Everything you need to know about ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Midjourney, Dall-E and more.
The common conception of a technologically enabled apocalypse foresees a powerful artificial intelligence that, either deliberately or by accident, destroys human civilization. But as a new report from the RAND Corporation points out, the reality may be far subtler: As AI slowly erodes the foundations that made the Cold War possible, we may find ourselves…
David Cope didn’t set out to make anyone mad. In 1980, the composer envisioned a tool to help cure his creative block: a machine that could keep track of all the sounds and loose threads running through his mind, find similarities, and produce an entire piece of music inspired by it. So he built it.…
A new report by the Lords Select Committee in the UK claims that Britain is in a strong position to be a world leader in the development of artificial intelligence. But to get there—and to keep AI safe and ethical—tech firms should follow the Committee’s newly proposed “AI Code.” The new report was penned by…
Over 150 experts in AI, robotics, commerce, law, and ethics from 14 countries have signed an open letter denouncing the European Parliament’s proposal to grant personhood status to intelligent machines. The EU says the measure will make it easier to figure out who’s liable when robots screw up or go rogue, but critics say it’s…
The Flintstones, a cartoon about life in the Stone Age, has just surpassed The Jetsons, a cartoon about life in the distant future, when it comes to technological innovation. Researchers have successfully trained artificial intelligence to generate new clips of the prehistoric animated series based on nothing but random text descriptions of what’s happening in…
Using well-established machine learning techniques, researchers from University of California, Berkeley have taught simulated humanoids to perform over 25 natural motions, from somersaults and cartwheels through to high leg kicks and breakdancing. The technique could lead to more realistic video gameplay and more agile robots. Computer animation has never been better, but there’s still plenty…
Top researchers in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) have called for a boycott of the South Korean university KAIST after it opened a lab with the defense firm Hanwha Systems. Even if you’re not familiar with KAIST, you might know some of the school’s robots. The university won the top prize at the last…
A Department of Defense partnership has drawn ire from the Google’s employees, and thousands have now signed a petition urging CEO Sundar Pichai to shut it down. Google’s involvement in Project Maven, first reported last month by Gizmodo, was intended to help the Pentagon use artificial intelligence to analyze drone footage. The company—and its current…
Physicist Stephen Hawking died today at the age of 76. In the latter stages of his illustrious career, Hawking devoted a considerable amount of time and effort to issuing warnings of future threats—from the perils of climate change and nuclear war through to artificial superintelligence and alien invasions. And for this he was often ridiculed.…
As I vaguely recall, 2001: A Space Odyssey might have been trying to tell us something about the dangers of artificial intelligence. But I haven’t seen the movie in years, and instead of morals, all I can remember is how cool HAL9000 seemed, so I’m already fantasizing about making room on my wall for this…
If your week was anything like mine, it started off fine, quickly devolved into a neverending stream of shit, and capped off with a freak storm that plunged you into darkness. Of course, brighter times and sunny skies lie ahead—unless you work at Apple, where it’s not even safe indoors. But hey, no matter what, you…
A lot of people are banking on a future ruled by artificial intelligence, but in its current form, AI can still be hilariously dumb. Take, for instance, a neural network’s attempt to create candy heart messages. Some are pretty mild, like “LOVE BUN” and “YOU ARE BABE,” while others, like “SWEAT POO,” are not the…
Since its discovery over a hundred years ago, the 240-page Voynich manuscript, filled with seemingly coded language and inscrutable illustrations, has confounded linguists and cryptographers. Using artificial intelligence, Canadian researchers have taken a huge step forward in unraveling the document’s hidden meaning. Named after Wilfrid Voynich, the Polish book dealer who procured the manuscript in…
Fake porn involves manipulating a video or photo by putting someone else’s face on a porn star’s body. In recent months, a growing group of Reddit users have used machine learning algorithms to swap celebrities’ faces into porn scenes. And now it seems to have entered the grossest, and most personal, phase yet. Today, Motherboard…
The first thing that I should say about FORPHEUS is that it’s gentle. The artificially intelligent Ping-Pong tutor built by Omron is not trying to beat you. It’s not trying to take over the world. FORPHEUS is trying to make you a better Ping-Pong player. I played Ping-Pong with this incredibly futuristic being, and not…
If you thought Echos were only good for invading your privacy and enticing hackers, then boy do I have some news for you. Amazon just introduced a new addition to the Smart Home Skill API for Alexa: cooking. Your voice-controlled assistant could potentially be burning down your house in no time! Alexa’s new cooking capabilities…
It’s time to gaze into our crystal ball and see what the coming year has in store for science. From powerful new rockets and asteroid-sampling spacecraft to groundbreaking particle physics, there’s plenty to look forward to in 2018. Aeronautics and space exploration A new tool to find exoplanets In March 2018, NASA will launch its…
The trouble with the future is that it never seems to arrive. That’s why we call it the future. We consequently have this bad habit of taking the present, and all the wondrous and horrific things it has to offer, for granted. As a reminder that we’re actually living in the future of a not-so-distant…
A few months after demonstrating its dominance over the game of Go, DeepMind’s AlphaZero AI has trounced the world’s top-ranked chess engine—and it did so without any prior knowledge of the game and after just four hours of self-training. AlphaZero is now the most dominant chess playing entity on the planet. In a one-on-one tournament…
For toddlers, playing with toys is not all fun-and-games—it’s an important way for them to learn how the world works. Using a similar methodology, researchers from UC Berkeley have developed a robot that, like a child, learns from scratch and experiments with objects to figure out how to best move them around. And by doing…
