Artificial intelligence: Simple mathematical trick could slash AI development time in half

Training artificial intelligences to identify faces or digitise text involves thousands or millions of iterations of a two-stage process known as back-propagation, but a new approach could save time, energy and computing power Technology 10 March 2022 By Matthew Sparkes Cutting training time for AI could make face recognition systems more efficient iStockphoto Artificial intelligence … Read more

Artificial intelligence can help historians restore ancient texts from damaged inscriptions

An AI tool developed by DeepMind can help historians restore ancient Greek texts with 72 per cent accuracy, and date inscriptions to within 30 years of their true age Humans 9 March 2022 By Carissa Wong The Celsus Library in the ancient city of Ephesus, Turkey Mazur Travel/Shutterstock An artificial intelligence algorithm developed as part … Read more

How to Stay Smart in a Smart World review: Why humans still trump AI

Despite AI’s impressive feats at driving cars and playing games, a new book by psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer argues that our brains have plenty to offer that AI will never match Humans 2 March 2022 By Chen Ly IN THE 1950s, Herbert Simon – a political scientist and one of the founders of AI – declared … Read more

How artificial intelligence can help us figure out how life began

How inanimate molecules first arranged themselves into life is one of the great mysteries. The answer could lie in a systematic exploration of chemical space Technology 2 March 2022 By Katharine Sanderson Graham Carter How did Earth turn from a sterile ball of rock into a lush, green world of living things? This question of … Read more

Meet the robots that can reproduce, learn and evolve all by themselves

By Emma Hart Ruby Fresson ROBOTS have come a long way in the century since Czech writer Karel Čapek used the word to describe artificial automata. Once largely confined to factories, they are now found everywhere from the military and medicine to education and underground rescue. People have created robots that can make art, plant … Read more

A driverless car that went rogue could be a taste of the robo uprising

The recent case of a driverless car that tried to escape its handlers might make us laugh, but it also warns us about what could happen when AI is given a “body”, writes Annalee Newitz Technology | Columnist 2 February 2022 By Annalee Newitz MicroOne/Shutterstock DRIVING in San Francisco is like watching a robot uprising … Read more

AI identifies wounded wild animals and poachers in camera trap footage

An AI designed to detect bed sores in digital images has been used to identify wounded animals in camera trap footage, and can also detect poachers Life 25 January 2022 By Matthew Sparkes Sifting through footage to identify wounded animals is made easier by AI ConservationAI AI is being used to identify animals, plot their … Read more

Beth Singler interview: The dangers of treating AI like a god

By Emily Bates Beth Singler, anthropologist of AI at the University of Cambridge Dave Stock We are growing used to the idea of artificial intelligence influencing our daily lives, but for some people, it is an opaque technology that poses more of a threat than an opportunity. Anthropologist Beth Singler studies our relationship with AI … Read more

Robots: Human-like hand can crush beer cans and hold eggs without breaking them

A robot hand that has the lightness of touch to hold delicate objects and the strength to crush cans could one day be used as a prosthetic Technology 14 December 2021 By Carissa Wong A highly dexterous, human-like robotic hand with fingertip touch sensors can delicately hold eggs, use tweezers to pick up computer chips … Read more

Living robots: Xenobots made from frog cells can self-replicate in a dish by pulling cells into clumps

Swarms of tiny “xenobots” can self-replicate in the lab by pushing loose cells together – the first time this form of reproduction has been seen in multicellular organisms Life 29 November 2021 By Carissa Wong Swarms of tiny living robots can self-replicate in a dish by pushing loose cells together. The xenobots – made from … Read more