Author: The Conversation

A month ago South Africans heard some hard truths about the state of the power utility, Eskom, from the outgoing CEO André de Ruyter. In an interview broadcast on television, De Ruyter made accusations about the role of criminal gangs as well as politicians in corruption that’s crippled the utility. The interview triggered his immediate departure  – he was due to leave some weeks later – as the ruling African National Congress rounded on him. But, in my view, South Africans – particularly the new Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa – would be well advised to look more carefully at what De Ruyter said, rather…

The future of Africa’s energy sector is getting increasing attention from policymakers and the private sector. As demand for energy rises, current energy systems must grow rapidly to meet it. This must be done in reliable, resilient and affordable ways – while “staying the course” of climate compatibility and ensuring access for all. Internationally, the future of energy systems has been a hotly debated topic ever since the link between fossil fuel combustion and the negative impacts of climate change became widely known. Energy transitions – pathways to shift from fossil fuels to cleaner forms of energy – have long been debated…

Librarians are the curators of creativity. They collect success stories and share it with the world. Traditionally, the success was from published authors, which libraries shared with the local community. More recently, the model has been flipped: libraries have started to collect from the local community to share with everyone. In academic libraries, this is best seen in the work of repository librarians. They collect not only the published output of researchers but also all the digital ephemera that might be created through the research process: the data, the software, the code. The movement that makes all the ingredients of…

Several major airlines have pledged to reach net-zero carbon emissions by midcentury to fight climate change. It’s an ambitious goal that will require an enormous ramp-up in sustainable aviation fuels, but that alone won’t be enough, our latest research shows. The idea of jetliners running solely on fuel made from used cooking oil from restaurants or corn stalks might seem futuristic, but it’s not that far away. Airlines are already experimenting with sustainable aviation fuels, including biofuels made from agriculture residues, trees, corn and used cooking oil, and synthetic fuels made with captured carbon and green hydrogen. United Airlines, which has been using a blend of used oil or waste fat…

Human foibles and a moving target The reason to regulate AI is not because the technology is out of control, but because human imagination is out of proportion. Gushing media coverage has fueled irrational beliefs about AI’s abilities and consciousness. Such beliefs build on “automation bias” or the tendency to let your guard down when machines are performing a task. An example is reduced vigilance among pilots when their aircraft is flying on autopilot. Numerous studies in my lab have shown that when a machine, rather than a human, is identified as a source of interaction, it triggers a mental shortcut in the minds…

When we asked GPT-3, an extremely powerful and popular artificial intelligence language system, whether you’d be more likely to use a paper map or a stone to fan life into coals for a barbecue, it preferred the stone. To smooth your wrinkled skirt, would you grab a warm thermos or a hairpin? GPT-3 suggested the hairpin. And if you need to cover your hair for work in a fast-food restaurant, which would work better, a paper sandwich wrapper or a hamburger bun? GPT-3 went for the bun. Why does GPT-3 make those choices when most people choose the alternative? Because GPT-3…

Many futuristic novels and films have explored what the world might look like without water. But water scarcity isn’t a problem for the far-off future: it’s already here. In its 2021 report UN Water outlined the scale of the crisis: 2.3 billion people live in water-stressed countries and 733 million of those people are in “high and critically water-stressed countries”. In 2018 Cape Town, where I live and conduct my research, residents found themselves staring down “day zero”, when household water supplies would run dry. Good rains spared the South African city, but now other parts of the country face similarly dire predictions of…

Is it time to put the brakes on the development of artificial intelligence (AI)? If you’ve quietly asked yourself that question, you’re not alone. In the past week, a host of AI luminaries signed an open letter calling for a six-month pause on the development of more powerful models than GPT-4; European researchers called for tighter AI regulations; and long-time AI researcher and critic Eliezer Yudkowsky demanded a complete shutdown of AI development in the pages of TIME magazine. Meanwhile, the industry shows no sign of slowing down. In March, a senior AI executive at Microsoft reportedly spoke of “very, very high” pressure from chief executive Satya Nadella to…

If all goes to plan, sometime in November 2024, NASA’s newly announced Artemis II crew – Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen – will cram themselves into their Orion space capsule and begin their final checks for launch. As they sit perched atop the gargantuan Space Launch System (SLS) rocket at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, waiting for the inferno beneath them to light, the world will hold its breath. Should they survive the violence of that ignition and the journey into Earth orbit, an adventure the likes of which we haven’t seen in more than half a century will await…

New telescopes with unprecedented sensitivity and resolution are being unveiled around the world – and beyond. Among them are the Giant Magellan Telescope under construction in Chile, and the James Webb Space Telescope, which is parked a million and a half kilometres out in space. This means there is a wealth of data available to scientists that simply wasn’t there before. The raw data off just a single observation from the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa’s Northern Cape province can measure a terabyte. That’s enough to fill a laptop computer’s hard drive. MeerKAT is an array of 64 large antenna dishes. It uses radio signals from…