How AI is rewriting Silicon Valley's relationship with the Pentagon

This article is an installment of Future Explored, Freethinks weekly guide to world-changing technology. You can get stories like this one straight to your inbox every Saturday morning bysubscribing here.Its 2035. After decades of investment, the US military now has AI systems integrated throughout its operations. Autonomous drones, tanks, and fighter jets enhance US defenses, while leading (hopefully) to fewer civilian casualties and collateral damage. Thats one future, anyway.

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A new model for defining life across the Universe

Its pretty easy to see that a rock and a chipmunk are different. The rock doesnt do much of anything except erode slowly. The chipmunk, on the other hand, is a flurry of activity. It endlessly scans its environment in search of food or danger. And when either one shows up, the chipmunk is quick to react. At a more fundamental level, however, what really is the difference between the inanimate rock and the very animate chipmunk? Whats the difference at the level of mathematical physics and chemistry?This question lies at the heart of a three-day workshop on Information-Driven States of Matter that Ill be co-hosting along with Gourab Ghoshal and Artemy Kolchinsky next week at the University of Rochester. I am really looking forward to the meeting, and today I want to give you a preview of some of the topics well be exploring since they are bound to drive future columns.

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Ask Ethan: Is it all-or-nothing for the expanding Universe?

One of the most remarkable revelations in our understanding of the cosmos is the fact that the Universe is expanding. Distant galaxies, on average, all appear to recede from us, with faster and faster recession speeds for galaxies that exist at greater distances. While individual objects and systems may be gravitationally bound together stars and planets, galaxies, plus galaxy groups and clusters the space between these structures is not only expanding today, but has been expanding for all 13.8 billion years of cosmic history, and will continue to expand indefinitely far into the future as well.But is the expanding Universe truly an all-or-nothing proposition? Are there exceptions to the expanding Universe, and is collapse a scenario thats been ruled out entirely? Thats the question plaguing the mind of Patreon supporter Brent Minder, who wants to know:

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We're lonelier than ever -- and there's one big reason

Thanks to modern-day social media, its easier than ever to connect with the people you care about. But is this really the case? Professor Arthur Brooks discusses how social media is actually harming our ability to socialize, and proposes a way to fix it.Oxytocin, the bonding neuropeptide in our brains, needs eye contact and touchthings we dont get from Zoom or social media. This lack leaves us feeling hungrier for connection, which only fuels the loneliness epidemic, and causes us to further distance ourselves from others.

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How neutrinos offer clues to the matter-antimatter puzzle

If you go to the zoo, you will find a dizzying variety of animals some familiar and some completely strange. The same is true of researchers trying to study matters smallest components. While the proton, neutron, and electron are familiar, the subatomic zoo is inhabited by many entirely unfamiliar particles. In a recent result announced at a conference in Italy by researchers at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the properties of a ghostly particle called a neutrino are coming into focus.Neutrinos are the wraiths of the subatomic world, able to pass through the entire Earth with just a small chance of interacting. They are most commonly produced in nuclear reactions, which means that each of us encounters a steady rain of neutrinos coming from the biggest nuclear reactor: the Sun. Every second, something like 100 billion neutrinos pass through you. That sounds scary, but the neutrinos low probability of interacting with matter means that during your entire life perhaps only one of them will stop inside your body.

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This travel vlogger crossed the Dari

As a tall Greek man in his mid-twenties, Timmy Karter stands out from most of the migrants risking their lives to cross the Darin Gap, a 100-mile-long, 30-mile-wide undeveloped jungle separating Colombia and Panama. Unlike the migrants, Karter isnt there in the hope of one day starting a better life in the United States. Hes a YouTuber who travels to the worlds most dangerous and desolate places, sharing his experiences with an audience of nearly 400,000 subscribers.Karter has explored the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, met with the cocaine mafia in Nicaragua, and braved the streets of Latin Americas murder capital, San Salvador. However, crossing the Darin Gap has to be the riskiest project hes ever undertaken and likely ever will. During the five-day journey through the jungle alongside YouTuber Benjamin Rich, better known as Bald and Bankrupt, he had to ward off injury, disease, starvation, dehydration, wildlife, and the watchful eyes of the Colombian cartel, who financially extort the already impoverished migrants colloquially known as caminantes, or walkers in exchange for their dubious protection.

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Starts With A Bang podcast #107 - Binary stars and modified gravity

On the largest of cosmic scales, the best description we have of our Universe is known as the CDM model with an inflationary hot Big Bang: our consensus cosmology. It tells us that we have a Universe consistent with being made of about 5% normal matter, a little bit of radiation in the form of photons, around 0.1% neutrinos, and the rest made of the mysterious dark matter (~27%) and dark energy (~68%). Governed by General Relativity, this explains what we see on Solar System scales, where dark matter and dark energy are negligible, and on cosmic scales, where dark matter and dark energy are important.But on in-between scales, we arent quite sure that this same consensus cosmology leads to a very successful description. Its long been known that, on galactic scales, rotating galaxies appear to obey a different force law: MOND, for MOdified Newtonian Dynamics. In MOND, the traditional Newtonian acceleration is replaced, at very low accelerations, by a combination of the Newtonian acceleration with a fundamental new parameter, which prevents accelerations from dropping too far below a certain value: around ~10-10 meters-per-second-squared. If this deviation is real, it should show up someplace else: in pairs of stars separated by large distances, a class of systems known as wide binaries.

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T-Minus: SpaceX's Starship vs. Boeing's Starliner

This is T-Minus, where Freethinks Kristin Houser breaks down the biggest developments in space, from new rocket launches to discoveries that advance our understanding of the universe and our place in it. Humanity is reaching new heights in space exploration. Make sure youre part of the journey bysubscribing here.First, Boeing delivered two astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) in its Starliner capsule on June 5, marking the spacecrafts first mission with people on board.

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How AI Can Change the Way Your Company Gets Work Done

AI offers many ways to enhance a companys overall internal capabilities and skills. AI can be used to infer skills from employee profiles and their activity. AI can be used to classify learning content and make it more applicable and accessible for the whole workforce, as well as making learning more personalized to each individual. AI can be used to summarize, recommend, and augment learning content. GenAI, in particular, can be used by the worlds billion knowledge workers to boost performance, right in the flow of work. Research shows that GenAI can get knowledge work done25% faster and 40% better.This article covers several ways that corporations, teams, and individuals can drive internal growth by enhancing organizational capabilities. Early signs are that double-digit growth via GenAI is eminently possible.

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Getting Project Management Right

Many of us manage projectseven if project manager isnt in our official job title. We try to learn the basics as we go: how to manage multiple stakeholders, adapt as circumstances change, and set realistic deadlines. Its not easy, and its no wonder that people get certified in project management: its a discipline thats surprisingly deep, from planning to close-out.

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Microsoft: A Case Study in Strategy Transformation

In early 2015, Microsofts senior leaders were facing a set of difficult decisions. The firm had been struggling to innovate and grow as fast as its competitors. Now they were considering new opportunities that would yield higher growth but lower margins like shifting away from perpetual licensing to focus on subscription sales.

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Research: How Family Motivates People to Do Their Best Work

Family is one of themost important thingsin most peoples lives, acrosscultures and geographies. Yet, the idea that family can be motivational at work has been overlooked. Instead, in the past, family has been mostly seen ascompeting with workfor an employees finite resources, like their time and energy. A large body of research onwork-family conflict drew on this notion and illustrated how work and family domains create conflicting demands and interfere with one another. And yet, theres another growing body of research that finds that family can play a role in motivation at work, boosting employees performance and inspiring them to do their best. This article focuses on that body of research, and discusses how organizations that embrace family at work stand to benefit from attracting and retaining employees who are highly motivated and engaged.

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How to Salvage a Useful Process That Isn't Working Anymore

It is a familiar story in health care and many other settings: the performance of an innovative process deteriorates over time. Instead of automatically discarding it, organizations should understand the causes. They may then decide to redesign and reimplement the process. Using the reimplementation of a surgical checklist at Singapore General Hospital as an example, this article explains how to conduct a reimplementation.

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How Indian Companies Are Using Technology to Reach New Consumers

A couple of years ago, I was standing on a platform in the New Delhi train station and noticed several men watching a big Mumbai-Delhi cricket match on a crystal-clear video feed streaming from their smart phones. The service worked as well as any live stream I could pull up at home in Austin, Texas. Yet in some ways the scene was right out of the 19th century the air was dusty and hot; there were far more passengers waiting than benches for them to sit on; and it was impossible to ignore all the aromas that waft through Indias public spaces.

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Find the Right Job Using This "Dinosaur" Diagnostic

Most young professionals only consider two factors when looking for their next position: job function and industry. Not enough people are considering the stage of their potential employers company life cycle. Too often a cause of career derailment is being in the wrong stage perhaps youre unable to thrive in the hierarchy of a mature company or uncomfortable in the pants-on-fire atmosphere of an early-stage startup. This dinosaur diagnostic can help young professionals enhance their success in finding the right job.

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How to Be Alone Without Being Lonely

Studies show that loneliness can lead to feelings of anxiety and depression. But there are ways to combat loneliness even when youre alone. The first step is to acknowledge any feelings or signs of loneliness, such as a sense of emptiness, excessive procrastination, insomnia, and others. Pay attention to what you read and watch, and understand how it may be impacting your thinking. Invest your time in something constructive, like a creative project or an online course. Or, find a way to care or provide for others. These activities will give you a sense of purpose, autonomy, and achievement. Continue to reach out to your colleagues and friends virtually, keeping up as many normal interactions as you can. But use technology wisely utilize tools like social media to have meaningful conversations instead of comparing yourself to others.

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Was Your Internship Cancelled? Take Advantage of Virtual Internships.

The 2020 job market is rife with challenges. Budgets are being tightened across industries and continents. Youre also keenly aware that these changes have created fewer paid opportunities. As many companies have shifted priorities at this time, onsite internships have either been eliminated or gone fully virtual.

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How to Launch a Startup in the Post-Covid Era

Economic downturns, although challenging, can provide an opportunity for launching new companies and products. Raising capital for a startup during a recession can be difficult. If your goal is to fundraise within the next year, start by asking yourself if your product or business is still relevant in the current environment. Do your research figure out if potential investors are adventurous or conservative, and be transparent with them about your company and the challenges you may be facing. Rely on a board of advisors with experience in running startups to provide guidance. Manage cash cautiously and set your organization up for survival. But have a plan ready for post-crisis growth.

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Recent Grads Are Drowning in Uncertainty. Here's How to Stay Afloat.

There are nearly fifty million twentysomethings in the United States, most of whom are living with a staggering, unprecedented amount of uncertainty.And now, millions of new would-be workers have graduated, without the pomp and circumstance, into a global pandemic and likely recession.Research shows that, rather than long for certainties that do not exist, the best way to adapt to uncertainty is to change how we think about it and to find a way to keep moving. If youre feeling stuck, you should try to avoid mental time-travel, build identity capital, resist reassurance, forget regret, and build healthy habits.

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The Yellowstone supervolcano destroyed an ecosystem but saved it for us

Death was everywhere. Animal corpses littered the landscape and were mired in the local waterhole as ash swept around everything in its path. For some, death happened quickly; for others, it was slow and painful.

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Alaska's top-heavy glaciers are approaching an irreversible tipping

The melting of one of North Americas largest ice fields has accelerated and could soon reach an irreversible tipping point. Thats the conclusion of new research colleagues and I have published on the Juneau Icefield, which straddles the Alaska-Canada border near the Alaskan capital of Juneau.

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