The technology I want to talk about today is something out of this world, but also a bit controversial There is a startup in Australia who are actually growing live human neurons and then integrating it into traditional computer chips⊠mind-blowing stuff!
Madhumita Murgia Hi, my name is Madhumita Murgia, and Iâm one of the presenters of Tech Tonic. Weâre looking for some feedback from our listeners about the show. So if you have a second, please fill out our brief listener survey, which you can find at ft.com/techtonicsurvey.
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In this season of Tech Tonic, weâve been talking about quantum computers and why some people think theyâre so revolutionary. But so far weâve mainly talked about the things quantum computers can do, or at least what they might be able to do in the future that makes them so groundbreaking: performing calculations that should take centuries in minutes, cracking the unbreakable codes of the internet, dramatically speeding up the development of new drugs and materials. But what we havenât done yet is look at why theyâre able to do these things. Whatâs going on inside a quantum computer that makes them so extraordinary, so completely different to any computer thatâs come before.
The divide between low-budget and high-budget filmmaking just got a whole lot smaller with the unveiling of Wonder Studio, a new AI-powered tool that allows filmmakers to simply replace real-life actors with CGI characters.
The new tool was recently unveiled by Wonder Dynamics founders Nikola Todorovic, and Tye Sheridan, star of Steven Spielbergâs Ready Player One. The above video showcases the capabilities of Wonder Studio, where an amateur filmmaker can use their footage of an individual and replace them with a variety of different CGI characters.
Billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, and Sam Altman want to live forever, hereâs how theyâre planning on doing it and what it could mean for society.
First âlong formâ video I have made in awhile. Very excited to get back into it and play around with different ways of styles and editing. Excited to hear what you guys think!
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems will inspire an explosion of creativity in the music industry and beyond, according to the University of Surrey researchers who are inviting the public to test out their new text-to-audio model.
AudioLDM is a new AI-based system from Surrey that allows users to submit a text prompt, which is then used to generate a corresponding audio clip. The system can process prompts and deliver clips using less computational power than current AI systems without compromising sound quality or the usersâ ability to manipulate clips.
The general public is able to try out AudioLDM by visiting its Hugging Face space. Their code is also open-sourced on GitHub with 1000+ stars.
These successes could be taken to indicate that computation has no limits. To see if thatâs the case, itâs important to understand what makes a computer powerful.
Microsoft has just revealed its plans to launch GPT-4 next week. This will power a new version of ChatGPT that could let you create AI videos and music.
In episode 13 of the Quantum Consciousness series, Justin Riddle discusses how microtubules are the most likely candidate to be a universal quantum computer that acts as a single executive unit in cells. First off, computer scientists are trying to model human behavior using neural networks that treat individual neurons as the base unit. But unicellular organisms are able to do many of the things that we consider to be human behavior! How does a single-cell lifeform perform this complex behavior? As Stuart Hameroff puts it, âneuron doctrine is an insult to neurons,â referring to the complexity of a single cell. Letâs look inside a cell, what makes it tick? Many think the DNA holds some secret code or algorithm that is executing the decision-making process of the cell. However, the microscope reveals a different story where the microtubules are performing a vast array of complex behaviors: swimming towards food, away from predators, coordinating protein delivery and creation within the cell. This begs the question: how do microtubules work? Well, they are single proteins organized into helical cylinders. What is going on here? Typically, we think of a proteinâs function as being determined by its structure but the function of a single protein repeated into tubes is tough to unravel. Stuart Hameroff proposed that perhaps these tubulin proteins are acting as bits of information and the whole tube is working as a universal computer that can be programmed to fit any situation. Given the limitations of digital computation, Roger Penrose was looking for a quantum computer in biology and Stuart Hameroff was looking for more than a digital computation explanation. Hence, the Hameroff-Penrose model of microtubules as quantum computers was born. If microtubules are quantum computers, then each cell would possess a central executive hub for rapidly integrating information from across the cell and to turn that information into a single action plan that could be quickly disseminated. Furthermore, the computation would get a âquantumâ speed-up in that exponentially large search spaces could be tackled in a reasonable timeframe. If microtubules are indeed quantum computers, then modern science has greatly underestimated the processing power of a single cell, let alone the entire human brain.
~~~ Timestamps ~~~ 0:00 Introduction. 3:08 âNeuron doctrine is an insult to neuronsâ 8:23 DNA vs Microtubules. 14:20 Diffusion vs Central Hub. 17:50 Microtubules as Universal Computers. 23:40 Penroseâs Quantum Computation update. 29:48 Quantum search in a cell. 33:25 Stable microtubules in neurons. 35:18 Finding the self in biology.
