At a raging South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, one Elon Musk, cofounder of Paypal, Tesla, the Boring Company, and SpaceX had this to say about space exploration and technology in general:
“There’s likely to be another dark ages... particularly if there’s a third world war,” Musk stressed, arguing that a Mars colony would stay away from the battle on Earth and carry the torch of human culture forward. He believes that the best way to ensure these dark ages are “shortened” is by having humans on other planets come back and rebuild. … “Mark my words,” Musk told the crowd, “AI is far more dangerous than nukes. So why do we have no regulatory oversight?”
Well, scrap that idea, then. Given the current political environment, any hope of meaningful new regs on something as complicated as AI will disappear in a puff of quarterly earnings the first time an AI turns a profit and surprises “The Street,” with good news.
As of a new paper's release today the phenomenon has been dubbed STEVE, a backronym that matches the name originally given by aurora watchers. (STEVE is short for "Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement.") According to the new work, the distinctive ribbon of purple light with green accents — which can occur at lower latitudes than normal auroras do — gives scientists a glimpse into the interactions of Earth's magnetic field and upper atmosphere.