In a significant development, Meta has announced the suspension of its generative AI features in Brazil. This decision, revealed on July 18, 2024, comes in the wake of recent regulatory actions by Brazil’s National Data Protection Authority (ANPD). There are growing tensions between technological innovation and…
“The dance between autonomy and affinity creates morality”
MIT philosophy doctoral student Abe Mathew believes individual rights play an important role in protecting the autonomy we value. But he also thinks we risk serious dysfunction if we ignore the importance of supporting and helping others.
“We should also acknowledge another feature of our moral lives,” he says, “namely, our need for affinity or closeness with other human beings, and our continued reliance on them to live flourishing lives in the world.”
Philosophy can be an important tool in understanding how humans interact with one another, he says. “I study moral obligation and rights, how the two relate, and the role they have to play in how we relate to one another,” Mathew adds.
Mathew asks that we think of autonomy and affinity as opposing forces — an idea he attributes to MIT philosopher, professor, and mentor Kieran Setiya. Autonomy pushes people farther from us, and affinity pulls people closer, Mathew says.
“The dance between autonomy and affinity creates morality,” Mathew adds.
Mathew is investigating one of moral philosophy’s foundational ideas — that every obligation we owe to another person correlates to a right that they have against us. The “Correlativity Thesis” is widely taken for granted, he says.
“A common example that’s used to motivate the Correlativity Thesis is a case of a promise,” Mathew explains. “If I promise to meet you for coffee at 11, then I have a moral obligation to meet you for coffee at 11, and you have a right to meet me at 11.” While Mathew believes this is how promising works, he doesn’t think the Correlativity Thesis is true across the board.
“There isn’t necessarily a one-to-one relationship between rights and obligations,” he says.
“We need folks’ help to do things”
Before coming to MIT, Mathew majored in philosophy and minored in ethics, law, and society as an undergraduate at the University of Toronto. Upon graduating in 2020, he was awarded the prestigious John Black Aird Scholarship, given each year to the university’s top undergraduate.
Now at MIT, Mathew says his research is based on the value of shared responsibility.
“We need folks’ help to do things,” he says.
When we lose sight of moral values, our societal connections can fall away, he argues.
“Mutual cooperation makes our lives possible,” Mathew says.
His research suggests alternatives to the idea that rights demand obligations.
“Morality puts a certain kind of pressure on us to ‘pay it forward’ — it requires us to do for others what was once done for us,” Mathew says. “If we don’t, we’re making an exception of ourselves; in essence, we’re saying, ‘I was worthy of that help from others, but no one else is worthy of being helped by me.’”
Mathew also values the notion of paying it forward because he’s seen its value in his life. “I’ve encountered so many people who’ve gone above and beyond that I owe them,” he says.
A valuable social compact
Mathew has been extensively involved in “public philosophy.” For example, he’s organized public events at MIT, like the successful “Ask a Philosopher Anything” panel in the Stata Center lobby.
Mathew’s work leading the local chapter of Corrupt the Youth, a philosophy outreach program focused on bringing philosophy to high schools students from historically marginalized groups, is an extension of his belief in our shared responsibility for one another — of “paying it forward.”
“The reason I discovered philosophy was because of my instructors in college who not only introduced me to the subject, but also cultivated my enthusiasm for it and mentored me,” he says. “Our moral theorizing should take into account the kinds of creatures we are: vulnerable human beings who are constantly in need of each other to get by in the world.”
Morality, Mathew says, gives us a tool — the social practice of forgiving — through which we can coexist, repair relationships we damage, and lead our lives together.
Mathew wants moral philosophers to consider their ideas’ practical, real-world applications. His experiences derive, in part, from notions of moral responsibility. Those who’ve been given a lot, he believes, have a greater responsibility for others. These kinds of social systems can consistently be improved by paying good deeds forward, he says.
“Moral philosophy should help build a world that allows for our mutual benefit,” Mathew says.
China-based emissions of three potent climate-warming greenhouse gases spiked in past decade
When it comes to heating up the planet, not all greenhouse gases are created equal. They vary widely in their global warming potential (GWP), a measure of how much infrared thermal radiation a greenhouse gas would absorb over a given time frame once it enters the atmosphere. For example, measured over a 100-year period, the GWP of methane is about 28 times that of carbon dioxide (CO2), and the GWPs of a class of greenhouse gases known as perfluorocarbons (PFCs) are thousands of times that of CO2. The lifespans in the atmosphere of different greenhouse gases also vary widely. Methane persists in the atmosphere for around 10 years; CO2 for over 100 years, and PFCs for up to tens of thousands of years.
Given the high GWPs and lifespans of PFCs, their emissions could pose a major roadblock to achieving the aspirational goal of the Paris Agreement on climate change — to limit the increase in global average surface temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. Now, two new studies based on atmospheric observations inside China and high-resolution atmospheric models show a rapid rise in Chinese emissions over the last decade (2011 to 2020 or 2021) of three PFCs: tetrafluoromethane (PFC-14) and hexafluoroethane (PFC-116) (results in PNAS), and perfluorocyclobutane (PFC-318) (results in Environmental Science & Technology).
Both studies find that Chinese emissions have played a dominant role in driving up global emission levels for all three PFCs.
The PNAS study identifies substantial PFC-14 and PFC-116 emission sources in the less-populated western regions of China from 2011 to 2021, likely due to the large amount of aluminum industry in these regions. The semiconductor industry also contributes to some of the emissions detected in the more economically developed eastern regions. These emissions are byproducts from aluminum smelting, or occur during the use of the two PFCs in the production of semiconductors and flat panel displays. During the observation period, emissions of both gases in China rose by 78 percent, accounting for most of the increase in global emissions of these gases.
The ES&T study finds that during 2011-20, a 70 percent increase in Chinese PFC-318 emissions (contributing more than half of the global emissions increase of this gas) — originated primarily in eastern China. The regions with high emissions of PFC-318 in China overlap with geographical areas densely populated with factories that produce polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE, commonly used for nonstick cookware coatings), implying that PTFE factories are major sources of PFC-318 emissions in China. In these factories, PFC-318 is formed as a byproduct.
“Using atmospheric observations from multiple monitoring sites, we not only determined the magnitudes of PFC emissions, but also pinpointed the possible locations of their sources,” says Minde An, a postdoc at the MIT Center for Global Change Science (CGCS), and corresponding author of both studies. “Identifying the actual source industries contributing to these PFC emissions, and understanding the reasons for these largely byproduct emissions, can provide guidance for developing region- or industry-specific mitigation strategies.”
“These three PFCs are largely produced as unwanted byproducts during the manufacture of otherwise widely used industrial products,” says MIT professor of atmospheric sciences Ronald Prinn, director of both the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change and CGCS, and a co-author of both studies. “Phasing out emissions of PFCs as early as possible is highly beneficial for achieving global climate mitigation targets and is likely achievable by recycling programs and targeted technological improvements in these industries.”
Findings in both studies were obtained, in part, from atmospheric observations collected from nine stations within a Chinese network, including one station from the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE) network. For comparison, global total emissions were determined from five globally distributed, relatively unpolluted “background” AGAGE stations, as reported in the latest United Nations Environment Program and World Meteorological Organization Ozone Assessment report.
Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred Preview – Hands-On With The New Spiritborn Class – Game Informer
Vessel of Hatred ushers in a wave of change for Diablo IV. The game’s first expansion takes players to the new jungle region of Nahantu and, most importantly, introduces the new Spiritborn class. I went hands-on with the Spiritborn at a recent preview event and spoke to Blizzard about how it created a class unlike any other in the Diablo series. After spending a couple of hours playing, the Spiritborn may already be my new favorite class in the game.
Unlike other Diablo classes, the Spiritborn is not based on a traditional fantasy archetype like the Rogue or Mage. Rather, it’s a martial arts-inspired class hailing from the dense jungle region of Nahantu. Described as the apex predator of this region, a Spiritborn arises from a brutal ritual tasking them to survive the wilds of Nahantu. A Spiritborn character’s narration in a cinematic reveal trailer describes it best:
“Only a few among my people can become Spiritborn. As children, the most promising face judgment in the nest. Our trial begins and ends with pain. Those who are not called are culled. For the weak, all paths end here. For the worthy, that path leads to power beyond compare and a sacred charge to wield it well.”
Succeeding in this ritual allows a Spiritborn to commune with the Spirit Realm to bond with and harness the power of four animal Spirit Guardians: jaguar, eagle, gorilla, and centipede. The Spirit Realm is described as a “byproduct of humanity” and a “ghostly reflection of Sanctuary” by associate narrative designer Eleni Rivera-Colon during a presentation. “The way that we like to see it is that the angels have the High Heavens, demons have the Burning Hells, and humans have the Spirit Realm.”
The four Spirit Guardians serve as manifestations of human beliefs. The Jaguar represents hunting and providing, while the Centipede represents the cycle of death, decay, and the resulting new life. The Eagle represents the precision and vision needed to navigate the jungle, and the Gorilla is a beacon of strength and protection.
“You can imagine that if you’re a native of Nahantu if you needed one of these values, you would call upon those gods to embody that value,” game director Brent Gibson explains. “And one of the cool things about the Spiritborn is that they believe that if they devote themselves to this so much that one day when they cross over into the veil, they’ll become Spirit Guardians themselves.”
The Spiritborns sound pretty powerful, so where have these warriors been all this time? Gibson explains that Nahantu is intimately familiar with the Eternal Conflict; it housed Mephisto’s original soulstone during Diablo II. The terrible memories and traumas from that era remain fresh in their minds, so much so that they chose to sit on the sidelines during the various world-threatening events of previous Diablo games to avoid repeating history. But Lilith’s return has finally forced their hands to rejoin the fight.
According to Gibson, Blizzard began conceptualizing the Spiritborn before Diablo IV launched. Blizzard examined unique combat and power fantasies the existing classes didn’t provide, in addition to player feedback for each. This helped the team create the goal of making a class that sits at the core of its first expansion, as by doing so, it could tie its background and fighting style to a specific new location.
At first glance, Spiritborn draws inspiration from Central and South American civilizations, which Gibson confirms among other broad touchstones. Rivera-Colon adds that the team didn’t focus on a singular source but on the theme of humanity and what it means to be human. The answer was that humans possess spirits, which snowballed into discussions of how that would manifest.
“The interesting thing is when you think of the concept of a spirit realm, in our research, many cultures have some version of that,” Gibson explains. “So we knew it would be very relatable to more than just the region we know. So one of the things we always take great care of is making sure that we’re inspired by and don’t lift from […] It’s like we’re taking a look at the culture that’s already established in the Diablo fiction, and then we’re being inspired by Central American cultures, Asian cultures, and taking a look at the world as a whole and how we can make it as global as possible.”
Each Spirit Guardian offers a specific playstyle. The jaguar emphasizes relentless fire-based offense and ever-increasing attack speed. The eagle provides lightning and maneuverability with abilities that let players move quickly while electrifying targets. The gorilla boasts defense, letting players absorb and reduce punishment, then retaliating by pummeling foes with mighty physical blows. The centipede deals with debilitating poison attacks, debuffs, and abilities designed to disrupt enemy mobs.
Additionally, you can further gear your Spiritborn towards a chosen animal using the Spirit Hall. This menu tab lets players gain bonuses based on the Spirit Guardians equipped in two slots. The first slot grants a themed mechanic based on the chosen animal; for example, the eagle lets players fire Storm Feathers when evading. When you kill an enemy, the second slot bestows a themed bonus, such as the jaguar gaining +1 Ferocity (a new mechanic representing attack speed). Purists can also put the same animal in both slots. A new skill type called Incarnate Skills allows the Spiritborn to equip and gain a passive trait based on one of the four spirit animals.
The Spiritborn doesn’t only rely on their animal companions. The class is a hyper-agile, demon-slaying machine on its own, thanks to its martial-arts-inspired playstyle. Blizzard developed the Spiritborn’s combat style by examining multiple disciplines, including muay thai, taekwondo, karate, kung fu, and jiu-jitsu. Art director Nick Chilano tells me the character hits home with several animators who practice some form of martial arts – Chilano himself trains in jiu-jitsu. By drawing from these real-life influences, the team created and animated a hybrid style molded around the setting and history of Nahantu. Chilano also says each Spirt Guardian’s playstyle helped narrow down the martial arts style associated with them.
“So if you think about the gorilla, we’re looking at strong poses, strong attacks, blunt force,” says Chilano. “If you’re thinking about the centipede, it’s earthy, connecting to the ground. So we’re looking at moves that represent that. The Jaguar is aggression: fast, multi-attacks, combo hits. So we start really trying to figure out what martial arts styles fit there. And the eagle is really about precision, repositioning, so we’re looking at a lot of combat that can kind of make sense there.”
I spent over two hours playing with different pre-made specialized builds of the Spiritborn, and the class was thrilling. Having four animals to work with feels like having four smaller classes in one, and you can mix and match their abilities to form hybrid playstyles or create a “pure” build based solely on one animal. I rocked a jaguar build and incinerated foes with its litany of fire-based attacks. However, I also liked combining the gorilla and centipede skills, which turned me into a self-healing tank that poisoned everything in sight. There’s a ton of potential for experimentation, and I regularly respec’d the skill tree to tinker with various Spirit Guardian combinations.
The flashy abilities complement the Spiritborn’s base offensive prowess, creating a class boasting fast-paced, hand-to-hand butt-kicking that can quickly warp around a skirmish to take out surrounding mobs. Unleashing a Spirit Guardian’s ultimate attack summons them as a giant ethereal beast to eradicate adversaries, whether it’s the eagle dive-bombing the field or the centipede emerging from underground to spew poison projectiles and streams. This spectacle makes watching the Spiritborn in action almost as fun as playing it. Almost.
Blizzard has designed weapons and armor to accommodate either approach, with the latter coming as themed armor sets. The Spiritborn are more concerned with function over protection, hence why their armor exposes so much of themselves, and they wear armor that represents the Spirit Guardian they’re devoted to. Weapons-wise, the class favors polearms, glaives, and quarterstaffs to complement its acrobatic playstyle. Blizzard is also cooking up new Legendaries, Aspects, and Uniques for the class.
The Spiritborn is a blast, and, best of all, newcomers won’t have to wait to start the expansion story to play it. Owners of Vessel of Hatred can choose the Spiritborn at the start of the base campaign so that you can battle Lilith as this ferocious new hero. We can’t wait to play more when Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred launches on October 8.
Machine learning unlocks secrets to advanced alloys
The concept of short-range order (SRO) — the arrangement of atoms over small distances — in metallic alloys has been underexplored in materials science and engineering. But the past decade has seen renewed interest in quantifying it, since decoding SRO is a crucial step toward developing tailored high-performing alloys, such as stronger or heat-resistant materials.
Understanding how atoms arrange themselves is no easy task and must be verified using intensive lab experiments or computer simulations based on imperfect models. These hurdles have made it difficult to fully explore SRO in metallic alloys.
But Killian Sheriff and Yifan Cao, graduate students in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE), are using machine learning to quantify, atom-by-atom, the complex chemical arrangements that make up SRO. Under the supervision of Assistant Professor Rodrigo Freitas, and with the help of Assistant Professor Tess Smidt in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, their work was recently published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Interest in understanding SRO is linked to the excitement around advanced materials called high-entropy alloys, whose complex compositions give them superior properties.
Typically, materials scientists develop alloys by using one element as a base and adding small quantities of other elements to enhance specific properties. The addition of chromium to nickel, for example, makes the resulting metal more resistant to corrosion.
Unlike most traditional alloys, high-entropy alloys have several elements, from three up to 20, in nearly equal proportions. This offers a vast design space. “It’s like you’re making a recipe with a lot more ingredients,” says Cao.
The goal is to use SRO as a “knob” to tailor material properties by mixing chemical elements in high-entropy alloys in unique ways. This approach has potential applications in industries such as aerospace, biomedicine, and electronics, driving the need to explore permutations and combinations of elements, Cao says.
Capturing short-range order
Short-range order refers to the tendency of atoms to form chemical arrangements with specific neighboring atoms. While a superficial look at an alloy’s elemental distribution might indicate that its constituent elements are randomly arranged, it is often not so. “Atoms have a preference for having specific neighboring atoms arranged in particular patterns,” Freitas says. “How often these patterns arise and how they are distributed in space is what defines SRO.”
Understanding SRO unlocks the keys to the kingdom of high-entropy materials. Unfortunately, not much is known about SRO in high-entropy alloys. “It’s like we’re trying to build a huge Lego model without knowing what’s the smallest piece of Lego that you can have,” says Sheriff.
Traditional methods for understanding SRO involve small computational models, or simulations with a limited number of atoms, providing an incomplete picture of complex material systems. “High-entropy materials are chemically complex — you can’t simulate them well with just a few atoms; you really need to go a few length scales above that to capture the material accurately,” Sheriff says. “Otherwise, it’s like trying to understand your family tree without knowing one of the parents.”
SRO has also been calculated by using basic mathematics, counting immediate neighbors for a few atoms and computing what that distribution might look like on average. Despite its popularity, the approach has limitations, as it offers an incomplete picture of SRO.
Fortunately, researchers are leveraging machine learning to overcome the shortcomings of traditional approaches for capturing and quantifying SRO.
Hyunseok Oh, assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and a former DMSE postdoc, is excited about investigating SRO more fully. Oh, who was not involved in this study, explores how to leverage alloy composition, processing methods, and their relationship to SRO to design better alloys. “The physics of alloys and the atomistic origin of their properties depend on short-range ordering, but the accurate calculation of short-range ordering has been almost impossible,” says Oh.
A two-pronged machine learning solution
To study SRO using machine learning, it helps to picture the crystal structure in high-entropy alloys as a connect-the-dots game in an coloring book, Cao says.
“You need to know the rules for connecting the dots to see the pattern.” And you need to capture the atomic interactions with a simulation that is big enough to fit the entire pattern.
First, understanding the rules meant reproducing the chemical bonds in high-entropy alloys. “There are small energy differences in chemical patterns that lead to differences in short-range order, and we didn’t have a good model to do that,” Freitas says. The model the team developed is the first building block in accurately quantifying SRO.
The second part of the challenge, ensuring that researchers get the whole picture, was more complex. High-entropy alloys can exhibit billions of chemical “motifs,” combinations of arrangements of atoms. Identifying these motifs from simulation data is difficult because they can appear in symmetrically equivalent forms — rotated, mirrored, or inverted. At first glance, they may look different but still contain the same chemical bonds.
The team solved this problem by employing 3D Euclidean neural networks. These advanced computational models allowed the researchers to identify chemical motifs from simulations of high-entropy materials with unprecedented detail, examining them atom-by-atom.
The final task was to quantify the SRO. Freitas used machine learning to evaluate the different chemical motifs and tag each with a number. When researchers want to quantify the SRO for a new material, they run it by the model, which sorts it in its database and spits out an answer.
The team also invested additional effort in making their motif identification framework more accessible. “We have this sheet of all possible permutations of [SRO] already set up, and we know what number each of them got through this machine learning process,” Freitas says. “So later, as we run into simulations, we can sort them out to tell us what that new SRO will look like.” The neural network easily recognizes symmetry operations and tags equivalent structures with the same number.
“If you had to compile all the symmetries yourself, it’s a lot of work. Machine learning organized this for us really quickly and in a way that was cheap enough that we could apply it in practice,” Freitas says.
Enter the world’s fastest supercomputer
This summer, Cao and Sheriff and team will have a chance to explore how SRO can change under routine metal processing conditions, like casting and cold-rolling, through the U.S. Department of Energy’s INCITE program, which allows access to Frontier, the world’s fastest supercomputer.
“If you want to know how short-range order changes during the actual manufacturing of metals, you need to have a very good model and a very large simulation,” Freitas says. The team already has a strong model; it will now leverage INCITE’s computing facilities for the robust simulations required.
“With that we expect to uncover the sort of mechanisms that metallurgists could employ to engineer alloys with pre-determined SRO,” Freitas adds.
Sheriff is excited about the research’s many promises. One is the 3D information that can be obtained about chemical SRO. Whereas traditional transmission electron microscopes and other methods are limited to two-dimensional data, physical simulations can fill in the dots and give full access to 3D information, Sheriff says.
“We have introduced a framework to start talking about chemical complexity,” Sheriff explains. “Now that we can understand this, there’s a whole body of materials science on classical alloys to develop predictive tools for high-entropy materials.”
That could lead to the purposeful design of new classes of materials instead of simply shooting in the dark.
The research was funded by the MathWorks Ignition Fund, MathWorks Engineering Fellowship Fund, and the Portuguese Foundation for International Cooperation in Science, Technology and Higher Education in the MIT–Portugal Program.
Atomos Ninja Ultra Camera to Cloud workflow success story – Videoguys
TIDE Media’s creative Manager, Gareth Bartlett recently used Atomos’ Camera to Cloud offering to speed his onset and post production workflow. Bartlett works on some of the world’s biggest projects for marine & adventure brands. His day to day consists of managing videographers at international boat shows to filming models and lavish boats in spectacular locations such as Monaco, Palma and Norway. When he needed to turn around content the same day for social media that’s when he turned to Atomos.
Bartlett and his team have a lot to consider since they work in different locations and climates. They need a solution that offers high quality images. The TIDE team uses Sony FX3 cameras, finding the combination of full-frame sensor and wide dynamic range ideal for capturing content on the go and the Atomos Ninja Ultra. “Gareth takes full advantage of the monitor-recorder’s high definition display to review footage and check image focus,” says Atomos.
“Quality, portability and size of the monitor are all practical wins but being able to see the bigger picture makes me feel more confident in my job, securing the best shots for clients.”
Gareth Bartlett
The Ninja Ultra’s built-in monitoring features, such as frame guides and zoom control allow Bartlett to make quick changes in a touch of a button, which is important when he is constantly capturing wide and vertical shots.
“We often need to capture content in different aspect ratios, so we’ll film in 16:9 but use the on-screen 9:16 overlay to frame and crop shots. This feature is a big one for us as it takes a lot of guesswork out of the shoot.”
Gareth Bartlett
The storage the Ninja brings is also a great addition to Bartlett’s workflow
“At boat shows we can shoot hundreds of boats each year, generating hours of content, so being able to record onto SSD is a massive benefit. We now shoot and edit from the same SSD – it’s another way we’ve removed the offloading process to speed up what we do.”
Gareth Bartlett
The TIDE team used the Atomos Connect module and Camera to Cloud (C2C) to send footage from boat shows wirelessy to their off-site editing suite. This feature was extremly valuable to them during this shoot.
“Camera to Cloud allows us to shoot continuously while the footage is sent directly to editors in the press centre who can start putting the clips together. This allows TIDE Media’s sister publications, Powerboat and Rib magazine, to share the latest content to social media within the hour. The whole system works seamlessly to help us get footage quickly to the edit suite and through to social media in record time.”
Gareth Bartlett
Check out the full article here!
Learn more about Atomos here!
The AI Advantage: Reshaping Loyalty Programs and Customer Segmentation
Whether it’s online or in a store, consumers are used to being prompted to join loyalty programs when making a purchase. It’s a part of the shopping experience people have come to expect, but the mechanics behind these programs aren’t always obvious. Most loyalty programs follow…
Understanding Large Language Model Parameters and Memory Requirements: A Deep Dive
Large Language Models (LLMs) has seen remarkable advancements in recent years. Models like GPT-4, Google’s Gemini, and Claude 3 are setting new standards in capabilities and applications. These models are not only enhancing text generation and translation but are also breaking new ground in multimodal processing,…
Overcoming Cross-Platform Deployment Hurdles in the Age of AI Processing Units
AI hardware is growing quickly, with processing units like CPUs, GPUs, TPUs, and NPUs, each designed for specific computing needs. This variety fuels innovation but also brings challenges when deploying AI across different systems. Differences in architecture, instruction sets, and capabilities can cause compatibility issues, performance…
Edge 414: Inside Meta AI’s HUSKY: A New Agent Optimized for Multi-Step Reasoning
New research from Meta AI, Allen AI, and the University of Washington tackles one of the most important problems in LLM reasoning….