All posts tagged: forms

Amazon reportedly forms a new agentic AI group

Amazon reportedly forms a new agentic AI group

Published by skeptic

Amazon has formed a new group within AWS dedicated to creating AI agents, systems that help people automate parts of their lives, Reuters reported on Tuesday. In an email to staff seen by Reuters, AWS CEO Matt Garman said agentic AI has the potential to be “the next multi-billion business for AWS.” A longtime AWS executive who previously led the company’s AI and data teams, Swami Sivasubramanian, will reportedly lead the new agentic AI group. Amazon seems to be the latest company to join the tech industry’s shift toward AI agents. Last week, Amazon showed off some agentic capabilities that would be coming to Alexa+, an updated version of the company’s consumer voice assistant. In demoes, Alexa+ was able to automatically book Ubers, navigate websites, and complete other tasks that humans would usually do themselves. Amazon’s AWS unit may also be interested in developing enterprise agents, competing with Salesforce and Microsoft to create AI systems that can automate work-related tasks for customers. Source link

‘Mirror life forms’ may sound like science fiction, but scientists warn they could be deadly to humans and destroy the environment

‘Mirror life forms’ may sound like science fiction, but scientists warn they could be deadly to humans and destroy the environment

Published by skeptic

When you look in a mirror, the reflection is fundamentally you, but with a perfect reversal of all your features. This illustrates a phenomenon we also see in the tiny world of molecules. Some molecules exist as mirror images of themselves, known as “enantiomers”, that can’t be superimposed on one another. This concept is known as chirality, or “handedness”. It’s important because mirror images of the same molecules can have completely different effects and functions in biology. Writing in the journal Science, a group of 40 renowned scientists have warned that within the next decade, it may be possible to create entire mirror-image life forms made up of these enantiomers – specifically, microbial life such as bacteria. This poses real dangers, they argue. “Mirror bacteria” could evade people’s immune systems, they suggest, causing deadly infections. Such infections could also lead to a substantial proportion of plant and animal species being displaced, completely disrupting the environment. Mirror-image molecules are structurally identical, just as your left and right hands are structurally identical and can perform exactly the …

New forms of animals made by fusing several comb jellies together

New forms of animals made by fusing several comb jellies together

Published by skeptic

A warty comb jelly (Mnemiopsis leidyi) Andrey Nekrasov / Alamy Stock Photo It may be the closest scientists have yet come to creating Frankenstein’s monster. Living pieces of dozens of individual animals known as comb jellies have been fused together to create an array of new forms that, in some cases, survived for more than a week. These chimeric animals are more than just physically connected bits of different individuals, says Leonid Moroz at the University of Florida. Their nervous systems also fuse together, creating entities that heand his colleague Tigran Norekian, also at the University of Florida, call… Source link

Elon Musk Could Have US Citizenship Revoked If He Lied on Immigration Forms

Elon Musk Could Have US Citizenship Revoked If He Lied on Immigration Forms

Published by skeptic

These questions, says immigration lawyer Ira Kurzban, are asked to see whether an applicant obtained their residence validly, a prerequisite for citizenship. US immigration authorities have, he says, become “very exacting” on this point over the past 10 years. The US Citizenship and Immigration Service didn’t respond to an inquiry about whether forms used by its predecessor agency, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, asked exactly these questions at the time Musk would have been using them, but experts say he would have been asked substantively similar questions, as the relevant law hasn’t changed. “Those grounds of deportability have been around for decades,” says Yale-Loehr, “and the forms back then probably had similar or identical questions.” An immigrant who makes misrepresentations as part of the naturalization process can also face criminal exposure: Under US federal law, making a false statement to or concealing a material fact from the government carries a potential penalty of five years in prison. Greg Siskind, a leading immigration attorney, doesn’t disagree that the law as written could expose someone who lied …

NASA Satellite Inspects Strange-Looking Cloud That Always Forms in Same Spot

NASA Satellite Inspects Strange-Looking Cloud That Always Forms in Same Spot

Published by José

Okay, that’s a weird one. Pet Names A NASA observation satellite has imaged an oddly-shaped cloud hovering above the Strath-Taieri region in southeastern New Zealand. A satellite image shared by the space agency and taken on September 7 shows an unusual, elongated cloud nestled along a rocky mountain range. The strange-looking cloud formation often occurs in the same spot, leading locals to dub it the “Taieri Pet.” Though it sounds like alien sci-fi, there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation: the peculiar cloud is an altocumulus standing lenticular cloud (ASLC), according to NASA, which is created when winds encounter a steep barrier such as a mountain range. Winds get swept up, creating a standing wave while air at the crest of the wave cools down enough to form water vapor, which condenses into clouds. “As the cloud forms on the crest of this wave, it remains almost stationary in the sky and is shaped by the strong winds blowing through it,” explained New Zealand’s MetService meteorologist John Law in a NASA statement. Blowing Clouds Other ASLC clouds can …

How I Send Google Forms Data to Google Sheets for Powerful Analysis

How I Send Google Forms Data to Google Sheets for Powerful Analysis

Published by skeptic

Google Forms is excellent for recording responses from a large group of people, but analyzing that data can be cumbersome. For easier data manipulation and more in-depth analysis, I prefer transferring Google Forms data to a Google Sheets spreadsheet. Here’s how I do that. Linking a Google Form to a Google Sheets Spreadsheet By linking a form to a sheet, I can automatically collect all responses in a structured format. Each question from the form shows up as a column in the spreadsheet, and every response gets recorded in a new row. The best part is that this setup requires no manual effort from me apart from linking, and the sheet updates in real-time on its own. Here’s how you can link a Google Form to a Google Sheets spreadsheet: Navigate to Google Forms in your browser. Create a new form or open an existing one that you want to link to the spreadsheet. Go to the Responses tab in your form. Click Link to Sheets. Select Create a new spreadsheet. Enter a name for …

Two distinct forms of isolation predict belief in conspiracy theories

Two distinct forms of isolation predict belief in conspiracy theories

Published by José

A recent study published in the Journal of Individual Differences has shed light on the psychological factors influencing conspiracy thinking. The research found that existential isolation and alienation are both significant predictors of conspiracy beliefs. However, loneliness did not have a significant impact on such beliefs. Conspiracy theorists are frequently stereotyped as isolated individuals, often depicted as reclusive figures wearing “tinfoil hats.” But this image has evolved significantly, with contemporary research recognizing that conspiracy beliefs are no longer fringe phenomena but are prevalent across various social groups and have considerable influence on major sociopolitical movements. Recent academic focus has explored various psychological aspects of conspiracy beliefs. Previous studies have identified three main motivational needs — epistemic, existential, and social — that conspiracy theories might satisfy. Epistemic needs relate to the desire for knowledge and certainty; existential needs involve a sense of control and security; and social needs include the desire for uniqueness and social standing. Despite these insights, a significant gap remained in understanding how different forms of subjective interpersonal isolation, like loneliness, existential isolation, …

Study reveals distinct connections between types of conspiracy beliefs and forms of antisemitism

Study reveals distinct connections between types of conspiracy beliefs and forms of antisemitism

Published by José

Recent research has found a strong connection between belief in various conspiracy theories and antisemitism in the United Kingdom. This study, detailed in the journal Contemporary Jewry, found that antisemitic attitudes toward Jewish individuals are strongly linked to beliefs in personal well-being conspiracies. Meanwhile, antisemitic views related to the State of Israel and its supporters correlate more with theories about governmental wrongdoing. The correlation between antisemitism and conspiracy beliefs is not new and has been documented in historical studies. However, limited research has explored how different types of conspiracy beliefs specifically relate to different types of antisemitic attitudes, which this study seeks to address using comprehensive data analysis techniques. The research utilized a sample of 1,722 adults drawn from YouGov’s database, which includes a wide range of individuals across the UK. This approach allowed for a balanced and representative sample reflective of the broader population. The data collection occurred online, integrating the survey into YouGov’s regular political omnibus polling, which is designed to capture a snapshot of public opinion at regular intervals. The survey was …

Nina Jankowicz Forms New Group to Defend Disinformation Research

Nina Jankowicz Forms New Group to Defend Disinformation Research

Published by skeptic

Two years ago, Nina Jankowicz briefly led an agency at the Department of Homeland Security created to fight disinformation — the establishment of which provoked a political and legal battle over the government’s role in policing lies and other harmful content online that continues to reverberate. Now she has re-entered the fray with a new nonprofit organization intended to fight what she and others have described as a coordinated campaign by conservatives and others to undermine researchers, like her, who study the sources of disinformation. Already a lightning rod for critics of her work on the subject, Ms. Jankowicz inaugurated the organization with a letter accusing three Republican committee chairmen in the House of Representatives of abusing their subpoena powers to silence think tanks and universities that expose the sources of disinformation. “These tactics echo the dark days of McCarthyism, but with a frightening 21st-century twist,” she wrote in the letter on Monday with the organization’s co-founder Carlos Álvarez-Aranyos, a public-relations consultant who in 2020 was involved in efforts to defend the integrity of the …

The Forms of the Tools | Henning Wagenbreth

The Forms of the Tools | Henning Wagenbreth

Published by skeptic

I’ve had the pleasure of working with the artist Henning Wagenbreth for a few decades now, having been introduced to his work through a group of German illustrators and designers who had moved to New York in the 1990s. There was a small apartment in Greenpoint, dubbed “The German Embassy,” where recent design and art school graduates from Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, and other German cities would stay until they found more permanent housing. They’d share their friends’ work, and I first saw Henning’s through the enthusiasms of this crowd, though he never did move to New York. In the last few years, Wagenbreth has given the Review portraits—highly stylized, flat but never cold—of Céline, Baudelaire, Walter de la Mare, and Siegfried Kracauer. I love his sense of poster and type design, which made him a natural choice when it came time to commission someone to design the cover for our Spring Books Issue. He sent us sixteen preliminary sketches, which might be a record, ranging from bears emerging from hibernation to pollen-filled skies, flung-open windows, …