Author: The Conversation

Imagine you’re driving to work on a rainy day, when a distracted, reckless driver hits your car out of nowhere. With a “boom,” an air bag deploys faster than you can blink your eyes to save your life. That air bag deployed rapidly thanks to an energetic material called sodium azide, which generates nitrogen gas during a chemical reaction to inflate your airbag. But what’s an energetic material? Energetic materials include propellants, pyrotechnics, fuels and explosives, and they’re used in all sorts of settings. Uses of energetic materials include flares, matches, solid rocket boosters, gun propellants, hot thermite welding used to fuse materials together, fireworks and the explosive special effects in your favorite…

I used to love rocket launches when I was younger. During every launch, I imagined what it would feel like to be an astronaut sitting in the spacecraft, listening to that final countdown and then feeling multiple gees push me up through the atmosphere and away from our blue marble. But as I learned more about the severe limitations of human spaceflight, I turned my attention to the oldest and most accessible form of space exploration: the science of astronomy. Since 2019, I’ve watched my unencumbered enthusiasm for rocket launches soften to tepid interest, and finally sour to outright dread. The corporate…

In recent days, the “right to disconnect” has entered Australia’s legislative agenda. It refers to employees’ rights to refuse unreasonable after-hours contact from their employer. In a work landscape where employees are constantly available after hours thanks to smartphones and portable devices, and employers are competing in global markets and operating on tight deadlines, concerns about disconnecting from work are valid on both sides. Artificial intelligence (AI) assistants in the workplace are touted as a potential solution to this “availability creep”. But they may not be the silver bullet, despite what big tech wants us to think. A crushing digital debt…

Putting a computer inside someone’s brain used to feel like the edge of science fiction. Today, it’s a reality. Academic and commercial groups are testing “brain-computer interface” devices to enable people with disabilities to function more independently. Yet Elon Musk’s company, Neuralink, has put this technology front and center in debates about safety, ethics and neuroscience. In January 2024, Musk announced that Neuralink implanted its first chip in a human subject’s brain. The Conversation reached out to two scholars at the University of Washington School of Medicine – Nancy Jecker, a bioethicst, and Andrew Ko, a neurosurgeon who implants brain chip devices – for their thoughts…

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools aimed at the general public, such as ChatGPT, Bard, CoPilot and Dall-E have incredible potential to be used for good. The benefits range from an enhanced ability by doctors to diagnose disease, to expanding access to professional and academic expertise. But those with criminal intentions could also exploit and subvert these technologies, posing a threat to ordinary citizens. Criminals are even creating their own AI chatbots, to support hacking and scams. AI’s potential for wide-ranging risks and threats is underlined by the publication of the UK government’s Generative AI Framework and the National Cyber Security Centre’s guidance on the potential…

The excitement of auto racing comes from split-second decisions and daring passes by fearless drivers. Imagine that scene, but without the driver – the car alone, guided by the invisible hand of artificial intelligence. Can the rush of racing unfold without a driver steering the course? It turns out that it can. Enter autonomous racing, a field that’s not just about high-speed competition but also pushing the boundaries of what autonomous vehicles can achieve and improving their safety. Over a century ago, at the dawn of automobiles, as society shifted from horse-drawn to motor-powered vehicles, there was public doubt about the safety…

The New York Times’ (NYT) legal proceedings against OpenAI and Microsoft have opened a new frontier in the ongoing legal challenges brought on by the use of copyrighted data to “train”, or improve generative AI. There are already a variety of lawsuits against AI companies, including one brought by Getty Images against StabilityAI, which makes the Stable Diffusion online text-to-image generator. Authors George R.R. Martin and John Grisham have also brought legal cases against ChatGPT owner OpenAI over copyright claims. But the NYT case is not “more of the same” because it throws interesting new arguments into the mix. The legal action…

China’s national champions for computer chip – or semiconductor – design and manufacturing, HiSilicon and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), are making waves in Washington. SMIC was long considered a laggard. Despite being the recipient of billions of dollars from the Chinese government since its founding in 2000, it remained far from the technological frontier. But that perception — and the self-assurance it gave the US — is changing. In August 2023, Huawei launched its high-end Huawei Mate 60 smartphone. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (an American think tank based in Washington DC), the launch “surprised the…

Sam Altman, chief executive of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, is reportedly trying to find up to US$7 trillion of investment to manufacture the enormous volumes of computer chips he believes the world needs to run artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Altman also recently said the world will need more energy in the AI-saturated future he envisions – so much more that some kind of technological breakthrough like nuclear fusion may be required. Altman clearly has big plans for his company’s technology, but is the future of AI really this rosy? As a long-time “artificial intelligence” researcher, I have my doubts. Today’s AI systems – particularly generative AI…

NASA’s space shuttle operated in low-Earth orbit for 30 years before its retirement in 2011. However, the US space agency’s replacement for this vehicle, Orion, returned to the conical capsule design familiar from the Apollo missions. This was because NASA intended that this newer craft be used for exploring targets in deep space, such as the Moon. But in recent years, we have seen a return of the spaceplane design. Since 2010, the US Space Force (and formerly the US Air Force) has been launching a robotic spaceplane called the X-37B into low Earth orbit on classified missions. China has its own military spaceplane called Shenlong.…