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Scientists continue to make intriguing breakthroughs that could help reshape our lives. This time, a group of scientists managed to create a shape-shifting liquid metal that can transition between the solid and liquid state. The new liquid is reminiscent of the liquid shapeshifting seen in 1991’s Terminator 2, and the scientists even tested it by having it escape a cage.

The scientists published a paper on the new shape-shifting liquid in the journal Matter. In it, they discuss how they created the metal and the rigorous tests they put it through. For the most part, the scientists created the liquid in the form of small robots, which they were then able to shift between solid and liquid states to jump, climb, and – as noted above – even ooze out of a cage to freedom.

The scientists utilized magnetic fields to control the shape and movements of the shape-shifting liquid metal robots. The hope is that by using magnets to help move and control the shapeshifting of the robots, the scientists will be able to utilize the liquid metal in both biomedical and engineering technologies, things like targeted drug delivery and circuit assembly.

Check out all the on-demand sessions from the Intelligent Security Summit here.

Permissions management is the essence of data security. Yet few security teams can manage identities in the cloud at scale, with Gartner estimating that by 2023, 75% of cloud security failures will occur due to insufficient management of identities, access and privileges.

However, more and more providers are looking to address permissions management with automation. Entitle, which today announced it has raised $15 million as part of a seed funding round led by Glilot Capital Partners, offers a platform for automating access management and provisioning.

Our new series The Future with Hannah Fry explores the science, tech and people on the cusp of the most transformative breakthroughs of our age – from AI to clean energy. Watch the first episode on Bloomberg Originals on Feb. 22.


Do you want to know what your future holds? A life beyond 150 years old? A world where computers can read our emotions? A planet transformed by unlimited clean energy? Mathematician Hannah Fry will explore these questions and more in the new series The Future With Hannah Fry, debuting on Bloomberg Originals on Feb. 22.

Watch The Future With Hannah Fry on Wednesdays at 8:30 p.m. ET on Bloomberg.com, the Bloomberg app on your connected TV, Apple TV, Roku, Samsung TV.

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Large language models are computer programs that can analyze and create text. They are trained using massive amounts of text data, which helps them become better at tasks like generating text. Language models are the foundation for many natural language processing (NLP) activities, like speech-to-text and sentiment analysis. These models can look at a text and predict the next word. Examples of LLMs include ChatGPT, LaMDA, PaLM, etc.

Parameters in LLMs help the model to understand relationships in the text, which helps them to predict the likelihood of word sequences. As the number of parameters increases, the ability of the model to capture complex relationships and its flexibility in handling rare words also increases.

ChatGPT is an open-source chatbot powered by the GPT-3 language model. It is capable of engaging in natural language conversations with users. ChatGPT is trained on a wide array of topics and can assist with various tasks like answering questions, providing information, and generating creative content.

My last genAI experiment where I created a children’s (audio)book in more than 10 languages within a few days with the help of AI was quite a while ago. So now it was time for a new experiment. This time I created a fully synthetic podcast using generative AI and brought Steve Jobs to life as a synthetic AI character to have a conversation with him.

In this blog post I talk about my motivation, explain how I proceeded step by step and also share my learnings.

Wtf… How is this possible? Scientists have developed an AI system called ProGen that can generate artificial enzymes from scratch. The technology was developed by Salesforce Research and uses natural language processing and next-token prediction to assemble amino acid sequences into artificial proteins. In laboratory tests, some of these enzymes worked as well as those found in nature, even when their artificially generated amino acid sequences The new technology could become more powerful than directed evolution, a Nobel-prize-winning protein design technology, and will speed up the development of new proteins for use in various fields, including therapeutics and degrading plastic.

The high profile race to enhance their search products has underscored the importance of artificial intelligence to Google and Microsoft – and the rest of the economy, too. Two of the world’s largest tech companies announced plans for AI-enhanced search this month, ratcheting up a tussle for supremacy in the artificial intelligence space. However, the debut of Google’s new chatbot, Bard, was scuppered when an error appeared, knocking $163bn (£137bn) off the parent company Alphabet’s share price. The stock’s plunge showed how crucial investors think AI could be to Google’s future.

However, the increasing prominence of AI has implications for every corner of the economy. From retail to transport, here’s how AI promises to usher in a wave of change across industries.

In a new study, researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) show how a brain-inspired image sensor can go beyond the diffraction limit of light to detect miniscule objects such as cellular components or nanoparticles invisible to current microscopes. Their novel technique, which combines optical microscopy with a neuromorphic camera and machine learning algorithms, presents a major step forward in pinpointing objects smaller than 50 nanometers in size. The results are published in Nature Nanotechnology.

Since the invention of optical microscopes, scientists have strived to surpass a barrier called the , which means that the microscope cannot distinguish between two objects if they are smaller than a certain size (typically 200–300 nanometers).

Their efforts have largely focused on either modifying the molecules being imaged, or developing better illumination strategies—some of which led to the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. “But very few have actually tried to use the detector itself to try and surpass this detection limit,” says Deepak Nair, Associate Professor at the Center for Neuroscience (CNS), IISc, and corresponding author of the study.

Users of the Replika chatbot system can no longer engage in erotic or sexual dialogue with their digital counterparts, after years of being able to do so. This highlights a dilemma when people become emotionally attached to chatbots.

Under the name “AI Companion”, Replika is marketing a chatbot system that, like ChatGPT and the like, converses with users in natural language and is also embodied as a visual avatar. Replika will be “there to listen and talk” and “always on your side”, the company promises. With augmented reality, you can project the avatar chatbots life-size into your room.

It is a paid-for chatbot service that in the past used a fine-tuned variant of GPT-3 for language output. Luka, the company behind Replika, was an early OpenAI partner, using the language model via an API.