S27E68: Unveiling Venus: New Volcanic Activity Discovered

[00:00:00] This is SpaceTime Series 27 Episode 68 for broadcast on the 5th of June 2024.

[00:00:06] Coming up on SpaceTime, more evidence that Venus is volcanically active,

[00:00:12] discovery of a new kind of volcanic eruption on Earth, and the maiden flight for the new

[00:00:17] Ariane 6 rocket now slated for next month. All that and more coming up on SpaceTime.

[00:00:25] Welcome to SpaceTime with Stuart Gary.

[00:00:45] A new analysis of data from NASA's Magellan radar identified two volcanoes on the mysterious

[00:00:50] world of Venus that appear to have erupted in the early 1990s. The new discovery adds to last

[00:00:56] year's detection of what appears to be a different Venusian volcanic eruption, also in Magellan data.

[00:01:02] The new study analysed archival data from NASA's Magellan mission to reveal surface changes

[00:01:08] indicating the formation of new rock and lava flows linked to volcanoes that erupted while the

[00:01:13] spacecraft was in orbit around the planet. Managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

[00:01:18] in Pasadena, California, the Magellan spacecraft mapped some 98% of the Venusian surface between

[00:01:24] 1990 and 1992, and the images it generated back then remain the most detailed of Venus ever

[00:01:31] undertaken. The study's lead author, David Salkanis from the Anunzio University, says that by using

[00:01:38] these maps as a guide, the new results show that Venus may be far more volcanically active than

[00:01:43] previously thought. By analysing the lava flows, Salkanis and colleagues observed volcanic activity

[00:01:49] on Venus in two locations which was comparable to that often seen on Earth. The new findings

[00:01:56] build on the historic 2023 discovery of images from Magellan's synthetic aperture radar that

[00:02:01] revealed changes to a vent associated with the volcano Mat Mons near the Venusian equator.

[00:02:07] Those radar images proved to be the first direct evidence of a recent volcanic eruption on Venus.

[00:02:14] By comparing Magellan radar images over time, the authors of the 2023 study spotted changes

[00:02:20] caused by the outflow of molten rock from Venus's subsurface filling the vent's crater and spilling

[00:02:25] down the vent's slopes. Scientists study active volcanoes to understand how planets' interiors

[00:02:31] can shape their crust, drive their evolution and of course affect their habitability. The discovery

[00:02:38] of recent volcanism on Venus provides a valuable insight into the planet's history and why it's

[00:02:43] undertaken such a different evolutionary path compared to the Earth. For this new study which

[00:02:49] has been reported in the journal Nature Astronomy, the authors focused on archival data from Magellan's

[00:02:54] synthetic aperture radar. Radio waves sent by the radar travel through Venus's thick cloud cover,

[00:03:00] then bounce off the planet's surface and return back to the spacecraft. It's a process called

[00:03:06] backscatter, and these reflected radar signals carry information about the rocky surface material

[00:03:11] they encounter. The two locations studied were the volcano Sif Mons in Estilla Regio and the

[00:03:17] western part of Niobe Planitia, which is home to numerous volcanic features. By analysing the

[00:03:23] backscatter data received from both locations in 1990 and again in 1992, the authors found that

[00:03:29] the radar signal strength had increased along certain paths during the later orbits. These

[00:03:35] changes suggested the formation of nu-rock, most likely solidified lava from volcanic activity,

[00:03:40] that occurred during that two-year period. But the authors also considered other possibilities,

[00:03:45] such as the presence of micro dunes formed from windblown sand and atmospheric effects that could

[00:03:51] interfere with radio signals. To help confirm nu-rock, the researchers then analysed Magellan's

[00:03:57] altimetry data in order to determine the slope of the topography and locate obstacles that lava

[00:04:02] would flow around. The authors interpret these signals as flows along slopes or volcanic plains

[00:04:08] that can deviate like fluid around obstacles such as shield volcanoes. And after ruling out

[00:04:14] other possibilities, the team concluded that these were in fact, they had to be, new lava flows.

[00:04:20] Using lava flows on Earth as a comparison, the authors estimate the nu-rock which was

[00:04:25] emplaced at both locations would have been between 3 and 20 metres deep on average.

[00:04:30] They also estimate that the Sif-Mons eruption would have produced around 30 square kilometres

[00:04:35] of rock. Now that's enough to fill 36,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. And the Niobe-Planitia

[00:04:41] eruption produced some 45 square kilometres of rock. That would have filled some 54,000

[00:04:47] Olympic-sized pools. Now as a comparison, the 2022 eruption of Mauna Loa in Hawaii,

[00:04:53] that's Earth's largest active volcano, produced a lava flow with enough material to fill 100,000

[00:04:59] Olympic-sized swimming pools. These new results, in tandem with the earlier discovery of present-day

[00:05:04] geologic activity, increases the excitement in the planetary science community for future

[00:05:09] missions to Venus. NASA's upcoming Venus Emissivity Radio Science, Instar Topography

[00:05:16] and Spectroscopy or VERITAS mission is slated to launch early next decade using state-of-the-art

[00:05:21] synthetic aperture radars to create three-dimensional global maps and near-infrared

[00:05:26] spectrometers to figure out what Venus' surface is made of while also tracking volcanic activity.

[00:05:33] The spacecraft will also measure the planet's gravitational field in order to determine its

[00:05:38] internal structure. Venus is a fascinating place. As well as being Earth's nearest planetary neighbour,

[00:05:45] Venus is often considered to be Earth's sister planet. That's because both are the same size,

[00:05:51] similar masses and diameters. Both were formed under similar conditions out of the same material

[00:05:56] in the same part of the solar system and at the same time. However, if Venus is Earth's sister

[00:06:03] planet, then it's somewhat of a twisted sister with a massive runaway greenhouse effect. In fact,

[00:06:08] Soviet and American probes have revealed Venus to be the closest thing to hell in our solar system.

[00:06:15] Its surface is scorchingly hot, with an average temperature of 462 degrees Celsius.

[00:06:20] That's hot enough to melt lead. And those thick, opaque, planet-shrouding clouds? Well,

[00:06:25] they do cause rain. But the rain isn't water, but rather droplets of metal-eating sulfuric acid.

[00:06:31] Scientists have seen what looks like snow caps on some of Venus' taller mountain ranges.

[00:06:36] But it turns out that snow isn't frozen water ice. It's actually metallic.

[00:06:41] And the clouds on Venus are so heavy, they quite literally crush Venus' carbon dioxide-rich

[00:06:47] atmosphere, acting very much like the lid of a pressure cooker and giving the planet

[00:06:51] a surface pressure some 92 times greater than the average sea-level surface pressure on Earth.

[00:06:57] From the little we've seen, the surface of Venus is dominated by well over 1,600 volcanic structures,

[00:07:04] and that's more than any other planet in the solar system. The surface is 90% basalt and

[00:07:09] consists of a mosaic of volcanic lava plains showing evidence of regular periodic resurfacing

[00:07:15] by floods of lava. All this indicates volcanism has played a major role in shaping the planet's

[00:07:21] surface. In fact, Venus may have had a major global restructuring event about 500 million

[00:07:27] years ago that's based on the low density of impact craters on its surface. Venus has shield

[00:07:32] volcanoes, widespread lava flows, unusual volcanoes called pancake domes, and arachnoid or tick-like

[00:07:40] structures called scallop margin domes, which have never been seen on Earth. Now interestingly,

[00:07:45] there is no evidence of any plate tectonic activity on Venus, which raises the question

[00:07:51] how does the planet's internal heat dissipate? Being closer to the Sun than the Earth,

[00:07:55] Venus orbits our local star every 224.7 Earth days. But amazingly, Venus rotates in retrograde

[00:08:03] compared to most of the other planets in our solar system. In other words, the Sun rises in the West

[00:08:09] and sets in the East. Exactly what caused this retrograde rotation remains somewhat of a mystery.

[00:08:16] Also mysterious is how slowly Venus rotates on its axis. A Venusian day lasts some 243 Earth days.

[00:08:24] That means a Venusian day is actually longer than a Venusian year. The thing is, it's hard to find

[00:08:31] out much about the Venusian surface. Russia have sent numerous spacecraft to the surface of Venus,

[00:08:37] but they've all had a tough time surviving. The first few were crushed and cooked in the

[00:08:42] Venusian atmosphere long before even reaching the ground. Now eventually, Russia finally built a

[00:08:47] probe that made it all the way down to the surface intact. The problem is it wasn't able to send back

[00:08:52] much data because its equipment, including the camera lens, had literally melted by the time it

[00:08:58] touched down. Finally, one Russian probe did make it all the way down to the surface and survived

[00:09:03] long enough to send back just a few tantalizing seconds of data and images. What scientists saw

[00:09:10] was a parched world bathed in a half-yellow light by the thick cloud cover, a surface covered with

[00:09:16] jagged slabs of maroon-colored rocks baked over the eons to create a desertscape periodically

[00:09:22] resurfaced by volcanism. It was these adverse conditions of the Venusian surface for humans

[00:09:28] which caused the focus of planetary missions to shift to Mars, which is further away from the sun

[00:09:34] and a lot cooler. This is Space Time. Still to come, discovery of a new kind of volcanism on

[00:09:41] Earth and the maiden flight for the new Ariane 6 rocket now slated for next month. All that and

[00:09:48] more still to come on Space Time. Scientists have discovered what they're describing as a new kind

[00:10:09] of volcanic eruption on Earth. A report in the journal Nature Geoscience claims the Kilauea

[00:10:15] volcano erupted like a stomp rocket in 2018, something geologists had never seen before.

[00:10:22] Of course, no two volcanic eruptions are exactly the same, but scientists think a series of

[00:10:27] explosive eruptions on Kilauea volcano fit into a whole new category. By analyzing the dynamics

[00:10:33] of the 12 back-to-back explosions that happened in 2018, researchers describe a new type of volcanic

[00:10:39] eruption mechanism. The explosions were driven by sudden pressure increases as the ground collapsed,

[00:10:46] and that blasted plumes of rock fragments and hot gas into the air. The string of explosions on the

[00:10:52] summit of Kilauea were part of a sequence of events which included lava flows erupting from

[00:10:57] lower on the flank of the volcano. Those lava flows destroyed thousands of homes and displaced

[00:11:03] residents in the island of Hawaii for months. Understanding exactly what happened in past

[00:11:08] volcanic eruptions, colloquially called hindcasting, allows volcanologists to make better forecasts

[00:11:14] about future eruptions and gives more accurate warnings to people about an eruption's path.

[00:11:20] For the most part, explosive volcanic eruptions are either primarily driven by rising magma,

[00:11:25] vaporized groundwater, or some combination of the two. But one of this study's authors, Josh

[00:11:31] Crozier from the University of Oregon, says these eruptions didn't quite fit the mold. He says the

[00:11:37] eruptions don't seem to have involved either rising magma or vaporized groundwater. The eruptive

[00:11:42] material contained very little that looked like fresh magma that had just been blasted out. There's

[00:11:47] also no evidence for significant groundwater being involved. The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory,

[00:11:53] part of the U.S. Geological Survey, keeps close tabs on Kilauea. The volcano is covered in seismic

[00:12:00] instruments, ranging from ground sensors that measure the shaking of the Earth to tools that

[00:12:04] analyze the gases released from the volcano. University of Oregon volcanologist, Olav

[00:12:09] Karlström, says this sequence of eruptions were all remarkably similar and unusual.

[00:12:15] Putting the data into a variety of atmospheric and subsurface models, the authors pieced together a

[00:12:20] new story about what happened on Kilauea during the string of events in 2018. It seems before

[00:12:27] each explosion at the summit, magma was slowly draining from an underground reservoir. This magma

[00:12:33] was feeding lava flows 40 kilometers away over on the eastern flank of the volcano. As the

[00:12:39] reservoir became depleted, the ground above it, the crater within the caldera at the volcano's

[00:12:43] summit, suddenly collapsed. And that quickly increased the pressure in the reservoir.

[00:12:49] And because there was now a pocket of accumulated magmatic gas sitting at the top of the volcano

[00:12:54] in this reservoir, the pressure increase squeezed magmatic gas and bits of rubble through a conduit

[00:12:59] and then blasted them out through a vent in Kilauea's crater. The researchers compared the

[00:13:04] eruption dynamics to a stomp rocket toy, where stepping on an airbag connected to a hose

[00:13:10] launches a projectile into the air. Crozier says the stomp in this case was this kilometer-thick

[00:13:16] chunk of rock dropping down, pressurizing the pocket and then forcing the material out.

[00:13:21] While the rocket part of the game was the gas and rocks erupting from the volcano.

[00:13:26] Now, mind you, caldera collapse is fairly common. So while this is the first time scientists have

[00:13:33] specifically spelled out this particular stomp rocket mechanism, it's probably not the only

[00:13:38] time it's happened. The study was able to link geophysical observations to properties of the

[00:13:43] volcanic plume in the atmosphere. The research points to new ways to observe eruptions and

[00:13:48] combine sensor measurements with computer simulations to better assess hazards and

[00:13:53] eruptions. The fact that this was a series of smaller eruptions may have made it easier to

[00:13:58] see the underlying mechanism. That's because other complex processes won't overshadowing

[00:14:03] the stomp rocket component. This is space time. Still to come, the maiden flight of the European

[00:14:10] Space Agency's new Ariane 6 rocket now slated for next month and later in the science report,

[00:14:15] a new study shows that vaccines are still our best shot at staying safe from the latest strain

[00:14:21] of bird flu. All that and more still to come on Space Time. The European Space Agency has

[00:14:43] formally announced that the inaugural flight of its new Ariane 6 launch vehicle will now likely

[00:14:48] take place during the first two weeks of July. The announcement follows the successful completion

[00:14:54] of the latest review of the Ariane 6 launch system, including more than four weeks of intensive tests

[00:14:59] of both the rocket's main core and upper stage, as well as its two strap-on solid rocket boosters

[00:15:04] and the new launch pad and ground support systems, which have been built especially for it at the

[00:15:09] Kourou spaceport in French Guiana. The extensive series of tests have included launch simulations

[00:15:16] which saw the removal of the mobile gantry, the chill down of ground and launch of fluidic systems,

[00:15:21] the filling of both the upper and core stage tanks with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen,

[00:15:26] and the successful ignition of the Vulcan 2.1 engine thrust chamber. Other tests saw the Vulcan

[00:15:32] 2.1 engine fired for a planned four seconds and then switched off, with its liquid oxygen and

[00:15:38] liquid hydrogen fuels then being drained to their separate underground tanks. That exercise showed

[00:15:44] how the system can be kept safe in the event of a launch abort. There was also a nighttime full-scale

[00:15:49] wet dress rehearsal for the Ariane 6. That was completed in October when the rocket was again

[00:15:55] fueled and then drained of its fuel. And in the following month, November, a full-scale rehearsal

[00:16:00] was conducted in preparation for its maiden flight, going through the complete launch sequence

[00:16:05] countdown followed by a seven-minute full firing of the core stage's engine. That seven minutes

[00:16:12] is the planned ascent burn time. A third combined test loading in December included a launch

[00:16:18] countdown to qualify the launch system in degraded conditions and ensure its robustness in preparation

[00:16:23] for operations. This sequence included qualification tests of several launch system functions,

[00:16:29] just in case of a mission abort, and it also included yet another ignition the Vulcan 2.1

[00:16:35] engine thrust chamber. It was the fifth countdown run to include loading Ariane 6 with cryogenic

[00:16:41] propellant since July. Then in January this year, the cryogenic connection system passed its final

[00:16:47] test, with the liftoff disconnection operations lines and umbilicals going through their paces.

[00:16:53] ESA boss Josef Aschenbacher says the announcement of the launch date followed successful completion

[00:16:58] of all dress rehearsals and performance goals. So where to from here? Well, later this month,

[00:17:05] a final Ariane 6 launch system qualification review will be held. That'll be followed by the

[00:17:11] integration of the payload onto its adapter and then the fitting of the fairings. Another full

[00:17:16] wet dress rehearsal slated for June the 18th, with the Ariane 6 again fuelled on the launch pad

[00:17:21] and subsequently drained of fuel in preparation for pre-launch. It's been a long road to get

[00:17:27] the Ariane 6 launch vehicle to this stage. The rocket was initially planned to fly back in 2020,

[00:17:33] but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit and there were also repeated technical issues which have kept it

[00:17:39] grounded longer than expected. The Ariane 6's predecessor, the Ariane 5, lasted off for the

[00:17:45] last time in July last year. That was after some 27 years of service, flying no less than 117 times

[00:17:52] between 1996 and 2023. And with a smaller Vegas-C rocket also grounded following a launch

[00:17:59] failure in December 2022, and of course Russia still being boycotted by Western sanctions over

[00:18:05] Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Europe has for the last few years lacked an independent heavy-lift

[00:18:10] means of access to space. The payload for this inaugural Ariane 6 flight will come from nine

[00:18:16] different countries and dozens of organisations. They include a number of small satellites,

[00:18:22] ranging from established science bodies like NASA through to university student spacecraft.

[00:18:28] Include a probe to measure gamma rays, track wildlife, test self-healing solar cells,

[00:18:33] confirm the theory of blackbody radiation, undertake smart farming observations, demonstrate

[00:18:39] a new radio beacon system and carry quantum-based sensor measurements to study the Earth's magnetic

[00:18:45] field along the launch trajectory. The payload includes four CubeSat deployers which release

[00:18:51] spacecraft away from the Ariane 6 upper stage. These will include two re-entry capsules and nine

[00:18:56] orbital spacecraft, all set to be deployed at altitudes of around 600 kilometres. CubeSat

[00:19:03] deployers are like mini-launchers, orchestrating a series of spring-loaded ejections to shoot

[00:19:09] satellites at the right time, at the right speed and in the right direction. There are also multiple

[00:19:15] experiments which are designed to remain attached to the rocket's payload adapter.

[00:19:19] This report from ESA TV. Now the upper and main stages of the Ariane 6 flight model have arrived

[00:19:27] in French Guiana and their integration is complete. Together they form the central core

[00:19:33] and are ready to be moved into their vertical launch position. The mechanical integration of

[00:19:38] the launcher has started a couple of weeks ago when we have finalised the qualification

[00:19:45] of the launcher, of the launch base and of the launch system and we had also reached the

[00:19:53] approvals for moving the central core on the launch zone. After the horizontal integration of the core

[00:20:01] stages, the rocket is transported to the massive mobile building for a further vertical integration.

[00:20:08] To do this, the central core is transported by four automated guided vehicles, two at the back

[00:20:15] and two on front. It's an automatic guided vehicle and that vehicle actually moves towards the launch

[00:20:22] pad completely by its own. It is guided by magnetic stripes that are in the road until

[00:20:28] the magnetic stripe stops and it finds itself in front of the launch pad. During these transport

[00:20:35] procedures, the automated system also protects the integrity of the central core, ensuring no

[00:20:40] torque or stress is put on the assembly. With the rocket in its vertical position,

[00:20:46] its two solid propellant boosters will be added. So the boosters, we can use them

[00:20:53] in two configurations. We have two boosters or four boosters. This is a modular configuration

[00:21:00] for Ariane 6. For the inaugural launch of Ariane 6, we will use two boosters because of the

[00:21:06] configuration of the payloads under the fairing. And so to propel them outside the gravity of Earth,

[00:21:14] we need only two boosters. After this, fluid and electrical lines will be connected and then all

[00:21:20] that remains are the passengers added to the upper part. As the summer slowly approaches,

[00:21:25] it is clear Ariane 6 is on track to soon fly for the first time.

[00:21:50] And in that report from ESA TV, we heard from Eileen Ducati, ESA's Ariane 6 launch system

[00:21:56] dependability and safety lead, and Tina Bauchner-DaCosta, ESA's Ariane 6 launch system

[00:22:01] engineer. This is Space Time. Time now to take another brief look at some of the other stories

[00:22:23] making news in science this week with the Science Report. A new study warns that the vaccines we

[00:22:29] have for bird flu are really our best shot at staying safe if a strain of the virus starts

[00:22:34] spreading between humans. A report in the journal Human Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics warns that

[00:22:40] human cases of avian influenza are starting to pop up sporadically around the world. So researchers

[00:22:46] have been reviewing existing studies on vaccines for the most concerning strains of the virus

[00:22:51] in order to examine how safe and effective what we already have really is. Looking at studies in both

[00:22:57] humans and animals, scientists say current inactivated vaccines are a safe and affordable

[00:23:02] option. They say while live attenuated influenza vaccines may be even more effective, they require

[00:23:09] more research into their safety. Other newer types of vaccines in development include mRNA vaccines

[00:23:15] and virus-like particle vaccines, both of which are showing promise. The authors say vaccination

[00:23:21] remains humanity's best defense if bird flu becomes a bigger threat. So it's important to keep

[00:23:26] investigating a diverse range of vaccine options. Avian influenza or bird flu was detected last

[00:23:32] month on an egg farm in Victoria's West. Testing eventually revealed the strain was 87N3.

[00:23:39] Agriculture Victoria says the property has been placed into quarantine, all the birds have been

[00:23:44] destroyed and authorities are on the ground to carry out further investigations. While experts

[00:23:50] are relieved that this strain wasn't the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain, that strain has been

[00:23:56] detected overseas and poultry keepers are now being urged to monitor their flocks very carefully.

[00:24:03] A new study has found that the popular kids at school tend to get less sleep than the rest of

[00:24:08] the student body. A report in the journal Frontiers in Sleep show that popular teens tend to sleep 27

[00:24:15] minutes less per night than their peers. The study also found that popular girls tend to experience

[00:24:21] more insomnia symptoms than boys. The researchers asked a sample of over 1,300 Swedish teenagers to

[00:24:28] nominate up to three friends. Those who received the most nominations were defined as more popular.

[00:24:34] They found that the teenagers defined as most popular tended to sleep less than their peers.

[00:24:40] They also observed that their findings were similar to previous studies which had been

[00:24:44] undertaken prior to the introduction of smartphones, and that suggests that phones

[00:24:48] aren't the reason that popular teens are sleeping less. The authors speculate that more friends may

[00:24:54] mean more time dedicated to them which could result in less time left for sleeping. Of course, more

[00:25:00] emotional investment could also lead to sleeping difficulties but more research is needed.

[00:25:06] A new study suggests that early feathered dinosaurs may have had two different types of skin.

[00:25:12] A report in the journal Nature Communications claims that the dinosaur Psittacosaurus had

[00:25:17] reptile-like scales on most of its body but with feather-specific skin only on the feathered section

[00:25:23] of its tail. Paleontologists analysed skin samples from Phosphorus Psittacosaurus which lived around

[00:25:28] 130 million years ago and which only had feathers on its tail. They found that the skin cells on the

[00:25:35] rest of the body showed similar structures to those found in living reptiles today but are

[00:25:40] very different from the skin on today's birds. The authors say that developing two kinds of skin in

[00:25:46] this way may have allowed the dinosaurs to retain the protective functions of the reptilian skin

[00:25:52] while also experimenting with the early stages of feathered evolution.

[00:25:57] While it seems to be an ongoing theme this year, but once again there are growing concerns about

[00:26:02] the level of inaccurate information coming out of artificial intelligence programs.

[00:26:07] The level of fake data, often woke and sometimes dangerous, spewing out of AI is now forcing tech

[00:26:13] companies to spend billions of dollars to try and fix the problem. The idea of simply sacking the

[00:26:19] woke staff who are programming garbage in garbage out hasn't dawned on them yet. So what it means

[00:26:25] put simply is that AI can't be trusted. It lies and it makes stuff up to cover that dishonesty.

[00:26:31] While some experts think it's all fixable, many others don't. With the details we're joined by

[00:26:37] technology editor Alex Zaharov-Royt from TechAdvice Start Life. Well I just spoke about last week the

[00:26:43] AI overviews were giving very strange information things like running with scissors is okay and

[00:26:49] putting non-toxic glue on pizza to make sure that the cheese sticks which came from this uh

[00:26:54] Reddit post. Yeah, it sticks to the roof of your mouth don't do that. Yeah, Google has given Reddit 60 million dollars so that it could data mine

[00:27:01] all of its years-long databases and most of which is good information but of course some of the

[00:27:06] unusual posts have popped up and Google Gemini has sort of assigned that a higher ranking because it

[00:27:12] was from Reddit. Now Google has obviously started to remove some of these ridiculous results you know

[00:27:17] like eating rocks is good for you or the the pizza and glue stuff which is obviously wrong and look

[00:27:21] Google has begun to manually delete these results but look it just simply shows that

[00:27:26] regurgitating information from the internet without the ability to genuinely reason like a human could

[00:27:32] as to whether or not this information was is safe is a problem and we do see AI having a range of

[00:27:39] reasoning capabilities but clearly it hasn't reached artificial general intelligence level yet.

[00:27:44] With the artificial general intelligence push I did come across a very interesting tweet from

[00:27:50] Grady Bouche. He's the IBM chief scientist of software engineering and in a post on X large

[00:27:56] language models are one of the worst genre of software products I've seen in my career so that's

[00:28:01] a very bold statement he says that there are inherently and irredeemably unreliable narrators

[00:28:07] offering tantalizingly coherent output that is dangerous in its ability to deceive, threatening

[00:28:13] in its casual toxic bias, distracting in its being a huge opportunity cost that sucks all the

[00:28:20] oxygen from the air for many other needs, insatiable in its energy costs and operating at an unconstrained

[00:28:26] global scale and largely controlled by a very small number of companies such that there is

[00:28:31] little opportunity for meaningful accountability and wow I mean he's right on the money there

[00:28:36] because we do see AI sucking all of the venture capital money up and we also see at the same time

[00:28:41] these crazy results from Kat Jeppett and these hallucinations. I mean we're all worried that

[00:28:46] it's going to turn into Skynet and seek to destroy us or to make us into slaves or mindless bots that

[00:28:53] just sit with folded hands. Now Sam Altman's realized there are problems with AI as well.

[00:28:57] Well he has rushed to form a new AI safety team which he is the head of. There's a couple of open

[00:29:03] AI board members and this committee will make recommendations on critical safety and security

[00:29:09] decisions for open AI projects and operations and the first task he says will be to evaluate

[00:29:14] and further develop open AI's processes and safeguards and present those findings to the board.

[00:29:19] So this could mean hasta la vista baby?

[00:29:21] Well it certainly could I mean he's obviously trying to avoid AI going bad because you know

[00:29:26] he's staking his reputation and tens, hundreds of billions of dollars on this becoming you know

[00:29:30] the next big thing and he also is trying to get AGI, this artificial general intelligence happening

[00:29:36] and there's reports that GPT version 5 is currently in training. We just had the GPT 4.0

[00:29:41] launch and it is quite amazing how much better it is than chat GPT 4 and of course 3.5 before it but

[00:29:48] you know part of his rush to head not just to assign somebody but to be the head of this AI

[00:29:54] safety team is because the open AI co-founder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskeva who was one of the

[00:30:00] people that sacked Sam Altman so spectacularly in November last year and Sam Altman came back a

[00:30:06] week later which is you know a bit unusual but he basically was worried that Sam Altman wasn't

[00:30:11] telling the truth but the other big thing is that Jan Leakey who was co-head of the AI super

[00:30:17] alignment team which basically is the team that is heading up AI safety both Ilya Sutskeva and

[00:30:23] Jan Leakey have quit and interestingly Jan Leakey has now joined competitor Anthropic who's received

[00:30:30] billions of dollars from both Amazon and Google. I mean Google has its own AI so this Anthropic is

[00:30:36] competitor to Google but also a big competitor to chat GPT and he's joined them to continue the

[00:30:41] super alignment mission and head up their super alignment team so at least he didn't stay out of

[00:30:47] a job for too long and he was complaining that he wasn't getting the compute resources from open AI

[00:30:51] to really nail down this AI safety problem and he's defected well he's left and he's gone to join

[00:30:57] another company you know we don't want to wake up in a few years or a few months and sky netter's

[00:31:02] taking over the world. That's Alex Zaharov-Wright from Tech Advice Start Life and that's the show for

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