Letters
Many things in life have a positive side and a negative side. For instance, a new AI system might help democratize access, and at the same time it might be more accessible to people who have internet access than those who don’t.
Science
People who suffer from gastrointestinal conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome are number two when it comes to describing the characteristics of their own poop.
Tech & Society
Machine learning is making wind power more predictable. Engie SA, a multinational energy utility based in France, is the first customer for an AI-powered tool from Google that predicts the energy output of wind farms.
Tech & Society
A new benchmark aims to raise the bar for large language models. Researchers at 132 institutions worldwide introduced the Beyond the Imitation Game benchmark (BIG-bench), which includes tasks that humans perform well but current state-of-the-art models don’t.
The Batch Newsletter
A Google Engineer recently announced he believes that a language model is sentient. I’m highly skeptical that any of today’s AI models are sentient. Some reporters, to their credit, also expressed skepticism.
Business
The future of Big AI may lie with product-development teams. Meta reorganized its AI division. Henceforth, AI teams will report to departments that develop key products.
Tech & Society
A chatbot persuaded at least one person that it has feelings. A senior engineer at Google announced his belief that the company’s latest conversational language model is sentient.
Tech & Society
A weaponized AI system intended to protect students has been grounded. Axon, which makes law-enforcement equipment such as tasers and body cameras, canceled a plan to sell remote-controlled drones capable of firing electroshock darts.
Letters
A Google Engineer recently announced he believes that a language model is sentient. I’m highly skeptical that any of today’s AI models are sentient. Some reporters, to their credit, also expressed skepticism.
Machine Learning Research
Engineers who design aircraft, aqueducts, and other objects that interact with air and water use numerical simulations to test potential shapes, but they rely on trial and error to improve their designs. A neural simulator can optimize the shape itself.
Letters
Last week, I wrote about how rising interest rates are likely to lead investors and other finance professionals to focus on short-term returns rather than longer-term investments.
Machine Learning Research
The computational systems known as cellular automata reproduce patterns of pixels by iteratively applying simple rules based loosely on the behavior of biological cells. New work extends their utility from reproducing images to generating new ones.