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Google Enters Massive 3.6-GW Power Deal With Constellation Energy 1

Posted by BeauHD from the supply-and-demand dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Google has contracted for 3,590 megawatts of power from Constellation Energy on the largest US power grid, with new nuclear energy accounting for about a quarter of that supply, the companies said on Tuesday. Constellation will make more than $4.3 billion of new investments in its fleet as part of the agreement, which involves adding capacity at several of the power company's nuclear reactors in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions, the companies said.

[...] Over the last two years, Constellation unveiled an agreement to restart its Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania to serve Microsoft data centers, while Google contracted to restart NextEra Energy's nuclear power plant in Iowa. In the latest arrangement, Google entered into a 20-year power purchase agreement for 890 megawatts of electricity from multiple Constellation-owned nuclear power plants, which would be upgraded to produce more electricity from existing reactors. Electricity from the first of the upgraded plants is expected to be delivered in 2028, the companies said.

Google also entered into a 15-year supply agreement for an additional 2,700 megawatts of power from Constellation in the PJM power grid. That power is not tied to a specific generation source and serves as long-term revenue certainty for Constellation's operating plants, Google said. Maryland-based Constellation is the largest US nuclear power plant operator and owns a major fleet of natural-gas-fired power plants as well as geothermal energy following its acquisition of electricity producer Calpine Corp earlier this year. [...] The 11 nuclear units expected to be upgraded as part of the arrangement with Google are in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, within the footprint of the largest US electric grid -- PJM Interconnection. Joe Dominguez, chairman, president and CEO of Constellation, said the arrangement with Google is a "model for how technology companies and the energy industry can work together to responsibly develop the digital economy and invest in our nation's energy infrastructure in a way that delivers grid-wide benefits for all, funded by private entities."

Comment Re:Paywalled AI Marketing (Score 1) 66

by Tom (#66366032) Attached to: OpenAI Is Adding Text Watermarking In ChatGPT and Codex

It's a regulation forced on them by the EU's AI Act, which neither companies nor users want.

The target audience for this particular rule of the AI Act isn't the producers or users of AI. It is the consumers of content that might be AI generated.

And frankly, letting people know if they see AI content or not is a fair thing to ask.

Comment Re:So what's it good for? (Score 1) 66

by Tom (#66366030) Attached to: OpenAI Is Adding Text Watermarking In ChatGPT and Codex

And honestly, "not measuring how much a human contributed" is IMHO a massive flaw in general

Fun fact: The EU AI Act considers this. It makes a difference between "AI generated" and "AI modified".

But it's hard to put this into the type of watermarking they are using. Because if you generate a text and then change a few things here and there what you are doing is degrading the watermark. But since the watermark is probabilistic, it's hard to tell if it was a weak watermark from the start or if it was degraded.
AI

South Korea Says AI Agents May Have Been Used to Hack the Country's Banks 3

Posted by BeauHD from the beginning-of-the-end dept.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung says there are signs AI models may have been used in recent cyberattacks against several major banks. "In some hacking incidents, signs have emerged of AI being used, causing considerable public concern and anxiety," Lee said during a cabinet meeting. "Please establish the circumstances swiftly and clearly, and concentrate personnel and resources on minimizing the damage." Reuters reports: South Korea's police have launched a full-scale investigation into the hacking attacks against commercial banks that led to a breach of customers' personal information, the Yonhap news agency reported on Tuesday. Shinhan Bank, KB Kookmin Bank and others had reported cyberattacks, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) said on Friday, while Yonhap reported that Hana Bank and Woori Bank also suffered breaches. Authorities have not yet disclosed details on what kind of AI tools were used in the hacking incidents or the full scale of the breaches.

On Sunday, FSC Chairman Lee Eog-weon convened an emergency meeting with financial industry associations, regulators and executives from affected institutions, warning that the sector must respond with the highest level of vigilance. Financial watchdog the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) and the Financial Security Institute shared data about 28 unique IP addresses and some country information linked to the recent hacking attempts with the financial sector, the FSS said on Tuesday.

Comment Re:Meanwhile, back at the benchmarks (Score 1) 21

It actually makes RAM needs worse than a dense model, for a given quality.

That said, inference techniques like FreeToken are improving MoE swapping performance, so it's not as bad as it once was. Honestly, I would not be at all surprised if we start doing training in a swap-aware manner, where expert cache misses count as loss and models can queue experts to start loading before they're needed. Could even train in two tiers of loading - RAM and disk. Wouldn't that be great? Could run multi-terabyte models on consumer hardware. Training would tend to tend to concentrate key logic and reasoning on small number of very active experts, mixed reasoning/knowledge on less common experts that are usually kept in RAM, and rarer knowledge on experts that usually remain on-disk until needed.

Comment Re: Meanwhile, back at the benchmarks (Score 1) 21

There are well known, reputable abliterators on HuggingFace.

Also, censorship usually (not always) is something you care about for chats, not agentic work.

A .safetensors or .gguf model cannot run code unless you let it. No agentic framework = all it can do is write text. It can't hurt you directly. At worst, it can only lie to you.
Canada

Canadian Analysis: Permanent Daylight Saving Harms Sleep and Mental Health (sci.news) 86

Posted by BeauHD from the timely-findings dept.
"With the push to eliminate the twice yearly clock change, Permanent Daylight Savings Time has emerged as the favorite for most states and provinces," writes longtime Slashdot reader kbahey, sharing the findings from a recent analysis published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Sci.News reports: "Ending the clock change solves one problem, but it creates another decision: which time should we live on year-round?" said University of British Columbia's Professor Raymond Lam, lead author of the study. "The health evidence points to standard time, largely because morning light matters for our body clocks, sleep, and mood." Professor Lam and colleagues examined the health consequences of the two possible permanent systems rather than the broader question of whether seasonal clock changes should be abolished. They concluded that the accumulated evidence favors permanent standard time, which keeps the clock more closely aligned with human circadian biology.

This distinction, according to the team, becomes particularly important during winter. Permanent daylight saving time would push sunrise an hour later. In cities such as Toronto, for example, the latest winter sunrise would occur at 8:51 a.m., compared with 7:51 a.m. under permanent standard time. In Calgary, the corresponding times would be 9:40 a.m. and 8:40 a.m. The extra hour of morning darkness could leave people traveling to work or school before sunrise, while shifting more daylight into the evening. The change could have consequences for sleep, mood, learning and productivity, particularly among people who already have difficulty sleeping or who must follow early schedules. The reason is rooted in the body's internal clock.

"Our biological clocks need morning light to stay synchronized with the 24-hour day," said Simon Fraser University's Professor Ralph Mistlberger, co-author of the study. "Permanent daylight saving time moves that light an hour later just when winter mornings are already darkest." The analysis also highlights concerns about seasonal depression. [...] By delaying natural morning light, permanent daylight saving time would act in the opposite direction, potentially weakening an important circadian signal.
Businesses

HubSpot Cuts 660 Jobs In AI Restructuring 14

Posted by BeauHD from the SaaSpocalypse dept.
HubSpot is cutting about 7% of its workforce, or roughly 660 employees, as it restructures into what CEO Yamini Rangan described as a "flatter organization" with fewer management layers. Rangan said the layoffs were "not driven by AI-related efficiencies," though AI remains central to HubSpot's strategy as the company adjusts its organization around AI-driven customer outcomes. Fast Company reports: The layoffs come as investors have spent months questioning whether AI will reduce the need for businesses to pay for software like HubSpot's, a fear dubbed the "SaaSpocalypse." HubSpot's platform helps companies manage their customers, sales, and marketing. The company was removed from the FTSE All-World Index (USD) last month after a decline in its stock price, a report from Simply Wall St noted. The stock is down more than 43% this year as of this writing.

Yamini Rangan, CEO of HubSpot, explicitly told employees in a memo that the layoffs were "not driven by AI-related efficiencies." Rather, the aim was to focus on "aligning our organization with our strategy and how we need to operate going forward," Rangan wrote. She added that the goal is to "build a flatter organization with fewer layers" by cutting back on management.

Still, artificial intelligence has been central to the company's concerns. In August, Rangan blamed AI for why the company "got off to a slow start" in April as HubSpot was trying to adjust its product and pricing. "We're in the middle of a real transition to AI, and we are making deliberate choices to lead in it," she said on an earnings call.

The restructuring is estimated to cost between $65 and $75 million, mostly in severance packages. The company said that laid-off employees will receive 20 weeks of base pay, one week per year of service (capped at 30 weeks), five months of COBRA and Modern Health healthcare benefits, and they will be allowed to keep their laptops.

Submission + - Google Enters Massive 3.6-GW Power Deal With Constellation Energy (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google has contracted for 3,590 megawatts of power from Constellation Energy in the largest US power grid, with new nuclear energy accounting for about a quarter of that supply, the companies said on Tuesday. Constellation will make more than $4.3 billion of new investments in its fleet as part of the agreement, which involves adding capacity at several of the power company's nuclear reactors in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions, the companies said.

[...] Over the last two years, Constellation unveiled an agreement to restart its Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania to serve Microsoft data centers, while Google contracted to restart NextEra Energy's nuclear power plant in Iowa. In the latest arrangement, Google entered into a 20-year power purchase agreement for 890 megawatts of electricity from multiple Constellation-owned nuclear power plants, which would be upgraded to produce more electricity from existing reactors. Electricity from the first of the upgraded plants is expected to be delivered in 2028, the companies said.

Google also entered into a 15-year supply agreement for an additional 2,700 megawatts of power from Constellation in the PJM power grid. That power is not tied to a specific generation source and serves as long-term revenue certainty for Constellation's operating plants, Google said. Maryland-based Constellation is the largest US nuclear power plant operator and owns a major fleet of natural-gas-fired power plants as well as geothermal energy following its acquisition of electricity producer Calpine Corp earlier this year. [...] The 11 nuclear units expected to be upgraded as part of the arrangement with Google are in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, within the footprint of the largest US electric grid — PJM Interconnection.
Music

Alexa Can't Control the AUX Input On Amazon Echo Speakers Anymore (theverge.com) 21

Posted by BeauHD from the feature-removal dept.
Amazon has removed Alexa voice control for the 3.5mm aux input on several older Echo speakers, meaning users can no longer ask Alexa to play or pause audio coming through the wired connection. It's unclear why the feature was removed. The Verge reports: Ars Technica points to this Reddit poster claiming they received a message from Amazon and says an unnamed spokesperson confirmed the change. When contacted by The Verge, Amazon did not provide an on-the-record statement. The message does not include any explanation for why the feature was removed. It also doesn't mention any changes to audio output functionality like connecting an external speaker to an Echo Dot, and it appears that control of the port from within the app's settings menu still works.

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