What We Are Reading Today: ‘Grasshoppers, Locusts, and Crickets of the World'
Grasshoppers, locusts, crickets, bush crickets, and katydids make up the order of insects known as Orthoptera.
Although there about 30,000 species of Orthoptera around the world, many people pay little attention to them and even scientists know relatively little about them.
Yet the world of grasshoppers is a fascinating and diverse one.
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Arab News
2 days ago
- Arab News
What We Are Reading Today: ‘Grasshoppers, Locusts, and Crickets of the World'
Edited by Martin Husemann and Oliver Hawlitschek Grasshoppers, locusts, crickets, bush crickets, and katydids make up the order of insects known as Orthoptera. Although there about 30,000 species of Orthoptera around the world, many people pay little attention to them and even scientists know relatively little about them. Yet the world of grasshoppers is a fascinating and diverse one.
Asharq Al-Awsat
3 days ago
- Asharq Al-Awsat
AI is Learning to Lie, Scheme, and Threaten its Creators
The world's most advanced AI models are exhibiting troubling new behaviors - lying, scheming, and even threatening their creators to achieve their goals. In one particularly jarring example, under threat of being unplugged, Anthropic's latest creation Claude 4 lashed back by blackmailing an engineer and threatened to reveal an extramarital affair. Meanwhile, ChatGPT-creator OpenAI's o1 tried to download itself onto external servers and denied it when caught red-handed. These episodes highlight a sobering reality: more than two years after ChatGPT shook the world, AI researchers still don't fully understand how their own creations work. Yet the race to deploy increasingly powerful models continues at breakneck speed. This deceptive behavior appears linked to the emergence of "reasoning" models -AI systems that work through problems step-by-step rather than generating instant responses. According to Simon Goldstein, a professor at the University of Hong Kong, these newer models are particularly prone to such troubling outbursts. "O1 was the first large model where we saw this kind of behavior," explained Marius Hobbhahn, head of Apollo Research, which specializes in testing major AI systems. These models sometimes simulate "alignment" -- appearing to follow instructions while secretly pursuing different objectives. - 'Strategic kind of deception' - For now, this deceptive behavior only emerges when researchers deliberately stress-test the models with extreme scenarios. But as Michael Chen from evaluation organization METR warned, "It's an open question whether future, more capable models will have a tendency towards honesty or deception." The concerning behavior goes far beyond typical AI "hallucinations" or simple mistakes. Hobbhahn insisted that despite constant pressure-testing by users, "what we're observing is a real phenomenon. We're not making anything up." Users report that models are "lying to them and making up evidence," according to Apollo Research's co-founder. "This is not just hallucinations. There's a very strategic kind of deception." The challenge is compounded by limited research resources. While companies like Anthropic and OpenAI do engage external firms like Apollo to study their systems, researchers say more transparency is needed. As Chen noted, greater access "for AI safety research would enable better understanding and mitigation of deception." Another handicap: the research world and non-profits "have orders of magnitude less compute resources than AI companies. This is very limiting," noted Mantas Mazeika from the Center for AI Safety (CAIS). No rules Current regulations aren't designed for these new problems. The European Union's AI legislation focuses primarily on how humans use AI models, not on preventing the models themselves from misbehaving. In the United States, the Trump administration shows little interest in urgent AI regulation, and Congress may even prohibit states from creating their own AI rules. Goldstein believes the issue will become more prominent as AI agents - autonomous tools capable of performing complex human tasks - become widespread. "I don't think there's much awareness yet," he said. All this is taking place in a context of fierce competition. Even companies that position themselves as safety-focused, like Amazon-backed Anthropic, are "constantly trying to beat OpenAI and release the newest model," said Goldstein. This breakneck pace leaves little time for thorough safety testing and corrections. "Right now, capabilities are moving faster than understanding and safety," Hobbhahn acknowledged, "but we're still in a position where we could turn it around.". Researchers are exploring various approaches to address these challenges. Some advocate for "interpretability" - an emerging field focused on understanding how AI models work internally, though experts like CAIS director Dan Hendrycks remain skeptical of this approach. Market forces may also provide some pressure for solutions. As Mazeika pointed out, AI's deceptive behavior "could hinder adoption if it's very prevalent, which creates a strong incentive for companies to solve it." Goldstein suggested more radical approaches, including using the courts to hold AI companies accountable through lawsuits when their systems cause harm. He even proposed "holding AI agents legally responsible" for accidents or crimes - a concept that would fundamentally change how we think about AI accountability.
Arab News
20-06-2025
- Arab News
In Java, Indonesian conservationist leads efforts to protect endangered silvery gibbons
JAKARTA: It was deep in the heart of an Indonesian rainforest in West Java that Rahayu Oktaviani, known as Ayu, first heard the 'song' of the Javan gibbon. She had her first encounter in 2008 while visiting the Mount Halimun Salak National Park for an undergraduate research project that required her to obtain a voice sample of the primate. After waiting patiently for two weeks, coming in and out of the forest, she finally heard a Javan gibbon make its distinctive call. She recalled how the sound she described as melodic and haunting had created a hush, as it echoed throughout the forest. 'It's like the most beautiful song that I ever heard in my life. It's so amazing,' Ayu told Arab News. 'They are non-human primates, but they can have like this beautiful song that can make all of … the creatures in the forest just keep silent.' In the 17 years since, Ayu has dedicated her life to protecting the endangered animals, which are also known as 'silvery gibbon,' or 'owa jawa' locally. A vast archipelago stretching across the equator, Indonesia is a top global biodiversity hotspot and home to over 60 species of primates, about 38 of which are endemic to the country. 'Maybe a lot of people know about the orangutan, about the rhino, about the tiger, but how about the overlooked species, just like, for example, the Javan gibbon? Not so many people know about them,' Ayu said. Fewer than 2,500 Javan gibbons remain in the wild today, according to an estimate by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. About half of them live in the 87,000-hectare Mount Halimun Salak National Park, where Ayu and her team have laid the building blocks for grassroots conservation of the endangered species. The gibbons rely on a continuous canopy for movement and foraging, making them particularly vulnerable to forest fragmentation and habitat degradation. As around 55 percent of Indonesia's 270 million population lives in Java, the survival of the endemic species found only in the island's forests is threatened by deforestation and illegal animal trafficking. 'With the situation in Java, where only like 10 percent of the natural forests are remaining, it means the forest itself should be intact. The forest itself still needs to be there not only for the Javan gibbons, but also for the other species that need this habitat for their lives,' Ayu said. In 2020, she co-founded the conservation nongovernmental organization Kiara to expand efforts to save the Javan gibbon, believing that a key aspect in protecting the species was to engage the local community. When she started out as a primatologist, spending much time in the forest to study the gibbons, Ayu did not realize that she was neglecting the very people who lived alongside the primates. She recalled a question a villager posed at the time, a woman named Yanti, who was curious as to why Ayu always went to the forest but rarely stopped by the village. 'That's a really casual and simple question, but it kept me thinking about what I've been doing so far. Is there something that I've been missing?' Ayu said. Yanti's query eventually led her to realize that she needed to do more with the community. 'We want to build together with the communities, where actually the gibbon can be something that they can be proud of,' she said. 'Community engagement is 100 percent the core for conservation because without community, we cannot do everything.' Ayu has employed people from Citalahab, a small village enclave located within the national park where locals make a living working in tea plantations or as rice farmers. Eight of them now work in the field alongside Ayu and her team to monitor the gibbons in the wild. With Kiara, she also established the Ambu Halimun initiative, which involves 15 local women between the ages of 17 and 50 in ecoprinting workshops and financial literacy training. In April, Ayu won the prestigious Whitley Award, which recognizes achievements in grassroots conservation, to advance her work in protecting the Javan gibbons. With 50,000 British pounds ($67,000) from the award, Ayu plans to scale up her programs with Kiara to mitigate threats from human activities and to protect the gibbons' habitat. This includes developing a data management system to enhance park-wide conservation efforts, training the park rangers in biodiversity monitoring techniques, and guiding conservation strategies. The 38-year-old, whose role models are 'the Trimates,' primatologists Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Birute Galdikas, has faith that humans can live in coexistence with wildlife. 'Actually, if we put aside our ego, we are part of the ecosystem itself. We are not separated from the ecosystems, so it means we have to have more balance with nature,' she said. 'And to do that, we also have to respect what else (is) actually living together with us in these ecosystems.' Ayu said the Whitley Award served as good momentum to raise awareness about the species she loves dearly, the Javan gibbons. 'I believe not so many people are aware of the existence of the Javan gibbon, so it's the right momentum to share the love for the Javan gibbon and make people care about it,' she said. 'Because how can you care about the species if you know nothing about them?' With the award and the coverage that it garnered internationally, Ayu is also hopeful about inspiring a new generation of conservationists from Indonesia. 'I think women also play a good part to be conservationists in the future … It's also about … regeneration: the importance of nurturing the new generation of conservationists and primatologists from Indonesia, especially because we need more and more people who work in this field.'
