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A new robot constitution that won’t kill humans by Google

Google introduces AutoRT, SARA-RT, and RT-Trajectory.


Imagine having a personal helper robot that can tidy up your home or cook a tasty meal with just a simple request. Sounds futuristic, right? But for robots to understand and tackle these everyday tasks, they need a deep understanding of the world around them.

Google’s recent announcement brings us closer to this futuristic reality. They’ve unveiled a trio of advancements—AutoRT, SARA-RT, and RT-Trajectory—that push the boundaries of robotics research. These breakthroughs aim to help robots make faster decisions, comprehend their surroundings better, and move around more efficiently.

Google-backed MathGPT sets record, beats ChatGPT and Microsoft AI models

Mathpresso, the creator of QANDA — Asia’s most extensive AI-driven learning platform — has announced that their large language model called MathGPT has achieved a new world record in math, beating OpenAI and Microsoft models.

MathGPT reportedly is now ranked no. 1 in benchmarks that evaluate mathematical ability such as ‘MATH’ (12,500 difficult math problems) and ‘GSM8K’ (8,500 elementary school math problems), beating Microsoft’s ‘ToRA 13B’, the model that held the previous record.

In the MATH benchmark, MathGPT surpassed the performance of OpenAI’s GPT-4.

US eyes first multinational meeting to implement new ‘responsible AI’ declaration

U.S. Defense and State Department officials aim to meet with delegates from at least 50 other nations by mid-2024 to discuss the nascent framework and standards doctrine they’ve recently signed onto, pledging to “responsibly” develop and deploy artificial intelligence and autonomous military technologies, according to a top Pentagon policymaker.

Originally produced in early 2023, State spotlighted the Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of AI and Autonomy in November — and confirmed then that more than 40 countries formally endorsed it.

“We’re up to 51 now, including the United States, and we’re proud of the fact that it’s not just the usual suspects,” Michael Horowitz, deputy assistant secretary of defense for force development and emerging capabilities, said on Tuesday during a webcast hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Fuel leak forces US company to abandon moon landing attempt

A crippling fuel leak forced a U.S. company on Tuesday to give up on landing a spacecraft on the moon.

Astrobotic Technology’s lander began losing fuel soon after Monday’s launch. The spacecraft also encountered problems keeping its solar panel pointed towards the sun and generating .

“Given the propellant leak, there is, unfortunately, no chance of a soft landing on the moon,” Astrobotic said in a statement.

New study uses machine learning to bridge the reality gap in quantum devices

A study led by the University of Oxford has used the power of machine learning to overcome a key challenge affecting quantum devices. For the first time, the findings reveal a way to close the “reality gap”: the difference between predicted and observed behavior from quantum devices. The results have been published in Physical Review X.

Quantum computing could supercharge a wealth of applications, from climate modeling and financial forecasting to drug discovery and artificial intelligence. But this will require effective ways to scale and combine individual (also called qubits). A major barrier against this is inherent variability, where even apparently identical units exhibit different behaviors.

Functional variability is presumed to be caused by nanoscale imperfections in the materials from which quantum devices are made. Since there is no way to measure these directly, this internal disorder cannot be captured in simulations, leading to the gap in predicted and observed outcomes.

A robot that can play video games with humans

In recent years, engineers have developed a wide range of robotic systems that could soon assist humans with various everyday tasks. Rather than assisting with chores or other manual jobs, some of these robots could merely act as companions, helping older adults or individuals with different disabilities to practice skills that typically entail interacting with another human.

Researchers at Nara Institute of Science and Technology in Japan recently developed a new that can play video games with a human user. This robot, introduced in a paper presented at the 11th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction, can play games with users while communicating with them.

“We have been developing robots that can chat while watching TV together, and interaction technology that creates empathy, in order to realize a partner robot that can live together with people in their daily life,” Masayuki Kanbara, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Tech Xplore. “In this paper, we developed a robot that plays TV games together to provide opportunities for people to interact with the robot in their daily lives.”

Microsoft, US lab use AI to speed search for new battery materials

Jan 9 (Reuters) — Microsoft (MSFT.O) has worked with a U.S. national laboratory to use artificial intelligence to rapidly identify a material that could mean producing batteries that require 70% less lithium than now, the company said on Tuesday.

The replacement of much of the lithium with sodium, a common element found in table salt, still needs extensive evaluation by scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, Washington to determine whether it will be suitable for mass production.

“Something that could have taken years, we did in two weeks,” Jason Zander, an executive vice president at Microsoft, told Reuters. “That’s the part we’re most excited about. … We just picked one problem. There are thousands of problems to go solve, and it’s applicable to all of them.”

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