The earth is warming. The past years are the warmest on record. Greenhouse gases from human activities are responsible for 1.1°C of average warming in the 20^th century. What we’re experiencing is different from the global average. We experience extreme weather — serious heatwaves, violent storms and historic floods.

We won’t feel the impact of our efforts for decades. But we must know our future today so we can act now. To develop the best strategies for adaptation, we need climate models to predict the climate in different areas over decades. Unlike predicting the weather, climate models are difficult modeling the physics, chemistry and biology of the atmosphere, waters, ice, land and human activities.

Greater resolution (分辨率) is needed to model changes in the global climate. Scientists estimate that it will demand billions of times more computing power than what’s available. It will take decades to achieve that through the ordinary course of computing advances.

For the first time, we have the technology to do that. We can achieve million-x speedups by combining three technologies: GPU-accelerated computing; breakthroughs in physics-informed neural (神经的) networks and AI supercomputers, along with vast quantities of data to learn from. With these techniques, we may have within our grasp the billion-x leap needed to do the climate modeling. And with more accurate predictions, people and nations will act correctly.

This week, plans to build the world’s most powerful AI supercomputer used to predict climate change are announced. Named Earth-2, the system will create a digital twin of the Earth. The system would be the climate change to Cambridge-l, the world’s most powerful AI supercomputer for healthcare research.

In my memory, winters always used to be really unpleasant. You had to bundle up just to keep warm when you went outside. You were often cold, wet, slip on the ice, and you’d arrive home to an ice-cold house. And that would mean turning on the heating and waiting. It’s a miracle you didn’t get cold to the bone.

Fortunately, things don’t have to be so challenging any more. Technology, engine ring and design have advanced giving us new solutions to old problems. It means dealing with winter needn’t be like skating on thin ice.

With a smart thermostat (温度自动调节器), our homes can be warm when we need them to be. Many models feature smartphone apps that allow you to control temperature remotely, so we can warm up the house before we arrive home. According to techradar.com, Tado’s model features voice control, while the Nest ‘leans’ your habits and automatically heats the home for you.

Clothes have been given an upgrade, too. Electronic thermal jackets, sweaters and coats heat up when you turn them on. What better way to keep warm in the dead of winter? At the touch of a button, or through an app on our phones, the clothing generates heat from elements placed inside. Many models offer three levels of heating which stay warm for over 12 hours. .

Finally, there is the clothing for the head, beanie s and Earmuff, that feature speakers included in the fabric using Bluetooth technology so we can listen to our favourite music or, in some cases, have a phone callusing the in-built microphone. All while keeping the head warm and avoiding a cold.

For many, the thought of winter used to be enough to make their blood run cold. But using technology, life needn’t freeze up. With the right solutions, there’s no reason why winter can’t be really, really cool.

On February 20, the science fiction magazine Clarkesworld was forced to stop accepting any new articles from writers after it was flooded with AI-written stories.

“By the time we closed on the 20th, we had received 500 human-written stories and 700 AI-written ones,” said editor-in-chief Neil Clarke. “It was increasing at such a speed that we figured that by the end of the month, we would have doubled the number of articles we normally have. The rate had been growing from previous months, and we were concerned that we had to do something to stop it.”

Worries about AI misuse have frequently appeared in headlines recently, particularly since the launch of ChatGPT in November, 2022, which can not only answer a broad range of questions, but also create original poems and stories.

Clarke said magazines like his, which pay contributors for their work, were being targeted by people trying to make quick money. He said he had already spoken to editors of other magazines and that all of them had agreed to stop accepting AI-written articles. He also admitted that the humor of his sci-fi magazine being targeted by AI robots is not lost on him.

“You know, our mascot (吉祥物) is a robot. So we see the irony,” he said. “But the thing is that science fiction is often intended to give a warning to people. We don’t celebrate technology just because it exists. We want to make sure that we’re using it right. And there are some significant legal and moral issues around this technology that we’re not ready to accept.

Clarke said the magazine didn’t know how to deal with the issue, and part of the motivation to speak out was in the hope of finding some solutions. He also said the quality of the AI-written stories was very poor.