AI

It’s probably not a secret to those doing a lot of focused work in the space, but when it comes to generative AI, it’s quickly becoming apparent that how a user interfaces with generative models and systems is at least as important as the underlying training and inference technology. Th

Released two years ago, OpenAI’s remarkably capable, if flawed, GPT-3 was perhaps the first to demonstrate that AI can write convincingly — if not perfectly — like a human. The successor to GPT-3, most likely called GPT-4, is expected to be unveiled in the near future, perhaps as

While artificial intelligence long ago surpassed human capability in chess, and more recently Go — and let us not forget Doom — other more complex board games still present a challenge to computer systems. Until very recently, Stratego and Diplomacy were two of those games, but now AI has becom

The phrase “mission creep” entered the popular discourse in the early to mid-1990s. It popped up in a number of big papers in articles describing the Somali Civil War. Here's the New York Times in October '93: The trick is to do this without inviting what a senior official called “

Last week, we talked about killer robots. That piece was inspired by a proposal that would allow San Francisco police to use robots for killing “when risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and outweighs any other force option available to SFPD.” Last night, that p

This is going to be another one of those “let's ask ourselves some difficult questions” newsletter introductions, so if you're in the U.S., I certainly won't blame you for not giving Actuator your full attention until after the holiday. I generally approach these conversatio

Looking for a Thanksgiving dinner table conversation that isn't politics or professional sports? Okay, let's talk about killer robots. It's a concept that long ago leapt from the pages of science fiction to reality, depending on how loose a definition you use for “robot.” Military d

Researchers at MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms are working on an ambitious project, designing robots that effectively self-assemble. The team admits that the goal of an autonomous self-building robot is still “years away,” but the work has thus far demonstrated positive results. At the syst

Squeezed by the recessionary COVID-19-era economy and the rising prices of everyday goods, some consumers are increasingly turning to lines of credit to make ends meet. According to a September 2021 survey from Bankrate.com, 42% of U.S. adults with credit card debt increased their balances since th

Precise numbers on deafblindness are difficult to calculate. For that reason, figures tend to be all over the place. For the sake of writing an intro to this story, we're going to cite this study from the World Federation of the DeafBlind that puts the number of severe cases at 0.2% globally an

Greetings on a brisk New England morning. I'm finally here on my long threatened trip to Boston. I was planning to be here in early July ahead of our robotics event, but SARS-CoV-2 and its many variants had different ideas. I narrowly avoided another reschedule on my third time around with COVI

SoundHound — maker of the voice AI technology used by Mercedes-Benz, Deutsche Telekom, Snap, Mastercard and more — has laid off about 10% of its workforce amid ongoing economic turmoil across global markets. The Santa Clara-headquartered company — which went public via a SPAC in April of this

"">Research in the field of machine learning and AI, now a key technology in practically every industry and company, is far too voluminous for anyone to read it all. This column, Perceptron, aims to collect some of the most relevant recent discoveries and papers — particularly in, but not lim

Apple is reportedly planning to simplify its “Hey Siri” trigger phrase to just “Siri,” according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Right now, the quickest way to access Siri is to say “Hey Siri” and then add a command, but Apple is looking to make that process si