Excessive-Pace AI Drone Beats World-Champion Racers for the First Time
Benj Edwards | Ars Technica
“On Wednesday, a staff of researchers from the College of Zürich and Intel introduced that they’ve developed an autonomous drone system named Swift that may beat human champions in first-person view (FPV) drone racing. Whereas AI has beforehand bested people in video games like chess, Go, and even StarCraft, this can be the primary time an AI system has outperformed human pilots in a bodily sport.”
‘Go Catch That Squirrel:’ Google AI Teaches a Robo-Canine Conversational Instructions
Mack DeGeurin | Gizmodo
“What’s extra fascinating, [the researchers] famous, is SayTap’s potential to ‘course of unstructured and imprecise directions.’ By simply offering the mannequin with a short trace, the researchers have been in a position to efficiently command the robotic canines to leap up and down when it was advised ‘we’re occurring a picnic.’ …In possibly the funniest instance, the canine even slowly backpedaled after being advised to get away from a squirrel. Many actual canine house owners would beg for that stage of obedience.”
A Biotech Firm Says It Put Dopamine-Making Cells Into Individuals’s Brains
Antonio Regalado | MIT Know-how Overview
“In an essential take a look at for stem-cell drugs, a biotech firm says implants of lab-made neurons launched into the brains of 12 individuals with Parkinson’s illness seem like protected and should have diminished signs for a few of them. …The examine is likely one of the largest and costliest assessments but of embryonic-stem-cell expertise, the controversial and much-hyped strategy of utilizing stem cells taken from IVF embryos to supply substitute tissue and physique elements.”
Are Self-Driving Vehicles Already Safer Than Human Drivers?
Timothy B. Lee | Ars Technica
“For this story, I learn via each crash report Waymo and Cruise filed in California this yr, in addition to experiences every firm filed concerning the efficiency of their driverless automobiles (with no security drivers) previous to 2023. …Human beings drive near 100 million miles between deadly crashes, so it can take lots of of tens of millions of driverless miles for 100% certainty on this query. However the proof for better-than-human efficiency is beginning to pile up, particularly for Waymo.”
We Used AI to Write Essays for Harvard, Yale and Princeton. Right here’s How It Went.
Natasha Singer | The New York Instances
“Whereas the chatbots will not be but nice at simulating long-form private essays with genuine scholar voices, I puzzled how the AI instruments would do on among the shorter essay questions that elite colleges like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Dartmouth are requiring highschool candidates to reply this yr. So I used a number of free instruments to generate quick essays for some Ivy League purposes.”
INNOVATION
AI Startup Buzz Is Dealing with a Actuality Verify
Berber Jin | The Wall Avenue Journal
“Founders and enterprise capitalists who flocked to artificial-intelligence startups are studying that turning the chatbot buzz into profitable companies is more durable than it appears. Virtually a yr into the growth ignited by the November launch of ChatGPT, some startups that epitomized the zeal for so-called generative AI are actually navigating layoffs and diminished person curiosity. Buyers are uncertain whether or not the brand new crop of AI startups will be capable of survive, particularly as tech giants similar to Microsoft and Alphabet’s Google solidify their dominance over the expertise.”
Quantum Pc Reveals Chemical Response in 100-Billionth-Pace Sluggish-Mo
Michael Irving | New Atlas
“Utilizing a trapped-ion quantum laptop, the staff mapped the issue onto a reasonably small quantum system, which allowed them to decelerate the method by an astonishing 100 billion instances. …’In nature, the entire course of is over inside femtoseconds,’ stated Vanessa Olaya Agudelo, co-lead writer of the examine. ‘Utilizing our quantum laptop, we constructed a system that allowed us to decelerate the chemical dynamics from femtoseconds to milliseconds. This allowed us to make significant observations and measurements. This has by no means been performed earlier than.’i”
OpenAI’s Moonshot: Fixing the AI Alignment Drawback
Eliza Strickland | IEEE Spectrum
“In July, OpenAI introduced a brand new analysis program on ‘superalignment.’ This system has the formidable objective of fixing the toughest downside within the discipline, generally known as AI alignment, by 2027, an effort to which OpenAI is dedicating 20 p.c of its whole computing energy. …One of many challenge’s leaders Jan] Leike spoke to IEEE Spectrum concerning the effort, which has the subgoal of constructing an aligned AI analysis device—to assist remedy the alignment downside.”
Photo voltaic-Panel-Coated Hybrid Truck Provides 3,000 to six,000 Free Miles a Yr
Mike Hanlon | New Atlas
“The preliminary 560-horsepower plug-in hybrid experimental truck has an 18-meter (59-foot) trailer that’s coated by 100 sq. meters (1,076 sq. ft) of photo voltaic panels, giving it the equal solar-surface space of a mean home outfitted with equally highly effective 13.2-kilowatt-peak panels. The truck makes use of new, light-weight tandem photo voltaic cells, which can be primarily based on a mix of Midsummer’s photo voltaic cells and new perovskite photo voltaic cells, and generates an estimated 8,000 kWh yearly when operated in Sweden.”
The Finish of the Googleverse
Ryan Broderick | The Verge
“Google formally went on-line…in 1998. It shortly turned so inseparable from each the best way we use the web and, ultimately, tradition itself, that we virtually lack the language to explain what Google’s impression over the past 25 years has really been. It’s like asking a fish to elucidate what the ocean is. And but, throughout us are indicators that the period of ‘peak Google’ is ending or, probably, already over.”
Just one,280 Reproductive Human Ancestors As soon as Roamed Earth, Gene Research Suggests
Isaac Schultz | Gizmodo
“An ancestral human species confronted a startling inhabitants bottleneck and teetered getting ready to extinction round 800,000 years in the past, in keeping with new analysis. [In an article commenting on the research, Nick Ashton, an archaeologist at the British Museum, and Chris Stringer, a paleoanthropologist at London’s Natural History Museum] wrote…’the provocative examine of Hu et al. brings the vulnerability of early human populations into focus, with the implication that our evolutionary lineage was practically eradicated.’”
Picture Credit score: Casey Horner / Unsplash
