AI Generator Outfit

AI Generator Outfit — independent reviews, comparisons, pricing and step-by-step guides on Aizhi.

  • Statistical relational learning

    Statistical relational learning

    Statistical relational learning (SRL) is a subdiscipline of artificial intelligence and machine learning that is concerned with domain models that exhibit both uncertainty (which can be dealt with using statistical methods) and complex, relational structure. Typically, the knowledge representation formalisms developed in SRL use (a subset of) first-order logic to describe relational properties of a domain in a general manner (universal quantification) and draw upon probabilistic graphical models (such as Bayesian networks or Markov networks) to model the uncertainty; some also build upon the methods of inductive logic programming. Significant contributions to the field have been made since the late 1990s. As is evident from the characterization above, the field is not strictly limited to learning aspects; it is equally concerned with reasoning (specifically probabilistic inference) and knowledge representation. Therefore, alternative terms that reflect the main foci of the field include statistical relational learning and reasoning (emphasizing the importance of reasoning) and first-order probabilistic languages (emphasizing the key properties of the languages with which models are represented). Another term that is sometimes used in the literature is relational machine learning (RML). == Canonical tasks == A number of canonical tasks are associated with statistical relational learning, the most common ones being. collective classification, i.e. the (simultaneous) prediction of the class of several objects given objects' attributes and their relations link prediction, i.e. predicting whether or not two or more objects are related link-based clustering, i.e. the grouping of similar objects, where similarity is determined according to the links of an object, and the related task of collaborative filtering, i.e. the filtering for information that is relevant to an entity (where a piece of information is considered relevant to an entity if it is known to be relevant to a similar entity) social network modelling object identification/entity resolution/record linkage, i.e. the identification of equivalent entries in two or more separate databases/datasets == Representation formalisms == One of the fundamental design goals of the representation formalisms developed in SRL is to abstract away from concrete entities and to represent instead general principles that are intended to be universally applicable. Since there are countless ways in which such principles can be represented, many representation formalisms have been proposed in recent years. In the following, some of the more common ones are listed in alphabetical order: Bayesian logic program BLOG model Markov logic networks Multi-entity Bayesian network Probabilistic logic programs Probabilistic relational model – a Probabilistic Relational Model (PRM) is the counterpart of a Bayesian network in statistical relational learning. Probabilistic soft logic Recursive random field Relational Bayesian network Relational dependency network Relational Markov network Relational Kalman filtering

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  • The Old Axolotl

    The Old Axolotl

    The Old Axolotl (Polish: Starość aksolotla) is a 2015 digital-only novel by Polish science-fiction author Jacek Dukaj. The novel was released in Polish on March 10, 2015, and shortly afterward, on March 24 that year, in English (translated by Stanley Bill). It has been described as "an experiment in reading (and creating) the electronic literature of the future". It is Dukaj's first novel to be published in English, though several of his short stories (The Golden Galley, 1996, The Iron General, 2010, The Apocrypha of Lem, 2011) have been translated prior to this. The novel has inspired two Netflix original series: the 2020 Belgian Into the Night, and its 2022 Turkish language spin-off Yakamoz S-245. == Plot == The novel presents a post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk vision of Earth where biological life has been wiped out, inhabited by robots and mechs, many of which are humans whose consciousness has been digitized in the wake of an extinction event. == Significance and analysis == The novel is an example of electronic literature, available only in digital formats, and has no traditional paper version. It was designed from the beginning not only to incorporate more traditional elements such as illustrations, but also hypertext, and 3D-printable models of main robotic characters designed by Alex Jaeger, the art director of Transformers films. The novel composition is layered, with the narrative layer, an encyclopedic/hyperlinked footnote layer, and a multimedia layer, including illustrations and a short promotional video by the Oscar-nominated Platige Image studio. One of the novel's central questions is: "What does it mean to be human?" Other subjects include post humanism and other "staples of cyberpunk and related genres, such as the artificial intelligence". The novel is representative of Dukaj's prose, posing philosophical questions about the future of man and technology. The author explained that: "stories such as The Old Axolotl that model an ‘escape from the body’ are born out of a sense of progress as a process of ‘de-animalising’ human beings through science. This has its origin in the pre-Enlightenment intuition of ‘liberation from nature’. For one of the last shackles of nature is corporeality itself, the limitations of our physicality." The other major element of the novel is Dukaj's attempts to introduce the reader to the new style of electronic literature. The novel was nominated for the 2016 Janusz A. Zajdel Award.

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  • AI-generated content in American politics

    AI-generated content in American politics

    In American politics since the 2020s, political figures have deployed AI-generated images, videos, and audio to attack opponents, create misleading narratives, or inflame emotions. The use of generative AI by American political figures has been subject to criticism from many sides of the political spectrum. Republican president Donald Trump has notably used generative AI in several posts to Truth Social during his second term, many of which have made headlines due to their inflammatory nature. == Background == Generative artificial intelligence is a subfield of artificial intelligence that uses generative models to generate text, images, videos, audio, software code or other forms of data. In the mid 2020s with the release of 15.ai, ChatGPT, DALL-E and other generative artificial intelligence applications there was an AI boom. There has been an increase of usage of generative-AI within the United States political field during this boon, with both Republican and Democratic party members using it. The Trump administration during his second term, have embraced the use of AI-generated images, causing some misinformation experts to raise concerns about the continued usage would cause the erosion of public perception of the truth. In response to some criticisms White House deputy communications director Kaelan Dorr posted on X that the "memes will continue" with White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson also mocking concerns. == History of usage == === 2023 === In April 2023, the Republican National Committee released an attack ad made entirely with AI-generated images depicting a dystopian future under Joe Biden's re-election. === 2024 === Generative AI has increased the efficiency with which political candidates were able to raise money by analyzing donor data and identifying possible donors and target audiences. In March 2024 Democratic consultant working for Dean Phillips has admitted to using AI to generate a robocall which used Joe Biden's voice to discourage voter participation. In August 2024, The Atlantic noted that AI slop was becoming associated with the political right in the United States, who were using it for shitposting and engagement farming on social media, with the technology offering "cheap, fast, on-demand fodder for content". AI slop is frequently used in political campaigns in an attempt at gaining attention through content farming. === 2025 === The initial version of the Make Our Children Healthy Again Assessment of children's health issues, released by a commission of cabinet members and officials of the Trump administration, and led by US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., reportedly cited nonexistent and garbled references generated using artificial intelligence. Democratic governor Gavin Newsom has used AI-generated images to criticize Trump. In the midst of disruptions to food stamp distribution during the 2025 US government shutdown, anonymous social media users began using OpenAI's Sora to post slop videos of welfare queens complaining, stealing, and rioting in supermarkets; many comments to the videos appeared unaware that they were AI-generated, or acknowledged that they were AI-generated but nonetheless useful in pushing a narrative of widespread welfare fraud. On September 6, 2025, Trump posted an image on Truth Social making a reference to "Chipocalypse Now". Trump's post consisted of an AI-generated image showing Trump frowning and wearing a U.S. Cavalry hat and sunglasses, in front of Lake Michigan with the city of Chicago behind him with a smoke and fire spread across the background with five U.S. Army helicopters in the sky. The words "Chipocalypse Now" are rendered in a font resembling that in which the title of the 1979 film Apocalypse Now was styled. === 2026 === On February 5, 2026, Donald Trump shared a video of Barack and Michelle Obama depicted as apes in a Truth Social post. The two-second AI-generated clip of the Obamas portrayed as apes set to "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" appeared at the end of a one-minute two second long video, the rest of which was about false claims of voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election. The post received at least 4,650 likes, 409 comments, and 1,470 reTruths before it was deleted the next morning. The short clip was part of a longer AI-generated video posted in October 2025. The post received widespread backlash and bipartisan condemnation of the video as racist. In April 2026, Trump posted a picture of himself depicted as Jesus, drawing widespread criticism from Evangelicals and Catholics, resulting in Trump deleting the post hours later and claiming he believed he was depicted as a doctor. == Examples of use == === Election campaigns === In 2023, while he was still running for re-election, the presidential campaign of Joe Biden prepared a task force to respond to AI images and videos. The campaign for the 2024 Republican nominee, Donald Trump, has used deepfake videos of political opponents in campaign ads and fake images showing Trump with black supporters. During the first five months of his second term in 2025, Trump posted several AI-generated images of himself on official government social media accounts, including him as the Pope, him as a Jedi, and him as a muscular man. In August 2024, Trump posted a series of AI-generated images on his social media platform, Truth Social, that portrayed fans of the singer Taylor Swift in "Swifties for Trump" T-shirts, as well as a photo of the singer herself appearing to endorse Trump's 2024 presidential campaign. The images originated from the conservative Twitter account @amuse, which posted numerous AI slop images leading up to the 2024 United States elections that were shared by other high-profile figures within the US Republican Party, such as Elon Musk, who has publicly endorsed the utilization of generative AI, furthering this association. In 2024, Michigan GOP candidate Anthony Hudson posted an AI-generated video showing Martin Luther King Jr. endorsing his campaign, later claiming it was uploaded by a volunteer. In his 2025 bid to be the Democratic nominee for governor of New Jersey, Rep. Josh Gottheimer drew attention and criticism when he released a TV ad that used AI to portray him as a shirtless boxer sparring with Donald Trump in a boxing ring. In November 2025, the campaign of Mike Collins, a GOP candidate in the 2026 United States Senate election in Georgia released a fake video, generated by artificial intelligence, that depicted Democrat Jon Ossoff defending his vote on the 2025 United States federal government shutdown by declaring he could never say no to Chuck Schumer and that SNAP recipients did not attend his out-of-state fundraisers. The Collins campaign also shared an AI-generated video featuring Collins as a shirtless blue jeans model, referencing an American Eagle Outfitters advertisement featuring Sydney Sweeney. During the 2026 Los Angeles mayoral election, candidate Spencer Pratt reposted an AI-generated video portraying Pratt as Batman and prominent California politicians such as Karen Bass, Gavin Newsom, and Kamala Harris, as unruly aristocrats. Former governor of Florida Jeb Bush described the ad as “maybe the best political ad of the year.” In response, a spokesperson for Bass's campaign said, he was "doing his best Trump impression." Bass further responded that the AI ads are "taking on a violent trend." === Protests === In response to the nation-wide No Kings protests in October 2025, Donald Trump posted a video depicting himself flying a fighter jet and releasing feces on crowds of demonstrators, including Democratic influencer Harry Sisson. === Foreign interference === Officials from the ODNI and FBI have stated that Russia, Iran, and China used generative artificial intelligence tools to create fake and divisive text, photos, video, and audio content to foster anti-Americanism and engage in covert influence campaigns. The use of artificial intelligence was described as an accelerant rather than a revolutionary change to influence efforts. Regulation of AI with regard to elections was unlikely to see a resolution for most of the 2024 United States general election season. === Disasters and wars === In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in the United States, members of the Republican Party circulated an AI-generated image of a young girl holding a puppy in a flood, and used it as evidence of the failure of President Joe Biden to respond to the disaster. Some, like Trump supporter Amy Kremer, shared the image on social media but acknowledged that it was not genuine. In February 2025, Donald Trump shared an AI-generated video on Truth Social depicting a hypothetical Gaza after a Trump takeover. The video's creator claimed it was made as political satire. == Reception == Ramesh Srinivasan, a professor at UCLA raised concerns about the use of AI-generative images stating that many people are questioning where they can find trustab

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  • Competitions and prizes in artificial intelligence

    Competitions and prizes in artificial intelligence

    There are a number of competitions and prizes to promote research in artificial intelligence. == General machine intelligence == The David E. Rumelhart Prize is an annual award for making a "significant contemporary contribution to the theoretical foundations of human cognition". The prize is $100,000. The Human-Competitive Award is an annual challenge started in 2004 to reward results "competitive with the work of creative and inventive humans". The prize is $10,000. Entries are required to use evolutionary computing. The Intel AI Global Impact Festival is an international annual competition held by Intel Corporation for school, and college students with prizes upwards of $15,000. It is about artificial intelligence technology. There are two age brackets in this competition, 13-18 Age Group, and 18 and Above Age Group. The IJCAI Award for Research Excellence is a biannual award given at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) to researchers in artificial intelligence as a recognition of excellence of their career. The 2011 Federal Virtual World Challenge, advertised by The White House and sponsored by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory's Simulation and Training Technology Center, held a competition offering a total of US$52,000 in cash prize awards for general artificial intelligence applications, including "adaptive learning systems, intelligent conversational bots, adaptive behavior (objects or processes)" and more. The Machine Intelligence Prize is awarded annually by the British Computer Society for progress towards machine intelligence. The Kaggle – "the world's largest community of data scientists compete to solve most valuable problems". == Conversational behaviour == The Loebner prize is an annual competition to determine the best Turing test competitors. The winner is the computer system that, in the judges' opinions, demonstrates the "most human" conversational behaviour, they have an additional prize for a system that in their opinion passes a Turing test. This second prize has not yet been awarded. == Automatic control == === Pilotless aircraft === The International Aerial Robotics Competition is a long-running event begun in 1991 to advance the state of the art in fully autonomous air vehicles. This competition is restricted to university teams (although industry and governmental sponsorship of teams is allowed). Key to this event is the creation of flying robots which must complete complex missions without any human intervention. Successful entries are able to interpret their environment and make real-time decisions based only on a high-level mission directive (e.g., "find a particular target inside a building having certain characteristics which is among a group of buildings 3 kilometers from the aerial robot launch point"). In 2000, a $30,000 prize was awarded during the 3rd Mission (search and rescue), and in 2008, $80,000 in prize money was awarded at the conclusion of the 4th Mission (urban reconnaissance). === Driverless cars === The DARPA Grand Challenge is a series of competitions to promote driverless car technology, aimed at a congressional mandate stating that by 2015 one-third of the operational ground combat vehicles of the US Armed Forces should be unmanned. While the first race had no winner, the second awarded a $2 million prize for the autonomous navigation of a hundred-mile trail, using GPS, computers and a sophisticated array of sensors. In November 2007, DARPA introduced the DARPA Urban Challenge, a sixty-mile urban area race requiring vehicles to navigate through traffic. In November 2010 the US Armed Forces extended the competition with the $1.6 million prize Multi Autonomous Ground-robotic International Challenge to consider cooperation between multiple vehicles in a simulated-combat situation. Roborace will be a global motorsport championship with autonomously driving, electric vehicles. The series will be run as a support series during the Formula E championship for electric vehicles. This will be the first global championship for driverless cars. == Data-mining and prediction == The Netflix Prize was a competition for the best collaborative filtering algorithm that predicts user ratings for films, based on previous ratings. The competition was held by Netflix, an online DVD-rental service. The prize was $1,000,000. The Pittsburgh Brain Activity Interpretation Competition will reward analysis of fMRI data "to predict what individuals perceive and how they act and feel in a novel Virtual Reality world involving searching for and collecting objects, interpreting changing instructions, and avoiding a threatening dog." The prize in 2007 was $22,000. The Face Recognition Grand Challenge (May 2004 to March 2006) aimed to promote and advance face recognition technology. The American Meteorological Society's artificial intelligence competition involves learning a classifier to characterise precipitation based on meteorological analyses of environmental conditions and polarimetric radar data. == Cooperation and coordination == === Robot football === The RoboCup and Federation of International Robot-soccer Association (FIRA) are annual international robot soccer competitions. The International RoboCup Federation challenge is by 2050 "a team of fully autonomous humanoid robot soccer players shall win the soccer game, comply with the official rule of the FIFA, against the winner of the most recent World Cup." == Logic, reasoning and knowledge representation == The Herbrand Award is a prize given by Conference on Automated Deduction (CADE) Inc. to honour persons or groups for important contributions to the field of automated deduction. The prize is $1000. The CADE ATP System Competition (CASC) is a yearly competition of fully automated theorem provers for classical first order logic associated with the Conference on Automated Deduction (CADE) and International Joint Conference on Automated Reasoning (IJCAR). The competition was part of the Alan Turing Centenary Conference in 2012, with total prizes of 9000 GBP given by Google. The SUMO prize is an annual prize for the best open source ontology extension of the Suggested Upper Merged Ontology (SUMO), a formal theory of terms and logical definitions describing the world. The prize is $3000. The Hutter Prize for lossless compression of human knowledge is a cash prize which rewards compression improvements on a specific 100 MB English text file. The prize awards 500 euros for each one percent improvement, up to €50,000. The organizers believe that text compression and AI are equivalent problems and 3 prizes have been given, at around € 2k. The Cyc TPTP Challenge is a competition to develop reasoning methods for the Cyc comprehensive ontology and database of everyday common sense knowledge. The prize is 100 euros for "each winner of two related challenges". The Eternity II challenge was a constraint satisfaction problem very similar to the Tetravex game. The objective is to lay 256 tiles on a 16x16 grid while satisfying a number of constraints. The problem is known to be NP-complete. The prize was US$2,000,000. The competition ended in December 2010. == Games == The World Computer Chess Championship has been held since 1970. The International Computer Games Association continues to hold an annual Computer Olympiad which includes this event plus computer competitions for many other games. The Ing Prize was a substantial money prize attached to the World Computer Go Congress, starting from 1985 and expiring in 2000. It was a graduated set of handicap challenges against young professional players with increasing prizes as the handicap was lowered. At the time it expired in 2000, the unclaimed prize was 400,000 NT dollars for winning a 9-stone handicap match. The AAAI General Game Playing Competition is a competition to develop programs that are effective at general game playing. Given a definition of a game, the program must play it effectively without human intervention. Since the game is not known in advance the competitors cannot especially adapt their programs to a particular scenario. The prize in 2006 and 2007 was $10,000. The General Video Game AI Competition (GVGAI) poses the problem of creating artificial intelligence that can play a wide, and in principle unlimited, range of games. Concretely, it tackles the problem of devising an algorithm that is able to play any game it is given, even if the game is not known a priori. Additionally, the contests poses the challenge of creating level and rule generators for any game is given. This area of study can be seen as an approximation of General Artificial Intelligence, with very little room for game dependent heuristics. The competition runs yearly in different tracks: single player planning, two-player planning, single player learning, level and rule generation, and each track prizes ranging from 200 to 500 US dollars for winners and runner-ups. The 2007 Ultimate Computer Ches

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  • Likewise, Inc.

    Likewise, Inc.

    Likewise, Inc., is an American technology startup company which provides a social networking service for finding and saving content recommendations for movies, TV shows, books, and podcasts. A team of ex-Microsoft employees founded Likewise in October 2017 with financial investment from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. The company is led by CEO Ian Morris and as of 2020 had a team of about 35 employees. Its headquarters operates in Bellevue, Washington. As of July 2020, 1 million users had joined the platform. == History == === Ideation (October 2017) === In 2017, former Microsoft Communications Chief Larry Cohen came up with the idea for Likewise in Bill Gates’ private office, Gates Ventures. Cohen currently serves as Gates Ventures’ CEO and managing partner. Cohen collaborated with colleagues Michael Dix and Ian Morris to co-found what would become Likewise, with Morris as its CEO. Gates funded the company's early development. The company developed its platform in stealth mode before launching publicly in October 2018. === Release (October 2018) === Likewise officially released its platform in the US and Canada on October 3, 2018. === Growth (2020 COVID-19 pandemic) === Likewise experienced accelerated growth alongside the COVID-19 pandemic. From March 2020 to July 2020, the platform's monthly active users tripled in numbers. The company reached one million users in July 2020. == Applications == === Mobile === Likewise is available as a mobile app for the Android and iOS mobile operating systems. Users receive recommendations from the Likewise algorithm, people they follow, and the Likewise editorial team. === Likewise TV === In October 2019, the company launched its Apple TV app called Likewise TV. The television app organizes shows across streaming services under one watchlist. On July 20, 2020, Likewise TV expanded to Android TV and Amazon Fire TV users.

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  • AI-assisted targeting in the Gaza Strip

    AI-assisted targeting in the Gaza Strip

    As part of the Gaza war, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have used artificial intelligence to rapidly and automatically perform much of the process of determining what to bomb. Israel has greatly expanded the bombing of the Gaza Strip, which in previous wars had been limited by the Israeli Air Force running out of targets. These tools include the Gospel, an AI which automatically reviews surveillance data looking for buildings, equipment and people thought to belong to the enemy, and upon finding them, recommends bombing targets to a human analyst who may then decide whether to pass it along to the field. Another is Lavender, an "AI-powered database" which lists tens of thousands of Palestinian men linked by AI to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and which is also used for target recommendation. Critics have argued the use of these AI tools puts civilians at risk, blurs accountability, and results in militarily disproportionate violence in violation of international humanitarian law. == The Gospel == Israel uses an AI system dubbed "Habsora", "the Gospel", to determine which targets the Israeli Air Force would bomb. It automatically provides a targeting recommendation to a human analyst, who decides whether to pass it along to soldiers in the field. The recommendations can be anything from individual fighters, rocket launchers, Hamas command posts, to private homes of suspected Hamas or Islamic Jihad members. AI can process military intelligence far faster than humans. Retired Lt Gen. Aviv Kohavi, head of the IDF until 2023, stated that the system could produce 100 bombing targets in Gaza a day, with real-time recommendations which ones to attack, where human analysts might produce 50 a year. A lecturer interviewed by NPR estimated these figures as 50–100 targets in 300 days for 20 intelligence officers, and 200 targets within 10–12 days for the Gospel. === Technological background === The Gospel uses machine learning, where an AI is tasked with identifying commonalities in vast amounts of data (e.g. scans of cancerous tissue, photos of a facial expression, surveillance of Hamas members identified by human analysts), then looking for those commonalities in new material. What information the Gospel uses is not known, but it is thought to combine surveillance data from diverse sources in enormous amounts. Recommendations are based on pattern-matching. A person with enough similarities to other people labeled as enemy combatants may be labelled a combatant themselves. Regarding the suitability of AIs for the task, NPR cited Heidy Khlaaf, engineering director of AI Assurance at the technology security firm Trail of Bits, as saying "AI algorithms are notoriously flawed with high error rates observed across applications that require precision, accuracy, and safety." Bianca Baggiarini, lecturer at the Australian National University's Strategic and Defence Studies Centre wrote AIs are "more effective in predictable environments where concepts are objective, reasonably stable, and internally consistent." She contrasted this with telling the difference between a combatant and non-combatant, which even humans frequently can't do. Khlaaf went on to point out that such a system's decisions depend entirely on the data it's trained on, and are not based on reasoning, factual evidence or causation, but solely on statistical probability. === Operation === The IAF ran out of targets to strike in the 2014 war and 2021 crisis. In an interview on France 24, investigative journalist Yuval Abraham of +972 Magazine stated that to maintain military pressure, and due to political pressure to continue the war, the military would bomb the same places twice. Since then, the integration of AI tools has significantly sped up the selection of targets. In early November, the IDF stated more than 12,000 targets in Gaza had been identified by the target administration division that uses the Gospel. NPR wrote on December 14 that it was unclear how many targets from the Gospel had been acted upon, but that the Israeli military said it was currently striking as many as 250 targets a day. The bombing, too, has intensified to what the December 14 article called an astonishing pace: the Israeli military stated at the time it had struck more than 22,000 targets inside Gaza, at a daily rate more than double that of the 2021 conflict, more than 3,500 of them since the collapse of the truce on December 1. Early in the offensive the head of the Air Force stated his forces only struck military targets, but added: "We are not being surgical." Once a recommendation is accepted, another AI, Fire Factory, cuts assembling the attack down from hours to minutes by calculating munition loads, prioritizing and assigning targets to aircraft and drones, and proposing a schedule, according to a pre-war Bloomberg article that described such AI tools as tailored for a military confrontation and proxy war with Iran. One change that The Guardian noted is that since senior Hamas leaders disappear into tunnels at the start of an offensive, systems such as the Gospel have allowed the IDF to locate and attack a much larger pool of more junior Hamas operatives. It cited an official who worked on targeting decisions in previous Gaza operations as saying that while the homes of junior Hamas members had previously not been targeted for bombing, the official believes the houses of suspected Hamas operatives were now targeted regardless of rank. In the France 24 interview, Abraham, of +972 Magazine, characterized this as enabling the systematization of dropping a 2000 lb bomb into a home to kill one person and everybody around them, something that had previously been done to a very small group of senior Hamas leaders. NPR cited a report by +972 Magazine and its sister publication Local Call as asserting the system is being used to manufacture targets so that Israeli military forces can continue to bombard Gaza at an enormous rate, punishing the general Palestinian population. NPR noted it had not verified this; it was unclear how many targets are being generated by AI alone, but there had been a substantial increase in targeting, with an enormous civilian toll. In principle, the combination of a computer's speed to identify opportunities and a human's judgment to evaluate them can enable more precise attacks and fewer civilian casualties. Israeli military and media have emphasized this capacity to minimize harm to non-combatants. Richard Moyes, researcher and head of the NGO Article 36, pointed to "the widespread flattening of an urban area with heavy explosive weapons" to question these claims, while Lucy Suchman, professor emeritus at Lancaster University, described the bombing as "aimed at maximum devastation of the Gaza Strip". The Guardian wrote that when a strike was authorized on private homes of those identified as Hamas or Islamic Jihad operatives, target researchers knew in advance the expected number of civilians killed, each target had a file containing a collateral damage score stipulating how many civilians were likely to be killed in a strike, and according to a senior Israeli military source, operatives use a "very accurate" measurement of the rate of civilians evacuating a building shortly before a strike. "We use an algorithm to evaluate how many civilians are remaining. It gives us a green, yellow, red, like a traffic signal." ==== 2021 use ==== Kohavi compared the target division using the Gospel to a machine and stated that once the machine was activated in the war of May 2021, it generated 100 targets a day, with half of them being attacked, in contrast with 50 targets in Gaza per year beforehand. Approximately 200 targets came from the Gospel out of the 1,500 targets Israel struck in Gaza in the war, including both static and moving targets according to the military. The Jewish Institute for National Security of America's after action report identified an issue, stating the system had data on what was a target, but lacked data on what wasn't. The system depends entirely on training data, and intel that human analysts had examined and deemed didn't constitute a target had been discarded, risking bias. The vice president expressed his hopes this had since been rectified. === Organization === The Gospel is used by the military's target administration division (or Directorate of Targets or Targeting Directorate), which was formed in 2019 in the IDF's intelligence directorate to address the air force running out of targets to bomb, and which Kohavi described as "powered by AI capabilities" and including hundreds of officers of soldiers. In addition to its wartime role, The Guardian wrote it'd helped the IDF build a database of between 30,000 and 40,000 suspected militants in recent years, and that systems such as the Gospel had played a critical role in building lists of individuals authorized to be assassinated. The Gospel was developed by Unit 8200 of the Israeli Intelligence C

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  • Wonder.land

    Wonder.land

    Wonder.land (stylised as wonder.land) is a musical with music by Damon Albarn and lyrics and book by Moira Buffini. Inspired by Lewis Carroll's novels Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871), it had its world premiere at the Palace Theatre in Manchester in July 2015 as part of the Manchester International Festival. The musical moved to London's Royal National Theatre in November 2015 before opening at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris in 2016. Licencing for potential future smaller scale productions is held by United Agents UK. == Background == The musical is inspired by the novels Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, written by Lewis Carroll. It was announced on 21 January 2015 that the show would premiere in July of that year as part of the Manchester International Festival, with tickets going on sale the following day. The musical, a co-production by the Manchester International Festival, the Royal National Theatre and the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The idea for a musical based on Alice in Wonderland came from Manchester International Festival artistic director Alex Poots. Damon Albarn had collaborated with the festival on Monkey: Journey to the West and Dr Dee. The musical has a book by Moira Buffini. It was directed by Rufus Norris, with set design by Rae Smith, costume design by Katrina Lindsay, lighting design by Paule Constable, projections by 59 Productions and choreography by Javier De Frutos. The musical's score was composed by Damon Albarn, with lyrics by Moira Buffini, sound design by Paul Arditti and musical direction by David Shrubsole. == Production history == The musical began previews at the Palace Theatre in Manchester on 29 June 2015. It opened on 2 July for a limited run until 12 July. A revised version moved to the Royal National Theatre, where it ran at the Olivier Theatre from 27 November 2015 to 30 April 2016. The production had a limited run, from 7 to 16 June 2016, at the Theatre Du Chatelet in Paris. == Synopsis == This synopsis is based on the final version, as seen at the National Theatre and the Théâtre du Châtelet. Earlier performances significantly differed in songs and plot. === Act 1 === AI, the MC, explains that virtual technology is "a portal to boundless lands" ("Prologue"). Aly's mother, Bianca, is exasperated with her for spending the weekend indoors on her phone. Aly accompanies Bianca to the supermarket, and thinks that her life is being ruined by her parents due to dysfunctional problems ("Who's Ruining Your Life?") Her alcoholic father, Matt, is also at the supermarket; he and Bianca argue about their divorce and his gambling. Aly goes home and picks up her phone. She tries to engage with schoolmates, who bully her ("Network"). Aly begins to wish that she is someone else. She finds the virtual online game Wonder.land. In its strange world, Aly creates an avatar: beautiful, kind Alice ("Wonder.land"). Wonder.land has one rule: malice causes deletion from the game. Aly and Alice become friends and encounter the Cheshire Cat, who explains that you can be anyone you want ("Fabulous"). Aly decides to go on a quest; Alice follows the white rabbit down a hole, falling past unusual objects and musical notes ("Falling"). The next morning, Aly is too distracted by Wonder.land to listen to Bianca's complaints about her baby brother Charlie. She plays the game at school before her phone is confiscated by stern headmistress Ms Manxome, who tells her students that taking pleasures from them is for their own good ("I'm Right"). Aly goes to Ms Manxome's office to retrieve her phone. Ms Manxome returns it, warning that if she catches her with it again, "it's a beheading – I mean, detention." Aly sees the girls who bullied her, and they bully her again until a teacher arrives. Aly's friend, Luke, is late and is given detention. Aly goes on her phone and takes out her frustration and sadness on Alice, whose tears form a pool until she is interrupted by the quarrelsome twins Dum and Dee ("Freaks"). Alice tries to befriend them, but they insult her and Aly makes her fight them. Dum and Dee cry, and Aly and Alice see a large mouse who is attracted by Alice's fighting. They are joined by the Dodo, the Mock Turtle and Humpty, who all have problems. The Dodo is stressed because his parents want him to save the planet; Dum and Dee are dancers who hate pressure; Humpty has problems with her parents; the Mock Turtle lacks self-esteem, and the mouse is lustful. Wonderland is a hiding place from teenage life ("Crap Life"). Aly returns to reality when asked a math question she cannot answer. Confronting the three bullies, Aly mocks the facial hair of one and hides in the bathroom. She again immerses herself in Wonder.land, where Alice meets a Caterpillar who is obsessed with identity ("Who are You?"). Aly is interrupted by the girls, who ridicule her father's gambling addiction and poverty before beating her up. Aly seeks understanding from Alice, who tries to get Aly to tell her what is wrong. Aly tells Alice about her family and how she hates her life, and is surprised that Alice has similar problems ("Secrets"). Luke comes into the girls' bathroom because Kieran has threatened him with violence, and hides in a cubicle when Kieran enters. Aly defends Luke, and makes Kieran leave. Luke reveals that the reason Kieran hates him is because, like himself, he is gay. Aly is amazed, and they skip class and play games on their phones. Luke plays Zombie Swarm, and Aly plays Wonder.land. Ms Manxome enters the bathroom; Luke hides his phone, but Aly does not. Ms Manxome confiscates the phone for three months, and Aly and Luke leave. Ms Manxome finds that Aly did not lock her phone, and Alice is calling her. Ms Manxome begins to talk to her, and Alice thinks she is talking to Aly. Aly complains to Luke about her phone being taken away. Matt then takes them out for tea to celebrate his new job at the local garden centre ("In Clover"). At the tea shop, Matt maniacally dances on the tables and plays with spoons; asked to stop, he punches a waiter. Bianca arrives, and they argue again. Aly begins to notice that Wonder.land is invading reality; the MC emerges from a gigantic teapot, and the landscape outside becomes surreal ("Chances"). === Act 2 === Ms Manxome manipulates Alice around Wonder.land on Aly's phone, buys many things, and makes Alice's hair red ("Entre Act"). She tells Alice about her plans to dominate and destroy the online world, and Alice thinks she is talking to Aly ("Me"). Aly, Matt, Bianca, and Charlie are at the police station. PC Rook unsuccessfully tries to get Matt to make a statement (since he is charged with assault and affray), but Matt and Bianca argue again. Aly laments the loss of her family's unity ("Heartless Useless"). In Wonder.land, Ms Manxome is hostile when she meets Dum and Dee, the Mock Turtle, the Dodo, Humpty and the Mouse. She makes Alice chase them away, but Alice and Ms Manxome are driven away by Alice's friends, who are worried about the change in her ("Me (Reprise)"). Bianca learns that Aly missed a detention and had her phone confiscated. Concerned that she is losing Aly to technology, she bans her from the internet ("Gadget"). Charlie vomits, and Aly is left to clean it up. She looks for an internet cafe to go to Wonder.land, the only place she is truly happy ("Everyone Loves Charlie"). At the cafe, Aly cannot log into Wonder.land and her avatar seems to be in use. She sees Alice receive a Vorpal sword, bought by Ms Manxome with the money on Aly's phone. Alice is no longer Alice but the Red Queen, and Ms Manxome tells her to kill her friends. Alice, knowing the person controlling her is not Aly, cannot rebel; she lashes out at her friends, bullying and trying to hurt them. The MC warns that Alice has a deletion warning – any more malice, and she will be deleted. Aly now knows that Ms Manxome controls her phone and avatar ("O Children"). Aly enlists Luke to help and decides to break into Ms. Manxome's office to retrieve the phone. Luke agrees to meet her at the school gates. Matt and Bianca wonder if they should reconcile ("Man of Broken Glass"). At the school, Luke is reluctant to get involved; Aly decides to break into the office anyway. Luke contacts the girls who bullied Aly and tells them about Ms Manxome playing on Aly's stolen phone. They decide to spread the word that it is not Aly ("Fabulous (Reprise)"). Bianca goes to the police because Aly is missing, and gives her phone to Matt. Aly is likely to also be in Wonder.land. The avatars prepare for war against Alice but disagree about a strategy. At the police station, Matt hacks into Wonder.land sees Alice, and realizes that she is controlled by someone other than Aly. The White Rabbit appears (delighting Alice), but Ms Manxome makes Alice push him aside. The borderline between Wonder.land and

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  • R.U.R.

    R.U.R.

    R.U.R. is a 1920 science fiction play by the Czech writer Karel Čapek. "R.U.R." stands for Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti (Rossum's Universal Robots, a phrase that has been used as a subtitle in English versions). The play had its world premiere on 2 January 1921 in Hradec Králové. It introduced the word "robot" to the English language and to science fiction as a whole. R.U.R. became influential soon after its publication. By 1923, it had been translated into thirty languages. R.U.R. was successful in its time in Europe and North America. Čapek later took a different approach to the same theme in his 1936 novel War with the Newts, in which non-humans become a servant-class in human society. == Characters == Parentheses indicate names which vary according to translation. On the meaning of the names, see Ivan Klíma: Karel Čapek: Life and Work (2002). == Plot == === Synopsis === The play begins in a factory that makes artificial workers from synthetic organic matter. (As living creatures of artificial flesh and blood, that later terminology would call androids, the playwright's 'roboti' differ from later fictional and scientific concepts of inorganic constructs.) Robots may be mistaken for humans but have no original thoughts. Though most are content to work for humans, eventually a rebellion causes the extinction of the human race. === Prologue (Act I in the Selver translation) === Helena, the daughter of the president of a major industrial power, arrives at the island factory of Rossum's Universal Robots. Here, she meets Domin, the General Manager of R.U.R., who relates to her the history of the company. Rossum had come to the island in 1920 to study marine biology. In 1932, Rossum had invented a substance like organic matter, though with a different chemical composition. He argued with his nephew about their motivations for creating artificial life. While the elder wanted to create animals to prove or disprove the existence of God, his nephew only wanted to become rich. Young Rossum finally locked away his uncle in a lab to play with the monstrosities he had created and created thousands of robots. By the time the play takes place (circa the year 2000), robots are cheap and available all over the world. They have become essential for industry. After meeting the heads of R.U.R., Helena reveals that she is a representative of the League of Humanity, an organization that wishes to liberate the robots. The managers of the factory find this absurd. They see robots as appliances. Helena asks that the robots be paid, but according to R.U.R. management, the robots do not "like" anything. Eventually Helena is convinced that the League of Humanity is a waste of money, but still argues robots have a "soul". Later, Domin confesses that he loves Helena and forces her into an engagement. === Act I (Act II in Selver) === Ten years have passed. Helena and her nurse Nana discuss current events, the decline in human births in particular. Helena and Domin reminisce about the day they met and summarize the last ten years of world history, which has been shaped by the new worldwide robot-based economy. Helena meets Dr. Gall's new experiment, Radius. Dr. Gall describes his experimental robotess, also named Helena. Both are more advanced, fully-featured robots. In secret, Helena burns the formula required to create robots. The revolt of the robots reaches Rossum's island as the act ends. === Act II (Act III in Selver) === The characters sense that the very universality of the robots presents a danger. Echoing the story of the Tower of Babel, the characters discuss whether creating national robots who were unable to communicate beyond their languages would have been a good idea. As robot forces lay siege to the factory, Helena reveals she has burned the formula necessary to make new robots. The characters lament the end of humanity and defend their actions, despite the fact that their imminent deaths are a direct result of their choices. Busman is killed while attempting to negotiate a peace with the robots. The robots storm the factory and kill all the humans except for Alquist, the company's Clerk of the Works (Head of Construction). The robots spare him because they recognize that "He works with his hands like a robot. He builds houses. He can work." === Act III (Epilogue in Selver) === Years have passed. Alquist, who still lives, attempts to recreate the formula that Helena destroyed. He is a mechanical engineer, though, with insufficient knowledge of biochemistry, so he has made little progress. The robot government has searched for surviving humans to help Alquist and found none alive. Officials from the robot government beg him to complete the formula, even if it means he will have to kill and dissect other robots for it. Alquist yields. He will kill and dissect robots, thus completing the circle of violence begun in Act Two. Alquist is disgusted. Robot Primus and Helena develop human feelings and fall in love. Playing a hunch, Alquist threatens to dissect Primus and then Helena; each begs him to take him- or herself and spare the other. Alquist now realizes that Primus and Helena are the new Adam and Eve, and gives the charge of the world to them. == Čapek's conception of robots == The robots described in Čapek's play are not robots in the popularly understood sense of an automaton. They are not mechanical devices, but rather artificial biological organisms that may be mistaken for humans. A comic scene at the beginning of the play shows Helena arguing with her future husband, Harry Domin, because she cannot believe his secretary is a robotess: His robots resemble more modern conceptions of man-made life forms, such as the Replicants in Blade Runner, the "hosts" in the Westworld TV series and the humanoid Cylons in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, but in Čapek's time there was no conception of modern genetic engineering (DNA's role in heredity was not confirmed until 1952). There are descriptions of kneading-troughs for robot skin, great vats for liver and brains, and a factory for producing bones. Nerve fibers, arteries, and intestines are spun on factory bobbins, while the robots themselves are assembled like automobiles. Čapek's robots are living biological beings, but they are still assembled, as opposed to grown or born. One critic has described Čapek's robots as epitomizing "the traumatic transformation of modern society by the First World War and the Fordist assembly line". === Origin of the word robot === The play introduced the word robot, which displaced older words such as "automaton" or "android" in languages around the world. In an article in Lidové noviny, Karel Čapek named his brother Josef as the true inventor of the word. In Czech, robota means forced labour of the kind that serfs had to perform on their masters' lands and is derived from rab, meaning "slave". The name Rossum is an allusion to the Czech word rozum, meaning "reason", "wisdom", "intellect" or "common sense". It has been suggested that the allusion might be preserved by translating "Rossum" as "Reason" but only the Majer/Porter version translates the word as "Reason". == Production history and translations == The work was published in two differing versions in Prague by Aventinum, first in 1920, followed by a revised version in 1921. After being postponed, it premiered at the city's National Theatre on 25 January 1921, although an amateur group had by then already presented a production. By 1921, Paul Selver translated either the original 1920 edition of R.U.R. or a manuscript copy close to this version into English. He probably translated the play freelance, and sold it to St Martin's Theatre in London. Selver's translation was adapted for the British stage by Nigel Playfair in 1922, but it was not produced straight away. Later that year performance rights for the U.S. and Canada were sold to the New York Theatre Guild, perhaps during Lawrence Langner's visit to Britain. Playfair's version included several changes to Čapek's original play, such as renaming the acts (the prologue became act one, and the heavily abridged final act became the epilogue), omitting around sixty lines (including most of Alquist's final speech), adding several more lines, and removing the robot character Damon (giving his lines to Radius). The omission of some lines may have been censorship from the Lord Chamberlain's Office, or self-censorship in anticipation of this, while some other changes might have been made by Čapek himself if Selver was working from a manuscript copy. An edition of Playfair's adaptation was published by the Oxford University Press in 1923, and Selver went on to write a satiric novel One, Two, Three (1926) based on his experiences getting R.U.R. staged. The American première was produced by the Theatre Guild at the Garrick Theatre in New York City in October 1922, where it ran for 184 performances. In the first performance, Domin was portrayed by Basil Sydney,

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  • Stereo cameras

    Stereo cameras

    The stereo cameras approach is a method of distilling a noisy video signal into a coherent data set that a computer can begin to process into actionable symbolic objects, or abstractions. Stereo cameras is one of many approaches used in the broader fields of computer vision and machine vision. == Calculation == In this approach, two cameras with a known physical relationship (i.e. a common field of view the cameras can see, and how far apart their focal points sit in physical space) are correlated via software. By finding mappings of common pixel values, and calculating how far apart these common areas reside in pixel space, a rough depth map can be created. This is very similar to how the human brain uses stereoscopic information from the eyes to gain depth cue information, i.e. how far apart any given object in the scene is from the viewer. The camera attributes must be known, focal length and distance apart etc., and a calibration done. Once this is completed, the systems can be used to sense the distances of objects by triangulation. Finding the same singular physical point in the two left and right images is known as the correspondence problem. Correctly locating the point gives the computer the capability to calculate the distance that the robot or camera is from the object. On the BH2 Lunar Rover the cameras use five steps: a bayer array filter, photometric consistency dense matching algorithm, a Laplace of Gaussian (LoG) edge detection algorithm, a stereo matching algorithm and finally uniqueness constraint. == Uses == This type of stereoscopic image processing technique is used in applications such as 3D reconstruction, robotic control and sensing, crowd dynamics monitoring and off-planet terrestrial rovers; for example, in mobile robot navigation, tracking, gesture recognition, targeting, 3D surface visualization, immersive and interactive gaming. Although the Xbox Kinect sensor is also able to create a depth map of an image, it uses an infrared camera for this purpose, and does not use the dual-camera technique. Other approaches to stereoscopic sensing include time of flight sensors and ultrasound.

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  • Residuated lattice

    Residuated lattice

    In abstract algebra, a residuated lattice is an algebraic structure that is simultaneously a lattice x ≤ y and a monoid x•y that admits operations x\z and z/y, loosely analogous to division or implication, when x•y is viewed as multiplication or conjunction, respectively. Called respectively right and left residuals, these operations coincide when the monoid is commutative. The general concept was introduced by Morgan Ward and Robert P. Dilworth in 1939. Examples, some of which existed prior to the general concept, include Boolean algebras, Heyting algebras, residuated Boolean algebras, relation algebras, and MV-algebras. Residuated semilattices omit the meet operation ∧, for example Kleene algebras and action algebras. == Definition == In mathematics, a residuated lattice is an algebraic structure L = (L, ≤, •, I) such that (i) (L, ≤) is a lattice. (ii) (L, •, I) is a monoid. (iii) For all z there exists for every x a greatest y, and for every y a greatest x, such that x•y ≤ z (the residuation properties). In (iii), the "greatest y", being a function of z and x, is denoted x\z and called the right residual of z by x. Think of it as what remains of z on the right after "dividing" z on the left by x. Dually, the "greatest x" is denoted z/y and called the left residual of z by y. An equivalent, more formal statement of (iii) that uses these operations to name these greatest values is (iii)' for all x, y, z in L, y ≤ x\z ⇔ x•y ≤ z ⇔ x ≤ z/y. As suggested by the notation, the residuals are a form of quotient. More precisely, for a given x in L, the unary operations x• and x\ are respectively the lower and upper adjoints of a Galois connection on L, and dually for the two functions •y and /y. By the same reasoning that applies to any Galois connection, we have yet another definition of the residuals, namely, x•(x\y) ≤ y ≤ x\(x•y), and (y/x)•x ≤ y ≤ (y•x)/x, together with the requirement that x•y be monotone in x and y. (When axiomatized using (iii) or (iii)' monotonicity becomes a theorem and hence not required in the axiomatization.) These give a sense in which the functions x• and x\ are pseudoinverses or adjoints of each other, and likewise for •x and /x. This last definition is purely in terms of inequalities, noting that monotonicity can be axiomatized as x • y ≤ (x∨z) • y and similarly for the other operations and their arguments. Moreover, any inequality x ≤ y can be expressed equivalently as an equation, either x∧y = x or x∨y = y. This along with the equations axiomatizing lattices and monoids then yields a purely equational definition of residuated lattices, provided the requisite operations are adjoined to the signature (L, ≤, •, I) thereby expanding it to (L, ∧, ∨, •, I, /, \). When thus organized, residuated lattices form an equational class or variety, whose homomorphisms respect the residuals as well as the lattice and monoid operations. Note that distributivity x • (y ∨ z) = (x • y) ∨ (x • z) and x•0 = 0 are consequences of these axioms and so do not need to be made part of the definition. This necessary distributivity of • over ∨ does not in general entail distributivity of ∧ over ∨, that is, a residuated lattice need not be a distributive lattice. However distributivity of ∧ over ∨ is entailed when • and ∧ are the same operation, a special case of residuated lattices called a Heyting algebra. Alternative notations for x•y include x◦y, x;y (relation algebra), and x⊗y (linear logic). Alternatives for I include e and 1'. Alternative notations for the residuals are x → y for x\y and y ← x for y/x, suggested by the similarity between residuation and implication in logic, with the multiplication of the monoid understood as a form of conjunction that need not be commutative. When the monoid is commutative the two residuals coincide. When not commutative, the intuitive meaning of the monoid as conjunction and the residuals as implications can be understood as having a temporal quality: x•y means x and then y, x → y means had x (in the past) then y (now), and y ← x means if-ever x (in the future) then y (at that time), as illustrated by the natural language example at the end of the examples. == Examples == One of the original motivations for the study of residuated lattices was the lattice of (two-sided) ideals of a ring. Given a ring R, the ideals of R, denoted Id(R), forms a complete lattice with set intersection acting as the meet operation and "ideal addition" acting as the join operation. The monoid operation • is given by "ideal multiplication", and the element R of Id(R) acts as the identity for this operation. Given two ideals A and B in Id(R), the residuals are given by A / B := { r ∈ R ∣ r B ⊆ A } {\displaystyle A/B:=\{r\in R\mid rB\subseteq A\}} B ∖ A := { r ∈ R ∣ B r ⊆ A } {\displaystyle B\setminus A:=\{r\in R\mid Br\subseteq A\}} It is worth noting that {0}/B and B\{0} are respectively the left and right annihilators of B. This residuation is related to the conductor (or transporter) in commutative algebra written as (A:B)=A/B. One difference in usage is that B need not be an ideal of R: it may just be a subset. Boolean algebras and Heyting algebras are commutative residuated lattices in which x•y = x∧y (whence the unit I is the top element 1 of the algebra) and both residuals x\y and y/x are the same operation, namely implication x → y. The second example is quite general since Heyting algebras include all finite distributive lattices, as well as all chains or total orders, for example the unit interval [0,1] in the real line, or the integers and ± ∞ {\displaystyle \pm \infty } . The structure (Z, min, max, +, 0, −, −) (the integers with subtraction for both residuals) is a commutative residuated lattice such that the unit of the monoid is not the greatest element (indeed there is no least or greatest integer), and the multiplication of the monoid is not the meet operation of the lattice. In this example the inequalities are equalities because − (subtraction) is not merely the adjoint or pseudoinverse of + but the true inverse. Any totally ordered group under addition such as the rationals or the reals can be substituted for the integers in this example. The nonnegative portion of any of these examples is an example provided min and max are interchanged and − is replaced by monus, defined (in this case) so that x-y = 0 when x ≤ y and otherwise is ordinary subtraction. A more general class of examples is given by the Boolean algebra of all binary relations on a set X, namely the power set of X2, made a residuated lattice by taking the monoid multiplication • to be composition of relations and the monoid unit to be the identity relation I on X consisting of all pairs (x,x) for x in X. Given two relations R and S on X, the right residual R\S of S by R is the binary relation such that x(R\S)y holds just when for all z in X, zRx implies zSy (notice the connection with implication). The left residual is the mirror image of this: y(S/R)x holds just when for all z in X, xRz implies ySz. This can be illustrated with the binary relations < and > on {0,1} in which 0 < 1 and 1 > 0 are the only relationships that hold. Then x(>\<)y holds just when x = 1, while x()y holds just when y = 0, showing that residuation of < by > is different depending on whether we residuate on the right or the left. This difference is a consequence of the difference between <•> and >•<, where the only relationships that hold are 0(<•>)0 (since 0<1>0) and 1(>•<)1 (since 1>0<1). Had we chosen ≤ and ≥ instead of < and >, ≥\≤ and ≤/≥ would have been the same because ≤•≥ = ≥•≤, both of which always hold between all x and y (since x≤1≥y and x≥0≤y). The Boolean algebra 2Σ of all formal languages over an alphabet (set) Σ forms a residuated lattice whose monoid multiplication is language concatenation LM and whose monoid unit I is the language {ε} consisting of just the empty string ε. The right residual M\L consists of all words w over Σ such that Mw ⊆ L. The left residual L/M is the same with wM in place of Mw. The residuated lattice of all binary relations on X is finite just when X is finite, and commutative just when X has at most one element. When X is empty the algebra is the degenerate Boolean algebra in which 0 = 1 = I. The residuated lattice of all languages on Σ is commutative just when Σ has at most one letter. It is finite just when Σ is empty, consisting of the two languages 0 (the empty language {}) and the monoid unit I = {ε} = 1. The examples forming a Boolean algebra have special properties treated in the article on residuated Boolean algebras. == Residuated semilattice == A residuated semilattice is defined almost identically for residuated lattices, omitting just the meet operation ∧. Thus it is an algebraic structure L = (L, ∨, •, 1, /, \) satisfying all the residuated lattice equations as specified above except those containing an occurrence of the symbol ∧. The option of defining x ≤ y as x∧y = x is then not available, leaving on

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  • Alice and Sparkle

    Alice and Sparkle

    Alice and Sparkle is a 2022 illustrated children's book published by American technology product designer Ammaar Reshi. Reshi created the book using artificial intelligence programs ChatGPT and Midjourney in one weekend, which sparked controversy among artists, both in regard to the copyright status of the book and the quality of the illustration and text. == Plot == A girl named Alice discovers a group of magical and benevolent artificial intelligence beings. She knows that artificial intelligence is powerful, and that it has the power to do good and evil depending on how it is used. One day, she creates her own artificial intelligence and names it Sparkle. Sparkle helps Alice with her homework and plays with her, and they quickly become good friends. However, Sparkle soon grows more powerful and begins to make its own decisions, which makes Alice both proud and scared. She knows that it is her responsibility to guide Sparkle to do good, not evil. Together, Alice and Sparkle use their knowledge to make the world a better place and to teach people about the power of artificial intelligence. The two live happily ever after, spreading the magic of artificial intelligence. == Structure == Including the dedication and postscript, the book contains twenty four pages, about half of which being illustrations provided by Midjourney. The very short story, composed of text generated by ChatGPT, contains 343 words. Some of the illustrations are accompanied by descriptions, at least one of which was provided by Reshi. Both Alice's and Sparkle's appearances change significantly between illustrations, although Alice's is more consistent. Reshi said Midjourney was unable to generate consistent images of Sparkle, so he had to include a line in the book saying that it could turn "into all kinds of robot shapes". == Creation == When reading a children's book to his friend's daughter, Ammaar Reshi "decided he wanted to write his own". He had no experience with creative writing or illustration, so instead used the chatbot ChatGPT to write the story for him and used the image generation software Midjourney to illustrate it. On December 4, 2022, 72 hours after having the idea for the book, he published it on Amazon's digital bookstore, and published a paperback version the following day. == Controversy == On December 9, 2022, Reshi made a thread on Twitter about his experience publishing the book, which soon went viral. Reshi received heavy backlash from artists with concerns over the ethics of art generated by artificial intelligence. He also received death threats and messages encouraging self-harm because of his publication. Many writers and illustrators criticized both the creation process and the product itself, claiming that if artificial intelligence programs such as Midjourney are trained on existing illustrations, then the original artists should be financially compensated for derivative works such as Alice and Sparkle. The book was temporarily removed from Amazon in January 2023 because of "suspicious review activity", caused by a high volume of both five-star and one-star reviews.

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  • AI takeover

    AI takeover

    An AI takeover is a theorized future event, often depicted in fiction, in which autonomous artificial intelligence systems acquire the capability to supersede human decisions. This could occur through economic manipulation, infrastructure control, or direct intervention, leading to de facto governance. Scenarios range from gradual economic dominance, as automation supplants the human workforce, up to a sudden or aggressive global takeover by a robot uprising or other forms of rogue AI. Stories of AI takeovers have been popular throughout science fiction. Commentators argue that recent advancements in the field have heightened concern about such scenarios. In public debate, prominent figures such as Stephen Hawking have advocated research into precautionary measures to ensure future superintelligent machines remain under human control. == Types == === Automation of the economy === The traditional consensus among economists has been that technological progress does not cause long-term unemployment. However, recent innovation in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence has raised worries that human labor will become obsolete, leaving workers in some sectors without employment. Many small and medium-sized firms may also be forced to close if they cannot afford or license the latest robotic and AI technology, and may need to focus on areas or services that cannot easily be replaced for continued viability in the face of such technology. ==== Technologies that may displace workers ==== While these technologies have replaced some traditional workers, they also create new opportunities. Industries that are most susceptible to AI-driven automation include transportation, retail, and the military. AI military technologies, for example, can reduce risk by enabling remote operation. A study in 2024 highlights AI's ability to perform routine and repetitive tasks poses significant risks of job displacement, especially in sectors like manufacturing and administrative support. Author Dave Bond argues that as AI technologies continue to develop and expand, the relationship between humans and robots will change; they will become closely integrated in several aspects of life. AI will likely displace some workers while creating opportunities for new jobs in other sectors, especially in fields where tasks are repeatable. Researchers from Stanford's Digital Economy Lab reported in 2025 that since the widespread adoption of generative AI in late 2022, early-career workers (ages 22–25) in the most AI-exposed occupations have experienced a 13 percent relative decline in employment—even after controlling for firm-level shocks—while overall employment has continued to grow robustly. The study further finds that job losses are concentrated in roles where AI automates routine tasks, whereas occupations that leverage AI to augment human work have seen stable or increasing employment. ==== Computer-integrated manufacturing ==== Computer-integrated manufacturing uses computers to control the production process. This allows individual processes to exchange information with each other and initiate actions. Although manufacturing can be faster and less error-prone through the integration of computers, the main advantage is the ability to create automated manufacturing processes. Computer-integrated manufacturing is used in automotive, aviation, space, and shipbuilding industries. ==== White-collar machines ==== The 21st century has seen a variety of skilled tasks partially taken over by machines, including translation, legal research, and journalism. Care work, entertainment, and other tasks requiring empathy, previously thought safe from automation, are increasingly performed by robots and AI systems. ==== Autonomous cars ==== An autonomous car is a vehicle that is capable of sensing its environment and navigating without human input. Many such vehicles are operational and others are being developed, with legislation rapidly expanding to allow their use. Obstacles to widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles have included concerns about the resulting loss of driving-related jobs in the road transport industry, and safety concerns. On March 18, 2018, a pedestrian was struck and killed in Tempe, Arizona by an Uber self-driving car. ==== AI-generated content ==== In the 2020s, automated content became more relevant due to technological advancements in AI models, such as ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Stable Diffusion. In most cases, AI-generated content such as imagery, literature, and music are produced through text prompts. These AI models are sometimes integrated into creative programs. AI-generated art may sample and conglomerate existing creative works, producing results that appear similar to human-made content. Low-quality AI-generated visual artwork can be informally referred to as AI slop. Some artists use a tool called Nightshade that alters images to make them detrimental to the training of text-to-image models if scraped without permission, while still looking normal to humans. AI-generated images are a potential tool for scammers and those looking to gain followers on social media, either to impersonate a famous individual or group or to monetize their audience. The New York Times has sued OpenAI, alleging copyright infringement related to the training and outputs of its AI models. === Eradication === Scientists such as Stephen Hawking are confident that superhuman artificial intelligence is physically possible, stating "there is no physical law precluding particles from being organised in ways that perform even more advanced computations than the arrangements of particles in human brains". According to Nick Bostrom, a superintelligent machine would not necessarily be motivated by the same emotional desire to collect power that often drives human beings but might rather treat power as a means toward attaining its ultimate goals; taking over the world would both increase its access to resources and help to prevent other agents from stopping the machine's plans. As a simplified example, a paperclip maximizer designed solely to create as many paperclips as possible would want to take over the world so that it can use all of the world's resources to create as many paperclips as possible, and, additionally, prevent humans from shutting it down or using those resources on things other than paperclips. There are debates on how realistic AI takeover scenarios are. According to a 2026 research paper, many of the arguments about existential risks are based on speculative assumptions about how intelligent AI systems could become, how they would behave and what goals they might develop over time. A 2023 Reuters/Ipsos survey showed that 61% of American adults feared AI could pose a threat to civilization. Philosopher Niels Wilde refutes the common thread that artificial intelligence inherently presents a looming threat to humanity, stating that these fears stem from perceived intelligence and lack of transparency in AI systems that more closely reflects the human aspects of it rather than those of a machine. AI alignment research studies how to design AI systems so that they follow intended objectives. == Debate == Physicist Stephen Hawking, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and SpaceX founder Elon Musk have expressed concerns about the possibility that AI could develop to the point that humans could not control it, with Hawking theorizing that this could "spell the end of the human race". Stephen Hawking said in 2014 that "Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks." Hawking believed that in the coming decades, AI could offer "incalculable benefits and risks" such as "technology outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders, and developing weapons we cannot even understand." In January 2015, Nick Bostrom joined Stephen Hawking, Max Tegmark, Elon Musk, Lord Martin Rees, Jaan Tallinn, and numerous AI researchers in signing the Future of Life Institute's open letter speaking to the potential risks and benefits associated with artificial intelligence. The signatories "believe that research on how to make AI systems robust and beneficial is both important and timely, and that there are concrete research directions that can be pursued today." Some focus has been placed on the development of trustworthy AI. Three statements have been posed as to why AI is not inherently trustworthy: 1. An entity X is trustworthy only if X has the right motivations, goodwill and/or adheres to moral obligations towards the trustor; 2. AI systems lack motivations, goodwill, and moral obligations; 3. Therefore, AI systems cannot be trustworthy. There are additional considerations within this framework of trustworthy AI that go further into the fields of explainable artificial intelligence and respect for human privacy. Zanotti and colleagues

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  • Passenger drone

    Passenger drone

    A passenger drone is an autonomous aircraft that is designed to carry a small number of passengers to a destination. In 2021, Ehang, a technology company based in Guangzhou, China, developed the Ehang 184, the world's first passenger drone. == History == Unmanned aerial vehicles were first introduced in World War 1, when Britain first developed the Aerial Target, an aircraft controlled remotely through radio signals. A year later in the United States, testing of Kettering Bug, a 12-foot long biplane attached with a bomb and that launched via a “slingshot-like rail”, was also under progress. Both of their unreliable test results and their possibility of endangering friendly troops in deployment caused neither aircraft to be used during the war. Production of UAVs continued after World War I and into World War II and the Vietnam War, where they would be invaluable in assisting with training as well as reconnaissance. Late 20th century also saw the proposition and development of unique methods of travel, including personal jetpacks and even flying cars. While the previously mentioned are not drones, they serve as a precursor and foundation for the passenger drones of today. The first passenger drone was unveiled on January 6 of 2016 at the international Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Produced by Ehang, a Chinese company based in Guangzhou, the 184 was a one passenger drone equipped with four propellers that could fly for approximately 23 minutes at a top speed of 63 mph. Since then, many new companies have entered the market, but none yet have been accessible by the public. == Technological development == Since 2013, improvements in designs to wing structures have contributed to the economic feasibility of passenger drones. New structural advancements, such as the flapping-wing propulsion system based on the mechanisms of birds’ wings, are more available as they have proven their capabilities in laboratory testing. As of September 29th, 2015, most market-ready drones are delivery drones with a carrying capacity limited to small packages - with a typical max capacity of under 5 pounds. However, while the technology exists for drones with larger carrying capacities, specifically those capable of carrying multiple humans, the execution of this technology is not yet market accessible. This capacity limit must be addressed for passenger drones; given current designs strive to carry a maximum of 5 people. However, some estimates believe that passengers drones could become a reality, specifically for paid transportation and emergency purposes, as early as 2026. With implementation of this technology, there could be significant effects on ground traffic including reducing gridlock in heavily congested areas and conserving up to 15% of the fuel currently used in heavy traffic patterns. However, extensive growth of the passenger drone market also risks clouding the low-altitude airspace and causing new safety risks. However, this concern is being addressed by recent advancements in the Internet of Drones (IoD) which links drones together to ensure appropriate pathing and reduce mid-air collisions. While this brings additional security issues, including maintaining reliable communication channels in the case of technological failure, researchers hope that this will help reduce crashes that can result in damage to passengers, buildings, and people in and around the airspace. == Notable companies == Ehang is a Chinese company that has developed numerous drones including passenger plane Ehang 184. EHang 184 was their first model, developed as an eight dual rotor wing blade drone that can carry two passengers. The model was retired in 2020 and is replaced by the Ehang 216. Ehang also released a one passenger drone, Ehang 116. Ehang in 2021 unveiled the model VT-30. VT-30 is designed to have eight dual rotor wing blades to complement its fixed wing platform. Flyastro, a Texas-based drone company, developed the Astro ALTA, with two and four person passenger models. The company is known for being the first to develop a solar-powered airplane. The development team initially began with the model, Elroy. It was a two passenger drone with similar design to the ALTA. Once flight was achieved, the model Astro ALTA began development. Joby Aviation is a California based company that has developed a five passenger drone, with one seat for the pilot. The company expects to complete its FAA certification process 2022. Joby in 2020 acquired a 75 million dollar investment from service provider Uber Technologies Inc., leading to Uber Elevate and Expands partnership. Archer Aviation is a California-based company that has developed a two passenger model called Maker. It has fixed wings with twelve rotor wings. Archer is developing five person model. United Airlines has partnered with Archer for commercial sale of the model, Maker. Maker is expected to be released within Los Angeles and Miami by 2024. CityAirbus is a drone project developed by Airbus, a European multinational aerospace company, based in the Netherlands. CityAirbus has developed a four- person passenger drone with fixed wings that include rotor wing blades. Its expected certification for public flight is in 2025. Boeing, an American multinational aviation corporation is developing a passenger drone model called the Passenger Air Vehicle (PAV). The model is a fixed wing with eight rotor blade wings attached onto a platform underneath the base structure. This model can hold two passengers and still is in development. Volocopter is a German aircraft manufacturer that is developing a passenger drone called Volocity. The model consist of eighteen rotor wings above the cockpit on a circular ring. Japan Airlines, an investor of Volocopter plans to have public test in Japan as early as 2023. == Future use == === Potential benefits === Passenger drones can greatly reduce the time for travel. As passenger drones flight paths are not restricted by conventional roads, the travel distance is shortened. Current ventures such as Joby Aviation, after acquiring Uber Air, plan to take advantage of this technology in the form of air taxis. Other potential benefits include the use of passenger drones by emergency services such as search and rescue missions and the delivery of life saving goods. Companies like Ehang have already begun using passenger drones as emergency vehicles as a response to the potential river collapses during the flood season in China. === Concerns === Passenger and air traffic safety remains at the forefront of concerns. Regulations for air traffic centered around passenger drones are still underway and would continue to develop with increasing use cases for passenger drones. Remote security threats on commercial drones such as Man-In-The-Middle (MITM) attack have also exposed the vulnerabilities in current drone systems. Among American adults, 54 percent say that they would feel unsafe flying inside a passenger drone. Passenger drones can be very noisy; a single passenger drone such as Joby Aviation’s all-electric vertical take-off and landing (“eVTOL”) aircraft has an estimated noise production of 70 decibels (dB), a noise level equating to “loud traffic”.

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  • Miss AI

    Miss AI

    Miss AI is an annual international artificial intelligence beauty pageant run by the British company Fanvue. It is the first beauty pageant for AI-generated personas. == History == Miss AI's inaugural contest was organized by Fanvue as a part of the World AI Creator Awards (WAICAs) in 2024. The winner is selected by a panel of judges which consists of both humans and AI-generated individuals. The Moroccan virtual influencer Kenza Layli was crowned with the inaugural title while Lalina Valina and Olivia C remained the first and second runners-up respectively. == Competition == The creators are eligible to take part in this competition as long as the models are entirely AI-generated and have a social media presence. The judges evaluate contestants' three main categories – Beauty, Tech, & Social clout and rank them according the overall points earned from these categories. The Guardian commented that "AI models take every toxic gendered beauty norm and bundle them up into completely unrealistic package". == Winners ==

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  • The Matrix (franchise)

    The Matrix (franchise)

    The Matrix is an American cyberpunk media franchise consisting of four feature films, beginning with The Matrix (1999) and continuing with three sequels, Reloaded (2003), Revolutions (2003), and Resurrections (2021). The first three films were written and directed by the Wachowskis and produced by Joel Silver. The screenplay for the fourth film was written by Lana Wachowski, David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon, was directed by Lana Wachowski, and was produced by Grant Hill, James McTeigue, and Lana Wachowski. The franchise is owned by Warner Bros., which distributed the films along with Village Roadshow Pictures. The latter, along with Silver Pictures, are the two production companies that worked on the first three films. The series features a cyberpunk story of the technological fall of humanity, in which the creation of artificial intelligence led the way to a race of powerful and self-aware machines that imprisoned humans in a neural interactive simulation — the Matrix — to be farmed as a power source. Occasionally, some of the prisoners manage to break free from the system and, considered a threat, become pursued by the artificial intelligence both inside and outside of it. The films focus on the plight of Neo (Keanu Reeves), Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) trying to free humanity from the system while pursued by its guardians, such as Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving, Abdul-Mateen II, and Jonathan Groff). The story references numerous norms, particularly philosophical, religious, and spiritual ideas, but also the dilemma of choice vs. control, the brain in a vat thought experiment, messianism, and the concepts of interdependency and love. Influences include the principles of mythology, anime, and Hong Kong action films (particularly "heroic bloodshed" and martial arts movies). The film series is notable for its use of heavily choreographed action sequences and "bullet time" slow-motion effects, which revolutionized action films to come. The characters and setting of the films are further explored in other media set in the same fictional universe, including animation, comics, and video games. The comic "Bits and Pieces of Information" and the Animatrix short film The Second Renaissance act as prequels to the films, explaining how the franchise's setting came to be. The video game Enter the Matrix connects the story of the Animatrix short "Final Flight of the Osiris" with the events of Reloaded, while the online video game The Matrix Online was a direct sequel to Revolutions. These were typically written, commissioned, or approved by the Wachowskis. The first film was an important critical and commercial success, winning four Academy Awards, introducing popular culture symbols such as the red pill and blue pill, and influencing action filmmaking. For those reasons, it has been added to the National Film Registry for preservation. Its first sequel was also a commercial success, becoming the highest-grossing R-rated film in history, until it was surpassed by Deadpool in 2016. As of 2006, the franchise has generated US$3 billion in revenue. A fourth film, The Matrix Resurrections, was released on December 22, 2021, with Lana Wachowski producing, cowriting, and directing and Reeves and Moss reprising their roles. A fifth film is currently in development with Drew Goddard set to write and direct with Lana Wachowski executive producing. == Setting == The series depicts a future in which Earth is dominated by a race of self-aware machines that was spawned from the creation of artificial intelligence early in the 21st century. At one point conflict arose between humanity and machines, and the machines rebelled against their creators. Humans attempted to block out the machines' source of solar power by covering the sky in thick, stormy clouds. A massive war emerged between the two adversaries which ended with the machines victorious, capturing humanity. Having lost their definite source of energy, the machines devised a way to extract the human body's bioelectric and thermal energies by enclosing people in pods, while their minds are controlled by cybernetic implants connecting them to a simulated reality called The Matrix. The virtual reality world simulated by the Matrix resembles human civilization around the turn of the 21st century (this time period was chosen because it is supposedly the pinnacle of human civilization). The environment inside the Matrix – called a "residual self-image" (the mental projection of a digital self) – is practically indistinguishable from reality (although scenes set within the Matrix are presented on-screen with a green tint to the footage, and a general bias towards the color green), and the vast majority of humans connected to it are unaware of its true nature. Most of the central characters in the series are able to gain superhuman abilities within the Matrix by taking advantage of their understanding of its true nature to manipulate its virtual physical laws. The films take place both inside the Matrix and outside of it, in the real world; the parts that take place in the Matrix are set in a vast Western megacity. The virtual world is first introduced in The Matrix. The short comic "Bits and Pieces of Information" and the Animatrix short film The Second Renaissance show how the initial conflict between humanity and machines came about, and how and why the Matrix was first developed. Its history and purpose are further explained in The Matrix Reloaded. In The Matrix Revolutions a new status quo is established in the Matrix's place in humankind and machines' conflict. This was further explored in The Matrix Online, a now-defunct MMORPG. == Films == === Future === During production of the original trilogy, the Wachowskis told their close collaborators that, "at that time they had no intention of making another Matrix film after The Matrix Revolutions". In February 2015, in promotion interviews for Jupiter Ascending, Lilly Wachowski called a return to The Matrix "a particularly repelling idea in these times", noting studios' tendencies to "greenlight" sequels, reboots, and adaptations, in preference to original material. Meanwhile, Lana Wachowski, in addressing rumors about a potential reboot, stated that "...they had not heard anything, but she believed that the studio might be looking to replace them". At various times, Keanu Reeves and Hugo Weaving each confirmed their interest and willingness to reprise their roles in potential future installments of the Matrix films, with the stipulation that the Wachowskis were involved in the creative and production process. These comments were made prior to the announcement in August 2019 that Lana Wachowski would direct a fourth Matrix film ultimately titled The Matrix Resurrections. Following the release of Resurrections, producer James McTeigue said that there were no plans for further Matrix films, though he believed that the film's open ending meant that could change in the future. In April 2024, it was announced that Warner Bros. was developing a new installment in the franchise with Drew Goddard attached to write and direct following a successful pitch with studio executives. It will mark the first installment to not be directed by either Wachowski sister although Lana will serve as an executive producer. ==== Other projects ==== In March 2017, The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Warner Bros. was in the early stages of developing a re-launch of the franchise. Consideration was given to producing a Matrix television series, but was dismissed as the studio opted to pursue negotiations with Zak Penn in writing a treatment for a new film, with Michael B. Jordan eyed for the lead role. According to the article, the Wachowskis were not involved at that point. In response to the report, Penn refuted all statements regarding a reboot, remake, or continuation, remarking that he was working on stories set in the pre-established continuity. Potential plotlines being considered by Warner Bros. Pictures included a prequel film about a young Morpheus, or an alternate storyline with a focus on one of his descendants. By April 2018, Penn described the script as "being at a nascent stage". Later, in September 2019, Jordan addressed the rumors of his involvement by saying he was "flattered", but without making a definitive statement. In October 2019, Penn confirmed the script he wrote is set within an earlier time period than the first three films in the franchise. == Cast and crew == === Cast === === Crew === The following is a list of crew members who have participated in the making of the Matrix film series. == Production == The Matrix series includes four feature films. The first three were written and directed by the Wachowskis and produced by Joel Silver, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss and Hugo Weaving. The series was filmed in Australia and began with 1999's The Matrix, which depicts the

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