The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. For some people, the term “black box” brings to mind the recording devices in airplanes that are valuable for postmortem analyses if the unthinkable happens. For others it evokes small, minimally outfitted theaters. But black box is also
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Sometimes science advances at a snail’s pace, but in this case that’s a good thing: researchers have created a squishy material that combines polymers with liquid metal, demonstrated in a snail-like robot. Developers say this electrically conductive gel could be used to make self-healing electronic circuits and biological monitors for measuring heart and muscle activity—and
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In December 2022 scientists at the U.S. National Ignition Facility (NIF) announced a breakthrough in the decades-long effort to create an energy source based on the same nuclear fusion reactions that power the sun. An “engineering marvel beyond belief,” they proclaimed, as major newspapers quickly followed with breathless coverage. The Washington Post called it “truly
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The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. Generative AI is the hot new technology behind chatbots and image generators. But how hot is it making the planet? As an AI researcher, I often worry about the energy costs of building artificial intelligence models. The more powerful
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1973 John Keats, Poet and Surgeon “Poet John Keats died tragically early, in 1821, at the age of 25, of tuberculosis. But few people are aware that he crowded two careers into his brief life: he studied medicine and was trained in surgery for as many years as he wrote poetry. Even people who know
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“The idea that this stuff could actually get smarter than people…. I thought it was way off…. Obviously, I no longer think that,” Geoffrey Hinton, one of Google’s top artificial intelligence scientists, also known as “the godfather of AI,” said after he quit his job in April so that he can warn about the dangers
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From Thanksgiving dinner conversations to pop culture discourse, it’s easy to feel like individuals of different political ideologies are occupying completely separate worlds, especially online. People often blame algorithms—the invisible sets of rules that shape online landscapes, from social media to search engines—for cordoning use off into digital “filter bubbles” by feeding us content that
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Researchers have developed an electronic skin that can mimic the same process that causes a finger, toe or limb to move when poked or scalded. The technology could lead to the development of a covering for prosthetic limbs that would give their wearers a sense of touch, or help to restore sensation in people whose
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SUBSCRIBE: Apple | Spotify Tulika Bose: Last week, Google announced the new products and features coming from the company. And it was AI all the way down. Sophie Bushwick: AI features are coming to Google’s software for e-mail, word processing, data analysis—and of course searching the web. Bose: This follows Microsoft’s previous announcements that it also plans to
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The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. Artificial Intelligence-powered tools, such as ChatGPT, have the potential to revolutionize the efficiency, effectiveness and speed of the work humans do. And this is true in financial markets as much as in sectors like health care, manufacturing and
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