Flood of AI'garbage' is pushing open-source developers to the limit A viral cartoon about open-source software shows a teetering pile of boxes labelled "all modern digital infrastructure" and one tiny box right at the bottom, propping up the whole lot: "a project some random person in Nebraska has been thanklessly maintaining since 2003". That's the reality of open source: every website, application and operating system relies on it. Modern society couldn't function without it, and yet it's written by volunteers in their spare time. But the growing burden caused by a flood of AI-generated code is causing many to burn out and leave the community altogether, threatening the future of open-source software. 'Flashes of brilliance and frustration': I let an AI agent run my day AI models are making it easier and easier to generate code to build new features, fix bugs or create entire new projects at the click of a button.

"Things can only get better", D:Ream promised, but they were wrong, and so were most people in history who have tried to predict the future. It never stopped us from trying, though, and a few visionaries have been pretty good at it. There was Leonardo da Vinci, of course, with his helicopters and fridges, and Joseph Glanvill, who in 1661 suggested moon voyages and communication using "magnetic waves" might be a thing. Civil engineer John Elfreth Watkins, writing in 1900, predicted mobile phones, ready meals and global digital media ("Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence, snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later").

With an electrode inserted into a specific area of its brain, the rat was allowed to pulse the implant by pulling a lever. It kept returning for more: insatiably, incessantly, lever-pulling. In fact, the rat didn't seem to want to do anything else. Seemingly, the reward center of the brain had been located. More than 60 years later, in 2016, a pair of artificial intelligence (AI) researchers were training an AI to play video games. The goal of one game, Coastrunner, was to complete a racetrack. But the AI player was rewarded for picking up collectable items along the track. When the program was run, they witnessed something strange.

China has launched the world's first drone carrier, a vessel that will likely be used for military purposes. The ship, Zhu Hai Yun, can be controlled remotely to navigate autonomously in open water. Zhu Hai Yun, launched last week, has a wide deck equipped to carry dozens of unmanned vehicles including drones, unmanned ships and submersibles, reported the South China Morning Post. This also makes it a powerful platform to launch UAVs for military purposes, though Beijing claims the vehicle has been designed for marine research purposes. The drone mothership is expected to be commissioned by the end of the year after sea trials. According to the Chinese state-run Science and Technology Daily, the ship could be an "efficient tool in marine disaster prevention and mitigation, environmental monitoring and offshore wind farm maintenance besides delivering accurate marine information."

In 1953, a Harvard psychologist thought he discovered pleasure – accidentally – within the cranium of a rat. With an electrode inserted into a specific area of its brain, the rat was allowed to pulse the implant by pulling a lever. It kept returning for more: insatiably, incessantly, lever-pulling. In fact, the rat didn't seem to want to do anything else. Seemingly, the reward centre of the brain had been located. More than 60 years later, in 2016, a pair of artificial intelligence (AI) researchers were training an AI to play video games. The goal of one game – Coastrunner – was to complete a racetrack. But the AI player was rewarded for picking up collectable items along the track.

In 1953, a Harvard psychologist thought he discovered pleasure – accidentally – within the cranium of a rat. With an electrode inserted into a specific area of its brain, the rat was allowed to pulse the implant by pulling a lever. It kept returning for more: insatiably, incessantly, lever-pulling. In fact, the rat didn't seem to want to do anything else. Seemingly, the reward centre of the brain had been located. You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa, here. More than 60 years later, in 2016, a pair of artificial intelligence (AI) researchers were training an AI to play video games. The goal of one game – Coastrunner – was to complete a racetrack. But the AI player was rewarded for picking up collectable items along the track.

AI and advanced analytics can have a transformational impact on every aspect of a business, from the contact centre or supply chain to the overall business strategy. With the new challenges caused by coronavirus, companies are in a growing need of more advice, more data and visibility to minimise the business impact of the virus. However, long before the disruption caused by Covid-19, data was recognised as an essential asset in delivering improved customer service. And yet, businesses of all sizes have continued to struggle with gaining more tangible value from their vast hoards of data to improve the employee and customer experience. Data silos, creaking legacy systems and fast-paced, agile competitors have made the need to harness an organisations data to drive value of paramount importance.

A recent Forbes Insights survey and report based on the responses of over 200 chief information security officers (CISOs) showed the tough choices they must make as they face "an arms race between the capabilities of attackers and their own defense postures."[1] Every CISO is acutely aware of the double-edged sword presented by the use of AI technologies such as machine learning: They are increasingly being deployed by malicious actors as an offensive tool that can automate many of the tasks in building a weapon, at lower cost and with greater efficiency. That's why the other edge of the sword--a strong, automated defensive bulwark--is critical for enterprises to secure their vast environments. For Emily Heath, vice president and chief information security officer at United, the global airline, one of the key benefits of automation through machine learning is visibility into the network--understanding what is normal or anomalous activity. "Without a machine to help you, you can't possibly weed through millions and tens of millions of events that happen across the data flow," she says.

A recent Forbes Insights survey and report based on the responses of over 200 chief information security officers (CISOs) showed the tough choices they must make as they face "an arms race between the capabilities of attackers and their own defense postures."[1] In a cybersecurity environment that is changing at every moment, with new technologies and threats emerging, it's important to accept that enterprises cannot defend against every possible attack. Every CISO is acutely aware of the double-edged sword presented by the use of AI technologies such as machine learning: They are increasingly being deployed by malicious actors as an offensive tool that can automate many of the tasks in building a weapon, at lower cost and with greater efficiency. That's why the other edge of the sword--a strong, automated defensive bulwark--is critical for enterprises to secure their vast environments. For Emily Heath, vice president and chief information security officer at United, the global airline, one of the key benefits of automation through machine learning is visibility into the network--understanding what is normal or anomalous activity.

The story of how the Colossus computer at Bletchley Park aided the allied code-cracking effort during World War II is becoming well known. Its claim to be a forerunner of modern-day computers is also well established. What is much less well known is the tale of how Colossus's story came to be told in the first place. It is a tale of how one man's dogged efforts overcame official secrets and official indifference to rewrite computer history. Computer scientist Brian Randell was the man who started uncovering the history of Colossus.