Scientists/ethicists have been pondering whether stem cells and creating chimeras could lead to unintended consequences of affecting the brains of animals. Maybe even making them more conscious/intelligent.
No, not yet. I went into my local Apple store and brought it up to one of the genius's and they haven't heard anything at all about the exploit from HQ. But, I can confirm that Intel's ME is present in all Apple macs. The physical hardware is completely unchanged according to the Apple genius bar employee.
It's unclear to me whether or not Apple uses Intel firmware for the non AMT portions of ME. I will report back to you when I find out. However, the evidence I've seen so far isn't looking too good, and it definitely looks like the vast majority of macs made in the last 5 years are all vulnerable, many appearing to run outdated Intel firmware to boot -- not good for Apple.
where some people run a python program to check the version of their ME firmware (which works and returns numbers completely consistent with Intel firmware numbering). I wonder if Apple just isn't aware of the hack yet?
I often see this metaphor as misleading somehow..
In both cases ( birds and airplanes) the physical phenomenon is exactly the same: lifting effect, which is related to the Venturi effect.. that is: the speed and the pressure of a fluid (in this case, air) depends on the geometry of the components affecting the flow of the fluid.
Note that the wing geometry in airplanes is actually similar to the birds.. (of course, airplanes have it optimized by CFD for the speed and altitudes they flight)
Although the “flapping” in birds’ wings also alters it’s geometry the main function is to act as the engines...
So, yeah, we need to discover the basic physical principle of the brain.
It's not a perfect metaphor, no. But pointing that out doesn't prove that we need a detailed understanding of how the brain works in order to build useful AI tools. Of course I think it goes without saying that more and deeper knowledge of how the brain works is desirable and would be useful. I'm just saying that that kind of knowledge isn't necessarily required in order to achieve useful ends.
Keep in mind the context of what I'm saying, which is responding to this:
Hinton's caught up in a mind boggling batch of mumbo-jumbo that proves no one understands how the brain actually works
I would argue that modern AI/ML is far past "mumbo jumbo" and provides useful tools, even without a detailed understanding of the brain.
Hinton is with no doubt one of the greatest name in the field, but I think in this case particularly the paper fails to properly address citations. I have seen people publishing about dynamic routing and invariance problem by decades (e.g. C. Von der Malsburg, T. Poggio, and many others).
But I admit, authors in general name concepts in such obscure and convoluted way, which makes it very hard to actually separate contributions and give credits to whom deserves it.
The landscape is of course complex... but I think that companies exposing their clients to such risk will only learn to protect their clients rights to privacy and to self-determination once organized groups of clients fight back on the court against this kind of practice.
This is a question of human rights, not just a technical feature.
Companies need to take legal responsibility over their decisions in any case where the security, freedom and free will of clients are at risk.
