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Category: robotics/AI – Page 275

Episode 51: Anthony Aguirre on Cosmology, Zen, Entropy, and Information

Blog post with audio player, show notes, and transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2019/06/17/epis…formation/

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll.

Cosmologists have a standard set of puzzles they think about: the nature of dark matter and dark energy, whether there was a period of inflation, the evolution of structure, and so on. But there are also even deeper questions, having to do with why there is a universe at all, and why the early universe had low entropy, that most working cosmologists don’t address. Today’s guest, Anthony Aguirre, is an exception. We talk about these deep issues, and how tackling them might lead to a very different way of thinking about our universe. At the end there’s an entertaining detour into AI and existential risk.

Anthony Aguirre received his Ph.D. in Astronomy from Harvard University. He is currently associate professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where his research involves cosmology, inflation, and fundamental questions in physics. His new book, Cosmological Koans, is an exploration of the principles of contemporary cosmology illustrated with short stories in the style of Zen Buddhism. He is the co-founder of the Foundational Questions Institute, the Future of Life Institute, and the prediction platform Metaculus.

Scientists develop AI-powered digital twin model that can control and adapt its physical doppelganger

Scientists say they have developed a new AI-assisted model of a digital twin with the ability to adapt and control the physical machine in real time.

The discovery, reported in the journal IEEE Access, adds a new dimension to the digital copies of real-world machines, like robots, drones, or even autonomous cars, according to the authors.

Digital twins are exact replicas of things in the physical world. They are likened to video game versions of real machines with which they digitally twin, and are constantly updated with real-time data.

Advanced Skin Disease Diagnosis and Treatment Leveraging Convolutional Neural Networks for Image-Based Prediction and Comprehensive Health Assistance

【Advanced Skin Disease Diagnosis and Treatment: Leveraging Convolutional Neural Networks for Image-Based Prediction and Comprehensive Health Assistance】 Full article: (Authored by Noshin Un Noor, et al., from World University of Bangladesh, Bangladesh.)

Skin_diseases are a major global health concern, encompassing a wide range of conditions with varying severity. Prompt and precise diagnosis is critical for effective treatment. However, traditional methods often rely on dermatologists, creating disparities in access to care. This study creates and assesses a highly accurate Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model that can use digital photos of skin lesions to diagnose a variety of skin conditions, and looks into how well various CNN architectures and pre-trained models may increase the precision and effectiveness of diagnosing skin conditions.

Abstract

Skin conditions are a worldwide health issue that requires prompt and accurate diagnosis in order to be effectively treated. This study presents a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN)-based automated skin disease diagnostic method. The work uses preprocessing methods like scaling, normalization, and augmentation to improve model robustness using the DermNet dataset, which consists of 19,500 pictures from 23 disease categories. TensorFlow and Keras were used to create a unique CNN architecture, which produced an impressive accuracy of 94.65%. Metrics like precision, recall, and F1-score were used to validate the model’s performance, showing that it outperformed more conventional machine learning techniques like SVM and KNN. The system incorporates patient-reported symptoms in addition to diagnosis to provide a comprehensive approach to health support, allowing for remote accessibility and tailored therapy suggestions. This work recognizes issues like dataset variability and processing needs while showcasing the revolutionary potential of AI in dermatology. In order to improve model interpretability and clinical integration, future possibilities include dataset extension, real-world validation, and the use of explainable AI.

Skin Disease Diagnosis, Dermatological Image Analysis, Medical Image Classification, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), Healthcare Accessibility, Deep Learning Applications, DermNet Dataset

Facebook discloses FreeType 2 flaw exploited in attacks

Facebook is warning that a FreeType vulnerability in all versions up to 2.13 can lead to arbitrary code execution, with reports that the flaw has been exploited in attacks.

FreeType is a popular open-source font rendering library used to display text and programmatically add text to images. It provides functionality to load, rasterize, and render fonts in various formats, such as TrueType (TTF), OpenType (OTF), and others.

The library is installed in millions of systems and services, including Linux, Android, game engines, GUI frameworks, and online platforms.

To Grow Africa’s AI Economy, Microsoft Invests $300 Million In Datacenters

Microsoft will invest $290 million over the next two years in South Africa on AI and cloud infrastructure, vice chair and president Brad Smith announced.

At an event with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in Johannesburg Thursday, Smith said the investment will help the country’s “ambition to become a globally competitive AI economy.”

It has built massive datacenters in the past three years in Johannesburg and Cape Town, a $1.1 billion investment.

I Write About AI For A Living And ‘Vibe Coding’ Is Going To Change Everything

In today’s AI news, believe it or not AI is alive and well, and it’s clearly going to change a lot of things forever. My personal epiphany happened just the other day, while I was “vibe coding” a personal software project. Those of us who have never written a line of code in our lives, but create software programs and applications using AI tools like Bolt or Lovable are called vibe coders.

S how these tools improve automation, multi-agent collaboration, and workflow orchestration for developers. Before we dig into what Then, Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei is worried that spies, likely from China, are getting their hands on costly “algorithmic secrets” from the U.S.’s top AI companies — and he wants the U.S. government to step in. Speaking at a Council on Foreign Relations event on Monday, Amodei said that China is known for its “large-scale industrial espionage” and that AI companies like Anthropic are almost certainly being targeted.

Meanwhile, despite all the hype, very few people have had a chance to use Manus. Currently, under 1% of the users on the wait list have received an invite code. It’s unclear how many people are on this list, but for a sense of how much interest there is, Manus’s Discord channel has more than 186,000 members. MIT Technology Review was able to obtain access to Manus, and they gave it a test-drive.

In videos, join Palantir CEO Alexander Karp with New York Times DealBook creator Andrew Ross Sorkin on the promises and peril of Silicon Valley, tech’s changing relationship with Washington, and what it means for our future — and his new book, The Technological Republic. Named “Best CEO of 2024” by The Economist, Alexander Karp is a vital player in Silicon Valley as the CEO of Palantir.

Then, Piers Linney, Co-founder of Implement AI, discusses how artificial intelligence and automation can be maximized across businesses on CNBC International Live. Linney says AI poses a threat to the highest income knowledge workers around the world.

Meanwhile, Nate B. Jones is back with some commentary on how OpenAI has launched a new API aimed at helping developers build AI agents, but its strategic impact remains unclear. While enterprises with strong LLM expertise are already using tools like LangChain effectively, smaller teams struggle with agent complexity. Nate says, despite being a high-quality API, it lacks a distinct differentiator beyond OpenAI’s own ecosystem.

We close out with, Celestial AI CEO Dave Lazovsky outlines how their “Photonic Fabric” technology helps to scale AI as the company raises $250 million in their latest funding round, valuing the company at $2.5 billion. Thats all for today, but AI is moving fast — subscribe.

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Space Force’s Secret Plane Returns After More Than a Year in Orbit

The X-37B is a reusable robotic space plane operated by the US Space Force. It resembles a miniature space shuttle at just under 9 metres long with a 4.5 metre wingspan and is an uncrewed vehicle designed for long-duration missions in low Earth orbit.

The craft launches vertically atop a rocket, lands horizontally like a conventional aircraft and serves as a testbed for new technologies and experiments that can be returned to Earth for analysis.

It’s development was a collaborative effort between NASA, Boeing, and the US Department of Defence. It was originally conceived by NASA in the late 1990s to explore reusable spaceplane technologies but transitioned to the US Air Force in 2004 for military purposes.

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