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Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Artificial Superintelligence Could Provide the Answer

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Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Artificial Superintelligence Could Provide the Answer

Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? Artificial Superintelligence Could Provide the Answer

The advent of artificial superintelligence could play a key role in understanding the origins of humanity.

Are We Living in a Computer Simulation?

This is a question that has inspired many scientists from all around the world. Could we calculate our chances of being virtual creations of a higher intelligence? 

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Artificial superintelligence
could play a major role in understanding the origins of humanity.

New research into machine algorithms is fueling the hypothesis that our reality may actually be a computer simulation.

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The simulation hypothesis is the modern equivalent of an idea that’s been around for a while, and it is the idea that the physical world that we live in, including the Earth and the rest of the physical universe, is actually part of a computer simulation.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is useful in physics and space exploration by processing satellite images as well as discovering other planets and galaxies. It can reduce the time required for initial mission design which otherwise takes many human work hours. AI can also help humans solve problems faster. In this manner, scientists can carry out effective and quicker inspections of our universe. 

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There are 3 types of artificial intelligence:

  • Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI), which has a limited range of capabilities 

  • Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), which has attributes that are on par with human capabilities 

  • Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI), which has skills that surpass humans and can make them obsolete

Humans Are Still Exploring The Universe

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© University of Rochester

Given technological advances and the continuing evolution of our species, humans should be able to survive in the distant future.

There are lots of mysteries in physics that are better explained by the simulation hypothesis than by what would be a material hypothesis. 

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Here are the 7 biggest unanwered questions in physics:

  • 1. What is matter made of?

  • 2. Why is gravity so weird?

  • 3. Why does time seem to flow only in one direction?

  • 4. Where did all the antimatter go?

  • 5. What happens in the gray zone between solid and liquid?

  • 6. Can we find a unified theory of physics?

  • 7. How did life evolve from nonliving matter?

The truth is that there’s much we simply don’t understand about our reality.

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© Getty Images | Blend Images
 

Long before Matrix and the novel Simulacron-3, which did much to popularize the concept of simulated realities in the collective mind, Plato with his masterpiece “Allegory of the Cave” had imprisoned ignorant men in a cave. There is no doubt that the idea that we are living in a simulation is appealing, but there are more questions that need to be answered. Two years ago, Hervé Le Tellier even posed the question: “How, as a society, would we react to learning that we may be living in such a reality? ”

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In 2003, Oxford University philosopher Nick Bostrom published an article in which he imagined a technologically advanced civilization with immense computing power, a small part of which it could harness to simulate new realities harbouring conscious beings.

If we are probably living in a simulation, this is because there is a life form or divine entity smarter than us, capable of creating such a universe. Is it even possible? How do we know if our daily lives – and the universe more broadly – are not embodiments of a vast computer program?

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For its first half-billion years, Earth was lifeless. Then life took hold, and it has thrived ever since.

Artificial Superintelligence and the Future of Humanity

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Source: McKinsey & Company

Artificial intelligence is driving a new wave of economic progress, solving some of the world’s most difficult problems and providing solutions to some of the most profound challenges in human history.

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Source: Future of Life Institute

The rise of superartificial intelligence in the future has the potential to transform many sectors such as information technology, science, biology, telecommunications, transportation, traffic management, health care, education, criminal justice, defence, banking and agriculture.

Future societies might, who knows, create simulations of their ancestors – that is, sentient human beings like us.

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But, the fact that the simulated hypothesis necessarily contains a natural universe among the many simulated universes means that there would be a little less than a 50% chance that we lived in a computer simulation. If we come up with a little less than a 50% chance, it’s because it’s impossible to prove whether or not we are living in a simulation without our knowledge. Even if we were virtual beings, there is no tangible element to prove it.

Nobody can predict what the future will bring, but AI may ultimately help scientists find out more about the history and origins of humanity.


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TECHNOLOGY

Next-gen chips, Amazon Q, and speedy S3

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Cloud Computing News

AWS re:Invent, which has been taking place from November 27 and runs to December 1, has had its usual plethora of announcements: a total of 21 at time of print.

Perhaps not surprisingly, given the huge potential impact of generative AI – ChatGPT officially turns one year old today – a lot of focus has been on the AI side for AWS’ announcements, including a major partnership inked with NVIDIA across infrastructure, software, and services.

Yet there has been plenty more announced at the Las Vegas jamboree besides. Here, CloudTech rounds up the best of the rest:

Next-generation chips

This was the other major AI-focused announcement at re:Invent: the launch of two new chips, AWS Graviton4 and AWS Trainium2, for training and running AI and machine learning (ML) models, among other customer workloads. Graviton4 shapes up against its predecessor with 30% better compute performance, 50% more cores and 75% more memory bandwidth, while Trainium2 delivers up to four times faster training than before and will be able to be deployed in EC2 UltraClusters of up to 100,000 chips.

The EC2 UltraClusters are designed to ‘deliver the highest performance, most energy efficient AI model training infrastructure in the cloud’, as AWS puts it. With it, customers will be able to train large language models in ‘a fraction of the time’, as well as double energy efficiency.

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As ever, AWS offers customers who are already utilising these tools. Databricks, Epic and SAP are among the companies cited as using the new AWS-designed chips.

Zero-ETL integrations

AWS announced new Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon Relational Database Services (Amazon RDS) for MySQL integrations with Amazon Redshift, AWS’ cloud data warehouse. The zero-ETL integrations – eliminating the need to build ETL (extract, transform, load) data pipelines – make it easier to connect and analyse transactional data across various relational and non-relational databases in Amazon Redshift.

A simple example of how zero-ETL functions can be seen is in a hypothetical company which stores transactional data – time of transaction, items bought, where the transaction occurred – in a relational database, but use another analytics tool to analyse data in a non-relational database. To connect it all up, companies would previously have to construct ETL data pipelines which are a time and money sink.

The latest integrations “build on AWS’s zero-ETL foundation… so customers can quickly and easily connect all of their data, no matter where it lives,” the company said.

Amazon S3 Express One Zone

AWS announced the general availability of Amazon S3 Express One Zone, a new storage class purpose-built for customers’ most frequently-accessed data. Data access speed is up to 10 times faster and request costs up to 50% lower than standard S3. Companies can also opt to collocate their Amazon S3 Express One Zone data in the same availability zone as their compute resources.  

Companies and partners who are using Amazon S3 Express One Zone include ChaosSearch, Cloudera, and Pinterest.

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Amazon Q

A new product, and an interesting pivot, again with generative AI at its core. Amazon Q was announced as a ‘new type of generative AI-powered assistant’ which can be tailored to a customer’s business. “Customers can get fast, relevant answers to pressing questions, generate content, and take actions – all informed by a customer’s information repositories, code, and enterprise systems,” AWS added. The service also can assist companies building on AWS, as well as companies using AWS applications for business intelligence, contact centres, and supply chain management.

Customers cited as early adopters include Accenture, BMW and Wunderkind.

Want to learn more about cybersecurity and the cloud from industry leaders? Check out Cyber Security & Cloud Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

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TECHNOLOGY

HCLTech and Cisco create collaborative hybrid workplaces

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Digital comms specialist Cisco and global tech firm HCLTech have teamed up to launch Meeting-Rooms-as-a-Service (MRaaS).

Available on a subscription model, this solution modernises legacy meeting rooms and enables users to join meetings from any meeting solution provider using Webex devices.

The MRaaS solution helps enterprises simplify the design, implementation and maintenance of integrated meeting rooms, enabling seamless collaboration for their globally distributed hybrid workforces.

Rakshit Ghura, senior VP and Global head of digital workplace services, HCLTech, said: “MRaaS combines our consulting and managed services expertise with Cisco’s proficiency in Webex devices to change the way employees conceptualise, organise and interact in a collaborative environment for a modern hybrid work model.

“The common vision of our partnership is to elevate the collaboration experience at work and drive productivity through modern meeting rooms.”

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Alexandra Zagury, VP of partner managed and as-a-Service Sales at Cisco, said: “Our partnership with HCLTech helps our clients transform their offices through cost-effective managed services that support the ongoing evolution of workspaces.

“As we reimagine the modern office, we are making it easier to support collaboration and productivity among workers, whether they are in the office or elsewhere.”

Cisco’s Webex collaboration devices harness the power of artificial intelligence to offer intuitive, seamless collaboration experiences, enabling meeting rooms with smart features such as meeting zones, intelligent people framing, optimised attendee audio and background noise removal, among others.

Want to learn more about cybersecurity and the cloud from industry leaders? Check out Cyber Security & Cloud Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

Tags: Cisco, collaboration, HCLTech, Hybrid, meetings

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Canonical releases low-touch private cloud MicroCloud

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Canonical has announced the general availability of MicroCloud, a low-touch, open source cloud solution. MicroCloud is part of Canonical’s growing cloud infrastructure portfolio.

It is purpose-built for scalable clusters and edge deployments for all types of enterprises. It is designed with simplicity, security and automation in mind, minimising the time and effort to both deploy and maintain it. Conveniently, enterprise support for MicroCloud is offered as part of Canonical’s Ubuntu Pro subscription, with several support tiers available, and priced per node.

MicroClouds are optimised for repeatable and reliable remote deployments. A single command initiates the orchestration and clustering of various components with minimal involvement by the user, resulting in a fully functional cloud within minutes. This simplified deployment process significantly reduces the barrier to entry, putting a production-grade cloud at everyone’s fingertips.

Juan Manuel Ventura, head of architectures & technologies at Spindox, said: “Cloud computing is not only about technology, it’s the beating heart of any modern industrial transformation, driving agility and innovation. Our mission is to provide our customers with the most effective ways to innovate and bring value; having a complexity-free cloud infrastructure is one important piece of that puzzle. With MicroCloud, the focus shifts away from struggling with cloud operations to solving real business challenges” says

In addition to seamless deployment, MicroCloud prioritises security and ease of maintenance. All MicroCloud components are built with strict confinement for increased security, with over-the-air transactional updates that preserve data and roll back on errors automatically. Upgrades to newer versions are handled automatically and without downtime, with the mechanisms to hold or schedule them as needed.

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With this approach, MicroCloud caters to both on-premise clouds but also edge deployments at remote locations, allowing organisations to use the same infrastructure primitives and services wherever they are needed. It is suitable for business-in-branch office locations or industrial use inside a factory, as well as distributed locations where the focus is on replicability and unattended operations.

Cedric Gegout, VP of product at Canonical, said: “As data becomes more distributed, the infrastructure has to follow. Cloud computing is now distributed, spanning across data centres, far and near edge computing appliances. MicroCloud is our answer to that.

“By packaging known infrastructure primitives in a portable and unattended way, we are delivering a simpler, more prescriptive cloud experience that makes zero-ops a reality for many Industries.“

MicroCloud’s lightweight architecture makes it usable on both commodity and high-end hardware, with several ways to further reduce its footprint depending on your workload needs. In addition to the standard Ubuntu Server or Desktop, MicroClouds can be run on Ubuntu Core – a lightweight OS optimised for the edge. With Ubuntu Core, MicroClouds are a perfect solution for far-edge locations with limited computing capabilities. Users can choose to run their workloads using Kubernetes or via system containers. System containers based on LXD behave similarly to traditional VMs but consume fewer resources while providing bare-metal performance.

Coupled with Canonical’s Ubuntu Pro + Support subscription, MicroCloud users can benefit from an enterprise-grade open source cloud solution that is fully supported and with better economics. An Ubuntu Pro subscription offers security maintenance for the broadest collection of open-source software available from a single vendor today. It covers over 30k packages with a consistent security maintenance commitment, and additional features such as kernel livepatch, systems management at scale, certified compliance and hardening profiles enabling easy adoption for enterprises. With per-node pricing and no hidden fees, customers can rest assured that their environment is secure and supported without the expensive price tag typically associated with cloud solutions.

Want to learn more about cybersecurity and the cloud from industry leaders? Check out Cyber Security & Cloud Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

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Tags: automation, Canonical, MicroCloud, private cloud

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