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Imagine an endless library that contained every possible permutation of letters. The truth is out there, but can you find it? How will the internet evolve in the coming decades? Fiction writers have explored some possibilities. In his 2019 novel “ Fall ,” science fiction author Neal Stephenson imagined a near future in which the internet still exists. But it has become so polluted with misinformation, disinformation, and advertising that it is largely unusable. Characters in Stephenson’s novel deal with this problem by subscribing to “edit streams” — human-selected news and information that can be considered trustworthy. The truth is out there — but so is every conceivable falsehood. The drawback is that only the wealthy can afford such bespoke services, leaving most of humanity to consume low-quality, noncurated online content. To some extent, this has already happened: Many news organizations, such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal , have placed their curated content behind paywalls. Meanwhile, misinformation festers on social media platforms like X and TikTok. Stephenson’s record as a prognosticator has been impressive — he anticipated the metaverse in his 1992 novel “ Snow Crash ,” and a key plot element of his “ Diamond Age ,” released in 1995, is an interactive primer that functions much like a chatbot . On the surface, chatbots seem to provide a solution to the misinformation epidemic. By dispensing factual content, chatbots could supply alternative sources of high-quality information that aren’t cordoned off by paywalls. The writer and Nobel Prize for Literature, Jorge Luis Borges, might not have predicted Large Language Models, but he could have told us what comes next. Ironically, however, the output of these chatbots may represent the greatest danger to the future of the web — one that was hinted at decades earlier by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges . The Rise of the AI Chatbot Today, a significant fraction of the internet still consists of factual and ostensibly truthful content, such as articles and books that have been peer-reviewed, fact-checked, or vetted in some way. The developers of large language models, or LLMs — the engines that power bots like ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini — have taken advantage of this resource. The problem is that the web, enormous as it is, is a finite resource. To perform their magic, however, these models must ingest immense quantities of high-quality text for training purposes. A vast amount of verbiage has already been scraped from online sources and fed to the fledgling LLMs. The problem is that the web, enormous as it is, is a finite resource. High-quality text that hasn’t already been strip-mined is becoming scarce , leading to what The New York Times called an “ emerging crisis in content .” This has forced companies like OpenAI to enter into agreements with publishers to obtain even more raw material for their ravenous bots. However, according to one prediction, a shortage of additional high-quality training data may strike as early as 2026 . As the output of chatbots ends up online, these second-generation texts — complete with made-up information called “ hallucinations ,” as well as outright errors, such as suggestions to put glue on your pizza — will further pollute the web. And if a chatbot hangs out with the wrong sort of people online, it can pick up their repellent views. Microsoft discovered this the hard way in 2016 when it had to pull the plug on Tay , a bot that started repeating racist and sexist content . Over time, all of these issues could make online content even less trustworthy and less useful than it is today. In addition, LLMs that are fed a diet of low-calorie content may produce even more problematic output that also ends up on the web. The Useless Library It’s not hard to imagine a feedback loop that results in a continuous process of degradation as the bots feed on their own imperfect output. A July 2024 paper published in Nature explored the consequences of training AI models on recursively generated data. It showed that “irreversible defects” can lead to “ model collapse ” for systems trained in this way — much like an image’s copy and a copy of that copy, and a copy of that copy, will lose fidelity to the original image. How bad might this get? Consider Borges’ 1941 short story “ The Library of Babel .” Fifty years before computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee created the architecture for the web, Borges had already imagined an analog equivalent. In his 3,000-word story, the writer imagines a world consisting of an enormous and possibly infinite number of hexagonal rooms. The bookshelves in each room hold uniform volumes that must, its inhabitants intuit, contain every possible permutation of letters in their alphabet. Initially, this realization sparks joy: By definition, books must exist that detail the future of humanity and the meaning of life. The inhabitants search for such books, only to discover that the vast majority contain nothing but meaningless combinations of letters. The truth is out there — but so is every conceivable falsehood. And all of it is embedded in an inconceivably vast amount of gibberish. Even after centuries of searching, only a few meaningful fragments are found. And even then, there is no way to determine whether these coherent texts are truths or lies. Hope turns into despair. Will the web become so polluted that only the wealthy can afford accurate and reliable information? Or will an infinite number of chatbots produce so much tainted verbiage that finding accurate information online becomes like searching for a needle in a haystack? The internet is often described as one of humanity’s great achievements. But like any other resource, it’s important to give serious thought to how it is maintained and managed — lest we end up confronting the dystopian vision imagined by Borges. This article was originally published on The Conversation by Roger J. Kreuz at the University of Memphis . Read the original article here . Science Fiction A.I. Books

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Ruben Amorim urged to ditch one of Erik ten Hag's most trusted signings to make immediate Manchester United impactPublicité Interview 20 décembre 2024 22:00 Commentaire(s) Par Lindsay Prosper Partager cet article Facebook X LinkedIn WhatsApp Interview Eli Belotsercovsky, ex-ambassador of Israel to Mauritius with residence in South Africa. After having served as ambassador of Israel to Mauritius with residence in South Africa for three years between 2021 and 2024, Eli Belotsercovsky paid a farewell visit to Mauritius. In the interview he gave to “l’express”, he talked mainly about the avenues of cooperation that can be developed between our two countries – agriculture, education, social development, tourism and health. Many times have you been in Mauritius where you do not enjoy the privilege of having a fully-fledged embassy? Because of the war against the Hamas that started on October 7, 2023, I have visited Mauritius on three occasions only. How long did you stay in Mauritius during these three visits It was between 3 to 4 days. What lies behind the Israeli government’s intention to try to seek how it can gradually bring to a new level its diplomatic relation and cooperation with Mauritius? One of my main tasks was to try, as best as I could, to see how we can strengthen our relationship with Mauritius. One aspect of this strategy that we have been able to achieve has been to see how we can increase the number of people who are willing to travel to Israel to benefit from all existing facilities that we offer in the field of training. In what fields of interest these training facilities are able to come to fruition? Agriculture, education, social development and health care are the domains where these training facilities can be offered. What has been the response to your proposals? It was quite positive and encouraging because quite a lot of people from Mauritius have openly shown their interest to take advantage of these training facilities. Some moved to Israel while others benefitted from courses that were available online. In addition to this, we have chosen water as one of the main area of cooperation because this is a big challenge for Mauritius and for Rodrigues as well. However, many parts of the main island Mauritius suffer from the consequences of water shortages. We have been able to send an expert from Israel to Mauritius where he stayed about a week. The main purpose of the visit has been to see with the responsible parties from the Central Water Authority how a transfer of knowhow that Israel has acquired in the field of management of water resources can be considered. It was also agreed that an extension of this project could take the form of exchanges between representatives from the Ministry of Energy and Public Utilities and those of a selected group of companies in Israel who deal with water technologies by having recourse to audio and/or video conferencing facilities offered by Zoom Communications. What other fields of interest whereby cooperation between the two countries could start or move a step further from what the situation stands today? I would spontaneously move out of the list, tourism and agriculture. What are your arguments to justify this choice? The reason why tourism arrives at the top of the list is that it is an area of interest where we have already started to cooperate and would like to continue in the future. So far, we have seen quite a number of tourists from Israel who have travelled to Mauritius.The country is becoming more and more known in Israel. However, the potential of that sector is much higher and there is sufficient room to believe that future development of that sector between the two countries is really possible. If this is the case, what have you done to allow this sector to develop further? We invited the Mauritian government to participate in a tourist exhibition that was scheduled to take place in February 2024 in Tel Aviv but didn’t take place because of the war with Hamas. We hope that it will take place next year, I mean 2025. Hopefully, we are expecting that Mauritius will send its representatives to this event. Tourism has a significant chance to develop further because people from Israel are fond of travelling since our country is very small. They are looking for new destinations. The potential of the tourist sector is there. What is the Israeli government prepared to commit so that tourism occupies a more prominent place in the cooperation process that is highly desired? It would be a good idea to organise a visit or even several visits to Mauritius for travel agents of the Israel Travel Association. In Israel, as in many other countries, the government is doing its best to have as many tourists as possible at home. The Israeli Travel Association is interested in sending tourists abroad. So, the idea is to have a fully-fledged delegation of travel agents over here to visit every corner that will enable them to take stock of the potential of the Mauritian tourism sector they can refer to when they come back to Israel to organise a promotion campaign in favour of Mauritius as a destination that needs to be visited. If the response gathered following this promotion campaign is such that a fair number of Israelis wish to spend some days over here, we can consider the possibility of starting direct charter flights between Mauritius and Israel. It can be expected that people from Mauritius would be eager to seize this opportunity to visit Israel. This development, if it comes into place, should benefit both sides. Let’s shift to agriculture, an area where the Israeli government is eager to share the know-how the country has acquired after many years of practice, and which can be subject to a process regarding the transfer of technology in this field? Agriculture is a very important area. Last year, we already had two experts from the Food and Research and Extension Institute (FAREI), who benefitted from a tailored-cut trip to Israel in the field of cattle breeding for milk production and horticulture. The FAREI, which plays an important role in the agricultural sector of Mauritius, aims at implementing programmes relating to research, development and training that can contribute to help the country attainits food security level, competitiveness as well as stakeholder equity across the whole agrifood value chains. Our aim is to see how we can promote cooperation in the area of agriculture mainly in terms of seeds that give higher yield and extending shelf-life tomato. We can also work together by conveying methods of agricultural practices to farmer communities of Mauritius by establishing over here centres of excellence in agriculture, as we have done in many countries such as India and Rwanda. We cannot end this interview without referring to a specific aspect of the military conflict that started on October 7, 2023, and which took Israel by surprise. It is the possibility of a ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas. Why doesn’t Israel seem too enthusiastic about that solution, which could bring peace to the whole region? There will never be a ceasefire as long as Hamas’s main objective is to destroy the State of Israel. Until we come to destroy all terrorist infrastructure over there, capture the terrorists, disarm them and create in Gaza some kind of Palestinian government, there will no peace over there. If this political authority declares that there is an issue with the State of Israel, then it will be quite possible to sit around a table and discuss the matter with a view to find a solution. It is unnecessary to face a conflictual situation where there is a risk that many innocent people can get killed. This is our aim. 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“If It Wasn’t For Spiritual Path At Isha...”: Cholamandalam Chairman Vellayan Subbiah Credits Isha For 60x Business Growth At INSIGHTCrosby breaks Lemieux's Penguins career assists record in 3-2 victory over the IslandersPLAINS, Ga. (AP) — Newly married and sworn as a Naval officer, Jimmy Carter left his tiny hometown in 1946 hoping to climb the ranks and see the world. Less than a decade later, the death of his father and namesake, a merchant farmer and local politician who went by “Mr. Earl,” prompted the submariner and his wife, Rosalynn, to return to the rural life of Plains, Georgia, they thought they’d escaped. The lieutenant never would be an admiral. Instead, he became commander in chief. Years after his presidency ended in humbling defeat, he would add a Nobel Peace Prize, awarded not for his White House accomplishments but “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” The life of James Earl Carter Jr., the 39th and longest-lived U.S. president, ended Sunday at the age of 100 where it began: Plains, the town of 600 that fueled his political rise, welcomed him after his fall and sustained him during 40 years of service that redefined what it means to be a former president. With the stubborn confidence of an engineer and an optimism rooted in his Baptist faith, Carter described his motivations in politics and beyond in the same way: an almost missionary zeal to solve problems and improve lives. Carter was raised amid racism, abject poverty and hard rural living — realities that shaped both his deliberate politics and emphasis on human rights. “He always felt a responsibility to help people,” said Jill Stuckey, a longtime friend of Carter's in Plains. “And when he couldn’t make change wherever he was, he decided he had to go higher.” Carter's path, a mix of happenstance and calculation , pitted moral imperatives against political pragmatism; and it defied typical labels of American politics, especially caricatures of one-term presidents as failures. “We shouldn’t judge presidents by how popular they are in their day. That's a very narrow way of assessing them," Carter biographer Jonathan Alter told the Associated Press. “We should judge them by how they changed the country and the world for the better. On that score, Jimmy Carter is not in the first rank of American presidents, but he stands up quite well.” Later in life, Carter conceded that many Americans, even those too young to remember his tenure, judged him ineffective for failing to contain inflation or interest rates, end the energy crisis or quickly bring home American hostages in Iran. He gained admirers instead for his work at The Carter Center — advocating globally for public health, human rights and democracy since 1982 — and the decades he and Rosalynn wore hardhats and swung hammers with Habitat for Humanity. Yet the common view that he was better after the Oval Office than in it annoyed Carter, and his allies relished him living long enough to see historians reassess his presidency. “He doesn’t quite fit in today’s terms” of a left-right, red-blue scoreboard, said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who visited the former president multiple times during his own White House bid. At various points in his political career, Carter labeled himself “progressive” or “conservative” — sometimes both at once. His most ambitious health care bill failed — perhaps one of his biggest legislative disappointments — because it didn’t go far enough to suit liberals. Republicans, especially after his 1980 defeat, cast him as a left-wing cartoon. It would be easiest to classify Carter as a centrist, Buttigieg said, “but there’s also something radical about the depth of his commitment to looking after those who are left out of society and out of the economy.” Indeed, Carter’s legacy is stitched with complexities, contradictions and evolutions — personal and political. The self-styled peacemaker was a war-trained Naval Academy graduate who promised Democratic challenger Ted Kennedy that he’d “kick his ass.” But he campaigned with a call to treat everyone with “respect and compassion and with love.” Carter vowed to restore America’s virtue after the shame of Vietnam and Watergate, and his technocratic, good-government approach didn't suit Republicans who tagged government itself as the problem. It also sometimes put Carter at odds with fellow Democrats. The result still was a notable legislative record, with wins on the environment, education, and mental health care. He dramatically expanded federally protected lands, began deregulating air travel, railroads and trucking, and he put human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy. As a fiscal hawk, Carter added a relative pittance to the national debt, unlike successors from both parties. Carter nonetheless struggled to make his achievements resonate with the electorate he charmed in 1976. Quoting Bob Dylan and grinning enthusiastically, he had promised voters he would “never tell a lie.” Once in Washington, though, he led like a joyless engineer, insisting his ideas would become reality and he'd be rewarded politically if only he could convince enough people with facts and logic. This served him well at Camp David, where he brokered peace between Israel’s Menachem Begin and Epypt’s Anwar Sadat, an experience that later sparked the idea of The Carter Center in Atlanta. Carter's tenacity helped the center grow to a global force that monitored elections across five continents, enabled his freelance diplomacy and sent public health experts across the developing world. The center’s wins were personal for Carter, who hoped to outlive the last Guinea worm parasite, and nearly did. As president, though, the approach fell short when he urged consumers beleaguered by energy costs to turn down their thermostats. Or when he tried to be the nation’s cheerleader, beseeching Americans to overcome a collective “crisis of confidence.” Republican Ronald Reagan exploited Carter's lecturing tone with a belittling quip in their lone 1980 debate. “There you go again,” the former Hollywood actor said in response to a wonky answer from the sitting president. “The Great Communicator” outpaced Carter in all but six states. Carter later suggested he “tried to do too much, too soon” and mused that he was incompatible with Washington culture: media figures, lobbyists and Georgetown social elites who looked down on the Georgians and their inner circle as “country come to town.” Carter carefully navigated divides on race and class on his way to the Oval Office. Born Oct. 1, 1924 , Carter was raised in the mostly Black community of Archery, just outside Plains, by a progressive mother and white supremacist father. Their home had no running water or electricity but the future president still grew up with the relative advantages of a locally prominent, land-owning family in a system of Jim Crow segregation. He wrote of President Franklin Roosevelt’s towering presence and his family’s Democratic Party roots, but his father soured on FDR, and Jimmy Carter never campaigned or governed as a New Deal liberal. He offered himself as a small-town peanut farmer with an understated style, carrying his own luggage, bunking with supporters during his first presidential campaign and always using his nickname. And he began his political career in a whites-only Democratic Party. As private citizens, he and Rosalynn supported integration as early as the 1950s and believed it inevitable. Carter refused to join the White Citizens Council in Plains and spoke out in his Baptist church against denying Black people access to worship services. “This is not my house; this is not your house,” he said in a churchwide meeting, reminding fellow parishioners their sanctuary belonged to God. Yet as the appointed chairman of Sumter County schools he never pushed to desegregate, thinking it impractical after the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board decision. And while presidential candidate Carter would hail the 1965 Voting Rights Act, signed by fellow Democrat Lyndon Johnson when Carter was a state senator, there is no record of Carter publicly supporting it at the time. Carter overcame a ballot-stuffing opponent to win his legislative seat, then lost the 1966 governor's race to an arch-segregationist. He won four years later by avoiding explicit mentions of race and campaigning to the right of his rival, who he mocked as “Cufflinks Carl” — the insult of an ascendant politician who never saw himself as part the establishment. Carter’s rural and small-town coalition in 1970 would match any victorious Republican electoral map in 2024. Once elected, though, Carter shocked his white conservative supporters — and landed on the cover of Time magazine — by declaring that “the time for racial discrimination is over.” Before making the jump to Washington, Carter befriended the family of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., whom he’d never sought out as he eyed the governor’s office. Carter lamented his foot-dragging on school integration as a “mistake.” But he also met, conspicuously, with Alabama's segregationist Gov. George Wallace to accept his primary rival's endorsement ahead of the 1976 Democratic convention. “He very shrewdly took advantage of his own Southerness,” said Amber Roessner, a University of Tennessee professor and expert on Carter’s campaigns. A coalition of Black voters and white moderate Democrats ultimately made Carter the last Democratic presidential nominee to sweep the Deep South. Then, just as he did in Georgia, he used his power in office to appoint more non-whites than all his predecessors had, combined. He once acknowledged “the secret shame” of white Americans who didn’t fight segregation. But he also told Alter that doing more would have sacrificed his political viability – and thus everything he accomplished in office and after. King's daughter, Bernice King, described Carter as wisely “strategic” in winning higher offices to enact change. “He was a leader of conscience,” she said in an interview. Rosalynn Carter, who died on Nov. 19 at the age of 96, was identified by both husband and wife as the “more political” of the pair; she sat in on Cabinet meetings and urged him to postpone certain priorities, like pressing the Senate to relinquish control of the Panama Canal. “Let that go until the second term,” she would sometimes say. The president, recalled her former aide Kathy Cade, retorted that he was “going to do what’s right” even if “it might cut short the time I have.” Rosalynn held firm, Cade said: “She’d remind him you have to win to govern.” Carter also was the first president to appoint multiple women as Cabinet officers. Yet by his own telling, his career sprouted from chauvinism in the Carters' early marriage: He did not consult Rosalynn when deciding to move back to Plains in 1953 or before launching his state Senate bid a decade later. Many years later, he called it “inconceivable” that he didn’t confer with the woman he described as his “full partner,” at home, in government and at The Carter Center. “We developed a partnership when we were working in the farm supply business, and it continued when Jimmy got involved in politics,” Rosalynn Carter told AP in 2021. So deep was their trust that when Carter remained tethered to the White House in 1980 as 52 Americans were held hostage in Tehran, it was Rosalynn who campaigned on her husband’s behalf. “I just loved it,” she said, despite the bitterness of defeat. Fair or not, the label of a disastrous presidency had leading Democrats keep their distance, at least publicly, for many years, but Carter managed to remain relevant, writing books and weighing in on societal challenges. He lamented widening wealth gaps and the influence of money in politics. He voted for democratic socialist Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in 2016, and later declared that America had devolved from fully functioning democracy to “oligarchy.” Yet looking ahead to 2020, with Sanders running again, Carter warned Democrats not to “move to a very liberal program,” lest they help re-elect President Donald Trump. Carter scolded the Republican for his serial lies and threats to democracy, and chided the U.S. establishment for misunderstanding Trump’s populist appeal. He delighted in yearly convocations with Emory University freshmen, often asking them to guess how much he’d raised in his two general election campaigns. “Zero,” he’d gesture with a smile, explaining the public financing system candidates now avoid so they can raise billions. Carter still remained quite practical in partnering with wealthy corporations and foundations to advance Carter Center programs. Carter recognized that economic woes and the Iran crisis doomed his presidency, but offered no apologies for appointing Paul Volcker as the Federal Reserve chairman whose interest rate hikes would not curb inflation until Reagan's presidency. He was proud of getting all the hostages home without starting a shooting war, even though Tehran would not free them until Reagan's Inauguration Day. “Carter didn’t look at it” as a failure, Alter emphasized. “He said, ‘They came home safely.’ And that’s what he wanted.” Well into their 90s, the Carters greeted visitors at Plains’ Maranatha Baptist Church, where he taught Sunday School and where he will have his last funeral before being buried on family property alongside Rosalynn . Carter, who made the congregation’s collection plates in his woodworking shop, still garnered headlines there, calling for women’s rights within religious institutions, many of which, he said, “subjugate” women in church and society. Carter was not one to dwell on regrets. “I am at peace with the accomplishments, regret the unrealized goals and utilize my former political position to enhance everything we do,” he wrote around his 90th birthday. The politician who had supposedly hated Washington politics also enjoyed hosting Democratic presidential contenders as public pilgrimages to Plains became advantageous again. Carter sat with Buttigieg for the final time March 1, 2020, hours before the Indiana mayor ended his campaign and endorsed eventual winner Joe Biden. “He asked me how I thought the campaign was going,” Buttigieg said, recalling that Carter flashed his signature grin and nodded along as the young candidate, born a year after Carter left office, “put the best face” on the walloping he endured the day before in South Carolina. Never breaking his smile, the 95-year-old host fired back, “I think you ought to drop out.” “So matter of fact,” Buttigieg said with a laugh. “It was somehow encouraging.” Carter had lived enough, won plenty and lost enough to take the long view. “He talked a lot about coming from nowhere,” Buttigieg said, not just to attain the presidency but to leverage “all of the instruments you have in life” and “make the world more peaceful.” In his farewell address as president, Carter said as much to the country that had embraced and rejected him. “The struggle for human rights overrides all differences of color, nation or language,” he declared. “Those who hunger for freedom, who thirst for human dignity and who suffer for the sake of justice — they are the patriots of this cause.” Carter pledged to remain engaged with and for them as he returned “home to the South where I was born and raised,” home to Plains, where that young lieutenant had indeed become “a fellow citizen of the world.” —- Bill Barrow, based in Atlanta, has covered national politics including multiple presidential campaigns for the AP since 2012.