Elon Musk and 1000 other researchers call for ‘pause’ on advanced AI systems
“We call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4. This pause should be public and verifiable, and include all key actors. If such a pause cannot be enacted quickly, governments should step in and institute a moratorium. This does not mean a pause on AI development in general, merely a stepping back from the dangerous race to ever-larger unpredictable black-box models with emergent capabilities.” (Future of Life Institute)
US, Japan ink trade deal around EV battery materials
“The Agreement builds on the 2019 U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement and will strengthen and diversify critical minerals supply chains and promote the adoption of electric vehicle battery technologies. In particular, the Agreement memorializes the shared commitment of the United States and Japan with respect to the critical minerals sector to facilitate trade, promote fair competition and market-oriented conditions for trade in critical minerals, advance robust labor and environmental standards, and cooperate in efforts to ensure secure, transparent, sustainable, and equitable critical minerals supply chains.” (Office of the US Trade Representative)
Did The Government Start A Global Financial Crisis In An Attempt To Destroy Crypto?
“A month ago, I warned that banks dealing with crypto clients were facing a concerted effort on the part of regulators and supervisors to redline the entire crypto space. What has happened since was utterly shocking. The two most crypto-focused banks, Silvergate and Signature, were forced into liquidation and receivership, respectively. The established narrative is that they made “bad bets” and lost, or that they couldn’t handle flighty depositors in the form of tech and crypto startups. But there’s an alternative version of events being pieced together that is far more sinister — and convincing. It appears that these banks, especially Signature, were the victims of an opportunistic campaign to decapitate banks serving the crypto industry.” (Pirate Wires)
A weekly dispatch featuring exclusive interviews with deep tech founders & a roundup of the most important deep tech news.
- Major shake-up coming for Fermilab, the troubled U.S. particle physics center
- NASA pushes back Boeing Starliner’s crewed flight test to July
- Xcel Energy powers down Minnesota nuclear plant after finding 2nd leak of radioactive water
- Meet the WasteShark: An electric catamaran that eats plastic and cleans the water
Crypto News
- Study: Cryptomarkets increasingly infuse illicit drug trade
- Bankman-Fried accused of bribing one or more Chinese officials with $40 million
- Are cryptocurrencies commodities or securities? Depends on which US agency you ask
- Euler hacker returns 51,000 ether worth about $89M
- UNICEF hatches plan for a prototype DAO
- Tested on Ethereum, StarkWare’s Zero-Knowledge Proofs Are Now Live on Bitcoin
- Jack Dorsey-Backed Spiral Plots Course for Mainstream Adoption of Bitcoin’s Lightning Network
- Using bacteria to convert CO2 in the air into a polyester
- The powerhouse of the future: Artificial cells
- Novel nano-optical technology tracks communications in living cells
- New nanoparticles can perform gene-editing in the lungs
- Isar Aerospace raises $165M to bring more sovereign launch to Europe
- Fusion startup Type One Energy gets $29M seed
- Venti raises $29M to designed autonomous vehicles for industrial and logistics hubs
- DataDome, which uses AI to protect against bot-based attacks, raises $42M
- OQmented, an AR/MR display and 3D-sensing company, raised a $20M Series A
- Web3 infrastructure provider Fetch AI has raised a fresh $40M
- Solana-based derivatives protocol Cega raises $5M to expand on Ethereum
- Orderly Network raises fresh funding at a flat token valuation of $200M
- Irene Zhao’s web3 social platform So-Col unveils $4.5M in new funding
- Hydra Ventures DAO raises $10M for fresh take on fund of funds
- Conduit, a remote crypto native infrastructure platform, raised a $7M seed
It’s time to end the speed limit in US airspace / Bomb-sniffing rodents undergo vaginal transformations / Belgian man dies by suicide following exchanges with chatbot / One Man’s Quest to Revive the Great American Vacuum Tube / Startup makes mammoth meatball / One of the biggest black holes ever found / The cozy, creepy world of VR sleep rooms / My kids and I just played D&D with ChatGPT4 as the DM / Floating PV system mysteriously washes up on Hong Kong beach