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Back to school: robots learn from factory workers

Robohub

What if training a robot to handle dirty, dangerous work on the factory floor was as simple as showing it how? Czech startup RoboTwin is doing exactly that, helping factory workers teach robots new skills by demonstration. Instead of writing complex code, workers perform the job once and RoboTwin's technology turns those movements into a robot programme - opening the door to automation for smaller manufacturers. Founded in Prague in 2021, RoboTwin builds handheld devices and no-code software that capture human movements and translate them into instructions for industrial robots. The aim is to make automation faster, simpler and more accessible to manufacturers that do not have specialist robotics programmers.


2026 AI Index Report released

AIHub

The ninth edition of the Artificial Intelligence Index Report was published on 13 April 2026. Released on a yearly basis, the aim of the document is to provide readers with accurate, rigorously validated, and globally-sourced data to give insights into the progress of AI and its potential impact on society. The 2026 AI Index Report comprises nine chapters, covering: research and development, technical performance, responsible AI, economy, science, medicine, education, policy and governance, and public opinion. AI capability is accelerating and reaching more people than ever. Model performance continues to improve against benchmarks, and 80% of university students now use generative AI.


Forthcoming machine learning and AI seminars: April 2026 edition

AIHub

This post contains a list of the AI-related seminars that are scheduled to take place between 2 April and 31 May 2026. All events detailed here are free and open for anyone to attend virtually. What Do Our Benchmarks Actually Measure? Vukosi Marivate (University of Pretoria) University of Michigan Zoom link is here . Optimization Over Trained Neural Networks: What, Why, and How? Thiago Serra Azevedo Silva (University of Iowa) Association of European Operational Research Societies To receive the seminar link, sign up to the mailing list .


Causal models for decision systems: an interview with Matteo Ceriscioli

AIHub

How do you go about integrating causal knowledge into decision systems or agents? We sat down with Matteo Ceriscioli to find out about his research in this space. This interview is the latest in our series featuring the AAAI/SIGAI Doctoral Consortium participants. Could you start by telling us a bit about your PhD - where are you studying, and what's the broad topic of your research? The idea is to integrate causal knowledge into agents or decision systems to make them more reliable.


Formal verification for safety evaluation of autonomous vehicles: an interview with Abdelrahman Sayed Sayed

AIHub

In this interview series, we're meeting some of the AAAI/SIGAI Doctoral Consortium participants to find out more about their research. We sat down with Abdelrahman Sayed Sayed to chat about his work on formal verification applied to autonomous vehicles. Could you tell us a bit about where you're studying and the broad topic of your research? My PhD topic is formal verification of neural ODE (ordinary differential equations) for safety evaluation in autonomous vehicles. Could you say something about formal verification and why it's such an important topic?


This Scammer Used an AI-Generated MAGA Girl to Grift 'Super Dumb' Men

WIRED

This Scammer Used an AI-Generated MAGA Girl to Grift'Super Dumb' Men A med student says he's made thousands of dollars selling photos and videos of a young conservative woman he created using generative tools. Like many medical school students, Sam was broke. The 22-year-old aspiring orthopedic surgeon from northern India got some money from his parents, but he says he spent most of it subsidizing his licensing exams, and he's still saving up to hopefully emigrate to the US after graduation. So he started searching for ways to make additional money online. Sam, who requested a pseudonym to avoid jeopardizing his medical career and immigration status, tried a few things, with varying degrees of legitimacy and success.


LAUSD to vote on restricting student screen time, after years of encouraging classroom use

Los Angeles Times

Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. Students with computers participate in a summer program at Canoga Park High School in 2022. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . Los Angeles Unified is poised to reverse years of promoting classroom technology with restrictions on student screen time.


Adaptive Kernel Selection for Kernelized Diffusion Maps

arXiv.org Machine Learning

Selecting an appropriate kernel is a central challenge in kernel-based spectral methods. In \emph{Kernelized Diffusion Maps} (KDM), the kernel determines the accuracy of the RKHS estimator of a diffusion-type operator and hence the quality and stability of the recovered eigenfunctions. We introduce two complementary approaches to adaptive kernel selection for KDM. First, we develop a variational outer loop that learns continuous kernel parameters, including bandwidths and mixture weights, by differentiating through the Cholesky-reduced KDM eigenproblem with an objective combining eigenvalue maximization, subspace orthonormality, and RKHS regularization. Second, we propose an unsupervised cross-validation pipeline that selects kernel families and bandwidths using an eigenvalue-sum criterion together with random Fourier features for scalability. Both methods share a common theoretical foundation: we prove Lipschitz dependence of KDM operators on kernel weights, continuity of spectral projectors under a gap condition, a residual-control theorem certifying proximity to the target eigenspace, and exponential consistency of the cross-validation selector over a finite kernel dictionary.


Spectral bandits for smooth graph functions

arXiv.org Machine Learning

Smooth functions on graphs have wide applications in manifold and semi-supervised learning. In this paper, we study a bandit problem where the payoffs of arms are smooth on a graph. This framework is suitable for solving online learning problems that involve graphs, such as content-based recommendation. In this problem, each item we can recommend is a node and its expected rating is similar to its neighbors. The goal is to recommend items that have high expected ratings. We aim for the algorithms where the cumulative regret with respect to the optimal policy would not scale poorly with the number of nodes. In particular, we introduce the notion of an effective dimension, which is small in real-world graphs, and propose two algorithms for solving our problem that scale linearly and sublinearly in this dimension. Our experiments on real-world content recommendation problem show that a good estimator of user preferences for thousands of items can be learned from just tens of nodes evaluations.


The best brownie recipe, according to science

Popular Science

Fat is key for fudgy brownies. More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have brownies on their menu too . But what makes a perfect brownie?