Musk Overruled Tesla Engineers, And Now They Are In Serious Trouble

 One of Tesla’s key technologies lies in tatters, and it is all Musk’s fault

di Will Lockett

Over the years, we have witnessed Tesla’s incredible rise to power, and they now stand as a juggernaut of the EV world. But one of Tesla’s most important promises has yet to be fulfilled: true self-driving cars. In fact, according to Musk, we should already have millions of Tesla robotaxis shuttling around the globe. Yet, far from this utopian vision coming true, Tesla is actually slipping behind in the autonomous vehicle race — and by quite a margin! So what happened to cause this fall from grace?

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On the Morality of Artificial Agents

There is substantial and important scope, particularly in computer ethics, for the concept of a moral agent that does not necessarily exhibit free will, mental states, or responsibility. It complements the more traditional approach that considers whether or not (artificial) agents have mental states, feelings, emotions, and so on. By focusing directly on "mindless morality" we are able to avoid many of the concerns of artificial intelligence

di Luciano Floridi e J.W. Levigatrici

Artificial agents (AAs), particularly but not only those in Cyberspace, extend the class of entities that can be involved in moral situations. For they can be conceived of as moral patients (as entities that can be acted upon for good or evil) and also as moral agents (as entities that can perform actions, again for good or evil). In this paper, we clarify the concept of agent and go on to separate the concerns of morality and responsibility of agents (most interestingly for us, of AAs).

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Music labels will regret coming for the Internet Archive, sound historian says

Labels push to spike cost of Internet Archive fight over old 78s.

di Ashley Belanger

On Thursday, music labels sought to add nearly 500 more sound recordings to a lawsuit accusing the Internet Archive (IA) of mass copyright infringement through its Great 78 Project, which seeks to digitize all 3 million three-minute recordings published on 78 revolutions-per-minute (RPM) records from about 1898 to the 1950s.

If the labels' proposed second amended complaint is accepted by the court, damages sought in the case—which some already feared could financially ruin IA and shut it down for good—could increase to almost $700 million. (Initially, the labels sought about $400 million in damages.)

IA did not respond to Ars' request for comment, but the filing noted that IA has not consented to music labels' motion to amend their complaint.

Archiving... or stealing?
Labels told the court the new complaint was warranted, since these 493 new recordings are evidence of alleged ongoing infringement that they claimed occurred after the case was filed in 2023. If the motion is granted, the recordings at issue in the case would then total 4,624, potentially each worth $150,000 in damages in an IA loss.

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Why annexing Canada would destroy the United States

The prospect of Americans becoming trapped by an insurgency on their own continent would delight Moscow and Beijing, which could easily establish covert northern passages to send weapons to the insurgency. If Trump is reckless enough to think the violent annexation of Canada is an achievable goal, then let it be known that all these horrifying outcomes were predictable well in advance, and that he was forewarned

di Aisha Ahmad

As United States President Donald Trump relentlessly threatens to annex Canada, some Canadians are worried that an American invasion could one day become a reality.

How would that scenario play out? Looking at the sheer size of the American military, many people might believe that Trump would enjoy an easy victory.

That analysis is wrong.

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Trump orders administration to evaluate potential for “national digital asset stockpile”

The price of bitcoin briefly soared on the president's directive, but it appeared to fall short of crypto advocates’ expectations

di Rob Wyle

President Donald Trump announced that his administration will evaluate whether to create a “national digital asset stockpile” - making good on a promise to support the use of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

However, his executive order fell short of creating a strategic bitcoin reserve outright, as some crypto advocates had hoped.    

The price of bitcoin briefly surged on the news, but fell back to daily lows as traders took stock of the move.

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European leaders to hold emergency summit on Ukraine as Trump peace push leaves them isolated

Trump’s call with Putin and the push to work with Russia have also raised Ukrainian fears of being excluded from talks deciding the fate of their own country. Zelensky in recent days lamented that the US president spoke with Putin before him

di Simone McCarthy e Sugam Pokharel

European leaders will hold an emergency summit on Ukraine today amid growing concern that the Trump administration’s push to work with Russia to end the war has left them isolated.

The continent has been scrambling to respond after Us President Donald Trump announced negotiations would begin “immediately” on ending the conflict following a phone call with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and Trump’s Russia-Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg saying Europe would not be involved.

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Brexit, año cinco: el 55% de los británicos lamenta la salida de la Ue

Keir Starmer, que asistirá este lunes a una cumbre europea, busca con sigilo una mayor cooperación con Bruselas para resucitar la economía del Reino Unido

di Rafa de Miguel

Cinco años después de su entrada en vigor, un 55% de los británicos considera hoy que el Brexit fue un mal negocio para el Reino Unido, según la encuesta realizada por YouGov hace apenas 10 días. Ese mismo 55% desearía volver a la Ue. Incluso entre los que fervorosamente votaron a favor de la salida, uno de cada seis ya se arrepiente. Y la verdadera tragedia está en los jóvenes de entre 18 y 24 años, que no pudieron participar en el referéndum de 2016: tres de cada cuatro de ellos, un 75%, creen que la decisión fue un error que ha cerrado puertas a su futuro.

Las fechas del Brexit son tramposas, y demuestran que el divorcio más doloroso de la reciente historia de Europa es en realidad una herida que nunca se termina de cerrar.

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Corporate Taxes Before and After the Trump Tax Law

Key findingsAmerica’s largest, consistently profitable corporations saw their effective tax rates fall from an average of 22.0 percent to an average of 12.8 percent after the Trump tax law went into effect in 2018.

The 296 largest and consistently profitable U.S. corporations in this study paid $240 billion less in taxes from 2018 to 2021 than if they had continued to pay the effective rates they’d paid before the Trump tax law. While profits for the largest, continuously profitable U.S. corporations rose by 44 percent after passage of the Trump tax law, their federal tax bills dropped by 16 percent. The number of these corporations paying tax rates of less than 10 percent increased from 56 to 95 after the Trump tax law went into effect. Many of the largest and most well-known corporations in the country — including Walmart, Verizon, Disney, and Meta — had the largest tax reductions after the Trump tax law went into effect

di Aa Vv

Following the implementation of the tax changes signed into law in 2017 by President Trump, the vast majority of the nation’s largest corporations saw substantial tax reductions.

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Record number of Americans are homeless amid nationwide surge in rent, report finds

Rent in the U.S. has steadily climbed since 2001. In analyzing Census and real estate data, the Harvard researchers found that half of all U.S. households across income levels spent between 30% and 50% of their monthly pay on housing in 2022, defining them as "cost-burdened." Some 12 million tenants were severely cost-burdened that year, meaning they spent more than half their monthly pay on rent and utilities, up 14% from pre-pandemic levels

di Elizabeth Napolitano

A growing number of Americans are ending up homeless as soaring rents in recent years squeeze their budgets.

According to a Jan. 25 report from Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies, roughly 653,000 people reported experiencing homelessness in January of 2023, up roughly 12% from the same time a year prior and 48% from 2015.

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Meta won't recommend political content on Threads

Meta has made sweeping changes its Facebook and Instagram algorithms to focus more on elevating viral entertainment videos over polarizing news and politics content in the past few years. Politics and hard news are inevitably going to show up on Threads or Instagram too but Meta not going to do anything to encourage those

di Sara Fischer

Meta will not "proactively recommend political content from accounts you don't follow" on Threads, the company said in a statement provided to Axios.

Why it matters: The policies, which are the same it currently uses to regulate political content on its Facebook and Instagram apps, fill in the details of how Threads and Instagram will handle political content as the election approaches.

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State sector employees tighten belts ahead of Lunar New Year

Employees take to social media to complain of unpaid wages, year-end bonuse

di Gu Ting

China's state employees say they are tightening their belts ahead of once-lavish Lunar New Year celebrations, amid backlogs of unpaid salaries and slashed bonuses at cash-strapped local governments and state sector companies.

The struggling economy has increasingly left governments and the public sector unable to pay bonuses and wages. It has also forced organizations to impose salary cuts where they might once have enjoyed generous perks and payouts.

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Avian influenza death of Alaska polar bear is a sign of the virus’ persistence

The highly pathogenic influenza that has already killed vast numbers of birds and numerous mammals continues to circulate in the world’s wild populations

di Yereth Rosen

A polar bear found dead on Alaska’s North Slope is the first of the species known to have been killed by the highly pathogenic avian influenza that is circulating among animal populations around the world.

The polar bear was found dead in October near Utqiagvik, the nation’s northernmost community, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation reported.

The discovery of the virus in the animal’s body tissue, a process that required sampling and study by the North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management and other agencies, confirmed earlier this month that highly pathogenic avian influenza was the cause of death, said Dr. Bob Gerlach, Alaska’s state veterinarian.

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Canada declares Flipper Zero public enemy No. 1 in car-theft crackdown

How do you ban a device built with open source hardware and software anyway?

di Ben Godin

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has identified an unlikely public enemy No. 1 in his new crackdown on car theft: the Flipper Zero, a $200 piece of open source hardware used to capture, analyze and interact with simple radio communications.

On Thursday, the Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada agency said it will “pursue all avenues to ban devices used to steal vehicles by copying the wireless signals for remote keyless entry, such as the Flipper Zero, which would allow for the removal of those devices from the Canadian marketplace through collaboration with law enforcement agencies.”

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China aumenta la presión contra Milei y pone en suspenso el swap

El régimen de Xi Jinping bloqueó los 6.500 millones de dólares para el Banco Central, pese al pedido del gobierno argentino

di Laureano Pérez Izquierdo

En una maniobra más política que económica, China decidió aumentar la presión sobre el gobierno argentino -y comprometer sus cuentas públicas-, al dejar en suspenso el swap financiero -anunciado en octubre pasado por el entonces ministro de Economía Sergio Massa-, y sobre el que el propio presidente Javier Milei había pedido especialmente a Xi Jinping en una carta enviada apenas dos días después de asumir el mando de la Casa Rosada.

Sin embargo, el régimen chino decidió colocar en stand-by el acuerdo y bloquear los 6.500 millones de dólares que servirían de salvavidas al Ejecutivo argentino para atravesar sus delicadas finanzas. El acuerdo quedó en suspenso pese a los tempranos esfuerzos hechos por Milei en las primeras horas de su administración.

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The Working Limitations of Large Language Models

The promise of LLMs’ near-universal applicability means that businesses are right to be excited about exploring this powerful new technology. However, these models’ uncanny ability to generate humanlike text outputs can easily lead us to ascribe to them capabilities that they do not possess

di Mikhail Burtsev, Adam Job e Martin Reeves 

Large language models (LLMs) seem set to transform businesses. Their ability to generate detailed, creative responses to queries in plain language and code has sparked a wave of excitement that led ChatGPT to reach 100 million users faster than any other technology after it first launched. Subsequently, investors poured over $40 billion into artificial intelligence startups in the first half of 2023 - more than 20% of all global venture capital investments - and companies from seed-stage startups to tech giants are developing new applications of the technology.

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Pedestrians, already dying at record levels, now face Elon Musk’s Cybertruck

The size and acceleration of the truck adds to a trend that safety advocates say has made accidents more lethal

di Mike Gagliardi

As vehicles get bigger and heavier, they also get deadlier. It’s a trend that has some concerned about Tesla’s new Cybertruck, a 6,800-pound electric behemoth with sports-car acceleration that experts say will be lethal to pedestrians and occupants of lighter vehicles.

Tesla Ceo Elon Musk defended the truck in an X post last week, «We are highly confident that Cybertruck will be much safer per mile than other trucks, both for occupants and pedestrians» he wrote.

Some in the vehicle safety world disagree. Michael Brooks, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety - a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization - said the Cybertruck poses a variety of threats to pedestrians.

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Eiskalt erwischt: Winter legt neue Elektrobus-Flotte in Oslo lahm

Elektrobus-Debakel in der norwegischen Hauptstadt Oslo: Die Kältewelle hat die neuen, angeblich fortschrittliche Elektrobusse lahmgelegt. Die Batterien versagen bei winterlichen Temperaturen

di

In Oslo ist der öffentliche Verkehr komplett zusammengebrochen. Schuld daran sind die 183 neuen Elektrobusse der Stadt, die der eisigen Kälte nicht gewachsen sind. Der Verkehrsbetreiber bestätigt: Die Elektrobusse sind im Winter einfach nicht zuverlässig genug: „Die Reichweite der Elektrobusse nimmt bei Kälte drastisch ab. Die Batterien sind schneller leer.“ Insgesamt waren etwa 140 Abfahrten betroffen.

Elektromobilität im Winter - ein Reinfall!
Die betroffenen Linien werden von hochgelobten neuen, elektrischen Gelenkbussen befahren – angeblich die Zukunft der Mobilität.

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L’Europe importe toujours des produits issus du travail forcé des Ouïgours

Selon une étude réalisée par l’université de Sheffield Hallam, publiée mercredi, la probabilité est forte qu’une quarantaine de marques occidentales vendent des vêtements fabriqués contre leur gré par des membres de cette minorité chinoise

di Philippe Jacqué

«Une quantité substantielle de vêtements fabriqués par des Ouïgours subissant le travail forcé est introduite dans l’Union européenne [UE] sans restriction». Telle est la principale conclusion d’un nouveau rapport, publié mercredi 6 décembre par l’université de Sheffield Hallam (Royaume-Uni), le Uyghur Rights Monitor et le Uyghur Center for Democracy and Human Rights, commandé par le groupe socialiste du Parlement européen.

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China’s Missing Offer to Europe ahead of the Eu-China Summit

China is not likely to give the EU any meaningful deliverables at a summit meeting in Beijing, and even less likely to address the structural challenges that it presents to Europe. With this limited offer, China cannot expect that the summit will be more than a dialogue for the sake of dialogue

di Abigaël Vasselier

The European Union has been preparing for the Eu-China summit on December 7-8 with one mantra: “limited expectations.” Europe has not given up on engaging China and offering scope for meaningful dialogue. However, long gone is the idea that the hallmark of a successful summit is a long and substantial joint statement. There is no return to 2019 in Eu-China relations. It is time for realism, nuance, and complexity on both sides. The Covid-19 pandemic, increased geopolitical competition between the US and China and a growing list of irritants in the bilateral relationship undermine the possibility to agree on substantial outcomes. At the same time, dialogue for the sake of dialogue is maybe not such a bad outcome in the current circumstances.

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Google unveils Gemini, its largest and ''most capable'' AI model

Google has launched Gemini, its most powerful AI model to date, featuring three sizes: Ultra, Pro, and Nano

di Liubov Panova

Specifically, the large language model includes three categories: the Gemini Ultra, the largest and most functional; the Gemini Pro, versatile for a variety of tasks; and the Gemini Nano, for specific tasks and mobile devices.

The model will be licensed through Google Cloud, with Gemini Pro available from December 13 via the Gemini API in Google AI Studio or Google Cloud Vertex AI.

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