Developers Are Connecting Multiple AI Agents to Make More'Autonomous' AI Chloe Xiang Motherboard "Multiple developers are trying to create an'autonomous' system by stringing together multiple instances of OpenAI's large language model (LLM) GPT that can do a number of things on its own, such as execute a series of tasks without intervention, write, debug, and develop its own code, and critique and fix its own mistakes in written outputs." AI Is Running Circles Around Robotics Jacob Stern The Atlantic "AI's recent progress has been fueled to a significant extent by training larger models with greater computation power on larger data sets. Roboticists inclined toward this approach--hoping to apply the same machine-learning techniques that have proved so fruitful for large language models--run into problems." Tiny Hybrid Robot Can Identify, Capture a Single Cell Paul McClure New Atlas "Once the hybrid propulsion system was assembled, researchers were able to demonstrate the micro-robot's capabilities. They used it to capture a single red blood cell, cancer cells, and a single bacterium, demonstrating that the micro-robot could distinguish between a healthy cell and one that had been damaged by a drug or a dying cell and one that was undergoing a natural'suicide' process (apoptosis). Once captured, the cell can be moved to an external instrument for further analysis."

Having AIs Train Robot Dogs to Balance Makes Them a Lot Cheaper Jeremy Tsu New Scientist "An AI has been used to train a small robot dog to perform cleaning tasks. The hardware cost a total of $6300, which is less than a tenth of the price tag of the well-known robot dogs built by US tech firm Boston Dynamics. This type of self-taught robotic body coordination relies on an AI training regimen that could pave the way for affordable robot dogs and possibly even humanoid robots that could be used as helpers in homes and workplaces." Google Plans Giant AI Language Model Supporting World's 1,000 Most Spoken Languages James Vincent The Verge "i'The way we get to 1,000 languages is not by building 1,000 different models. Languages are like organisms, they've evolved from one another and they have certain similarities. And we can find some pretty spectacular advances in what we call zero-shot learning when we incorporate data from a new language into our 1,000 language model and get the ability to translate [what it's learned] from a high-resource language to a low-resource language,' says [Zoubin Ghahramani, vice president of research at Google AI]. Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Cut the Insect's Number by 96 Percent Miriam Fauzia New Scientist "Although not a permanent fix, periodically releasing such mosquitoes could reduce the burden of infections including dengue, malaria, and Zika.

Chip Can Transmit All of the Internet's Traffic Every Second Matthew Sparkes New Scientist "A single computer chip has transmitted a record 1.84 petabits of data per second via a fiber-optic cable--enough bandwidth to download 230 million photographs in that time, and more traffic than travels through the entire internet's backbone network per second. It just goes to show that we can go so much further than we are today with internet connections,' said [Asbjørn Arvad Jørgensen]." Physicists Got a Quantum Computer to Work by Blasting It With the Fibonacci Sequence Isaac Schultz Gizmodo "In the recent research, pulsing a laser periodically at the 10 ytterbium qubits kept them in a quantum state--meaning entangled--for 1.5 seconds. But when the researchers pulsed the lasers in the pattern of the Fibonacci sequence, they found that the qubits on the edge of the system remained in a quantum state for about 5.5 seconds, the entire length of the experiment (the qubits could have remained in a quantum state for longer, but the team ended the experiment at the 5.5-second mark)." Technology That Lets Us'Speak' to Our Dead Relatives Has Arrived. Charlotte Jee MIT Technology Review "From what I could glean over a dozen conversations with my virtually deceased parents, this really will make it easier to keep close the people we love.

An AI-generated Artwork's State Fair Victory Fuels Arguments Over'What Art Is' James Vincent The Verge "The rise of text-to-AI image generators has only just begun, but already, the programs are sparking heated debates about the nature of art, whether this software poses a threat to artists' livelihoods, and whether or not the companies that create these systems [owe] anything to the artists whose work their programs are trained on." A New Gene Therapy Based on Antibody Cells Is About to Be Tested in Humans Antonio Regalado MIT Technology Review "The concept is to engineer B cells so that they manufacture other proteins instead of antibodies. For [the rare inherited disease MPS-1], what's needed is an enzyme whose absence causes diverse and devastating symptoms. Patients with the illness are currently treated with weekly infusions of the missing enzyme, but it's not enough to cure the disease outright. Immusoft says it can engineer B cells to produce the enzyme instead."

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE · DeepMind Has Predicted the Structure of Almost Every Protein Known to Science Melissa Heikkilä | MIT Technology Review

Meta's Yann LeCun Strives for Human-Level AI Ben Dickson VentureBeat "What is the next step toward bridging the gap between natural and artificial intelligence? But as his research and the fields of AI and neuroscience have progressed, his vision has converged around several promising concepts and trends. In a recent event held by Meta AI, LeCun discussed possible paths toward human-level AI, challenges that remain and the impact of advances in AI." A Locked-in Man Has Been Able to Communicate in Sentences by Thought Alone Jessica Hamzelou MIT Technology Review "A completely paralyzed man has been able to communicate entire sentences using a device that records his brain activity. The man was able to train his mind to use the device, which was implanted in his brain, to ask for massages, soup, and beer, and to watch films with his son. It is the first time a completely locked-in person--someone who is conscious and cognitively able but completely paralyzed--has been able to communicate in this way, say the researchers behind the work."

Are We on the Verge of Chatting With Whales? Christoph Droesser Hakai Magazine "An ambitious project is attempting to interpret sperm whale clicks with artificial intelligence, then talk back to them. The next step would be an interactive chatbot that tries to engage in a dialogue with free-living whales." Brain Implants Could Be the Next Computer Mouse Antonio Regalado MIT Technology Review "While other brain-interface researchers grabbed the limelight with more spectacular demonstrations, Shenoy's group has stayed focused on creating a practical interface that paralyzed patients can use for everyday computer interactions. Boston Dynamics Wants You to Know Its Spot Robot Has Moves Like Jagger I. Bonifacic Engadget "Is this what TikTok will look like when the robots take over?

Facebook Is Researching AI Systems That See, Hear, and Remember Everything You Do James Vincent The Verge "[Facebook's AI team] imagines AI systems that are constantly analyzing peoples' lives using first-person video; recording what they see, do, and hear in order to help them with everyday tasks. Facebook's researchers have outlined a series of skills it wants these systems to develop, including'episodic memory' (answering questions like'where did I leave my keys?') and'audio-visual diarization' (remembering who said what when)." Drone Delivers Lungs to Transplant Recipient, a Medical First George Dvorsky Gizmodo "As the Canadian Press reports, some 80% of donated lungs cannot be used owing to problems having to do with insufficient oxygenation or a failure to meet minimal functional standards. And like any transplanted organ, time is of the essence; the quicker an organ can be brought to the patient, the better. Hence the desire to ship organs through the air, rather than through congested city traffic."

Rather, the idea seems to be combining data with machine learning and other forms of artificial intelligence to gain enough of an informational edge to …

The massive document, produced by the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, is packed full of data and graphs, and we've plucked out 15 that provide a snapshot of the current state of AI." Geoffrey Hinton Has a Hunch About What's Next for Artificial Intelligence Siobhan Roberts MIT Technology Review "Back in November, the computer scientist and cognitive psychologist Geoffrey Hinton had a hunch. After a half-century's worth of attempts--some wildly successful--he'd arrived at another promising insight into how the brain works and how to replicate its circuitry in a computer." Robotic Exoskeletons Could One Day Walk by Themselves Charles Q. Choi IEEE Spectrum "Ultimately, the ExoNet researchers want to explore how AI software can transmit commands to exoskeletons so they can perform tasks such as climbing stairs or avoiding obstacles based on a system's analysis of a user's current movements and the upcoming terrain. With autonomous cars as inspiration, they are seeking to develop autonomous exoskeletons that can handle the walking task without human input, Laschowski says." Microsoft Buys AI Speech Tech Company Nuance for $19.7 Billion James Vincent The Verge "The $19.7 billion acquisition of Nuance is Microsoft's second-largest behind its purchase of LinkedIn in 2016 for $26 billion.