In light of these findings, experts emphasize the importance of addressing loneliness among young people with targeted strategies. This could include greater support for real-life social relationships, promoting group activities, and creating safe spaces for socializing. Smartphone use, while helpful, may not be enough to prevent the negative effects of prolonged isolation.
Furthermore, it is essential to raise awareness of how short periods of isolation can already have a negative impact on mental health, especially in an era in which young people spend a large part of their time online. Loneliness, as these data demonstrate, is not only a question of quantity of interactions, but also of quality: being special lead connected virtually does not replace the importance of real social interaction, especially for adolescents in such a delicate phase of their development.
nnovation in artificial intelligence (AI) is at the heart of today’s tech boom. The neural network “transformer,” the T in GPT, that underpins OpenAI was first published as research by Google engineers. TensorFlow and PyTorch, the frameworks used to build these neural networks, were developed by Google and Meta, respectively, and shared with the world. Today, some argue that AI is too important and sensitive to be accessible to everyone, everywhere. “Open-source” models, which make the code available for anyone to use, remix, and adapt, are often considered dangerous.
There have been numerous accusations against open-source AI. One is that it is aiding America’s rivals: On November 1, it emerged that researchers in China had adapted Meta’s open-source language model Llama 2 for military purposes. Another fear is that these models could be used by terrorists and criminals, who could remove safeguards designed to prevent malicious activity. Anthropic, a company specializing in AI development, has called for urgent regulation, warning of the “unique risks” of open-source models, such as their ability to be “tuned” using sensitive data, for example to create biological weapons.