This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through July 27)
July 27, 2024
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Google DeepMind’s New AI Systems Can Now Solve Complex Math Problems
Rhiannon Williams | MIT Technology Review
“AI models can easily generate essays and other types of text. However, they’re nowhere near as good at solving math problems, which tend to involve logical reasoning—something that’s beyond the capabilities of most current AI systems. But that may finally be changing. Google DeepMind says it has trained two specialized AI systems to solve complex math problems involving advanced reasoning.”
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COMPUTING
This Startup Is Building the Country’s Most Powerful Quantum Computer on Chicago’s South Side
Adam Bluestein | Fast Company
“PsiQuantum’s approach is radically different from that of its competitors. It’s relying on cutting-edge ‘silicon photonics’ to manipulate single particles of light for computation. And instead of taking an incremental approach to building a supercomputer, it’s focused entirely on coming out of the gate with a full-blown, ‘fault tolerant’ system that will be far larger than any quantum computer built to date. The company has vowed to have its first system operational by late 2027, years earlier than other projections.”
BIOTECH
The Race for the Next Ozempic
Emily Mullin | Wired
“These drugs are now wildly popular, in shortage as a result, and hugely profitable for the companies making them. Their success has sparked a frenzy among pharmaceutical companies looking for the next blockbuster weight-loss drug. Researchers are now racing to develop new anti-obesity medications that are more effective, more convenient, or produce fewer side effects than the ones currently on the market.”
ROBOTICS
Watch a Robot Peel a Squash With Human-Like Dexterity
Alex Wilkins | New Scientist
“Pulkit Agrawal at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his colleagues have developed a robotic system that can rotate different types of fruit and vegetable using its fingers on one hand, while the other arm is made to peel.”
FUTURE
Here’s What Happens When You Give People Free Money
Paresh Dave | Wired
“The initial results from what OpenResearch, an Altman-funded research lab, describes as the most comprehensive study on ‘unconditional cash’ show that while the grants had their benefits and weren’t spent on items such as drugs and alcohol, they were hardly a panacea for treating some of the biggest concerns about income inequality and the prospect of AI and other automation technologies taking jobs.”
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Meta Releases the Biggest and Best Open-Source AI Model Yet
Alex Heath | The Verge
“Meta is releasing Llama 3.1, the largest-ever open-source AI model, which the company claims outperforms GPT-4o and Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet on several benchmarks. …CEO Mark Zuckerberg now predicts that Meta AI will be the most widely used assistant by the end of this year, surpassing ChatGPT.”
ENERGY
US Solar Production Soars by 25 Percent in Just One Year
John Timmer | Ars Technica
“In terms of utility-scale production, the first five months of 2024 saw it rise by 29 percent compared to the same period in the year prior. Small-scale solar was ‘only’ up by 18 percent, with the combined number rising by 25.3 percent. …It’s worth noting that this data all comes from before some of the most productive months of the year for solar power; overall, the EIA is predicting that solar production could rise by as much as 42 percent in 2024.”
TECH
SearchGPT Is OpenAI’s Direct Assault on Google
Reece Rogers and Will Knight | Wired
“After months of speculation about its search ambitions, OpenAI has revealed SearchGPT, a ‘prototype’ search engine that could eventually help the company tear off a slice of Google’s lucrative business. OpenAI said that the new tool would help users find what they are looking for more quickly and easily by using generative AI to gather links and answer user queries in a conversational tone.”
SPACE
Wafer-Thin Light Sail Could Help Us Reach Another Star Sooner
Alex Wilkins | New Scientist
“A light sail designed using artificial intelligence is about 1000 times thinner than a human hair and weighs as much as a grain of sand—and it could help us create a spacecraft capable of reaching another star sooner than we thought.”
ART
AI Can’t Make Music
Matteo Wong | The Atlantic
“While AI models are starting to replicate musical patterns, it is the breaking of rules that tends to produce era-defining songs. Algorithms ‘are great at fulfilling expectations but not good at subverting them, but that’s what often makes the best music,’ Eric Drott, a music-theory professor at the University of Texas at Austin, told me.”
Image Credit: David Clode / Unsplash
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