humans

If the question is whether we can delay aging, Russia has an unusual plan with the “cousin” of the wild boar and humans

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In 1928, a Soviet scientist convinced that young blood could rejuvenate the body exchanged his own with that of a university student. The experiment turned the student into a survivor and the researcher into a of the first victims of the modern pursuit of longevity. The great Russian bet. If the question is whether aging can be delayed, Russia has decided to respond with an initiative of extraordinary dimensions. Under the direct impulse of Vladimir Putin, the weekend counted the wall street journal that the Kremlin has made longevity a national priority through a program valued at about $26 billion that seeks to develop technologies capable of prolonging human life and combating age-related deterioration. What for many Western leaders and businessmen remains a private bet financed by technological fortunes, in Russia has become a state strategy which combines genetic research, organ printing, xenotransplantation and other experimental technologies with the promise of saving hundreds of thousands of lives before the end of the decade. New organs for aging bodies. One of the most ambitious ideas of the project consists of progressively replace the defective parts of the human body as if it were a complex machine. It we have told before and Putin himself even commented publicly on the possibility of achieving a kind of practical immortality through the continuous replacement of damaged organs. To get closer to that goal, Russian scientists are working on two main lines: three-dimensional bioprinting of living tissues and the growth of human organs inside minipigs, a variety of pork considered especially compatible for this type of research. The stated goal is to achieve functional transplants of laboratory-produced organs by 2030, a goal that, if achieved, would represent one of the most important biomedical advances of the century. Genes, tissues and pigs at the service of longevity. The program also includes the development of gene therapies aimed at slowing down cellular aging. According to Russian authorities, these treatments represent some of the most promising tools to combat the biological wear and tear that accompanies the passing of the years. At the same time, researchers they claim having managed to print human cartilage and a mouse thyroid gland using bioprinting techniques, preliminary steps towards much more complex structures. The combination of Genetic engineering, organs grown in animals and the manufacture of artificial tissues paints a vision in which medicine stops limiting itself to repairing damage and begins to replace entire components of the organism. Putin’s daughter and the architects of the project. Behind this strategy appear some of the most influential figures of the presidential circle. Among them stands out Maria Vorontsova, Putin’s daughter and an endocrinologist linked to various state genetics programs, as well as the physicist Mikhail Kovalchuk, director of the historic Kurchatov Institute and one of the Kremlin’s main scientific ideologues. Kovalchuk holds that humanity is approaching an era in which organs can be routinely repaired or replaced, prolonging life for increasingly longer periods. For its defenders, aging will no longer be seen as an inevitable destiny and will begin to be treated as a technical problem susceptible to scientific intervention. Between cutting-edge science and community doubts. However, the program’s promises are far from to generate consensus. Many researchers they point out that much of the progress announced by Russia has barely been published in peer-reviewed international scientific journals. Some scientists who participated in the early stages of these investigations hold that there is a great distance between the proclaimed objectives and the results actually demonstrated. International sanctions, scientific isolation derived from the war in Ukraine and the difficulty of collaborating with Western centers also limit the capacity Russian to validate many of these projects. For critics, some of the statements made by the authorities should be interpreted more as aspirations for the future than as technologies close to becoming a reality. Personal obsession turned into state policy. Putin’s fascination with longevity it’s not new. For years he has cultivated a public image associated with physical strength through exhibitions Carefully constructed for sporting activity, hunting or outdoor adventures. At the same time, their behavior during the pandemic showed a extreme concern due to illness and physical deterioration, with strict quarantines, disinfection protocols and isolation measures that attracted the attention of the entire world. At 73 years old, also surrounded by an aging political and economic elite, the fight against the passage of time seems to have become more than a personal curiosity: it is part of a strategic vision shared by much of the Russian leadership environment. The long Russian tradition. The current project does not come out of nowhere either. Russia and previously the Soviet Union have historically shown a recurring fascination for research aimed at prolonging human life. Since the experiments with rejuvenating blood transfusions carried out by Alexander Bogdanov in the twenties until the theories of Oleksandr Bogomolets Regarding a life expectancy of 150 years supported by Stalin, different generations of Soviet and Russian leaders have pursued the idea of ​​overcoming aging. Paradoxically, many of those pioneers they died long before to reach the extraordinary ages they defended. A race against an uncomfortable demographic reality. The bet is even more striking because it takes place in a country that continues to suffer some of the worst mortality indicators of the developed world. Male life expectancy in Russia He is currently around 68 years, well below that of the United States or Western Europe. In this context, the gigantic longevity program promoted by Putin it reflects both a scientific ambition and a national need. The question is whether printed organs, genetic treatments and minipigs capable of hosting future transplants will bring Russia closer to that vision of a increasingly longer life or if they will end up joining the long list of projects that promised to defeat aging and ended up crashing into a biological reality much more difficult to defeat. Image | IToldYa, Press Service of the President of the Russian Federation, Picryl In Xataka | We knew that living … Read more

A simple router is a machine capable of identifying humans with almost 100% accuracy. Or so these researchers say

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Using WiFi networks as a technology to track people is a twist in the script that not all of us saw coming. He Karlsruher Institute for Technologyone of the strongest research institutions in Germany, assures close to 100% accuracy when recognizing people without any type of camera and using it. What exactly happened. The KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) team published a paper with a promising headline: “Ordinary WiFi can identify people with almost perfect accuracy”. And this is achieved thanks to something that routers have been doing for recent years: beamforming feedback information. How the hell does this work?. To understand what it is about beamforming You must first understand how the devices emit signals. routers. In their first generations, routers emitted in all directions, just like a light bulb emits light in that way. With the most modern versions of WiFi, the way the signal is transmitted has improved. Routers began to concentrate the signal towards where the receiving device is, like a flashlight instead of a light bulb. Beanformig. That is called beamformingto form a concentrated beam and received by another device. But to aim well, the router needs to know where to point, and it is the connected devices themselves—your cell phone, your laptop—that send that information to the router continuously. Basically, they are constantly telling the router “hey, I’m here.” That message is the BFI, beamforming feedback information. And what is this for?. Now you know that your router sends information to your gadgets and that your gadgets send information to the router. When the devices send information to the router, they describe how the signal arrives, and interference along the way is recorded. Among them, human beings. Our body partially absorbs WiFi waves, reflects them, deflects them and alters how they reach the mobile phone or router. The researchers used that signal data to train models of artificial intelligencein order to detect patterns that would allow humans to be detected. They fed the system with thousands of examples associated with different people until the model learned to detect those wave changes associated with human presence. The system is not capable of visually recognizing anything in the environment, but it manages to have information about when a human is present in the environment. The caution. According to the researchers, “this technology turns each router into a potential means of surveillance.” “If you regularly pass by a café that operates a WiFi network, you could be identified there without realizing it and be recognized later, for example, by public authorities or companies.” The reality? It would be necessary for cybercriminals to develop a system identical or similar to that of the KIT to achieve a human video surveillance system through WiFi signals. The nuance. Under laboratory conditions, with 197 participants and in controlled environments, the system was close to 100% accuracy. But in the real world, it would be necessary to train a new model with data from hundreds of people in different spaces. The model is not a ready-to-deploy technology or a real threat – nor is it intended to be applied – but the research reveals how simple a priori data sets can be trained as a surveillance tool. In Xataka | There is a booming job in the era of artificial intelligence: cybersecurity expert

We believed that hantavirus did not jump between humans. Until someone went to a birthday party in Argentina

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In recent weeks, the term ‘hantavirus‘ is on the lips of many people, and it is no wonder to the big outbreak that has emerged in the middle of the ocean on a luxury cruise ship. As time goes by, there is more and more data that we have on the table, since we have gone from having the idea of ​​being faced with a virus no possibility of transmission between humans to a scenario in which this is possible and has already occurred. What we knew. When we think about hantavirus, epidemiology usually leads us to a very specific scenario, such as rural areas with infected rodents and humans who become ill by inhaling particles of their excrement. The cycle usually ends there, in an evolutionary dead end that goes no further. However, there is an exception, which is the Andes variant of this hantavirus, which has a high lethality and circulates mainly in South America, being the only one that can be transmitted from person to person. It is not a new phenomenon, but its propagation mechanism, strongly linked to social events and the so-called “superspreaders“, makes it a pathogen of special surveillance, as has been demonstrated by the recent large outbreaks in Argentina and its impact now on an international cruise ship with people who are not currently under control due to its long incubation period. His past. To understand the magnitude of the problem, you have to travel back in time and more specifically to the mid-90s where the medical community believed that hantaviruses were strictly zoonotic pathogens, that is, they were transmitted from animals to humans. But in 1996, an outbreak in southern Argentina changed virology textbooks. Here the publications of the time They made it clear that the 1996 outbreak was happening directly between humans thanks to molecular analyzes that determined that the viruses that were infecting patients were quite similar. A birthday. In a simple meeting between several people in November 2018 in Epuyén, it was clearly confirmed that something was happening with this virus. Here are three symptomatic people who attended a birthdaya funeral and a doctor’s office caused the contagion of 34 people, of whom eleven ended up dying due to the clinic that presents this very aggressive virus. This case set a great precedent, being the clearest example we have to see that the Andes hantavirus can spread in social environments without there being close and continuous contact as was thought until relatively recently. But the most interesting thing is the possibility that there are ‘super-contagators’, who are people who can more easily infect those around them and which right now may be the most plausible theory that explains this contagion on the cruise. Similar. Abdirahman KHALIF Mohamud, spokesperson for the World Health Organization, was the one who shown the similarities that may exist between this birthday in Argentina in 2018 and the case of the cruise because in both cases there was a concentration of people in a closed space. The tranquility. In the cases that are documented right now, which are not many, it could be seen that at the moment in which the authorities isolated the confirmed cases, the transmissibility began to decrease. But in addition, it is also known that when a virus is transmitted three times, there is no more contagion from it, so its capacity to spread is lower, which is good news. The problem is that there is still a lot of information that is emerging in this regard, and although there are experts who point out that we are not going to be facing a major pandemic like Covid, fear is still quite present. In Xataka | The hantavirus was going to reach Europe sooner or later and, as always, it caught us offside

Why at first we all assumed it was zoonosis and now we are talking about contagion between humans

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In the last days, the word ‘hantavirus‘is on everyone’s lips, and no wonder because of the very recent memory of the pandemic due to coronavirus and all the chaos it generated on our planet. This is a new virus that has come to light in the media due to the notorious cruise through Antarctica and that has already claimed the lives of several people and infected many others. An initial doubt. Until relatively recently, the epidemiological narrative was simple since hantavirus was contracted by cleaning a barn, camping in wooded areas, or inhaling aerosols loaded with urine, feces, or saliva. Oligoryzomys longicaudatusthe famous “long-tailed mouse” that carried the disease. This is what is known as zoonosis and is the protagonist of the transmission of many pathogens from animals to humans. The problem is that the virus has different variants, and each one has peculiar characteristics. One of them is the Andes variantwhich was very relevant in Argentina and Chile, where the Andes variant is endemic and thousands of cases are diagnosed under this premise. The script twist. The first theories that this virus was transmitted only from animals to humans began to raise many doubts when the first documented outbreaks appeared in Argentina and Chile. It was here that researchers began to see chains of contagion that made no sense because suddenly there were people with this virus who had not been close to any type of animal, but who did care for sick relatives. The definitive moment came with the Epuyén outbreak and thanks to the new generation sequencing carried out by the Malbrán Institute, which confirmed that the viruses isolated from related patients were genetically clonal, that is, they were the same. This confirmed that the virus It was being transmitted from person to person. How they do it. Unlike the well-known coronavirus, which traveled efficiently through aerosols in the air, the interhuman transmission of the Andes hantavirus is limited and of low efficiency. Here is the evidence that we find in the prestigious magazine The New England It suggests that transmission requires intimate contact, since it has been found in saliva and respiratory secretions during the acute phase. This is why infections can occur mainly between couples, cohabiting family members or caregivers. Although it has also been identified that certain individuals, for some unknown reason, may have a higher viral load and act as major spreaders, causing outbreaks in closed spaces. The outbreak on the cruise ship. The confirmation that we are facing a new scenario has even reached the high seas. The recent outbreak on the MV Hondiu cruise shipyeswith deaths linked to the Andes strain, has forced the WHO and PAHO to raise the tone of your protocols to provide an answer to the problem that is gradually magnifying. It takes away gravity. With the information we have on the table right now about low transmissibility, the idea of ​​returning to a great global pandemic like the one we are experiencing with the coronavirus can be put aside. The problem is that right now there are several cases of people who were in contact with this virus and left the cruise ship before the first cases emerged. And the fact that this virus needs several weeks to show its devastating effects is one of the great handicaps that right now is causing collective concern to continue to increase. Images | CDC Ocean-Wide In Xataka | Mosquitoes attack me in summer and I tried these TikTok tricks to get rid of them

The animal testing of the elixir for future warfare has been a success. Now the most difficult thing remains: making it work in humans

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In 1667, the French doctor Jean-Baptiste Denis performed one of the first transfusions of history using lamb’s blood on a human patient, convinced that it could calm his behavior and save his life. The experiment generated such controversy that ended up being banned in several countries for decades, leaving a lesson that has accompanied medicine since then: when it comes to replacing blood, each advance opens a door… and also a risk that is difficult to foresee. An experiment that redefines war medicine. A lot has happened since that test by Denis, but now it is making strong noises again with the development of a powdered blood substituteone that marks one of the most ambitious advances in military preparation for future conflicts, where conditions no longer guarantee rapid evacuations or immediate access to hospitals. In this context, the idea of ​​transforming blood into a portable and stable resource ceases to be science fiction and becomes a solution, or perhaps an operational necessity. They counted on Insider that, for the Pentagon, what is at stake is not only improving logistics, but changing the way soldiers’ lives are saved in environments where every minute counts and medical infrastructure may not exist. The “elixir” that seeks to change war. The program powered by DARPA has managed to turn a complex concept into a potentially revolutionary solution: a powdered blood substitute that can be stored, transported and activated in a matter of seconds. This system is presented as an alternative to the current model, where fresh blood is limited, perishable and difficult to move in combat zones. The key, they say, is in its operational simplicity: mix the contents with sterile water and have a vital resource at the exact moment it is needed. Success in the laboratory. The initial results have been promising enough to generate expectations within the military and scientific field. After demonstrating its viability in controlled environments and later in animal models, the project has overcome one of the most complex phases of biomedical development. In other words, the advance suggests that the concept works in biological termsopening the door to real applications in scenarios where conventional transfusions are not possible. The great challenge. There is no doubt, despite of the advancesthe final jump remains the most difficult of all. The next step is to overcome the regulatory processes and demonstrate that the system is safe and effective in humansa long path that involves clinical trials, medical validation and approval from regulatory bodies. In fact, this is where many promising developments stall, not because of a lack of technology, but because of the complexity of ensuring that they work in real conditions without unexpected risks. A necessity. They counted in their report in Insider that interest in this type of solutions does not arise in a vacuum, but as a response to a profound change in the nature of conflicts. Conflicts have shown that air superiority no longer guarantees rapid evacuations, and the wounded can be trapped for hours without access to advanced medical care. In these contexts, the immediate availability of blood becomes a critical factor that can make the difference between life and death. Limitations of the current system. In the absence of alternatives, the armed forces have resorted to methods such as emergency transfusions among soldiers, known as “living blood banks.” Although effective in specific situations, these solutions depend on the availability of donors and cannot scale in scenarios with multiple casualties. Again, this highlights the need for a more robust solution, capable of responding to high-intensity situations without relying on improvised resources. Beyond science. The future of this technology announced by DARPA depends not only on its medical effectiveness, but also on its economic viability. The production, distribution and adoption of synthetic blood require significant investments in a sector where margins are traditionally low. Without a sustainable model that incentivizes companies and hospitals, even the most promising advances can remain in the experimental phase, never reaching the battlefield. Be that as it may, the objective set is more than ambitious: to turn development into an operational tool before end of the decade. To achieve this, almost nothing: coordinate science, regulation and industry in an accelerated process that avoids the usual blockages in such complex projects. But if successful, this sort of modern “elixir” could redefine war medicine, bringing the ability to save lives directly to where it is needed most. Image | DARPA In Xataka | Four years later, the Ukrainian war is the first war in history where humans are spectators In Xataka | In 1914, submachine guns forever changed the way war was waged. In 2026, it’s algorithms’ turn

the last time all humans were on Earth

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It sounds like the beginning of a work of science fiction, but it is a quiet milestone in the history of our species. On Tuesday, October 31, 2000 marked the last day in which every human being on the planet was on this side of the atmosphere. Since then, there has not been a single moment in which all of humanity has been confined to our home planet. A historic launch. That October 31, 2000, A Soyuz spacecraft took off from the Baikonur Cosmodromein Kazakhstan, carrying Expedition 1 of the International Space Station on board: American commander Bill Shepherd of NASA and Russian cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko of Roscosmos. The crew arrived at a fledgling ISS on November 2, 2000. It only had a couple of modules (the Russian Zarya and the American Unity, assembled in 1998), but since then, the orbital laboratory has been occupied continuously. For 24 and a half years, there is always a human floating about 400 kilometers above our heads. A quarter of a century. The International Space Station is a collaborative project between five space agencies (the American NASA, the Russian Roscosmos, the European ESA, the Japanese JAXA and the Canadian CSA). It is not only a symbol of international cooperation, but an unparalleled scientific laboratory, which orbits the Earth every 90 minutes at a speed of almost 28,000 km/h. In this quarter of a century, the orbital station has reached a habitable volume greater than that of a six-bedroom house, with a wingspan of 109 meters and an average of seven people always on board. It can dock up to eight spacecraft simultaneously and has hosted almost 3,000 investigations from more than 108 countries, taking advantage of microgravity to study everything from particle physics to the effects of space travel on the human body. The ISS passes the baton. Aged and with age-related ailmentslike the air leaks that cause headaches for its operators, the ISS partners plan to abandon it in 2030, before a ship developed by SpaceX tow it to a safe place for atmospheric reentry. NASA’s strategy is clear: move from being the primary owner and operator to becoming a key customer, thus ensuring continued human presence in low-Earth orbit. This will allow further research in microgravity (which is crucial for future missions to the Moon and Mars), maintain international collaboration and foster a commercial space economy. USA announced last year its intention to reduce the budget allocated to the ISS hoping for a quick transition to new commercial space stations. Companies like Axiom Space (with its Axiom Sation project), Blue Origin (with its Orbital Reef) or Voyager Space (with Starlab, in collaboration with Airbus) are developing new private orbital platforms. What if they are not ready on time? If commercial stations do not arrive by 2030, humanity will continue to inhabit low orbit thanks to China. Banned from the ISS, China has expanded its presence in space with Tiangong space stationcontinuously inhabited since 2022. Not only does China plan to double its size from three to six modules in the coming years, but it is already opening its doors to international cooperation, as demonstrated by the recent agreement to train and send Pakistani astronauts to the Chinese space station. With NASA focusing on a business model and deep space exploration, Beijing is strategically positioned as a central player and potential alternative in low orbit, especially for nations seeking to collaborate outside the American framework. A changing environment. But there is another reason why the United States has focused on the Moon and Mars. Low Earth orbit faces the increasingly critical challenge of space debris. Millions of objects, from dead satellites and rocket upper stages to small undetectable fragments generated by collisions or anti-satellite missile tests. This debris travels at enormous speeds and represents a constant and potentially catastrophic collision risk for astronauts. The ISS itself has had to carry out numerous evasive maneuvers in recent years. Managing this problem through better tracking systems (especially for small objects), active removal of the most dangerous debris and, above all, prevention and mitigation in the generation of new space debris (such as rapid deorbitation of rocket stages) will be essential to ensure the safety of future crews in the long term. For now, and for just over 25 years, we continue to inhabit the space. October 31, 2000 was the last day of an era in which humanity was anchored exclusively to the Earth. Since then we have been, without interruption, a species with an extraterrestrial presence. Human permanence off Earth seems assured, but its sustainability will require even more effort and global cooperation. Image | THAT In Xataka | Elon Musk has made public his latest recommendation for Trump: deorbit the International Space Station in two years In Xataka | Boeing has lost: NASA will cancel the SLS rocket and look for a cheaper alternative to colonize the Moon and Mars A version of this article was published in May 2025

“Left click, right click”, this is how the AI ​​decides an attack in war. China, Russia and the US need fewer and fewer humans

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A group of Google engineers signed an internal letter to protest against a project in which your own software was being used by the Pentagon, sparking an unprecedented debate within the company about how far the technology they had created should go. Since then, almost 10 years have passed, an “eternity” with the implementation of AI. The war accelerates… without humans. They counted last week in The New York Times that modern warfare is entering a phase in which human intervention is no longer the center of decision-making, but rather an almost symbolic step within processes dominated by algorithmswhere artificial intelligence systems identify targets, recommend attacks and generate complete plans in a matter of seconds. Programs like Project Maventoday developed by Palantir and integrated with models like Anthropic’sshow the extent to which the decision chain has been compressed: satellite images, drone data and intercepted signals are automatically processed to generate target lists and attack solutions, reducing human intervention to something as simple as selecting options on the screen, in the words of Pentagon officialsit is as simple as clicking “Left click, right click”. Powers in the same race. Because at the center of this transformation are the United States, China and Russia, competing to lead a new arms race based on autonomous systems capable of operating without direct intervention. In China, for example, the development of coordinated drone swarms by artificial intelligence and capable platforms to operate alongside fighters manned reflects a commitment to scale and automation. Meanwhile, in Russia they are betting on systems like the Lancet droneswhich evolve towards capabilitiesand autonomous selection of objectives. For its part, the United States is trying to close the gap by encouraging companies like Anduril to speed up production of autonomous drones, in a race where the speed of development is almost as important as the technology itself. The Chinese WZ-8 drone Ukraine as a turning point. How have we been countingthe war in Ukraine has been the turning point that has turned these technologies on real tools combat, demonstrating that relatively simple systems can evolve rapidly towards semi-autonomous capabilities and changing the balance on the battlefield. Adapted commercial drones, unmanned vessels and data analysis systems have allowed resist a superior adversary, while Russia has responded incorporating automation progressive in their own systems. As pointed out analyst Michael Horowitz, “the battlefield in Ukraine has served as a laboratory for the world,” accelerating a transition that is no longer experimental, but operational. Silicon Valley at war. Unlike previous arms races, the Times I remembered that the role does not fall solely on the States, but also in technology companies and start-ups that are redefining military development. Here are companies like Google that initially participated in projects like Maven before withdrawing due to internal pressures, while others like Palantir or Anduril have occupied that space with a more vision aligned with the defense. In China, the “civil-military fusion” model directly integrates to private companies in the development of military systems, while in the West attempts are made to replicate that dynamism with million-dollar investments and growing collaboration between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon. Algorithms against algorithms. The result is a form of war in which the confrontation is no longer only between armies, but between automated systems that operate at speeds impossible for humans, a scenario that we have counted where drones launch drones to take on other drones and sensor networks connect globally to execute real time attacks. Projects like the Chinese attempt to replicate networks similar to the Joint Fires Network American forces reflect this trend toward an interconnected war, one where a sensor at one point on the planet can trigger an attack on another without direct intervention. At this point, superiority no longer depends solely on the quality of weapons, but on the ability to integrate data, process it and act faster than the adversary. Uncontrolled speed. There is no doubt, this acceleration carries risks that worry even those who pushed these systems, as automation can trigger military responses before humans can intervene or fully understand the situation. Studies such as that of RAND Corporationworks that have shown scenarios in which autonomous systems inadvertently escalate conflicts, while experts warn of a possible “escalation spiral” driven by the decision speed of machines. As recognized General Jack Shanahan, promoter of Maven, the reality is that there is a danger of deploying “untested, insecure and poorly understood” systems in a context of competition where each actor fears being left behind. Less humans, more automation. Thus, the panorama that is drawn is that of a war every time more automatedwhere human intervention is progressively reduced and critical decisions are delegated in artificial intelligence systems capable of analyzing, deciding and acting in seconds, something very different which is do it “well”. From autonomous drones to target analysis platforms, through global combat networks, the trend seems clear, that of a war of the immediate future that will be decided less in offices and more in algorithmsin an unstable and certainly chilling balance, because we are talking about technological speed being on track to surpass the human capacity to control it in the middle of a war. Image | StockVault, Infinity 0 In Xataka | Russia is no longer surrendering to Ukrainian soldiers, but to machines: the rules of war are being redefined In Xataka | China was the power that launched drones. Now he has realized his danger with a decision: close the sky to them

clone humans using digital avatars

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Big tech companies are clear that, to promote their AI services, need content creators. At the same time, a good part of content creation goes through influencers created with AI. In case we thought that the loop couldn’t be solved, there are companies obsessed with achieving another goal: that content creators can create their own content creators… with AI. Heygen. If you’re not into the world of digital avatars, Heygen may not sound familiar to you, but the Los Angeles-based company is reliving the ChatGPT moment, but with avatars. Founded in 2020 as MovioLab, with Joshua Xu as CEO and a valuation of more than $500 million, Heygen competes head-to-head with giants like runway e ElevenLabs in the generative video space. Avatar V. Heygen has been obsessed with creating the best avatar model for years. And this week they published what, according to them, is the most advanced model in the world, Avatar V. They have data to support it, since as the company shows in a 30 page paperthe company has solved micro-expressions, gestures and lip synchronization (especially at the rhythm level) better than the rest. There is a real war between American and Chinese companies over digital avatars. a real war. As the paper shows, Heygen is not alone. Kling AI, Veo 3, OmniHuman, Seedance… Some of the most relevant companies worldwide are betting on the generation of avatars. And it’s not a random whim. Heygen has more than 40,000 companies paying for corporate video generation using avatars. The barrier to entry is falling lower and lower, the savings compared to productions with influencers are quantifiable, and production times are compressed from weeks to minutes. The key is to offer the most competitive model and an interface that works at the drop of a hat. What’s coming. Currently, avatars work with a handicap: their latency. The direction set by the paper is clear: solve this problem to achieve an avatar connected to LLMs in order to maintain conversations in real time (meetings, interviews, conferences…). The avatar industry is still emerging, but winning it is essential for a goal that AI Big Tech wants in the future: for AI to stop being a chatbot and become as close to a person as possible. In Xataka | How to create a character in ChatGPT and Gemini to use it in all the images you make with artificial intelligence

humans born there will cease to be Homo sapiens

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with the mission Artemis II operational around the Moon, humanity has Mars among its colonizing desires. Past and present missions, such as NASA’s Curiosity rover, aim to analyze its surface for clues to past habitability. And although we have found them, leave a lot of unknowns. We haven’t set foot on Mars yet and we already have in mind how we will build the houses there (spoiler: with bricks and urine). And that if one day a human being is born in a possible human colony on Mars, it will not be homo sapiens on the anthropological level. Because in short, if we get to Mars and start being born there, we will no longer be the same species: Scott Solomon, an evolutionary biologist at Rice University, has been studying this question for years and has reached that conclusion, which he recently published in his work “Becoming Martian“. If you are born on Mars, you are not homo sapiens. Solomon differentiates between those who arrive from Earth to Mars and survive there, those colonists who arrive at the red planet with a body molded by millions of years of evolution here. But their creatures and their creatures will not have the same luck. In short, it will be the beginning of the end for homo sapiens. Mars has 38% of Earth’s gravity, radiation two or three times higherthere is no protective magnetic field nor the microbial biosphere with which our immune system It was evolving. All of the above constitutes an engine of biological change and evolution that has marked our anatomy and its absence, too. Why is it important. Evolutionary biology has a name for what will happen: allopatric speciation. That is, when a population is isolated and develops in a new environment, natural selection and genetic drift continue their course within the adaptation to the environment with respect to the original population (in this case, those who remain on Earth). The passage of time can cause the two groups to become so different that they are another species, a new human species. And something paradoxical would happen: by looking for planets other than Earth as an alternative to continue preserving the species, we would stop being the same. Context. You don’t have to go to future generations to see the consequences of space life. There is evidence of astronauts on the ISS who have suffered accelerated loss of bone mass, muscle atrophy, cardiovascular problems, vision problems and stress. Until your blood is mutating. The creatures born there will develop their skeleton and nervous system directly under these conditions. Salomon offers concrete changes: denser and shorter bones, greater eumelanin production (a type of melamine responsible for the dark coloration) as protection against radiation, an immune system calibrated for the closed environment of the colony and potentially vulnerable to diseases common on Earth. However, the most sensitive point is reproduction: we do not know for sure whether humans will be able to conceive, gestate and give birth successfully on Mars. Experiments with mammals in microgravity are worrying. The biologist also anticipates that childbirth on Mars would inevitably be surgical: the lower bone density and muscle atrophy make it an even more risky activity. What will happen next. For Solomon there are two possibilities: Let natural selection take its course and shape future generations. The second is to resort to genetic engineering: get ahead of the problem before sending them there. In any case, the macro result is the same: two branches of humanity evolving on separate paths, in different conditions and in different worlds. A dystopian future of genetics and ethics. It should be noted that thousands of generations are needed for speciation to occur, which gives sufficient time for humanity to take measures, such as frequent travel or assisted reproduction with transferred genetic material. Or that genetic engineering steps on the accelerator so much that natural selection takes a backseat. Ethics also comes in here: if a boy or girl is born on Mars and cannot return to Earth because their body cannot resist it, humanity will have made an irreversible decision without their consent. Solomon warns also of that gap in humanity in terms of identity and rights. These are questions that we cannot answer now, but that should be clear before the existence of a colony on Mars is seriously considered. In Xataka | Europe has thought of throwing three robots into a volcanic lava tube and now colonizing the Moon or Mars is closer In Xataka | If the question is “how are we going to build houses on Mars” the answer today is “with bricks made of urine” Cover | Photo of Dmitry Grachyov in Unsplash

AI chatbots are more flattering than humans giving personal advice. And that’s a problem

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Before, to create your echo chamber you could only follow like-minded people on networks, now you can create your own personalized echo chamber with an AI. A Stanford study has thoroughly analyzed the excessive adulation of LLMs and the result is clear: if you want to be told what you want to hear, it is better to talk to the AI ​​​​than with a person. The study. The Researchers analyzed eleven language models, among which were the most popular ones like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or DeepSeek, and they fed them with data sets about personal dilemmas. In addition, they included 2,000 prompts taken from the Reddit community. Approximately one-third of all scenarios included harmful or outright illegal behavior. Then, they compared the LLM responses with human responses to see who tends to agree with the user more. In a second part of the study, they recruited 2,400 participants and had them chat with flattering and non-flattering language models. We like to be proven right. Chatbots tend to be much more flattering than a human when giving personal advice, but not only that, people generally prefer these types of responses. The models endorsed the user’s position 49% more than humans in general dilemmas and endorsed harmful behavior 47% more. In the second experiment, people who chatted with different models considered the sycophantic model more trustworthy and preferable. Furthermore, she came away more convinced that she was right and less willing to apologize or repair the conflict. Why is it a problem. According to the authors, LLMs can reinforce egocentrism and make people more morally dogmatic. According to Myra Cheng, co-author of the study, “By default, AI advice does not tell people that they are wrong or give them a reality check (…) I worry that people will lose the ability to deal with difficult social situations.” In addition, there is another worrying fact and that is that users perceived the models as equally objective, which suggests a lack of critical vision to be able to distinguish a flattering AI from a non-flattering one. AI is not a person. It is obvious, but the reality is that every day we address AI chatbots as if they were one. Thank him and ask him for things please It is a harmless symptom of our mania for anthropoformize everything. However, when We use AI as a substitute for a psychologist or when we establish intimate relationships with a chatbotthat’s where we start to step in swampy terrain. The authors of the study consider it urgent that companies introduce safeguards to reduce the excessive complacency of LLMs and advise avoiding using them as a substitute for a person to deal with personal conflicts. The counterpoint. There are voices that argue that AI is not generating these echo chambers, at least not with as much intensity as we have seen with social networks. According to John Burn-Murdoch in Financial Timeslanguage models tend to raise consensus with experts and generate more moderate opinions than networks. Their argument is that the economic architecture of networks rewards inflammatory and polarizing content, while chatbots compete to offer reliable answers to users who use them to make important decisions. It is not just an opinion, it has also done an experiment in which it has simulated thousands of political conversations between users with extreme positions and several of the main chatbots on the market. Based on electoral surveys and data on the use of these tools, it measures how positions would move if a part of the citizenry used AI to inform themselves. The author concludes that, on average, the models tend to push the most radical ones towards more temperate positions closer to the expert consensus, also validating many fewer conspiracy theories than those that routinely circulate on social networks. In Xataka | AIs have become accompanying tools against loneliness. For some researchers it is “junk food” Image | Zulfugar Karimov in Unsplash

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