Human beings are fascinating creatures and one of the oldest philosophical debates is over whether people truly have free will or not. For millennia, scientists have debated over whether free will is simply an illusion of the mind and is a concept that doesn’t even exist, or, if our species naturally possess it. Some experts, such as the philosopher Bernardo Kastrup, argue that we do have free will. He defined it as existing “if our choices are determined by that which we experientially identify with”. Kastrup claimed that his “tastes and preferences” are “consciously felt by” him, thus the choices he makes are “determined by these felt tastes and preferences”. Essentially, Kastrup argues, we are able to choose what action to perform and this gives humans a level of free will. On the other hand, neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky from Stanford University believes humans don’t have any free will, after studying the subject for “decades”. In his book Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will, Sapolsky argues that almost all of our behaviour as humans is beyond our own conscious control. He argued: “The world is really screwed up and made much, much more unfair by the fact that we reward people and punish people for things they have no control over. “We’ve got no free will. Stop attributing stuff to us that isn’t there.” Sapolsky believes that behaviour that we believe originates from free will is actually related to your environment, body, upbringing and genes. Speaking on the CultureLab podcast by New Scientist, Sapolsky explained: “In terms of my orientation, my basic approach is you look at a behaviour and someone has just done something that’s wonderful or awful or ambiguously in-between or in the eyes of the beholder, but some behaviour has happened, and you ask, 'Why did that occur?' and you’re asking a whole hierarchy of questions.” He continued explaining that the prompts to our behaviour could include, “which neurons did what, 10 milliseconds before” and may even originate from “this morning’s hormone levels” and the impact this has on your sensitivity levels in the brain. Additionally, behaviour, he argues can determined by prior trauma and even go back to the “childhood and foetal environment” and our individual genes. To summarise, he argued: “If you’re talking about genes, by definition, genes and behaviour, by definition, you’re talking about evolution and you’re talking about neurobiology and genetic variance and neuronal function. “If you’re talking about, you know, early trauma in life, you’re talking about epigenetics and you’re talking about adult propensity. “So, they’re all one continuous seam of influences, and when you look at it that way, there’s not a damn crack anywhere in there to shoehorn in a notion of free will.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

By Maki Shiraki and Makiko Yamazaki TOKYO Kioxia Holdings Corp and Western Digital Corp are speeding up merger

The first game based on the popular dolls and Netflix animated series has arrived.

Google is reportedly planning to “supercharge” its virtual personal assistant software with the inclusion of new generative artificial intelligence features similar to those in chatbots like Bard and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Work on the new version of Google Assistant has begun with the mobile version of the product, Axios first reported, citing an internal e-mail sent to employees. The tech giant is reportedly reorganising its team working on Assistant with an anticipated elimination of “a small number of roles”. However, it remains unclear how many employees in the team will likely be affected by layoffs. “We remain deeply committed to Assistant and we are optimistic about its bright future ahead,” Axios quoted Peeyush Ranjan, the vice president of Google Assistant, and Duke Dukellis, the company’s product director, as saying. Google spokesperson Jennifer Rodstrom told The Verge in a statement that the company is currently exploring ways to use large language models like ChatGPT to “supercharge Assistant and make it even better”. The move comes as Google announced a major update to its own ChatGPT rival Bard last month, which allows the AI chatbot to respond to queries by talking. Bard draws on vast quantities of training data to come up with human-like responses to a wide range of queries. Similar to ChatGPT, Bard has proven capable of producing a range of output, from summarising texts to generating computer code, for creating games or software programmes. The decision to “supercharge” Assistant also comes as the tech giant noted in a report last month that artificial intelligence marks the “most profound” technology shift in our lifetimes with the potential to “turbocharge” the UK economy. Google estimated in the report that the economic boost from AI would be equivalent to an annual growth of 2.6 per cent, creating £200bn in extra revenues for public services and “turning around the recent growth stagnation”. The tech giant’s estimation did not account for the impact of AI on some jobs, however, with many critics expressing fear of the impact that disruptive technology has. For instance, professor Geoffrey Hinton – widely regarded as the “godfather of AI” for his research contributions to the field – resigned from his job at Google, expressing fear that “bad actors” could use new AI technologies to harm others. “It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things... I console myself with the normal excuse: If I hadn’t done it, somebody else would have,” he said. Read More Tired of proving you’re not a robot? Say goodbye to Captcha boxes ChatGPT rival with ‘no ethical boundaries’ sold on dark web Google’s AI chatbot Bard can now talk Geothermal breakthrough uses oil drilling tech to tap renewable energy How to take the perfect picture of tonight's supermoon Twitter takes down giant ‘X’ sign on roof after a week following city investigation

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Gov Ron DeSantis’ campaign has been accused of using fake, AI-generated images of former President Donald Trump hugging ex-White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci in an attack ad. Mr DeSantis and Mr Trump have been trading barbs for weeks about their respective Covid responses, with Mr Trump’s campaign and surrogates arguing that Mr DeSantis’ initial lockdown measures in Florida were too harsh and Mr DeSantis’ campaign arguing that Mr Trump was too acquiescent to medical professionals like Dr Fauci in crafting his administration’s response. Now, in the ad shared by the the “DeSantis War Room” Twitter account, the Florida governor’s campaign is accused of crossing an ethical line. The adveritsement begins with clips of Mr Trump firing people on his reality television show before pivoting to clips of Mr Trump telling reporters that he would not or could not fire Dr Fauci, who was seen as the symbol of a public health response to the crisis some Republicans disagreed with. Towards the end of the ad, the screen shows a split with six images of Mr Trump and Dr Fauci — three of which experts believe were generated by artificial intelligence. AFP first reported the presence of the allegedly fake images. The three images experts believe are fake are located in the top left, bottom centre, and bottom right of the screen. All of them feature Mr Trump and Dr Fauci embracing and cannot be found elsewhere on the internet, a sign that they may be AI-generated. There are other signs as well. The Verge noted that the potentially AI-generated images are glossier and have more blurred textures than the other images and show Mr Trump and Dr Fauci in physically improbable poses. The reproduction of the White House press briefing room in one of the images also looks unrealistic. Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, told the AFP he believed it is “highly likely” that the images are fake. The Independent has reached out to the DeSantis campaign for comment. So far, the DeSantis campaign is not exactly denying those allegations. After The Verge’s story was published, DeSantis aide Christina Pushaw tweeted an image Mr Trump had put out of Mr DeSantis on a rhinoceros and wrote “I think this might be an AI-generated image. Who knows?” Mr Trump has indeed used AI several times in recent months, including posting a deep fake mocking Mr DeSantis’ presidential campaign launch. “No campaign has pushed more misleading deepfakes, false photoshops, and outright fabrications than the Trump campaign,” Matt Wolking, a spokesperson for the DeSantis-aligned Never Back Down PAC, told The Verge. “It is 100% true that Donald Trump empowered and embraced Fauci — he even gave him a presidential commendation.” Read More Ivanka and Jared split over attending Trump 2024 launch – follow live Why was Donald Trump impeached twice during his first term? Four big lies Trump told during his 2024 presidential announcement DeSantis news – latest: Florida governor most popular with rich Republicans as he defends move to fly migrants to California Mike Pence news - live: Ex-VP contradicts himself on Trump charges at CNN town hall launching 2024 campaign Trump news – live: Grand jury indictment looms as Trump protests innocence over classified documents

PewDiePie, a self-proclaimed introvert, turned to video games for comfort as a way to cope with the demands of daily life