Author: The Conversation

The European Space Agency has given the go-ahead for initial work on a mission to visit an asteroid called (99942) Apophis. If approved at a key meeting next year, the robotic spacecraft, known as the Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety (Ramses), will rendezvous with the asteroid in February 2029. Apophis is 340 metres wide, about the same as the height of the Empire State Building. If it were to hit Earth, it would cause wholesale destruction hundreds of miles from its impact site. The energy released would equal that from tens or hundreds of nuclear weapons, depending on the yield of the device.…

Have you ever thought of an ankle sprain as a brain injury? Most people probably wouldn’t. However, we are starting to understand how the brain is constantly adapting, known as plasticity. Even though the damage of an ankle sprain happens at the ankle, there may also be some changes going on in the brain to how it well it senses pain or movement. One of our doctoral students, Ashley Marchant, has shown something similar happens when we change how much weight (or load) we put on the muscles of the lower limb. The closer the load is to normal earth gravity, the…

Artificial intelligence-generated summaries of scientific papers make complex information more understandable for the public compared with human-written summaries, according to my recent paper published in PNAS Nexus. AI-generated summaries not only improved public comprehension of science but also enhanced how people perceived scientists. I used a popular large language model, GPT-4 by OpenAI, to create simple summaries of scientific papers; this kind of text is often called a significance statement. The AI-generated summaries used simpler language – they were easier to read according to a readability index and used more common words, like “job” instead of “occupation” – than summaries written by…

Life in the digital world can be rewarding. It’s convenient to order groceries for pickup, share photographs or music, and keep in touch with family and friends, no matter the distance. However, it can also be draining. The feeling of being constantly “on” and productive has driven people to reconsider their balance in the saturated digital world. More than 70% of American adults are concerned about how technology affects their mental health and personal relationships. This worry is reinforced through media that point to people’s unhealthy habits with social media and phones. What to do? There is a fuzzy line between healthy…

If you visit a commercial mining operation anywhere in the world today, some sights and sounds – workers descending in elevators to underground shafts, the roar of truck engines – will be much the same as they have been for decades. But, like many other industries, mining is changing. Digital mining involves the use of digital technologies to make mining operations more efficient, safer, and sustainable. This industry emerged about a decade ago and has developed quickly over the past few years. This uptick is the result of recent advances in sensor technology, data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI), including…

Last week, the tragic news broke that US teenager Sewell Seltzer III took his own life after forming a deep emotional attachment to an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot on the Character.AI website. As his relationship with the companion AI became increasingly intense, the 14-year-old began withdrawing from family and friends and was getting in trouble at school. In a lawsuit filed against Character.AI by the boy’s mother, chat transcripts show intimate and often highly sexual conversations between Sewell and the chatbot Dany, modelled on the Game of Thrones character Danaerys Targaryen. They discussed crime and suicide, and the chatbot used phrases such as…

In 2014, the British philosopher Nick Bostrom published a book about the future of artificial intelligence (AI) with the ominous title Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. It proved highly influential in promoting the idea that advanced AI systems – “superintelligences” more capable than humans – might one day take over the world and destroy humanity. A decade later, OpenAI boss Sam Altman says superintelligence may only be “a few thousand days” away. A year ago, Altman’s OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever set up a team within the company to focus on “safe superintelligence”, but he and his team have now raised a billion…

It is difficult to spend any time on the internet these days without being inundated with advertisements. Not all advertising is bad – especially if it saves you money and targets your interests. But you may have noticed as you’ve scrolled through social media or read the news online recently that the ads you see are often impersonal and irrelevant to your interests. They are also sometimes dangerous, promoting harmful and illegal medical products. All of this goes against the common assumption that technological advancements combined with increased personal data collection would lead to a better online experience for people. Instead,…

South Africa is immersed in a “just energy transition” from a fossil fuel-based energy system to a cleaner, low-carbon energy system. This new system will be based primarily on renewable energy, such as solar, wind and green hydrogen. Such a transition is deeply contested. Those with direct and indirect commercial interests in the coal industry will defend their stake. On the other hand, those who could gain from a transition will aim to entrench their new interests in the renewable energy sector. Then there are those who argue that gas is a reasonable compromise between the need to decarbonise and the need to…

OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company that developed the popular ChatGPT chatbot and the text-to-art program Dall-E, is at a crossroads. On Oct. 2, 2024, it announced that it had obtained US$6.6 billion in new funding from investors and that the business was worth an estimated $157 billion – making it only the second startup ever to be valued at over $100 billion. Unlike other big tech companies, OpenAI is a nonprofit with a for-profit subsidiary that is overseen by a nonprofit board of directors. Since its founding in 2015, OpenAI’s official mission has been “to build artificial general intelligence (AGI) that is safe and benefits all of humanity.”…