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Insomnia has rendered me nearly insensate today, but I plan a nice science post tomorrow, assuming I’ll be able to write and think. Today we get music.

“Free Man in Paris” is a song written, sung, and performed by Joni Mitchell, describing record and film producer David Geffen kvetching about busy life in the US, where many people importuned him constantly. It’s about his celebrating his freedom from that importuning in Paris. The song first appeared on Mitchell’s “Court and Spark” album in 1974.

Geffen originally signed Joni to Asylum Records (part of Atlantic), and here’s a bit more about the song from the Wikipedia links above:

Joni Mitchell and Geffen were close friends and, in the early 1970s, made a trip to Paris with Robbie Robertson and Robertson’s wife, Dominique. As a result of that trip, Mitchell wrote “Free Man in Paris“ about Geffen.

The song is about music agent/promoter David Geffen, a close friend of Mitchell in the early 1970s, and describes Geffen during a trip the two made to Paris with Robbie Robertson and Dominique Robertson. While Geffen is never mentioned by name, Mitchell describes how he works hard creating hits and launching careers but can find some peace while vacationing in Paris. Mitchell sings “I was a free man in Paris. I felt unfettered and alive. Nobody calling me up for favors. No one’s future to decide.”

I love this song, as I love Joni—at the top of singers/songwriters/musicians of our era. Here she is playing it in 1979. The sax is great, and Joni plays electric. (The recorded version is here.)

A lunchbox-sized radar system could help the FBI detect moving or stationary people by peering through walls via radio waves

Imagine a T-shirt that could monitor your heart rate or blood pressure. Or a pair of socks that could provide feedback on your running stride. It may be closer than you think, with new research demonstrating a particular 3-D ink printing method for so-called smart fabrics that continue to perform well after repeated washings and abrasion tests.

Growing evidence suggests a source of nutrition might be right under our noses. But how important are such aeronutrients – and can we harness them to better treat deficiencies?

As kids spend more time on screens, a new national survey conducted by Ipsos on behalf of The Kids Mental Health Foundation, founded by Nationwide Children's Hospital, identifies parents' greatest fears for their children around screen time.

Fungi are considered a promising source of biodegradable materials. Researchers have developed a new material based on a fungal mycelium and its own extracellular matrix. This gives the biomaterial particularly advantageous properties.

Quantum physics keeps challenging our intuition. Researchers have shown that joint measurements can be carried out on distant particles, without the need to bring them together. This breakthrough relies on quantum entanglement -- the phenomenon that links particles across distance as if connected by an invisible thread. The discovery opens up exciting prospects for quantum communication and computing, where information becomes accessible only once it is measured.

Researchers have detailed the geological ingredients required to find clean sources of natural hydrogen beneath our feet. The work details the requirements for natural hydrogen, produced by the Earth itself over geological time, to accumulate in the crust, and identifies that the geological environments with those ingredients are widespread globally. Hydrogen is $135 billion industry, essential for making fertilizer and other important societal chemicals, and a critical clean energy source for future low carbon emission technologies, with a market estimated to be up to $1000 billion by 2050. These findings offer a solution to the challenge of hydrogen supply, and will help industry to locate and extract natural hydrogen to meet global demands, eliminating the use of hydrocarbons for this purpose.

Astronomers have developed a groundbreaking computer simulation to explore, in unprecedented detail, magnetism and turbulence in the interstellar medium (ISM) -- the vast ocean of gas and charged particles that lies between stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. The model is the most powerful to date, requiring the computing capability of the SuperMUC-NG supercomputer at the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre in Germany. It directly challenges our understanding of how magnetized turbulence operates in astrophysical environments.

A robotic hand can pick up 24 different objects with human-like movements that emerge spontaneously, thanks to compliant materials and structures rather than programming.

A robotic hand can pick up 24 different objects with human-like movements that emerge spontaneously, thanks to compliant materials and structures rather than programming.

AI is advancing at such speed that speculative moral questions, once the province of science fiction, are suddenly real and pressing, says a philosopher and psychology researcher Frank Martela. Martela's latest study finds that generative AI meets all three of the philosophical conditions of free will -- the ability to have goal-directed agency, make genuine choices and to have control over its actions. This development brings us to a critical point in human history, as we give AI more power and freedom, potentially in life or death situations.

Here’s the second of Bill Maher’s “New Rules” segments that I haven’t posted. The YouTube caption is “New Rule: Before they can take on Donald Trump, Democrats have to decide which wing of their own party is best to lead them out of the wilderness.” Well, the segment doesn’t even really tackle that question. It only says that Democrats have to be less “judgey” if they want to start winning elections.

The theme is who should be the face of the “New” Democratic party, but starts by recounting an episode of the t.v. show “Love is Blind,” which apparently is in its last season (“season 8”) and yet I’ve been completely unaware of it. The bride, Sarah, leaves her fiancée Ben at the altar because he had no strong political opinions, much less strong progressive ones.

His moral for our party: “If the standards on the Left are going to be this high, and politics is going to be this much of a cock-block, we’re never going to win elections or have any more babies. This inclination from certain liberals to always and immediately excommunicate instead of communicate is what makes them so unlikeable.”  He does dwell on the rigor women’s standards rather than men’s, but I don’t know whether they differ. (By the way, I’m a tad under 5’8″ so I guess I’m unacceptable.)  Nor do I know whether Republicans would spurn a potential paramour because they aren’t 100% down the line with Trump. All in all, this is a pretty mediocre episode of Maher, though it may appeal to those who have watched “Love is Blind.” Personally, I’d prefer more lessons for Democrats and less summary of television plots.

The guests include journalist Kara Swisher and a man I don’t recognize (readers?).

 

A short while back I added a new comment to “Da Roolz,” the list of posting guidelines that everyone should read (especially newbies). The last guideline now reads:

26.) I will tolerate no comments that are generated with AI.  Even one of them will lead to instant banning for life.

Now I will be the judge of whether a comment is likely generated by ChatGPT or the like, but this one, which someone attempted to post on the thread after “Bill Maher: New Rules #1“, is surely the product of a bot. I won’t give the hapless writer’s handle:

Bill Maher’s “New Rules” segment, as discussed on Why Evolution Is True, delivers the comedian’s signature blend of sharp satire and cultural critique—this time tackling modern hypocrisy with his usual unflinching wit. The analysis highlights Maher’s ability to skewer both political extremes, though a deeper dive into his factual accuracy (or occasional oversimplifications) could add nuance. Fans will appreciate the curated highlights, while critics might crave more counterpoints. A thought-provoking read for those who miss Real Time’s mix of humor and hard truths.

Oy, my kishkes!  All I can say is that if you post something this bloody obvious—something that doesn’t add anything to the discussion—you better find another site for your Ai-generated lucubrations.  And this person must now do that.

Despite setting a global temperature record, 2023 might have been even hotter were it not for the cooling effect of smoke from massive wildfires in Canada

If we could peel back the Moon's cratered crust and examine its mantle, we might find answers to some foundational questions that date back to the Apollo moon landings. We lack the technological capability to excavate the Moon's mantle, but Nature has a way. A massive, ancient impact excavated material from deep beneath the Moon's crust and left it on the surface for us to study. It could help confirm the Moon's origins.

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has already uncovered hundreds of exoplanets of all sizes. Now, a team of astronomers is pushing the search even further—this time, looking for signs of planetary rings. Scanning 308 TESS planet candidates, they zeroed in on large, fast-orbiting worlds circling bright, nearby stars. Out of those, six showed subtle hints that rings might be present. But despite the tantalising clues, none offered definitive evidence of ring systems—at least not yet.

You’ve probably heard that black holes stick around for a long time—but even they are not eternal. Over unimaginable spans of time, they slowly evaporate into space through a process called Hawking radiation. And here’s the kicker: this doesn’t just apply to black holes. Anything with mass—stars, moons, even you—can, in theory, evaporate in this way. Black holes are a special case since they don’t have a surface and can actually swallow some of their own radiation, making their demise painfully slow. The biggest ones might take up to 10^100 years to disappear. But smaller objects? Something like the Moon—or a human being—could fade into nothingness in "just" 10^90 years.

What the true impact of artificial intelligence (AI) is and soon will be remains a point of contention. Even among scientifically literate skeptics people tend to fall into decidedly different narratives. Also, when being interviewed I can almost guarantee now that I will be asked what I think about the impact of AI – will it help, will it hurt, is it real, is it a sham? The reason I think there is so much disagreement is because all of these things are true at the same time. Different attitudes toward AI are partly due to confirmation bias. Once you have an AI narrative, you can easily find support for that narrative. But also I think part of the reason is that what you see depends on where you look.

The “AI is mostly hype” narrative derives partly from the fact that the current AI applications are not necessarily fundamentally different than AI applications in the last few decades. The big difference, of course, is the large language models, which are built on a transformer technology. This allows for training on massive sets of unstructured data (like the internet), and to simulate human speech is a very realistic manner. But they are still narrow AI, without any true understanding of concepts. This is why they “hallucinate” and lie – they are generating probable patterns, not actually thinking about the world.

So you can make the argument that recent AI is nothing fundamentally new, the output is highly flawed, still brittle in many ways, and mostly just flashy toys and ways to steal the creative output of people (who are generating the actual content). Or, you can look at the same data and conclude that AI has made incredible strides and we are just seeing its true potential. Applications like this one, that transforms old stills into brief movies, give us a glimpse of a “black mirror” near future where amazing digital creations will become our everyday experience.

But also, I think the “AI is hype” narrative is looking at only part of the elephant. Forget the fancy videos and pictures, AI is transforming scientific research in many areas. I read dozens of science news press releases every week, and there is now a steady stream of news items about how using AI allowed researchers to perform months of research in hours, or accomplish tasks previously unattainable. The ability to find patterns in vast amounts of data is a perfect fit for genetics research, proteinomics, material science, neuroscience, astronomy, and other areas. AI is also poised to transform medical research and practice. The biggest problem for a modern clinician is the vast amount of data they need to deal with. It’s literally impossible to keep up in anything but a very narrow area, which is while so many clinicians specialize. But this causes a lack of generalists who play a critical role in patient care.

AI has already proven to be equal to or superior to human clinicians in reading medical scans, making diagnoses, and finding potential interactions, for example. This is mostly just using generic Chat-GPT type programs, but there are medical specific ones coming out. AI also is a perfect match for certain types of technology, such as robotics and brain-machine interface. For example, allowing users to control a robotic prosthetic limb is greatly improved, with training accelerated, using AI. AI apps can predict what the user wants to do, and can find patterns in nerve or muscle activity to correspond to the desired movement.

These are concrete and undeniable applications that pretty much destroy the  “AI is all hype” narrative. But – that does not mean that other proposed AI applications are not mostly hype. Most new technologies are accompanied by the snake oil peddlers hoping to cash in on the resulting hype and the general unfamiliarity of the public with the new technology. AI is also very much a tool looking for an application, and that will take time, to sort out what it does best, where it works and where it doesn’t. We have to keep in mind how fast this is all moving.

I am reminded of the early days of the web. One of my colleagues observed that the internet was going to go the way of CB radio – it was a fad without any real application that would soon fade. Many people shared a similar opinion – what was this all for, anyway? Meanwhile there was an internet-driven tech bubble that was literally mostly hype, and that soon burst. At the same time there were those who saw the potential of the internet and the web and landed on those applications for which it was best suited (and became billionaires). We cannot deny now that the web has transformed our society, the way we shop, the way we consume news and communicate, and the way we consume media, and spend a lot of our time (what are you doing right now?). The web was hype, and real, and caused harm, and is a great tool.

AI is the same, just at an earlier part of the curve. It is hype, but also a powerful tool. We are still sorting out what it works best for and where its true potential  lies. It is and will transform our world, and it will be for both good and for ill. So don’t believe all the hype, but ignore it at your peril. If it will be a net positive or negative for society depends on us – how we use it, how we support it, and how we regulate it. We basically failed to regulate social media and are now paying the price while scrambling to correct our mistakes. Probably the same thing will happen with AI, but there is an outside chance we may learn from our recent and very similar mistakes and get ahead of the curve. I wouldn’t hold my breath (certainly not in the current political environment), but crazier things have happened.

Like with any technology – it can be used for good or bad, and the more powerful it is the greater the potential benefit or harm. AI is the nuclear weapon of the digital world. I think the biggest legitimate concern is that it will become a powerful tool in the hands of authoritarian governments. AI could become an overwhelming tool of surveillance and oppression. Not thinking about this early in the game may be a mistake from which there is no recovery.

The post The AI Conundrum first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

The pitch and hoarseness of a person's voice often changes if they have Parkinson's disease, suggesting there could be a non-invasive way of screening for the condition