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Apr 24, 2024

Seeding the Stars

Posted by in categories: engineering, environmental, media & arts, space

The galaxy is a vast place with billions of potential new worlds for humanity to colonize, but interstellar space is so enormous that reaching even the nearest stars and planets by spaceship would take decades at best, and maybe many centuries. Even on arrival terraforming those barren planets would take just as long.

Two options for overcoming the immensity of space and time are the Seed Ship and the Data Ship, automated vessels able to colonize the worlds for us. We will examine those today, their advantages, limitations, and misconceptions, and variations of them we might use to seed the stars.
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Support us on Subscribestar: https://www.subscribestar.com/isaac-a… Group: / 1,583,992,725,237,264 Reddit: / isaacarthur Twitter: / isaac_a_arthur on Twitter and RT our future content. SFIA Discord Server: / discord Listen or Download the audio of this episode from Soundcloud: Episode’s Audio-only version: / seeding-the-stars Episode’s Narration-only version: / seeding-the-stars-narration-only Credits: Seeding the Stars Episode 166, Season 4 E52 Writers: Isaac Arthur Editors: Alex Chamak A.T. Long Cooper de Ruiter D. Hemanshi Daniel McNamara Darius Said Edward Nardella Evan Schultheis Keith Blockus Mark Warburton Matthew Acker Safia Postgate Stuart Graham https://beyondnerva.wordpress.com Sigmund Kopperud Producer: Isaac Arthur Cover Artist: Jakub Grygier https://www.artstation.com/jakub_grygier Graphics Team: Bryan Versteeg http://spacehabs.com Darth Biomech https://www.artstation.com/darth_biomech Fishy Tree https://www.deviantart.com/fishytree/ Jarred Eagley Jeremy Jozwik https://www.artstation.com/zeuxis_of_… Justin Dixon LegionTech Studios Mihail Yordanov Sam McNamara Serigio Botero https://www.artstation.com/sboterod?f… SpaceResourcesCGI Audio Editing Eric Schneider Narrator: Isaac Arthur Music Manager: Luca DeRosa — lucaderosa2@live.com Music: Markus Junnikkala, “Plotting a Course” https://www.markusjunnikkala.com/ Paradox Interactive, Andreas Waldetoft, “Dark Minds” https://www.paradoxplaza.com Lombus, “Hydrogen Sonata” https://lombus.bandcamp.com Paradox Interactive, “In Search of Life” https://www.paradoxplaza.com Serena Elis, “Between the Space” / serenaelis Taras Harkavyi, “Alpha-and-…” https://www.discogs.com/artist/625697… Paradox Interactive, Andreas Waldetoft, “The Birth of a Star” https://www.paradoxplaza.com Ayreon, “The Theory of Everything, Part 1″ / @arjenalucassen.
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Apr 21, 2024

Lights, camera, algorithm: How artificial intelligence is being used to make films

Posted by in categories: information science, media & arts, robotics/AI

The “it” Mr Woodman is referring to is Sora, a new text-to-video AI model from OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research organisation behind viral chatbot ChatGPT.

Instead of using their broad technical skills in filmmaking, such as animation, to overcome obstacles in the process, Mr Woodman and his team relied only on the model to generate footage for them, shot by shot.

“We just continued generating and it was almost like post-production and production in the same breath,” says Patrick Cederberg, who also worked on the project.

Apr 15, 2024

How Spotify AI plans to know what’s going on inside your head to help you find new music

Posted by in categories: habitats, information science, media & arts, robotics/AI

The streaming audio giant’s suite of recommendation tools has grown over the years: Spotify Home feed, Discover Weekly, Blend, Daylist, and Made for You Mixes. And in recent years, there have been signs that it is working. According to data released by Spotify at its 2022 Investor Day, artist discoveries every month on Spotify had reached 22 billion, up from 10 billion in 2018, “and we’re nowhere near done,” the company stated at that time.

Over the past decade or more, Spotify has been investing in AI and, in particular, in machine learning. Its recently launched AI DJ may be its biggest bet yet that technology will allow subscribers to better personalize listening sessions and discover new music. The AI DJ mimics the vibe of radio by announcing the names of songs and lead-in to tracks, something aimed in part to help ease listeners into extending out of their comfort zones. An existing pain point for AI algorithms — which can be excellent at giving listeners what it knows they already like — is anticipating when you want to break out of that comfort zone.

Apr 14, 2024

Stargates: We are fascinated by portals between worlds

Posted by in categories: cosmology, media & arts

Gateways between stars, wormholes through the fabric of reality, but could these be real, and if so, what would the civilizations using them be like?
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Apr 9, 2024

AI Could Explain Why We’re Not Meeting Any Aliens, Wild Study Proposes

Posted by in categories: alien life, existential risks, finance, media & arts, robotics/AI, transportation

Artificial Intelligence is making its presence felt in thousands of different ways. It helps scientists make sense of vast troves of data; it helps detect financial fraud; it drives our cars; it feeds us music suggestions; its chatbots drive us crazy. And it’s only getting started.

Are we capable of understanding how quickly AI will continue to develop? And if the answer is no, does that constitute the Great Filter?

The Fermi Paradox is the discrepancy between the apparent high likelihood of advanced civilizations existing and the total lack of evidence that they do exist. Many solutions have been proposed for why the discrepancy exists. One of the ideas is the ‘Great Filter.’

Apr 8, 2024

A physicist uses X-rays to rescue old music recordings

Posted by in categories: computing, engineering, media & arts, nanotechnology

Researchers are developing a technique that uses the special synchrotron X-ray light from the Swiss Light Source SLS to non-destructively digitize recordings from high-value historic audio tapes—including treasures from the Montreux Jazz Festival archive, such as a rare recording of the King of the Blues, B.B. King.

Magnetic tapes have almost completely disappeared from our lives and now only enjoy a nostalgic niche existence. However, significant quantities of these analog are still stored in the archives of sound studios, radio and TV stations, museums, and private collections worldwide. Digitizing these tapes is an ongoing challenge as well as a race against time, as the tapes degrade and eventually become unplayable.

Sebastian Gliga, physicist at PSI and expert in nanomagnetism, and his team are developing a method to non-destructively digitize degraded audio tapes in the highest quality using X-ray light. To achieve this goal, they have been collaborating with the Swiss National Sound Archives, which has produced custom-made reference recordings and provided audio engineering know-how. Now, a partnership with the Montreux Jazz Digital Project will help to further develop and test the method.

Apr 6, 2024

Exploring the Brain: from Synapses to Cognition

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing, media & arts, neuroscience

The human brain is a remarkably complex organ, consisting of billions of interconnected neurons. It can be divided into distinct regions, each with specific functions, such as memory and decision-making. Cognition, which includes processes like perception, memory, language, and problem-solving, is all orchestrated by the brain. It’s through these cognitive processes that we perceive and interact with the world around us.

What is special about the structure of the brain compared to other organs? What is the principled way of understanding how the brain works? How does the brain contribute to our sense of Self? Is it possible to compare the brain with the computer? Is it possible to enhance the way that the brain works? What is the brain-basis of language?

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Apr 4, 2024

New focused approach can help untangle messy quantum scrambling problems

Posted by in categories: media & arts, quantum physics

The world is a cluttered, noisy place, and the ability to effectively focus is a valuable skill. For example, at a bustling party, the clatter of cutlery, the conversations, the music, the scratching of your shirt tag and almost everything else must fade into the background for you to focus on finding familiar faces or giving the person next to you your undivided attention.

Mar 31, 2024

Multi-Planetary Empires

Posted by in categories: media & arts, space

One day humanity may settle countless worlds, but could any nation hope to govern multiple planets or even star systems?
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Mar 31, 2024

The Future Is Nearer with Ray Kurzweil

Posted by in categories: biological, media & arts, Ray Kurzweil, robotics/AI, singularity

Unlike me, Kurzweil has been embracing AI for decades. In his 2005 book, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, Kurzweil made the bold prediction that AI would expand human intelligence exponentially, changing life as we know it. He wasn’t wrong. Now in his 70s, Kurzweil is upping the ante in his newest book, The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI, revisiting his prediction of the melding of human and machine, with 20 additional years of data showing the exponential rate of technological advancement. It’s a fascinating look at the future and the hope for a better world.

Kurzweil has long been recognized as a great thinker. The son of a musician father and visual artist mother, he grew up in New York City and at a young age became enamored with computers, writing his first computer program at the age of 15.

While at MIT, earning a degree in computer science and literature, Kurzweil started a company that created a computer program to match high school students with colleges. In the ensuing years, he went on to found (and sell) multiple technology-fueled companies and inventions, including the first reading machine for the blind and the first music synthesizer capable of re-creating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments (inspired by meeting Stevie Wonder). He has authored 11 books.

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