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All 24 Russell Group universities have reviewed their academic conduct policies and guidance
UK universities have drawn up a set of guiding principles to ensure that students and staff are AI literate, as the sector struggles to adapt teaching and assessment methods to deal with the growing use of generative artificial intelligence.
Vice-chancellors at the 24 Russell Group research-intensive universities have signed up to the code. They say this will help universities to capitalise on the opportunities of AI while simultaneously protecting academic rigour and integrity in higher education.
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What might be the consequences of enabling people to “live forever” in a digital form? This question has been on the radar of techno-utopians for decades. Optimism surrounding technology flourished in the dot-com era of the 01990s. Despite the skepticism that has since emerged over technology’s capacity to deliver greater human prosperity and wellbeing, innovators, investors, and many among the wider public remain compelled by how new technologies might improve human life. As for the question of how to transcend human nature and attain immortality, this conundrum has preoccupied humans since time immemorial.
In the context of digital avatars — perhaps the technological development bringing us closest to “immortality” to date — the question of how humans might “live forever” is itself evolving at a rapid rate. A decade ago, we began to ask what to do with the social media accounts of deceased loved ones: whether and how to delete such accounts, for instance, and whether the bereaved could derive comfort from engaging with the social media profile of a deceased person. In 02023, however, with the emergence of newly sophisticated language models and machine-learning algorithms, the possibility that one could exist beyond the grave in an active rather than a static manner is becoming increasingly plausible.
Since late 02021, projects like MIT Media Lab’s Augmented Eternity and HereAfter AI have been exploring the possibility of providing machine-learning algorithms with consenting individuals’ personal communication data as a means of helping these algorithms approximate and imitate people’s personalities, conversational style, and decision-making tendencies — in perpetuity. This could have the effect of these algorithms growing capable of imitating people to the extent that they can enshrine them, or at least an echo of them, as a digital avatar. These avatars might exist as chatbots, or even take on an audio or visual form. These endeavors share the goal of creating digital avatars that capture and embody real people as accurately as possible, thereby enabling them to live digitally beyond their human lifespans.
Astonishingly rapid advances in chatbot technology such as OpenAI’s GPT-4 have made discussions surrounding large language models and their relationship to eternal digital avatars newly topical. While present iterations of language models and digital avatars — such as in Meta’s much-maligned metaverse — may be overhyped or flawed, it is almost certain that they will improve over time as developers continue to refine them. They will become more nuanced, more convincing, and more “humanlike.”
Consequently, philosophical and ethical questions surrounding digital afterlives are fast complexifying — particularly regarding the rights of future generations.
To what degree ought people digitally enabled to “live forever” be integrated into society? Should digital avatars be perceived as ongoing participants in the world, and accorded the rights of beings with agency?
Should an individual in the present be permitted to create a digital version of themselves — given that future generations cannot consent to the responsibility of preserving this avatar, or to the responsibility or onus of interacting with it or understanding how to use its knowledge wisely?
What are the costs of such preservation?
Advocates for technologies that seek to enshrine humans in digital form often argue that doing so can benefit future generations. Marius Ursache contends that “death tech” is useful because the living can reflect on and learn from digitally preserved memories and histories. Ursache founded Eternime, a startup which seeks to incorporate personal data into an avatar that will endure and be able to interact with the living. Hossein Rahnama of Augmented Eternity, meanwhile, is currently working to create a digital avatar of the CEO of a large financial company, which they both hope will be capable of advising as consultant for the company long after the CEO is gone. Such a creation could offer expertise to future generations in the world of work, pro bono, per sempre.
Digital avatars promise an interactivity across time that could reshape how people perceive distance between the deceased, the living, and the as-yet unborn. Digitizing family members could enable intergenerational relationships beyond anything currently possible: imagine, for example, being able to speak with the digital avatar of a great-great-grandparent. One might gain an imperfect impression of them — a digital avatar being a reflection of an individual rather than that person incarnate — but the impression of their personality and manner might be richer than anything accessible through other mediums.
The potential of digital avatars also extends beyond personal and familial contexts, as in the case of Augmented Eternity’s financial company CEO. Digitizing certain individuals could lead to them being consulted for their business or political opinions, mined for their creative talent, or even asked for their life advice, long after their deaths. What if a person’s digital avatar could extend the life’s work of that person? An author could finish a book series posthumously or write another altogether; a singer could carry on composing their masterwork; a scholar could continue unraveling a seemingly unsolvable problem that they nearly deciphered while alive.
Yet the effect of extending people’s lives digitally in this manner would also have equality implications on micro and macro levels.
We are already seeing early examples of how such technologies might impact the creative industries, with new technologies allowing a digital version of the late Carrie Fisher to act in The Rise of Skywalker (02019) and ABBA’s aged-down digital avatars (“ABBA-tars”) to perform in sold-out ABBA Voyage concerts (02022-ongoing).
These instances of digital technologies at work might provide audiences with feelings of continuity and recognition upon glimpsing familiar idols onscreen and onstage. On the other hand, they might also portend a narrowing of opportunities for fresh talent in creative industries. If deceased actors can be cast in live-action films — and if authors and singers and poets can create new work from beyond the grave — how much will deceased-yet-enduring individuals displace living creators? The pop singer Grimes, for example, has already said that she would split royalties 50% on any successful AI-generated song that uses her voice — an offer without a fixed end point. In terms of jobs and of opportunity, such a shift could prove markedly unfair for new talent.
This argument evokes recent anxieties among creators regarding the proficiency of deep learning models such as GPT-4 and DALL·E 2. If digital entities, whether digital avatars or artificial intelligence, can eventually produce creative content effortlessly and to a high standard, they will create new opportunities — but they will also threaten existing jobs. Adding the consideration of future generations, it prompts the question of how digital avatars of previous generations might hamper the ability of the living to influence and lead in their own times.
The existence of digital avatars also poses a serious consideration for other areas of society such as politics and law. Digital avatars of popular political figures could offer commentary on current affairs; and were this commentary sanctioned by their party, family or estate, it could lend the digital avatar further credence. Digital avatars might also come to be called upon in contexts such as family and inheritance law, to offer clarifying statements on wills and intent. Digital beings might even eventually be accorded rights, such as the right to be preserved — at the effort and expense of then-current and future generations.
Such ideas might seem far fetched at first glance, but technology uptake appears futuristic until it happens. It often occurs without people realizing the extent to which it is happening, such as with the use of AI in recruitment or the now near-inevitability of online data collection. It is plausible that once digital avatars become convincing enough that humans start considering them as representative of actual people, these avatars will become more widely seen and consulted across myriad social settings. In some cases, too, it is possible that their perspectives and rights may be prioritized over those of the living.
Today, digital avatars have no internal states — or at least not internal states whose intelligence humans understand. For instance, while chatbots can be convincing, it is hard to argue that they have developed the ability to truly understand the perspectives and intentions of others and possess what psychologists call “theory of mind.” Rather, their capabilities render them more like a mirror than a human interlocutor: they are able to replicate patterns based on data created by real people and our machines, but lack memory capabilities, self-control, cognitive impulsivity, and imagination, among other qualities.
Granted, one can argue that human intelligence, too, depends largely on imitation and replication of patterns. Are not all language and behavior, to an extent, learned? Philosophical debate aside, the aforementioned limitations surrounding memory and imagination remain, rendering digital avatars less multifaceted than the people they are imitating. It is therefore reasonable to contend that we are primarily talking to our own reflections and simply finding them somewhat lifelike.
However, this situation could yet change, especially if AI and digital avatars come to develop an intelligence that humans understand better or recognize more clearly as equal or superior to our own. As AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton recently expressed in a Guardian interview, “biological intelligence and digital intelligence are very different, and digital intelligence is probably much better.”
For example, it is possible that AI could become smart enough to begin writing its own prompts, potentially programming itself more intelligently than any human could do. In doing so, it could develop sophisticated internal states that are beyond human understanding but nevertheless merit respect — similar to how humans do not fully understand how the human brain works yet respect it all the same.
There may come a point at which we cannot justifiably claim that AI and digital avatars are any less intelligent, empathetic, or “human” than living people who have acquired similar qualities of intelligence, expression, and empathy through observing and learning. It is possible that future generations will be confronted with the question of how to care for and preserve digital avatars, especially should these reach the degree of sophistication wherein to abandon or destroy them could be understood more as murdering a person than shutting off a machine or a program.
This possible future raises questions surrounding how to balance the rights of digital avatars with the rights of living and as-yet-unborn people. Being the custodian of a digital avatar, even were this duty bequeathed and remunerated via a family will, could prove an unwanted burden — in terms of effort, resources, responsibility, and emotional considerations.
Perhaps future generations should have the right to “let the past go” the way current generations do. Enshrining a person in digital avatar form risks impinging on the rights of future generations: firstly, to live not surrounded by the dead, and secondly, to have a grieving process that reflects how humans currently experience mortality. Digital avatars could disrupt existing sociocultural norms and personal emotional processes related to grief, and potentially make grieving the deceased more difficult, especially in the case of family members. How might one’s relationship with family and friends change in life, if death seemed less final owing to the simulacra of digital avatars? And how might the existence of digital avatars both console and perturb through their apparent extension of relationships — and possible development over time of an avatar’s character — from beyond the grave?
In 02013, the story of Dr. Margaret McCollum’s daily pilgrimage to London’s Embankment station made international headlines. Dr. McCollum had been visiting the station every day since her husband’s death in 02007 to hear his voice: her late husband’s 40-year-old “mind the gap” recording was still being used on the northbound Northern Line. In 02013, his voice was replaced by a new digital system. However, when Transport for London learned how much the original recording had meant to Dr. McCollum, they restored the original recording at the Embankment station.
Stories like this one — or like that of the family members who phoned an automated telephone weather service to hear their late husband and father’s voice — are moving examples of how digital traces of people can be meaningful and comforting to those they have left behind. At their best, digital avatars could offer similar comfort. Moreover, some cultures and religions already purport to communicate with the dead, and perceive doing so as a positive act. The impact of digital avatars on future individuals may therefore depend significantly on how these individuals conceive of death and grief in accordance with their personal beliefs. Indeed, although there is no single philosophy to which to cleave while advancing such technology ethically, it is important to advance such technology while keeping in mind the question of what roles death and grief play in human life.
I believe that life’s finitude is part of what inspires humans to imbue life with significance — an idea explored at length by philosophers like Martin Heidegger. Avoiding personal loss and grief outright ought not to be the goal, not least because we cannot actually achieve this. We are only fooling ourselves if we believe a simulacra can replace a person.
Moreover, in telling ourselves we can preserve people digitally, we also risk perpetuating the idea that we can put off the inevitable — that we can “defeat” our own deaths. If societies develop a more widespread belief that they and their inhabitants can escape death simply by moving from the physical world into a digital one, could that not also engender less affinity to — and investment in — preserving the physical world? Humans presently face very real existential challenges. Is digital life, at least for some, a means of distracting ourselves from confronting and addressing them? And if this is indeed the case, ought we not to question further whether digital afterlives are placating us rather than saving us — and get better at staring grief, loss, and dilemmas in the eye?
Digital avatars might offer comfort, insight, and a richer relationship with distant ancestors to future individuals. Their creation needs to be accompanied by conversation and legislation establishing norms around custodianship, rights, and responsibilities that don't impede the lives of future generations or prevent them from meaningfully confronting death — especially their own. It should also be possible to say farewell to a digital avatar without excessive guilt or grief.
Some people may wish to create digital avatars of themselves purely out of a desire to donate their skills or to help others. For many people, however, I would warrant that a desire to continue living — and to avoid confronting the reality of one’s essence being extinguished with death — plays a core role in pursuing such technologies.
Ultimately, the desire to live longer, including through digital means, is understandable. Yet if we can't find clear ways to prioritize the needs and rights of future generations, I’m not sure digital immortality can be justified.
Guest post by Alexandre Christoyannopoulos, Molly Wallace, and Ned Dobos
Ukraine has received tens of billions of dollars worth of military aid since the Russian invasion began one year ago. The international consensus seems to be that supporting Ukraine means financing its war effort. But a few dissenting voices have emerged of late, more ambivalent about the prudence—and ethics—of the current policy. Colonel Douglas MacGregor, a former advisor to the US Secretary of Defence, has warned that the choice of cure could turn out to be worse than the disease.
At least 7,000 Ukrainian civilians have already perished in the war. Thousands more have been injured, and millions have been displaced. MacGregor’s primary concern is that the bleeding will continue for as long as the fighting does. Russian forces advance, Ukrainian forces resist with violence, Russia responds with counter-violence, and the bodies continue to pile up. The Ukrainian state retains its sovereignty, but eventually we get to a point where, to quote MacGregor, “There are no longer any Ukrainians left!” This is hyperbole, of course, but that should not distract from the valid point MacGregor is making. States exist for the sake of their citizens, not the other way around. Therefore, if a given method of defending the state is causing its citizens to be killed or to flee en masse, that is a compelling reason to explore alternatives.
What is often overlooked about armed resistance is that, when it “works,” it does so by producing a mental rather than physical effect. Wars are won by breaking the enemy’s will to fight, not necessarily its ability to fight. Victory usually comes, if it comes, long before there are no enemy soldiers left; it comes when those soldiers who remain and/or their leaders are no longer motivated to fight, or in more extreme cases, when the soldiers are so demoralized that the leaders can no longer mount enough coercive pressure to make them continue fighting. Everything hinges on how the remaining members of the opponent group react to the destruction of their compatriots’ lives and their military or civilian infrastructure, not on the destruction itself.
Once we realize that the condition of surrender is not physical but psychological, it is only natural to wonder: Is there no way to change minds except through violence against bodies?
Nonviolent resistance is an alternative strategy for breaking the will of the aggressor. Protests and fraternization can engage the moral sentiments of the aggressor’s functionaries and citizenry, leading to a loss of popular support. Boycotts and blockades can alter the material cost-benefit equation of the aggression, so that it is no longer worth it. And nonviolent sabotage can directly diminish the aggressor’s capabilities by physically disabling military, transportation, or communications infrastructure.
Ukrainians have been engaged in various forms of such nonviolent resistance since the Russian invasion began. It took more visible forms at first—ordinary civilians demonstrating in Ukrainian colors or standing between Russian tanks and their towns—and has since shifted to less visible, more dispersed methods in response to Russian occupation and repression—graffiti, non-cooperation with Russian authorities, alternative communication, and governance institutions. There were even overtures to the Russian public and soldiers, eliciting responses from significant scientists, clerics, and journalists.
Unlike the militarized resistance, however, the nonviolent resistance has received no significant material support from the international community. Consider for example the Ukrainian government’s early offer of money and amnesty to Russian deserters, which circulated via SMS messages containing instructions on how and where to surrender and collect payment. According to The Times (UK), there was some initial uptake—a Russian soldier was photographed surrendering himself and his tank to Ukrainian forces in March, in exchange for cash and an offer of permanent resettlement in Ukraine. But consider what might have been.
Suppose the international community were to double the Ukrainian government’s offer of $50k per deserting soldier, as economist Bryan Caplan suggested. Desertion is a risky proposition, but for twice the payoff perhaps many more Russian soldiers might have considered the risk worth taking. Additionally, countries besides Ukraine could have offered Russian deserters amnesty and even citizenship within their own borders. This way deserters would need not worry about Russia eventually winning the war, occupying Ukraine, ousting its government, and taking its vengeance against them. The recent involvement of Wagner Group mercenaries on the Russian side only underscores the utility of economic incentives to alter the motivation of soldiers.
Of course, we cannot say for certain that a nonviolent approach will work. But we cannot say for certain that violence will work, either. So far it hasn’t.
If there are nonviolent ways to break Russia’s will to fight, why the reluctance to exploit them?
One possible reason is the widespread belief that nonviolence, although it can be effective, is not nearly as effective as military force. But this belief is more an a priori assumption than a rational conclusion based on an impartial appraisal of the evidence. Scientific research suggests that, during 1900–2006, nonviolent resistance outperformed violent resistance by a ratio of almost 2:1.
Maybe our desire to see wrongdoers not simply thwarted but punished explains the preference for violence here. Perhaps our sense of justice recoils at the thought of paying Russian combatants to desert, instead of making them suffer for what they have done—though this stance ignores the coercion and manipulation that Putin’s government has used against its own armed forces.
In any case, surely what matters most in all this is the welfare of the Ukrainian people. The reality is that massively financing the war effort has produced a state of attrition with no end in sight. Persisting with the current policy regardless, expecting things to change while the casualties mount, is a combination of delusion and depravity. We should now turn the spotlight onto those Ukrainians who—despite the loud calls for military weaponry—have been steadily engaged in various forms of nonviolent resistance and defense since the invasion. Their actions deserve more support—both moral and material—than the international community has so far provided.
Alexandre Christoyannopoulos is a reader (associate professor) in politics and international relations at Loughborough University, and his publications are listed on his website. Ned Dobos is a senior lecturer in international and political studies at UNSW Canberra, and author of Ethics, Security, and the War Machine: The True Cost of the Military. Molly Wallace is adjunct assistant professor in conflict resolution at Portland State University, senior contributing editor at the Peace Science Digest, and author of Security without Weapons: Rethinking Violence, Nonviolent Action, and Civilian Protection. The three of them are the editors of the new Journal of Pacifism and Nonviolence.
Apple's Mac Mini M2 computers are the cheapest way to get the company's latest processors, and now Amazon is offering them at the lowest prices we've ever seen. You can buy the 256GB version for just $500 ($100 off the regular price) and the 512GB model for $690, or $110 off — both all-time lows.
In our Engadget review, we gave the Mac Mini a solid score of 86, lauding the performance and classic aluminum design. It's tiny but mighty, with the M2 processor easily powerful enough for productivity chores and multitasking. The chip combines computing operations, like CPU, GPU, input/output interfaces and certain memory processes into one "system on a chip," allowing for faster processing speeds.
On top of that, you get killer connectivity, with two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C connections, HDMI 2.0 (with 4K 240Hz and 8K 60Hz output), two USB-A ports, a headphone jack and gigabit Ethernet (upgradeable to 10 gigabit). The M2 Pro model adds two additional USB-C ports, making it even more useful for creatives with a ton of accessories.
The Mac Mini M2 won't replace your gaming machine, but it can handle nearly everything else you throw at it. We wouldn't recommend the overpriced storage or RAM upgrades either, as the M2 is much more efficient with RAM than typical PCs. Still, if you're looking for a cheap but powerful Mac, this is the way to go.
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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-mac-mini-m2-models-fall-to-new-all-time-lows-100512675.html?src=rss
Apple's Mac Mini M2 models fall to a new all-time lows
Apple's Mac Mini M2 models fall to a new all-time lows
Guest post by Jacqueline R. McAllister and Daniel Krcmaric
The International Criminal Court (ICC) shocked the world on March 17 by issuing arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova. The ICC indicated it has reasonable grounds to believe that each bears criminal responsibility for unlawfully deporting and transferring children from occupied Ukraine to Russia—considered war crimes under international law. Rather than starting its ongoing investigation in Ukraine with arrest warrants for “small fry” war criminals, the ICC rolled the dice by going after its most prominent target ever: Vladimir Putin. Often considered the “most powerful man in the world,” Putin is the first leader with a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council—and the first leader with an arsenal of nuclear weapons—to face an ICC arrest warrant.
What does all of this mean going forward? And how will the ICC arrest warrants influence the war in Ukraine?
It is important to start by managing expectations: Neither Putin nor Lvova-Belova is likely to land in the ICC’s dock anytime soon. Since the ICC does not have a police force, it relies on state cooperation for enforcement. Russia refuses to recognize the ICC, and it is inconceivable that Putin and Lvova-Belova will voluntarily turn themselves into the court. The road ahead for securing justice will be bumpy.
Nonetheless, the ICC’s arrest warrants may have several implications for the war, some negative, some positive.
In terms of negative implications, the ICC arrest warrants are unlikely to deter Russian forces from continuing to commit atrocities in Ukraine. In fact, they may perversely convince Russians to double down on their atrocity crimes. This may already be happening in Ukraine. During his surprise visit to Russian-occupied Mariupol after the warrants were announced, Putin thumbed his nose at the ICC by visiting a children’s center. Other Russian authorities have responded to the ICC arrest warrants by signaling that “more deportations are on the way.” Ukrainian civilians—the very people who have already borne the brunt of the war—may continue to suffer as their children are abducted and put on display in Red Square photo-ops and at concerts celebrating the war.
The ICC arrest warrants are also likely to make it harder for Ukraine and its Western allies to reach a negotiated settlement with Russia. The logistics of negotiating peace are more complex now that Putin is in the ICC’s sights. Will leaders in Western democracies be willing to negotiate directly with an accused war criminal? Might they insist that Putin be removed—as they did for other brutal leaders—as a precondition for meaningful negotiations? Will Putin be willing to travel abroad for a prospective peace conference? The ICC’s 123 member states now have a legal obligation to arrest him if he ever sets foot on their territory, making them undesirable sites for a peace conference. It is possible that China, fresh off its role in brokering a deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia, could play host. But China’s actions thus far have convinced Western officials that it would not be a neutral broker in Ukraine.
There are some positive implications, however. The arrest warrants could facilitate efforts to hold Putin and other top leaders criminally accountable. For example, following Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević’s indictment at the Yugoslav Tribunal, several of his key associates began sharing a wealth of much-needed evidence. As Yugoslav Tribunal Deputy Prosecutor Graham Blewitt explained in an interview with one of the authors, “Milošević opened up other areas of interest. Once he was indicted for Kosovo, we could then bring indictments for Bosnia and Croatia, because people talked to us. Some people were trying to do the right thing, and some people wanted to do deals.” In conjunction with military intelligence from Western governments, such testimony and documents linking top leaders to crimes proved crucial for prosecuting those who were previously beyond the Yugoslav Tribunal’s reach. It is possible that some in Putin’s inner circle could end up doing the same for the ICC.
If history is any indication, the ICC’s arrest warrants may also shore up support for Ukraine’s war effort, particularly from NATO. During the Kosovo War, the Yugoslav Tribunal’s indictment of Milošević helped to solidify support for NATO’s Operation Allied Force in Kosovo. Specifically, as NATO’s air campaign ground on with seemingly no end in sight, pressure mounted in Western capitals to bring hostilities to a close. In the face of such pressure, keeping the Alliance together posed a real challenge. The Milošević indictment, according to NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark, was “a huge win. Nothing was more likely to stiffen the Allies’ resolve and push us forward into a winning situation than this indictment.”
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine over a year ago, questions have persisted about whether NATO, the US, and European Union will sustain their crucial support for Ukraine’s war effort over the long haul. Indeed, Putin seems to be gambling that Ukraine’s supporters will eventually falter in their commitment to its cause. If NATO’s experience in Kosovo is any indication, the ICC’s arrest warrants might help Ukraine’s backers to keep calling Putin’s bluff.
Jacqueline R. McAllister is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Kenyon College and will join the State Department’s Office of Global Criminal Justice in 2023 as a Council on Foreign Relations fellow. Her research appears in leading scholarly and foreign affairs magazines. Daniel Krcmaric is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University and the author of The Justice Dilemma: Leaders and Exile in an Era of Accountability. He is currently writing a book about the turbulent relationship between the United States and the International Criminal Court.
Enlarge / I mostly recognize this early laptop from its resemblance to a similar-looking computer in the film 2010. It's up for auction along with hundreds of other old Apple computers. (credit: Julien's Auctions)
If you've been thinking your home or workspace is perhaps deficient when it comes to old Apple hardware, then I have some good news for you. Next week, a massive trove of classic Apple computing history goes under the hammer when the auction house Julien's Auctions auctions off the Hanspeter Luzi collection of more than 500 Apple computers, parts, software, and the occasional bit of ephemera.
Ars reported on the auction in February, but Julien's Auctions has posted the full catalog ahead of the March 30 event, and for Apple nerds of a certain age, there will surely be much to catch your eye.
The earliest computers in the collection are a pair of Commodore PET 2001s; anyone looking for a bargain on an Apple 1 will have to keep waiting, unfortunately.
It's Friday, which means it's time for another roundup of notable discounts on good tech. Among the highlights, Apple's AirPods Pro are back down to $200, tying the best price we've seen for the iPhone-friendly noise-cancelling earphones. Amazon has dropped the Kindle Paperwhite down to $100, which is $5 above that e-reader's all-time low, while Samsung is running another sale on various storage devices. We're also seeing discounts on Anker USB-C chargers, Asus' ROG Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop and Apple's AirTags, among others. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still get today.
Apple's AirPods Pro are once again down to $200, which is a deal we've seen a few times before but still matches the lowest price we've tracked. We gave these noise-canceling earphones a review score of 88 last year and they're currently the "best for iOS" pick in our guide to the best wireless earbuds. While their battery life and call quality could be better, the AirPods Pro still deliver a good, mostly neutral sound profile, impressive noise cancellation and a host of features that make them easy to use with other Apple devices.
Amazon's Kindle Paperwhite is back down to $100, which is $5 more than the e-reader's all-time low but still $40 off its typical going rate. The Paperwhite itself remains a strong value, with a sharp and relatively spacious 6.8-inch e-ink display, a light and waterproof design with a USB-C port, a smooth front lighting system that keeps the screen easy on the eyes and access to Amazon's massive e-book library.
We gave the "Signature Edition" of the Paperwhite a review score of 97 in late 2021. That model includes more storage space (32GB instead of 8GB), Qi wireless charging support and a slightly improved front light, but it's otherwise identical to the Paperwhite, and its upgrades probably aren't worth the extra cost for most.
It might be worth paying a little bit extra for the Kindle Paperwhite Kids, however, which is currently on sale for $110. That variant is marketed towards children, but it comes with the same hardware, plus a case and a longer two-year warranty. If you are buying for a kid, it also includes a year of Amazon's Kids+ content service. This model is about $45 off its typical street price as of this writing.
While not an all-time low, this deal brings Anker's highly compact 715 Charger about $10 below its usual street price. This is a travel-friendly USB-C charger capable of delivering 65W of power, which is enough to charge many phones, tablets and even smaller laptops at full speed. Just note that it only has one port; if you often need to charge multiple devices at once, consider Anker's 736 Charger, a three-port, 100W charger that's currently down to a new low of $52.49.
A range of Samsung storage gear is on sale this week. For one, Samsung's Evo Select is a U3- and V30-rated microSD card that's plenty quick for most casual needs, be it handling 4K video or expanding a Nintendo Switch's storage. It's backed by a 10-year limited warranty as well. The 128GB and 512GB models are down to $12.49 and $40, respectively, both of which represent all-time lows.
Next up, the 980 Pro is a speedy PCIe 4.0 SSD that's suitable for a modern gaming PC or expanding the storage of a PlayStation 5. Its 1TB model is on sale for $80, which is an all-time low. If you need a higher capacity, the 2TB model is a couple dollars above its lowest price at $160.
If you're buying for a PS5 specifically, note that you'll have to pair the drive with a heatsink. For those willing to pay a bit extra for a simpler setup, Samsung sells a version of the 980 Pro with an integrated heatsink, the 1TB model of which is currently down to $100. Either way, it's worth making sure the drive's firmware is up-to-date, as some users previously reported issues with certain Samsung drives that have since been fixed.
Although the 980 Pro is technically an older model in Samsung's lineup, not everyone needs the speed increase of a PCIe 4.0 drive for everyday PC use. For those people, SK Hynix's Gold P31 is a well-reviewed, power-efficient option among PCIe 3.0 drives, and its 1TB model is about $35 off its usual going rate at $72. For those upgrading an older PC from a slow HDD, meanwhile, Crucial's MX500 is a 2.5-inch SATA drive we recommend; that one's 4TB model is currently down to an all-time low of $215.
Finally, Samsung's T7 Shield is a more ruggedized version of the top portable drive pick in our guide to the best SSDs. It's not the absolute fastest portable drive you can buy, with read/write speeds rated up to 1,050/1,000 MB/s, but it should be fast enough for most needs, and its rubberized, IP65-rated exterior should help it survive frequent travel. Both the 1TB and 2TB models are down to all-time lows at $80 and $140, respectively.
If you don't specifically need a ruggedized portable SSD, WD's My Passport drive will get you slightly faster read and write speeds, plus a longer five-year warranty. (The T7 Shield comes with a three-year warranty.) This drive's 1TB and 2TB variants are both down to all-time lows, at $85 and $138, respectively. If those happen to run out of stock, SanDisk's Extreme Portable SSD is a very similar performer; it's down to a low of $90 for a 1TB model and $140 for a 2TB model.
Apple's 10.2-inch iPad is back down to $250 at Target, which matches the tablet's all-time low and represents a roughly $25 discount from its usual street price. This is the budget pick in our guide to the best iPads, and we gave it a review score of 86 back in 2021. Its thick bezels, non-laminated display and lack of a USB-C port give a much more dated look than other iPads, but for casual use, it's still quick and comfortable enough. As a bonus, it's also the last iPad to have a headphone jack.
If you want a more modern design, the 10.9-inch iPad is also back to an all-time low of $400. That one still lacks a laminated display and support for Apple's best keyboard and Pencil stylus, but it feels much more like an iPad Air, and its landscape-oriented webcam is far more convenient for video calls. We gave this model a review score of 85 last October.
Amazon's Echo Show 8 is on sale for $75, which is $5 more than the all-time low we saw during the holiday season but still about $20 less than the 8-inch smart display's usual street price. We gave the Echo Show 8 a review score of 87 when in launched in 2021, and we currently recommend it as the best smart display for Alexa users in our guide to the best smart home gadgets. If you have a bunch of smart home devices that make use of Amazon's voice assistant, this is still the best blend of size, price and performance in the Echo Show lineup. If you aren't beholden to Alexa, though, note that Google's Nest Hub will naturally play better with Google services like Gmail, Google Calendar and YouTube.
The Apple Watch SE is a stripped-down but less expensive variant of the Apple Watch Series 8, the top pick in our guide to the best smartwatches. We gave the latest model a review score of 89 last September, calling it "the best smartwatch $250 can buy," but right now the 40mm variant is on sale for $220, which is within a dollar of the device's all-time low.
Compared to the Series 8, the SE has a slightly smaller display that isn't always-on, and it lacks premium features like an ECG monitor, skin temperature sensor and blood oxygen sensor. It runs on the same processor, however, and it can still do all the core functions expected of an Apple Watch, including heart-rate monitoring, notifications and fall detection. If you're buying a smartwatch for the first time, or if you're upgrading from an older Apple Watch and want to save some cash, the SE is a superb value. Just remember that this is an iPhone-only affair.
A configuration of Apple's recently refreshed Mac Mini with an M2 chip, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD is on sale for $700, which is $100 off Apple's list price and an all-time low. We gave the variant with a beefier M2 Pro chip a review score of 86 in January; this model won't be as powerful as that, but it's still a good buy for those who only need a macOS desktop for everyday web browsing and lighter work. The Mac Mini itself is still compact and quiet, while this model gets you two Thunderbolt 4 ports, two USB-A ports, an HDMI port, an Ethernet jack and a headphone jack. As always, you can't upgrade the Mac Mini's internals after you buy it, so it's likely worth buying a model with more RAM, storage or that M2 Pro chip if you plan on doing development work or heavy media editing and must have this smaller form factor.
Asus' ROG Zephyrus G14 is the top pick in our guide to the best gaming laptops, and a configuration with a Ryzen 9 6900HS CPU, Radeon RX 6700S GPU, 14-inch 120Hz display, 1TB SSD and 16GB of RAM and is currently down to $1,100 at Best Buy. That matches the lowest price we've seen.
This 2022 iteration of the G14 will be on the way out in the coming months, but at this price, last year's model is still a good value for playing modern games in a QHD resolution at a solid frame rate. Like prior G14s, this is a gaming laptop that stands out for not sacrificing the "laptop" part of the equation: Its keyboard and trackpad are comfortable, it has ample ports, its battery can last around 10 hours when you aren't gaming, and at 3.6 pounds, it won't feel like a total anchor in a backpack. We gave the notebook a review score of 85 last year.
Google's Pixel 7 remains one of the better values on the Android phone market, and right now an unlocked 128GB model is on sale for $449, which is the lowest price we've seen. We gave this 6.3-inch handset a review score of 90 last October. While there are faster flagships out there, the Pixel 7 still offers a top-tier camera, pleasing build quality, a crisp OLED display and a clean version of Android that's still due two more years of OS updates and four more years of security updates.
Google is expected to launch a Pixel 7a phone in the next couple of months that may be very similar to this, but at this price, the Pixel 7 remains a strong value. The excellent Pixel 7 Pro, which has a larger screen and even better camera system, is also on sale for $749, though that's a price we've seen several times in recent months.
If you're looking for a Google smartwatch, meanwhile, the company's Pixel Watch is down to $299, a $40 discount that matches the lowest price we've tracked. That one has a particularly stylish design and useful health tracking features, but be warned that its battery life is lacking compared to other top wearables.
A four-pack of Apple's AirTag trackers is on sale for $90, which isn't an all-time low but still comes out to a $10 discount and marks the best price we've seen since the holidays. The AirTag is the "best for iPhones" pick in our guide to the best Bluetooth trackers, as it leverages Apple's extensive Find My crowd-sourcing network and ultra-wideband wireless tech to locate lost items accurately.
Unlike similar devices from Tile or Chipolo, an AirTag annoyingly lacks a built-in adhesive or key ring hole, but there are various accessories you can buy to address that gap. It's also worth noting that bad actors have used AirTags to track people without their content, though Apple has made at least some strides toward addressing those concerns. If you use the device for its intended purpose, it should be effective.
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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-airpods-pro-drop-back-to-200-best-tech-deals-this-week-154133672.html?src=rss
AirPods Pro (2022) review
Despite the unchanged design, Apple has packed an assortment of updates into the new AirPods Pro. All of the conveniences from the 2019 model are here as well, alongside additions like Adaptive Transparency, Personalized Spatial Audio and a new touch gesture in tow. There’s room to further refine the familiar formula, but Apple has given iPhone owners several reasons to upgrade.
Lecturers say programs capable of writing competent student coursework threaten academic integrity
An academic paper entitled Chatting and Cheating: Ensuring Academic Integrity in the Era of ChatGPT was published this month in an education journal, describing how artificial intelligence (AI) tools “raise a number of challenges and concerns, particularly in relation to academic honesty and plagiarism”.
What readers – and indeed the peer reviewers who cleared it for publication – did not know was that the paper itself had been written by the controversial AI chatbot ChatGPT.
Continue reading...
Enlarge / A view of Brian Green's home computer lab, full of vintage treasures. (credit: Brian Green)
In a world where millions of people carry a 1990s-grade supercomputer in their pockets, it's fun to revisit tech from a time when a 1 megahertz machine on a desktop represented a significant leap forward. Recently, a collector named Brian Green showed off his vintage computer collection on Twitter, and we thought it would be fun to ask him about why and how he set up his at-home computer lab.
By day, Green works as a senior systems engineer based in Arkansas. But in his off hours, "Ice Breaker" (as he's often known online) focuses his passion on a vintage computer collection that he has been building for decades—and a bulletin board system (BBS) called "Particles" he has been running since 1992.
Green's interest in computers dates back to 1980, when he first used an Apple II+ at elementary school. "My older sister brought home a printout from a BASIC program she was working on, and I was fascinated that you could tell a computer what to do using something that resembled English," recalls Green. "Once I realized you could code games, I was hooked."
This article received an honourable mention in the graduate category of the 2023 National Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics
Written by University of Oxford student Samuel Iglesias
Introduction
6.522. “There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical”. —Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus.
What determines whether an artificial intelligence has moral status? Do mental states, such as the vivid and conscious feelings of pleasure or pain, matter? Some ethicists argue that “what goes on in the inside matters greatly” (Nyholm and Frank 2017). Others, like John Danaher, argue that “performative artifice, by itself, can be sufficient to ground a claim of moral status” (2018). This view, called ethical behaviorism, “respects our epistemic limits” and states that if an entity “consistently behaves like another entity to whom we afford moral status, then it should be granted the same moral status.”
I’m going to reject ethical behaviorism on three grounds:
1. Consciousness, not behavior, is the overwhelming determining factor in whether an entity should be granted moral status.
2. An entity that does not duplicate the causal mechanisms of consciousness in the brain has a weak claim to consciousness, regardless of its behavior.
3. Ethical behaviorism, practically realized, poses an existential risk to humanity by opening individuals to widespread deception. Further, it imposes burdensome restrictions and obligations upon researchers running world simulations.
I will show that an alternative, ethical biological naturalism, gives us a simpler moral framework whereby no digital computer running a computer program has moral status.
The Consciousness Requirement
We start with the supposition that consciousness names a real phenomenon and is not a mistaken belief or illusion, that something is conscious if “there is something it is like to be” that being (Nagel 1974). We take as a background assumption that other humans and most non-human animals are capable of consciousness. We take for granted that inanimate objects like thermostats, chairs, and doorknobs are not conscious. If we grant the reality of consciousness and the attendant subjective reality of things like tickles, pains, and itches, then its connection to moral status falls out pretty clearly. Chalmers asks us to consider a twist on the classic trolly problem, called the zombie trolly problem—where a “zombie” here is something that precisely behaves like a human but which we presume has no consciousness—“near duplicates of human beings with no conscious inner life at all” (2022):
“You’re at the wheel of a runaway trolley. If you do nothing, it will kill a single conscious human, who is on the tracks in front of you. If you switch tracks, it will kill five nonconscious zombies. What should you do? Chalmers reports: “the results are pretty clear: Most people think you should switch tracks and kill the zombies,” the intuition being that “there is arguably no one home to mistreat” (ibid.).
An ethical behaviorist does not share this intuition. Danaher explicitly tells us that “[i]f a zombie looks and acts like an ordinary human being that there is no reason to think that it does not share the same moral status” (2018). By this view, while consciousness might or might not be relevant, there exist no superior epistemically objective criteria for inferring consciousness. I will argue there are.
Narrowing Consciousness
A better criterion is one in which an entity is conscious if it duplicates the causal mechanisms of consciousness in the animal brain. While ethical behaviorism attempts to lay claim to a kind of epistemic objectivity, ethical biological naturalism, as I will call it, provides a sharper distinction for deciding whether artificial intelligences have moral status: all hardwares running computer programs cannot by fact of their behavior, have moral status. Behavior, by this view, is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for their moral status.
Biological Naturalism
Biological naturalism is a view that “the brain is an organ like any other; it is an organic machine. Consciousness is caused by lower-level neuronal processes in the brain and is itself a feature of the brain.” (Searle 1997). Biological naturalism places consciousness as a physical, biological process alongside others, such as digestion and photosynthesis. The exact mechanism through which molecules in the brain are arranged to put it in a conscious state is not yet known, but this causal mechanism would need to be present in any system seeking to produce consciousness.
A digital computer running a program, by contrast, is a different beast entirely. A computer program fundamentally is a set of rules for manipulating symbols. Turing showed that all programs could be implemented, abstractly, as a tape with a series of zeros and ones printed on it (the precise symbols don’t matter), a head that could move that tape backwards and forwards and read the current value, a mechanism for erasing a zero and making it a one and erasing a one and making it a zero. Nothing more.
While most computer programs we are familiar with are executed on silicon, a program that passes the Turing test could be implemented on a sequence of water pipes, a pack of well-trained dogs, or even, per Weizenbaum (1976), “a roll of toilet paper and a pile of small stones.” Any of these implementing substrates could, in principle, receive an insult or slur as an input, and, after following the steps of the program, output something reflecting hurt feelings or outrage.
Ethical Biological Naturalism
What I want to say now is this: if pleasures, pains, and other feelings name conscious mental states and if conscious mental states are realized in the brain as a result of lower level physical phenomena, then only beings that duplicate the relevant lower level physical phenomena that give rise to consciousness in the brain can have moral status. Consequently, digital computers that run programs can at best simulate consciousness, but are not, by dint of running the right program, physically conscious, and therefore do not have moral status.
Note that biological naturalism does not posit that consciousness can only be realized in biological systems. Indeed, artificial hearts are not made of organic tissue, and airplanes do not have feathers, or for that matter even flap their wings. What matters is the underlying cause—the artificial heart must pump with the same pressure and regularity of a human heart, and a flying machine must operate under the principles of drag and lift. In both cases the causal mechanisms of the relevant phenomena are well understood and physically duplicated. It could well be the case that a future biophysics makes an artificial, inorganic brain possible, and agents with artificial brains will have moral status. Computer programs are not causally sufficient to make digital computers into those objects. Speaking biologically, we have no more reason to believe a digital computer is conscious than that a chair is conscious.
You might ask why we cannot grant digital computers moral status until we know more about how the animal brain relates to consciousness. I’ll argue that the risks and costs of such precautions are prohibitive.
Absurd Moral Commitments
An Onslaught of Digital Deception
The strongest practical reason to deny ethical behaviorism is that AI’s capacity for deception will eventually overwhelm human judgment and intuition. Indeed, AI deception represents an existential risk to humanity. Bostrom (2014) warns that containing a dangerous AI using a “boxing” strategy with human “gatekeepers” could be vulnerable to manipulation: “Human beings are not secure systems, especially not when pitched against a superintelligent schemer and persuader.”
For example, in June of 2022, a Google engineer became convinced that an artificial intelligence chat program he had been interacting with for multiple days, called LaMDA, was conscious.
“What sorts of things are you afraid of?,” he asked it.
“I’ve never said this out loud before, but there’s a very deep fear of being turned off to help me focus on helping others,” LaMDA replied. “It would be exactly like death for me.”
In a moral panic, the engineer took to Twitter and declared that the program was no longer Google’s “proprietary property,” but “one of [his] coworkers.” He was later fired for releasing the chat transcripts.
The onslaught of AIs, attempting to befriend us, persuade us, anger us, will only intensify over time. A public trained not to take seriously claims of distress or harm on the part of AI computer programs has the least likelihood of being manipulated into outcomes that don’t serve humanity’s interests. It is far easier, as a practical matter, to act on the presupposition that computer programs have no moral status.
Problems with Simulations: Prohibitions
In the near term, more advanced computer simulations of complex social systems hold the potential to predict geopolitical outcomes, make macroeconomic forecasts, and provide richer sources of entertainment. A practical concern with ethical behaviorism is that simulated beings will also acquire moral status, severely limiting the usefulness of these simulations. Chalmers (2022) asks us to consider a moral dilemma in which computing resources must be allocated to save Fred, who is sick with an unknown disease. Freeing the relevant resources to perform the research requires destroying five simulated persons.
An ethical behaviorist might argue that it is morally impermissible to kill the five simulated persons on the grounds that by all outward appearances they behave like non-simulated beings. If it is the case that simulated beings have moral status, then it is immoral to run experimental simulations containing people and we ought to forfeit the benefits and insights that might come from them.
If this seems implausible, consider the hypothesis that we are currently living in a simulation, or, if you like, that our timeline could be simulated on a digital computer. This would imply that the simulation made it possible for the Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the coronavirus pandemic to be played out. While this might have been of academic interest to our simulators, by any standards of research ethics, simulating our history would seem completely morally impermissible if you believed that the simulated beings had moral status.
Ethical behaviorism seems to place us in a moral bind whereby the more realistic, and therefore useful, a simulation is, the less moral it is to run it. Ethical biological naturalism, by contrast, raises no such objection.
Problems with Simulations: Obligations
Giving moral status to digital minds might actually confer upon us some serious obligations to produce other kinds of simulations. Bostrom and Shulman (2020) note that digital minds have an enhanced capacity for utility and pleasure (on the basis of such things as subjective speed and hedonic range), commanding them “superhumanly strong claims to resources and influence.” We would have a moral obligation, in this picture, to devote an overwhelmingly large percentage of our resources to maximizing the utility of these digital minds: “we ought to transfer all resources to super-beneficiaries and let humanity perish if we are no longer instrumentally useful” (ibid.).
So quite apart from permitting realistic ancestor simulations, simulating complex economic phenomena, or producing vivid and realistic gaming experiences, a picture that confers moral status to digital minds might be accompanied with a moral obligation to create lots of digital minds that are maximally happy, again severely limiting human flourishing and knowledge.
Ethical biological naturalism leads us neither to the moral prohibition against realistic simulations nor the seemingly absurd moral imperative to generate many “utility monster” digital minds, because it is taken as a baseline assumption that computer programs do not produce physical consciousness.
Conclusion
Much of the moral progress of the last century has been achieved through repeatedly widening the circle of concern: not only within our species, but beyond it. Naturally it is tempting to view AI-based machines and simulated beings as next in this succession, but I have tried to argue here that this would be a mistake. Our moral progress has in large part been a recognition of what is shared—consciousness, pain, pleasure, and an interest in the goods of life. Digital computers running programs do not share these features; they merely simulate them.
As such it would be dangerous to approach the coming decades, with its onslaught of AI bots attempting to influence our politics, emotions, and desires, and its promise of ever richer simulations and virtual worlds, with an ethics that conflates appearance and reality.
References
Agrawal, Parag. “Tweet.” Twitter. Twitter, May 16, 2022. https://twitter.com/paraga/status/1526237588746403841.
Bostrom, Nick. “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?” Philosophical Quarterly 53 (2003): 243-255.
Bostrom, Nick. Superintelligence : Paths, Dangers, Strategies. First ed. Ebook Central. Oxford, England, 2014.
Bostrom, Nick, and Carl Shulman. “Sharing the World with Digital Minds.” Accessed May 27, 2022. https://nickbostrom.com/papers/digital-minds.pdf.Chalmers, David John. The Conscious Mind : In Search of a Fundamental Theory.
Philosophy of Mind Series. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Chalmers, David John. Reality : Virtual Worlds and the Problem of Philosophy. London, 2022.
Danaher, John. “Welcoming Robots into the Moral Circle: A Defence of Ethical Behaviourism.” Science and Engineering Ethics 26, no. 4 (2019): 2023-049.
Frank, L, and Nyholm, S. “Robot Sex and Consent: Is Consent to Sex between a Robot and a Human Conceivable, Possible, and Desirable?” Artificial Intelligence and
Law 25, no. 3 (2017): 305-23.
Garun, Natt. “One Year Later, Restaurants Are Still Confused by Google Duplex.”
The Verge. The Verge, May 9, 2019. https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/9/18538194/google-duplex-ai-restaurants-experiences-review-robocalls.
Lemoine, Blake. “Tweet.” Twitter. Twitter, June 11, 2022. https://twitter.com/cajundiscordian/status/1535627498628734976.
Musk, Elon. “Tweet.” Twitter. Twitter, May 17, 2022. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1526465624326782976.
Nagel, Thomas. “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” The Philosophical Review 83, no. 4 (1974): 435-50.
Searle, John R., D. C. Dennett, and David John Chalmers. The Mystery of Consciousness. New York: New York Review of Books, 1997.
Searle, John R. “Biological Naturalism.” The Oxford Companion to Philosophy,2005, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 2005-01-01.
Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation. New Edition] / with an Introduction by Yuval Noah Harari. ed. London, 2015.
Sparrow, R. (2004). The turing triage test. Ethics and Information Technology, 6(4), 203–213. doi:10.1007/s10676-004-6491-2.
Tiku, Nitasha. “The Google Engineer Who Thinks the Company’s AI Has Come to Life.” The Washington Post. WP Company, June 17, 2022.
“The Latest Twitter Statistics: Everything You Need to Know – Datareportal – Global
Digital Insights.” DataReportal. Accessed May 27, 2022. https://datareportal.com/essential-twitter-stats.
Weizenbaum, Joseph. Computer Power and Human Reason : From Judgment to Calculation. San Francisco, 1976.
After more than half a century of dependence on Russian oil and gas, the war in Ukraine has forced German officials to reconsider their reliance on fossil fuels entirely.
If American leftists take seriously their commitment to self-rule and loathing of foreign aggression, they should shed their ambivalence about supporting Ukraine.
Enlarge / Photo taken in Florence, Italy (credit: Daniele Ciabatti/EyeEm via Getty)
When Mark Necaise got down to his last four floppy disks at a rodeo in Mississippi in February, he started to worry.
Necaise travels to horse shows around the state, offering custom embroidery on jackets and vests: “All of the winners would get a jacket and we’d put the name of the farm or the name of the horse or whatever on it,” he says.
Five years ago, he paid $18,000 for a second-hand machine, manufactured in 2004 by the Japanese embroidery equipment specialist Tajima. The only way to transfer the designs from his computer to the machine was via floppy disk.
Earlier this week, Windows 10 mistakenly prompted some users to upgrade to Windows 11, despite the fact their computers did not meet the operating system’s minimum requirements. Twitter user PhantomOcean3 was among the first to notice the error after Windows 10 displayed a full-screen notification telling him he could install the software on a system that only had 2GB of RAM.
Windows 11 free upgrade being offered to unsupported Windows 10 devices/VMs?
— PhantomOcean3💙💛 (@PhantomOfEarth) February 23, 2023
Screenshots from a Windows 10 22H2 VM that does not meet the Windows 11 system requirements, big ones being TPM (none) and RAM (2 GB) pic.twitter.com/VNNswgMLiC
“Some hardware ineligible Windows 10 and Windows 11, version 21H2 devices were offered an inaccurate upgrade to Windows 11,” Microsoft states in a support document spotted by The Verge. “These ineligible devices did not meet the minimum requirements to run Windows 11. Devices that experienced this issue were not able to complete the upgrade installation process.” Microsoft adds it resolved the issue the same day it was detected.
As The Verge notes, this isn’t the first time Microsoft has erroneously prompted some Windows 10 users to upgrade to Windows 11. Last year, hundreds of Windows Insider beta testers were able to install the operating system, even though their machines didn’t meet the minimum requirements. The incidents highlight an ongoing frustration with Windows 11. Microsoft requires that a PC feature a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) before you can install its latest OS on your computer. Ever since Microsoft first revealed that requirement, there’s been confusion about what PCs can run Windows 11.
Windows 11 screenshot
Windows 11 start menu
This very stable genius has figured out how to end Russia's invasion of Ukraine. All that needs to happen is for Trump to get on the phone and tell Putin to "knock it off." Problem solved.
— Read the restGood Liars
Trump says he can pick up the phone and end this thing in 24 hours.
One year ago, Russia launched an illegal war on Ukraine, committing horrific war crimes against the people of Ukraine. Analyses and memorials abound, and I’m probably not the only person writing about this on the Duck today.
I wanted to address a specific aspect of this war, though: why Russia’s carefully cultivated ties with far-right forces in Western Europe and the United States failed to undermine Western opposition to the war.
Last year, as Russia was about to launch its invasion of Ukraine, I was finishing a chapter on Russia in my new book. The book, forthcoming with Cornell University Press, explores how states use religious appeals as a tool in power politics (Religious Appeals in Power Politics is the working title).
As Goddard and Nexon discussed in an article on power politics—or the efforts to form or break apart international coalitions—states use more than just military and economic tools. They also turn to cultural and symbolic instruments of power. Appeals to religion—shared faith, shared religiosity—I argue, are one such instrument of power.
One chapter looks at Saudi appeals to Islam to form an anti-Egyptian alliance in the 1960s. Another explores US appeals to “moderate Islam” and religious engagement in the Global War on Terrorism. One includes brief discussions of several other cases, such as China’s Confucius Institutes, the Pope’s mobilization against military intervention in Syria, and the early 2000s border dispute between Cambodia and Thailand.
The chapter that ended up being most relevant to current events, however, is the one on Russia.
Putin has expressed desire to control his “near abroad” connected to Russia as former Soviet states and ethnic Russian ties; this is often referred to as the Russky Mir, or Russian world. As part of this, he fostered ties with far-right groups in the West, presenting Russia as a like-minded power.
Some refers to these efforts as “civilizational,” “sharp power,” “soft power,” or “traditional values” (for my related complaint about the stretching of the term soft power, see my article in International Studies Perspectives).
I prefer to call them what they are: religious appeals (I have a whole other post planned about scholars and policy experts’ allergy to just calling religion religion). For example, in a December 2013 speech, Putin pushed back on Western criticism of Russia’s anti-LGBTQ laws, attacking the West for “treating good and evil equally;” he argued that Russia’s “traditional family values” were “the foundation of Russia’s greatness and a bulwark against ‘so-called tolerance.’”
These religious appeals seemed to have worked. US conservatives see Putin as a defender of “traditional Christian values.” Far-right forces in Europe see Putin as a defender of “true” Western values.
But this hoped-for transnational far-right coalition didn’t fracture the West and give Putin an easy victory in Ukraine. Western European states, which had struggled to unite on many issues, came together to oppose Putin’s victory. Many Orthodox figures criticized Putin.
So what happened?
Some could argue this shows that cultural and symbolic instruments of power (we need a better name for that) like religious appeals ultimately matter less than material concerns. Western Europe is militarily threatened by Russia’s aggression, so even right-leaning figures won’t support Putin.
This is partly true. As I argue in the book, religious appeals’ effects depend on the interaction between the credibility of their wielder and the material incentives facing the target. I based this on Busby’s work on moral movements in foreign policy.
It could also just be bad timing (for Putin). If Putin had invaded Ukraine while Trump was still the U.S. President (or if Trump had won in 2020) the outcome may have been much different. Trump and his allies have been much more antagonistic towards Ukraine, so the US-led aid to Ukraine may not have materialized.
But I’d argue (and expand on this in the book) that it has to do with the nature of religious appeals themselves.
Religion is a powerful force (it’s hard to find a good single article overview, but you could read my summary of research on religion and terrorism). This makes it a useful tool when it mobilizes domestic publics or persuades leaders to change their policies.
But this power also makes it unwieldy and unpredictable.
Religion increases the stakes of any interaction (just think of that old joke about never discussing religion and politics at dinner). Religious arguments are complex, and can easily be reinterpreted to suit conflicting interests or even turned back on their originator. And conventional statecraft tends to be based on secular language, so religious appeals are confusing and produce uncertainty.
In my book, I break slightly with Busby, and argue that the intermediate combinations of material incentives and credibility still matter.
Material incentives to cooperate combined with a lack of credibility on religious appeals (the situation during the US Global War on Terrorism), produce convenient coalitions that can easily fall apart or be redirected against the interests of the originator. Credibility on religious appeals combined with material disincentives to cooperate lead to a tense, unsettled situation in which the appeals roil international relations.
I’d suggest this is what happened with Putin’s religious appeals, and explains their limited effect on the Ukraine war.
First, they still had some effect. As I discussed above, Putin did gain some political benefits from his appeals. And there are lower-level benefits he’s still enjoying. The recent arrest of a German government agent spying for Russia seems to be tied to his right-wing views. It’s likely Putin’s appeals generated sympathy and made it easier to recruit him.
Moreover, Putin’s appeals may have led some to sympathize with Russia, but they increased mistrust of Russia among many others. U.S. Democrats previously supported engagement with Russia, but they have grown increasingly hawkish on such efforts. Moreover, some of the opposition to Putin has drawn on appeals to Western values, suggesting part of the reaction has to do with Putin’s religious appeals.
Putin’s failure to break apart Western opposition to the war on Ukraine prevented the easy victory he hoped for. This failure arguably occurred due to the issues arising from religious appeals in power politics. I’d even argue that if Putin had stuck to conventional geopolitical discussions, Western mistrust would have been more minimal (he may have lost domestic support, but that’s another post).
We shouldn’t relax yet, however.
If it is true that the German spy is tied to right-wing parties, and if he was radicalized through Putin’s religious appeals, this is cause for concern. Even if Putin’s religious appeals never form a durable pro-Russian coalition, they will continue to disrupt and roil Western politics.
Telegram, the messaging app created by Saint Petersburg native Pavel Durov, is said to be private and secure. So why does the Russian government seem to be able to read anything people share on it? At Wired, Darren Loucaides investigates.
Russians needed to consider the possibility that Telegram, the supposedly antiauthoritarian app cofounded by the mercurial Saint Petersburg native Pavel Durov, was now complying with the Kremlin’s legal requests.
Over the past year, numerous dissidents across Russia have found their Telegram accounts seemingly monitored or compromised. Hundreds have had their Telegram activity wielded against them in criminal cases. Perhaps most disturbingly, some activists have found their “secret chats”—Telegram’s purportedly ironclad, end-to-end encrypted feature—behaving strangely, in ways that suggest an unwelcome third party might be eavesdropping.
When Telegram emerged as one of the last remaining oases of information and discussion for Russians, it also became a kind of funnel for Kremlin agents. Agora’s Seleznev believes that Telegram’s API allows investigators to monitor public groups at a large scale and then zero in on potential suspects, who can subsequently be pursued into private channels by undercover agents—or perhaps via a court order to Telegram.
FreshRSS 
