‘There are several things to keep in mind when watching the surge of robot demonstration videos and even livestreams. First, such robotic demonstrations are not necessarily indicative of robots operating autonomously without human control or oversight, said Dipam Patel, a PhD candidate in computer science at Purdue University and a research assistant at the US Army DevCom Army Research Lab. Many demonstrations still rely on human operators directly controlling the robots’ actions through teleoperation.

“Unless a research paper or a company is explicitly mentioning that [the robot] is completely autonomous, you should take it with a very big pinch of salt,” Patel, also an IEEE Graduate Student Member, told Ars.

Another question to consider is whether the demonstration shows robots tackling a completely new test environment for the first time, or whether the robots are simply repeating a task they had already learned to do in that specific training environment. The new test environment would be significantly more impressive at showcasing robots capable of doing tasks autonomously in a generalized way, Patel said.

It is also worth checking the video playback speed for any robot demonstration, because “usually the robots are very slow” for safety and other reasons, Patel said. Companies may sometimes disclose that a robot demonstration video is running at two times or four times normal speed—meaning the robot could be taking twice as long or four times as long as a human to do the same task.

Robot demonstration videos can also vary wildly in their informative value and transparency. Some are clearly intended to be performative entertainment clips that can go viral on social media, or polished promotional videos from companies seeking new clients and investors. Others may provide more of a behind-the-scenes look at the robot training process while acknowledging robot mistakes along the way….’ (Jeremy Hsu via Ars Technica)

‘Institutions like The Late Show and 60 Minutes are no longer untouchable. That should frighten every single American. If scale and profit can’t save our most powerful voices, what happens to the rest of us?…’ (TC Sottek via The Verge)

‘CBP is conducting “systematic” searches of activists’ devices, using the language and tools of counterterrorism to target left-wing critics and activists, in keeping with President Donald Trump’s efforts to go after those he calls “Violent Left-Wing Extremists, including Anarchists and Anti-Fascists.”…’ (Gaby Del Valle via The Verge)

‘IN RECENT DAYS, a fantastical question has captured the attention of New Yorkers and local tabloids: Who is popping in and out of manholes across the city, and what are they doing in the sewer system?…’ (Caroline Haskins via WIRED)

‘…[H]ow long does it take protagonists in an existential crisis to embrace war of all against all, to start murdering their way towards refuge—or, having refuge at hand, to aggressively prevent others from joining them?…’ (James Davis Nicoll via Reactor)

‘Parents and caregivers have long reported that when some autistic people run a fever from an infection, their autism-related symptoms ease for a while.

MIT and Harvard Medical School researchers , backed by $2.1 million in grants from the Marcus Foundation, want to work out the biology behind this “fever effect” and eventually mimic it as a therapy.

A decade of work in mice by neuroscientist Gloria Choi and immunologist Jun Huh points away from the heat itself. They traced the improvement to an immune-signaling molecule called IL-17a, which appears to calm overactive brain circuits during infection. Injecting it directly into the brains of affected mice improved their symptoms even without any fever.

“Although it isn’t actually triggered by the fever, per se, the ‘fever effect’ is real, and it provides us with an opportunity to develop therapies to mitigate symptoms of autism spectrum disorders,” said Choi. The team now plans a “biobank” of blood and stool samples from volunteers to hunt for the same markers in people.…’ (Ellsworth Toohey via Boing Boing)

‘There are no atheists in foxholes. Soon, there won’t be any Wiccans, Rosicrucianism, shamanic faiths, Troth, Unitarian Universalists, Humanists, Heathens, or Astaru and a whole lotta Protestant denominations, either. According to Military.com, Whiskey Pete Hegseth has ordered the number of religions recognized by the Department of War brutally slashed from just over 200 to 31. This theocratic bullshit reverses changes made to the DoW’s religious affiliation codes. In 2017, the Chaplaincy’s recognized religions were massively expanded as an exercise of the rights the United States once stood for: if you’re willing to serve and potentially die for your country, you should be able to practice the freedom of belief enshrined in its constitution. I guess that was too much to ask for from an ass with a $300 haircut and Deus Volt tattooed on his chest….’ (Séamus Bellamy via Boing Boing)