Tech & Society
Coding Agents Proliferate: Next-generation coding tools empower developers with agent-style interactions
New coding tools act like agents to automate software programming tasks.
Latest
The Batch Newsletter
Microsoft Absorbs Inflection, Nvidia’s New GPUs, Managing AI Bio Risk, More Factual LLMs
The Batch AI News and Insights: Tool use, in which an LLM is given functions it can request to call for gathering information, taking action, or manipulating data, is a key design pattern of AI agentic workflows.
Data Points
Switching from NVIDIA; Plus, OpenAI’s Voice Engine
This week's top AI news and research stories featured details about Microsoft's absorption of Inflection AI, Nvidia’s latest chip, a voluntary commitment to internal and external oversight of machine learning models by scientists, and a procedure that fine-tunes large language models...
Letters
Agentic Design Patterns Part 3, Tool Use: How large language models can act as agents by taking advantage of external tools for search, code execution, productivity, ad infinitum
Tool use, in which an LLM is given functions it can request to call for gathering information, taking action, or manipulating data, is a key design pattern of AI agentic workflows.
Machine Learning Research
More Factual LLMs: FactTune, a method to fine-tune LLMs for factual accuracy without human feedback
Large language models sometimes generate false statements. New work makes them more likely to produce factual output.
Science
Toward Managing AI Bio Risk: Over 150 scientists commit to ensure AI safety in synthetic biology research.
Scientists pledged to control their use of AI to produce potentially hazardous biological materials.
Hardware
Nvidia Revs AI Engine: All about Nvidia’s new Blackwell architecture and B200 GPU
Nvidia’s latest chip promises to boost AI’s speed and energy efficiency.
Tech & Society
Microsoft Absorbs Inflection: Microsoft pays Inflection AI $650 Million, hires most of its staff
Microsoft took over most of the once high-flying chatbot startup Inflection AI in an unusual deal.
Machine Learning Research
Robo-Football From Simulation to Reality: Reinforcement learning powers humanoid robots to play football
Humanoid robots can play football (known as soccer in the United States) in the real world, thanks to reinforcement learning.
Tech & Society
U.S. Deploys AI-Assisted Targeting: Maven, a system that analyzes satellite data to identify targets in real-world conflicts
The United States military is using computer vision to target enemy positions in the Red Sea and elsewhere.
Science
Cross-Species Cell Embeddings: AI enhances cell type discovery, identifies previously elusive “Norn cells”
Researchers used an AI system to identify animal cell types from gene sequences, including a cell type that conventional approaches had discovered only in the past year.
Tech & Society
One Agent, Many Environments: SIMA, a system that understands and plays diverse 3D video games
AI agents are typically designed to operate a particular software environment. Recent work enabled a single agent to take actions in a variety of three-dimensional virtual worlds.