علماء في برلين يناقشون الكيفية التي يتم بها قراءة الأفكار

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علماء في برلين يناقشون الكيفية التي يتم بها قراءة الأفكار

قالت باحثة بارزة في مجال العلوم المعرفية في مؤتمر علمي كبير عقد في برلين، إن «عملية قراءة البشر لأفكار بعضهم البعض لا تندرج تحت مصطلح التخاطر، ولكنها عبارة عن عملية محاكاة للحالات الذهنية للآخرين». وكانت ناتالي سيبانز واحدة من بين المنظمين الأربعة الرئيسيين للاجتماع السنوي لجمعية العلوم المعرفية، وهي شبكة عالمية من علماء النفس وعلماء البرمجيات والفلاسفة الذين بدأوا نقاشا حول أسرار العقل البشري في بداية أغسطس (آب) الحالي في برلين.
وقالت سيبانز في مقابلة مع وكالة الأنباء الألمانية (د.ب.أ): «لقد أجرينا تجارب لم يسمح فيها للأشخاص بالتحدث إلى بعضهم البعض، وعلى الرغم من ذلك فقد حققت هذه التجارب درجة عالية من التنسيق.. ستتعجب فعلا إذا كان هذا الأمر عبارة عن قراءة للأفكار، لكنه بالطبع ليس كذلك، بل يبدو فقط إنه يشبه ذلك».
وأوضحت: «نعتقد أن البشر قادرون على التنسيق مع بعضهم البعض لأنه بإمكانهم التخطيط لأفعال الآخرين كما لو كانت أفعالهم».
محاكاة نيات الشركاء هي التي تمكننا من عزف الموسيقى معا أو خوض مباريات رياضية ضمن فريق.
وقالت سيبانز النمساوية المولد والتي تعمل أستاذة مشاركة في الجامعة الأوروبية المركزية في بودابست: «في رأسك، أنت تفكر في تصرفات الناس الآخرين، وهذا يحدث تلقائيا دون أن تكون واعيا بذلك». وأضافت: «عندما يقوم شخص ما برمي كرة إليك، فأنت تستعد.. يمكنك القيام بهذه التوقعات لأنك أنت نفسك تعرف كيف ترمي الكرة ».
وقد شارك 1600 شخص في مؤتمر هذا العام والذي عقد تحت عنوان: «العقول التعاونية: التفاعل الاجتماعي وديناميات المجموعة». وتابعت سيبانز قائلة إن الاجتماعات السابقة للجمعية التي تتخذ من الولايات المتحدة مقرا لها شهدت مشاركة ألف شخص، لكن الاهتمام بهذا المجال يتزايد، هذا فضلا عن أن برلين تعد مكانا جذابا لعقد مثل هذه المؤتمرات.
إن العلوم المعرفية ستساعدنا على تصميم روبوتات تقوم بما يريده الناس، بدلا من كونها تتمتع بذكاء آلي ضعيف. وقالت سيبانز: «بمجرد أن نفهم على نحو أفضل الكيفية التي يفكر بها البشر، فسيصبح من الممكن صنع روبوتات ذكية ويمكن أن يكون هذا مفيدا للمجتمع». وأضافت: «ذكاء (الروبوتات) لا يعني كونها مثل البشر، بل إنها يمكن أن تساعد البشر في بعض الأنشطة».
وقال الكثير من العلماء المشاركين في هذا الحدث إنهم يتوقعون أن تعمل الروبوتات على مساعدة وتمكين كبار السن الذين أصبحوا ضعافا.
وأوضحت سيبانز: «هناك الكثير من الناس في هذا المؤتمر الذين هم في الواقع يحاولون صنع روبوتات ومعرفة ما إذا كان بإمكانها التفاعل مع البشر.. بالطبع نحن فقط في البداية، ولكن يمكن للمرء أن يرى تقدما يحدث في السنوات الأخيرة».
وقالت: إن «الذي يجعل هذا صعبا هو أن البشر أصبحوا معتادين - نتيجة للتفاعل الاجتماعي مع بعضهم البعض - على التنسيق الدقيق جدا وعلى ملاحظة كل شيء غير طبيعي وغير معتاد حتى لو كان صغيرا. أما فيما يتعلق بالروبوتات، فإنها عادة ما تكون أكثر بدائية، كما أنها لا تتفاعل بسرعة، وهي فوق كل شيء لا تتمتع بالصفة البشرية».



As Trump Media Scraps Some Businesses, It's Doubling Down on Truth Social

Trump Media & Technology Company owns the Truth Social platform (Reuters)
Trump Media & Technology Company owns the Truth Social platform (Reuters)
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As Trump Media Scraps Some Businesses, It's Doubling Down on Truth Social

Trump Media & Technology Company owns the Truth Social platform (Reuters)
Trump Media & Technology Company owns the Truth Social platform (Reuters)

The president's media company has tried its hand at a half-dozen new lines of business to lift its stock, but nothing has worked.

Now it's getting back to its roots.

In a conference call with investors Monday, the company behind Truth Social said it will be unwinding much of its expansion and doubling down on its original media business by selling a form of White House access, a move that has raised big ethical questions among Democrats and government watchdogs, said The Associated Press.

Trump started Truth Social after he was kicked off Twitter and Facebook, but the two reinstated him more than three years ago, so the company has had to transform itself. Instead of a “free speech” forum, it now acts more like a “hear it here first” site, a second White House press office where people get scoops from the president on everything from the Iran war to tariffs to the future of the US central bank.

But shares of the parent company, Trump Media & Technology, kept falling so it decided to become more than a media company, and branched into unrelated industries like online betting, finance, investment funds, buying and storing bitcoin and nuclear energy.

Now it's returning to its original mission, with a twist: It's offering a special new service that grants fast access to President Trump's posts for a fee.

The new business could double or triple revenue

In a conference call with investors, the company's new chief executive, Kevin McGurn, said it had already signed up several high speed trading firms, each paying between $60,000 and $100,000 a month.

“We’re in the early innings,” said McGurn, noting that the potential market included data center companies, news organizations and developers of large language models, not just traders, and he was talking to them all.

McGurn has rejected the idea that the new business is an ethics quagmire as good-government groups have said, noting that other social media companies provide a similar service. As for the White House, it denies conflicts even exist between Trump the president and Trump the businessman where his private interests may influence his public policy.

Traders on Wall Street can make big money if they get White House news faster and so are signing up — 10 in the week since the service began, which may seem like a tiny number but translates into a major boost for the company. The monthly customers collectively are paying as much as $7 million and $12 million annually — two to three times the revenue the company took in for all its businesses last year.

Trump Media needs the money — and a lot more.

It's lost more than $1 billion since the start of last year, and its earnings report released Monday for the three months ended June 30 showed relief is not on the horizon. It lost another $238 million, though much of that was due to paper losses from the plunging value of its bitcoin holdings.

Time is running out

The clock is ticking to fix the company.

Trump Media depends partly on outside funding, specifically $1 billion raised from lenders with a special agreement that allows them to get paid back early. They can demand the company buy back their convertible notes on Nov. 30, 18 months before the loans mature.

That cashout date is just after the November midterms, which could impact the company should Democrats get control of Congress. Several current members, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, say they will hold formal investigations of Trump's businesses, including Trump Media, should they take over.

A third deadline is farther out, but the most consequential — the end of Trump's presidency.

Trump is a big draw for the platform's users, but it's not clear how many will read his posts after he leaves office, much less why traders will pay as much $1.2 million a year for sneak peeks at his posts if he's no longer able to declare on the site that the Strait of Hormuz is open or that he's hiking tariffs on dozens of countries.

Would Vance in the White House help Truth Social? The special, high-speed service, called Truth API, includes posts from other top posters on the site, but no one comes near the president in popularity. He has 13 million followers. The second biggest poster, his son, Donald Jr., has 7.5 million.

Other heavily followed posters include Trump administration members who also may fall in popularity once out of office, including FBI director Kash Patel and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

A wild card is JD Vance, who will be out of his vice presidential job in 2028 but, if he runs for president and wins, may continue to post on the site where he has five million followers.

The other business line that McGurn is choosing to hold onto is nuclear fusion, a technology still not commercially available but that is getting a big boost by the current administration.

The US government has a helping hand In June, the US Department of Energy released a “road map” committing to government funding to speed the development of nuclear fusion as a national priority and calling for public-private partnerships.

Despite the help, investors still aren't convinced Trump Media has a rosy future.

After closing at about $62 shortly after it went public in 2024, the stock has plunged into the single digits, wiping out billions in stock market value.

On Monday, Trump Media dove again, down 8% to $9.39 a share.


İngiltere'nin yaklaşık dörtte üçü kuraklıktan etkileniyor

İngiltere'de yaşanan rekor sıcaklıklarda şemsiyesiyle yürüyen bir kadın, (Reuters)
İngiltere'de yaşanan rekor sıcaklıklarda şemsiyesiyle yürüyen bir kadın, (Reuters)
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İngiltere'nin yaklaşık dörtte üçü kuraklıktan etkileniyor

İngiltere'de yaşanan rekor sıcaklıklarda şemsiyesiyle yürüyen bir kadın, (Reuters)
İngiltere'de yaşanan rekor sıcaklıklarda şemsiyesiyle yürüyen bir kadın, (Reuters)

İngiliz hükümeti, ülkenin bütün zamanların en kurak temmuz ayını geride bırakmasının ardından, İngiltere'nin yaklaşık yüzde 71,3'ünün kuraklıktan etkilendiğini açıkladı. Hükümet, gelecek hafta beşinci sıcak hava dalgasının başlamasının ve yağışların düşük seyretmesinin beklendiğini bildirdi.

İngiltere Çevre, Gıda ve Köyişleri Bakanlığı dün yaptığı açıklamada, "İngiltere'nin yaklaşık dörtte üçü şu anda kuraklık yaşıyor. Ağustos ayının kurak başlamasının ardından koşullar daha da kötüleşiyor" ifadelerini kullandı. Bakanlık ayrıca ülkenin tüm bölgelerinde su kaynakları üzerinde baskı bulunduğunu belirtti.


Oil Prices Rise Further as Hopes for Hormuz Deal Fade

Workers walk across pipelines at the Rumaila oil field in Basra, Iraq (Reuters)
Workers walk across pipelines at the Rumaila oil field in Basra, Iraq (Reuters)
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Oil Prices Rise Further as Hopes for Hormuz Deal Fade

Workers walk across pipelines at the Rumaila oil field in Basra, Iraq (Reuters)
Workers walk across pipelines at the Rumaila oil field in Basra, Iraq (Reuters)

Oil prices extended hefty gains Tuesday as hopes for a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz fade, fanning fresh inflation fears and ramping up bets on at least one US interest rate hike this year.

Crude has surged around 10 percent over the past week, with the United States and Iran appearing no closer to a deal on the crucial waterway despite upbeat comments from the White House earlier in the month, according to AFP.

In the latest blow, Donald Trump said Monday he would seek conflict compensation from Iran as part of any peace negotiations, citing attacks and killings stretching back decades allegedly backed or perpetrated by Tehran.

The US president's announcement was a direct response to Tehran's demand for US war reparations as a precondition to any resolution of the crisis.

Trump's remarks came a day after he said he was "low-keying" his approach to the conflict, suggesting he was prepared to let economic pressure mount in place of further military strikes.

However, the latest back and forth risks putting a quick agreement further out of reach, and on Monday both main crude contracts jumped around five percent. They extended the gains on Tuesday.

"In the absence of any positive headlines on negotiations to reopen the strait, pressure on oil prices has been upward," wrote Jason Wong at BNZ.

And Stephen Innes, global strategist at Quintex Intel, said: "In effect, both sides are trying to weaponize the oil barrel without firing another shot. Washington is trying to choke Iran's ability to get its crude out, while Tehran is squeezing the artery through which everybody else's crude gets through.

"It is quite the game of chicken."

The prospect of oil prices remaining elevated for the time being has revived concerns over inflation and boosted the chances of interest rate increases.

While a surprise loss of more than 20,000 jobs in the US economy last month eased fears of a Federal Reserve hike, a spike in price pressures could force the bank's hand.

Cleveland Fed boss Beth Hammack told Yahoo Finance on Monday: "I would say in general, one 25-basis-point move probably doesn't do a whole lot for the economy.

"So it's probably some number of (movements). But I don't want to prejudge what that number is going to be."

The US-Iran deadlock and rising crude costs comes as traders await the release of consumer price data on Wednesday, which could play a key role in guiding the Fed on its next move.

Asian equities were mixed following a tepid day on Wall Street.

Shanghai, Wellington, Taipei and Manila all edged down but there were gains in Hong Kong, Sydney, Singapore and Seoul.

Tokyo was closed for a holiday.