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Category: robotics/AI – Page 201

AI optimizes land use policy, finding hidden keys for better land use

Using global land use and carbon storage data from the past 175 years, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and Cognizant AI Labs have trained an artificial intelligence system to develop optimal environmental policy solutions that can advance global sustainability initiatives of the United Nations.

The AI tool effectively balances various complex trade-offs to recommend ways of maximizing carbon storage, minimizing economic disruptions and helping improve the environment and people’s everyday lives, according to a paper published today in the journal Environmental Data Science.

The project is among the first applications of the UN-backed Project Resilience, a team of scientists and experts working to tackle global decision-augmentation problems—including ambitious sustainable development goals this decade—through part of a broader effort called AI for Good.

Driverless Trucks Are Now Making Freight Runs in Texas, and This Is the Company Doing It

Earlier this month, Aurora Innovation kicked off driverless truck operations in Texas, starting off with a freight route between Dallas and Houston for commercial customers. The SAE Level 4 trucks, operating without a safety driver in the cab, have been making the 250-mile route that has been the focus of quite a bit of testing by several autonomous truck developers, many of which have been getting driverless truck infrastructure ready.

Getting to this point took years of research and plenty of on-road testing, in environments open and closed to regular traffic, with Aurora Innovation achieving a successful round of validation testing. In fact, years of supervised testing by Aurora has already seen 10,000 customer loads delivered by its prototypes, spanning some 3 million miles.

Microsoft introduces GitHub AI agent that can code for you

The GitHub Copilot assistant, which recently gained an agent mode feature to help it compete with Cursor and Windsurf, now has over 15 million users, four times more than a year earlier, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told analysts on a conference call earlier this month.

A free Copilot tier for individuals provides limited access.

The new coding agent won’t be free, though. It will be available to developers with Copilot Pro+ subscriptions and organizations that subscribe to the Copilot Enterprise service tier, GitHub said. It’s available in preview, meaning that GitHub will take early user feedback, the spokesperson said.

No Cubicle Required, AI Coding Agents Start Work

Coding is fast, it always has been. What actually takes a lot of time are the processes behind formulating the design structure of application and the time it takes to lay down the logic structures that underpin an application. Then there’s the time needed to perform the testing and debugging of the software, as it moves towards its final state of live production.

The rise of AI-powered coding agents has promised to speed up coding, so the conversation should now focus on what areas of the software application development lifecycle these new automations are actually being brought to bear upon.

The consensus of opinion right now appears to gravitate towards driving coding assistance services towards the lower-level services needed to manage applications, rather than any more cerebral or upper-level ability to create apps themselves. Although this statement is in danger of being obsolete before the end of the current decade, this appears to be where we are right now.

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