This year, readers were again fascinated by stories about artificial intelligence. One algorithm learned to make short, playable video games from video footage; another cloned real people’s personalities; and yet another took on the role of your future self—ready and willing to impart wisdom.
Other popular pieces dug into the rise of robotaxis, tantalizing hints about how we might one day stave off aging, and a unified theory of consciousness.
We hope you enjoy a second look or discovering these for the first time.
As always, thanks for reading!
A Google AI Watched 30,000 Hours of Video Games—Now It Makes Its Own
By Jason Dorrier
“As AI requires prodigious amounts of data, one way to forecast where things are going next is to look at what data is widely available online, but still largely untapped. Video, of which there is plenty, is an obvious next step. Indeed, [in February], OpenAI previewed a new text-to-video AI called Sora that stunned onlookers. But what about video…games?”
Scientists Are Working Towards a Unified Theory of Consciousness
By Shelly Fan
“Not all [the] authors agree on the specific brain mechanisms that allow us to perceive the outer world and construct an inner world of ‘self.’ But by collaborating, they merged their ideas, showing that different theories aren’t necessarily mutually incompatible—in fact, they could be consolidated into a general framework of consciousness and even inspire new ideas that help unravel one of the brain’s greatest mysteries.”
Scientists Extend Life Span in Mice by Restoring This Brain-Body Connection
By Shelly Fan
“Changing the protein’s behavior in aged mice with genetic engineering extended their life span by roughly seven percent. For an average 76-year life span in humans, the increase translates to over five years. The treatment also altered the mice’s health. Mice love to run, but their vigor plummets with age. Reactivating the neurons in elderly mice revived their motivation, transforming them from couch potatoes into impressive joggers.”
It Will Take Only a Single SpaceX Starship to Launch a Space Station
By Edd Gent
“SpaceX’s forthcoming Starship rocket will make it possible to lift unprecedented amounts of material into orbit. …Now, a joint venture between Airbus and Voyager Space that’s building a private space station called Starlab has inked a contract with SpaceX to get it into orbit. The venture plans to put the impressive capabilities of the new rocket to full use by launching the entire 26-foot-diameter space station in one go.”
OpenAI’s GPT-4o Makes AI Clones of Real People With Surprising Ease
By Edd Gent
“AI has become uncannily good at aping human conversational capabilities. New research suggests its powers of mimicry go a lot further, making it possible to replicate specific people’s personalities. …A study led by researchers at Stanford University has discovered that all it takes is a two-hour interview for an AI model to predict people’s responses to a battery of questionnaires, personality tests, and thought experiments with an accuracy of 85 percent.”
‘Droidspeak’: AI Agents Now Have Their Own Language Thanks to Microsoft
By Edd Gent
“Getting AIs to work together could be a powerful force multiplier for the technology. But despite their expressive power, human languages might not be the best medium of communication for machines that fundamentally operate in ones and zeros. This prompted researchers from Microsoft to develop a new method of communication that allows agents to talk to each other in the high-dimensional mathematical language underpinning LLMs. They’ve named the new approach Droidspeak…and in a preprint paper published on the arXiv, the Microsoft team reports it enabled models to communicate 2.78 times faster with little accuracy lost.”
Waymo Robotaxis Are Giving 100,000 Rides a Week. It’ll Soon Be More.
By Jason Dorrier
“After a year of commercial operations in San Francisco without major incident, Waymo is eyeing expansion. In August, the company moved into Daly City, Broadmoor, and Colma, just south of the city. Waymo has approval to operate in a total of 22 cities along the peninsula south of San Francisco, and although there’s no timetable yet, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, they also have ambitions to add operations in San Jose and East Bay, which would include Oakland and Berkeley.”
A One-and-Done Injection to Slow Aging? New Study in Mice Opens the Possibility
By Shelly Fan
“A preventative anti-aging therapy seems like wishful thinking. Yet a new study led by Dr. Corina Amor Vegas at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory describes a treatment that brings the dream to life—at least for mice. Given a single injection in young adulthood, they aged more slowly compared to their peers. …’If we give it to aged mice, they rejuvenate. If we give it to young mice, they age slower. No other therapy right now can do this,’ said Amor Vegas in a press release.”
These Mini AI Models Match OpenAI With 1,000 Times Less Data
By Jason Dorrier
“The artificial intelligence industry is obsessed with size. Bigger algorithms. More data. Sprawling data centers that could, in a few years, consume enough electricity to power whole cities. …Eye-popping numbers like these make it easy to forget size isn’t everything. Some researchers, particularly those with fewer resources, are aiming to do more with less. AI scaling will continue, but algorithms will also get far more efficient as they grow.”
This MIT Chatbot Simulates Your ‘Future Self.’ It’s Here to Help You Make Better Decisions.
By Jason Dorrier
“Chatbots are now posing as friends, romantic partners, and departed loved ones. Now, we can add another to the list: Your future self. MIT Media Lab’s Future You project invited young people, aged 18 to 30, to have a chat with AI simulations of themselves at 60. The sims—which were powered by a personalized chatbot and included an AI-generated image of their older selves—answered questions about their experience, shared memories, and offered lessons learned over the decades.”
Banner Image Credit: Luke Jones on Unsplash
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