IEEE SpectrumPub Date : 2025-04-09DOI: 10.1109/MSPEC.2025.10960476
Bruce Schneier;Nathan E. Sanders;Dariusz Jemielniak;Edmon Begoli;Amir Sadovnik
{"title":"3 Ways to Keep AI on Our Side: AI Researchers can Draw Lessons from Cybersecurity, Robotics, and Astrobiology","authors":"Bruce Schneier;Nathan E. Sanders;Dariusz Jemielniak;Edmon Begoli;Amir Sadovnik","doi":"10.1109/MSPEC.2025.10960476","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2025.10960476","url":null,"abstract":"As Artificial Intelligence reshapes society, our traditional safety nets and ethical frameworks are being put to the test. How can we make sure that AI remains a force for good? • Here we bring you three fresh visions for safer AI. In the first essay, security expert Bruce Schneier and data scientist Nathan E. Sanders explore how AI's “weird” error patterns create a need for innovative security measures that go beyond methods honed on human mistakes. Dariusz Jemielniak, an authority on Internet culture and technology, argues that the classic robot ethics embodied in Isaac Asimov's famous rules of robotics need an update to counterbalance AI deception and a world of deepfakes. And in the final essay, the AI researchers Edmon Begoli and Amir Sadovnik suggest taking a page from the search for intelligent life in the stars; they propose rigorous standards for detecting the possible emergence of human-level AI intelligence. As AI advances with breakneck speed, these cross-disciplinary strategies may help us keep our hands on the reins.→","PeriodicalId":13249,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Spectrum","volume":"62 4","pages":"38-45"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143808905","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IEEE SpectrumPub Date : 2025-04-09DOI: 10.1109/MSPEC.2025.10960504
Edd Gent
{"title":"Careers: Mira Daher: This Solar-Energy Engineer is Helping Lebanon's Citizens Find Energy Independence","authors":"Edd Gent","doi":"10.1109/MSPEC.2025.10960504","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2025.10960504","url":null,"abstract":"In Mira Daher's home country of Lebanon, the national grid provides power for only a few hours a day. The country's state-owned energy provider, Electricity of Lebanon (EDL), has long struggled to meet demand, and a crippling economic crisis that began in 2019 has worsened the situation. Most residents now rely on privately owned diesel-powered generators for the bulk of their energy needs.","PeriodicalId":13249,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Spectrum","volume":"62 4","pages":"17-18"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=10960504","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143808913","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IEEE SpectrumPub Date : 2025-04-09DOI: 10.1109/MSPEC.2025.10960505
Dina Genkina
{"title":"5 Questions: Rehaan Ahmad: alphaXiv Wants to be Science's Public Square","authors":"Dina Genkina","doi":"10.1109/MSPEC.2025.10960505","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2025.10960505","url":null,"abstract":"There is an inherent tension in the dissemination of research: Science thrives on openness and communication, but ensuring high-quality scientific work requires lengthy and closed peer reviews. In 1991, physicist Paul Ginsparg created the arXiv repository to alleviate some of that tension. Researchers would have a place to upload their preprint manuscripts before they're published in a journal. The preprints are free to all but have not undergone peer review (though there is some screening).","PeriodicalId":13249,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Spectrum","volume":"62 4","pages":"19-19"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=10960505","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143808827","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IEEE SpectrumPub Date : 2025-04-09DOI: 10.1109/MSPEC.2025.10960523
Amos Zeeberg
{"title":"Green-Energy Link Set to Span Black Sea: Despite Risk of War and Undersea Cable Sabotage, the Caucasus Region Plans to Send Clean Electricity to Europe","authors":"Amos Zeeberg","doi":"10.1109/MSPEC.2025.10960523","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2025.10960523","url":null,"abstract":"Last November, when Azerbaijan hosted COP29, the United Nations' annual climate summit, it was a sort of coming-out party for the country. Organizers wanted to showcase how their small nation of nearly 11 million, on the western shore of the Caspian Sea, had evolved over its three decades of independence and was ready to play a role in the world's energy transition.","PeriodicalId":13249,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Spectrum","volume":"62 4","pages":"26-31"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143808910","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IEEE SpectrumPub Date : 2025-04-09DOI: 10.1109/MSPEC.2025.10960522
Allison Marsh
{"title":"Past Forward: When Electrification Came for the Eraser","authors":"Allison Marsh","doi":"10.1109/MSPEC.2025.10960522","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2025.10960522","url":null,"abstract":"In 1953, the Loren Specialty Manufacturing Co. introduced its first electric eraser for pencils and ink pens. By then, inventors had already been patenting such devices for several decades, and other companies were selling a variety of electric erasure products. But what was so problematic about the humble eraser that it needed electrifying? In the days before computer-aided drawing and the ease of the undo command, erasing could be a delicate operation. To make corrections to a hand-drawn map, for example, two engineering professors in 1930 suggested first picking off the ink with a sharp knife, placing a hard surface beneath the map, and then rubbing it with a pencil eraser. The Presto Model 80 electrical eraser [above] was marketed to draftsmen, librarians, and artists. Held in the hand like a pen or pencil, the eraser vibrated to abrade a small area in need of correction. Today, some artists still use electric erasers for fine details in their drawings.","PeriodicalId":13249,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Spectrum","volume":"62 4","pages":"48-48"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=10960522","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143808914","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IEEE SpectrumPub Date : 2025-04-09DOI: 10.1109/MSPEC.2025.10960479
Harry Goldstein
{"title":"Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe: Digital Archivists are Saving Public Information from the Memory Hole","authors":"Harry Goldstein","doi":"10.1109/MSPEC.2025.10960479","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2025.10960479","url":null,"abstract":"In the three decades since Brewster Kahle spun up the nonprofit Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, it has scaled up to include government websites and datasets—many of which are essential to the engineering and scientific communities. U.S. government agencies like the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, and NASA are critical sources of research data, technical specifications, and standards documentation in pretty much every area where IEEE Spectrum's audience works—AI & computer science, biomedical devices, power and energy, semiconductors, telecommunications…the list goes on.","PeriodicalId":13249,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Spectrum","volume":"62 4","pages":"2-2"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=10960479","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143808904","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IEEE SpectrumPub Date : 2025-04-09DOI: 10.1109/MSPEC.2025.10960524
Wally Rippel;Alan Cocconi
{"title":"We're Doing EV Charging Wrong: A 1990s Charger Design Would be Cheaper and Simpler—And Just as Safe, Say EV Pioneers","authors":"Wally Rippel;Alan Cocconi","doi":"10.1109/MSPEC.2025.10960524","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2025.10960524","url":null,"abstract":"To those who don't yet own an EV, a robust infrastructure may seem unimportant. Studies, after all, show that in developed markets, as much as 90 percent of all charging takes place in the home. It turns out, however, that the remaining percentage of charging is critically important. Drivers of delivery trucks and taxis, residents of apartment buildings, students on their way to college, families on vacation, and countless others have learned that driving an EV can be a struggle where public charging is scarce or unreliable. A 2022 survey by Forbes, for example, indicated that 62 percent of EV owners were so anxious about EV range that they had at times curtailed their travel plans.","PeriodicalId":13249,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Spectrum","volume":"62 4","pages":"32-47"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143808908","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}