Google is opening the world's first AI museum in Los Angeles by Ivan Jenic Image via: Google Ever since AI image generators went mainstream, the debate over whether AI-generated art is real art hasn't let up. Those who don’t consider AI to be art say that if a machine does the creating and anyone can prompt it, there’s no skill involved, and therefore no art is produced. The counter-argument is equally persistent, as defenders of AI-generated artworks often claim that AI is just a tool, and that every major technological breakthrough, like the camera or the computer, was met with the same skepticism before eventually being accepted as a legitimate creative medium. Google’s position in this debate is clear. Which is no surprise, as the company is investing billions in AI infrastructure. And now, in efforts to encourage people to use its AI even more, Google is opening Dataland on June 20, which it's calling the world's first AI arts museum. Located inside The Grand LA, a Frank Gehry-designed building in Los Angeles, the museum spans 25,000 square feet. The museum is built around a collaboration with media artist Refik Anadol, who has worked with Google since 2016. The inaugural exhibition is called Machine Dreams: Rainforest, and is powered by an AI model trained on “an extensive dataset of the natural world.” It generates 1.2 billion pixels of visuals in real time and reacts to visitors dynamically. The space also generates soundscapes, real-time emotion sensing, and algorithmically produced scents. Image via: Refik Anadol Studio / Google Google says that the museum is powered by its Gemini models, which run on Google Cloud. So, everything is generated inside one of Google’s AI data centers and is streamed to the museum. Alongside the museum opening, Google Arts & Culture is funding an AI Artist Residency, giving four artists $25,000 grants each, along with mentorship from Refik Anadol Studio and access to Google's machine learning tools. Their work will be shown at Dataland and on the Google Arts & Culture website later this year. Google’s AI museum will undoubtedly initiate a fired-up debate on social media, and we can’t wait to see the first reactions. Via: Smithsonian Magazine

Calling GTA 6 overhyped crap doesn’t make you edgy, it just makes you sound like someone who hasn’t enjoyed anything since the PS2 era.

I’m not arguing whether Rockstar likes money. Obviously, they do, they’re a business. I’m saying this isn’t new. They’ve always launched console first. This is just how Rockstar operates.

I'm not sure how old the school is, but they've been doing this since GTA 3. Back in those days we'd be lucky for game companies to release on the PC at all. And with the current state of Sony (or Microsoft) their gaming wing won't be getting a penny from me.

We now know when and how the Universe may truly end by Sayan Sen Image by Marek Pavlík via Pexels| Not representative A study by physicist Henry Tye of Cornell University suggests that the universe may not expand forever. Instead, it could eventually stop expanding, begin contracting and end in a "Big Crunch" roughly 20 billion years from now. The research, published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, was conducted by Tye, Horace White Professor of Physics Emeritus at Cornell University. Using recent observations from major dark-energy surveys, Tye and his collaborators developed a cosmological model that predicts the universe could have a total lifespan of about 33 billion years. Since the universe is currently estimated to be 13.8 billion years old, the model places it near the midpoint of its existence. According to Cornell University's summary of the research, the study centers on the cosmological constant, a term introduced by Albert Einstein in his theory of general relativity. In modern cosmology, the cosmological constant is commonly used to describe the simplest form of dark energy, the unknown phenomenon believed to be driving the accelerating expansion of the universe. "For the last 20 years, people believed that the cosmological constant is positive, and the universe will expand forever," Tye said in a Cornell University news release. "The new data seem to indicate that the cosmological constant is negative, and that the universe will end in a big crunch." The study draws on data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), two major projects designed to investigate the nature of dark energy. According to Tye, recent observations suggest that dark energy may not behave exactly like a simple cosmological constant. To account for those observations, Tye and his collaborators proposed a model involving an extremely light hypothetical particle that evolves over time. In their calculations, this produces a negative cosmological constant and leads to a future collapse of the universe. The model predicts that cosmic expansion would continue for approximately another 11 billion years before reaching a maximum size, after which the universe would begin contracting and eventually collapse. Scientists have long debated how the universe might end. As explained in an article published in The Conversation by Stephen DiKerby of Michigan State University, several possibilities have been proposed. If dark energy remains constant and positive, the universe could continue expanding indefinitely, gradually becoming colder, darker and more diffuse in a scenario often called the "heat death" of the universe. Other theoretical possibilities include a Big Rip, in which cosmic expansion accelerates so dramatically that galaxies, stars and even atoms are torn apart, or a Big Crunch, in which expansion reverses and the universe collapses back into an extremely dense state. DiKerby notes that the Big Crunch idea itself is not new. What distinguishes Tye's work is that it attempts to use current observational data to estimate when such a collapse might occur and how it could unfold. Much of the universe's long-term evolution remains uncertain. According to current astrophysical understanding, stars will continue to form and die for billions of years. The Sun, for example, is about halfway through its expected lifespan. Galaxies are also expected to continue merging; the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are projected to collide several billion years from now. At the same time, the nature of dark energy remains one of the biggest unanswered questions in cosmology. While observations indicate that the universe's expansion is accelerating, scientists still do not know what is causing that acceleration. Future observations may therefore alter current predictions about the cosmos's ultimate fate. Tye emphasized that additional evidence will be needed before firm conclusions can be drawn. DESI continues to collect data, while upcoming observations from missions and observatories including Euclid, SPHEREx and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory are expected to provide more precise measurements of dark energy. "People have said before that if the cosmological constant is negative, then the universe will collapse eventually. That's not new," Tye said. "However, here the model tells you when the universe collapses and how it collapses." For now, the study presents one possible future for the cosmos rather than a settled prediction. Whether the universe ultimately ends in a Big Crunch, expands forever, or follows another path entirely remains an open question that future observations will help answer. Source: Cornell University, The Conversation This article was generated with some help from AI and reviewed by an editor. Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, this material is used for the purpose of news reporting. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.