Three big things we still don't know about AI's energy burden AI companies are revealing the one number that researchers have long sought. Earlier this year, when my colleague Casey Crownhart and I spent six months researching the climate and energy burden of AI, we came to see one number in particular as our white whale: how much energy the leading AI models, like ChatGPT or Gemini, use up when generating a single response. This fundamental number remained elusive even as the scramble to power AI escalated to the White House and the Pentagon, and as projections showed that in three years AI could use as much electricity as 22% of all US households. The problem with finding that number, as we explain in our piece published in May, was that AI companies are the only ones who have it. We pestered Google, OpenAI, and Microsoft, but each company refused to provide its figure. Researchers we spoke to who study AI's impact on energy grids compared it to trying to measure the fuel efficiency of a car without ever being able to drive it, making guesses based on rumors of its engine size and what it sounds like going down the highway.

Last week, Mark Zuckerberg stood on a stage in California holding what appeared to be a pair of thick black eyeglasses. His baggy T-shirt displayed Latin text that seemed to compare him to Julius Caesar--aut Zuck aut nihil--and he offered a bold declaration: These are Orion, "the most advanced glasses the world has ever seen." Those glasses, just a prototype for now, allow users to take video calls, watch movies, and play games in so-called augmented reality, where digital imagery is overlaid on the real world. Demo videos at Meta Connect, the company's annual conference, showed people playing Pong on the glasses, their hands functioning as paddles, as well as using the glasses to project a TV screen onto an otherwise blank wall. "A lot of people have said that this is the craziest technology they've ever seen," Zuckerberg said.

Microsoft made some unusually major moves ahead of its Build developer conference: It announced a new Copilot initiative for powerful AI PCs, which will be led by the new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop. These machines are powered by Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X Plus and Elite chips, and they come with a special version of Windows 11 optimized for Arm mobile chips and AI. Basically, Microsoft is doing for PCs what Apple did with its M-series Macs four years ago. We still don't know how well these new machines will perform, but it sounds like Microsoft has certainly heard our complaints about Arm-based Windows devices. Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News! Devindra: Hey everyone, this is Devindra here. I had a chance to chat with Pavan Davuluri, the head of Microsoft Windows and Devices, basically the team in charge of Surface and Windows. And we talked about the new Copilot Plus Surface PCs, the Surface Pro and the Surface Laptop, and the whole new Copilot Plus initiative in general. We've reviewed quite a few of the ARM based Windows PCs and you know, they have not worked out so well. So I think this could be different, at least from the benchmarks we've seen.

Long considered a tech hinterland, Southeast Asia is fast emerging as a center of gravity for the industry. The CEOs of Apple, Microsoft and Nvidia are among the industry chieftains who've swung through the region in past months, committing billions of dollars in investment and holding forth with heads of state from Indonesia to Malaysia. Amazon just this week took over a giant conference hall in downtown Singapore to unfurl a 9 billion investment plan before a thousands-strong audience cheering and waving glow sticks. After decades of playing second fiddle to China and Japan, the region of about 675 million people is drawing more tech investment than ever. For data centers alone, the world's biggest companies are set to splurge up to 60 billion over the next few years as Southeast Asia's young populations embrace video streaming, online shopping and generative AI.

Six months later, the president issued a sweeping executive order that set a regulatory course for AI. This all happened because ChatGPT had stunned the world. In an instant it became very, very obvious that the United States needed to speed up its efforts to regulate the AI industry--and adopt policies to take advantage of it. While the potential benefits were unlimited (Social Security customer service that works!), so were the potential downsides, like floods of disinformation or even, in the view of some, human extinction. Someone had to demonstrate that to the president.

Apple has teams investigating a push into personal robotics, a field with the potential to become one of the company's ever-shifting "next big things," according to people familiar with the situation. Engineers at Apple have been exploring a mobile robot that can follow users around their homes, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the "skunkworks" project is private. The iPhone maker also has developed an advanced tabletop home device that uses robotics to move a display around, they said. Though the effort is still in the beginning stages -- and it's unclear if the products will ultimately be released -- Apple is under growing pressure to find new sources of revenue. It scrapped an electric-vehicle project in February, and a push into mixed-reality goggles is expected to take years to become a major moneymaker.

Artificial intelligence has uncovered two plants that provide the same weight loss results as Ozempic, according to a new study. Researchers at the Catholic University of Murcia in Spain reported that the plants contain similar agonists - a substance mimicking a hormone response - to those in Ozempic. AI software analyzed thousands of natural compounds that could offer the same weight loss components and eventually narrowed down two plant extracts. Researchers set out to find a plant alternative due to many individuals experiencing side effects and regaining weight once of the prescription drug. The team also said that not only would the plants be easier on the body, but they would also be more accessible and cost effective - Ozempic costs about 936 a month.

RoboTire is a new technology capable of changing four tires in half the time it would take a human technician to complete the common task alone. Autonomous robot cars may be the next big thing, but robot mechanics are right behind them. RoboTire is a new technology that can change all four tires on a car two to three times faster than a human can do it alone. But it still requires a human touch -- for now. After a vehicle pulls onto the device's platform, artificial intelligence-driven machine vision identifies the wheels, spots the lugs and guides the robot arms to unscrew and remove the nuts or lug bolts, then pulls the wheels and tires off.

AI (Artificial Intelligence) won't just start appearing one day like an all-knowing computer Genie in a lamp-shaped cloud, but you'll be surprised and amazed at how it is currently and will continue to surface in subtle ways that will change many things including entire industries and how you buy their products and services. Some things we have to purchase to survive in the modern world take research, study, and comparison and are generally hard to get good, accurate, and relevant information on so we end up picking arbitrarily or by copying what people we know did. I'm looking at your auto insurance, cell service, automobiles, and computers to name a few. AI won't be one big thing in our lives, it will be thousands of little things. They won't usually manifest themselves in an all-powerful central role like Alexa or Siri, they will be an invisible army of nameless extras hardly noticeable in the background and yet essential to almost every scene of our lives.

As artificial intelligence continues to play an increasingly integral role in human computer interaction, ChatGPT has emerged as a powerful tool, providing a platform for users to engage with AI through natural language processing and innovative plugins. We continue to witness the rapid progression of artificial intelligence, and there is no denying that it has fundamentally altered the way in which we interact with computers. ChatGPT, a platform that utilizes AI to generate text and engage with users, has emerged as a key player in this space. However, what truly sets ChatGPT apart is its recent implementation of plugins, which enable it to navigate the web and execute complex tasks beyond text generation. This breakthrough represents a significant milestone in the evolution of AI and marks a pivotal moment in the development of ChatGPT.