Lithium’s price slump over the past year has been as dramatic as its climb — and it’s probably

Scientists have decided it’s official – people do not necessarily have to believe in a “god” to have a moral compass. A group of four University of Illinois surveys found that while there were subtle differences in behaviour between groups of atheists and religious people – or “theists” – they live by the same moral codes. Tomas Ståhl of the University of Illinois said: “The most general take-home message from these studies is that people who do not believe in God do have a moral compass. "In fact, they share many of the same moral concerns that religious believers have, such as concerns about fairness, and about protecting vulnerable individuals from harm.” The first two surveys crowdsourced responses from hundreds of American residents, and found that religion was unrelated to amoral tendencies, whether people would endorse liberty or oppression or whether people cared about being fair to others. The second two surveys compared thousands of people across the US and Sweden, which is a much more secular country. The data came up with the same results. Mainstream religions are on a downward trend worldwide. In the UK, for example, just 46 percent of people identified as Christian in the 2021 census, compared to 59 percent in 2011. The US has seen similar declines. Ståhl added: “However, disbelievers are less inclined than believers to endorse moral values that serve group cohesion, such as having respect for authorities, ingroup loyalty, and sanctity… “It is possible that the negative stereotype of atheists as immoral may stem in part from the fact that they are less inclined than religious people to view respect for authority, ingroup loyalty, and sanctity as relevant for morality, and they are more likely to make moral judgments about harm on a consequentialist, case by case basis.” It’s news that will come as little surprise to the estimated 750 million atheists across the globe, of course. But for people who still think religion is the key to morality, it could be food for thought. How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Sign up to our free indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The happy little paper clip made Microsoft Office users absolutely miserable. Naturally, that didn't stop the internet from writing erotica about him.

Vladimir Putin has unveiled what he calls Russia’s new strategy to counter Western dominance of the field of artifical intelligence, claiming that new AI models “cancel Russian culture”. The president addressed an AI conference in Moscow on Friday where he said Russian investment in AI development was being increased across all sectors. Citing the example of Gazprom Neft, Mr Putin said one of Russia’s largest oil producers was using AI to slash the cost of oil well development and to address complicated logistics safety issues. “I hope we will be more active in this area. When I say ‘we,’ I am referring not only to the government but also to the regions and industries, and individual plants,” Mr Putin said. The Russian leader said the country would intensify its research into the domains of generative AI and large language models which currently lag behind the leading Western-developed tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard chatbots. Speaking about such AI models, he said their full potential had only started to emerge in the past year, while he criticsed “Western search engines” and generative AI models, calling them “very selective and biased”. “They do not take into account and sometimes simply ignore and cancel Russian culture. In simple terms, the machine is given some creative assignment and performs it using only the English language database,” he said. “Thus, the algorithm may tell the machine that Russia, our culture, science, music and literature simply do not exist. They are cancelled in the digital space, as it were,” the Russian president said at the conference. AI created according to “Western standards”, he said, may emerge as a “kind of xenophobe”, he said. “Our domestic models of artificial intelligence must reflect the entire wealth and diversity of world culture, the heritage, knowledge, and wisdom of all civilisations,” he said. English speaking countries currently dominate AI development, with Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) claiming the US and UK were further ahead in the technology than the rest of the world. The Russian president said that the “monopolistic dominance” of the technology was “unacceptable, dangerous and inadmissible”. “Our innovations should rest on our traditional values, the wealth and beauty of the Russian language and languages of other peoples in Russia,” Mr Putin added. To achieve such development, he called for the scaling up pf Russia’s supercomputing power and to improve its top-level AI education. Read More AI breakthrough could help us build solar panels out of ‘miracle material’ OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman ousted as CEO YouTube reveals bizarre AI music experiments AI-generated faces are starting to look more real than actual ones Breakthrough ‘safe’ liquid fuel cannot start accidental fires, scientists claim Meta sued over ‘open secret’ of ‘pursuing,’ signing up millions of underage users

Memecoins such as Pepe and the recently minted token Ordinals led cryptocurrency prices lower after a weekend surge

Selena Gomez is the latest celebrity meme template after an image of her looking cosy in a blanket when viral online. It all started when a photo of the singer and Only Murders in the Building star wrapped in a blanket and as she stared off into the distance in a candid shot that looked both mysterious and dramatic. The snap was shared on the Instagram Story of her friend Dominic J West but soon found its way on social media as it became the new viral meme on X, formerly known as Twitter. The photo below is the one that has everyone meme-ing: Here is a round-up of the best memes: The meme has become so viral that it has managed to reach Gomez who was able to laugh at herself and the different memes from her candid photo - so much so that she even shared some to her Instagram Stories - here are the two she shared: Good to see she's loving the people's creativity with the meme. Elsewhere, 26 of the funniest memes about Trump's latest indictment, the funniest Kane memes as he completes Bayern Munich transfer, and ‘Girl Math’ is the funniest money meme of 2023. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

US President Joe Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, could slash US greenhouse gas emissions in

By James Pearson and Christopher Bing WASHINGTON/LONDON (Reuters) -Chinese state-linked hackers since May have secretly accessed email accounts at around

SAN RAMON, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 15, 2023--

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 8, 2023--

By Nandita Bose WASHINGTON The White House said on Tuesday it would ask workers how their employers use

Amazon.com's devices chief David Limp would retire in the coming months, in a high-level departure from a division