Machine learning & AI news

Machine learning & AI

AI agents can build consensus on a scale humans can't

Everyone is familiar with the situation: A larger group of people plans to visit a restaurant together, but it can take time and sometimes a great deal of patience to agree on a time and place to meet. The better the participants ...

Robotics

AI-powered terrain recognition helps cyborg cockroaches navigate faster

Cyborg insects combine the mobility of living organisms with miniature electronic devices, offering potential applications in search-and-rescue operations, infrastructure inspection and exploration of environments that are ...

Robotics

Robots learn new skills from a single video—in just 29 seconds

To operate reliably in dynamic real-world settings, robots should be able to acquire new skills quickly without undergoing extensive additional training. Most existing robotic systems, however, primarily perform well on the ...

Automotive

Attention-grabbing virtual agents could help improve safety of self-driving cars

Animated "virtual agents" could help keep the roads of the future safer by alerting people behind the wheel of semiautonomous cars to oncoming hazards, new research suggests.

Machine learning & AI

AI helps turn citizen photos into water-level data

For the past 15 years, Christopher Lowry, Ph.D., has led CrowdHydrology, a University at Buffalo citizen-science project that relies on thousands of volunteers to collect water-level observations from streams and other waterways ...

Machine learning & AI

Q&A: Promise and perils of agentic AI

Chatbots and large language models can execute a seemingly countless number of tasks, from writing emails and reports to generating code and analyzing data. However, they still primarily act only in response to user prompts ...

Security

How attackers persuade AI agents to break the rules

Today, most of us interact with AI assistants—reactive bots that wait for human instructions. Yet AI assistants are rapidly being replaced by agentic AI agents that can interact with external tools, browse the web, generate ...

Machine learning & AI

OpenAI says ads are coming to ChatGPT in Europe next week

European users of ChatGPT's free and low-cost artificial intelligence agents will start seeing ads Aug. 24 as its creator, OpenAI, expands its plan to extract more revenue from its models.

Machine learning & AI

China goes rural with data centers in quest to power AI

In China's hilly Guizhou province, a cluster of European-style buildings complete with a clock tower and a multi-arched bridge emits a low, permanent hum—a clue to its unexpected identity as tech giant Huawei's largest data ...

Computer Sciences

Easier parameter tuning for prediction using echo state networks

Neural networks, a fascinating technology inspired by the human brain, form the basis of artificial intelligence. These networks consist of layers of interconnected nodes, or artificial neurons, that learn patterns from data ...

Hi Tech & Innovation

Meet Biomni—an AI-powered biomedical co-scientist

In creating a comprehensive, AI-enabled research agent for the biomedical sciences, Stanford University researchers hope to speed innovation by eliminating the tedium of scientific legwork. Biomni, an AI-powered, multiskilled ...

Machine learning & AI

US crackdown on top AI fuels open-source surge

The U.S. government's shock moves to restrict access to top artificial intelligence systems from Anthropic and OpenAI have sparked growing interest in open-source models—especially ones from China.

Machine learning & AI

Is recursive self‑improvement the dawning of AI superintelligence?

The US AI research company Anthropic has become known for building powerful AI models while simultaneously warning about their dangers. Most recently, its executives wrote about the threat posed by "recursive self-improvement." ...

Machine learning & AI

To defend your software, first teach AI to break it

When Ying Zhang was a doctoral student at Virginia Tech, she spent years learning to think like an attacker—probing software for the hidden weaknesses that developers miss and malicious actors exploit.

Consumer & Gadgets

Almost half of Australian adults have used generative AI

Almost half of Australian adults have used generative artificial intelligence (GAI), with most users reporting it improves how they do their jobs or study, according to new research by the Australian National University (ANU) ...

Machine learning & AI

OpenAI to launch new model after US freeze

ChatGPT-maker OpenAI said its latest and most powerful artificial intelligence model will be released to the public on Thursday, as the U.S. government reportedly approved a broader launch.