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Next time you Venmo a pal for that dinner from the other night, consider tossing a few bucks to the federal government. The U.S. government operates a website that lets anyone donate toward paying down the national debt, apparently, and now it takes Venmo. Jack Corbett from NPRs Planet Money first spotted the change, which added the app into the mix as a payment option. If youve lost your Venmo password, never fear, you can still help reduce the public debt with a bank account, debit/credit card, or even a PayPal account. Its not immediately clear who decided to add a payments app mostly used for settling rounds of drinks to the U.S. Treasury website, but Trump administration officials do have a preference for Venmo, which is infamous for making users transactions and friends lists public. Mike Waltz, former national security adviser, not known for his OPSEC (thats operational security for the uninitiated) was spotted with a public Venmo contact list prior to being ousted from the administration. Its difficult to imagine any American actually tossing money at the federal government beyond what they pay in taxes, but those rare souls do existand theyve been giving the U.S. government cash for decades, sometimes doling out more than $1 million at once. The U.S. currently operates $36.7 trillion in debt, which unfortunately renders the almost $70 million donated since 1996 totally insignificant. If youve got expendable income, almost anything seems like a better option. Its been a particularly rough month. Not only did Trumps big beautiful bill slash hundreds of billions from Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, but it will also tack another $3.4 trillion onto the national debt over the next 10 years.
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As the U.S. backs away from key climate, aid, and scientific investments, Europe is stepping in to pick up the slack. Europes latest intervention? Saving a plan to build one of the worlds largest, cutting-edge telescopes. This week, the Spanish government offered to pay $470 million to take over one of the most ambitious astronomy projects in history, known as the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). In the deal, Spain would also provide the unconstructed mega-telescope a home atop a rugged peak on La Palma, one of the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa. After massive proposed cuts to the National Science Foundations $9 billion budget, the project faced a financing shortfall that likely spelled its doom. Trumps cuts, detailed in late May, slash the foundations budget by more than half, jettisoning funding for the TMT while keeping another $3 billion telescope project, the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) under construction now in Chile alive. Faced with the risk of this major international scientific project being halted, the Government of Spain has decided to act with renewed commitment to science and major scientific infrastructures for the benefit of global knowledge, Spains Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities Diana Morant said. When constructed, the telescope will be a modern scientific marvel. Named the Thirty Meter Telescope for the size of its mirror, the project was designed to take on some of astronomys most compelling questions, searching the deep skies for signs of extraterrestrial life, evidence of the universes origins and clues about the nature of dark matter. Compared to images from the James Webb Space Telescope, a triumph of engineering itself, the TMT will produce images four times sharper. A controversial telescope Pondering the universes biggest mysteries is a shared human experience, but the TMTs journey to investigate them has proven surprisingly divisive. The plan to build a mega-telescope with a mirror as big as a blue whale began in 2003. The project evolved over time into a consortium of scientists from around the globe, an organization now known as the TMT International Observatory (TIO). The group determined that the ideal site for the massive lens was the summit of Hawaiis highest peak, Mauna Kea. While Mauna Keas high, dry summit attracts astronomy projects and already hosts thirteen other telescopes, the peaks history as a sacred place in Hawaiian culture prompted a public outcry from residents and conservationists who wanted the TMT built elsewhere. The mountain is known as the home of the god Wakea and plays a central role in native Hawaiian creation stories, a status that inspired a resistance movement against plans to further develop the area. Its not the projects first pick, but Spains offer to host the project is a natural fit. The Spanish island of La Palma was already the telescopes backup plan, and like Mauna Kea it offers a remote, high perch with consistently clear skies and infrastructure already in place from other international observatories. In 2019, the Government of Spain already expressed its willingness for the TMT to be built on this island, and now, six years later, it is taking a decisive step with a strategic investment that will benefit the European Union, Spain, the Canary Islands, and especially La Palma, Spains Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities said. Trump-era cuts to science funding werent the first time that the U.S. budget imperiled at least one of the two major next-generation telescopes in the works. With the GMT still on track, its counterpart might have a brighter future under an eager government across the ocean. “While some countries are cutting science investments and even denying it, Spain is a refuge for science, Morant said.
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If youve been confessing your deepest secrets to an AI chatbot, it might be time to reevaluate. With more people turning to AI for instant life coaching, tools like ChatGPT are sucking up massive amounts of personal information on their users. While that data stays private under ideal circumstances, it could be dredged up in court a scenario that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warned users in an appearance on Theo Vons popular podcast this week. One example that weve been thinking about a lot people talk about the most personal shit in their lives to ChatGPT, Altman said. Young people especially, use it as a therapist, as a life coach, Im having these relationship problems, what should I do? And right now, if you talk to a therapist or a lawyer or a doctor about those problems, there’s legal privilege for it, theres doctor patient confidentiality, theres legal confidentiality. Altman says that as a society we havent figured that out yet for ChatGPT. Altman called for a policy framework for AI, though in reality OpenAI and its peers have lobbied for a regulatory light touch. If you go talk to ChatGPT about your most sensitive stuff and then theres a lawsuit or whatever, we could be required to produce that, and I think that’s very screwed up, Altman told Von, arguing that AI conversations should be treated with the same level of privacy as a chat with a therapist. While interactions with doctors and therapists are protected by federal privacy laws in the U.S., exceptions exist for instances in which someone is a threat to themselves or others. And even with those strong privacy protections, relevant medical information can be surfaced by court order, subpoena or a warrant. Altmans argument seems to be that from a regulatory perspective, ChatGPT shares more in common with licensed, trained specialists than it does with a search engine. I think we should have the same concept of privacy for your conversations with AI that we do with a therapist, he said. Altman also expressed concerns about how AI will adversely impact mental health, even as people seek its advice in lieu of the real thing. Another thing Im afraid of is just what this is going to mean for users mental health. There’s a lot of people that talk to ChatGPT all day long, Altman said. There are these new AI companions that people talk to like they would a girlfriend or boyfriend. I dont think we know yet the ways in which [AI] is going to have those negative impacts, but I feel for sure it’s going to have some, and we’ll have to, I hope, we can learn to mitigate it quickly.”
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