This AI Learns Continuously From New Experiences—Without Forgetting Its Past
Our brains are constantly learning. That new sandwich deli rocks. That gas station? Better avoid it in the future. Memories like these physically rewire connections in the brain region that supports new learning. During sleep, the previous day’s memories are shuttled to other parts of the brain for long-term storage, freeing up brain cells for...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/08/22/this-ai-learns-continuously-from-new-experiences-without-forgetting-its-past/
Our brains are constantly learning. That new sandwich deli rocks. That gas station? Better avoid it in the future. Memories like these physically rewire connections in the brain region that supports new learning. During sleep, the previous day’s memories are shuttled to other parts of the brain for long-term storage, freeing up brain cells for...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/08/22/this-ai-learns-continuously-from-new-experiences-without-forgetting-its-past/
Singularity Hub
This AI Learns Continuously From New Experiences—Without Forgetting Its Past
Algorithms like OpenAI's GPT-4 are like brains frozen in time. A new study shows how future AIs could learn continuously in response to a changing world.
World’s Biggest Battery Will Provide 85 Megawatts to New England Grid
The rapid transition to renewable energy is great news for the environment, but electrical grids are struggling to incorporate intermittent power sources like wind and solar. Startup Form Energy is about to demonstrate a potential solution with the construction of the world’s largest battery. While gas- and coal-powered plants can run night and day, renewable...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/08/23/worlds-biggest-battery-will-provide-85-megawatts-to-new-england-grid/
The rapid transition to renewable energy is great news for the environment, but electrical grids are struggling to incorporate intermittent power sources like wind and solar. Startup Form Energy is about to demonstrate a potential solution with the construction of the world’s largest battery. While gas- and coal-powered plants can run night and day, renewable...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/08/23/worlds-biggest-battery-will-provide-85-megawatts-to-new-england-grid/
Singularity Hub
World’s Biggest Battery Will Provide 85 Megawatts to New England Grid
Form Energy will receive $147 million to build a facility in Maine capable of storing enough energy to provide 85 megawatts of power for up to 100 hours.
This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through August 24)
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE An ‘AI Scientist’ Is Inventing and Running Its Own Experiments Will Knight | Wired “At first glance, a recent batch of research papers produced by a prominent artificial intelligence lab at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver might not seem that notable. Featuring incremental improvements on existing algorithms and ideas, they read like the...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/08/24/this-weeks-awesome-tech-stories-from-around-the-web-through-august-24-2/
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE An ‘AI Scientist’ Is Inventing and Running Its Own Experiments Will Knight | Wired “At first glance, a recent batch of research papers produced by a prominent artificial intelligence lab at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver might not seem that notable. Featuring incremental improvements on existing algorithms and ideas, they read like the...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/08/24/this-weeks-awesome-tech-stories-from-around-the-web-through-august-24-2/
Singularity Hub
This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through August 24)
From an ALS patient given his voice back by AI to the future of air travel, check out this week's awesome tech stories from around the web.
The SpaceX Polaris Dawn Mission Will Show Us How Spaceflight Transforms the Body
On Aug 27, all eyes will be on NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a historic flight. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is set to propel the Dragon crew capsule and four private astronauts into space. The Polaris Dawn mission will fly to the highest altitude yet recorded in commercial spaceflight. It’ll also be the...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/08/26/the-spacex-polaris-dawn-mission-will-show-us-how-spaceflight-transforms-the-body/
On Aug 27, all eyes will be on NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a historic flight. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is set to propel the Dragon crew capsule and four private astronauts into space. The Polaris Dawn mission will fly to the highest altitude yet recorded in commercial spaceflight. It’ll also be the...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/08/26/the-spacex-polaris-dawn-mission-will-show-us-how-spaceflight-transforms-the-body/
Singularity Hub
The SpaceX Polaris Dawn Mission Will Show Us How Spaceflight Transforms the Body
The team will spend five days in the Dragon capsule as it travels as high as 870 miles—the furthest from Earth humans have been since NASA’s Apollo program.
What Is ‘Model Collapse’? An Expert Explains the Rumors About an Impending AI Doom
Artificial intelligence prophets and newsmongers are forecasting the end of the generative AI hype, with talk of an impending catastrophic “model collapse.” But how realistic are these predictions? And what is model collapse anyway? Discussed in 2023, but popularized more recently, “model collapse” refers to a hypothetical scenario where future AI systems get progressively dumber...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/08/27/what-is-model-collapse-an-expert-explains-the-rumors-about-an-impending-ai-doom/
Artificial intelligence prophets and newsmongers are forecasting the end of the generative AI hype, with talk of an impending catastrophic “model collapse.” But how realistic are these predictions? And what is model collapse anyway? Discussed in 2023, but popularized more recently, “model collapse” refers to a hypothetical scenario where future AI systems get progressively dumber...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/08/27/what-is-model-collapse-an-expert-explains-the-rumors-about-an-impending-ai-doom/
Singularity Hub
What Is ‘Model Collapse’? An Expert Explains the Rumors About an Impending AI Doom
AI prophets and newsmongers are forecasting the end of the generative AI hype, with talk of an impending catastrophic “model collapse.”
AI Models Scaled Up 10,000x Are Possible by 2030, Report Says
Recent progress in AI largely boils down to one thing: Scale. Around the beginning of this decade, AI labs noticed that making their algorithms—or models—ever bigger and feeding them more data consistently led to enormous improvements in what they could do and how well they did it. The latest crop of AI models have hundreds...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/08/29/ai-models-scaled-up-10000x-are-possible-by-2030-report-says/
Recent progress in AI largely boils down to one thing: Scale. Around the beginning of this decade, AI labs noticed that making their algorithms—or models—ever bigger and feeding them more data consistently led to enormous improvements in what they could do and how well they did it. The latest crop of AI models have hundreds...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/08/29/ai-models-scaled-up-10000x-are-possible-by-2030-report-says/
Singularity Hub
AI Models Scaled Up 10,000x Are Possible by 2030, Report Says
Epoch AI outlined four big constraints to AI scaling: Power, chips, data, and latency. TLDR: Maintaining growth is technically possible, but not certain.
Some Brains Develop Alzheimer’s—Others Don’t. A New Cell Map Could Explain Why.
Alzheimer’s disease slowly takes over the mind. Long before symptoms occur, brain cells are gradually losing their function. Eventually they wither away, eroding brain networks that store memories. With time, this robs people of their recollections, reasoning, and identity. It’s not the type of forgetfulness that happens during normal aging. In the twilight years, our...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/08/30/some-brains-develop-alzheimers-others-dont-a-new-cell-map-could-explain-why/
Alzheimer’s disease slowly takes over the mind. Long before symptoms occur, brain cells are gradually losing their function. Eventually they wither away, eroding brain networks that store memories. With time, this robs people of their recollections, reasoning, and identity. It’s not the type of forgetfulness that happens during normal aging. In the twilight years, our...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/08/30/some-brains-develop-alzheimers-others-dont-a-new-cell-map-could-explain-why/
Singularity Hub
Some Brains Develop Alzheimer’s—Others Don’t. A New Cell Map Could Explain Why.
Analyzing 437 donated brains—some with Alzheimer’s, others not—scientists found an Alzheimer's cascade of cellular change absent in normally aging brains.
This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through August 31)
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Generative AI Creates Playable Version of Doom Game With No Code Matthew Sparkes | New Scientist “An AI-generated re-creation of the classic computer game Doom can be played normally despite having no computer code or graphics. Researchers behind the project say similar AI models could be used to create games from scratch in the...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/08/31/this-weeks-awesome-tech-stories-from-around-the-web-through-august-31-2/
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Generative AI Creates Playable Version of Doom Game With No Code Matthew Sparkes | New Scientist “An AI-generated re-creation of the classic computer game Doom can be played normally despite having no computer code or graphics. Researchers behind the project say similar AI models could be used to create games from scratch in the...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/08/31/this-weeks-awesome-tech-stories-from-around-the-web-through-august-31-2/
Singularity Hub
This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through August 31)
From an AI-generated version of the video game Doom to a robotic metalsmith, check out this week's awesome tech stories from around the web.
The US Is Adding Grid-Scale Batteries at 10 Times the Pace of Natural Gas This Year
As our energy mix shifts towards intermittent renewable sources, utility-scale batteries will be crucial for balancing power supply. The latest figures from the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) show batteries are being deployed at 10 times the rate of new gas power capacity. The pace of the green transition has been remarkable in recent years,...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/02/the-us-is-adding-grid-scale-batteries-at-10-times-the-pace-of-natural-gas-this-year/
As our energy mix shifts towards intermittent renewable sources, utility-scale batteries will be crucial for balancing power supply. The latest figures from the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) show batteries are being deployed at 10 times the rate of new gas power capacity. The pace of the green transition has been remarkable in recent years,...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/02/the-us-is-adding-grid-scale-batteries-at-10-times-the-pace-of-natural-gas-this-year/
Singularity Hub
The US Is Adding Grid-Scale Batteries at 10 Times the Pace of Natural Gas This Year
Grid-scale batteries accounted for nearly a fifth of new energy capacity installed in the first half of this year, outpacing wind, nuclear, and gas.
Robots Are Coming to the Kitchen—What That Could Mean for Society and Culture
Automating food is unlike automating anything else. Food is fundamental to life—nourishing body and soul—so how it’s accessed, prepared, and consumed can change societies fundamentally. Automated kitchens aren’t sci-fi visions from The Jetsons or Star Trek. The technology is real and global. Right now, robots are used to flip burgers, fry chicken, create pizzas, make...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/03/robots-are-coming-to-the-kitchen-what-that-could-mean-for-society-and-culture/
Automating food is unlike automating anything else. Food is fundamental to life—nourishing body and soul—so how it’s accessed, prepared, and consumed can change societies fundamentally. Automated kitchens aren’t sci-fi visions from The Jetsons or Star Trek. The technology is real and global. Right now, robots are used to flip burgers, fry chicken, create pizzas, make...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/03/robots-are-coming-to-the-kitchen-what-that-could-mean-for-society-and-culture/
Singularity Hub
Robots Are Coming to the Kitchen—What That Could Mean for Society and Culture
Food is fundamental to life—nourishing body and soul—so how it’s accessed, prepared, and consumed can change societies fundamentally.
Waymo Robotaxis Are Giving 100,000 Rides a Week. It’ll Soon Be More.
After years of overly aggressive forecasts about self-driving cars, here’s a statistic that snuck up on us: People are now hailing 100,000 automated rides a week—a number that’s double the 50,000 weekly rides provided a few months ago. These rides are courtesy of Waymo, the self-driving car project incubated by Google and spun out as...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/05/waymo-robotaxis-are-giving-100000-rides-a-week-itll-soon-be-more/
After years of overly aggressive forecasts about self-driving cars, here’s a statistic that snuck up on us: People are now hailing 100,000 automated rides a week—a number that’s double the 50,000 weekly rides provided a few months ago. These rides are courtesy of Waymo, the self-driving car project incubated by Google and spun out as...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/05/waymo-robotaxis-are-giving-100000-rides-a-week-itll-soon-be-more/
Singularity Hub
Waymo Robotaxis Are Giving 100,000 Rides a Week. It’ll Soon Be More.
Commerical self-driving cars are no longer a fantasy. Tens of thousands of paying customers are trusting them for rides on congested city streets.
A New Brain Mapping Study Reveals Depression’s Signature in the Brain
Depression doesn’t mean you’re always feeling low. Sure, most times it’s hard to crawl out of bed or get motivated. Once in a while, however, you feel a spark of your old self—only to get sucked back into an emotional black hole. There’s a reason for this variability. Depression changes brain connections, even when the...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/06/a-brain-signature-of-depression-revealed-by-new-brain-mapping-study/
Depression doesn’t mean you’re always feeling low. Sure, most times it’s hard to crawl out of bed or get motivated. Once in a while, however, you feel a spark of your old self—only to get sucked back into an emotional black hole. There’s a reason for this variability. Depression changes brain connections, even when the...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/06/a-brain-signature-of-depression-revealed-by-new-brain-mapping-study/
Singularity Hub
A New Brain Mapping Study Reveals Depression’s Signature in the Brain
With brain imaging technology called precision functional mapping, researchers captured the brains of 135 people with depression for over a year and a half.
This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through September 7)
ROBOTICS This Could Be the Start of Amazon’s Next Robot Revolution Will Knight | Wired “In 2012, Amazon quietly acquired a robotics startup called Kiva Systems, a move that dramatically improved the efficiency of its ecommerce operations and kickstarted a wider revolution in warehouse automation. Last week, the ecommerce giant announced another deal that could prove similarly profound,...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/07/this-weeks-awesome-tech-stories-from-around-the-web-through-september-7-2/
ROBOTICS This Could Be the Start of Amazon’s Next Robot Revolution Will Knight | Wired “In 2012, Amazon quietly acquired a robotics startup called Kiva Systems, a move that dramatically improved the efficiency of its ecommerce operations and kickstarted a wider revolution in warehouse automation. Last week, the ecommerce giant announced another deal that could prove similarly profound,...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/07/this-weeks-awesome-tech-stories-from-around-the-web-through-september-7-2/
Singularity Hub
This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through September 7)
From Amazon's robot revolution to a quantum network buried under New York City, check out this week's awesome tech stories from around the web.
Meta Looks to Next-Gen Geothermal to Fuel Ravenous Data Centers
Concerns about the environmental impact of AI have prompted big tech firms to explore exotic options for reducing their emissions. Now, Meta plans to try fueling its data centers with geothermal power. Today’s largest AI models consume vast amounts of electricity. This is significantly increasing energy bills for the tech firms building these models and...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/09/meta-looks-to-next-gen-geothermal-to-fuel-increasingly-ravenous-data-centers/
Concerns about the environmental impact of AI have prompted big tech firms to explore exotic options for reducing their emissions. Now, Meta plans to try fueling its data centers with geothermal power. Today’s largest AI models consume vast amounts of electricity. This is significantly increasing energy bills for the tech firms building these models and...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/09/meta-looks-to-next-gen-geothermal-to-fuel-increasingly-ravenous-data-centers/
Singularity Hub
Meta Looks to Next-Gen Geothermal to Fuel Ravenous Data Centers
Concerns about the environmental impact of AI are prompting big tech firms to explore exotic options for reducing emissions.
Life on Alien Planets Probably Wouldn’t Experience Day and Night—Here’s How That May Change Evolution
Do aliens sleep? You may take sleep for granted, but research suggests many planets that could evolve life don’t have a day and night cycle. It’s hard to imagine, but there are organisms living in Earth’s lightless habitats, deep underground or at the bottom of the sea, that give us an idea of what alien...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/10/life-on-alien-planets-probably-wouldnt-experience-day-and-night-heres-how-that-may-change-evolution/
Do aliens sleep? You may take sleep for granted, but research suggests many planets that could evolve life don’t have a day and night cycle. It’s hard to imagine, but there are organisms living in Earth’s lightless habitats, deep underground or at the bottom of the sea, that give us an idea of what alien...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/10/life-on-alien-planets-probably-wouldnt-experience-day-and-night-heres-how-that-may-change-evolution/
Singularity Hub
Life on Alien Planets Probably Wouldn’t Experience Day and Night—Here’s How That May Change Evolution
If life exists out there, it will upend assumptions we didn’t know we had. The only certainty is that it will surprise us.
UK Gives Sneak Peek of a Novel Fusion Reactor Shaped Like a Cored Apple
Nuclear fusion has experienced something of a renaissance in recent years with a host of startups and governments seriously pursuing the idea. UK scientists have now provided a sneak peek of a novel reactor design that could be providing power to the grid by 2040. Despite a reputation for being a technology that’s always 20...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/12/uk-gives-sneak-peek-of-a-novel-fusion-reactor-shaped-like-a-cored-apple/
Nuclear fusion has experienced something of a renaissance in recent years with a host of startups and governments seriously pursuing the idea. UK scientists have now provided a sneak peek of a novel reactor design that could be providing power to the grid by 2040. Despite a reputation for being a technology that’s always 20...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/12/uk-gives-sneak-peek-of-a-novel-fusion-reactor-shaped-like-a-cored-apple/
Singularity Hub
UK Gives Sneak Peek of a Novel Fusion Reactor Shaped Like a Cored Apple
Recent years have seen a flurry of investment in fusion as optimism grows that the technology's time may finally have come.
A New Gene Therapy Reprograms Cancer Cells to Fight Themselves
Cancer cells are tricky foes. Our body’s immune system is normally on the lookout for signs of tumor cells. If any are detected, it launches killer T cells—a type of immune cell—to seek and destroy the threat. But it’s a cat-and-mouse game: As tumors grow, they form a protective barrier to counteract immune attacks. Immune...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/13/a-new-gene-therapy-reprograms-cancer-cells-to-fight-themselves/
Cancer cells are tricky foes. Our body’s immune system is normally on the lookout for signs of tumor cells. If any are detected, it launches killer T cells—a type of immune cell—to seek and destroy the threat. But it’s a cat-and-mouse game: As tumors grow, they form a protective barrier to counteract immune attacks. Immune...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/13/a-new-gene-therapy-reprograms-cancer-cells-to-fight-themselves/
Singularity Hub
A New Gene Therapy Reprograms Cancer Cells to Fight Themselves
Mice treated with the gene therapy remained cancer-free for at least 100 days and resisted cancer resurgence in a lab test.
This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through September 14)
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE OpenAI Announces a New AI Model, Code-Named Strawberry, That Solves Difficult Problems Step by Step Will Knight | Wired “The company today announced a new advance that signals a shift in approach—a model that can ‘reason’ logically through many difficult problems and is significantly smarter than existing AI without a major scale-up. The...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/14/this-weeks-awesome-tech-stories-from-around-the-web-through-september-14-2/
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE OpenAI Announces a New AI Model, Code-Named Strawberry, That Solves Difficult Problems Step by Step Will Knight | Wired “The company today announced a new advance that signals a shift in approach—a model that can ‘reason’ logically through many difficult problems and is significantly smarter than existing AI without a major scale-up. The...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/14/this-weeks-awesome-tech-stories-from-around-the-web-through-september-14-2/
Singularity Hub
This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through September 14)
From a new AI model that can 'reason' to a quantum computing breakthrough, check out this week's awesome tech stories from around the web.
Elderly Monkeys Aged More Slowly When Given a Cheap Diabetes Drug Used by Millions
A drug that slows aging may already be on the market. Scientists have long been interested in metformin, a widely prescribed drug used to treat Type 2 diabetes, for its potential to delay aging. In worms, fruit flies, and rodents, the drug—on average less than a dollar per pill—shows promising anti-aging effects. Last week, a...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/16/elderly-monkeys-aged-more-slowly-when-given-a-cheap-diabetes-drug-used-by-millions/
A drug that slows aging may already be on the market. Scientists have long been interested in metformin, a widely prescribed drug used to treat Type 2 diabetes, for its potential to delay aging. In worms, fruit flies, and rodents, the drug—on average less than a dollar per pill—shows promising anti-aging effects. Last week, a...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/16/elderly-monkeys-aged-more-slowly-when-given-a-cheap-diabetes-drug-used-by-millions/
Singularity Hub
Elderly Monkeys Aged More Slowly When Given a Cheap Diabetes Drug Used by Millions
Scientists have long been interested in metformin, a widely prescribed drug used to treat Type 2 diabetes, for its potential to delay aging.
Scientists Discover New Evidence Earth May Once Have Had a Ring Like Saturn
The rings of Saturn are some of the most famous and spectacular objects in the solar system. Earth may once have had something similar. In a paper published last week in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, my colleagues and I present evidence that Earth may have had a ring. The existence of such a ring,...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/17/scientists-discover-new-evidence-earth-may-once-have-had-a-ring-like-saturn/
The rings of Saturn are some of the most famous and spectacular objects in the solar system. Earth may once have had something similar. In a paper published last week in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, my colleagues and I present evidence that Earth may have had a ring. The existence of such a ring,...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/17/scientists-discover-new-evidence-earth-may-once-have-had-a-ring-like-saturn/
Singularity Hub
Scientists Discover New Evidence Earth May Once Have Had a Ring Like Saturn
The existence of a ring, forming around 466 million years ago and lasting tens of millions of years, could explain several puzzles in our planet’s past.
There Are Now More Electric Vehicles Than Gas-Powered Cars in Norway
Norway’s sizable oil and gas deposits have made it one of the wealthiest countries in the world. That’s why it might come as a surprise that it’s the first country to have more electric vehicles than gasoline-powered ones. Transportation is the single biggest contributor to climate change in the US—accounting for 28 percent of total...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/19/there-are-now-more-electric-vehicles-than-gas-powered-cars-in-norway/
Norway’s sizable oil and gas deposits have made it one of the wealthiest countries in the world. That’s why it might come as a surprise that it’s the first country to have more electric vehicles than gasoline-powered ones. Transportation is the single biggest contributor to climate change in the US—accounting for 28 percent of total...
https://singularityhub.com/2024/09/19/there-are-now-more-electric-vehicles-than-gas-powered-cars-in-norway/
Singularity Hub
There Are Now More Electric Vehicles Than Gas-Powered Cars in Norway
Norway shows that with the right incentives, the goal of a completely electrified road network is a tangible possibility.