Wollberg and Berry, Prophetic’s CEO and chief technology officer, respectively, plan to showcase a semi-working prototype either later this month or in early November. But the full test of the prototype, they say, will have to wait until the third or fourth quarter of 2024, after the conclusion of a yearlong study on brain imaging conducted in partnership with the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, part of Radboud University in the Netherlands.

The co-founders have the type of lofty dreams typical of a modern-era tech startup, with Wollberg comparing the company to OpenAI. Its mission is to work “collectively towards understanding the nature of consciousness” and its LinkedIn page reads, “Prometheus stole fire from the gods, we will steal dreams from the prophets.”

But a year out from a fully working prototype, with plans to ship devices starting in spring 2025, Prophetic is still a ways away from delivering on its promises.

Of all the holy grails in robotics, learning may well be the holiest. In an era when the term “general purpose” is tossed around with great abandon, however, it can be difficult for non-roboticists to understand what today’s systems can — and can’t — do. The truth of it is that most robots these days are built to do one (or a couple, if you’re lucky) thing really well.

It’s a truth that spans the industry, from the lowliest robot vacuum to the most advanced industrial system. So, how do we make the transition from single to general purpose robotics? Certainly, there are going to be a lot of stops in multipurpose land along the way.

The answer is, of course, robot learning. Walk into nearly any robotics research lab these days and you will find teams working on tackling the issue. The same applies to startups and corporations, as well. Look at companies Viam and Intrinsic, which are working to lower the bar of entry for robot programming.

The image generator inside the AI-powered Bing Chat is getting a big upgrade today: Microsoft announced that OpenAI’s latest DALL-E 3 model is now available to all Bing Chat and Bing Image Creator users. It has been rolling out over the last week or so, first to Bing Enterprise users and then to Bing Image Creator, but now it’s open to everyone.

Bing is getting DALL-E 3 access even before OpenAI’s own ChatGPT does — that’s scheduled to happen this month, but only for paying users. Microsoft is likely to be the most popular image generating tool for a while.

“Microsoft is planning to use DALL-E tech in more than just Bing, too. It’s working on an AI image creation tool in the Paint app called Paint Cocreator, for instance, which will bring the DALL-E model right into Windows.”

OpenAI’s latest image creation tool is supposed to be more creative and more realistic — and it’ll finally understand your prompt.

Northwestern University.

Like Flubber, the robot can’t bolt and strike against walls at lightning speeds – but it can walk. The mechanism of the robot, written by the AI system, works when air is pumped into its body. The rubbery robot’s legs contract, and continually pumping air into the robot causes it to slowly but steadily locomote.