ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
At Secret Math Meeting, Researchers Struggle to Outsmart AILyndie Chiou | Scientific American
“After throwing professor-level questions at the bot for two days, the researchers were stunned to discover it was capable of answering some of the world’s hardest solvable problems. ‘I have colleagues who literally said these models are approaching mathematical genius,’ says Ken Ono, a mathematician at the University of Virginia and a leader and judge at the meeting.”
Robotics
Amazon Prepares to Test Humanoid Robots for Delivering PackagesRocket Drew | The Information
“Amazon is developing software for humanoid robots that could eventually take the jobs of delivery workers, according to a person who has been involved in the effort. In doing so, Amazon is paving the way to automate a major part of its operation, the delivery of parcels around the world.”
Biotechnology
Breakthrough in Search for HIV Cure Leaves Researchers ‘Overwhelmed’Kay Lay | The Guardian
“The virus’s ability to conceal itself inside certain white blood cells has been one of the main challenges for scientists looking for a cure. …Now researchers from the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne, have demonstrated a way to make the virus visible, paving the way to fully clear it from the body.”
Biotechnology
From No Hope to a Potential Cure for a Deadly Blood CancerGina Kolata | The New York Times
“Multiple myeloma is considered incurable, but a third of patients in a Johnson & Johnson clinical trial have lived without detectable cancer for years after facing certain death. …These results, in patients whose situation had seemed hopeless, has led some battle-worn American oncologists to dare to say the words ‘potential cure.'”
Robotics
Waymo Is Winning in San FranciscoMark Sullivan | Fast Company
“The self-driving car service Waymo has been active in San Francisco for 20 months and has already captured 27% of the city’s rideshare market, according to new research compiled by Mary Meeker’s Bond venture capital firm. That rapid progress suggests the mainstreaming of self-driving car service could happen faster than once thought.”
Robotics
It’s Waymo’s World. We’re All Just Riding in It.Ben Cohen | The Wall Street Journal
“[Waymo] cracked a million total paid rides in late 2023. By the end of 2024, it reached five million. We’re not even halfway through 2025 and it has already crossed a cumulative 10 million. At this rate, Waymo is on track to double again and blow past 20 million fully autonomous trips by the end of the year. ‘This is what exponential scaling looks like,’”’ said Dmitri Dolgov, Waymo’s co-chief executive, at Google’s recent developer conference.”
Future
Why Eric Schmidt, Jeff Bezos and Startups Are High On Space Data CentersEvan Robinson-Johnson | The Information
“Orbital data centers have a tantalizing answer to the power problem: uninterrupted access to solar energy, without the hindrances of weather, night time and seasons. That means they could enjoy dramatically lower operating costs while also combatting climate change by reducing the reliance on fossil fuels, which currently account for 60% of total US energy consumption. That’s the theory, at least.”
Future
The Rise of ‘Vibe Hacking’ Is the Next AI NightmareMatthew Gault | Wired
“In the near future one hacker may be able to unleash 20 zero-day attacks on different systems across the world all at once. Polymorphic malware could rampage across a codebase, using a bespoke generative AI system to rewrite itself as it learns and adapts. Armies of script kiddies could use purpose-built LLMs to unleash a torrent of malicious code at the push of a button.”
A Japanese Lander Crashed on the Moon After Losing Track of Its LocationStephen Clark | Ars Technica
“Ground teams at ispace’s mission control center in Tokyo lost contact with the Resilience lunar lander moments before it was supposed to touch down in a region called Mare Frigoris, or the Sea of Cold, a basaltic plain in the Moon’s northern hemisphere. A few hours later, ispace officials confirmed what many observers suspected. The mission was lost. It’s the second time ispace has failed to land on the Moon in as many tries.”
Artificial Intelligence
Manus Has Kick-Started an AI Agent Boom in ChinaCaiwei Chen | MIT Technology Review
“Startups like Manus, Genspark, and Flowith—though founded by Chinese entrepreneurs—could blend seamlessly into the global tech scene and compete effectively abroad. Founders, investors, and analysts that MIT Technology Review has spoken to believe Chinese companies are moving fast, executing well, and quickly coming up with new products.”
Tech
Perplexity Received 780 Million Queries Last Month, CEO SaysAisha Malik | TechCrunch
“‘Give it a year, we’ll be doing, like, a billion queries a week if we can sustain this growth rate,’ Srinivas said. ‘And that’s pretty impressive because the first day in 2022, we did 3,000 queries, just one single day. So from there to doing 30 million queries a day now, it’s been phenomenal growth.'”
Robotics
Walmart and Wing Expand Drone Delivery to Five More US CitiesKirsten Korosec | TechCrunch
“‘We’re decidedly out of the pilot and trial phase and into scaling up this business,’ Wing CEO Adam Woodworth told TechCrunch in a recent interview. ‘We’ve always been the type of company that wants to do something well and stay focused. And so this is the next big bite at the apple. It’s a much bigger bite than than we’ve taken before.'”
Future
No, AI Robots Won’t Take All Our JobsRobert D. Atkinson | The Wall Street Journal
“Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said last week that artificial intelligence could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within five years and cause unemployment to skyrocket to as high as 20%. He should know better—as should many other serious academics, who have been warning for years that AI will mean the end of employment as we know it.”
Future
Google DeepMind’s CEO Thinks AI Will Make Humans Less SelfishSteven Levy | Wired
“When I spoke to Hassabis at Google’s New York City headquarters, his answers came as quickly as a chatbot’s, crisply parrying every inquiry I could muster with high spirits and a confidence that he and Google are on the right path. …You may not always agree with what Hassabis has to say, but his thoughts and his next moves matter. History, after all, will be written by the winners.”
An In-Space Propulsion Company Just Raised a Staggering Amount of MoneyEric Berger | Ars Technica
“This week an in-space propulsion company, Impulse Space, announced that it had raised a significant amount of money, $300 million. This follows a fundraising round just last year in which the Southern California-based company raised $150 million. This is one of the largest capital raises in space in a while, especially for a non-launch company.”