Technical and economic changes in the semiconductor industry threaten to stifle U.S. development of the next generation of high-performance computers, warns a new report from the National Research Council.

With Moore’s Law and the scaling of transistors waning, the industry is turning to chip designs that don’t work for the supercomputing that’s used in massive simulations. The report focuses on defense use in modeling the physics of nuclear weapons, but the changes also would affect simulations including those used for climate modeling and weather forecasting.

The National Nuclear Security Administration, responsible for the U.S. nuclear stockpile, “needs to fundamentally rethink its advanced computing research, engineering, acquisition, deployment, and partnership strategy,” warns the report.

NNSA has developed massive and sophisticated codes that run on supercomputers to verify the continued security and performance of nuclear weapons designed decades ago. Keeping them up to date requires new generations of supercomputers that can run more complex models faster than the months required on today’s machines. But industry, which has shelled out big bucks for state-of-the-art fabs, is targeting big, profitable markets like cloud computing.

Nuclear weapons designers used computers to understand the physics of nuclear weapons long before the U.S. stopped underground nuclear testing in 1992. Since then, powerful computer models have been their primary tools for maintaining the country’s nuclear capability via NNSA’s Stockpile Stewardship program.

Federal spending on supercomputers for the weapons program complemented industry investment in chip production for decades. NNSA’s most powerful machine currently in operation is the Frontier computer, which began operation last year at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in Tennessee. It can perform 1018 (a quintillion) floating-point operations per second (flops) making it the first “exascale” computer. Custom-built by Cray, it can, in theory, perform 2 exaflops. Cray is building another exascale computer that will be deployed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, in New Mexico.

But those easy days are over, says Kathy Yelick of the University of California at Berkeley. “The NNSA has had a really successful run over the last 30 years with a combination of high-end computing facilities and expertise in computational science that make its labs a critical national resource,” the chair of the panel that wrote the NRC report said at a 14 April online press conference. In addition to challenges in technology, she says, “the rapidly evolving geopolitical situation...reinforces the need for computing leadership as an element of deterrence.”

Industry trends are worrying. Most semiconductor manufacturing has moved outside the United States. Only a single domestic developer of supercomputers remains since the 2019 Hewlett Packard Enterprise purchase of Cray. Industry is developing technology for high-volume markets like cloud computing, which won’t transfer easily to the much smaller supercomputing market. The hot technology frontiers are artificial intelligence and quantum computing.

“Business as usual will not be adequate” for NNSA, the report says. The agency needs an aggressive road map to develop new computing technology. The report urges stressing “high-risk, high-reward research” in math and computer science “to cultivate radical innovation.” The report also says both artificial intelligence and quantum computing have promise and deserve serious investigation, but it warns that neither is likely to replace the massive computation essential to traditional simulations.

NNSA now plans to replace its new exascale computers with a new, higher-capacity system based at Los Alamos in four to five years, says Rob Neely, program director for advanced simulation and computing at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in California. A second such system will follow around 2030 at Livermore. “Early discussions with vendors about their road maps have begun,” Neely says. “We are also already well underway in implementing some of the NAS recommendations at LLNL, in particular by increasing our partnerships with cloud providers.” Livermore and Amazon Cloud Web Services are exploring common interests in cloud and high-performance computing technology.

What happens next “will depend a lot on where overall technology trends are headed in that time frame, and how well we can adapt our codes to those changes without sacrificing mission needs,” says Neely. He expects AI and the cloud to influence the post-exascale systems—if NNSA can adapt its codes to the new technology. That’s a big if. Having just spent a decade adapting its codes to GPUs, the NNSA brain trust is “not anxious to divest from the GPU accelerated approach just yet.”

Both NNSA and the authors of the report think quantum computing is farther off. “They will not replace classical computers for our primary mission of large, complex, and integrated weapons design codes anytime in the next 10 to 15 years,” says Neely.

The overall concerns are not just huge and highly specialized weapons codes. A government program identified more than 20 applications requiring exascale computing—many of which would benefit from even larger scales.

Source

In a blog post today, Google CEO Sundar Pichai stated that Brain and DeepMind will now be one group, called Google DeepMind. He stated:

Their collective accomplishments in AI over the last decade span AlphaGo, Transformers, word2vec, WaveNet, AlphaFold, sequence to sequence models, distillation, deep reinforcement learning, and distributed systems and software frameworks like TensorFlow and JAX for expressing, training and deploying large scale ML models.

Combining all this talent into one focused team, backed by the computational resources of Google, will significantly accelerate our progress in AI.

Demis Hassabis, the leader of DeepMind, will now be the CEO of Google DeepMind. Jeff Dean, the head of the now former Google AI division, will now be Google’s Chief Scientist and will report to Pichai.

Google has been playing catch up lately to Microsoft in terms of AI innovations. In March, it announced its chatbot AI called Bard. However, its launch was not without controversy, and this week a new report claimed that Google rushed Bard's public launch against the objections of some employees, including many of its AI ethical team. Google is also working on its own AI art and video generators.

Google merges its two AI teams, Brain and DeepMind, to form Google DeepMind

The game's official website also posted an article that talks about the technical leaps it is taking, and with it comes some truly steep PC system requirements.

The blog post states that Immortals of Aveum will be one of the first games released that will use Epic's Unreal Engine 5.1. That means it will be using features like its Nanite system for more detailed in-game objects and Lumen for more realistic lighting effects. The game's environments will be huge and also interactive. The blog post states:

On your travels through Aveum you’ll encounter structures and statues that reach into the sky, and they’re not just for show; with the power of your sigil, you’ll be able to reform the world around you to create new paths to traverse and new ways to explore. Giant statues made of ancient stone will move with life under the guidance of your hand. Overgrowth that wrapped itself around mountains eons ago will untangle and reach out at your will.

The blog also talks about one of the sections of the game that will likely showcase its graphics. It quotes its Chief Technology Officer Mark Maratea as saying:

“Some of the ideas the team would throw out there,” Mark says, “we just wouldn’t have been able to do it, because we didn’t have the technology. ‘Hey let’s have a 400-foot walking mech level, in the ocean, and we can have the mech come under attack from airships, and you’re fighting inside the mech, and you’re fighting on top of the mech, and maybe you almost fall off the mech at one point?’—and it would be like, ‘How would we ever make that a reality?’ But that level is in the game. And we hope players think it looks amazing.”

So how much will you have to upgrade your PC to get the most out of Immortals of Aveum? We are going to take a shot in the dark and say, "A lot".

The blog post does add that these specs are not 100 percent final and that the development team will be "optimizing the game all the way up to launch". Still, these are some pretty high specs for any PC game,

You can pre-order the game now for the PC on Steam, the Epic Games Store, and on the EA for Windows app. It will also be available for the Xbox Series X and S consoles, and the PlayStation 5. It's due to launch on July 20.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Immortals of Aveum gameplay trailer drops with some eye-watering PC system requirements

As part of the update, players will find both Infected and Human-type enemies being much more destructible. Enemy limbs can now be dismembered up to three pieces, while their individual body parts like flesh, eyeballs and ribs will also show more visceral damage. The developer also mentions the possibility of "ripping the guts from your foe" in combat.

Improved hit detection and reactions to being impacted by weapons, ragdolls causing a domino effect in enemies, and more combat upgrades are included here. Watch the trailer below to catch the carnage in action:

On top of that, a gear transmog system to switch the look of gear pieces without affecting their stats and a brand-new weapon crafting system involving blueprints and Craftmaster NPCs have arrived too. Lastly, bounties are incoming via a web portal, where players can complete various in-game objectives to earn unique weapons and outfits. Read the Gut Feeling changelog to read all the changes included in the massive update.

Since launch, one of the main areas the title has been receiving criticism from fans has been regarding the weight of combat, where zombies do not react satisfyingly to being hit or sliced. The long-awaited upgrades should remedy that issue quite well.

The Dying Light 2 Stay Human - Gut Feeling update is now available across PC and consoles. Techland will be hosting a special live stream discussing the update at 11 a.m. PDT on its Twitch channel today.

Dying Light 2 upgrades its physics and combat brutality in major update

Google employees repeatedly criticized the company’s chatbot Bard in internal messages, labeling the system “a pathological liar” and beseeching the company not to launch it.

That’s according to an eye-opening report from Bloomberg citing discussions with 18 current and former Google workers as well as screenshots of internal messages. In these internal discussions, one employee noted how Bard would frequently give users dangerous advice, whether on topics like how to land a plane or scuba diving. Another said, “Bard is worse than useless: please do not launch.” Bloomberg says the company even “overruled a risk evaluation” submitted by an internal safety team saying the system was not ready for general use. Google opened up early access to the “experimental” bot in March anyway.

Bloomberg’s report illustrates how Google has apparently sidelined ethical concerns in an effort to keep up with rivals like Microsoft and OpenAI. The company frequently touts its safety and ethics work in AI but has long been criticized for prioritizing business instead.

In late 2020 and early 2021, the company fired two researchers — Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell — after they authored a research paper exposing flaws in the same AI language systems that underpin chatbots like Bard. Now, though, with these systems threatening Google’s search business model, the company seems even more focused on business over safety. As Bloomberg puts it, paraphrasing testimonials of current and former employees, “The trusted internet-search giant is providing low-quality information in a race to keep up with the competition, while giving less priority to its ethical commitments.”

Others at Google — and in the AI world more generally — would disagree. A common argument is that public testing is necessary to develop and safeguard these systems and that the known harm caused by chatbots is minimal. Yes, they produce toxic text and offer misleading information, but so do countless other sources on the web. (To which others respond, yes, but directing a user to a bad source of information is different from giving them that information directly with all the authority of an AI system.) Google’s rivals like Microsoft and OpenAI are also arguably just as compromised as Google. The only difference is they’re not leaders in the search business and have less to lose.

Brian Gabriel, a spokesperson for Google, told Bloomberg that AI ethics remained a top priority for the company. “We are continuing to invest in the teams that work on applying our AI Principles to our technology,” said Gabriel.

In our tests comparing Bard to Microsoft’s Bing chatbot and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, we found Google’s system to be consistently less useful and accurate than its rivals.

Source

Elon Musk threatens to sue Microsoft

Quantum effects of D-Wave’s hardware boost its performance

However, a new report from Bloomberg claims Google rushed out new AI products like Bard with little efforts to put in ethical guardrails for its information. The company was reportedly threatened with the sudden rise of ChatGPT, and the AI ethics team at Google was allegedly ignored when it decided to rush out Bard.

The article states:

The group working on ethics that Google pledged to fortify is now disempowered and demoralized, the current and former workers said. The staffers who are responsible for the safety and ethical implications of new products have been told not to get in the way or to try to kill any of the generative AI tools in development, they said.

The article says that before Bard was launched to the general public, Google employees were asked to test it. Some of their responses were very critical:

One worker’s conclusion: Bard was “a pathological liar,” according to screenshots of the internal discussion. Another called it “cringe-worthy.” One employee wrote that when they asked Bard suggestions for how to land a plane, it regularly gave advice that would lead to a crash; another said it gave answers on scuba diving “which would likely result in serious injury or death.”

In the end, Google launched Bard as an "experiment", telling users that it could make mistakes in its answers. However, it also shows that AI still has a long way to go before it offers answers that are truthful. A Google spokesperson responded to Bloomberg's request for a comment, stating, "We are continuing to invest in the teams that work on applying our AI Principles to our technology,”

New report claims Google is rushing out Bard and other AI products with poor ethical guards

The report from Bloomberg, citing unnamed sources, claims that millions of apps will be able to run on the mixed reality headset in its 3D interface, with just some minor tweaks that developers can make for those apps. That includes first party apps from Apple itself, including its Safari web browser, email, FaceTime, and even the Apple TV app. In fact, people will reportedly be able to watch movies and TV shows from the Apple TV app in a virtual location like a desert or even the sky while wearing the headset.

Apple is also reportedly working on a camera app that will let owners take pictures from the headset. It's also working on fitness and meditation apps, including having a virtual instructor on screen while you exercise. Gaming will also be a big app category for the device, The headset will also allow owners to run several apps on screen at the same time, according to the story.

The mixed reality headset is shaping up to be of Apple's biggest ever hardware launches. It may also be one of its riskiest launches as well, as the device is rumored to have a final price tag of $4,000 or even higher. Unconfirmed reports claim the headset will go on sale towards the end of 2023. However, sales of current VR headsets, like Sony's recently launched PS VR 2, are not that great, even at prices that are much lower than what Apple's devices is projected to be. It will be an uphill battle for Apple to convince consumers that this mixed reality headset a "must own" product.

Apple's mixed reality headset will reportedly support millions of current apps

A serial artificial intelligence investor is raising alarm bells about the dogged pursuit of increasingly-smart machines, which he believes may soon advance to the degree of divinity.

In an op-ed for the Financial Times, AI mega-investor Ian Hogarth recalled a recent anecdote in which a machine learning researcher with whom he was acquainted told him that "from now onwards," we are on the brink of developing artificial general intelligence (AGI) — an admission that came as something of a shock.

"This is not a universal view," Hogarth wrote, noting that "estimates range from a decade to half a century or more" before AGI comes to fruition.

All the same, there exists a tension between the explicitly AGI-seeking goals of AI companies and the fears of machine learning experts — not to mention the public — who understand the concept.

"'If you think we could be close to something potentially so dangerous,' I said to the researcher, 'shouldn’t you warn people about what’s happening?'" the investor recounted. "He was clearly grappling with the responsibility he faced but, like many in the field, seemed pulled along by the rapidity of progress."

Like many other parents, Hogarth said that after this encounter, his mind drifted to his four-year-old son.

"As I considered the world he might grow up in, I gradually shifted from shock to anger," he wrote. "It felt deeply wrong that consequential decisions potentially affecting every life on Earth could be made by a small group of private companies without democratic oversight."

When wondering whether "the people racing to build the first real AGI have a plan to slow down and let the rest of the world have a say," the investor noted that although it feels like a "them" versus "us" situation, he has to admit that he, too, is "part of this community" as someone who's invested in more than 50 AI startups.

"A three-letter acronym doesn’t capture the enormity of what AGI would represent, so I will refer to it as what is: God-like AI," Hogarth declared. "A superintelligent computer that learns and develops autonomously, that understands its environment without the need for supervision and that can transform the world around it."

"To be clear, we are not here yet," Hogarth continued. "But the nature of the technology means it is exceptionally difficult to predict exactly when we will get there. God-like AI could be a force beyond our control or understanding, and one that could usher in the obsolescence or destruction of the human race."

While the investor has spent his career funding and curating AI research — even going so far as to start his own venture capital firm and launching an annual "State of AI" report — something appears to have changed, where now, "the contest between a few companies to create God-like AI has rapidly accelerated."

"They do not yet know how to pursue their aim safely and have no oversight," Hogarth mused. "They are running towards a finish line without an understanding of what lies on the other side."

While he plans to invest in startups that will pursue AI more responsibly, the AI mega-funder said that he hasn't gotten much traction with his counterparts.

"Unfortunately, I think the race will continue," Hogarth wrote. "It will likely take a major misuse event — a catastrophe — to wake up the public and governments."

Source

Early testing shows PCIe 5.0 SSDs inch closer to their max potential

The report comes from Thurrott.com, via two unnamed sources who reportedly are members of Microsoft's MVP program. The company is hosting its annual MVP Global Summit event this week at Microsoft's Redmond, Washington headquarters. It's possible we could get more info on Microsoft's future plans from that event.

The story says Microsoft wants to put in NPUs in all of its next Surface PCs to increase speed for AI and machine learning programs. As we have learned in the past few months, Microsoft has been making a big push into the AI space with services like Bing Chat, among others.

The article points out that Surface PCs use CPUs made by Intel, AMD, and Microsoft's own ARM-based SQ 3 chip, which itself is based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 chipset. Indeed, the Microsoft SQ 3 version of the Surface Pro 9 already includes an NPU, so it's not a stretch to learn that more Surface devices will include NPUs as well.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

New report says the next Microsoft Surface PCs will all have NPUs inside

Speaking of broadband, the median global download and upload speeds were recorded at 79 Mbps and 34.92 Mbps respectively, meanwhile, the latency was 9ms. Here Singapore, UAE, Chile, China, and Denmark have taken the top five positions on the list of countries with the fastest fixed broadband.

On the other hand, the global median download and upload speeds for mobile internet are 41.54 Mbps and 10.42 Mbps respectively with a latency of 28ms. Here UAE, Qatar, Norway, Kuwait, and Demark are in the top five positions with the highest median mobile download speeds.

The Ookla report also reveals internet performance for individual cities, where Beijing has the fastest fixed broadband median speed of 264.92 Mbps with 9ms latency and Qatar's Ar-Rayyan leads the mobile race with 223.87 Mbps and 18ms latency. Ar-Rayyan has recorded a big jump of 9 positions from its previous position in Q4 2022.

When talking about device-specific numbers, the top two spots in the U.S. were acquired by Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and Galaxy Z Fold4 followed by Pixel 7 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. The report also notes that Samsung overall has the fastest median mobile download speed of 91.57 Mbps in the U.S., beating Apple's 76.92 Mbps.

On the contrary, the leader of mobile download speeds, UAE, has Apple iPhone 14 models in the top three positions followed by S23 Ultra in the fourth. However, the report says that "there was no statistical winner during Q1 2023."

Source: Ookla

Ookla speed test report: These countries have the fastest internet in 2023 so far

Depending on how much ram your computer has, adding more ram can also help. If your machine only has 4GB of ram, then adding more will definitely improve performance.

Happy Waiting!

If you learned something today, great! If not, maybe share your own tech tip in the comments below!

How to give a computer the time it needs to become ready

Intel just killed its crypto chip after less than a year

This air flow visualization shows the vortex wake for NASA’s six-passenger tiltwing concept Advanced Air Mobility vehicle in cruise or “airplane-mode.” This image reveals the complexity of the flow for a tiltwing multi-rotor configuration, where many rotors interact with each other, the wing, and the fuselage. Credit: NASA/Patricia Ventura Diazfesta

1. Designing safe, efficient air taxis.

Using NASA’s powerful supercomputers, researchers are simulating the aerodynamic performance of several promising air taxi vehicle configurations that will someday carry passengers and cargo in urban and suburban areas. The highly complex simulations will be used to help design and develop these future air taxis—also called Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) vehicles—that will be safe, quiet, and efficient.

NASA plays an important role in the development of AAM by identifying key research areas and conceptualizing the design of AAM vehicles. Recent simulations focus on the performance of tiltwing and quiet single-main rotor AAM concept vehicles.

Simulations were carried out on the supercomputers, such as Aitken, at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) facility at the agency’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, which allowed such complex simulations to be solved in just a few days. Understanding the complex flow structures in these rotary-wing aircraft is key to reaching AAM performance and noise-level goals.

Image of an Advanced Supersonic Parachute Inflation Research Experiments (ASPIRE) simulation showing fluid-structural interaction dynamics and relative flow speed (Mach number, where yellow is high, black is low). This simulation aims to match the peak inflation forces that will occur during ASPIRE’s first flight test. Credit: NASA/Michael Barad and Jonathan Boustani

2. Keeping planetary rovers safe during risky landings.

The entry, descent, and landing (EDL) sequence for NASA’s Mars landers has infamously been called the “seven minutes of terror,” because hundreds of critical events need to happen successfully—without intervention from Earth, due to the signal lag between the two planets. Roughly four minutes into descent, the spacecraft deploys a parachute that must inflate as evenly as possible, despite a wake of turbulent air, and without any rips or tears to the tightly woven fabric. This is one of the riskiest aspects of EDL and is notoriously challenging to predict.

Using the agency’s Aitken supercomputer, engineers at Ames are developing the capability to reduce risk and cost by simulating and analyzing many scenarios of supersonic parachute inflation, which would be too costly to study using flight tests. Another advantage to simulations is that fine-scale details can be extracted —that information can help engineers develop next-generation EDL systems able to handle the heavier payloads of future robotic Mars missions, like Mars Sample Return.

This visualization shows a heat transfer simulation on a fibrous felt-like material made from carbon/graphite using NASA’s Porous Microstructure Analysis (PuMA) software. In the simulation, a small temperature gradient is imposed across a material microstructure, and the steady-state temperature profile and heat flux are determined. Credit: NASA/Joseph C. Ferguson, Stanford University; Federico Semeraro and John Thornton, NASA/Ames

3. Modeling spacecraft heat shield materials at the microscale.

NASA’s Porous Microstructure Analysis (PuMA) software uses X-ray microtomography to generate high-resolution 3D images of a material’s inner structure. PuMA, developed at Ames, provides unprecedented insights into materials used in heat shields for spacecraft, supersonic parachutes, and for meteorite analysis. NASA researchers use PuMA to develop new thermal protection system (TPS) materials for future space missions, and NASA’s high-performance supercomputers provide material scientists with the ability to run full-scale modeling on a material’s microstructure. This helps ensure the safety of future spacecraft, especially during the dangerous descent phase.

While this open-source software was originally created as a tool to predict material properties for TPS for spacecraft, PuMA has expanded to provide scientists the ability to combine material generation – from simple shapes to complex fibrous woven geometries – with studies of the material’s performance, such as its conductivity, elasticity, permeability, and even the way it oxidizes.

The intense tropical cyclone Hagibis in the western Pacific Ocean reached super typhoon status on Oct. 7, 2019. The inset image is a visible-light satellite image from the Himarawi-8 satellite on Oct. 10, 2019. The larger image is a visible cloud image produced by the experimental GEOS model. Hagibis has a well-defined eye, filled with shallow, low-level clouds surrounded by deep convective bands and a long stream of clouds being drawn into an extratropical frontal system to the northeast. Credit: NASA/William Putnam

4. Predicting weather and climate to keep humans safe.

NASA is pushing the edge of modeling capability with the creation of a 1.5 kilometer (about 1 mile) resolution, global digital twin of Earth using supercomputers. The Global Modeling and Assimilation Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is using historical observational data to simulate the Earth system’s weather and climate. The NASA Global Earth Observing System (GEOS) model and assimilation system is the agency’s flagship system for enhancing the use of NASA’s extensive Earth observations.

With the vast expansion of machine learning capabilities and improved programming paradigms for super-fast graphics processing units, GEOS is now poised to provide an experimental framework within NASA for weather and climate studies. The GEOS model will have a range of capabilities including coupled ocean-atmosphere Earth system modeling, advanced studies of carbon emission, and transport at ultra-high resolutions.

A map of the simulated surface temperature of Venus three billion years ago, with a 310 meter-deep dynamic ocean. Temperatures on the continents are around or below the freezing point of water. This is because the planet rotates very slowly, and the continents get quite cold during Venus’ night. Credit: NASA/Michael Way

5. Exploring the past, present, and future of planets inside and outside our solar system.

Supercomputers are like computational “time machines,” and scientists use them to explore the past, present, and future universe. Using the NASA Center for Climate Simulation’s Discover supercomputer and the ROCKE-3D computer model, scientists from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York are simulating the climates of planets inside and outside our solar system. These simulations show that three billion years ago, Venus, Earth’s closest planetary neighbor, may have been temperate long enough to have an ocean – making Venus possibly the first habitable world in our solar system.

Farther from Earth, running ROCKE-3D with ocean characteristics more realistic than in previous models, scientists found that extrasolar world Proxima Centauri b is more habitable than previously believed.

Closer to home, simulations of the Moon reveal that water released by ancient volcanoes closer to the lunar equator can find its way to permanently shadowed polar regions, where we could potentially use it for future exploration.

Source

Elon Musk has been openly criticizing big AI companies like OpenAI, and in an interview with Tucker Carlson, he announced that he is working on a new AI called TruthGPT, the "maximum truth-seeking AI."

“I’m going to start something which I call TruthGPT or a maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe, and I think this might be the best path to safety in the sense that an AI that cares about understanding the universe is unlikely to annihilate humans because we are an interesting part of the universe,” Musk said.

Musk said TruthGPT aims to correct OpenAI's path and plans. He was one of the initial funders of OpenAI but then parted ways with the corporation over differences of opinion. He is actively stating his opinion on large scaler AI models that they are dangerous. He even signed an open letter alongside other AI researchers to warn companies about the dangers of their giant AI experiments.

Musk at the interview with Tucker Carlson. Fox News.

Musk wants to continue the initial roadmap

OpenAI started as a non-profit company, but now it is offering features that it can profit from. It looks like Elon Musk wants to complete the path that OpenAI projected at first as a non-profit company and help humanity avoid the possible destruction caused by artificial intelligence.

The interview rolled out on Monday at 8 p.m. ET, and it looks like there are many interesting points that Musk and Carlson talked about. The Emmy-award-winning journalist shared a couple of video clips on his Twitter account, and thousands of people interacted with the tweets.

Carlson's tweets started discussions before the interview went live, and thousands got behind their screens to see what Musk said about artificial intelligence and more.

In the interview, Musk also said he was shocked to see how much the government agencies effectively had full access to everything that was going on on Twitter. Apparently, the United States government had access to everything on Twitter, including private DMs. He also recently started a new company named X.AI.

Source

Now there's word that Microsoft has been developing its own hardware chip made specifically for AI programs and it's been in the works for four years.

According to The Information, using two unnamed sources, the chip has the internal code name Athena, and Microsoft's been working on it since 2019 with 300 employees dedicated to it. The story adds that the chip is currently in testing with some Microsoft employees, along with some workers from OpenAI, which created ChatGPT that Microsoft is using to help develop Bing Chat.

Currently, Microsoft is using chips made by NVIDIA for its AI services. The idea is that making its own in-house processor will both work better for it needs, as well as cost less. The plan is to launch Athena sometime in 2024.

Of course, creating chips in-house for servers and other cloud-based systems is nothing new in the industry. Amazon, Google, and Facebook all have designed their own server processors for use in their data centers. It remains to be seen if Microsoft will continue to use NVIDIA chips as well as its own for its AI-based centers.

Source

The full list of new games in this update is as follows:

• Forspoken
• Samurai Maiden
• Dead Space (2023)
• Creativerse
• Nioh 2 - The Complete Edition
• One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4
• Atelier Meruru
• Atelier Lydie & Suelle The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings
• Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book DX
• Blue Reflection
• Atelier Rorona The Alchemist of Arland DX
• Disney Dreamlight Valley
• ROMANCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS XIV
• ToGather:Island
• WARRIORS OROCHI 3 Ultimate Definitive Edition
• Exceed - Gun Bullet Children
• Gungrave G.O.R.E.
• Chex Quest HD

As for other improvements, the changelog reads as follows:

• Fixed 2K launcher failure caused by launcher update.
• Fixed Arabic fonts in FIFA 21 and 22.
• Improved CJK font support in many games including NOBUNAGA'S AMBITION: Souzou with Power Up Kit, Stardom 3 and Sword and Fairy 3.
• Improved sleep/resume functionality on Steam Deck for Tiny Tina's Wonderland.
• Improved multi-touch support.
• Fixed native scrollbar being always visible in Final Fantasy XIV Online launcher.
• Fixed A Plague Tale: Innocence and A Plague Tale: Requiem showing on-screen keyboard when starting the game on the Steam Deck.
• Fixed rendering issues during cutscenes in Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell.
• Fixed Japanese keyboard input in Final Fantasy XIV Online.
• Fixed Football manager 2023 crashing when trying to return from a player profile.
• Fixed experimental regression: Fall in Labyrinth started crashing on some setups.
• Improved CJK characters rendering in many games including NOBUNAGA'S AMBITION: Souzou with Power Up Kit.
• Fixed Life is Strange Remastered crashing at the end of chapter 2.
• Fixed Alt+Tab not working on Gnome 43.
• Improved force feedback compatibility for BeamNG and Forza Horizon 5.
• Fixed regression with Mortal Combat X performance.
• Fixed OpenGL launch option for Youropa.
• Fixed raytracing in Crysis Remastered.
• Improved multiplayer support in Company of Heroes III.
• Improved fullscreen support for The Last Blade 2.
• Fixed regression: Minecraft Dungeons was hanging when disconnecting from multiplayer game.
• Fixed Immortals Fenyx Rising missing/out-of-order audio lines in cutscenes.
• Fixed The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt launcher flickering on Wayland.
• Fixed Story Mode not working in Dead or Alive 6.
• Enabled nvapi for many games.
• Updated wine to 8.0.
• Updated dxvk to v2.1-4-gcaf31033.
• Updated vkd3d-proton to v2.8-84-g08909d98.
• Updated dxvk-nvapi to v0.6.2.
• Updated wine-mono to 7.4.1.

To use Proton 8.0-1 in Steam, press Steam in the menu and go to Settings. From there, go to Steam Play and under Run other titles with select Proton 8.0-1. According to the notes, you can only use this version of Proton if your GPU supports Vulkan 1.3.

Steam's new Proton 8.0-1 supports Forspoken and a long list of other games

To use OneDrive, a Microsoft Account is necessary, which can be created through the Microsoft OneDrive website using the link here. Additionally, users must select a storage plan that meets their needs. The free version of OneDrive provides 5GB of OneDrive space. But if you need more cloud space, Microsoft OneDrive's plans are as follows:

Basic plan: 100GB of storage for $1.99 per month.

Microsoft 365 Personal: 1TB of OneDrive space for $6.99 per month or $69.99 per year.

Microsoft 365 Family: Up to six users to have 1TB of space each for $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year.

While OneDrive works the same on both Windows 10 and the 22H2 version of Windows 11, released in late 2022, introduced some changes to accessing OneDrive's settings.

Nonetheless, Microsoft OneDrive remains a top choice for users seeking reliable and efficient cloud storage and file-sharing capabilities.

Getting started with OneDrive

Setting up OneDrive is a straightforward process that is available in both Windows 10 and Windows 11. If you missed the prompt to use OneDrive during the Windows setup process, don't worry. You can still access it by looking for the OneDrive icon in the System Tray. Clicking on the icon will give you access to the service.

However, if you don't see the icon, you can manually trigger it by locating the OneDrive exe file in the File Explorer. First, click View > Hidden items. Next, navigate to C:\Users[YourUsername]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneDrive\ and double-click on the OneDrive.exe file. This will cause the icon to appear in the System Tray.

Once you've accessed OneDrive, you will be prompted to sign in using your Microsoft account email address and password. You will then see a window for Your OneDrive folder, which will point to the default location for your local OneDrive folder. You can either click Change location to pick another destination or click Next to continue using the default location. The folder will then be created if it doesn't already exist. If it does exist, click the Use this folder button.

The next steps will vary somewhat based on whether or not you are running the 22H2 update to Windows 11. Review the subsequent screens to complete the initial setup, and you may be prompted to open your OneDrive folder.

How to add folders to Microsoft OneDrive?

To add folders and files to your OneDrive location in File Explorer, simply select the folders and files you wish to include. For example, if you use a folder called "Powerpoint Documents" for your Microsoft Powerpoint files, move the entire folder into OneDrive.

Follow the same steps for any other folders you wish to include in your OneDrive synchronization. You can also create new folders that you want to sync in OneDrive.

To set up the folders you want to back up and sync to OneDrive, follow these steps in Windows 10 and prior versions of Windows 11. Click the OneDrive System Tray icon, select Help & Settings > Settings, then choose the Account tab and select Choose folders. Here, you can view all the files and folders stored in your OneDrive folder.

If you wish to sync everything stored in your OneDrive folder, click the checkbox for "Make all files available" (or "Sync all files and folders in OneDrive" in Windows 11 22H2).

Alternatively, you can select individual folders that you want to sync and uncheck any folders you do not want to sync. Any folders that you leave unchecked will remain on OneDrive but will be removed from your current PC. With these simple steps, you can easily set up and manage your OneDrive folder and sync your important files across all your devices.

How to backup your files on Microsoft OneDrive?

With OneDrive up and running, you can easily use it to back up important folders and files. To do this in Windows 10 and earlier versions of Windows 11, open the OneDrive settings menu and click the Backup tab. From there, you can select to back up your desktop, pictures folder, and documents folder. Simply check the items you wish to back up and click Start backup.

Additionally, you can enable options that will automatically upload photos, videos, and screenshots to OneDrive storage. In Windows 11 22H2, select the Sync and backup category and then click the Manage backup button. Turn on the switches for the folders you want to back up, such as Documents, Pictures, and Desktop, and then click Save changes.

Syncing your files on OneDrive

By default, once your files are uploaded to OneDrive, they are deleted from local storage on your computer. However, the files you decide to remove from local storage will still appear in File Explorer. When you double-click on the icon to access it, the file is downloaded on-the-fly from OneDrive to your computer.

You can change this option in Windows 10 and earlier versions of Windows 11 by opening OneDrive settings and clicking on the Settings tab. The Files On-Demand setting to remove your OneDrive files from local storage on your computer should be enabled by default. In Windows 11 22H2, you can access this setting by going to the Sync and backup category and clicking on the drop-down link for Advanced settings. Turn on the switch next to Files On-Demand if it is not already turned on.

While this feature can save space on your hard drive, it also means that you will need to be online to access your files. We recommend turning off this option if you have plenty of drive space, but enabling it if you are running low on storage. You can also decide on a case-by-case basis, allowing you to store certain files online only while others are stored both online and locally.

To set this up, you can do one of the following:

1. Right-click on a folder or file stored only in the cloud and select "Always keep on this device" to permanently keep the file on your PC
2. Right-click on a folder or file stored locally and select "Free up space" to remove the file from your PC and store it online only. With these options, you can easily manage your storage preferences and keep your most important files accessible at all times

OneDrive 101: How to use Microsoft's cloud service?

The stunning capabilities of ChatGPT, the chatbot from startup OpenAI, has triggered a surge of new interest and investment in artificial intelligence. But late last week, OpenAI’s CEO warned that the research strategy that birthed the bot is played out. It's unclear exactly where future advances will come from.

OpenAI has delivered a series of impressive advances in AI that works with language in recent years by taking existing machine-learning algorithms and scaling them up to previously unimagined size. GPT-4, the latest of those projects, was likely trained using trillions of words of text and many thousands of powerful computer chips. The process cost over $100 million.

But the company’s CEO, Sam Altman, says further progress will not come from making models bigger. “I think we're at the end of the era where it's going to be these, like, giant, giant models,” he told an audience at an event held at MIT late last week. “We'll make them better in other ways.”

Altman’s declaration suggests an unexpected twist in the race to develop and deploy new AI algorithms. Since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November, Microsoft has used the underlying technology to add a chatbot to its Bing search engine, and Google has launched a rival chatbot called Bard. Many people have rushed to experiment with using the new breed of chatbot to help with work or personal tasks.

Meanwhile, numerous well-funded startups, including Anthropic, AI21, Cohere, and Character.AI, are throwing enormous resources into building ever larger algorithms in an effort to catch up with OpenAI’s technology. The initial version of ChatGPT was based on a slightly upgraded version of GPT-3, but users can now also access a version powered by the more capable GPT-4.

Altman’s statement suggests that GPT-4 could be the last major advance to emerge from OpenAI’s strategy of making the models bigger and feeding them more data. He did not say what kind of research strategies or techniques might take its place. In the paper describing GPT-4, OpenAI says its estimates suggest diminishing returns on scaling up model size. Altman said there are also physical limits to how many data centers the company can build and how quickly it can build them.

Nick Frosst, a cofounder at Cohere who previously worked on AI at Google, says Altman’s feeling that going bigger will not work indefinitely rings true. He, too, believes that progress on transformers, the type of machine learning model at the heart of GPT-4 and its rivals, lies beyond scaling. “There are lots of ways of making transformers way, way better and more useful, and lots of them don’t involve adding parameters to the model,” he says. Frosst says that new AI model designs, or architectures, and further tuning based on human feedback are promising directions that many researchers are already exploring.

Each version of OpenAI’s influential family of language algorithms consists of an artificial neural network, software loosely inspired by the way neurons work together, which is trained to predict the words that should follow a given string of text.

The first of these language models, GPT-2, was announced in 2019. In its largest form, it had 1.5 billion parameters, a measure of the number of adjustable connections between its crude artificial neurons.

At the time, that was extremely large compared to previous systems, thanks in part to OpenAI researchers finding that scaling up made the model more coherent. And the company made GPT-2’s successor, GPT-3, announced in 2020, still bigger, with a whopping 175 billion parameters. That system’s broad abilities to generate poems, emails, and other text helped convince other companies and research institutions to push their own AI models to similar and even greater size.

After ChatGPT debuted in November,  meme makers and tech pundits speculated that GPT-4, when it arrived, would be a model of vertigo-inducing size and complexity. Yet when OpenAI finally announced the new artificial intelligence model, the company didn’t disclose how big it is—perhaps because size is no longer all that matters. At the MIT event, Altman was asked  if training GPT-4 cost $100 million; he replied, “It’s more than that.”

Although OpenAI is keeping GPT-4’s size and inner workings secret, it is likely that some of its intelligence already comes from looking beyond just scale. On possibility is that it used a method called reinforcement learning with human feedback, which was used to enhance ChatGPT. It involves having humans judge the quality of the model’s answers to steer it towards providing responses more likely to be judged as high quality.

The remarkable capabilities of GPT-4 have stunned some experts and sparked debate over the potential for AI to transform the economy but also spread disinformation and eliminate jobs. Some AI experts, tech entrepreneurs including Elon Musk, and scientists recently wrote an open letter calling for a six-month pause on the development of anything more powerful than GPT-4.

At MIT last week, Altman confirmed that his company is not currently developing GPT-5. “An earlier version of the letter claimed OpenAI is training GPT-5 right now,” he said. “We are not, and won't for some time.”

OpenAI’s CEO Says the Age of Giant AI Models Is Already Over

(May require free registration to view)

Tim Cook is also expected to hold talks with key ministers in India, regarding strategic issues such as manufacturing expansion and exports. Apple has witnessed major growth in the country, not just in retail, but also in manufacturing with Apple currently manufacturing iPhones, AirPods, and other accessories as well.

In a statement, Deirdre O’Brien, Apple’s senior vice president of retail, said:

"At Apple, our customers are at the center of everything we do, and our teams are excited to celebrate this wonderful moment with them as we open our first retail store in India. Apple BKC is a reflection of Mumbai’s vibrant culture and brings together the best of Apple in a beautiful, welcoming space for connection and community.”

Apple has also been actively recruiting employees in recent months, in preparation for store openings. The iPhone maker launched its online store in India back in 2020 and had initially planned to open its first retail location in 2021 which unfortunately got delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Cupertino company is working hard to turn India into a key global manufacturing hub while reducing its dependency on China amid geopolitical and supply chain tensions. The Indian government is also offering multiple incentives to Apple manufacturers to expand its presence in the country. Contract manufacturers such as Wistron and Foxonn have already increased the local assembly of iPhones and other Apple devices in recent quarters, targeting to produce 25 percent of all iPhones by 2025.

Apple's first retail store in India to open tomorrow in BKC, Mumbai

Report: 15-inch MacBook Air coming at WWDC, new Mac Studios will arrive eventually

Asia in Brief China’s State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing (LIESMARS) has reportedly allowed artificial intelligence to control a satellite.

A South China Morning Post report cites a paper published in the journal Geomatics and Information Science of Wuhan University that claims the LIESMARS team let AI run Qimingxing 1, an experimental remote sensing satellite.

The paper apparently reports that the AI decided to have a look at parts of India that are home to an Indian army unit involved in recent border skirmishes with Chinese forces, and a Japanese port that occasionally houses visiting US naval vessels.

Just why the AI was interested in either target is unknown, given that Chinese media have previously reported that Qimingxing 1 is an experimental craft for use by Wuhan University students.

- Simon Sharwood

The USA’s CHIPS Act will see semiconductor companies avoid China when considering investments for a decade, according to semiconductor-centric analyst firm TrendForce.

“The scope of restrictions in this updated legislation will be far more extensive than the previous export ban,” TrendForce stated last week. The firm added that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) had been the foundry most affected foundry affected by updates to the CHIPS Act, as it already had plans in order to expand into China.

SK hynix, Samsung and Micron each plan expansions in South Korea, a nation TrendForce predicted will grow global share of DRAM manufacturing capacity as China’s falls.

Meanwhile, China’s share of global NAND Flash capacity is expected to drop from 31 percent to 18 percent by 2025.

“Demand for DRAM and NAND Flash are in the same boat; many US companies have begun restricting production regions for memory and storage products or are requiring foundries to move their production facilities out of China to avoid geopolitical conflicts,” said TrendForce.

The firm predicts a bifurcation of the industry, with Chinese factories primarily focusing on meeting domestic demand, and non-Chinese factories serving other markets.

South Korea seeks closer ties to Boeing

South Korean industry minister Lee Chang-yang met with Boeing Defense, Space & Security CEO Theodore Colbert last week to advance the prospect of partnerships between the aerospace giant partner and local companies.

A proposed memorandum of understanding (MOU) reportedly included joint R&D on aerospace semiconductor projects, digital manufacturing and urban air mobility systems.

Lee also reportedly dangled tax benefits and other incentives before Boeing, which plans to expand its facilities in Seoul into an R&D hub.

Warren Buffett worried about the T in TSMC

Famed investor Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, last week explained why the holding company he leads acquired a stake in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), then quickly sold a chunk of its shares.

In an interview with Japan’s Nikkei, Buffett responded to a question about geopolitical tensions in Taiwan being a reason for the sale.

“That is certainly a consideration,” Buffett responded. “But Taiwan Semiconductor is the greatest business in the field by a huge margin. The management is good. But is there a difference between that being located in Omaha, Nebraska, and in Taiwan? Yes.”

- Simon Sharwood

Japanese government funding quantum computing cloud platform

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is investing $31.7 million over five years in a quantum computing collective to expand shared quantum computing through a industry-targeted cloud platform, reported Nikkei Asia.

The collective’s 17 participants are led by the University of Tokyo and so far include Toyota Motor, Mitsubishi Chemical and Mizuho Financial Group.

Tencent reveals colossal cluster

Tencent last Friday released a new generation of High-Performance Computing Cluster designed for large-scale-model training.

Local media has claimed it is the most powerful large-scale model computing cluster in China and three times more powerful than the previous generation.

India finance minister calls for globally coordinated crypto regs

India finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman called for greater acceptance of globally coordinated crypto regulations among the Group of 20 member countries, according to Reuters.

Xiaomi’s smart necklace

Chinese consumer tech giant Xiaomi has given the world a smart necklace. The company last week announcedthe eighth version of its low-priced “Band” wearable, which can now be worn on a necklace rather than on the wrist, and apparently still record health data. The Register tested the Band 6 and found it a decent entry-level wearable.

- Simon Sharwood

In other news …

Our regional coverage from last week included news that Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation announced it is investing in Raspberry Pi to advance edge AI.

Alibaba Cloud revealed a custom large language model which it plans to incorporate in everything from the cloud to smart speakers.

Google faced fines in South Korea of $32 million for anticompetitive practices levied at local app store OneStore.

Russia imported over $1.2 billion of technology in 2022 despite international sanctions, by using China, Hong Kong and the UK as intermediaries.

Chinese tech giant Baidu sued Apple over fake copies of its ChatGPT analogue.

Beijing released proposed regulations for AI chatbots that unsurprisingly requires them to conform to socialist ideals.

Tencent reportedly demoted and fired tech bosses after its popular social platforms WeChat and QQ experienced an hours-long outage.

Speaking at a conference in Singapore on Thursday, pilot turned CISO Serge Christiaans argued that improving cybersecurity needs a shift from a “blame” culture to a “just” culture, a move already achieved by the aviation industry. ®

Source

AI, machine learning, NLP (natural language processing) and other forms of automated self-service have been steadily improving over the years.

By the way, NLP is a fancy term that means the computer has the ability to talk to you in your language, the same way you would talk to a friend. In addition to these, in November 2022, along came ChatGPT, which is merging AI and NLP to levels we thought were only possible in the distant future. Well, the future is now, and, used the right way, the new way we’ll communicate with customers is taking a huge step forward.

When it comes to customer support, AI has typically been associated with self-service and automated support. The best customer support departments have created intuitive self-service solutions that help customers get answers to basic or recurring questions. This allows agents to focus on more complex and challenging issues. In the perfect customer support world, everyone is happy. The customer gets answers without calling a company, waiting on hold and spending unnecessary time on a frequently asked question or common problem. The agents are happy because they get to focus on supporting customers and building relationships at a higher level.

And what is getting many contact center and customer experience professionals excited is that AI is not just being used to support customers, but also to support agents. Rather than agents spending time looking up answers, the AI ChatGPT platform is programmed to give them the information they need in the fastest possible time. In other words, it makes an agent’s life easier.

However, I’ve been reading articles and listening to agents concerned about losing their jobs. Yes, some jobs will be replaced or displaced, which is part of any progress. But, as a general rule, AI, ChatGPT and other automated or self-service support platforms will not eliminate customer support agents’ jobs.

Consider this … did video kill the radio star? Did ATMs replace bank tellers?

The answer to both questions is no!

In 1981 MTV broadcast its first music video, “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles. It’s been more than 40 years, and obviously, music on radio and streaming platforms is doing better than ever. And in 1967, Barclays Bank in England unveiled the first ATM. Customers loved it, and many in the banking industry thought a bank teller’s job would disappear. When’s the last time you walked into a bank? I’ll bet you noticed a teller behind the counter. The point is that innovation in any form, and in this case, AI and ChatGPT’s use in the contact center, doesn’t necessarily mean jobs will disappear.

Staying with the MTV and ATM examples, if you were a musician, even though you record music and hope it plays on the radio, Spotify, iTunes, etc., it’s still a good idea to create a music video as part of your marketing mix. And if you worked at a bank that didn’t have ATMs so customers could get cash outside of banking hours and at more convenient locations, it wouldn’t be long before customers would become frustrated and switch to a bank with ATMs.

Our customer service and CX research found that 81% of American consumers in 2023 said the phone was their preferred communication channel when reaching out to a company; however, 70% use self-service tools to answer questions or handle issues before contacting a live customer service agent. While it may not be their first choice, customers are willing to use self-service tools. And with AI and ChatGPT getting better at communicating with customers, that number will grow.

When we asked respondents what customer service experiences they thought would be essential in the next three to five years, the No. 1 response (53%) was 24/7 availability. In addition, 33% of the customers surveyed said they want intuitive self-service options that allow for easy, quick access to information and answers. The easiest way to meet these customers’ expectations is with self-service, specifically with AI/ChatGPT-infused chatbot technology. It never sleeps.

All that said, customers expect they will be able to move to online chat with a live agent when they need it. I’ve preached for years that although you may want your customers to use self-service options, you must always give them a quick, convenient connection to a live agent when needed.

Back to the point of this article, the future of customer service is strong. Innovative technologies will create a better customer experience. Compared to the “old days” (just last year), this new technology will help companies and brands “crush” customer service. But always keep this in mind:

The greatest technology in the world hasn’t replaced the ultimate relationship-building tool between a customer and a business: the human touch.

Source