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There are two factions working to prevent AI dangers. Here’s why they’re deeply divided.

AI poses present risks and future ones. Why don?t the teams that work on them get along? There are teams of researchers in academia and at major AI labs these days working on the problem of AI ethics, or the moral concerns raised by AI systems. These efforts tend to be especially focused on data privacy concerns and on what is known as AI bias ? AI systems that, using training data with bias often built in, produce racist or sexist results, such as refusing women credit card limits they?d grant a man with identical qualifications.There are also teams of researchers in academia and at some (though fewer) AI labs that are working on the problem of AI alignment. This is the risk that, as our AI systems become more powerful, our oversight methods and training approaches will be more and more meaningless for the task of getting them to do what we actually want. Ultimately, we?ll have handed humanity?s future over to systems with goals and priorities we don?t understand and can no longer influence. Today, that often means that AI ethicists and those in AI alignment are working on similar problems. Improving the understanding of the internal workings of today?s AI systems is one approach to solving AI alignment, and is crucial for understanding when and where models are being misleading or discriminatory. And in some ways, AI alignment is just the problem of AI bias writ (terrifyingly) large: We are assigning more societal decision-making power to systems that we don?t fully understand and can?t always audit, and that lawmakers don?t know nearly well enough to effectively regulate. As impressive as modern artificial intelligence can seem, right now those AI systems are, in a sense, ?stupid.? They tend to have very narrow scope and limited computing power. To the extent they can cause harm, they mostly do so either by replicating the harms in the data sets used to train them or through deliberate misuse by bad actors.But AI won?t stay stupid forever, because lots of people are working diligently to make it as smart as possible. Part of what makes current AI systems limited in the dangers they pose is that they don?t have a good model of the world. Yet teams are working to train models that do have a good understanding of the world. The other reason current systems are limited is that they aren?t integrated with the levers of power in our world ? but other teams are trying very hard to build AI-powered drones, bombs, factories, and precision manufacturing tools.That dynamic ? where we?re pushing ahead to make AI systems smarter and smarter, without really understanding their goals or having a good way to audit or monitor them ? sets us up for disaster. And not in the distant future, but as soon as a few decades from now. That?s why it?s crucial to have AI ethics research focused on managing the implications of modern AI, and AI alignment research focused on preparing for powerful future systems.Not just two sides of the same coinSo do these two groups of experts charged with making AI safe actually get along?Hahaha, no. These are two camps, and they?re two camps that sometimes stridently dislike each other. From the perspective of people working on AI ethics, experts focusing on alignment are ignoring real problems we already experience today in favor of obsessing over future problems that might never come to be. Often, the alignment camp doesn?t even know what problems the ethics people are working on. ?Some people who work on longterm/AGI-style policy tend to ignore, minimize, or just not consider the immediate problems of AI deployment/harms,? Jack Clark, co-founder of the AI safety research lab Anthropic and former policy director at OpenAI, wrote this weekend.From the perspective of many AI alignment people, however, lots of ?ethics? work at top AI labs is basically just glorified public relations, chiefly designed so tech companies can say they?re concerned about ethics and avoid embarrassing PR snafus ? but doing nothing to change the big-picture trajectory of AI development. In surveys of AI ethics experts, most say they don?t expect development practices at top companies to change to prioritize moral and societal concerns.(To be clear, many AI alignment people also direct this complaint at others in the alignment camp. Lots of people are working on making AI systems more powerful and more dangerous, with various justifications for how this helps learn how to make them safer. From a more pessimistic perspective, nearly all AI ethics, AI safety, and AI alignment work is really just work on building more powerful AIs ? but with better PR.)Many AI ethics researchers, for their part, say they?d love to do more but are stymied by corporate cultures that don?t take them very seriously and don?t treat their work as a key technical priority, as former Google AI ethics researcher Meredith Whittaker noted in a tweet:I have an AI ethics joke but it has to be approved by PR, legal, and our partners in the Department of Defense before I can tell it.? Meredith Whittaker (@mer__edith) July 26, 2020A healthier AI ecosystemThe AI ethics/AI alignment battle doesn?t have to exist. After all, climate researchers studying the present-day effects of warming don?t tend to bitterly condemn climate researchers studying long-term effects, and researchers working on projecting the worst-case scenarios don?t tend to claim that anyone working on heat waves today is wasting time. You could easily imagine a world where the AI field was similar ? and much healthier for it. Why isn?t that the world we?re in? My instinct is that the AI infighting is related to the very limited public understanding of what?s happening with artificial intelligence. When public attention and resources feel scarce, people find wrongheaded projects threatening ? after all, those other projects are getting engagement that comes at the expense of their own. Lots of people ? even lots of AI researchers ? do not take concerns about the safety impacts of their work very seriously. At the different large-scale labs (where large-scale = multiple thousands of GPUs), there are different opinions among leadership on how important safety is. Some people care about safety a lot, some people barely care about it. If safety issues turn out to be real, uh oh!? Jack Clark (@jackclarkSF) August 6, 2022Sometimes leaders dismiss long-term safety concerns out of a sincere conviction that AI will be very good for the world, so the moral thing to do is to speed full ahead on development. Sometimes it?s out of the conviction that AI isn?t going to be transformative at all, at least not in our lifetimes, and so there?s no need for all this fuss.Sometimes, though, it?s out of cynicism ? experts know how powerful AI is likely to be, and they don?t want oversight or accountability because they think they?re superior to any institution that would hold them accountable. The public is only dimly aware that experts have serious safety concerns about advanced AI systems, and most people have no idea which projects are priorities for long-term AI alignment success, which are concerns related to AI bias, and what exactly AI ethicists do all day, anyway. Internally, AI ethics people are often siloed and isolated at the organizations where they work, and have to battle just to get their colleagues to take their work seriously. It?s these big-picture gaps with AI as a field that, in my view, drive most of the divides between short-term and long-term AI safety researchers. In a healthy field, there?s plenty of room for people to work on different problems.But in a field struggling to define itself and fearing it?s not positioned to achieve anything at all? Not so much.A version of this story was initially published in the Future Perfect newsletter. Sign up here to subscribe!

'Do Revenge' trailer teases a fun high school revenge plot

The official trailer for Netflix dark comedy Do Revenge has arrived, and it looks like a fun new entry in the severely underrated teen girl revenge plot genre.

Do Revenge follows a team up between Drea (Camila Mendes), a queen bee who has fallen from grace, and Eleanor (Maya Hawke), a transfer student who discovers her former bully also attends her new school. Forming an unlikely friendship, the two girls secretly team up to make those who wronged them pay.

Or, as Eleanor says, 'burn [them] to the ground.'

Do Revenge arrives September 16 on Netflix.

Sip and Save: Keurig's K-Mini Is Back to Just $60 - CNET

This space-saving option is perfect for singles, occasional coffee drinkers or kitchens with little counter space.

Kick off football season with a 77-inch LG 4K TV for $700 off

SAVE $700: As of August 10, the LG 77-inch G1 OLED 4K TV is on sale for $2,599 at Walmart. That's 21% in savings, just in time for football season.Football season is coming in hot in less than a month. The best way to gear up for game day is by investing in a 4K TV that lets you really get in on the action.As of August 10, the LG 77-inch G1 OLED 4K TV is on sale for $2,599 at Walmart. That's 21% off its suggested retail price and $700 you can keep in your pocket.The LG G1 OLED is our top high-end pick for gamers, which means it offers exceptional visuals as well as performance. If video games look good on this TV, just imagine how an actual football game will look. It also offers a picture-frame design that mounts on the wall.If you're looking for a TV that will serve you well in football season and beyond, the G1 has a lot to offer. And while it's definitely a splurge, the $700 discount certainly makes the price point more palatable.

Galaxy Watch 5: Here's What Samsung's Upgrading for 2022 - CNET

The new Galaxy Watch 5 Pro just might supply three days of battery life. Here's what else is new.

This sustainable apparel company was born from an entrepreneur's love of surfing

Growing up windsurfing and spearfishing on the island of St. Bart’s definitely gave Keefer Charneau a certain simpatico with the ocean, but it wasn’t until he went on a surfing trip to Indonesia a few years back that he started to think about turning his love for the waves into something more tangible. Fast forward to now, and Keefer has just launched his island-inspired KEEF shirt collection, a milestone that he couldn’t possibly be more stoked about.

Mashable spoke with Keefer about his inspiration for KEEF, the growing pains of launching a fashion company, and how Adobe Express is helping him create, plan, and publish his social media content without being a huge time suck — because he still wants to shred when the surf is good, after all.

Riding the waves of inspiration

Keefer has been a professional graphic designer for over 10 years, but he always kept his work and surf life totally separate. That all changed when he started taking photos of surfers and monkeys in Indonesia and decided he wanted to do something creative with them.

“I used the photos to create these really graphic patterns, and I started to think about making things like wallpaper and pillows with the patterns on them,” Keefer said. “But for the surfer vibe I was going for, designing Hawaiian-style shirts ended up making more sense.”

From surfer to eco-friendly fashion designer

Keefer is the first to admit that launching an apparel brand has been a big learning curve and, while he’s definitely having a blast, it hasn’t always been smooth waters. As a graphic designer, there was a whole other side of manufacturing shirts that he had to consider, which was as much about the feel of different fabrics as it was about their footprints. 

“I had to learn about different buttons and collars for the shirts and I had to research all the different types of fabrics and source manufacturers,” he said. “Sustainability was also very important to me, and I ended up finding a fabric called Tencel, which is a trademarked cellulose fiber that is produced using sustainably sourced wood processed in a closed-loop system that reuses solvents over and over again to eliminate harmful waste and conserve water.”

Building the KEEF brand one post at a time

Keefer also had to learn how to build KEEF’s social media presence, which was yet another new landscape for him. Because he’s still a full-time graphic designer in addition to running KEEF, he simply doesn’t have the time to post every single day. 

“Adobe Express is ideal for making posts, especially if you don’t have a lot of design experience or time,” Keefer said. “It has all these cool templates I can use for all the different social media platforms, and I just drop in my own brand assets like images, logo, and fonts. I can even animate the images and text to create gifs and make my content a bit more dynamic. I also LOVE to use the scheduling tool because it lets me carve out a few hours on a weekend to create an entire month’s worth of posts and just be done with it. I can schedule a post to go live at a specific hour to figure out the most optimal time and get more interaction. It even allows me to automatically post the first comment for when I want to add some hashtags like #surfsupdude.”

An entrepreneur’s top content-creation shortcut

One of Keefer’s biggest time sucks used to be going through images that he wanted to post and having to remove the backgrounds, which sometimes included his cat curled up on the sofa of his Brooklyn apartment. Since he started using Adobe Express for the task, it has freed up more time for him to focus on other things, like expanding his brand.

“If I do a photoshoot and I have the model on a plain background but want to place them on a surfboard, the remove background tool lets me cut out the image and place it anywhere I want, it’s super quick and easy,” Keefer said. “I used to have to do all that in Photoshop, but now I can do everything in one spot, even when I’m on the go by using the app on my phone.”

Now that Keefer has KEEF’s social media content dialed in with the help of Adobe Express, what does the future hold? Keefer says he’d like to create KEEF fabric beach chairs and women’s apparel, or maybe even open a little shop back home in St. Bart’s someday. That way, he’d be closer to the ocean that launched his inspiration for KEEF in the first place, and he’d be ready to catch whatever wave of inspiration the vibrant island lifestyle spurs him to create next. 

Catch your own wave

Now that you’re inspired to get your own passion project off the ground, bring your brand vision to life by quickly and easily making standout content with Adobe Express. Oh, and look cool while doing it by snagging yourself a KEEF shirt as soon as they’re available for pre-order.

'The Sandman' Ending Explained: Lost Hearts and Season 2 Hints - CNET

Streaming on Netflix now, Neil Gaiman's dreamy TV series finale promises more Morpheus -- and an angry Lucifer.

See how much you could accomplish with this refurbished iPad

TL;DR: As of August 10, you can get the refurbished Apple iPad Pro 9.7-inch for just $202.99 with code REFURB

Some Native Americans say this Pilgrim site is failing as a bi-cultural museum

Members of Massachusetts's Wampanoag community say the people running the Patuxet living history site have done little to ingratiate themselves with tribes.

Stranded whale dies after a rescue operation to remove it from a French river

A veterinarian said that during the rescue operation, the dangerously thin white mammal began to have breathing difficulties, and so experts decided to humanely euthanize the creature.

This Montana couple built their dream home, only to have it burn down in minutes

After 18 months of building, the Holetts were nearly set to move into their dream home in Dayton, Mont. It took their life savings to build the cabin. It took one wildfire to burn it down in minutes.

Samsung Unpacked Live Blog: Galaxy Z Fold 4, Z Flip 4, Watch 5, Buds 2 Pro Reveals - CNET

Samsung's August 2022 Unpacked event shows off the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4 foldable phones.

Galaxy Z Fold 4 Specs vs. Z Fold 3 vs. Z Fold 2: Comparing Samsung's Folding Phones - CNET

We let the specs do the talking.

Astound Broadband/RCN Home Internet Review: Great Starting Price, but Beware a Steep Increase - CNET

This cable broadband provider covers several of the country's top 10 metros. Here's what you can expect.

Elon Musk sells $6.9 billion worth of Tesla shares, says he'll buy them back

Elon Musk once said

Inflation is cooling thanks to gas prices, but many things still cost a lot more

Falling gasoline prices put a dent in the July inflation rate, which fell to 8.5% from 9.1% in June. But other costs such as housing continue to climb, putting a strain on many family budgets.

Taylor Swift says she never listened to 3LW before writing 'Shake It Off'

Taylor Swift says she had never heard of the group 3LW or their 2001 song "Playas Gon' Play" before a lawsuit was filed against her accusing her of stealing lyrics.

A Brazil court reopens the case of a rainforest park larger than New York City

The court's decision reopened a lawsuit that invalidates a protected area in Brazil's Amazon.

We talk about heat waves in a weird way

Some heat waves are way worse than others. We need a way to rate them. Natural disasters like hurricanes and wildfires are (rightly) accompanied by warnings of their danger. They bring a visible, elemental fury that?s hard to ignore. Heat, on the other hand, is invisible and insidious. We feel it on our skin, radiating from the sun or bouncing off asphalt and concrete, but we don?t see it the way we see, say, floodwaters carrying cars down the street. That makes heat waves easy to dismiss as quirky summer weather.?Heat is an interesting hazard because it can kind of creep up on you,? said Jennifer Marlon, a research scientist at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. ?It tends to affect millions of people at a time, and a lot of people don?t realize the danger.?But heat is the deadliest weather phenomenon in a typical year in the United States, killing an average of 158 people annually in the 30 years from 1992 to 2021, and climate change is only going to make heat waves more common. We already categorize tornadoes, and we name wildfires. Hurricanes get both. Would extending those ideas to heat waves help?

Biden Sends $53B to US Chipmakers by Signing CHIPS Act Into Law - CNET

The White House credits the act for already spurring more than $44 billion in new manufacturing plans. But rebuilding the US semiconductor industry will take years.

The U.S. lost track of why it was in Afghanistan, former commander says

Recently retired General Frank McKenzie reflects on the withdrawal from Afghanistan, who bears responsibility for the way it unfolded, and how the U.S. "lost track" of why it was in the country.