Elon Musk, the divisive CEO of Tesla and more recently the owner of Twitter (now known as X), is a fierce critic of the AI industry--but now also a deeply invested participant in that very same industry. X's Grok generative AI product is being integrated into the web and mobile versions of the social network, and training itself on billions of tweets thanks to an automatic opt-in for all users. Well, it seems like a constantly refreshed pool of conversations from some of the web's most active users was simply too much for company xAI to resist, which now automatically scans your "posts as well as your interactions, inputs, and [Grok search] results." At the moment, X is using Grok as a chatbot for premium users and to replace human-made summaries of late-breaking news stories, with predictable issues resulting. The flippant and "rebellious" tone of the Grok model's responses has been criticized by initial users, and its reliance on constantly updated data from X seems to make it particularly susceptible to deliberate misinformation campaigns.

Multiscale problems are challenging for neural network-based discretizations of differential equations, such as physics-informed neural networks (PINNs). This can be (partly) attributed to the so-called spectral bias of neural networks. To improve the performance of PINNs for time-dependent problems, a combination of multifidelity stacking PINNs and domain decomposition-based finite basis PINNs are employed. In particular, to learn the high-fidelity part of the multifidelity model, a domain decomposition in time is employed. The performance is investigated for a pendulum and a two-frequency problem as well as the Allen-Cahn equation. It can be observed that the domain decomposition approach clearly improves the PINN and stacking PINN approaches.

Unfortunately one aspect of the novel that has dated badly is its stereotypical view of gender roles. Science fiction professor Lisa Yaszek was initially intrigued by the book's female lead Wyoming Knot, and was disappointed that the character plays such a minor role in the story. "I do not want to be a woman in that revolution, sitting around serving the coffee," Yaszek says. "It really makes you understand what women were up in arms about in the 1960s." Listen to the complete interview with Anthony Ha, Robby Soave, and Lisa Yaszek in Episode 516 of Geek's Guide to the Galaxy (above). And check out some highlights from the discussion below.

Like many other science fiction writers in the 1940s and 1950s, Asimov was greatly influenced by ideas from hard science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein about what future societies might look like. Heinlein's "Future History" series described a set of laws that were supposed to guide the behavior of citizen-soldiers in his future society. In Asimov's books, he explained that the Three Laws that were incorporated into virtually all robots within the fictional universe, so much so that breaking the law was viewed as an unthinkable violation of one's programming. In many cases, a robot found guilty of having broken the Laws would be dismantled for disposal. In essence, these three principles allow for a reliable set of guidelines for robots but do not prevent them from having significant impact on society -- which is what Asimov intended all along.

The Three Laws of Robotics are iconic in the science fiction world, and have become a symbol within the AI and robotics community of how difficult it is to properly design a system that is foolproof. To fully comprehend the importance of these three laws, we must first learn about the brilliant mind who conceived of these laws the late science fiction author Isaac Asimov. We must then understand how to adapt these laws and have them evolve to protect humanity. Isaac Asimov was born in Russia on January 2, 1920, and immigrated to the United States at age three. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from Columbia University in 1939.

Nancy Kress has also the talent to develop a variety of scientific ideas into amazing stories & novels. Her oeuvre covers an impressive spectrum of sciences translated into speculative but plausible fiction. Some action scenes in her novel trilogy "Probability Moon/Probability Sun/Probability Space" are based on weird quantum mechanic effects. In the short story "Computer Virus" ((in: Year s Best SF 7, edited by David G. Hartwell amazon) Kress tells a thrilling story how a woman, who is a biologist & scientist, fights against an occupying AI, a military software, using her scientific knowledge. Other stories deal with cosmology, spacetravel, evolution and more.

Robert Heinlein is the legendary author of such classic works as Starship Troopers, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, and Stranger in a Strange Land. His books have influenced generations of artists and scientists, including physicist and science fiction writer Gregory Benford. "He was one of the people who propelled me forward to go into the sciences," Benford says in Episode 348 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "Because his depiction of the prospect of the future of science, engineering--everything--was so enticing. He was my favorite science fiction writer."

During the heydays of pulp sci-fi, Robert A. Heinlein penned a now forgotten short novel titled Waldo. The parable broadly speculated on how robotics and automation would eventually come to shape the lives and the landscape of the future. Almost a century later, Heinlein's work reads like a prophesy, foretelling the 21st century's rapid march towards adopting machines to do men's work. Look around and you'll find myriad examples. Robots are putting together cars on the assembly line and acting as companions for the disabled.

Science fiction has been instrumental in creating the future from the very beginning. Real-life manipulator hands, originally created for the nuclear industry, were named after Robert Heinlein's short story, "Waldo." It makes a lot of sense, then, that when the Xprize program partnered with All Nippon Airlines (ANA) to "imagine a bold vision of the future," it would look to celebrated science fiction novelists, writers, filmmakers, producers and screenwriters. The collaboration has produced the Science Fiction Council, a group comprised of high-octane sci-fi storytellers from nine countries, including luminaries like Margaret Atwood, Cory Doctorow, Andy Weir, Charles Stross, Ernest Cline and Nancy Kress. The Xprize organization runs prize competitions to encourage and support solutions to humanity's biggest challenges, like clean water, moon flights, Star Trek-inspired tricorders and even artificial intelligence.

Star Trek turned 50 in 2016. In its half-century of existence -- on TV, on the big screen, and in the worldwide community of its fans -- Star Trek has become an integral part of our everyday lives. Even casual viewers know the pointed ears, the Vulcan salute, and the meaning of "beam me up, Scotty." Yet, Star Trek does not owe its enduring popularity and its place in our collective imagination to its aliens or to its technological speculations. What makes it so unique, and so exciting, is its radical optimism about humanity's future as a society: in other words, utopia.