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- OpenAI CEO wants to scan your eye & give you crypto
OpenAI CEO wants to scan your eye & give you crypto
PLUS: How a drug trafficker was caught using AI
Yawn
July 27, 2023
I'm sure you’re reading this with human eyes.
Crazy to think that someone wants to scan those eyes and ‘reward’ you with a globally recognized cryptocurrency.
That and more is on today’s docket:
Sam Altman’s eye-scanning Worldcoin begins global rollout 🌎
Why drug traffickers are doomed 🚔
U.S. military funds AI chip that uses brain tissue 🧠
3 Sleepy Snippets 💤
Read time: 5 minutes
Worldcoin, a crypto startup that’s raised a total of $250M, is rolling out its services to build a reliable solution for distinguishing humans from AI online. Founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Worldcoin aims to put a crypto wallet on every human's smartphone and is signing up individuals in many countries, offering 25 Worldcoin tokens for onboarding via a retina scan. The eye-scanning orbs are meant to verify unique human users and prevent duplicate sign-ups.
Sam Altman's Worldcoin salespeople/volunteers/whatever have reached the neighborhood. 25 tokens for your retina scan. One of the pamphlets:
— Manish Singh (@refsrc)
Mar 1, 2023
Over 100,000 people have signed up and received the crypto so far across several countries. However, the project has faced criticism for exploitative practices in poor countries. The potential applications of Worldcoin include fortifying incentive strategies, combating bots, and facilitating global democratic governance.
A New York police department recently apprehended a drug trafficker by using a traffic pattern analyses AI system provided provided by Rekor.AI. Their technology analyzes real-time video feeds to detect traffic violations and high-risk driving.
Data like speed, lane position, stopping and acceleration is tracked to profile driving anomalies. Rekor claims its AI can help enforce traffic laws and assist in criminal investigations.
The system aims to move from reactive to proactive identification of dangerous driving. It highlights growing police interest in using algorithms for predictive policing via public cameras.
However, automating law enforcement with AI poses risks of bias and abuse absent oversight. The tech expands mass surveillance capabilities raising civil liberty and consent concerns. Rekor aims to deploy its AI widely across law enforcement despite ethical concerns.
The Pentagon is funding development of a chip that incorporates living brain cells with goal to design AI that operates more like the neural networks in the human brain. The "DishBrain," a semi-biological AI chip that uses human and mouse neurons, showed promise by learning to play Pong in just five minutes.
The $407,000 grant from the military highlights national security applications for human-AI hybrids. The success of this research could lead to state-of-the-art computer chips with powerful AI applications in robotics, planning, automation, drug discovery, and brain-machine interfaces.
It could pave the way for a new generation of machine learning, surpassing existing AI capabilities from OpenAI, Google, and Apple. Researchers aim to replicate the learning capacity of biological neural networks.
Sam Altman and other top Silicon Valley investors bet $48M on blood-testing startup Real Chemistry who offers an at-home blood test examining markers tied to aging and disease risks. The test aims to detect actionable insights earlier than standard checks at the doctor's office.
Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and tech conglomerate Fujitsu are developing a new supercomputer for AI research aimed to accelerate Japan's AI capabilities in strategic areas such as drug discovery, weather forecasting and quantum physics. It will provide over 1 exaflop of computing power upon completion in 2025.
Quench AI raised $5M to expand its AI-powered learning platform that provides personalized curriculum sequencing, assignments and feedback unique to each student. The company aims to drive better learning outcomes than one-size-fits-all approaches and currently offers learning experiences focused on math and computer science skills.
