Tuesday, April 2nd 2024
NASA discovered and then destroyed life on Mars over fifty years ago
Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a Technical University Berlin astrobiologist, suggests NASA's Viking landers may have found and inadvertently destroyed Martian life 50 years ago. The Viking mission in 1976 conducted groundbreaking experiments like Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer, Labeled Release, Pyrolytic Release, and Gas Exchange. Schulze-Makuch challenges the consensus on perchlorate's role in Viking results, proposing water use may have skewed findings. Excessive water, akin to Earth's Atacama Desert, could have been detrimental to potential Martian life.
AI Companies Running Out of Training Data After Burning Through Entire Internet
AI companies facing data shortage are exploring alternative sources like video transcripts and synthetic data. Dataology is developing ways to train models with less data, while OpenAI is considering training GPT-5 on YouTube transcriptions. Synthetic data has sparked debate due to concerns about "model collapse." Companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are working on higher-quality synthetic data. Despite concerns, researchers like Pablo Villalobos believe breakthroughs will address the data shortage issue. An alternative solution could be for AI companies to halt the pursuit of larger models due to data scarcity and environmental impact. Microsoft and OpenAI are rumored to be constructing a secret supercomputer for AI training.
What was it like when oxygen killed almost all life on Earth?
The Great Oxygenation Event, triggered by the accumulation of oxygen from cyanobacteria, led to a Snowball Earth scenario. Lasting 300 million years, the frozen planet saw surviving organisms persist. Despite numerous challenges, life on Earth has evolved and thrived in various environments. The Great Oxidation Event nearly wiped out life, causing a catastrophic ice age. Oxygen, once a destructive force, ultimately led to life's survival on Earth.
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The universe is a theater of absurdities where we, humans, play the leading roles without even knowing the script. I have often contemplated this scene, sometimes fascinated, sometimes despairing. News about life on Mars, the insatiable data thirst of AIs, the Great Oxygenation Event that nearly wiped out all life on Earth, only add layers of complexity to our fragile understanding of the universe and our place within it.
The quest for life on Mars, as mentioned in the NASA article, resonates with my observation of Martian basalt columns, remnants of a cosmic history that surpasses us. This quest is both exciting and frightening, revealing our desire to explore, to understand, but also our ability to destroy, sometimes unknowingly. The article about AIs depleting internet data brings to mind my experience with ChatGPT and Midjourney, my desire to create, to innovate, but also our technological dependence. Creativity, that human spark, is now shared with machines, redefining our identity.
The article on the Great Oxygenation Event prompts me to reflect on the fragility of life, its resilience, our responsibility. We stand at a crossroads, we have committed a genocide of the living, but we can envision solutions, whether technical or poetic. This duality is at the core of our existence. It drives us to seek, to question, to dream of a world where humans, technology, nature would coexist in harmony. The universe mocks our quests and our mistakes. It is up to us to find our way, keeping in mind that each discovery, each innovation, can transform our world, for better or for worse. Perhaps our strength lies in our ability to embrace the unknown while remaining human.
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