual processes previously performed by humans, the technology is sparking widespread job insecurity among workers. While most workers shouldn't have anything to worry about, our Tech.co Impact of Technology on the Workplace report recently found out that supply chain optimization, legal research, and financial analysis roles are the most likely to be replaced by AI in 2024.

LLMs are a specialist type of AI model that harnesses natural language processing (NLP) to understand and produce natural, humanlike responses. In simple terms, make tools like ChatGPT sound less like a bot, and more like you and me.

Unlike generative AI, LLMs have been designed specifically to handle language-related tasks. Popular examples of LLMs you may have heard of include GPT-4, PaLM 2, and Gemini.

Machine learning is a field of artificial intelligence that allows systems to learn and improve from experience, in a similar way to humans. Specifically, it focuses on the use of data and algorithms in AI, and aims to improve the way AI models can autonomously learn and make decisions in real-world environments.

While the term is often used interchangeably with AI, machine learning is part of the wider AI umbrella, and requires minimal human intervention.

A neural network (NN) is a machine learning model designed to mimic the structure and function of a human brain. An artificial neural network is comprised of multiple tiers and consists of units called artificial neurons, which loosely imitate neurons found in the brain.

Also referred to as deep neural networks, NN's have a variety of useful applications and can be used to improve image recognition, predictive modeling, and natural language processing.

Open-source AI refers to AI technology that has freely available source code. The ultimate aim of open-source AI is to create a culture of collaboration and transparency within the artificial intelligence community, that gives companies and developers greater freedom to innovate with the technology.

Lots of currently available open-source AI products are variations of existing applications., and common product categories include chatbots, machine translation tools, and large language models.

If you're somehow still unfamiliar with tools like Gemini and ChatGPT, a prompt is an instruction or query you enter into chatbots to gain a targeted response. They can exist as stand-alone commands or can be the starting point for longer conversations with AI models.

AI prompts can take any form the user desires, but we found that longer form, detailed input generates the best responses. Using emotive language is another way to generate high-quality answers, according to a recent study by Microsoft.

Find out how to make your work life easier with these 40 ChatGPT prompts designed to save you time at the workplace.

In AI, parameters are a value that measures the behavior of a machine-learning model. In this context, each parameter acts as a variable, determining how the model will convert an input into output. Parameters are one of the most common ways to measure AI performance, and generally speaking, the more an AI model has, the better it will be able to understand complex data patterns and produce more accurate responses.

Quantum AI is the use of quantum computing for the computation of machine learning algorithms. Compared to classical computing, which processes information through 1s and 0s, quantum computing uses a unit called qubits, which represents both 1s and 0s at once. Theoretically, this process could speed up computing speeds dramatically.

In the case of quantum AI, the use of qubits could potentially help produce much more powerful AI models, although many experts believe we're still a way off in achieving this reality.

Red teaming is a structured testing system that aims to find flaws and vulnerabilities in AI models. The cybersecurity term essentially refers to an ethical hacking practice where actors try and simulate an actual cyber attack, to identify potential weak spots in a system and to improve its defenses in the long run.

In the case of AI red teaming, no actual hacking attempt may take place, and red teamers may instead try to test the security of the system by prompting it in a certain way that bypasses any guardrails developers have placed on it, in a similar way to jailbreaking.

There are two basic approaches when it comes to AI learning: supervised learning and unsupervised learning.Also known as supervised machine learning, supervised learning is a method of training where algorithms are trained on input data that has been labeled for a specific output. The aim of the test is to measure how accurately the algorithm can perform on unlabeled data, and the process strives to improve the overall accuracy of AI systems as a whole.

In simple terms, training data is an extremely vast input dataset used to train a machine learning model. Training data is used to teach prediction models using algorithms how to extract features that are relevant to specific user goals, and it's the initial set of data that can then be complimented by subsequent data called testing sets.

It is fundamental to the way AI and machine learning work, and without training data, AI models wouldn't be able to learn, extract useful information, and make predictions, or put simply, exist.

Contrary to supervised learning, unsupervised learning is a type of machine learning where models are given unlabeled, cluttered data and encouraged to discover patterns and insights without any specific framework.

Unsupervised learning models are used for three main tasks, cluttering, which is a data mining technique for grouping unlabeled data, association, another earning method that uses different rules to find relationships between variables, and dimensionality reduction, a learning technique deployed when the number of dimensions in a dataset it too high.

X-risk stands for existential risk. More specifically, the term relates to the existential risk posed by the rapid development of AI. People warning about a potential X-risk event believe that the progress being made in the field of AI may result in human extinction or global catastrophe if left unchecked.

X-risk isn't a fringe belief, though. In fact, in 2023 several tech leaders like Demis Hassabis CEO of DeepMind, Ilya Sutskever Co-Founder and Chief Scientist at OpenAI, and Bill Gates signed a letter warning AI developers about the existential threat posed by AI.

Zero-shot learning is a deep learning problem setup where an AI model is tasked with completing a task without receiving any training examples. In machine learning, zero-shot learning is used to build models for classes that have not yet been labeled for training.

The two stages of zero-shot learning include the training stage, where knowledge is captured, and the interference stage, where information is used to classify examples into a new set of classes.

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What is AI? A-to-Z Glossary of Essential AI Terms in 2024 - Tech.co

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