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Future
Meet the Researcher Hosting a Scientific Conference by and for AIPeter Hall | MIT Technology Review
“Agents4Science is a one-day online event that will encompass all areas of science, from physics to medicine. All of the work shared will have been researched, written, and reviewed primarily by AI, and will be presented using text-to-speech technology.”
Robotics
The Coming Robot Home InvasionAndy Kessler | The Wall Street Journal
“It’s easy to envision these robots eventually clearing and organizing the coffee table. Picking up after the kids. Loading the dishwasher. Even pulling a Dyson vacuum off its charger and vacuuming up before you get home. What I really want is a device to clean up late after a dinner party so I can go to bed.”
Computing
Meta Wants to Make Its First AR Glasses With a Display as Cheap as a Flagship PhoneJames Pero | Gizmodo
“According to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Meta is planning to release its next pair of display-having smart glasses soon for $800, which is markedly less than the previous rumors that suggested a price of $1,000 or as much as $1,400.”
Artificial Intelligence
AI Giants Race to Scoop Up Elusive Real-World DataItika Sharma Punit | Rest of World
“Amid an intense battle for supremacy, artificial-intelligence companies are forging alliances across industries and regions to help gather real-world data that can’t be scraped from the internet. Over the past two months, OpenAI has tied up with e-commerce majors Shopeei and Shopify, while Google and Perplexity have doled out free access to their advanced AI tools to some users in India.”
Energy
In a First, Google Has Released Data on How Much Energy an AI Prompt UsesCasey Crownhart | MIT Technology Review
“It’s the most transparent estimate yet from one of the big AI companies, and a long-awaited peek behind the curtain for researchers. …However, there are still details that the company isn’t sharing in this report. One major question mark is the total number of queries that Gemini gets each day, which would allow estimates of the AI tool’s total energy demand.”
Robotics
Waymo Approved to Start Autonomous Vehicle Testing in New York CitySean O’Kane | TechCrunch
“The permit brings Waymo one step closer to launching a robotaxi service in the city, which would be arguably its most challenging to date. The company currently operates in San Francisco, Austin, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. All of those are warm-weather cities, and only San Francisco comes close to the complexity of operating in New York City.”
Future
He Sold His Likeness. Now His Avatar Is Shilling Supplements on TikTok.Sapna Maheshwari | The New York Times
“The ads were made using his ‘digital avatar,’ fueled by artificial intelligence, after he licensed his likeness to TikTok last year. Now, a version of Mr. Jacqmein is out on the internet, peddling whatever an advertiser might want him to sell as long as it complies with TikTok’s marketing guidelines. It’s what Mr. Jacqmein signed up for, but now that he has seen his avatar out in the wild, he has regrets.”
Future
College Students Have Already Changed ForeverIan Bogost | The Atlantic
“In a British survey of full-time undergraduates from December, 92 percent reported using AI in some fashion. Forty percent agreed that ‘content created by generative AI would get a good grade in my subject,’ and nearly one in five admitted that they’ve tested that idea directly, by using AI to complete their assignments. Such numbers will only rise in the year ahead.”
Tech
OpenAI Is Challenging Google—While Using Its Search DataAmir Efrati, Stephanie Palazzolo, and Natasha Mascarenhas | The Information
“As it tries to unseat Google, OpenAI is relying on search data from an unlikely source: Google. OpenAI has been using Google search results scraped from the web to help power ChatGPT responses, according to two people with knowledge of it.”
Energy
Africa Is Buying a Record Number of Chinese Solar PanelsZeyi Yang | Wired
“From Algeria on the Mediterranean coast to landlocked Zambia in the south, countries across Africa have been importing significantly more solar panels from China this year than in the past, which analysts say could be the start of a massive effort to help meet the continent’s power demands with renewable energy instead of fossil fuels.”
A ‘Warp’ In Our Solar System Might Be an Undiscovered World: Planet YBecky Ferreira | 404 Media
“The newly proposed planet, assuming it exists, is predicted to be somewhere between Mercury and Earth in scale, which would likely make it detectable within the next few years. It is distinct from Planet Nine or Planet X, another hypothetical planet that is predicted to be much larger and more distant than Planet Y.”
Biotechnology
I Gave the Police Access to My DNA—and Maybe Some of YoursAntonio Regalado | MIT Technology Review
“Scientists estimate that a database including 2% of the US population, or 6 million people, could identify the source of nearly any crime-scene DNA, given how many distant relatives each of us has. Scholars of big data have termed this phenomenon ‘tyranny of the minority.’ One person’s voluntary disclosure can end up exposing the same information about many others. And that tyranny can be abused.”
Tech
The AI Report That’s Spooking Wall StreetBruce Gil | Gizmodo
“Despite the major push to adopt AI tools in the corporate world, fewer than one in ten AI pilot programs have generated real revenue gains. The rest are having no impact on a company’s bottom line, according to MIT’s report—based on 150 executive interviews, a survey of 350 employees, and an analysis of 300 public AI deployments.”
Tech
MIT Report Misunderstood: Shadow AI Economy Booms While Headlines Cry FailureMichael Nuñez | VentureBeat
“The most widely cited statistic from a new MIT report has been deeply misunderstood. While headlines trumpet that ‘95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing,’ the report actually reveals something far more remarkable: the fastest and most successful enterprise technology adoption in corporate history is happening right under executives’ noses.”
Tech
OpenAI Is Poised to Become the Most Valuable Startup Ever. Should It Be?Kylie Robison | Wired
“Startup valuations have always reflected how well the CEO can sell a vision. At OpenAI, Altman cranks it up to eleven, and it’s seemingly paying off. Meanwhile, investors are betting that ChatGPT becomes as indispensable as Google, that billions of people happily pay to use it, and competitors quietly fade into irrelevance.”
Artificial Intelligence
AI Comes Up with Bizarre Physics Experiments. But They Work.Anil Ananthaswamy | Quanta Magazine
“‘LIGO is this huge thing that thousands of people have been thinking about deeply for 40 years,’ said Aephraim Steinberg, an expert on quantum optics at the University of Toronto. ‘They’ve thought of everything they could have, and anything new [the AI] comes up with is a demonstration that it’s something thousands of people failed to do.'”
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