This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through June 14)

Artificial Intelligence

Meta Is Creating a New AI Lab to Pursue ‘Superintelligence’Cade Metz and Mike Isaac | The New York Times

“Meta is preparing to unveil a new artificial intelligence research lab dedicated to pursuing ‘superintelligence,’ a hypothetical AI system that exceeds the powers of the human brain, as the tech giant jockeys to stay competitive in the technology race, according to four people with knowledge of the company’s plans.”

Artificial Intelligence

Why Superintelligent AI Isn’t Taking Over Anytime SoonChristopher Mims | The Wall Street Journal

“A primary requirement for being a leader in AI these days is to be a herald of the impending arrival of our digital messiah: superintelligent AI. …Before you get nervous about all the times you were rude to Alexa, know this: A growing cohort of researchers who build, study, and use modern AI aren’t buying all that talk.”

Computing

IBM Aims to Build the World’s First Large-Scale, Error-Corrected Quantum Computer by 2028Sophia Chen | MIT Technology Review

“The company says it has cracked the code for error correction and is building a modular machine [called Starling] in New York state. …If Starling achieves this, IBM will have solved arguably the biggest technical hurdle facing the industry today to beat competitors including Google, Amazon Web Services, and smaller startups such as Boston-based QuEra and PsiQuantum of Palo Alto, California.”

Robotics

Boston Dynamics Robots Dance to ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ for ‘America’s Got Talent’ AuditionAmanda Silberling | TechCrunch

“Their performance was impressive enough to earn four ‘yes’ votes from the judges—but one of the five robots experienced some stage fright, perhaps, and shut down in the middle of the routine. But the show must go on, so nevertheless, the four other robots persisted.”

Tech

‘AI Native’ Startups Pass $15 Billion in Annualized RevenueAmir Efrati | The Information

“Annualized revenue at ‘AI native’ companies selling artificial intelligence models or apps has passed $15 billion just two and a half years since OpenAI launched ChatGPT, according to The Information’s Generative AI Database. While that’s not the same as $15 billion in actual revenue, it’s still an unprecedented haul for such a short time period and means that, collectively, the companies generated about $1.25 billion of revenue in May alone.”

Robotics

Waymo Rides Cost More Than Uber, Lyft—and People Are Paying AnywaySean O’Kane | TechCrunch

“At peak hours, Obi found Waymo’s average price to be about $11 more expensive than a Lyft and nearly $9.50 pricier than an Uber. ‘I didn’t expect consumers being willing to pay up to $10 more,’ Anburajan said. ‘I think [that] speaks to a real sense of excitement for technology, novelty, and a real preference to sometimes be in the car without a driver.'”

Artificial Intelligence

They Asked an AI Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling.Kashmir Hill | The New York Times

“People who say they were drawn into ChatGPT conversations about conspiracies, cabals, and claims of AI sentience include a sleepless mother with an 8-week-old baby, a federal employee whose job was on the DOGE chopping block, and an AI-curious entrepreneur.”

Future

Lab-Grown Salmon Gets FDA ApprovalDominic Preston | The Verge

“The FDA has issued its first ever approval on a safety consultation for lab-grown fish. That makes Wildtype only the fourth company to get approval from the regulator to sell cell-cultivated animal products, and its cultivated salmon is now available to order from one Portland restaurant.”

Artificial Intelligence

Meta’s New World Model Lets Robots Manipulate Objects in Environments They’ve Never Encountered BeforeBen Dickson | VentureBeat

“Humans develop physical intuition early in life by observing their surroundings. If you see a ball thrown, you instinctively know its trajectory and can predict where it will land. V-JEPA 2 learns a similar ‘world model,’ which is an AI system’s internal simulation of how the physical world operates.”

Artificial Intelligence

ChatGPT Just Got Absolutely Wrecked at Chess, Losing to a 1970s-Era Atari 2600Omar Gallaga | CNET

“OpenAI’s ChatGPT has some major AI chatbot competitors in the market: Gemini, Copilot, Claude. Now add to that list the Atari 2600. The OG video game console, which was first released in 1977, was used in an engineer’s experiment to see how it would fare playing chess against the AI chatbot.”

Isaacman’s Bold Plan for NASA: Nuclear Ships, Seven-Crew Dragons, Accelerated ArtemisEric Berger | Ars Technica

“When I spoke with Isaacman this week, I didn’t want to rehash the political melee. I preferred to talk about his plan. After all, he had six months to look under the hood of NASA, identify the problems that were holding the space agency back, and release its potential in this new era of spaceflight.”

Tech

Google and US Experts Join on AI Hurricane ForecastsWilliam J. Broad | The New York Times

“DeepMind, a Google company based in London, announced on Thursday that it was supplying the government forecasters with a newly enhanced variety of its weather forecasting models. Specialized to focus on hurricanes, the model tracks a storm’s development for up to 15 days, predicting not only its path but also its strength, an ability that earlier AI models lacked.”

Artificial Intelligence

With the Launch of o3-Pro, Let’s Talk About What AI ‘Reasoning’ Actually DoesBenj Edwards | Ars Technica

“As we consider the industry’s stated trajectory toward artificial general intelligence and even superintelligence, the evidence so far suggests that simply scaling up current approaches or adding more ‘thinking’ tokens may not bridge the gap between statistical pattern recognition and what might be called generalist algorithmic reasoning.”

Future

The Newspaper That Hired ChatGPTMatteo Wong | The Atlantic

“Several major publications, including The Atlantic have entered into corporate partnerships with OpenAI and other AI firms. Any number of experiments have ensued—publishers have used the software to help translate work into different languages, draft headlines, and write summaries or even articles. But perhaps no publication has gone further than the Italian newspaper Il Foglio.”

Future

News Sites Are Getting Crushed by Google’s New AI ToolsIsabella Simonetti and Katherine Blunt | The Wall Street Journal

“The AI armageddon is here for online news publishers. Chatbots are replacing Google searches, eliminating the need to click on blue links and tanking referrals to news sites. As a result, traffic that publishers relied on for years is plummeting.”