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Category: robotics/AI – Page 341

Everyone is in a big hurry to get the latest and greatest GPU accelerators to build generative AI platforms. Those who can’t get GPUs, or have custom devices that are better suited to their workloads than GPUs, deploy other kinds of accelerators.

The companies designing these AI compute engines have two things in common. First, they are all using Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co as their chip etching foundry, and many are using TSMC as their socket packager. And second, they have not lost their minds. With the devices launched so far this year, AI compute engine designers are hanging back a bit rather than try to be on the bleeding edge of process and packaging technology so they can make a little money on products and processes that were very expensive to develop.

Nothing shows this better than the fact that the future “Blackwell” B100 and B200 GPU accelerators from Nvidia, which are not even going to start shipping until later this year, are based on the N4P process at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. This is a refined variant of the N4 process that the prior generation of “Hopper” H100 and H200 GPUs used, also a 4 nanometer product.

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Construction is the world’s largest industry, employing seven percent of the planet’s working-age adults, contributing 13 percent of the world’s GDP and completing floor space equivalent to the city of Paris every seven days.

The construction industry is also the most inefficient, least digitised and most polluting industry (37% of ALL emissions), so change is imperative from macro economic necessity alone. For the builders of the world faced with a jigsaw puzzle of partial digital solutions and chronic labor and supply chain issues, the margins are growing ever-thinner and the necessity is to change or perish.

British company Automated Architecture (AUAR) has a thoroughly ingenious solution and it has enlisted an all-star cast of financial backers in short order: Morgan Stanley, ABB Robotics, Rival Holdings (USA), Vandenbussche NV (Belgium) with VCs such as Miles Ahead and Bacchus Venture Capital (Jim Horowitz et al) helping to get the initial idea off the ground.

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The “it” Mr Woodman is referring to is Sora, a new text-to-video AI model from OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research organisation behind viral chatbot ChatGPT.

Instead of using their broad technical skills in filmmaking, such as animation, to overcome obstacles in the process, Mr Woodman and his team relied only on the model to generate footage for them, shot by shot.

“We just continued generating and it was almost like post-production and production in the same breath,” says Patrick Cederberg, who also worked on the project.

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Marshal Brain’s 2003 book Manna was quite ahead of its time in foreseeing that eventually, one way or another, we will have to confront and address the phenomenon of technological unemployment. In addition, Marshall is a passionate brainiac with a jovial personality, impressive background and a unique perspective. And so I was very happy to meet him in person for an exclusive interview. [Special thanks to David Wood without whose introduction this interview may not have happened!]

During our 82 min conversation with Marshall Brain we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: his books The Second Intelligent Species and Manna; AI as the end game for humanity; using cockroaches as a metaphor; logic and ethics; simulating the human brain; the importance of language and visual processing for the creating of AI; marrying off Siri to Watson; technological unemployment, social welfare and perpetual vacation; capitalism, socialism and the need for systemic change …

As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation or become a patron on Patreon.

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MIT scientists have tackled key obstacles to bringing 2D magnetic materials into practical use, setting the stage for the next generation of energy-efficient computers.

Globally, computation is booming at an unprecedented rate, fueled by the boons of artificial intelligence. With this, the staggering energy demand of the world’s computing infrastructure has become a major concern, and the development of computing devices that are far more energy-efficient is a leading challenge for the scientific community.

Use of magnetic materials to build computing devices like memories and processors has emerged as a promising avenue for creating “beyond-CMOS” computers, which would use far less energy compared to traditional computers. Magnetization switching in magnets can be used in computation the same way that a transistor switches from open or closed to represent the 0s and 1s of binary code.

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New research led by Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and published in Science reveals that the wiring of nerve cells in the human neocortex differs significantly from that in mice. The study discovered that human neurons predominantly transmit signals in a unidirectional manner, whereas mouse neurons typically send signals in looping patterns. This structural difference may enhance the human brain’s ability to process information more efficiently and effectively. The findings hold potential implications for advancing artificial neural network technologies.

The neocortex, a critical structure for human intelligence, is less than five millimeters thick. There, in the outermost layer of the brain, 20 billion neurons process countless sensory perceptions, plan actions, and form the basis of our consciousness. How do these neurons process all this complex information? That largely depends on how they are “wired” to each other.

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A research group from the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), led by Professor Jonwoo Jeong of the Department of Physics, has recently discovered a groundbreaking principle of motion at the microscopic scale. Their findings reveal that objects can achieve directed movement simply by periodically changing their sizes within a liquid crystal medium. This innovative discovery holds significant potential for numerous fields of research and could lead to the development of miniature robots in the future.

In their research, the team observed that air bubbles within the liquid crystal could move in one direction by altering their sizes periodically, contrary to the symmetrical growth or contraction typically seen in air bubbles in other mediums. By introducing air bubbles, comparable in size to a human hair, into the liquid crystal and manipulating the pressure, the researchers were able to demonstrate this extraordinary phenomenon.

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Scientists have demonstrated that facial recognition technology can predict a person’s political orientation with a surprising level of accuracy.

Researchers have demonstrated that facial recognition technology can predict political orientation from neutral expressions with notable accuracy, posing significant privacy concerns. This finding suggests our faces may reveal more personal information than previously understood.

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