Recent advances in AI raise the possibility that AI systems will one day be able to do anything humans can do, only better. If artificial general intelligence (AGI) is achieved, AI systems may be able to understand, reason, problem solve, create, and evolve at a level and speed that humans will increasingly be unable to match, or even understand. These possibilities raise a natural question as to whether AI will eventually become superior to humans, a successor "digital species", with a rightful claim to assume leadership of the universe. However, a deeper consideration suggests the overlooked differentiator between human beings and AI is not the brain, but the central nervous system (CNS), providing us with an immersive integration with physical reality. It is our CNS that enables us to experience emotion including pain, joy, suffering, and love, and therefore to fully appreciate the consequences of our actions on the world around us. And that emotional understanding of the consequences of our actions is what is required to be able to develop sustainable ethical systems, and so be fully qualified to be the leaders of the universe. A CNS cannot be manufactured or simulated; it must be grown as a biological construct. And so, even the development of consciousness will not be sufficient to make AI systems superior to humans. AI systems may become more capable than humans on almost every measure and transform our society. However, the best foundation for leadership of our universe will always be DNA, not silicon.

Scientists have discovered what really separates a cold-blooded psychopath from the average person. A team from the University of Pennsylvania has uncovered stark differences in brain structure that may explain why psychopaths think, feel, and behave in profoundly disturbing ways. Using MRI scans, researchers compared the brains of 39 adult men with high psychopathy scores to those of a control group, and what they found was unsettling. In psychopaths, researchers found shrunken areas in the basal ganglia, which controls movement and learning, the thalamus, the body's sensory relay station, and the cerebellum, which helps coordinate motor function. But the most striking changes were found in the orbitofrontal cortex and insular regions, areas that govern emotional regulation, impulse control, and social behavior.

Whether you shrug off bruises with ease or find that a stubbed toe knocks you out for a week, each of us has our own unique reaction to pain. But scientists now say that being able to grin and bear it could be a worrying sign of a dark personality. According to scientists from Radboud University, people who can handle greater levels of pain are more likely to be psychopaths. The study found that people with elevated levels of psychopathy are not only more resistant to pain but less able to learn from painful experiences. Researchers believe that this could be an important part of why people with these traits fail to learn from negative consequences.

Modeling human personality is important for several AI challenges, from the engineering of artificial psychotherapists to the design of persona bots. However, the field of computational personality analysis heavily relies on labeled data, which may be expensive, difficult or impossible to get. This problem is amplified when dealing with rare personality types or disorders (e.g., the anti-social psychopathic personality disorder). In this context, we developed a text-based data augmentation approach for human personality (PEDANT). PEDANT doesn't rely on the common type of labeled data but on the generative pre-trained model (GPT) combined with domain expertise. Testing the methodology on three different datasets, provides results that support the quality of the generated data.

Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. A Russian model who previously called Vladimir Putin a "psychopath" has been found dead with her body stuffed inside a suitcase, a report says. Gretta Vedler, 23, went missing a year ago after the anti-Putin social media rant, but the two events do not appear to be connected. "Vedler's ex-boyfriend Dmitry Korovin, 23, has now confessed to strangling her to death before driving her 300 miles to the Lipetsk region and abandoning the body in the boot of a car.." the Daily Star reports.

Scientists have identified the five key personality traits that are common among famous psychopaths, including serial killer Ted Bundy, disgraced fraudster Bernie Madoff and robber Clyde Barrow. The US academics looked for shared traits in six men - Ted Bundy, Bernie Madoff, Clyde Barrow, James Bond, Sherlock Holmes and Chuck Yeager - who have previously been identified as psychopathic. They found that Bundy, Madoff and Barrow are all psychopaths guilty of callousness, manipulativeness, dishonesty, arrogance and cruelty. However, Bond, Holmes and Yeager likely are not psychopaths, and may have been misidentifed in the past due to their fearlessness and boldness, the experts say. Clyde Barrow (1910-1934): Along with Bonnie Parker, Clyde Barrow went on almost two-year crime spree that spanned several US states.

Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterised by antisocial behaviour, remorselessness, deception, and interpersonal manipulation. Automated techniques that analyse non-verbal behaviours may be useful to evaluate the presence of these nefarious tendencies, the experts believe. The results are interesting because excessive non-verbal cues like head movements, blinks and hand-gestures have been linked to deception. The study, published in the Journal of Research in Personality, represents an'important first step' in demonstrating the feasibility of using computer vision in conjunction with psychology, the authors claim. 'I've been interviewing individuals high on psychopathic traits for more than 20 years,' study author Kent A. Kiehl, a psychology professor at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, told PsyPost.

Airbnb is using technology that looks at their guests' online personalities to determine their trustworthiness. These "untrustworthy" traits include "narcissism, Machiavellianism, or psychopathy", along with "neuroticism and involvement in crimes" The background check technology was developed by a startup named Trooly. It was revealed in a patent published by the European Patent Office after being granted in the US last year, reports Evening Standard. Airbnb users are given a risk score on the basis of'red flags' that the AI might find, and these scores indicate how reliable a guest they would make. It comes after several complaints from Airbnb hosts about guests holding rowdy parties and damaging property. According to Airbnb's own website, "Every Airbnb reservation is scored for risk before it's confirmed."

To protect its hosts, Airbnb is now using an AI-powered tool to scan the internet for clues that a guest might not be a reliable customer. According to patent documents reviewed by the Evening Standard, the tool takes into account everything from a user's criminal record to their social media posts to rate their likelihood of exhibiting "untrustworthy" traits -- including narcissism, Machiavellianism, and even psychopathy. The background check tool is the work of Trooly, a startup Airbnb acquired in 2017. When the Evening Standard asked Airbnb to comment on the extent to which it uses Trooly's tool, it declined. However, Airbnb's website does note the company's use of AI to rate potential guests: "Every Airbnb reservation is scored for risk before it's confirmed. We use predictive analytics and machine learning to instantly evaluate hundreds of signals that help us flag and investigate suspicious activity before it happens."

The new Syfy series Nightflyers is based on a novella by George R. R. Martin that was first published back in 1980. Fantasy author Erin Lindsey says that the original story feels dated, but that it displays a basic storytelling competence that the show never really achieves. "The things that I didn't like about the Martin novella were details, at the end of the day, but I thought the bones were good, and in a certain way this is the reverse," Lindsey says in Episode 341 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "Some of the details are cool, but they can't make up for the fact that the bones aren't there." Science fiction author Matthew Kressel notes that Nightflyers never really moves beyond recycling familiar elements from better movies and TV shows.