Google DeepMind’s New Generative Mannequin Makes Tremendous Mario-Like Video games From Scratch
Will Douglas Heaven | MIT Know-how Evaluate
“OpenAI’s latest reveal of its beautiful generative mannequin Sora pushed the envelope of what’s doable with text-to-video. Now Google DeepMind brings us text-to-video video games. The brand new mannequin, known as Genie, can take a brief description, a hand-drawn sketch, or a photograph and switch it right into a playable online game within the fashion of basic 2D platformers like Tremendous Mario Bros.”
Determine Rides the Humanoid Robotic Hype Wave to $2.6B Valuation
Brian Heater | TechCrunch
“[On Thursday] Determine confirmed long-standing rumors that it’s been elevating more cash than God. The Bay Space-based robotics agency introduced a $675 million Collection B spherical that values the startup at $2.6 billion post-money. The lineup of buyers is equally spectacular. It consists of Microsoft, OpenAI Startup Fund, Nvidia, Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund, Jeff Bezos (by Bezos Expeditions), Parkway Enterprise Capital, Intel Capital, Align Ventures and ARK Make investments. It’s a mind-boggling sum of cash for what stays a still-young startup, with an 80-person headcount. That final bit will virtually definitely change with this spherical.”
How First Contact With Whale Civilization Might Unfold
Ross Andersen | The Atlantic
“One night time final winter, over drinks in downtown Los Angeles, the biologist David Gruber informed me that human beings would possibly sometime speak to sperm whales. …Gruber stated that they hope to report billions of the animals’ clicking sounds with floating hydrophones, after which to decipher the sounds’ which means utilizing neural networks. I used to be instantly intrigued. For years, I had been toiling away on a guide in regards to the seek for cosmic civilizations with whom we would talk. This one was proper right here on Earth.”
RIP Apple Automobile. This Is Why It Died
Aarian Marshall | Wired
“After a decade of rumors, secretive developments, government entrances and exits, and pivots, Apple reportedly informed workers yesterday that its automotive mission, internally known as ‘Mission Titan,’ is not any extra. …’Prototypes are straightforward, quantity manufacturing is difficult, constructive money move is excruciating,’ Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted a number of years again. It’s a lesson that would-be automotive firms—in addition to Tesla—appear to study repeatedly. Even after a decade of labor, Apple by no means fairly bought to step one.”
Apple Revolutionized the Auto Trade With out Promoting a Single Automobile
Matteo Wong | The Atlantic
“Apple is so massive, and its units so pervasive, that it didn’t must promote a single car in an effort to remodel the car business—not by batteries and engines, however by software program. The flexibility to hyperlink your smartphone to your automotive’s contact display screen, which Apple pioneered 10 years in the past, is now customary. Just about each main automotive firm has taken an Apple-inspired method to know-how, to such a level that ‘smartphone on wheels’ has turn into an business cliché. The Apple Automobile already exists, and also you’ve virtually definitely ridden in a single.”
Bitcoin Surges Towards All-Time Excessive as Everybody Forgets What Occurred Final Time
Matt Novak | Gizmodo
“Bitcoin’s worth surged previous $63,000 after which receded only a bit beneath on Wednesday, reaching a degree the crypto coin hasn’t seen since November 2021. Whereas it nonetheless has a little bit method to climb to succeed in an all-time excessive of $68,000, that degree feels comfortably inside attain. And for those who’re feeling uneasy in regards to the rally, given what occurred two years in the past, you’re not alone.”
Excessive-Velocity Humanoid Feels Like a Step Change in Robotics
Loz Blain | New Atlas
“You’ve seen a ton of movies of humanoid robots—however this one feels completely different. It’s Sanctuary’s Phoenix bot, with ‘the world’s finest robotic arms,’ working completely autonomously at near-human speeds—a lot sooner than Tesla’s or Determine’s robots.
The Mindblowing Expertise of a Chatbot That Solutions Immediately
Steven Levy | Wired
“Groq makes chips optimized to hurry up the big language fashions which have captured our imaginations and stoked our fears up to now yr. …The expertise of utilizing a chatbot that doesn’t want even a number of seconds to generate a response is stunning. I typed in a simple request, as you do with LLMs as of late: Write a musical about AI and dentistry. I had hardly stopped typing earlier than my display screen was full of an in depth blueprint for the two-act Mysteries of the Mouth.”
SECURITY
Right here Come the AI Worms
Matt Burgess | Wired
“In an illustration of the dangers of linked, autonomous AI ecosystems, a gaggle of researchers have created one in every of what they declare are the primary generative AI worms—which might unfold from one system to a different, doubtlessly stealing information or deploying malware within the course of. ‘It principally implies that now you have got the flexibility to conduct or to carry out a brand new type of cyberattack that hasn’t been seen earlier than,’ says Ben Nassi, a Cornell Tech researcher behind the analysis.”