Apocalypse Postponed, Jailbreaking ChatGPT, & Too Many Deuterons
This week’s science bits from SWTG
Milky Way Might Not Collide With Andromeda After All
Galaxy collision, artist’s impression. Credits: International Gemini Observatory / NSF
In 2008, astrophysicists predicted that our galaxy has about 5 billion years until it will collide and merge with our neighbour galaxy Andromeda, forming one larger galaxy that they dubbed “Milkomeda”. A newer simulation from researchers at the University of Durham now says that there’s a 50% chance it’s not going to happen. Instead, the two galaxies might miss each other at the first swing-around and only merge in 10 billion years. So you’ll have a little more time to figure out how your new telescope works.
What Do People Ask ChatGPT?
An analysis of over 1 million ChatGPT conversions, collected with explicit user consent by the WildChat project, has revealed the most frequent uses of the chatbot. 61.9% of the prompts asked for assistance with creative writing, followed by 13.6% asking for explanations, 6.7% coding, 6.3% fact check, and 6.1% maths or reasoning question. Somewhat less than 1% of the prompts are “jailbreaking” attempts, intended to trick ChatGPT into producing content that it shouldn’t create. The most successful ones are violations of moral and ethical guidelines, followed by text that is NSFW or sexually explicit. These results are not adjusted for sampling bias. Paper here.
More Anomalies in the Skies
The International Space Station. Image: NASA
Just a few days ago, I talked about the puzzling excess of anti-helium nuclei that was measured by the AMS experiment aboard the International Space Station. A new paper now says that the same experiment also sees an excess of deuterons, which are combinations of neutrons and protons. Like the anti-helium nuclei, the experiment has detected way more than expected. Very curious. I suspect we will soon see a lot more “explanations” for these anomalies. Press release here. Paper here.