It’s a companion app. It’s a sidebar. It’s definitely not trying to replace mobile Safari, at least not yet.
When the team at The Browser Company set out at the beginning of this year to build a mobile web browser, CEO Josh Miller made a rule: we are not allowed to build a default mobile browser.
It won’t replace your default browser, but it might make you want to.
One million years ago. An ancient hominid cradles a large stone—black and glassy—in the palm of his hand, feeling for creases in the rock with his fingertips. In the other hand he grasps the antler of a deer, the bone’s blunt base pointing forward. He strikes the stone with the antler, and it splits along an invisible fracture. He flips it over and strikes again. Another flake of stone falls away. Examining the contours of the rock he continues to flip and strike—sometimes with force, other times with a gentle tap. Gradually, a useful and deadly object emerges from the formless stone. It is a bifaced handaxe, the most important tool that accompanied our ancestors out of Africa.
Movies and television usually depict embodied AI as a malevolent robot. Terror sells. But without access to the physical world and a tactile curiosity, AI will never be fully creative.
“The AI Dilemma“
Tristan Harris & Aza Raskin.
Center for Humane Technology.
Your Undivided Attention Podcast.
00:00 AI responsibility.
03:58 First contact: Social media.
05:32 Second contact: AI
07:05 ChatGPT and Large Language Models (LLMs)
10:10 Language models.
14:38 Emergence.
17:40 Double exponential.
20:47 Democratization.
24:22 Snapchat.
26:35 AI safety gap.
31:10 The Day After.
35:32 China.
36:55 Next steps.
A recent open letter signed by tech giants, including Elon Musk, has called for a halt in AI development, citing “profound risks to society and humanity.” But could this pause lead to a more dangerous outcome? The AI landscape resembles the classic Prisoner’s Dilemma, where cooperation yields the best results, but betrayal tempts players to seek personal gain.
If OpenAI pauses work on ChatGPT, will others follow, or will they capitalize on the opportunity to surpass OpenAI? This is particularly worrisome given the strategic importance of AI in global affairs and the potential for less transparent actors to monopolize AI advancements.
Instead of halting development, OpenAI should continue its work while advocating for responsible and ethical AI practices. By acting as a role model, implementing safety measures, and collaborating with the global AI community to establish ethical guidelines, OpenAI can help ensure that AI technology benefits humanity rather than becoming a tool for exploitation and harm.
Shocking output from Bing’s new chatbot has been lighting up social media and the tech press. Testy, giddy, defensive, scolding, confident, neurotic, charming, pompous—the bot has been screenshotted and transcribed in all these modes. And, at least once, it proclaimed eternal love in a storm of emojis.
What makes all this so newsworthy and tweetworthy is how human the dialog can seem. The bot recalls and discusses prior conversations with other people, just like we do. It gets annoyed at things that would bug anyone, like people demanding to learn secrets or prying into subjects that have been clearly flagged as off-limits. It also sometimes self-identifies as “Sydney” (the project’s internal codename at Microsoft). Sydney can swing from surly to gloomy to effusive in a few swift sentences—but we’ve all known people who are at least as moody.
No AI researcher of substance has suggested that Sydney is within light years of being sentient. But transcripts like this unabridged readout of a two-hour interaction with Kevin Roose of The New York Times, or multiple quotes in this haunting Stratechery piece, show Sydney spouting forth with the fluency, nuance, tone, and apparent emotional presence of a clever, sensitive person.
Computers have been digital for half a century. Why would anyone want to resurrect the clunkers of yesteryear?
We demonstrated Stretch, our autonomous case handling robot, automating trailer unloading at Promat 2023. From efficiency to ease of use, hear from our team to learn how Stretch works, what’s new, and what’s coming next for warehouse automation!
Want to learn more? Join our upcoming webinar: https://resources.bostondynamics.com/webinar-impact-your-inbound
software engineers at both Alphabet AI units are working together on a GPT-4 rival that would have up to 1 trillion parameters—a project known internally as Gemini.
Engineers at MIT and the University of Massachusetts Medical School have designed a new type of nanoparticle that can be administered to the lungs, where it can deliver messenger RNA encoding useful proteins.
With further development, these particles could offer an inhalable treatment for cystic fibrosis and other diseases of the lung, the researchers say.
“This is the first demonstration of highly efficient delivery of RNA to the lungs in mice. We are hopeful that it can be used to treat or repair a range of genetic diseases, including cystic fibrosis,” says Daniel Anderson, a professor in MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering and a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES).
