ROBOTICS
Is Robotics About to Have Its Own ChatGPT Moment?
Melissa Heikkilä | MIT Technology Review
“For decades, roboticists have more or less focused on controlling robots’ ‘bodies’—their arms, legs, levers, wheels, and the like—via purpose-driven software. But a new generation of scientists and inventors believes that the previously missing ingredient of AI can give robots the ability to learn new skills and adapt to new environments faster than ever before. This new approach, just maybe, can finally bring robots out of the factory and into our homes.”
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Humans Forget. AI Assistants Will Remember Everything
Boone Ashworth | Wired
“Human brains, Gruber says, are really good at story retrieval, but not great at remembering details, like specific dates, names, or faces. He has been arguing for digital AI assistants that can analyze everything you do on your devices and index all those details for later reference.”
BIOTECH
The Effort to Make a Breakthrough Cancer Therapy Cheaper
Cassandra Willyard | MIT Technology Review
“CAR-T therapies are already showing promise beyond blood cancers. Earlier this year, researchers reported stunning results in 15 patients with lupus and other autoimmune diseases. CAR-T is also being tested as a treatment for solid tumors, heart disease, aging, HIV infection, and more. As the number of people eligible for CAR-T therapies increases, so will the pressure to reduce the cost.”
ETHICS
Students Are Likely Writing Millions of Papers With AI
Amanda Hoover | Wired
“A year ago, Turnitin rolled out an AI writing detection tool that was trained on its trove of papers written by students as well as other AI-generated texts. Since then, more than 200 million papers have been reviewed by the detector, predominantly written by high school and college students. Turnitin found that 11 percent may contain AI-written language in 20 percent of its content, with 3 percent of the total papers reviewed getting flagged for having 80 percent or more AI writing.”
SCIENCE
Physicists Capture First-Ever Image of an Electron Crystal
Isaac Schultz | Gizmodo
“Electrons are typically seen flitting around their atoms, but a team of physicists has now imaged the particles in a very different state: nestled together in a quantum phase called a Wigner crystal, without a nucleus at their core. The phase is named after Eugene Wigner, who predicted in 1934 that electrons would crystallize in a lattice when certain interactions between them are strong enough. The recent team used high-resolution scanning tunneling microscopy to directly image the predicted crystal.”
GADGETS
Review: Humane Ai Pin
Julian Chokkattu | Wired
“Humane has potential with the Ai Pin. I like being able to access an assistant so quickly, but right now, there’s nothing here that makes me want to use it over my smartphone. Humane says this is just version 1.0 and that many of the missing features I’ve mentioned will arrive later. I’ll be happy to give it another go then.”
SPACE
The Moon Likely Turned Itself Inside Out 4.2 Billion Years Ago
Passant Rabie | Gizmodo
“A team of researchers from the University of Arizona found new evidence that supports one of the wildest formation theories for the moon, which suggests that Earth’s natural satellite may have turned itself inside out a few million years after it came to be. In a new study published Monday in Nature Geoscience, the researchers looked at subtle variations in the moon’s gravitational field to provide the first physical evidence of a sinking mineral-rich layer.”
TECH
How Tech Giants Cut Corners to Harvest Data for AI
Cade Metz, Cecilia Kang, Sheera Frenkel, Stuart A. Thompson, and ade | The New York Times
“The race to lead AI has become a desperate hunt for the digital data needed to advance the technology. To obtain that data, tech companies including OpenAI, Google and Meta have cut corners, ignored corporate policies and debated bending the law, according to an examination by The New York Times.”
ENERGY
Artificial Intelligence’s ‘Insatiable’ Energy Needs Not Sustainable, Arm CEO Says
Peter Landers | The Wall Street Journal
“In a January report, the International Energy Agency said a request to ChatGPT requires 2.9 watt-hours of electricity on average—equivalent to turning on a 60-watt lightbulb for just under three minutes. That is nearly 10 times as much as the average Google search. The agency said power demand by the AI industry is expected to grow by at least 10 times between 2023 and 2026.”
FUTURE
Someday, Earth Will Have a Final Total Solar Eclipse
Katherine Kornei | The New York Times
“The total solar eclipse visible on Monday over parts of Mexico, the United States and Canada was a perfect confluence of the sun and the moon in the sky. But it’s also the kind of event that comes with an expiration date: At some point in the distant future, Earth will experience its last total solar eclipse. That’s because the moon is drifting away from Earth, so our nearest celestial neighbor will one day, millions or even billions of years in the future, appear too small in the sky to completely obscure the sun.”
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Image Credit: Tim Foster / Unsplash