Global life expectancy to increase by nearly 5 years by 2050 despite geopolitical, metabolic, and environmental threats, reports new global study

INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH METRICS AND EVALUATION

Global Burden of Disease 

The latest findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) 2021, published today in The Lancet, forecast that global life expectancy will increase by 4.9 years in males and 4.2 years in females between 2022 and 2050.

Increases are expected to be largest in countries where life expectancy is lower, contributing to a convergence of increased life expectancy across geographies. The trend is largely driven by public health measures that have prevented and improved survival rates from cardiovascular diseases, COVID-19, and a range of communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional diseases (CMNNs).

This study indicates that the ongoing shift in disease burden to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) – like cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and diabetes – and exposure to NCD-associated risk factors – such as obesity, high blood pressure, non-optimal diet, and smoking – will have the greatest impact on disease burden of the next generation.

As the disease burden continues to shift from CMNNs to NCDs and from years of life lost (YLLs) to years lived with disability (YLDs), more people are expected to live longer, but with more years spent in poor health. Global life expectancy is forecasted to increase from 73.6 years of age in 2022 to 78.1 years of age in 2050 (a 4.5-year increase). Global healthy life expectancy (HALE) – the average number of years a person can expect to live in good health – will increase from 64.8 years in 2022 to 67.4 years in 2050 (a 2.6-year increase).

To come to these conclusions, the study forecasts cause-specific mortality; YLLs; YLDs; disability-adjusted life years (DALYs, or lost years of healthy life due to poor health and early death); life expectancy; and HALE from 2022 through 2050 for 204 countries and territories.

“In addition to an increase in life expectancy overall, we have found that the disparity in life expectancy across geographies will lessen,” said Dr. Chris Murray, Chair of Health Metrics Sciences at the University of Washington and Director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). “This is an indicator that while health inequalities between the highest- and lowest-income regions will remain, the gaps are shrinking, with the biggest increases anticipated in sub-Saharan Africa.”

Dr. Murray added that the biggest opportunity to speed up reductions in the global disease burden is through policy interventions aimed to prevent and mitigate behavioral and metabolic risk factors.

These findings build upon the results of the GBD 2021 risk factors study, also released today in The Lancet. This accompanying study found that the total number of years lost due to poor health and early death (measured in DALYs) attributable to metabolic risk factors has increased by 50% since 2000. Read more on the risk factors report at https://bit.ly/GBDRisks2021.

The study also puts forth various alternative scenarios to compare the potential health outcomes if different public health interventions could eliminate exposure to several key risk factor groups by 2050.

“We forecast large differences in global DALY burden between different alternative scenarios to see what is the most impactful on our overall life expectancy data and DALY forecasts,” said Dr. Stein Emil Vollset, first author of the study who leads the GBD Collaborating Unit at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. “Globally, the forecasted effects are strongest for the ‘Improved Behavioral and Metabolic Risks’ scenario, with a 13.3% reduction in disease burden (number of DALYs) in 2050 compared with the ‘Reference’ (most likely) scenario.”

The authors also ran two more scenarios: one focused on safer environments and another on improved childhood nutrition and vaccination.

“Though the largest effects in global DALY burden were seen from the 'Improved Behavioral and Metabolic Risk’ scenario, we also forecasted reductions in disease burden from the ‘Safer Environment’ and ‘Improved Childhood Nutrition and Vaccination’ scenarios beyond our reference forecast, said Amanda E. Smith, Assistant Director of Forecasting at IHME. “This demonstrates the need for continued progress and resources in these areas and the potential to accelerate progress through 2050.”

“There is immense opportunity ahead for us to influence the future of global health by getting ahead of these rising metabolic and dietary risk factors, particularly those related to behavioral and lifestyle factors like high blood sugar, high body mass index, and high blood pressure,” continued Dr. Murray.

Notes to editors

For interview requests, journalists may contact ihmemedia@uw.edu. For full study results, including the paper and related tables, finalized PDFs are available at https://bit.ly/GBD2021Forecast, embargoed until 23:30 UK, 6:30 p.m. EDT on May 16, 2024. The post-embargo link for the paper is https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)00685-8/fulltext. An infographic summarizing the study’s findings can be found at https://bit.ly/4byxttL. Data tables containing estimates from the study are available at https://ghdx.healthdata.org/record/ihme-data/global-life-expectancy-all-cause-mortality-and-cause-specific-mortality-forecasts-2022-2050.

About the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is an independent research organization at the University of Washington (UW). Its mission is to deliver to the world timely, relevant, and scientifically valid evidence to improve health policy and practice. IHME carries out its mission through a range of projects within different research areas including the Global Burden of Diseases (GBD), Injuries, and Risk Factors; Future Health Scenarios; Cost Effectiveness and Efficiency; Resource Tracking; and Impact Evaluations.

IHME is committed to providing the evidence base necessary to help solve the world’s most important health problems. This requires creativity and innovation, which are cultivated by an inclusive, diverse, and equitable environment that respects and appreciates differences, embraces collaboration, and invites the voices of all IHME team members.

About the Global Burden of Disease Study

The Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) is the largest and most comprehensive effort to quantify health loss across places and over time. It draws on the work of more than 11,000 collaborators across more than 160 countries and territories. GBD 2021 – the newly published most recent round of GBD results – includes more than 607 billion estimates of 371 diseases and injuries and 88 risk factors in 204 countries and territories. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation coordinates the study.

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JOURNAL

The Lancet

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

16-May-2024

 

Otters, especially females, use tools to survive a changing world

A study of sea otters found tool use allows access to larger prey, reduces tooth damage

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

 

IMAGE: 

A SOUTHERN SEA OTTER PREYS ON A MARINE ANIMAL. 

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CREDIT: CHRIS LAW

Sea otters are one of the few animals that use tools to access their food, and a new study has found that individual sea otters that use tools — most of whom are female — are able to eat larger prey and reduce tooth damage when their preferred prey becomes depleted.

The study researchers and their enlisted volunteer “otter spotters” followed 196 radio-tagged southern sea otters off the coast of California to better understand how the threatened species uses tools in a rapidly changing environment. The research team from The University of Texas at Austin, University of California, Santa Cruz, Monterey Bay Aquarium and elsewhere monitored how the marine mammals used tools — such as rocks, shells and trash — to break open prey and identified links to the animals’ dietary patterns and dental health.

For the first time, researchers found that the use of tools among male and female otters led to a reduction in tooth injuries.

“Sea otters vary in how often they use tools,” said Chris Law, a postdoctoral researcher and an Early Career Provost Fellow at UT Austin who led the study while a graduate student at UC Santa Cruz. “The females are likely using tools to overcome their smaller body size and weaker biting ability in order to meet their calorie demands. Raising pups takes a lot of energy, and the females need to be efficient in their foraging. The study shows that tool use is an important behavior for survival.”

The study is published in Science.

In the southern sea otter’s range of coastal Central California, some of the preferred prey such as large abalone and sea urchins, are not difficult to break open. However, these food resources dwindle or disappeare in many areas. This leads otters to prey more often on crabs, clams, mussels and small marine snails whose hard shells can damage the otter’s teeth in the process of prying them open.

Tooth condition is important for survival because when an otter’s teeth become too worn or damaged, they could starve. Using tools helped individual otters to meet their calorie needs by branching out into different types of prey. The study found female otters had less tooth damage than male otters did.

Research shows that female otters are more likely to use tools, and in the study, those that did were able to access harder or larger prey than otters that did not use tools. In fact, females were able to consume prey that were up to 35% harder compared with that of males that used tools.

Female dolphins, chimps and bonobos are also known to use tools more than their male counterparts, probably for the same reasons. In these species, females tend to raise offspring, and they are often the ones that pass down tool-use behavior to offspring. 

Listed as a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, southern sea otters number only about 3,000 in California, where they play a critical role in marine ecosystems preying on sea urchins that feed on kelp forests.

Rita Mehta and Tim Tinker of the University of California, Santa Cruz; Jessica Fujii, Teri Nicholson and Michelle Staedler with the Monterey Bay Aquarium; Joseph Tomoleoni of the U.S. Geological Survey; and Colleen Young of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife were also authors on the paper. Chris Law was previously a postdoctoral scholar with University of Washington.

The research was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, Packard Foundation, Coastal Conservancy, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Pacific Gas & Electric and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

Otter uses rock anvil [VIDEO] |

A southern sea otter uses a rock anvil to break open shells of prey. 

CREDIT

Monterey Bay Aquarium

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JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.adj6608 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Tool use increases mechanical foraging success and tooth health in southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis)

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

17-May-2024

 

Ancient arachnid from coal forests of America stands out for its spiny legs

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

 

IMAGE: 

FOSSILIZED DOUGLASSARACHNE ACANTHOPODA, NOTED FOR ITS UP-ARMORED SPINY LEGS, MIGHT HAVE RESEMBLANCE TO MODERN HARVESTMEN SPIDERS, BUT WITH A MORE EXPERIMENTAL BODY PLAN.

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CREDIT: PAUL SELDEN

LAWRENCE — More than 300 million years ago, all sorts of arachnids crawled around the Carboniferous coal forests of North America and Europe. These included familiar ones we’d recognize, such as spiders, harvestmen and scorpions — as well exotic animals that now occur in warmer regions like whip spiders and whip scorpions.

But there were also quite bizarre arachnids in these habitats belonging to now extinct groups. Even among these stranger species now lost to time, one might have stood out for its up-armored legs.

The ancient critter recently was described in a new paper published in the Journal of Paleontology, co-written by Paul Selden from the University of Kansas and the Natural History Museum of London and Jason Dunlop from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin.

“Douglassarachne acanthopoda comes from the famous Mazon Creek locality in Illinois and is about 308 million years old,” said lead author Selden. “This compact arachnid had a body length of about 1.5 centimeters and is characterized by its remarkably robust and spiny legs — such that it is quite unlike any other arachnid known, living or extinct.”

The KU researcher said Carboniferous Coal Measures are an important source of information for fossil arachnids, representing the first time in Earth’s history when most living groups of arachnids occurred together. Yet, the fauna was still quite different to today.

“Spiders were a rather rare group, only known at that time from primitive lineages, and they shared these ecosystems with various arachnids which have long since died out,” said co-author Dunlop. “Douglassarachne acanthopoda is a particularly impressive example of one of these extinct forms. The fossil’s very spiny legs are reminiscent of some modern harvestmen, but its body plan is quite different from a harvestman or any other known arachnid group.”

This led the two scientists to conclude it doesn’t belong in any of the known arachnid orders.

“Unfortunately, details such as the mouth parts cannot be seen, which makes it difficult to say exactly which group of arachnids are its closest relatives, Selden said. "It could belong to a wider group, which includes spiders, whip spiders and whip scorpions. Whatever its evolutionary affinities, these spiny arachnids appear to come from a time when arachnids were experimenting with a range of different body plans. Some of these later became extinct, perhaps during the so-called ‘Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse,’ a time shortly after the age of Mazon Creek when the coal forests began to fragment and die off. Or perhaps these strange arachnids clung on until the end Permian mass extinction?”

According to the team, Mazon Creek fossil locality is one of the most important windows into life in the late Carboniferous, producing a wide range of fascinating plants and animals. The present fossil was discovered in a clay-ironstone concretion in the 1980s by Bob Masek and later acquired by the David and Sandra Douglass Collection and displayed in their Prehistoric Life Museum.

“The genus name Douglassarachne acknowledges the Douglass family, who kindly donated the specimen to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago for scientific study once it became apparent that it represented an undescribed species,” Dunlop said. “Then, acanthopoda refers to the unique and characteristic spiny legs of the animal.”

Reconstruction of the 308-million-year-old arachnid Douglassarachne acanthopoda from the famous Mazon Creek locality. 

CREDIT

Paul Selden et al

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JOURNAL

Journal of Paleontology

DOI

10.1017/jpa.2024.13 

UK

Ineos drives towards hydrogen car future


AFP
May 18, 2024


An Ineos hydrogen-fuelled Grenadier car is driven on a test track during a 'Roadmap to Decarbonisation' event - Copyright AFP Adrian DENNIS

Ben PERRY

At a sprawling vehicle test centre in the English countryside, a hydrogen-powered Grenadier 4×4 made by Ineos Automotive grips steep and rugged tracks, showcasing its off-road capabilities.

Making the demonstrator car was “a really obvious thing” to do, the company’s chief executive Lynn Calder told journalists at the unveiling this week.

The young, fast-expanding company is part of petrochemicals giant and hydrogen producer Ineos, run by British billionaire and Manchester United stakeholder Jim Ratcliffe.

“When we embarked upon the demonstrator project, we saw the opportunity to showcase… that we have a completely uncompromised Grenadier in net zero form,” she said at the event called “Road to Decarbonisation”.


– ‘Not this decade’ –


Calder cautioned it would be some time before the car was available to buy amid a limited offering of other hydrogen-powered vehicles that are helping drive a path towards net zero carbon emissions.

Ineos cites the high cost of extracting the Earth’s most abundant element and a lack of hydrogen refuelling stations, especially in the UK, as obstacles to the development of cars deemed greener than popular electric vehicles (EVs).

Is the car “for tomorrow? No because there isn’t infrastructure there”, Calder said.

“We will keep it warm, we’ll continue to talk about it, we will see it as part of the future but it doesn’t feel like it’s this decade,” she added.

Calder spoke from the UTAC vehicle test centre in Millbrook, a village north of London, where the hydrogen-powered vehicle quietly navigated dusty sharp bends and other obstacles.

Hydrogen cars work thanks to the cleanest form of the gas combining with oxygen in a fuel cell to generate electricity. The only waste emitted is water vapour.

Hydrogen-powered buses, cars, trucks and vans are all on the market, made by a small number of companies including Hyundai, Renault, Toyota and Vauxhall.

With governments pressuring the auto sector to go green, Ineos Automotive plans to launch an electric 4×4 in 2027, the Fusilier, to be sold alongside current diesel and petrol versions of the Grenadier.

Speaking against the din of sports cars speeding in the distance, Calder hit out at the UK government’s goal of banning the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035.


– ‘Pipe dream plan’ –


“I don’t think it works, I don’t think it’s achievable, I think we will fail,” she predicted, even after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pushed back the original 2030 date.

The Scottish CEO called it a “pipe dream plan with no strategy around it, no idea how we’re going to get there”.

Responding, the Department for Transport said a number of incentives were on offer to enable the transition away from polluting vehicles.

It added that demand for EVs was “high”, even if recent data shows evidence of slowing sales in the UK and abroad.

Regarding infrastructure, “there are over 61,000 public chargepoints across the UK — an increase of 44 percent since this time last year”, a department spokesperson told AFP.

According to consultants LBST, only 921 hydrogen refuelling stations were in operation worldwide at the end of last year.

China was out in front with around 200 stations, or about double the amount in European leader Germany.

The UK currently has just six, even if hydrogen vehicles can offer a longer journey range and are faster at refuelling than electric rivals.


– Election impact –


The country’s road to net zero is clouded somewhat by the outcome of this year’s general election.

Polls widely suggest that Sunak’s Conservatives will lose power to the main opposition Labour Party.

Labour’s plans for emissions targets have been called into question after leader Keir Starmer ditched its flagship commitment to spend £28 billion ($35.5 billion) a year on green infrastructure if in power.

Greenpeace UK’s senior transport campaigner, Paul Morozzo, called on the next government to reinstate the 2030 ban and increase tax on polluting vehicles.

He added that it must “get on with delivering a proper network of EV charging points all across the country and get the transition to EVs back on the road”.

As for hydrogen, with so little infrastructure, the fuel “isn’t viable or desirable for mass transit” at the current time, he told AFP.

Mud bricks to smart concrete: Where are building materials headed next?


Dr. Tim Sandle
May 17, 2024


Barbican in London, a concrete paradise. — Image by © Tim Sandle

Concrete is the second-most consumed material in the world – second only to water. This reflects modern humanity’s focus on building and essential to most aspects of building is concrete.

Building material experts at Instarmac have been looking into the most important building materials used throughout history. They have provided the output to Digital Journal and we present the highlights below.

7500 BCE: Mud bricks

The oldest bricks discovered to date can be found at Tell Aswad in Syria, and date back to around 7500 B.C. These bricks were shaped with clay or mud and left to dry in the baking sun, allowing them to become sturdy enough to use in the creation of dwellings.

7000 BCE: Concrete

While concrete might appear to be a newer phenomenon, the earliest concrete structures can be traced back thousands of years. Early concrete, made by mixing quick lime with water and stone and leaving it to set, was found in a hut in Israel that dated back to 7000BC.

3700 BCE:: Knap of Howar

The oldest house found in the U.K. is thought to be the Knap of Howar, on the island of Papa Westray in Orkney, Scotland. This home was built with local stone, as are some of the other earliest dwellings from across the country. This indicates that the UK’s earliest homes were most likely built with the sturdiest materials their occupants could obtain.

43 CE: Concrete arrives in the UK

The Roman invasion of the UK in 43 CE heralded the arrival of plenty of new infrastructural advances, from roads to walls for homes and cities. The Romans brought concrete that was far more advanced than anything previously available in Britain and developed building techniques that would create a smooth finish, while protecting the building’s concrete core.

1200 – 1500 CE: Stone foundations or wattle and daub

Without Roman concrete for housebuilding, homes took somewhat of a step back. Early medieval city dwellers used a combination of stone, chalk and flint to build their homes and created thatched roofing with dry vegetation, such as straw or reeds.

Under Elizabeth I, timber frames known as wattle were primarily used for home construction. These would be filled in with daub, a mixture of wet sand, clay, dung and straw. This construction method was also adopted by the Tudors and provides the foundation for many of the Tudor houses remaining today.

1824 CE: Portland Cement

In the 18th century engineers took up a renewed interest in concrete, trialling new compounds to increase stability and durability for the demands of the modern world. In 1824, bricklayer Joseph Aspdin patented Portland Cement, the ingredient that would eventually constitute the base ingredient of today’s modern concrete.

Today: Smart concrete

Smart concrete is an umbrella term which covers a number of different forms of concrete, each of which have their own associated benefits. Self-healing concrete, made with mineral additions or superabsorbent polymers to encourage autogenous repairs, falls into this bracket.

Other forms of smart concrete might include self-sensing concrete, also known as self-monitoring concrete, which can sense the stress, strain and damage within itself.

The future

Innovations do not stop. NASA researchers have been working on waterless concrete for 3D printing on the moon. In addition, NASA scientists, in collaboration with Louisiana State University, are working to develop feasible robotic construction technology that could support life on the moon.

OpenAI team devoted to future risks left leaderless

SOUNDS LIKE ANARCHY TO ME


AFP
May 18, 2024

OpenAI's ChatGPT is coming under greater regulatory scrutiny - Copyright AFP Fabrice COFFRINI

An OpenAI team devoted to mitigating the long-term dangers of super-smart computers was leaderless on Friday after two high-profile figures left the company.

OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever and “superalignment” team co-leader Jan Leike announced their departures from the ChatGPT-maker this week, and US media reported that remaining members of the group have either left or been reassigned to other parts of the San Francisco-based company.

The apparent dismantling of an OpenAI team focused on keeping sophisticated artificial intelligence under control comes as such technology comes under increased scrutiny from regulators and fears mount regarding its dangers.

“OpenAI must become a safety-first AGI (artificial general intelligence) company,” Leike wrote Friday in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

Leike called on all OpenAI employees to “act with the gravitas” warranted by what they are building.


OpenAI CEO Sam Altman promises to share more in the days ahead about what the ChatGPT maker is doing to keep its artificial intelligence technology safe – Copyright AFP/File Fabrice COFFRINI

OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman responded to Leike’s post with one of his own, thanking him for his work at the company and saying he was sad to see Leike leave.

“He’s right we have a lot more to do,” Altman said. “We are committed to doing it.”

Altman promised more on the topic in the coming days.

Sutskever said on X that he was leaving after almost a decade at OpenAI, whose “trajectory has been nothing short of miraculous.”

“I’m confident that OpenAI will build AGI that is both safe and beneficial,” he added, referring to computer technology that seeks to perform as well as — or better than — human cognition.

Sutskever, OpenAI’s chief scientist, sat on the board that voted to remove fellow chief executive Altman in November last year.

The ousting threw the San Francisco-based startup into a tumult, with the OpenAI board hiring Altman back a few days later after staff and investors rebelled.

OpenAI early this week released a higher-performing and even more human-like version of the artificial intelligence technology that underpins ChatGPT, making it free to all users.

“It feels like AI from the movies,” Altman said in a blog post.

Altman has previously pointed to the Scarlett Johansson character in the movie “Her,” where she voices an AI-based virtual assistant dating a man, as an inspiration for where he would like AI interactions to go.

The day will come when “digital brains will become as good and even better than our own,” Sutskever said during a talk at a TED AI summit in San Francisco late last year.

“AGI will have a dramatic impact on every area of life.”

Public-private partnership harnesses AI to improve nuclear efficiency

Dr. Tim Sandle
May 16, 2024

A new energy bill sets targets for renewing France's park of nuclear energy plants but not expanding wind or solar power production - Copyright AFP Daniel ROLAND

Plans are afoot to build an open-source nuclear AI infrastructure that researchers will be able to freely use and build upon to advance nuclear innovation.

The company Atomic Canyon is to partner with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), home of the Frontier supercomputer. The new AI project will harness the power that the supercomputer possesses.

The technology will be trained on millions of publicly available documents from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Agency-wide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS).

This process will utilize sentence-embedding models, algorithms designed to convert written sentences into numerical representations. This will enable the AI to grasp nuclear terminology and accurately discern information and help to solve nuclear challenges.

Improving the way that nuclear challenges are solved has become increasingly important, as climate change and soaring energy demands underscore the need for a transition to more abundant, clean energy sources.

The deeper understanding also makes the AI more effective and helps prevent AI “hallucinations” and biases during search and data analysis.

South Africa’s Koeberg nuclear power station in Melkbosstrand, near Cape Town, uses sea water, unavailable inland, as a coolant. — © AFP RODGER BOSCH

Frontier is the world’s fastest and the first to achieve “exascale” computing performance (a quintillion calculations per second).

The first phase of the project is named Neutron. This has the aim of simplifying pages of documentation, enhancing Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) data access and unlocking workflow efficiency.

Atomic Canyon’s AI application is designed for use in and by nuclear power plants, manufacturers of next-generation reactors and government and national laboratories.

Commenting on the partnership, ORNL’s Thomas M. Evans states: “Open-source AI search, trained using the lab’s Frontier supercomputer, will play an essential role in the research, engineering, and development of nuclear energy and the nuclear sector, now and into the future.”

Evans adds: “This is crucial to advance nuclear innovation and move toward a future powered by sustainable energy.”

Reddit gives OpenAI access to its wealth of posts


AFP
May 17, 2024


Along with accessing 'subreddit' posts in real time, OpenAI will provide artificial intelligence powered features at Reddit under the terms of a new partnership. — © AFP ROBERTO SCHMIDT

OpenAI will have access to Reddit data for training its artificial intelligence models and will put its technology to work at the popular discussion platform, the companies said Thursday.

Reddit, which debuted on the New York Stock Exchange earlier this year, has been seeking to capitalize on the value of exchanges in its varied discussion groups as it seeks to improve revenues.

Financial details of the partnership between the San Francisco-based tech firms were not disclosed. Reddit relies on advertising for revenue.

“Reddit has become one of the internet’s largest open archives of authentic, relevant, and always up to date human conversations about anything and everything,” Reddit chief executive Steve Huffman said in a joint release.

“Including it in ChatGPT upholds our belief in a connected internet, helps people find more of what they’re looking for, and helps new audiences find community on Reddit.”

OpenAI will access Reddit data in real-time, enhancing such content in ChatGPT and powering tools at the social media platform, the companies said.

Reddit suffered a major outage in December as the site’s communities protested against new fees being charged to provide access to developers.

The row was fallout in the recent artificial intelligence revolution, with Huffman unwilling to allow companies that build AI chatbots like ChatGPT to have free access to the site to perfect their large-language models.

“Reddit needs to be a self-sustaining business, and to do that, we can no longer subsidize commercial entities that require large-scale data use,” Huffman wrote in a Reddit post at the time.

Reddit is essentially run through thousands of “subreddits” — forums on a dizzying array of topics moderated by their creators.

The biggest subreddits have tens of millions of subscribers, including r/funny, r/games and r/music.

Some habits on Reddit became social media standards, including AMAs, or Ask Me Anything sessions where users can ask an interviewee anything during a certain window of time.

OpenAI noted in the release that chief executive Sam Altman is a shareholder in Reddit.

Here’s how the science of inner experience could transform gaming

The Conversation
May 17, 2024 

Gamer- shutterstock

Video games are big business. The value of the global market is pushing the US$200 billion mark (£158 billion): bigger than the music industry and Hollywood combined. But the gaming industry has also been facing challenges. The market is shrinking from its peak at the height of the pandemic, and there has been a rash of layoffs and studio closures.

In this uncertain environment, game developers are, more than ever, looking to create experiences that stay with their players. A great deal of effort goes into visual elements, including the appearance and overt behaviour of characters, for example. But at the level of subjective experience, the inner worlds of gaming characters are not so often explored.

This is where the science comes in. My research over the last 30 years has been about inner experience: the things in our minds that we are conscious of, such as thoughts, memories, inner dialogue, visual imagery, feelings and emotions. Traditionally considered impossible to study because of its private nature, inner experience is becoming established as an important field of cognitive science. And it has the potential to transform gaming.

In so many ways, video games just keep getting better and better. With the shift toward mobile gaming, the question for studios has become less about how to persuade people to buy this product (they may be downloading it for free) but to keep coming back to it.

Graphics are becoming ever more vivid and lifelike. What studios are doing with audio design is stunning. The player feels they are actually there in that medieval village or that rainforest or on that spaceship travelling between galaxies. And yet a common criticism of many games is – still – that they are just like watching a film.

That’s a puzzle, because of how gaming, more than other media, creates so much potential for a truly interactive experience. You are not just watching that ship sailing across the galaxy; you are captaining it. You can choose your body shape and physical skills, and see them depicted there on the screen in astonishingly lifelike detail. But these qualities are mostly on the surface, at the level of appearance and overt behaviour.

How could gaming go deeper into inner experience? Here’s one example. Many people report having a silent, internal conversation with themselves for much of the time. Our research has shown that inner speech comes in several different forms and has varied functions in thinking, planning and emotion regulation. But when inner speech is depicted in video games, it tends to lack the qualities and variety that make the experience so different between people.


All minds are different. Lewis Tse/Shutterstock

Another example is the kind of memory we have for the events of our own lives. Autobiographical memory can take different perspectives, vary in vividness and show a range of multisensory qualities. Memory does not work like a video camera, but instead brings together sights, sounds, smells and other kinds of information in a dynamic, endlessly shifting way. We are even beginning to understand how these different qualities of memory are realised in the brain.

Opening the black box

Making a game is fundamentally about creating an experience – seeding an experience in the mind of its player.

When we do get to share a game character’s inner experience, it tends to lack the variety and nuance that the science tells us is there: the different qualities of inner speech, the various features of memory and visual imagination. The inside of a game character’s mind is often a black box.

There are of course exceptions to this rule. In Disco Elysium, for example, you can play with the main character’s thoughts and mental attributes in an unusual way. This text-based game was, however, limited in what it could do to depict the subjective qualities of inner experience – the colourful pageant of the everyday mind.

To give an example of a game I consulted on, Hellblade is the multi-award-winning story of an eighth-century Pictish warrior, Senua, whose inner experience is distinctive in that she hears voices and has other unusual perceptions and beliefs. In the first game, Senua’s Sacrifice, and in its just-about-to-be-released sequel, Senua’s Saga, Senua experiences psychosis, and you as player share these experiences with her.

I think the gaming industry can only benefit from understanding inner experience better. What I hope we’ll see is a more fluid, realistic, immersive gaming experience where the inner worlds of gaming characters live and breathe as much as their actions in the game world.

As well as having the potential to create new, interesting and memorable takes on the gaming experience, this work has real-world implications for accessibility, mental health, neurodiversity and sensory inclusion.

In fact, our starting point is that there is no such thing as a “normal” mind – we are all different, and our own minds differ from moment to moment. Rather than just taking your own mind into the gaming experience, gaming provides an exhilarating opportunity to experience a different kind of mind while you are there.

Gaming has incredible potential to work for good. Most of all, it’s not about some worthy educational ideal. Games are – and should be – about having fun. Beyond opening up creative possibilities for game developers and players, I believe that knowing more about our own inner experience can be helpful, restorative, even therapeutic. Gaming is a powerful way to push that ideal forward.

Charles Fernyhough, Professor of Psychology, Durham University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Mindsets matter: Key factors driving Gen Z beliefs and behaviours

Dr. Tim Sandle
May 18, 2024

DIGITAL JOURNAL


Students at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology use virtual reality headsets in class - Copyright AFP Peter PARKS

As Gen Z belief systems and behaviours are a driving force not only in shaping culture, but economies at the global level. This is part of the analysis from Cheyenne Hunt, J.D., who believes it is essential to advance a cross-generational understanding of the driving forces behind the post-millennial culture.

Hunt adds that it is imperative to understand commonalities in order to discern opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.

Her top ten in relation to this are:

Consumerism and Motivation to Succeed

According to Hunt: “Many Gen Z prioritize their career and financial goals over immediate gratification in their personal lives. They are more materialistic and motivated to succeed than previous generations, with an overall goal achieving financial security and an upper middle-class lifestyle that now is seemingly out of reach for many as wages remain stagnant over time. According to a survey by Bank of America, 45 percent of GenZ respondents said that material goods major priority for them, compared to only 34% of millennials.”

Slow Living

In terms of pace, Hunt finds: “GenZ values a slower pace of life and is more focused on living in the present moment. According to a study, 67 percent of GenZ is moderately to extremely worried about their physical and mental health, making health a high priority for this generation. They also distinguish between “quiet quitting,” which many in the generation believe is simply giving only as much into their job as their job compensates them for vs Slow Living, which involves setting healthy boundaries between work and personal life.”

Emphasis on Multiple Income Streams

Adopting a different work model is a characteristic, notes hunt: “GenZ is more likely to have multiple streams of income, such as a part-time job, freelancing, or a side hustle. They understand the importance of diversifying their income sources to mitigate financial risk, and also see additional streams of income as a necessity in an economy of stagnant wages. A survey by Lending Tree found that 62 percent of GenZ respondents have a side hustle as compared to 55 percent of millennials.”

Budgeting and Understanding Credit

With financial planning, Hunt reveals: “GenZ is known for their budgeting skills and understanding of credit. After watching their parents face the consequences of the 2008 financial crisis, they tend to be more financially savvy and responsible than previous generations. According to Finder’s Consumer Confidence Index Gen Z saves an average of $857 a month while Millennials save $294.”

Trade School and Specialization

In terms of a calculated response to the economy, Hunt indicates: “GenZ values practical skills and specialized knowledge. They are more willing to pursue trade schools or specialized degrees that offer a clear career path and high earning potential. They also tend to be more cost-conscious and are willing to weigh the cost-benefit of higher education given the skyrocketing cost of higher education and the known risks of student debt. NPR reports that, while enrollment in community colleges in down, trade schools have seen enrollment numbers increase in recent years.”

Technological Proficiency

Hunt says: “GenZ is the first generation to grow up fully immersed in technology. They are more comfortable with technology and are more likely to pursue careers in the tech industry. They are also more efficient in their work. A report by Under Cover Recruiter references Gen Z as “skilled when it comes to technology savants, online work and innovation.”

Retirement

GenZ is less concerned with retirement than previous generations, considers Hunt. “They tend to prioritize their current financial and career goals over planning for their retirement. A survey by antyimesestimate.com found that GenZ makes up the largest group of Americans (44 percent) not saving for retirement.”

Employer Loyalty

With work relationships, Hunt discovers: “GenZ values loyalty from their employers. They understand that loyalty is not inherent and must be earned through mutual respect and appreciation. They also prioritize feeling appreciated and acknowledged in their work over staying with a company long-term. A survey by PromoLeaf found that Gen Z respondents want to spend an average of 3.7 years on a job.”

Parental Trust

With familial relationships, Hunt unveils: “GenZ is more trusting of their parents than millennials when it comes to financial advice. A survey found that 70 percent of GenZ respondents said they usually or always trust their parents to give them good financial advice, compared to only 60% of millennials. This trust in their parents can be attributed to the fact that GenZ has grown up during a time of economic uncertainty and has seen their parents navigate through financial challenges. They see their parents as a reliable source of financial guidance and advice. This may be a reflection of increased transparency and engagement Gen X parents offered their children in comparison to previous parental generations.”

Home Ownership

On the subject of property, Hunt concludes: “GenZ does not see home ownership as a priority, or even an attainable goal, as previous generations did. According to a recent article by Levi Leidy while Millennials lag behind Gen X, Baby Boomers, and Silent Generation in homeownership at age 40, the trend is expected to continue with Gen Z and they are aware of it. The high cost of housing and student loan debt are among the reasons that make it difficult for GenZ to afford a home. Additionally, many GenZ have seen their parents struggle with mortgages and foreclosures during the 2008 financial crisis, which has made them more cautious and hesitant about buying a home.”

In spite of their widely-reported worries, a McKinsey & Company study denotes optimism among Zoomers.

“GenZ thinks the economic future is brighter than most other age groups do,” the report cites. “Despite reporting higher levels of job insecurity and financial instability and higher rates of emotional distress and obstacles to working effectively, GenZ’s view of economic opportunity is more optimistic than that of GenX and baby boomers.”

Hunt concludes with: “Reputed for being “highly collaborative, self-reliant and pragmatic,” GenZ just might be the lot to live out this ubiquitous American dream if industry collectively adapts to even just these 10 specific proficiencies, inclinations and expectations.”