By Makiko Yamazaki TOKYO (Reuters) -Toshiba Corp said on Friday it was working with Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) to quickly

Officials in Iran are reportedly looking to use artificial intelligence to issue fatwas to speed up the process of Islamic law rulings. Clerics in the city of Qom – Iran’s main hub of Islamic learning – are mulling over the use of AI assistants to help them with religious seminaries, the Financial Times reported. “Robots can’t replace senior clerics, but they can be a trusted assistant that can help them issue a fatwa faster,” Mohammad Ghotbi, who heads a state-linked tech group in Qom, told FT. Iran is home to over 200,000 Shia clergy, of whom nearly half are based in Qom. These officials have been the country’s leading force in protecting its religious values amid growing clashes between tradition and modernity as AI use sees growing interest across the world. Iran particularly sees a growing need to modernise following last year’s nationwide uprising triggered by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country’s morality police after her arrest for allegedly violating the regime’s mandatory Islamic dress code. Violence launched by the regime against the protest movement also sparked condemnation from international rights groups, including the UN. “It pains me to see what is happening in the country – images of children killed, of women being beaten in the streets,” Volker Turk, UN high commissioner for human rights, said last year. “The old methods and the fortress mentality of those who wield power simply don’t work. In fact, they only aggravate the situation. We are now in a full-fledged human rights crisis,” Mr Turk said. Now, the regime’s clerical establishment seems to view technology – especially the use of AI – as an attempt to modernise. While still in infancy, the move to trial the use of AI to issue fatwas is underway in cities like Qom, whose first AI conference was held in 2020, according to FT. The head of the city’s seminary reportedly shared his views on how AI could advance Islamic studies of senior clergy and speed up their communication with the public. Interest shown by the clerics also appears to be in line with the views of the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said in June that he wants the country to be “at least among the top-10 countries in the world in terms of artificial intelligence”. Read More Iran will keep taking hostages – because no one is willing to stand up to them ChatGPT now has power to ‘see, hear, and speak’ Can a chatbot preach a good sermon? Hundreds attend experimental Lutheran church service to find out Spotify clarifies position on whether it will ban AI-powered music ChatGPT now has power to ‘see, hear, and speak’ ChatGPT can now generate images and create illustrated books

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Eight simple lifestyle changes could add more than 20 years to your life, research suggests. According to a study, presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition in Boston, making minor changes even if you are already middle aged could pay massive dividends when it comes to extending your life. “Our research findings suggest that adopting a healthy lifestyle is important for both public health and personal wellness,” said Xuan-Mai T Nguyen, a health science specialist involved in the work at the US Department of Veteran Affairs. “The earlier the better, but even if you only make a small change in your 40s, 50s, or 60s, it still is beneficial,” she added. So what are the lifestyle changes? Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter They are: Eat well. Avoid cigarettes. Get a good night’s sleep. Be physically active. Manage stress. Avoid binge drinking. Be free from opioid addiction. Have positive social relationships. Who knew stopping smoking was so good for you?... The research drew on data from questionnaires and medical records collected between 2011 and 2019. The records covered more than 700,000 US veterans aged from 40 to 99 who were enrolled in the Veterans Affairs’ Million Veteran Program. “Men and women who adopted eight therapeutic lifestyle factors could gain 23.7 or 22.6 years of life expectancy, respectively, at age 40 years compared to those with no adopted lifestyle factors,” the authors write. However, as the study was done through observation, the work cannot prove a causal link between the factors identified and differences in lifespan. 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.

Criticized for giving into governments' censorship demands, Elon Musk on Sunday claimed that Twitter has "no actual choice" about complying those requests.

Editors' Note: This is the most recent version of the Amazon Fire TV Stick With