Upend

The US Environmental Protection Agency is set to announce sweeping new EPA rules on Wednesday intended to bring EV market share to ~60% in the US by 2030 and 67% by 2032. The rules are a big step forward for electrification, and represent an improvement from President Biden’s previous commitment of 50% electric by 2030. But it’s also far ahead of what many automakers are planning, leaving millions of EV sales up for grabs come 2030. While the new rules have not yet been finalized (or even…

The rise of artificial general intelligence -- now seen as inevitable in Silicon Valley -- will bring change that is "orders of magnitude" greater than anything the world has yet seen, observers say. But are we ready?AGI -- defined as artificial intelligence with human cognitive abilities, as opposed to more narrow artificial intelligence, such as the headline-grabbing ChatGPT -- could free people from menial tasks and usher in a new era of creativity. But such a historic paradigm shift could also threaten jobs and…

The rise of artificial general intelligence - now seen as inevitable in Silicon Valley - will bring change that is "orders of magnitude" greater than anything the world has yet seen, observers say. But are we ready?AGI - defined as artificial intelligence with human cognitive abilities, as opposed to more narrow artificial intelligence, such as the headline-grabbing ChatGPT - could free people from menial tasks and usher in a new era of creativity.But such a historic paradigm shift could also threaten jobs and raise…

The Supreme Court could soon redefine the rules of the internet as we know it. This week, the court will hear two cases, Gonzalez v. Google and Twitter v. Taamneh, that give it an opportunity to drastically change the rules of speech online. Both cases deal with how online platforms have handled terrorist content. And both have sparked deep concerns about the future of content moderation, algorithms and censorship. Section 230 and Gonzalez v. Google If you’ve spent any time following the various culture wars associated…

The Supreme Court will soon have the power to completely upend how companies handle third-party content on the internet.Photo: J Main (Shutterstock)In little more than a month’s time, the Alphabet-owned tech giant Google will soon be the main face of the entire tech industry defending how the internet currently exists, good and ill. The Supreme Court is gearing up to hear arguments that could completely redefine whether companies are liable for everything that gets uploaded to its varioussites.Last year, the Supreme…

WASHINGTON—A case before the Supreme Court challenging the liability shield protecting websites such as YouTube and Facebook could “upend the internet,” resulting in both widespread censorship and a proliferation of offensive content, Google said in a court filing Thursday.In a new brief filed with the high court, Google said that scaling back liability protections could lead internet giants to block more potentially offensive content—including controversial political speech—while also…

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain In recent years, more states have crafted environmental justice policies to help communities of color plagued by polluted air and water, poor health outcomes and limited access to green space. But now they fear that work could be upended by a pair of pending U.S. Supreme Court cases examining…

Long before our ancestors evolved large brains and language, even before they tamed fire or made stone tools, they started doing something no mammal had done before: walking on two legs. Skeletal adaptations for traveling upright are evident in fossils of the very oldest hominins—members of the human family—which date to between seven million and five million years ago. Moving on two legs rather than four set the stage for subsequent evolutionary changes in our lineage. It allowed our predecessors to expand their home…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain There has long been an assumption that a connection exists between affective polarization (i.e., partisan dislike of those in the other party) and anti-democratic attitudes. For that reason, policymakers and practitioners have focused on depolarization strategies to strengthen democracy. A…

eLife, the upstart publisher that has campaigned to end what it calls scientific journals’ counterproductive gatekeeping of research, today announced a new approach to hasten that outcome: It will cease accepting or rejecting manuscripts for publication, instead offering only peer reviews of selected manuscripts. Until now, eLife, a nonprofit, online-only publication that focuses on the life and medical sciences, has charged authors $3000 if it accepts a…