Image by Getty / Futurism In more terrible news from the tiny-bits-of-plastic front: a recent study from researchers at the Netherlands’ Leiden University found that nanoplastics — particles even smaller than microplastics — cause absolutely horrid development problems in chicken embryos, leading to extensive malformations and birth defects in newborn chicks. “Polystyrene nanoplastics cause a… Continue reading Tiny Amounts of Plastic Cause Horrifying Problems in Chicken Embryos
Author: Futurism_Magazine Online News
AI Company With Zero Revenue Raises $150 Million
It’s a gold rush! Profit, Shmofit With the help of a brand new $150 million dollar cash infusion from Andreessen Horowitz, a 16-month-old AI chatbot startup called Character.ai just reached a $1 billion market cap — despite having yet to generate any revenue. Founded by two ex-Googlers, the idea is to host various AI-powered personalities,… Continue reading AI Company With Zero Revenue Raises $150 Million
Elon Musk Reportedly Tried to Take Over OpenAI Several Years Ago, But Failed
There might be more than meets the eye here. Tea’s Hot Like everyone else in the tech industry, SpaceX, Tesla, and Twitter CEO Elon Musk has had a lot to say about OpenAI in recent weeks — as he probably should, considering that he was one of the firm’s original founders, launching the former non-profit… Continue reading Elon Musk Reportedly Tried to Take Over OpenAI Several Years Ago, But Failed
VR Pioneer Warns That AI Could Drive Us All Insane
Jaron Lanier is one of the foremost pioneers of VR technology — but he’s also notorious for being one of Silicon Valley’s harshest critics, in biting critiques that he characterizes as “dismal optimism.” Lately, he’s turning his gaze on the tech industry’s latest obsession: AI. In a spicy interview with The Guardian, Lanier made it… Continue reading VR Pioneer Warns That AI Could Drive Us All Insane
Google’s Bard AI Credibly Accused of Plagiarizing Without Credit
“Yes, what I did was a form of plagiarism.” Red Handed On Wednesday, we reported that Google’s finally unveiled Bard AI wasted no time to start spewing ridiculous conspiracy theories and fabricating non-existent citations to back them up. But as it turns out, citing bogus sources is just the beginning of its problems. Now, Tom’s… Continue reading Google’s Bard AI Credibly Accused of Plagiarizing Without Credit
New Videogame Facial Animation Is So Realistic It’s in the Uncanny Valley
Mind-blowing. Next Level MetaHuman Animator, the next-gen version of Epic Games’ MetaHuman avatar tool, is here — and we gotta say, it looks pretty remarkable. Epic’s MetaHuman tool, which was first unveiled back in 2021, was already impressively good at generating hyperrealistic avatars of people. But actually animating those characters was still a difficult, time-consuming process.… Continue reading New Videogame Facial Animation Is So Realistic It’s in the Uncanny Valley
Donald Trump Shares Slightly Misfigured AI-Generated Image of Himself Praying
We should probably expect to see a lot more of this. Livin’ on a Prayer As America’s upcoming election cycle continues to take shape, one thing’s for sure: fans of former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump love themselves some image generators, and they’re not afraid to use ’em. Trump, in fact, isn’t afraid… Continue reading Donald Trump Shares Slightly Misfigured AI-Generated Image of Himself Praying
Google’s Bard and Bing AI Already Citing Each Other in Neural Hall of Mirrors
We hate this timeline. Cursed Ping Pong Here’s a nightmare scenario for our digital futures: the internet becomes so laden with AI-generated misinformation that its nearly unusable, in part because chatbots and other AI systems keep volleying hallucinated, mangled, or otherwise false or misconstrued information back at one another until our entire information landscape is… Continue reading Google’s Bard and Bing AI Already Citing Each Other in Neural Hall of Mirrors
Elon Musk Apparently Made a Stupid Engineering Decision That’s Kneecapped Tesla’s Self-Driving Promises
Ouch. Sensorius Elon Musk has been promising that Tesla’s Full Self-Driving would be coming “next year” for the better part of the past decade — but as it turns out, he may be the reason it hasn’t come to fruition. As the Washington Post reports, Musk apparently decided a few years back to do away… Continue reading Elon Musk Apparently Made a Stupid Engineering Decision That’s Kneecapped Tesla’s Self-Driving Promises
Scientists May Have Gotten Duped Into Thinking Collectible Figurine Was Ultra-Rare Shark
Some eager marine biologists thought they’d made a highly unusual discovery: an elusive goblin shark, spotted for the first time in the Mediterranean Sea. But those claims now seem to be swimming with the fishes. Why? Because their rare specimen could be no more than a prankster’s plastic figurine. The researchers’ paper on the discovery,… Continue reading Scientists May Have Gotten Duped Into Thinking Collectible Figurine Was Ultra-Rare Shark