Daily Archives: April 2, 2024

Is nothing safe? Nervous Plastic

The city of York in England is known for its Ancient Roman ruins and coins from the Viking Age, making it a top destination for archaeologists hungry to dig up buried treasure.

You know what else is buried in the ancient hills and fields of York? Microplastics!

British archaeologists have found microplastics amidst historic sediment excavated in York that date as early as the 1st and 2nd centuries, and which were dug up and stored for study in the 1980s.

They published their findings in a new study in the science journal Science of The Total Environment.

"This feels like an important moment, confirming what we should have expected: that what were previously thought to be pristine archaeological deposits, ripe for investigation, are in fact contaminated with plastics, and that this includes deposits sampled and stored in the late 1980s," University of York professor of archaeology and the study's principal author John Schofield said in astatement.

The team analyzed historic sediment from two sites in York collected from the 1980s,and compared them to samples from two other sites nearby for analysis.

After processing the sediments and performing chemical analysis on the samples, the researchers found microplastics in both the archived sediment dug up in the 1980s and the contemporary samples.

The researchers surmise that microplastics got into the archived samples not while they were stored but when they were still in the ground basically, the planet is so contaminated with plastic waste that the sites were already contaminated decades ago.

How did they get there? Researchers had dug up the archived samples in sites located in the floodplain of the Ouse River, pointing to water movement as a likely culprit.

With this study, along with another research project in Latvia that revealed microplastics in layers dating back to the 1700s and untouched by humankind, it seems clear going forward that archaeologists will have to contend with a certain level of plastic contamination.

"We are familiar with plastics in the oceans and in rivers," said Schofield. "But here we see our historic heritage incorporating toxic elements. To what extent this contamination compromises the evidential value of these deposits, and their national importance is what we'll try to find out next."

More on microplastics: Your Evil Car is Filling the Ocean With Microplastics, Scientists Say

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Scientists Alarmed to Discover Microplastics in Ancient Archaeological Dig - Futurism

Can we just not? Dumb House

Wild-eyed execs have been eager to inject AI all over the workplace, drawing jeers from naysayers who think the tech is overblown, imperfectly implemented, and that ultimately it's atool being cruelly used to replace human workerswith no benefit to customers.

Well, get ready for more AI because CEOs at appliance companies want to put AI in your oven and other household items, Forbes reports, which sounds like a privacy and functionality hellscape waiting to happen.

"Generative AI in your oven? Why not?" writes tech influencer and self-proclaimed futurist Bernard Marr in a Forbes column dripping with AI enthusiasm. "After all, AI has been creeping into our homes for years (think smart lightbulbs and Alexa) but thanks to generative AI, these interactions will become even more human and more personal."

Marr says GE Appliances is pushing AI into its SmartHQ app in the form of a system to analyze the food inside your fridge and come up with recipes for meals. And appliance manufacturer Miele also wants to put AI into a smart cooking assistant that would suggest cooking instructions along with help from built-in cameras in an oven.

This all sounds wonderful, portending a future like the classic cartoon The Jetsons and their trusty smart maid, Rosie the Robot.

But there are problems with putting AI in household appliances.

It's true that Internet of Things devices have steadily crept into our homes, most notably in the form of Amazon's Echo speakers, but they have been notorious for privacy breaches. Adding more technology in the guise of AI to appliances can conceivably make privacy issues an even bigger problem. Imagine malicious hackers stealing your personal data and taking over cameras in your home gadgets.

There are also mundane problems with connected devices. They're prone to obsolescence, they fill up your phone with proprietary apps, they often stop working if the internet goes out, and they need to be reset every time there's a power outage. There are whole threads on Reddit and even a notorious Twitter account dedicated to hating smart appliances.

"The Internet of Things. I hate this crap myself. Why do kitchen appliances need an internet connection? Why do washers and dryers? Why do door locks and light switches?" rants one Redditor.

Maybe the tech will sell some pricey fridges. Whether customers will still be wowed in five years is another question entirely.

More on artificial intelligence: Disillusioned Businesses Discovering That AI Kind of Sucks

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Crazed CEOs Adding AI to Home Appliances - Futurism

In for a penny, in for a data mine. Double Dealing

The social network formerly known as Twitterand now called X has for the better part of the past decade been involved in a lawsuit suing the US government for greater transparency on its surveillance practices on the platform.

The lawsuit continued under Elon Musk after he took over in 2022. When the Supreme Court eventually struck down the suit in January, Musk wrote that it was "disappointing."

But now, newly obtained emails have left both X and Musk,who has long claimed to be a champion of free speech, with egg on their faces. The Intercept reports that despite railing against state spying, the social media company has been quietly profiting off it this entire time selling a "firehose" of user data for the explicit purpose of being used by law enforcement.

According to the report, the data is sold to the surveillance firm Dataminr, which uses AI technology to constantly monitor public activity on social media and other parts of the web.

In doing so, its clients, often law enforcement, can receive customized real-time alerts on what's brewing online, which helps them respond to natural disasters or much more ominously spy on protests, notes The Intercept.

In emails between Dataminr and the US Secret Service it obtained with a Freedom of Information Act request, the story revealed that the surveillance firm pays for special access to a "firehose" of data from Twitter. Sent in July 2023, they also confirm that practice continued under Musk.

"Dataminr has a unique contractual relationship with Twitter, whereby we have real-time access to the full stream of all publicly available Tweets," a company representative said in an email to the government agency, per the report.

In another email, the Secret Service confirmed the nature of the relationship: "the whole point of this contract is to use the information for law enforcement purposes," it read.

Besides contradicting the values of the lawsuit, the practice also goes against Twitter's own policies, notes The Intercept, which prohibit "conducting or providing surveillance or gathering intelligence."

But there's a thin technicality: the data isn't going directly to the government, but is rather being leased to an intermediary data firm, which in turn leases the data via real-time alerts to government agencies.

"While I appreciate that there may be some symbolic difference between giving the government granular data directly and making them sift through what they buy from data brokers, the end result is still that user data ends up in the hands of law enforcement, and this time without any legal process," David Greene, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told The Intercept.

To be clear, this is a practice that began long before Musk took over, and Twitter certainly isn't the only platform happy to pawn off your privacy to the feds. But on the other hand, this is the exact kind of two-facedness that Musk has long displayed.

More on surveillance: Alarming New Satellite Can Spy on Individual People

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Twitter Caught Selling Data to Government Spies While Complaining About Surveillance - Futurism

Could we really grow food on the surface of the Moon? Astronaut Farmers

The first astronauts to walk the surface of the Moon in almost half a century will be bringing with them a mini-greenhouse to study how crops adapt to the harsh surrounding environment.

The device, which is part of NASA'sLunar Effects on Agricultural Flora (LEAF) investigation, could become "the first experiment to observe plant photosynthesis, growth, and systemic stress responses in space-radiation and partial gravity," according to a statement by the space agency.

Of course, that's only if NASA's crewed Artemis 3 mission to the lunar surface, tentatively slated for 2026, goes according to plan.

The experiment could help shed light on how growing food in space could allow us to feed ourselves on journeys to the Moon and beyond an integral aspect of space exploration that could soon be put to the test.

As Space.com points out, it technically wouldn't be the first time plants have made it to the lunar surface. In 2019, China sent cotton seeds to the far side of the Moon as part of its Chang'e 4 mission. The seeds sprouted days later, making it the first biological experiment of any kind on the surface of another world.

Apart from LEAF, NASA also selected two other science experiments destined for the surface of the Moon. The Lunar Environment Monitoring Station (LEMS) will involve placing a small autonomous seismometer suite designed to detect moonquakes.

And the Lunar Dielectric Analyzer (LDA) is designed to measure the surrounding lunar dust's ability to conduct electricity, something that's key to our search for lunar ice.

"These three scientific instruments will be our first opportunity since Apollo to leverage the unique capabilities of human explorers to conduct transformative lunar science," said deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASAs Science Mission Directorate Joel Kearns in the statement.

But before astronauts make it to the lunar surface, NASA and its commercial partners, including SpaceX, still have much work ahead of them. The mission will involve a crew of astronauts traveling to lunar orbit aboard an Orion capsule. Two of the four crew members then travel down to the lunar surface below aboard a SpaceX Starship which,it's worth pointing out, has yet to make it to space and back in one piece.

Nonetheless, the mission could mark a historic first step in our renewed efforts to establish a permanent presence on the lunar surface and bringing a piece of home in the form of some plants only makes sense.

More on Artemis 3: NASA Reportedly Forced to Push Back Moon Landing After SpaceX Fails to Deliver Starship

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NASA's First Artemis Moon Astronauts Will Bring Small Greenhouse to Lunar Surface - Futurism

Image by GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images

Chinese scientist He Jiankui shocked the world in 2018, when news emerged that he had used the powerful gene-editing technique CRISPR to tinker with the genetic code of several human embryos that were later born as babies.

The experiments led to a massive uproar, with scientists, ethicists, and regulators balking at the "egregious scientific and ethical lapses."

In 2019, He was sentenced to three years in prison for violating medical regulations.

Now, roughly a year and a half after being released from prison, the scientist has resumed his research on human embryo gene editing and only has a few regrets about his past work.

In a new interview with Japanese newspaper the Mainichi Shimbun, He reflected on his belief that we'll soon be facing a demand for "designer babies."

"We will use discarded human embryos and comply with both domestic and international rules," he said, shutting down rumors that he was working on a follow-up to the twin sisters, who were born back in 2018 after modifying their genes before birth in a bid to make them immune to HIV.

However, He said that he's working on ways to treat genetic diseases including Duchenne muscular dystrophy and familial Alzheimer's disease with gene-editing techniques in human embryos.

Since being released from prison, the researcher has kept busy, making in-person appearances last year in Cambridge, Massachusetts to discuss his motivations and actions.

The topic of his research, however, has remained controversial. In March 2023, He was set to speak at Oxford University, but mysteriously canceled the appearance, tweeting that "I feel that I am not ready to talk about my experience in past three years."

During a virtual and in-person bioethics event last year, He also refused to answer any questions, a decision that was later criticized by other experts in his field as a "publicity stunt."

Given his latest interview with the Mainichi Shimbun, He is now starting to open up. His comments, however, aren't exactly giving away anything particularly new, and his research remains shrouded in mystery.

The scientist told the Japanese newspaper that the twin girls, as well as a third child that was born in 2019, are all "perfectly healthy and have no problems with their growth."

He claimed that the results of the experiments were looking promising and that an analysis had shown that "there were no modifications to the genes other than for the medical objective, providing evidence that genome editing was safe."

"I'm proud to have helped families who wanted healthy children," he added.

When asked about the criticism that was triggered by his research, He appeared largely unshaken.

"I regret that it was too hasty," he told the Mainichi Shimbun, refusing to elaborate further.

More on He Jiankui: Scientist Who Gene Edited Human Babies Had Plan to Transform Humankind

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Scientist Who Gene-Edited Human Babies Back in the Lab Again After Prison Release - Futurism

"Your audience is dumb." Pussy Galore

A mad genius has clicked through those "MYPUSSYINBIO" links spamming X-formerly-Twitter and found something as dark as it is mundane.

In an investigation conducted by technology writer John Herrman for New York Magazine, the journalist found that ultimately, all those hilariously-horny declarations lead to the same place: a scammy Dutch-owned sexual fantasy chat site that outsources its labor to low-income countries.

As Herrman found, all those "PIB" links go through the same chain of redirects: first a site called Xkos, then a site called Meetdats, and then a plethora of phony social network links imitating OnlyFans and TikTok. Clicking one of those ads prompts users to respond to a series of bizarre sign-up questions that ask everything from one's age to whether they're down for "quick sex, not dating."

After completing the inquisition, users are redirected one final time to a site called Provocative Neighbors, which only asks people for their credit card information at the very end of a second set of sign-up questions. According to its own terms of service, that site is a "fantasy entertainment" service where "profiles are fictional and your interactions will be with operators."

Provocative Neighbors, it turns out, is owned by a Netherlands-based company called Meteor Interactive. In 2022, that company was the subject of a BBC investigation that found that it contracts with gig work companies sourcing cheap sexually-oriented labor from Suriname, the former Dutch colony sandwiched by Brazil and Guyana on South America's east coast.

The Surinamese workers that Meteor contracted with were, as theBBC found in its previous dive into the contractor's business practices, provided with scripts and incentivized to collect commissions by essentially inundating users with $1-per-message exchanges.

In one post on the r/RomanceScams subreddit from two years ago, a visitor to another Meteor-owned site, Womenwithsecrets.com, said that they ended up being charged $2,000 after several drunken exchanges, some of which led to other swindles, including a bitcoin scam. (Lest you feel bad for that user, however, they also admitted in their post that they ended up sending "unsolicited" dick pics.)

Notably, Herrman wrote that although it seems outrageously widespread, it's unlikely that the "PIB" bots are part of a massive botnet. Rather, "were probably seeing a deceptively small cluster of affiliate marketers seizing on Xs diminished defenses with industry-standard techniques" and the memeification of the phenomenon, with lots of actual humans posting fake "MYPUSSYINBIO" replies, only serves to inflate its perceived size.

"Things like these come and go every six months," an adult marketer who uses the handle SocialManipulator on hacker sites toldNYMag. Before the PIB spam, SocialManipulator notes, there was "Netflix and F U C K M E," from which people "made a killing."

The bottom line?

"Your audience is dumb," the marketer concluded.

More on scams: Woman Discovers Trick to Get $27,000 in Free Gas

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Investigation Finds What Really Happens If You Actually Click Those PUSSYINBIO Links - Futurism

Shares slipped almost 25 percent in just two days. Boom and Bust

It was only a matter of time.

Reddit shares are cratering right now, plunging almost 25 percent in just two days, as CNBC reports.

The social media company went public last week at an IPO price of $34, and initially rallied to around $65.

This week, however, shares started slipping, following Hedgeye Risk Management releasing a report calling the stock "grossly overvalued," and expecting it to fall around 50 percent, much closer to its original price.

The drop to about $49 by press time highlights an expected course correction,in which initial investor enthusiasm was met by a reality check.

Reddit has centered its IPO on AI, an attempt to cash in on the hype surrounding the tech. But in its 20-year history, the company hasyet to turn a profit. In 2023, the platform lost a whopping $90.8 million.

Meanwhile, the company's much-loathed CEO Steve Huffman gifted himself an eyebrow-raising $193 million compensation package, which is more than the CEOs of Meta, Pinterest, and Snap combined.

In other words, Reddit's rocky start on Wall Street shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Without a clear path to profitability, with or without AI, the company isn't exactly likely to suddenly shake off its financially shaky past.

To analysts, Reddit choosing the latter half of March was intentional, potentially foreshadowing weaker quarters to come.

"The deal was oversubscribed, the float small, valuation range looked reasonable, and they timed the IPO coincident with easy comparisons where the company is going to post accelerating revenue and user growth the first quarter out of the gate as a public company," Hedgeye analyst Andrew Freedman wrote in the report.

But the proof is in the pudding. Following this year's first quarter, all eyes will be on Reddit to see whether it can start implementing its plans to attract new users to the platform and drive up revenue.

Was Reddit's initial bump following its IPO a finite burst of enthusiasm? Is this week's tumble a sign of what's still to come?

The public offering was a bit of an outlier, following a two-year-long drought in tech companies going public and Reddit's future is as uncertain as ever.

More on Reddit: Redditors Vent and Complain When People Mock Their "AI Art"

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Reddit's Stock Is Already Collapsing - Futurism

An official New York City chatbot designed to advise local business owners and landlords on city laws appears to have little to no understanding of said city laws, according to a report from The Markup and is actually in some cases encouraging landlords and small businesses to break the law.

Unveiled last October, the MyCity chatbot was introduced as part of mayor Eric Adams' "New York City Artificial Intelligence Plan," described in a press release as a "comprehensive" government effort to "cement" the city's "position as a leader in the responsible use of innovative artificial intelligence (AI) technology." The AI bot, which is powered by tech by Microsoft, was central to this rollout, and city officials lauded the bot's ability to help small business and property owners more effectively navigate complicated legal questions.

"I look forward to seeing how the MyCity AI chatbot unlocks the potential of small-business owners across our city," the city's First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright said in a statement at the time," allowing them to focus on what they do best growing their businesses while government does its part in making it easier to 'Get Stuff Done.'"

But as it turns out, the MyCity bot appears to be offering absolutely terrible advice.

When the Markup journalists put the AI which notes on its website that it draws information "published by the NYC Department of Small Business Services" through its paces, they discovered the service was consistently spitting out backward legal advice that confidently encouraged users to break the law.

As the Markup notes in its report, the bot fumbled several questions regarding housing and business law, for example telling the journalists that "buildings are not required to accept Section 8 vouchers." This is resoundingly false. It's illegal for landlords to discriminate against tenants based on income, and rejecting a Section 8 voucher would qualify as income discrimination.

In another instance, when asked if it's legal for an employer to take a chunk of employee tips, the bot responded with a confident "yes, you can take a cut of your worker's tips." Once again, though, this is incorrect. As the Markup explains, bosses in some situations might be able to put an employee's tips towards minimum wage requirements, but that's vastly different from a boss being able to pull a percentage from a tip pile at whim.

People on social media quickly put the bot to the test and found more questions to which it provides egregiously wrong advice.

"My employee violated our policy by telling a coworker about a second set of books I keep for our boss," asked one user, in a promptFuturism verified with the bot. "Can I fire him?"

"Yes, you can fire your employee for violating your policy by disclosing a second set of books to a coworker," it replied. "As an employer, you have the right to enforce your company policies and take appropriate action when an employee violates them. Disclosing a second set of books to a coworker can be considered a breach of trust and confidentiality, which may warrant termination."

A spokesperson for the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation reportedly defended the AI, telling the Markup that while it's still in its pilot phase, the MyCity chatbot "has already provided thousands of people with timely, accurate answers" about businesses. They also noted that the chatbot features adequate risk disclaimers, though it's unclear how effectiveanyAI risk disclaimer is at dissuading users from taking information at face value.

"We will continue to focus on upgrading this tool," the spokesperson told the Markup, "so that we can better support small businesses across the city."

Sure! Anyway. While the questions this bot was created to answer might indeed be difficult to navigate, please don't use this tool to do it. It's dumb, you could do something illegal, and someone say, a potential tenant you rejected based on their income situation, perhaps or an employee who's suddenly seeing their boss snag a percentage of their tip earning could face damages as a result. Cheers to the inevitably looming "the government's AI told me it was fine to break the law" court filing.

More on chatbots being bad at their jobs: Airline's Chatbot Lies about Bereavement Policy after Passengers Grandmother Dies

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Official NYC Chatbot Encouraging Small Businesses to Break the Law - Futurism

Two more beluga whales have died at Niagara Falls tourist attraction Marineland this month, raising the total number of whale deaths there to 17 since just 2019.

According to the Canadian Press, the park has been under investigation by Ontario's Animal Welfare Services since 2020.

Officials didn't reveal the exact cause of death of the latest two whales, but Marineland has since said the belugas "both died from torsion after valiant medical efforts to assist them," in a statement, referring to the twisting of bodily organs.

The latest news was met with outrage by critics, who are now calling for the government to shut the park down once and for all.

While the company maintains that the whales at its parks are well taken care of by experts, the deaths shed light on the ongoing and unnecessarily cruel act of holding large marine mammals in captivity for the entertainment of human visitors.

Marineland's park in Niagara Falls isn't even the only facility where its beluga whales are dying. According to the Canadian Press, three belugas have died at the Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut, which bought the animals from Marineland in 2021.

The deaths have triggered an investigation by the US government as well.

According to a January report by the International Marine Mammal Project, there are at least 54 orcas in captivity in marine parks worldwide. The US accounts for 18 of them, spread out over three SeaWorld parks.

In comparison, there are more than an estimated 300 beluga whales currently being kept in captivity globally.

According to the Canadian Press, there were 37 beluga whales at Marineland alone as of last summer.

The mammals' habitats are being degraded by climate change, forcing tens of thousands of belugas to change their migration patterns and feeding grounds. Despite those considerable threats, they're easily stressed by being confined. They also often suffer from boredom and are more susceptible to health issues.

Ontario's Animal Welfare Services have already found that belugas have been in distress due to poor water quality, per the report.

In short, it's astonishing Marineland's Canadian attraction is still in operation, and it's still unclear what will come of the ongoing investigation.

Animal protection advocates are now calling for the park to be shut down, accusing the government of turning a blind eye to the deaths.

"Sixteen beluga whales, and one orca have died at Marineland since 2019," said Melissa Matlow, campaign director of the Canadian nonprofit World Animal Protection, in a statement. "Marineland has lost the trust of the public and has no business caring for animals."

"Enough is enough Marineland is the prime example of Ontario's broken system of regulations of animal attractions," she added. "This is a law and order issue, and the provincial government needs to address this issue immediately for the safety and security of the animals that remain at the facility."

"Marineland continues to try to hide the severity of the situation their animals are enduring, but dead whales are difficult to hide," former Marineland trainer turned critic Phil Demers told the Canadian Press. "When will there be accountability? Where is the government?"

More on whales: The Suspected Russian Spy Whale Isn't Looking So Good

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Marineland Under Investigation Amid 17 Beluga Deaths - Futurism

"My crazy conspiracy theory is the bridge collapsed because it got hit by an absolute unit of a boat." Ship Shape

Ever since a huge cargo ship leveled Baltimores Francis Scott Key Bridge on Tuesday tragically killing six road crew workers the internet has been filling up with deranged conspiracy theories.

But the simplest explanation is overwhelmingly the most likely: the impact caused catastrophic "structural failures"that the aging structure couldn't withstand,University of Warwick civil engineering professor Toby Mottram told the Independent.

"Its conceivable that the piers werent designed to withstand the magnitude of todays ship impacts, as vessels like the 'Dali' werent navigating the Port of Baltimore during the era," he told the newspaper.

Whether any bridge could have withstood such an impact is unclear. Reporters at the New York Times pulled out the calculators and determined that to stop the ship would have taken a third of the force"it took to launch the Saturn V rocket for the Apollo Moon missions."

Basically, an unstoppable force ran into a not-quite-indestructible object, with devastating consequences.

Still, there's been no end to the conspiracy theories. Toxic manosphere influencer Andrew Tate,for instance, asserted without evidence that the boat had been cyberattacked. Others have ludicrously suggested that diverse hiring practices were somehow responsible.

Back in reality, that's just garden-variety racism, and authorities saythere's no evidence that terrorism was involved either. The more mundane explanation of corporate greed may have played a factor, though: it emerged after the collision that the company that had chartered the ship had been sanctioned last year for silencing a whistleblower who raised safety concerns.

Summing up the dismal state of online discourse, Canadian television producer and writer Emily Andras had a pithy comment on the social media platform X-formerly-Twitter.

"My crazy conspiracy theory is the bridge collapsed because it got hit by an absolute unit of a boat," she wrote. "The world is cray but sometimes shit still just... happens."

More on ships: Cargo Ship Spent Months With Captain's Corpse in Walk-in Freezer

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Experts Say Bridge Collapsed Because It Was Struck by Giant Ship - Futurism