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It was a blockbuster 2022 for artificial intelligence. The technology made waves from Googles DeepMind predicting the structure of almost every known protein in the human body to successful launches of OpenAIs generative A.I. assistant tools DALL-E and ChatGPT. The sector now looks to be on a fast track towards revolutionizing our economy and everyday lives, but many experts remain concerned that changes are happening too fast with potentially disastrous implications for the world.

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Many experts in A.I. and computer science say the technology is likely a watershed moment for human society. But 36% dont mean it as a positive, warning that decisions made by A.I. could lead to nuclear-level catastrophe, according to researchers surveyed in an annual report on the technology by Stanford Universitys Institute for Human-Centered A.I., published earlier this month.

Almost three quarters of researchers in natural language processingthe branch of computer science concerned with developing A.I.say the technology might soon spark revolutionary societal change, according to the report. And while an overwhelming majority of researchers say the future net impact of A.I. and natural language processing will be positive, concerns remain that the technology could soon develop potentially dangerous capabilities, while A.I.s traditional gatekeepers are no longer as powerful as they once were.

As the technical barrier to entry for creating and deploying generative A.I. systems has lowered dramatically, the ethical issues around AI have become more apparent to the general public. Startups and large companies find themselves in a race to deploy and release generative models, and the technology is no longer controlled by a small group of actors, the report said.

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A.I. fears over the past few months have mostly been contained to the technologys disruptive implications for society. Companies including Google and Microsoft are locked in an arms race over generative A.I., systems trained on troves of data that can generate text and images based on simple prompts. But as OpenAIs ChatGPT has already proven, these technologies can quickly wipe out livelihoods. If generative A.I. lives up to its potential, up to 300 million jobs could be at risk in the U.S. and Europe, according to a Goldman Sachs research note last month, with legal and administrative professions the most exposed.

Goldman researchers noted that A.I.s labor market disruption could be undone in the long run by new job creation and improved productivity, but generative A.I. has also sparked fears over the technologys tendency to be inaccurate. Both Microsoft and Googles A.I. offerings have frequently made untrue or misleading statements, with one recent study finding that Googles Bard chatbot can create false narratives in nearly eight out of 10 topics. A.I.s imprecision in addition to a tendency for disturbing conversations when used too long has pushed developers and experts to warn the technology should not be used to make major decisions just yet.

But the fast pace of A.I. development means that companies and individuals who dont take risks with it could be left behind, and the technology could soon advance so much that we may not have a choice.

At its current developmental speed, research is moving on from generative A.I. to creating artificial general intelligence, according to 57% of researchers surveyed by Stanford. Artificial general intelligence, or AGI, is an A.I. system that can accurately mimic or even outperform the capabilities of a human brain. There is very little consensus over when AGI could happen, with different experts claiming it will take 50 years or hundreds, while some researchers even question if true AGI is possible at all.

But if AGI does become reality, it would likely represent a seminal moment of human history and development, with some even fearing it could represent a technological singularity, a hypothetical future moment when humans lose control of technological growth and creations gain above-human intelligence. Around 58% of the Stanford researchers surveyed called AGI an important concern.

The survey found that experts most pressing concerns is that current A.I. research is focusing too much on scaling, hitting goals, and failing to include insights from different research fields. Other experts have raised similar concerns, calling for major developers to slow down the pace of A.I. rollout as ethics research continues. Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak were among the 1,300 signatories of an open letter last month calling for a six-month ban on creating more powerful versions of A.I. as research continues into the technologys larger implications.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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A.I. could lead to a nuclear-level catastrophe according to a third of researchers, a new Stanford report finds - Yahoo Finance

TV review

Essentially submarine Detectorists, this travelogue has a winningly excitable Kemp ditching violent ganglands to trawl the depths of the Mary Rose

Mon 10 Apr 2023 17.00 EDT

Twelve metres beneath the surface of the Solent, Ross Kemp is excited. Mallory! MALLORY! he yells. Mallory Haas is a maritime archeologist, who I imagine got into this line of work precisely so she didnt have to hear men shouting at her. Mallory, look what Ive found here! Surely deep-sea diving comms come with off-switches these days.

Ross Kemp: Deep Sea Treasure Hunter is essentially submarine Detectorists, despite Kemps puppyish overcompensations: Ive found something. Mallory! Ive found something!

Im not saying the underwater photography is woeful, but to my eyes, the debris Kemp dredges up a piece of pottery could have been anything. Henry VIIIs codpiece, nuclear waste, a vintage ring pull from a 1973 can of Lilt.

Being a trained actor, Kemp swims up to his mark in front of the camera with aplomb, and says: Its like touching hands with a ghost. I cant see inside Rosss helmet but I feel sure one eyebrow is shooting up.

Im very fond of Kemp with his buff embonpoint and shaved head, it seems like his idea of fun would be a fight in an after-hours pub car park. But, behind the masculinist posturing and devotion to well-filled T-shirts is a sensitive soul, eternally calling out to his mum to stop texting and watch him on the swing.

Most likely, he doesnt really want to tour the world interviewing unpleasantly violent men for Ross Kemp on Gangs. Nobody in their right mind does. Nor does he seemingly yearn to add to his already unrelentingly butch roster of docs, such as Ross Kemp in Afghanistan or Ross Kemp in Search of Pirates, or to make documentaries whose titles come with pretentious colons, such as Ross Kemp: Extreme World. But, until someone commissions him to film Ross Kemp on How to Draw Lovely Ponies or Ross Kemp: Flower Arranger, hes stuck like the last timbers of the Mary Rose in the submarine mud of the Solent in a fate he didnt choose, poor chap.

This is a piece of glazed saltware, says Haas indulgently, examining Kemps find. You think that it could be Tudor pottery, do you? says Kemp, breathless, but hopefully not out of tank oxygen.

Kemp is a resourceful actor, but in his diving helmet even he cant convey by facial expression how exciting this is. So instead he makes a drinking gesture with one hand: This could be from a jug that was drunk by Tudor chaps.

Chaps what an inspired word to use at that moment. I imagine the chaps of the Mary Rose on that fateful day of 19 July 1545, observed by Henry VIII from the ramparts of Southsea Castle, raising glazed jugs of Tudor booze to his majestys health before for reasons uncertain the flagship of the English fleet sank, along with most of the 200 sailors and 185 soldiers and 30 gunners aboard.

But then I realise Ive got Haas all wrong. Far from being a submarine wet blanket, she is in her element, as much into this as Kemp. Wow! she exclaims, This is touching history!

And then, Haas finds something else. What have you found, Mallory? MALLORY, what is it?

Its an extremely compact artefact, says Haas. What she has found is a piece of wood but not any old piece of wood. We seem to have hit the jackpot.

Kemp and Haas are running out of oxygen, possibly because theyre hyperventilating. Back on dry land, fellow diving enthusiasts examine their haul. The shoe sole discovered by Haas is indeed a piece of history, but probably more Freeman Hardy & Willis than Tudor. Thats the problem with marine archaeology: the seas are full of rubbish, not all of it Tudor.

For all that, the piece of wood may or may not have once formed part of the bow of the Mary Rose, and, for that reason will be added to the Mary Rose Museums collection of 19,000 artefacts. That collection, Kemp explains, was assembled after most of the wreck was brought to the surface in 1982 437 years after she sank. What remains below is tantalising, or at least so we must suppose if we are to enjoy this show. The bow end of the ship that may or may not have collapsed under the weight of the big guns Henry insisted be installed is still there beneath the waves.

I dont mean to be picky, but 12 metres isnt really deep-sea treasure hunting, nor does diving in the Solent really justify the early parts of this episode in which Kemp learns how to dive at 40 metres. Happily, in future episodes he dives deeper. But if the tease for episode two is anything to go by, he faces some difficulties. Way to ramp up the jeopardy, Ross.

That said, given all the interviews hes done to promote this series, I think we can safely say without any spoilers that he survives and that in years to come he will make Ross Kemp: Minstrel Flautist in Tights. Because, forget about treasure hunting, thats the show I want to see.

Ross Kemp: Deep Sea Treasure Hunter airs on Sky History and is available on NOW.

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Ross Kemp: Deep Sea Treasure Hunter review soap star swims up to the mark in search of Tudor gems - The Guardian

Harris County, Texas is the hub of Americas fossil fuel and petrochemical industries. Hundreds of refineries and chemical plants cluster in the county, which includes Houston, and they are responsible for cancer-causing chemical pollution that disproportionately harms communities of color.

At 35, Christian Menefee, a Democrat, is the youngest, and the first Black person, to serve as Harris County Attorney. Since his election in 2020, he has made addressing pollution and its racially disparate impact a top priority. His office, which handles civil cases, has taken legal action on issues from petrochemical emissions to toxic contamination from a rail yard to the impacts of a major highway expansion.

In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Menefee says Texass conservative leadership does everything it can to hobble such efforts. Constrained by limitations the Republican state legislature has imposed on city and county officials and frustrated with a state environment agency that is asleep at the wheel he says his office has to be creative to check industrys abuses.

Menefee notes that he represented oil and gas companies at the start of his career and says that even many residents of neighborhoods suffering pollution appreciate the industrys economic role. I am very careful to never come in and suggest that Im trying to close the plants. Im about fairness, he says. In this country, we hold people accountable for all kinds of things. In Texas, we dont often hold industry accountable for their mistakes.

Christian Menefee Menefee For Harris County

E360: How has your experience growing up with Houstons pollution shaped your approach as county attorney? Contamination from oil refineries and petrochemical plants is a big issue here, especially for communities of color.

Christian Menefee: Harris County is one of the ground zeros of the environmental justice movement. And its in part because Houston has one of the worlds largest petrochemical complexes, and were the energy capital of the world. Theres not many people here who did not grow up within a short distance of a facility emitting toxic contaminants. So my story is similar to everybody elses. My grandmother raised my father and his siblings in the Fifth Ward, which is one of our uniquely bad environmental justice communities. There are several concrete batch plants, metal recyclers. The air feels nastier than in other parts of the county. The houses and apartments we lived in when I was growing up, every one is a few miles from some chemical plant. My high school was a mile and a half away from a Superfund site. It is just something thats inextricable for most working-class folks here.

After law school, I worked at a firm to pay off my loans. We represented oil and gas companies, and it gave me an interesting perspective. Ive seen the boardrooms. Ive helped prepare executives for trial. My upbringing gave me the one lens. Representing companies gave me the other lens. And now that Im here and were suing these very same companies, it kind of brings you home.

Were in a state that has set every single rule of the road in favor of industry. At times it feels like David and Goliath. Youre up against a very powerful industry that has a lot of support with state officials. But I always try to look through the lens of my grandmother and my aunts and uncles, and the people in these neighborhoods. Were just asking for fairness and compliance and enforcement very basic things in other parts of the country that we dont get here.

E360: Petrochemical production in particular has been growing in this region in recent years. What has that looked and felt like on the ground?

Menefee: Theres a duality to it. For communities like the one I came from, which is incredibly diverse lower-middle class African Americans, Latinos you have the economic side of it. The oil and gas industry is very much a path for many people to a six-figure lifestyle. I have many friends who have worked on oil rigs. But the other side is, if you go out to neighborhoods in east Harris County, you can feel it in your eyes, and it doesnt smell right. Petrochemicals are by far the number one cause of pollution here. And thats just business as usual. Add in the large-scale emissions events, the illegal flaring. Over the past four years weve had plant explosion after plant explosion. Watson Grinding and Manufacturing, that explosion was in 2020. I was on the other side of the city, and I was jolted awake. Its become the norm. In River Oaks [a wealthy area], youre not going to see many industrial facilities. But for lower-income, predominantly Spanish-speaking, African American, immigrant communities, when the smoke is in the air, the chemicals are in the air, these are the communities whose schools get evacuated. Everything stops while they get the benzene levels under control.

E360: What can you do to protect those neighborhoods, given the obstacles you mentioned?

Menefee: Its onerous, sometimes prohibitive. Conservatives love this idea of states rights. Theyre always looking for protection from the federal government. But when your statewide officials have a blatant disregard for communities, who protects the local governments from the state? Its a weird dynamic, where you have these large metropolitan areas whose leaders are more diverse, more forward-thinking, and then you have statewide officials with a very repressive, draconian view of how government is supposed to work.

Residents of Houston's historically Black Fifth Ward who have lost friends or loved ones to cancer. The neighborhood is seeing a high incidence of cancers associated with creosote, a contaminant found in a nearby rail yard. Brett Coomer / Houston Chronicle via AP

Were just constantly at odds. The state legislature sets the rules of the road. And weve seen a very intentional, concerted effort from state government aimed at counties like ours. Several years ago, the then-speaker of the house was recorded saying he wanted the next legislative session to be the worst ever for cities and counties. And thats exactly what happened bill after bill was proposed to tie the hands, not just of local governments, but sometimes this office specifically. For example, they passed a law where if were going to file an enforcement action, we have to give notice to the state of Texas, and they decide if they want to pursue the case. If they do, they take it away from us. And they settle it for pennies on the dollar. Its happened time and time again.

E360: What can you do, given those obstacles? And how has it been going?

Menefee: We fight like hell, and take any opportunity to creatively find solutions. The good news is that the communities are like, Yes, youre fighting for us. But they also expect you to win. And if both arms are tied behind your back and youre kicking, and ultimately the community isnt satisfied with some shin damage, and they wanted a few punches to the face, its something you have to navigate.

The thing Ive been more optimistic about is our ability to find leverage points. A good example is the $10 billion I-45 highway expansion. It was approved at every level of government, and the final review was completed two months into my term. We could have said, Look, this ship has sailed. But we sued. The federal government got involved, and they paused the project. We were never going to stop the highway, but we negotiated with the Texas Department of Transportation, and we got some concessions that put communities in a better place than they were. Another example: With the city of Houston and a nonprofit, we sent Union Pacific a notice of intent to sue over creosote contamination from a rail site in the Fifth Ward, where there are two or three identified cancer clusters. Community members have been beating the drum on this for a long time. Now were negotiating with Union Pacific in hopes of getting some wins for the community. So we have figured out ways to find pressure points. Ultimately the goal is to move the needle for the people who live there. And if the state is continually tying our hands behind our back, this is us using every tool in our toolbox.

E360: You talked about the perspective you got from representing fossil fuel companies. What did you learn from that experience?

Menefee: Firstly, a lot of good people work in the industry. My father works in oil and gas. The average person in that industry feels, I want the environment to be safe. I want people to have clean air. But like other industries, theres a set of biases. For any corporation, shareholder value is top of mind. So there tends to be a view that claims of damage to communities or the environment are exaggerated. And they prioritize economic impact. This industry is making a lot of people a lot of money, including people who had no other way of having access to it. So you view things through the lens of the company.

E360: Does that economic role mean theres resistance to pushing industry too hard?

Menefee: Thats what makes framing so important. I am very careful to never come in and suggest that Im trying to close the plants. Im about fairness. There are rules of the road. If you run a stop sign, and a police officer is around, youre going to get in trouble. We have companies routinely running stop signs in this area, and we have a state regulatory agency that is asleep at the wheel. There are other ways you could frame the argument that would turn people off, because it would be viewed as an attack on their livelihood instead of simply asking for fairness.

Wreckage left by an explosion at Watson Grinding and Manufacturing, January 24, 2020. Godofredo A. Vsquez / Houston Chronicle via AP

E360: You mentioned the state regulator, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). What problems do you see at that agency, and what changes would make it more effective?

Menefee: This is the result of legislative session after legislative session of far-right legislators continuing to weaken the TCEQ. It no longer views itself as a regulatory body or enforcing authority. I think they view their role as a facilitator: We are facilitating you getting your permits. We are facilitating you polluting the air. As opposed to, We are reviewing your application to see if youre going to harm communities. We are doing routine checks. We are enforcing the laws. It would take a fundamental change from top to bottom, and viewing itself as the agency that holds industry accountable. And it would take legislative changes. In this country, we hold people accountable for all kinds of things. In Texas, we dont often hold industry accountable for their mistakes.

E360: With climate change causing more intense and frequent storms, how worried are you about the vulnerability of Harris Countys industrial infrastructure?

Menefee: Hugely concerned. Its just unique, being in Houston, which has all these floods, all these hurricanes, and then being the worlds petrochemical and energy capital at the same time. Weve had like seven once-in-500-year floods in the past few years. These things make you very nervous when you live close to this many chemical facilities. Obviously we want the facilities to be as resilient as possible. There are two issues for us. One is that each storm causes chemical releases. The second is the risk of a storm whose eye goes right through the Houston Ship Channel, where all these chemical plants are, and just tears into them. It could be catastrophic, unlike anything weve seen in modern history in this country, and I dont even know how we would begin to deal with that.

Thats why were so focused on the reinstatement of the federal chemical disaster rule. The Obama administration created a standard for reporting, for mitigation, for understanding exactly whats at each facility. And Trump rolled it back. The rule is coming back now. It increases reporting requirements for the facilities. It increases information sharing. We have like 1,200 chemical facilities, so for communities and first responders to have information to deal with these disasters is a very big deal. When theres some unknown chemical coming out of a facility because of an explosion, it is a terrifying event.

E360: What can other communities living with heavy industries learn from your experience?

Menefee: Well, I hope theyre not dealing with the same restraints. But there are some lessons about not being afraid to think outside the box, not being afraid that industrys going to come running after you. If you signed up to be an advocate for people and to fight these fights, you need to fight these fights. In every case, were starting with the outcome that we want, and were working backwards. So the lesson learned is that you probably have a better situation than us, so use the creativity and make the most of it.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Reporting for this interview was supported by the McGraw Fellowship for Business Journalism at the City University of New Yorks Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism.

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Deep in the Heart of Texas, an Uphill Fight for Clean Air for All - Yale Environment 360