Applied Materials Inc., a leading producer of chipmaking equipment, is expanding in India because it believes the country’s

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TL;DR: A wide range of ethical hacking courses are available for free on Udemy. Hacking

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A growing number of media outlets are blocking a webpage-scanning tool used by ChatGPT creator OpenAI to improve...

Most of the members taking part in the working group developing new standards for teaching African American history in Florida reportedly didn’t agree to the parts of the controversial measure which has drawn strong rebukes. Three members of the group have told NBC News that this includes the policy that middle school students should be taught that enslaved people developed “skills” that they were able to use for their “personal benefit”. The members, who chose to remain anonymous, told the network that most of the working group didn’t want the inclusion of language stating that high school students should be taught about violence carried out “by African Americans” during lessons about issues such as the race massacres in Ocoee and Tulsa. “Most of us did not want that language,” one of the members told NBC, noting that two out of the group’s 13 members pushed for the inclusion of those two items. The work group’s standards were unanimously approved by the Florida Board of Education on 19 July. They are now set to be instituted in teaching kindergarten through 12th grade. The standards have been slammed as propaganda and pushing a sanitized version of US history. Critics argue that the standards are attempting to conceal the horrors of slavery, such as rape, murder, and forced labour in an attempt to make it seem like an apprenticeship. “These extremist, so-called leaders should model what we know to be the correct and right approach if we really are invested in the well-being of our children,” Vice President Kamala Harris said last week. “They dare to push propaganda to our children. This is the United States of America. We’re not supposed to do that.” The members of the working group who spoke to NBC News told the network that only two members wanted the inclusion of the controversial language. Those members, William Allen and Frances Presley Rice, said in a joint statement last week that the new standards set guidance for “comprehensive and rigorous instruction on African American history”. “The intent of this particular benchmark clarification is to show that some slaves developed highly specialized trades from which they benefitted,” they said. “This is factual and well documented.” The members said that Dr Allen pushed for including that slaves benefitted from the skills that they learned and that Dr Presley Rice argued for the inclusion of “violence perpetrated against and by African Americans”. “People were very vocal,” one group member said, questioning “how there could be a benefit to slavery”. “However, Dr Allen is focusing on the few slaves who actually did learn something and keeps alluding to Frederick Douglass,” one work group member told NBC. “What he is saying is not accurate for most of the slaves.” The three group members said separately that Dr Allen is “persuasive” and “knowledgeable” and that the working group ended up deferring to him. Two of the members said the issue was tabled to be discussed at a later time and didn’t remember that it ever came up for a vote. One member said the language was “problematic” and that the group “could have done a better job” if given more time. Dr Presley Rice told NBC: “I recommend highly that you get in touch with the communications department at the Department of Education, and all your questions will be answered.” The Independent has reached out to the department for comment. The changes were put in place to satisfy a new law signed by Florida Governor and Republican Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, who has distanced himself from the process of creating the new standards even as he defended them. “You should talk to them about it,” he said about the group last week. “I didn’t do it. I wasn’t involved in it.” “What they’re doing is, they’re probably going to show some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life.” “Any attempt to reduce slaves to just victims of oppression fails to recognize their strength, courage and resiliency during a difficult time in American history,” Dr Allen and Dr Presely Rice said in their statement. “Florida students deserve to learn how slaves took advantage of whatever circumstances they were in to benefit themselves and the community of African descendants,” they added. Dr Presley Rice wrote on 22 July on Facebook that “It saddens me to observe how falsehoods are being perpetuated now by some people with questionable intent, using cherry-picked language, taken out of context, to undermine the fact-based Academic Standards crafted by the Workgroup I was a part of, due to my decades-long quest to have the full, unvarnished history told about African Americans”. Dr Allen previously told NBC that the group “deliberated between February and the end of April to review the curriculum standards and to propose new benchmarks and standards”. “I think we may have had, over the course of the period from February to April, three or four meetings,” he added. Mr DeSantis said last week that the new curriculum “is rooted in whatever is factual”. “They listed everything out,” he added. “And if you have any questions about it, just ask the Department of Education. You can talk about those folks but I mean, these were scholars who put that together. It was not anything that was done politically.” The president of the Florida Education Association, Andrew Spar, told NBC last week that “Right now we are working to bring people together to get these standards changed or overturned”. “We are concerned about the conflict that teachers have — we are required to be honest and ethical in our dealings and we are required to teach the standards. What do we do if the standards are not honest and ethical?” he asked. Read More Historically Black fraternity drops Florida for convention because of DeSantis policies DeSantis car crash revealed misuse of government vehicles for 2024 campaign, report claims Water is refreshing in the heat, right? In parts of Florida this past week, not so much CLIMATE GLIMPSE: Here's what you need to see and know today Historically Black fraternity drops Florida for convention because of DeSantis policies Seven in 10 US adults believe in angels, new poll shows

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OpenAI founder Sam Altman, whose company created the viral AI chatbot ChatGPT, announced on Tuesday that his firm had achieved human-level artificial intelligence, before claiming that he was “just memeing”. In a post to the Reddit forum r/singularity, Mr Altman wrote “AGI has been achieved internally”, referring to artificial general intelligence – AI systems that match or exceed human intelligence. His comment came just hours after OpenAI unveiled a major update for ChatGPT that will allow it to “see, hear and speak” to users by processing audio and visual information. Mr Altman then edited his original post to add: “Obviously this is just memeing, y’all have no chill, when AGI is achieved it will not be announced with a Reddit comment.” The r/singularity Reddit forum is dedicated to speculation surrounding the technological singularity, whereby computer intelligence surpasses human intelligence and AI development becomes uncontrollable and irreversible. Oxford University philosopher Nick Bostrom wrote about the hypothetical scenario in his seminal book Superintelligence, in which he outlined the existential risks posed by advanced artificial intelligence. One of Professor Bostrom’s thought experiments involves an out-of-control AGI that destroys humanity despite being designed to pursue seemingly harmless goals. Known as the Paperclip Maximiser, the experiment describes an AI whose only goal is to make as many paperclips as possible. “The AI will realise quickly that it would be much better if there were no humans because humans might decide to switch it off,” Professor Bostrom wrote. “Also, human bodies contain a lot of atoms that could be made into paper clips. The future that the AI would be trying to gear towards would be one in which there were a lot of paper clips but no humans.” Following Mr Altman’s Reddit post, OpenAI researcher Will Depue posted an AI-generated image to X/Twitter with the caption, “Breaking news: OpenAI offices seen overflowing with paperclips!”. OpenAI is one of several firms pursuing AGI, which if deployed in a way that aligns with human interests has the potential to fundamentally change the world in ways that are difficult to predict. In a blog post earlier this year, Mr Altman outlined his vision for an AGI that “benefits all of humanity”, while also warning that mitigating risks poses a major challenge. “If AGI is successfully created, this technology could help us elevate humanity by increasing abundance, turbocharging the global economy, and aiding in the discovery of new scientific knowledge that changes the limits of possibility,” he wrote. On the other hand, AGI would also come with serious risk of misuse, drastic accidents, and societal disruption. Because the upside of AGI is so great, we do not believe it is possible or desirable for society to stop its development forever; instead, society and the developers of AGI have to figure out how to get it right.” Read More ChatGPT AI is about to be eclipsed by ‘interactive AI’, DeepMind founder says Iranian officials mulling over use of AI to issue fatwas Spotify clarifies position on whether it will ban AI-powered music ChatGPT now has power to ‘see, hear, and speak’

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