Recent robotic hell
On a scale of 1 to 10, simply how determined do you assume Kim Kardashian is for consideration? Judging by the billionaire’s weirdly sexual photoshoot with a robotic, the reply could also be an 11. The entrepreneur and influencer, who’s a giant Tesla fan, not too long ago posed with the corporate’s Optimus bot in a Tesla Cybercab (a self-driving taxi) for a collection of images which is perhaps described as avant-garde should you’re being well mannered, and dystopian thirst traps should you’re not. She additionally posted some quite much less sultry movies of her interacting with the humanoid robotic.
The photoshoot has ignited one thing of a debate on-line about whether or not Kardashian is intentionally aligning herself with Elon Musk, who runs Tesla, and outing herself as a Trump supporter. Which is a little bit of a stretch actually as I’m undecided that – apart from an admirable stint engaged on legal justice reform – Kardashian has ever pretended to be a leftist. Kardashian is a billionaire who has been sued for unfair labor practices and who introduced, again in 2018, that she has “nothing dangerous to say” about Trump. Her Tesla-themed photoshoot was hardly a radical new course for her.
It’s, nonetheless, an indication of the “autonomous the whole lot” course through which we’re headed. The world’s most well-known influencer cozying as much as a robotic in a self-driving taxi is yet one more instance of how AI-powered autonomous know-how is slowly marching into our lives.
With regards to Tesla’s Optimus robotic, in fact, the operative phrase right here is slowly. The robotic, which isn’t obtainable on the market to most people but, might look flashy however it isn’t clear simply how refined it really is but. The Optimus robots have been a significant a part of Tesla’s Cybercab reveal in October, serving drinks to the gang and even chatting with them – because it seems, nonetheless, these “cutting-edge” robots have been really being remotely managed by people. Which is a step up, I suppose, from when Musk unveiled plans for a “Tesla Bot” in 2021 by bringing out a human in a robotic go well with who proceeded to breakdance to digital music.
Musk has been speaking a giant recreation about human-replacement robots for a very long time, saying they’re being designed to do “boring, repetitious and harmful” work. The tech billionaire, who has a behavior of wildly overpromising what he’s able to, additionally retains telling us they’re going to be launched any day now. In 2021, for instance, he instructed the “Tesla bot” would launch in 2022. Earlier this yr he claimed Tesla will produce “genuinely helpful” humanoid robots to start out working in its factories subsequent yr and plans to roll them out to different corporations in 2026. I wouldn’t maintain your breath that this may really occur.
Which isn’t to say, nonetheless, that improvement of these types of robots is a great distance away. Robotic canine, made by Boston Dynamics, are already being deployed by police departments and one has been guarding Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Deadlier variations of those canine are additionally within the works: the US military has reportedly despatched at the least one “robotic canine” armed with a man-made intelligence-enabled gun turret to Saudi Arabia for testing.
Extra usually, army use of AI-enabled weaponry is booming, basically altering the character of warfare. Gaza is at the moment a real-life testing area for a few of this tech: earlier this yr, one Israeli intelligence officer instructed the Guardian that highly effective AI methods “made it simpler” to kill folks and destroy houses. And whereas robotic canine might not be in Gaza but, quite a few eyewitnesses have mentioned that the Israeli army is utilizing sniper drones – quadcopters with rifles hooked up to them – and so they’re capturing civilians and kids.
Are the folks creating autonomous weapons stored up at night time with fear about how their know-how is perhaps abused? Palmer Luckey, the billionaire founding father of Anduril, the unreal intelligence weapons firm, actually doesn’t appear to be. In a latest dialog with Pepperdine College’s president, Jim Gash, Luckey enthused about how society wants a “warrior class that’s enthused and enthusiastic about enacting violence on others in pursuit of excellent goals”.
So that is what it is best to take into consideration whenever you see cutesy photoshoots with robots just like the one Kardashian simply did. You must take into consideration how these robots are going for use by the self-proclaimed “warrior class”. I’ve a sense that we’re going to see variations of Optimus being deployed to crack down on protesters effectively earlier than the Tesla robots are cooking us all dinner and doing our drudge work.
Georgia disbands maternal mortality committee after stories of abortion ban-induced deaths
Georgia officers have dismissed all members of a state committee charged with investigating deaths of pregnant girls. Why? As a result of ProPublica did a little bit investigating itself and, again in September, bought maintain of inside paperwork which discovered Amber Thurman and Candi Miller died preventable deaths on account of a state abortion ban.
Nancy Mace is obsessive about the place Sarah McBride goes to the toilet
McBride not too long ago turned the primary brazenly transgender particular person to be elected to the US Home of Representatives. Cue vicious bullying from her future colleagues. This week the South Carolina consultant Nancy Mace filed a movement to ban McBride and different trans girls from girls’s loos within the Capitol. “In the event you assume this invoice is about defending girls and never merely a ploy to get on Fox Information, you’ve been fooled,” wrote Natalie Johnson, Mace’s former communications director. She added, an actual effort to guard girls would contain “a invoice to bar Matt Gaetz, a sexual predator with an affinity for underage ladies, from ever strolling these halls once more”.
after publication promotion
The ladies pressured to carry out on OnlyFans
“OnlyFans says it empowers content material creators, notably girls, to monetize sexually express photos and movies in a protected on-line atmosphere,” a Reuters Investigation notes. “However [we] discovered girls who mentioned they’d been deceived, drugged, terrorized and sexually enslaved to earn money from the location.”
A derogatory time period for Native girls shall be faraway from place names throughout California
The phrase “squaw” is assumed to have initially simply meant “girl” within the Algonquin language however finally morphed right into a misogynistic and racist time period. It would now be eliminated from greater than 30 geographic options in California by 2025.
Twelve-year-old lady whose face ‘ripped off’ by an Israel rocket has been evacuated
Thaslima Begum’s Guardian article helped carry consideration to Mazyouna Damoo’s household’s battle to evacuate her from Gaza. After the Israeli authorities repeatedly blocked requests for her pressing medical evacuation she was lastly allowed out to get assist in the US.
The week in pawtriarchy
Police in Japan managed to crack the Thriller of the Disappearing Sneakers and determine why footwear was disappearing from a kindergarten. The wrongdoer? It was … a weasel. The Guardian has a video of the shoe thief in motion, and this enjoyable linguistic nugget: “[T]he musky scent of the Japanese weasel gave rise to the saying itachi no saigo-pei. That actually interprets as ‘the weasel’s last fart’, however is used to seek advice from the final phrase or act of an unpopular or dislikable particular person.”
