AI & Robotics News and Discussions

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy, says AI is about to start the biggest transformation in the history of education by making something previously only available to the rich - high quality personalized tuition - free to everyone on the planet.
AI

[spryfusion]

[weatheriscool]

Artificial neurons mimic complex brain abilities for next-generation AI computing
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-05-art ... brain.html
by University of Oxford

Researchers have created atomically thin artificial neurons capable of processing both light and electric signals for computing. The material enables the simultaneous existence of separate feedforward and feedback paths within a neural network, boosting the ability to solve complex problems.

For decades, scientists have been investigating how to recreate the versatile computational capabilities of biological neurons to develop faster and more energy-efficient machine learning systems. One promising approach involves the use of memristors: electronic components capable of storing a value by modifying their conductance and then utilizing that value for in-memory processing.

However, a key challenge to replicating the complex processes of biological neurons and brains using memristors has been the difficulty in integrating both feedforward and feedback neuronal signals. These mechanisms underpin our cognitive ability to learn complex tasks, using rewards and errors.

A team of researchers at the University of Oxford, IBM Research Europe, and the University of Texas, have announced an important feat: the development of atomically thin artificial neurons created by stacking two-dimensional (2D) materials. The results have been published in Nature Nanotechnology.

In the study, the researchers expanded the functionality of the electronic memristors by making them responsive to optical as well as electrical signals. This enabled the simultaneous existence of separate feedforward and feedback paths within the network. The advancement allowed the team to create winner-take-all neural networks: computational learning programs with the potential for solving complex problems in machine learning, such as unsupervised learning in clustering and combinatorial optimization problems.

[weatheriscool]

Microsoft and AMD are Allegedly Partnering to Challenge Nvidia in AI Chips
A Microsoft executive denies AMD's involvement in a previously revealed AI chip the company is developing.
By Josh Norem May 5, 2023
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/m ... n-ai-chips

A bombshell new report from Bloomberg states Microsoft is teaming up with Nvidia's nemesis—AMD—to ensure the company doesn't continue to fortify its position as the vanguard of AI technology. The two companies are reportedly working together on unspecified AI products that seek to rival Nvidia in the AI hardware and software market. Recently it was revealed that Microsoft has been working on its own AI chip it calls Athena for some time now. However, a Microsoft spokesperson has denied AMD's involvement in that project. That does not mean the two companies aren't working on a different AI chip that has never been revealed.

The (paywalled) Bloomberg article states Microsoft is providing financial support for AMD for its own expansion into AI products and that the two companies are also working on Athena together. Bloomberg says its sources include several people who are close to the project. If the sources are correct, it makes for a powerful pairing given Microsoft's existing $10 billion investment into OpenAI's ChatGPT, which it has integrated into Bing and its Edge browser. AMD has tremendous chip design assets but is much smaller than Nvidia and has always been the underdog in the industry.

AMD MI300

[wjfox]

"Artificial intelligence’s rapid advancement this year has opened up a world of possibilities for the responsible advancement of society and business, but Americans are concerned about the day-to-day implications of irresponsible AI, according to new data from the Ipsos Consumer Tracker. Three in five Americans (57%) are concerned that AI will discriminate toward a group of people, and 70% are concerned that AI will help spread misinformation – in fact, more than half of Americans said they were worried about every AI-related topic we asked about. Companies will need to work to gain trust as the tools spread."

https://s.bluemail.info/ws/saJ6d2uJgNF

[Time_Traveller]

A stock portfolio created by ChatGPT is outperforming the top UK investment funds

May 4, 2023, 4:31 PM BST

A theoretical stock portfolio of 38 companies picked by ChatGPT has outperformed the 10 most popular funds in the UK over an eight week stretch, according to finance website Finder.com.

The AI-powered fund has climbed 4.93% in the eight weeks since March 6, 2023, while the group of competing funds together averaged a loss of 0.78% in the same period. The bot-picked fund has outperformed the real funds in 34 of the 39 market days the experiment has been running, the report said.

The top three performing stocks in the ChatGPT portfolio were Meta, Microsoft, and Intel Corporation, which saw increases of roughly 30%, 20%, and 18%, respectively.

Other names that rounded out the portfolio include Visa, Home Depot, Johnson & Johnson, Nvidia, and Netflix.

Finder asked the AI large language model to pick stocks using a range of investing principles taken from the leading funds, the website said, and the study bypassed ChatGPT's warning that it "cannot provide specific investment advice" by adding that it was a theoretical exercise.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/new ... gn=tech-sf

[weatheriscool]

MetaGPT turns ideas into apps in a single step
By Loz Blain
May 09, 2023
https://newatlas.com/technology/metagpt-app-generator/

Thomas Edison once described genius as "one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration" – but AI systems like MetaGPT can already reduce that sweat to nearly nothing when it comes to coding and deploying simple apps and websites.

Large Language Models (LLMs) can "understand" natural language prompts with incredible insight and subtlety, and they can write highly effective code in several programming languages, too. But in their raw question-and-answer form – such as ChatGPT – they don't exactly just go away and get the job done for you.

That's why people are building a million apps around these AIs, constraining their vast abilities into single-function machines. An app built around a single type of task can do a lot of background work preparing and assisting the AI in its job, and trying to ensure a high quality output.

[weatheriscool]

[wjfox]

Chinese tech giant Baidu embeds ChatGPT-like service on flagship search engine as global race to bring similar tools to market heats up

• The beta version of Baidu’s new AI Mate chatbot appears at the top right side of the Chinese search engine’s landing page
• Given restrictions on the mainland, AI Mate generates content based only on domestic references and avoids political queries

Published: 6:30pm, 12 May, 2023

Internet and artificial intelligence (AI) giant Baidu, the first Chinese company to launch an alternative to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, has started to embed the service on its flagship online search product, as other major tech firms around the world race to bring similar tools to market.

The beta version of Baidu’s new “AI Mate” chatbot – comparable to Microsoft Corp’s Bing Chat – recently appeared at the top right side of the Chinese search engine’s landing page for certain users. It adopts the technology from Ernie Bot, the ChatGPT-like service that Baidu unveiled in March.

Once opened, AI Mate would tell users to provide “feedback to help it improve”. It also cited only domestic references and avoided political queries, according to a run-through of the new feature by the South China Morning Post on Friday.

https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/arti ... ng-similar

[firestar464]

[Cyber_Rebel]

EU AI Act To Target US Open Source Software

Technomancers.ai

EU Parliament

In a bold stroke, the EU’s amended AI Act would ban American companies such as OpenAI, Amazon, Google, and IBM from providing API access to generative AI models. The amended act, voted out of committee on Thursday, would sanction American open-source developers and software distributors, such as GitHub, if unlicensed generative models became available in Europe. While the act includes open source exceptions for traditional machine learning models, it expressly forbids safe-harbor provisions for open source generative systems.

Any model made available in the EU, without first passing extensive, and expensive, licensing, would subject companies to massive fines of the greater of €20,000,000 or 4% of worldwide revenue. Opensource developers, and hosting services such as GitHub – as importers – would be liable for making unlicensed models available. The EU is, essentially, ordering large American tech companies to put American small businesses out of business – and threatening to sanction important parts of the American tech ecosystem.

If enacted, enforcement would be out of the hands of EU member states. Under the AI Act, third parties could sue national governments to compel fines. The act has extraterritorial jurisdiction. A European government could be compelled by third parties to seek conflict with American developers and businesses.

So, the EU is basically going to lobotomize and kill its own AI/tech sector before it even gets off the ground. Open source actually is one of the best alternatives to those who don't favor corporations driving all of the progress or hoarding models, but now it seems as if A.I. innovation itself will be dead in Europe. It certainly won't be up to the same standards as the U.S., China, or even the UK.

[Nanotechandmorefuture]

EU AI Act To Target US Open Source Software

Technomancers.ai

EU Parliament

In a bold stroke, the EU’s amended AI Act would ban American companies such as OpenAI, Amazon, Google, and IBM from providing API access to generative AI models. The amended act, voted out of committee on Thursday, would sanction American open-source developers and software distributors, such as GitHub, if unlicensed generative models became available in Europe. While the act includes open source exceptions for traditional machine learning models, it expressly forbids safe-harbor provisions for open source generative systems.

Any model made available in the EU, without first passing extensive, and expensive, licensing, would subject companies to massive fines of the greater of €20,000,000 or 4% of worldwide revenue. Opensource developers, and hosting services such as GitHub – as importers – would be liable for making unlicensed models available. The EU is, essentially, ordering large American tech companies to put American small businesses out of business – and threatening to sanction important parts of the American tech ecosystem.

If enacted, enforcement would be out of the hands of EU member states. Under the AI Act, third parties could sue national governments to compel fines. The act has extraterritorial jurisdiction. A European government could be compelled by third parties to seek conflict with American developers and businesses.

So, the EU is basically going to lobotomize and kill its own AI/tech sector before it even gets off the ground. Open source actually is one of the best alternatives to those who don't favor corporations driving all of the progress or hoarding models, but now it seems as if A.I. innovation itself will be dead in Europe. It certainly won't be up to the same standards as the U.S., China, or even the UK.

There are people there who own countries with the police gleefully wearing a crown on their shoulders knowing orders do not come from their superiours but country owners and you're surprised by this? C'mon now! The USA is not much better though at least this detachment nation from everyone else is aware of the implicit overrulling Europe has. Probably affected too much stuff for the country owners.

[firestar464]

The EU is mad.

[weatheriscool]

Sanctuary AI Releases Humanoid Robot for Work

May 16, 2023 by Brian Wang
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/05/s ... -work.html

Sanctuary AI announced a major step forward for humanoid robots with the unveiling of its sixth-generation general-purpose robot named Phoenix™. Phoenix is the world’s first humanoid general-purpose robot powered by Carbon™, a pioneering and unique AI control system, designed to give Phoenix human-like intelligence and enable it to do a wide range of work to help address the labor challenges affecting many organizations today. Sanctuary has been able to show that its technology is already capable of completing hundreds of tasks identified by customers from more than a dozen different industries.

“We designed Phoenix to be the most sensor-rich and physically capable humanoid ever built and to enable Carbon’s rapidly growing intelligence to perform the broadest set of work tasks possible,” said Geordie Rose, co-founder and CEO, Sanctuary AI. “We see a future where general-purpose robots are as ubiquitous as cars, helping people to do work that needs doing, in cases where there simply aren’t enough people to do that work.”

About Phoenix™

Human-like form and function: standing at 5’ 7” and weighing 155 lbs
Maximum payload of 55 lbs
Maximum speed of 3 miles per hour
Industry-leading robotic hands with increased degrees of freedom (20 in total) that rival human hand dexterity and fine manipulation with proprietary haptic technology that mimics the sense of touch
Improved aesthetics with a bolder color palette and elevated textures.

[funkervogt]

Jordan Peterson just had a long discussion with A.I. researcher Brian Roemmele about the future of A.I. Whatever your feelings about Peterson, put them aside for this, as it's a very interesting discussion, and they talk only a little about culture war stuff.

[spryfusion]

[wjfox]

AI scanner used in hundreds of US schools misses knives

8 hours ago

A security firm that sells AI weapons scanners to schools is facing fresh questions about its technology after a student was attacked with a knife that the $3.7m system failed to detect.

On Halloween last year, student Ehni Ler Htoo was walking in the corridor of his school in Utica, New York, when another student walked up behind him and stabbed him with a knife.

Speaking exclusively to the BBC, the victim's lawyer said the 18-year-old suffered multiple stab wounds to his head, neck, face, shoulder, back and hand.

The knife used in the attack was brought into Proctor High School despite a multimillion weapons detection system installed by a company called Evolv Technology.

Evolv Technology is a security firm that wants to replace traditional metal detectors with AI weapons scanners.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-65342798



Credit: EVOLV

[caltrek]

Robot Centipedes Go for a Walk
May 29, 2023

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) Osaka, Japan – Researchers from the Department of Mechanical Science and Bioengineering at Osaka University have invented a new kind of walking robot that takes advantage of dynamic instability to navigate. By changing the flexibility of the couplings, the robot can be made to turn without the need for complex computational control systems. This work may assist the creation of rescue robots that are able to traverse uneven terrain.

Most animals on Earth have evolved a robust locomotion system using legs that provides them with a high degree of mobility over a wide range of environments. Somewhat disappointingly, engineers who have attempted to replicate this approach have often found that legged robots are surprisingly fragile. The breakdown of even one leg due to the repeated stress can severely limit the ability of these robots to function. In addition, controlling a large number of joints so the robot can transverse complex environments requires a lot of computer power. Improvements in this design would be extremely useful for building autonomous or semi-autonomous robots that could act as exploration or rescue vehicles and enter dangerous areas.

Now, investigators from Osaka University have developed a biomimetic “myriapod” robot that takes advantage of a natural instability that can convert straight walking into curved motion. In a study published recently in Soft Robotics, researchers from Osaka University describe their robot, which consists of six segments (with two legs connected to each segment) and flexible joints. Using an adjustable screw, the flexibility of the couplings can be modified with motors during the walking motion. The researchers showed that increasing the flexibility of the joints led to a situation called a “pitchfork bifurcation,” in which straight walking becomes unstable. Instead, the robot transitions to walking in a curved pattern, either to the right or to the left. Normally, engineers would try to avoid creating instabilities. However, making controlled use of them can enable efficient maneuverability. “We were inspired by the ability of certain extremely agile insects that allows them to control the dynamic instability in their own motion to induce quick movement changes,” says Shinya Aoi, an author of the study.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/990577