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US policymakers should take heed, says the Electronic Frontier Foundation

opinion Implementation of the U.K.'s Online Safety Act is giving internet users around the globe – including those in U.S. states moving to enact their own age verification laws – real-time proof that such laws impinge on everyone's rights to speak, read, and view freely. …

They’re cheap and grew up with AI … so you’re firing them why?

Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman has suggested firing junior workers because AI can do their jobs is “the dumbest thing I've ever heard.”…

Web giant reworks AI infra to improve utilization, with mix of chips from home and away

Chinese web giant Baidu is already breaking even with robotaxi operations in China and is confident they will be profitable once the company rolls into global markets.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Serbian scientists have been experimenting with mealworms as a way to break down polystyrene. Larisa Ilijin, a principal research fellow at Belgrade's Institute for Biology, said the scientists had discovered that mealworms can digest various plastics, including polystyrene, which is used in packaging, insulation and food containers. In the project endorsed by the government and the United Nations' agency for international development, UNDP, and other international donors, they have been including the polystyrene in the regular food of the larval form of the yellow mealworm beetle, or Tenebrio molitor. They habitually eat more or less anything, but need the training to eat the plastic products. "We have larvae that have been adapted over a long time to biodegrade plastic, to be as efficient as possible in the process," Ilijin told Reuters. She said the bacteria living in their guts break down the plastic into carbon dioxide and water, and showed no evidence of leaving microplastic residue in their innards or faeces. The work builds on similar research projects in the U.S. and Africa. [...] The institute has given Belgrade-based Belinda Animals several containers of the mealworms. It is now breeding them and hoping to attract a network of similar farms. "When breaking down 1 kg of Styrofoam, larvae emit one to two grams of carbon dioxide ... If we incinerate it ... (Styrofoam) emits over 4,000 times more," owner Boris Vasiljev said. He also envisages the larvae being used as animal feed, should it reach a large commercial scale. The use of mealworms is still in its infancy, Ilijin said, as Serbia still needs to adopt regulations that would allow the use and sale of insect products for animal fodder. "Styrofoam takes over 500 years to decompose in nature ... this would be one of the good ways for solving the problem of plastic waste in nature," Ilijin said.

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According to the Wall Street Journal, Meta has paused hiring in its artificial intelligence division after bringing on more than 50 researchers and engineers. "All that's happening here is some basic organizational planning: creating a solid structure for our new superintelligence efforts after bringing people on board and undertaking yearly budgeting and planning exercises," a spokesperson for Meta said in an emailed statement to Reuters. Over the last few months, Meta has been offering AI researchers salaries that dwarf those of the Manhattan Project and the Space Race. The company recently offered AI researcher Matt Deitke $250 million over four years (an average of $62.5 million per year), with potentially $100 million in the first year alone. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly also offered an unnamed AI engineer $1 billion in compensation to be paid out over several years.

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