From a new AI challenger to Google search to an nearly indestructible robot hand, check out this week’s awesome tech stories from around the web.
Researchers at the University of Basel have developed a new method for calculating phase diagrams of physical systems that works similarly to ChatGPT. This artificial intelligence could even automate scientific experiments in the future.
A year and a half ago, ChatGPT was released, and ever since, there has been hardly anything that cannot be created with this new form of artificial intelligence: texts, images, videos, and even music. ChatGPT is based on so-called generative models, which, using a complex algorithm, can create something entirely new from known information.
A research team led by Professor Christoph Bruder at the University of Basel, together with colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, have now used a similar method to calculate phase diagrams of physical systems.
Creating robots to safely aid disaster victims is one challenge; executing flexible robot control that takes advantage of the material’s softness is another. The use of pliable soft materials to collaborate with humans and work in disaster areas has drawn much recent attention. However, controlling soft dynamics for practical applications has remained a significant challenge.
In collaboration with the University of Tokyo and Bridgestone Corporation, Kyoto University has now developed a method to control pneumatic artificial muscles, which are soft robotic actuators. Rich dynamics of these drive components can be exploited as a computational resource.
Artificial muscles control rich soft component dynamics by using them as a computational resource. (Image: MEDICAL FIG.)
Our approach to analyzing and mitigating future risks posed by advanced AI models.
Google DeepMind has consistently pushed the boundaries of AI, developing models that have transformed our understanding of what’s possible. We believe that AI technology on the horizon will provide society with invaluable tools to help tackle critical global challenges, such as climate change, drug discovery, and economic productivity. At the same time, we recognize that as we continue to advance the frontier of AI capabilities, these breakthroughs may eventually come with new risks beyond those posed by present-day models.
Today, we are introducing our Frontier Safety Framework — a set of protocols for proactively identifying future AI capabilities that could cause severe harm and putting in place mechanisms to detect and mitigate them. Our Framework focuses on severe risks resulting from powerful capabilities at the model level, such as exceptional agency or sophisticated cyber capabilities. It is designed to complement our alignment research, which trains models to act in accordance with human values and societal goals, and Google’s existing suite of AI responsibility and safety practices.
OpenAI’s Superalignment team was promised 20% of the company’s compute resources, according to a person from that team.
A source reveals that OpenAI’s Superalignment team, which was created to develop was to control ‘superintelligent’ AI, wasn’t set up for success.
In organisms, fluid is what binds the organs, the blood vessels and the musculoskeletal system as a whole. For example, hemolymph, a blood-like fluid in a spider’s body, enables muscle activation and exoskeleton flexibility. It was the cucumber spider inhabiting Estonia that inspired scientists to create a complex soft robot, where soft and rigid parts are made to work together and are connected by a liquid.
According to Indrek Must, Associate Professor of Soft Robotics, the designed soft robot is based on real reason. “Broadly speaking, our goal is to build systems from both natural and artificial materials that are as effective as in wildlife. The robotic leg could touch delicate objects and move in the same complex environments as a living spider,” he explains.
In a research paper published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, the researchers show how a robotic foot touches a primrose stamen, spider web, and pollen grain. This demonstrates the soft robot’s ability to interact with very small and delicate structures without damaging them.
But out of everything Meta announced, one particular demo blew my mind. Meta AI comes with its own image-generation tool called Imagine, which is available in beta to some WhatsApp and web users. The new Meta AI feature can do something OpenAI’s ChatGPT can’t: It creates images instantly with no waiting necessary.
This is the second time an AI product has blown my mind this week. Earlier, I showed you Microsoft’s VASA-1 tool, which generates talking video clips out of a portrait image and a voice recording. VASA-1 isn’t made for the public though, and we might never get access to this particular AI. Anyone could create misleading fakes with it, so Microsoft is only showing off a proof of concept.
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OpenAI and Reddit reach deal that will give ChatGPT access to content on the social media platform.
Despite being in its early release stages, GPT-4o is seemingly great at writing and detecting errors in code.
Sony has shown off its new surgical robot doing some super-precise work sewing up a tiny slit in a corn kernel. It’s the first machine of its kind that auto-switches between its different tools, and has successfully been tested in animal surgery.
It’s designed to help in the field of super-microsurgery, a highly specialized field in which surgeons operate on extremely small blood vessels and nerves, with diameters well under 1 mm (0.04 in). As you might imagine, this kind of thing requires incredibly steady hands, and specialists in this field often do their work whole looking through a microscope.
Continue reading “Watch: Sony’s new microsurgery robot stitches up a corn kernel” »
