Search

AN ARTIFICIAL intelligence can solve the CAPTCHA puzzles used by websites to distinguish whether users are humans or bots 100 per cent of the time. Andreas Plesner at ETH Zurich [...]

Using chatbots or voice assistants to find out information makes it less likely you will spot errors THE conversational tone of an AI chatbot or voice-based assistant seems like a [...]

NEGATIVE news stories about social media platforms appear to be highly effective at pressuring companies into changing their policies. Christian Katzenbach at the University of Bremen, Germany, and his colleagues [...]

Chatbots can be abused by malware to help them propagate via emails A COMPUTER virus can use ChatGPT to rewrite its code to avoid detection, then write tailored emails that […]

AN ARTIFICIAL intelligence can accurately predict how a monkey plays the video game Pac-Man and mimic the animal's eye movements. Tianming Yang at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and his [...]

Book https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/443151/love-triangle-by-parker-matt/9780241505694 Matt Parker(Allen Lane) A sometimes fascinating book by a stand-up mathematician leaves Chris Stokel-Walker in an unexpected bind WRITING a popular science book that lures readers into often [...]

PEOPLE will take a 28 per cent pay cut when they can use a chatbot powered by a large language model (LLM) to assist with their writing job. This is [...]

Big tech firms are competing to have the most exciting artificial intelligence products, but generative AI remains hampered by issues, says Chris Stokel-Walker WHEN OpenAI released its ChatGPT tool in [...]

Political adverts may swing elections cheaply, finds an analysis of German election results A POLITICIAN really can increase their popularity by using adverts on social media, and swaying a single [...]

Microgreens are trendy and fun to grow, but do they really live up to their health-boosting superfood label, asks Chris Stokel-Walker FOR several years, I have had a collection of [...]

LARGE language model chatbots like those powering ChatGPT can reduce someone's beliefs in conspiracy theories by debating with them. The tactics used by the chatbots reveal potentially better ways for [...]

Book https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/296774/alex-edmans Alex Edmans(Penguin Business, 25 April (UK); University of California Press, 14 May (US)) Can you see through deceiving data and beguiling stories? Take the card test and find [...]

AI image generators can be made more culturally sensitive and accurate by feeding them just a small number of more representitive images. The images used to train these artificial intelligence [...]

Book https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/madhumita-murgia/code-dependent/9788119300969 Madhumita Murgia(Picador) AI is already challenging our work and lives. A must-read book explores the human impact, finds Chris Stokel-Walker THE artificial intelligence revolution has overwhelmed us all [...]

People who used generative AI to create art got better feedback, despite it being less original USING artificial intelligence to create artworks increases artists' productivity and generates more positive reactions, [...]

Book https://www.littlebrown.co.uk/titles/pete-etchells/unlocked/9780349432939/ Pete Etchells(Piatkus) What is all our screen use really doing to us? A new book counters the scare stories by sticking to the science, says Chris Stokel-Walker DURING [...]

TAKING between 9000 and 10,000 steps per day seems to reduce the risk of an early death or heart-related event, adding legitimacy to an idea that has been criticised as [...]

THE artificially intelligent large language models (LLMs) behind chatbots may 'think' in English, even if tasked to do something in a different language. This is because their training data is [...]

The idea that musical notes sound best in certain mathematical combinations doesn't seem true AN ANCIENT Greek belief about the most pleasing combinations of musical notes – often attributed to [...]

PUBLIC appetite for moderating toxic speech on social media depends on who is being targeted, researchers have found, with billionaires being seen as in least need of protection. Content moderation [...]

Book https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/455427/reason-to-be-happy-by-basu-kaushik/9781911709251 Kaushik Basu(Torva) A leading economist argues that we can increase our overall happinesss by thinking logically. Chris Stokel-Walker explores I NEED to admit something: at times, I am [...]

A HUMANOID robot can relay video and touch sensations to a person wearing a haptic feedback suit and a virtual reality (VR) headset hundreds of kilometres away, offering a way [...]

CRYPTOCURRENCY traders could have tripled their money by basing their investments on whether the number of posts mentioning a currency on Reddit was greater than the day before. Emiliano De [...]

A CHINESE social network's attempt to reduce abuse by displaying people's estimated locations alongside their posts actually gave fellow users a new weapon with which to sling insults. In April [...]

ARTIFICIAL intelligence can turn a single photo of an item of clothing being worn into accurate sewing patterns to recreate the garment. Clothing makers use sewing patterns to create the [...]

Book https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/ben-mezrich/breaking-twitter/9781035032464#:~:text=Breaking%20Twitter%20by%20Ben%20Mezrich%20%2D%20Pan%20Macmillan Ben Mezrich(Pan Macmillan) This tale of Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter may end up a hit as a movie – but not as a book, finds Chris Stokel-Walker [...]

LARGE language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 can identify a person's age, location, gender and income with up to 85 per cent accuracy simply by analysing their posts on social media. [...]

The company hopes it will attract not only performers but audiophiles as well. Kemeny's company, Global Air Cylinder Wheels, plans to sell its 100% recyclable tires to a number of industries, starting with the mining sector, where wear on tires is often most severe. With more businesses embracing hybrid work, says Pyry Taanila, a company co-founder and chief design officer, the device is often used in meetings to make sure every speaker is audible. - J.W. HIGH-TECH HOMES Over 120 million households in Europe and North America had a least one smart-home device in 2022, per research firm Berg Insight. - Chris Stokel-Walker AR & VR Revolutionary reality Apple Vision Pro Just about every big tech company has tried to develop virtual or augmented reality headsets with mass appeal. [Extracted from the article]

A SOCIAL media algorithm designed to bridge the gap between people with different political views could reduce the toxicity of online discourse and promote better conversations. It seems to be [...]

TOYS are a much larger contributor to electronic waste than vapes, according to an analysis by the United Nations. To mark International E-Waste Day on 14 October, the Waste Electrical [...]

Book https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/460663/extremely-online-by-lorenz-taylor/9780753560792 Taylor Lorenz(WH Allen) In a vital read, a journalist goes behind the scenes of the creator economy to trace its meteoric rise, says Chris Stokel-Walker SOCIAL media has [...]

ATTEMPTS by Facebook to remove misinformation about covid-19 vaccines from its platform instead made anti-vaccine content more extreme, say researchers. David Broniatowski at the George Washington University in Washington DC [...]

A SIMPLE AI tool can create video game maps, character models and emojis from a single-sentence prompt within milliseconds. Julian Togelius and Timothy Merino at New York University and their [...]

CHATGPT may be as good as or better than students at assessments in about a quarter of university courses. Yasir Zaki at New York University Abu Dhabi in the United [...]

LARGE language models (LLMs) that are designed to respond to queries in multiple languages seem to work better if asked to translate the request into English first. LLMs have become [...]

Book https://wwnorton.co.uk/books/9780393531688-game-of-edges Bruce Schoenfeld(W. W. Norton) As sport becomes more competitive and more corporate, using data to find that extra edge is vital, says Chris Stokel-Walker THE professional athletes who [...]

Byline: BY CHRIS STOKEL-WALKER ART BY JACQUI VANLIEW GENERATIVE AI'S DIRTY SECRET Fortifying search engines with ChatGPT-grade smarts could require a fivefold increase in computing power, with the carbon emissions [...]

I'm used to Wales being largely ignored in the UK media, and so turned to Will Lloyd's Mark Drakeford article (Decline and Fall, 1 March) with interest. I was disappointed. [...]

THE CURRENT whirlwind of interest in AI is largely down to the sudden arrival of a new generation of AI-powered chatbots capable of startlingly human-like text-based conversations. In May, computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, known as the "godfather of AI", quit his role at Google to warn of the "existential threat" posed by artificial intelligence. If you need to work off those meals, AI can help there too - AI-powered fitness apps are burgeoning, replacing personal trainers by taking charge of your exercise routine at a fraction of the cost. Artificial intelligence has exploded into the public consciousness, thanks largely to the meteoric rise of AI-powered tools like ChatGPT, with its ability to generate fluent text, and DALL-E, which creates compelling images in response to prompts in a similar way. [Extracted from the article]

New York creative agency L&C partnered in 2020 with food giant Dole to address this problem and together with marketing firm Peppercomm found a solution in Ananas Anam, the company created by textile entrepreneur Carmen Hijosa to commercialize her patented process for turning fibrous pineapple leaves into a vegan leather called Pi-ñatex. The Brazilian e-commerce company Americanas joined forces with the NGO G10 Favelas and the startup Favela Brasil to address the problem through a partnership with Google, leveraging the tech giant's existing Open Location Code technology to provide a coded and searchable address for every location in the world. Ovalbumin is "one of nature's wonders", says Maija Itkonen, CEO of biotech company Onego Bio. CLEANER (AND QUIETER) CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT BOBCAT THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY has a notoriously large carbon footprint, nearly 40% of global emissions. [Extracted from the article]

The article offers information on the hippest new restaurant, the coolest bookstore, and the best chef in Denver, Colorado, which were selected by the periodical editors and readers' choice winners.

A recent article in Scientific American discusses the concern among scientists that chatbots, such as ChatGPT, are being misused to produce scientific literature. Researchers have identified certain keywords and phrases that tend to appear more often in AI-generated sentences than in human writing. However, automated AI text detectors are unreliable, and the involvement of AI in scientific papers is not always clear-cut. Librarian Andrew Gray's analysis suggests that at least 60,000 papers, slightly more than 1 percent of all scientific articles published globally last year, may have used a large language model. The use of AI in scientific writing raises concerns about the accuracy and integrity of the research. [Extracted from the article]

Just as Google and other giants sprang up because web 1.0 was a bit of a pain, new companies, such as Ethereum and Coinbase, are becoming the gatekeepers to web3. There is a deluge of news articles asking if web3 is the next big thing, venture capitalists extol its virtues and the management consultancy Arm McKinsey put out a report on web3 in September 2022 saying that web3 could have "potentially transformative effects". The success of web3 also hinges on an equation: how annoyed are people with web 2.0 and how does that weigh against the difficulty of using web3? Features ON A gloomy Thursday morning in Newcastle, UK, I sit with my laptop open playing a game. [Extracted from the article]

Byline: BY ARIELLE PARDES ILLUSTRATION BY ABBR. PROJECTS POP GOES THE BUBBLE As crypto startups face a 'crucible moment,' are their hard times a harbinger for everyone else? Back in [...]

A recent study conducted by researchers at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain, examined the performance of large language models (LLMs) used in AI chatbots. The study found that as LLMs scale up and receive human feedback, they become better at answering complex questions but worse at answering simple questions. The researchers tested the AIs on tasks such as arithmetic problems, anagrams, geographical questions, scientific challenges, and extracting information from disorganized lists. While the AI systems improved on difficult questions, they were more likely to avoid answering a question they couldn't answer, resulting in an increased likelihood of incorrect answers. The study highlights the dangers of relying too heavily on AI systems and presenting them as omniscient. [Extracted from the article]

A study conducted by Nicolas Koch and his colleagues at the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change in Berlin found that the majority of climate policies implemented between 1998 and 2022 have not significantly reduced carbon emissions. The researchers used machine learning to identify moments when a country's emissions dropped significantly and compared them with a database of climate policies. They found that most climate policies are too specifically targeted and fail to achieve substantial emission reductions. Pricing measures, such as carbon prices and energy taxes, were found to be the most effective in reducing emissions. However, the study acknowledges that policy interventions must also be politically feasible and palatable to the public. [Extracted from the article]

THRU-HIKERS, LIKE ARMIES, march on their stomachs. And it's clear from a conversation I overhear in Lake City, Colorado, that the hikers gathered in the yard of the Raven's Rest [...]