Tag Archives: helps

Artificial Brain Helps Alvin Lucier Continue Creating Music Posthumously

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In the dimly lit room, broken symphonies of rattles, hums, and wobbles danced off the walls. However, the musicians responsible were nowhere to be seen.

Upon closer inspection, fragments of performers could be discerned, although their presence was not palpable.

In the midst of the room, spectators floated around an elevated pedestal, craning their necks to catch a glimpse of the brain behind the operation. Beneath the magnifying lens lay two white masses resembling miniature jellyfish. Together, they constituted a “mini-brain” cultivated in the laboratory of the late American composer Alvin Lucier.




“You’re peering into the Abyss”: the central pedestal of the revival, housing the “mini-brain” grown in Lucier’s lab. Photo: Rift Photography

Lucier, a trailblazer in experimental music, passed away in 2021. However, here in the art galleries of Western Australia, his legacy has been resurrected through cutting-edge neuroscience.

“Gazing down at its central pedestal, one pierces the veil,” remarks Nathan Thompson, the project’s artist and creator. “You peer deep within, observing what is alive. Unlike yourself.”




The Four Monsters who orchestrated the resurrection: Guy Benley, Matt Gingold, Nathan Thompson, and Stuart Hodgitz. Photo: Rift Photography

The revival is the handiwork of a self-proclaimed “four monsters” alongside a tight-knit team of scientists and artists who have dedicated decades to pushing the boundaries of biological arts: Thompson, along with fellow artists Ben Ally and Matt Gingold, and neuroscientist Stuart Hodgetts.


Lucier proved to be an ideal collaborator. In 1965, he became the first artist to utilize brain waves to produce live sounds in innovative solo performances. In 2018, the revival team, long-time admirers of Lucier’s work, brainstormed ideas with him. By 2020, at the age of 89 and battling Parkinson’s disease, Lucier consented to provide blood for the resurrection.

Source: www.theguardian.com

NOAA helps rehired workers bounce back, raising questions amid storm chaos

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This week, workers at the National Marine and Atmospheric Administration faced a sudden change as the federal government attempted to reinstate probationary workers who were previously fired.

Over 600 NOAA workers, including important public safety roles like scientists issuing tsunami alerts, hurricane hunting flight directors, and local forecast office meteorologists, were let go over two weeks ago.

However, a US district judge in Maryland issued a temporary restraining order on Thursday, halting the firing of tens of thousands of workers within the agency and ordering their reinstatement. The Trump administration informed the court on Monday that they were working to reinstate about 24,000 probationary workers affected by widespread layoffs in the federal workforce. (Probationary workers are typically those in their first or second year of federal service, but this status also applies to some promoted employees or former contractors who were hired as full-time employees.)

The Commerce Department confirmed in a court filing that 791 workers, including NOAA employees, had been reinstated across the agency.

The reinstatement process has caused further confusion at NOAA, which had already halted some services due to staffing issues post-layoffs. This included significant disruptions like weather balloon launches in Albany, New York and Cotzevieu, Alaska, which are crucial for accurate weather predictions. Several offices were also closed by the agency.

The reinstatement news came just as a massive storm system swept across the nation, spawning tornadoes and claiming the lives of at least 42 people. NOAA’s National Weather Service division plays a key role in predicting and warning the public about dangerous weather events.

While probation workers at NOAA have technically been reinstated, they are currently on administrative leave and not being asked to return to work. It remains uncertain whether the services previously provided by these workers will be fully restored.

NOAA news agency has directed inquiries to the Department of Commerce, which has not responded to requests for comment.

A Hurricane Modeling Specialist named Andy Hazelton, who was fired last month despite having a PhD, received an email on Monday confirming his reinstatement following the court order.

The email stated, “You will be reinstated to federal service with your previous status, retroactive to the termination date, and placed on paid administrative leave until further action is taken by the court or department.”

Should the court’s order be overturned or the Commerce Department prevail in court, details about potentially reverting to the termination date are unclear.

Hazelton mentioned that he had not received further communication as of Monday and remained hopeful about receiving back pay or eventually resuming his duties.

While the email provided temporary relief, uncertainty remains as rumors persist about further reductions in the NOAA workforce through workforce reduction or Reduction in Force (RIF) measures.

Jaszka, 49, who previously worked as an investigative assistance technician for NOAA law enforcement before being fired, shared similar sentiments.

She expressed frustration at the perception of government workers as a drain on taxpayer resources, fueled by the notion that they are not performing their duties effectively.

Jaszka highlighted the irony of the situation, where government employees were being paid not to work despite their passion for fulfilling NOAA’s mission.

In a court filing, the Commerce Department stated that employees would not be required to return to full duty obligations immediately.

The department is prepared to reinstate all necessary administrative procedures if needed, such as training completion, personnel documentation, badge reissuance, benefit enrollment, and salary restoration.

Source: www.nbcnews.com

Robotic exoskeleton helps professional pianists improve speed and accuracy

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Robotic exoskeleton can train people to move their fingers faster

Shinichi Furuya

The robot hand’s exoskeleton helps professional pianists learn to play faster by moving their fingers.

Robotic exoskeletons have long been used to rehabilitate people who have lost the use of their hands due to injury or medical conditions, but their use to improve performance in able-bodied people has been less studied.

now, Shinichi Furuya and his colleagues at Sony Computer Science Laboratories in Tokyo found that using a robotic exoskeleton can improve the finger speed of trained pianists after a single 30-minute training session.

“I’m a pianist, but [injured] My hands got damaged from practicing too much,” Furuya says. “I was struggling with the dilemma between over-practicing and preventing injury, so I decided I had to figure out a way to improve my skills without practicing.”

Furuya recalled how his teacher would often teach him how to play a particular song by holding up his hand. “I could understand it intuitively, tactilely, without using words,” he says. This led him to wonder if it would be possible to replicate this effect in robots.

This robotic exoskeleton can raise and lower each finger independently up to four times per second using separate motors attached to the base of each finger.

To test the device, the researchers recruited 118 experienced pianists who had played for at least 10,000 hours since before they were eight years old and asked them to practice one piece for two weeks until they stopped improving.

The pianists then underwent a 30-minute training session using the exoskeleton, during which they moved their right-hand fingers slowly or quickly in various combinations of simple and complex patterns. This allowed Furuya and his colleagues to pinpoint what type of movement was causing the improvement. .

Pianists who experienced high-speed, complex training were able to better coordinate their right-hand movements and move the fingers of either hand faster, both immediately after training and one day later. This, along with evidence from brain scans, suggests that the training changed the pianists’ sensory cortex, allowing them to better control overall finger movements, Furuya says.

“This is the first time I’ve seen someone use it.” [robotic exoskeletons] It is about learning beyond normal dexterity and beyond what is naturally possible.” Nathan Lepora At the University of Bristol, UK. “Why it worked is a little counterintuitive, because we thought actually performing the movements ourselves spontaneously would be the way we learned. But passive movements seem to work better.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com

AI Helps Chinese Mourners Remember and “Revive” Their Loved Ones

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aMillions of people across China visit their ancestors’ graves to pay their respects during the annual Tomb Sweeping Festival. This means new ways to remember and bring back beloved relatives are emerging.

Some services advertised online say Chinese netizens can create animated digital avatars of their loved ones for as little as 20 yuan (£2.20). So this year, to mark Thursday’s Tomb Sweeping Festival, innovative mourners are relying on artificial intelligence to connect with the deceased.

On the more sophisticated end of the spectrum, Taiwanese singer Bao Xiaobai used AI to “bring back to life” her 22-year-old daughter who died in 2022. Even though there was only an audio recording of her speaking three sentences of English, Bao reportedly spent: He experimented with AI technology for over a year before he managed to create it. his daughter video She sang Happy Birthday to her mother and published it in January.

“People around me think I have lost my mind,” Bao said in an interview with Chinese media. But she also added, “I want to hear her voice again.”

Interest in digital cloning of deceased people is growing as China’s AI industry continues to expand into human-like avatars. According to some estimates, the market size of “digital humans” is expected to reach 12 billion yuan in 2022, and quadruple by 2025. One reason Chinese tech companies are so good at creating digital humans is because China has a huge army of livestreamers. Companies that generated an estimated 5 trillion yuan in revenue last year are using AI to clone themselves and sell their products 24/7.

People scatter flower petals in a river at a cemetery in Beijing before this week’s grave-sweeping festival. Photo: Xinhua/Rex/Shutterstock

Last month, SenseTime, one of China’s leading AI companies, showcased its skills in this field during founder Tang Xiao’ou’s speech at its annual general meeting. “Hello everyone. See you soon,” Tan told employees. “The past year has been difficult for everyone, but I believe that hard times will pass.”

Mr Tan’s 2023 has been particularly difficult. Because he passed away on December 15th at the age of 55. His speech was delivered by a digital clone trained by SenseTime engineers using a large-scale language model machine learning program trained on Tang’s video and audio clips. .

The Tomb Sweeping Festival is a special occasion for this type of technology.a software developer I said it on Weibo He said he has already helped more than 600 families “achieve reunification” with their loved ones this year.

But bereaved families are not the only ones using AI to bring their loved ones back to life. Social media users recently used old footage of singer Qiao Renliang, who passed away in 2016, to create new content featuring him. In one video, his AI clone of Qiao says: “Actually, I never left.” However, the parents of Mr. Qiao, who committed suicide, were furious. His father was quoted in Chinese media as saying the video “revealed his scars” and was made without his family’s consent.

Some Chinese lawyers argue that such content should be banned if it causes “mental distress” to the relatives of the deceased. But as grievers gather for a grave-sweeping festival, China’s digital natives are likely to experiment with a digital afterlife faster than flesh-and-blood policymakers can regulate it.

Additional research by Chi Hui Lin

Source: www.theguardian.com