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Current AIs only have the IQ level of a cat, asserts Google DeepMind CEO

The CEO of Google DeepMind has compared the IQ levels of contemporary artificial intelligence (AI) agents to domestic cats. “We’re still not even at cat intelligence yet, as a general system,” remarked Hassabis, answering a question about DeepMind’s progress in artificial general intelligence (AGI). However, research is progressing fast, with some huge cash and compute investments propelling it forward. Some expect it to eclipse human intelligence in the next half-decade.

Demis Hassabis, the co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, made the artificial intelligence vs. cat IQ comparison in a public discussion with Tony Blair, one of Britain’s ex-Prime Ministers. The talk was part of the Future of Britain Conference 2024, organized by the Institute for Global Change.

Hassabis highlights that his work is not focused on AI but on AGI. It gives us more perspective on how he is looking at the computer vs cat comparison. Yes, a contemporary AI can sometimes write, paint, or make music in a convincingly human-like fashion, but an ordinary house cat has a lot more general intelligence. “At the moment, we’re far from Human-level intelligence across the board,” admitted Hassabis. “But in certain areas like games playing [AI is] better than the best people in the world.”

Breakthrough in quantum microscopy: Researchers are making electrons visible in slow motion

Physicists at the University of Stuttgart under the leadership of Prof. Sebastian Loth are developing quantum microscopy which enables them for the first time to record the movement of electrons at the atomic level with both extremely high spatial and temporal resolution. Their method has the potential to enable scientists to develop materials in a much more targeted way than before.

The researchers have published their findings in the journal Nature Physics (“Terahertz spectroscopy of collective charge density wave dynamics at the atomic scale”).

“With the method we developed, we can make things visible that no one has seen before,” says Prof. Sebastian Loth, Managing Director of the Institute for Functional Matter and Quantum Technologies (FMQ) at the University of Stuttgart. “This makes it possible to settle questions about the movement of electrons in solids that have been unanswered since the 1980s.” However, the findings of Loth’s group are also of very practical significance for the development of new materials.

How faster-than-light ‘tachyons’ fit into the special theory of relativity

In the world of physics, the idea of particles moving faster than light has always been a bit of a wild card. These particles, known as tachyons, have stirred up debates and skepticism.

However, a recent study published in Physical Review D has shaken up our understanding of these enigmatic particles.

For a long time, tachyons were considered more of a theoretical oddity than a scientific possibility. They seemed to conflict with the special theory of relativity, which has been a cornerstone of modern physics.

Self-organizing drone flock demonstrates safe traffic solution for smart cities of the future

After creating the world’s first self-organizing drone flock, researchers at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest, Hungary have now also demonstrated the first large-scale autonomous drone traffic solution. This fascinating new system is capable of far more than what could be executed with human pilots.

The staff of the Department of Biological Physics at Eötvös University has been working on group robotics and swarms since 2009. In 2014, they created the world’s first autonomous quadcopter flock consisting of at least ten units. The research group has now reached a new milestone by publishing the dense autonomous traffic of one hundred drones in the journal Swarm Intelligence.

But what is the difference between flocking and autonomous drone traffic?

Active shape control by plants in dynamic environments

Hadrien Oliveri, Derek E. Moulton, Heather A. Harrington, & Alain Goriel University of Oxford, Max Planck Institute, Center for systems Biology Dresden, & Technische Universität Dresden 2024 https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.110.

Plants generally orient their growth against the direction of gravity. Rotating them around an axis perpendicular to gravity can produce more complicated growth shapes that depend on the speed of rotation. The authors model this behavior and find a stable family of three-dimensional dynamic equilibria.

A rare Stratospheric Warming event has begun over the South Pole, with unusually strong anomalies now developing

A rare Stratospheric Warming event has begun over the South Pole : https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/polar-vortex-st…winter-fa/ Comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40973342

A Stratospheric Warming event begins over the South Pole, with unusual intensity, raising question about a potential impact on the Northern Hemisphere and the U.S. Winter weather.

Using the Webb telescope, scientists may have found the ‘best bet’ for an ocean world outside our solar system!

Lead study author Charles Cadieux, a PhD student at the University of Montreal, remarked that among all known temperate exoplanets, LHS 1,140 b is possibly the most promising candidate for confirming liquid water on the surface of an alien world.

Approximately 10 to 20 percent of the exoplanet’s mass is estimated to be water. In stark contrast, Earth’s oceans account for a mere 0.02 percent of its mass. The state of this water, whether liquid or ice, hinges on the planet’s atmospheric composition, with gases like carbon dioxide playing a crucial role.

One encouraging factor is the planet’s gentle warming by its red dwarf star, which is only one-fifth the size of our Sun. This stellar relationship suggests that the exoplanet’s surface temperature is likely comparable to that of Earth and Mars.

Game developer swaps all servers to AMD, claims ‘Intel is selling defective’ CPUs

Alderon Games, an Australian-based developer behind the dinosaur-themed multiplayer survival game Path of Titans, announced “we are swapping all our servers to AMD” because “Intel is selling defective” CPUs — specifically 13th and 14th Gen models.

The post doesn’t mince words; it states that its customers have been reporting thousands of crashes on Intel 13th and 14th Gen CPUs (verified by the game’s crash reporting tools), and its game servers have been “experiencing constant crashes, taking entire servers down.” It also claims that it’s only a matter of time before Core i9-14900K and Core i9-13900K CPUs that have yet to fail will fail.

“Over the last 3 to 4 months, we have observed that CPUs initially working well deteriorate over time, eventually failing,” Matthew Cassells, Founder of Alderon Games, writes. “The failure rate we have observed from our own testing is nearly 100%, indicating it’s only a matter of time before affected CPUs fail.”