Tech
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Artificial Intelligence
Reinforcement learning AI might bring humanoid robots to the real world
Reinforcement learning techniques could be the keys to integrating robots — who use machine learning to output more than words — into the real world.
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Artificial Intelligence
Should we use AI to resurrect digital ‘ghosts’ of the dead?
Technology that creates deepfake bots of dead loved ones may need safeguards, experts warn.
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Artificial Intelligence
This robot can tell when you’re about to smile — and smile back
Using machine learning, researchers trained Emo to make facial expressions in sync with humans.
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Artificial Intelligence
AI learned how to sway humans by watching a cooperative cooking game
New research used the game Overcooked to show how offline reinforcement learning algorithms could teach bots to collaborate with — or manipulate — us.
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Artificial Intelligence
Why large language models aren’t headed toward humanlike understanding
Unlike people, today's generative AI isn’t good at learning concepts that it can apply to new situations.
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Agriculture
Could a rice-meat hybrid be what’s for dinner?
A hybrid food that combines rice, animal cells and fish gelatin could one day be a more sustainable way to produce meat.
By Meghan Rosen -
Artificial Intelligence
How do babies learn words? An AI experiment may hold clues
Using relatively little data, audio and video taken from a baby’s perspective, an AI program learned the names of objects the baby encountered.
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Neuroscience
A new device let a man sense temperature with his prosthetic hand
A device that can be integrated into prosthetic hands capitalizes on phantom sensations to enable users to sense hot and cold.
By Simon Makin -
Space
How to build an internet on Mars
Future Red Planet inhabitants will need new ways to connect, including improved relay networks and an offshoot internet.
By Payal Dhar -
Tech
‘Nuts and Bolts’ showcases the 7 building blocks of modern engineering
Science News reviews Roma Agrawal's book, which updates the classic list of simple machines and reveals the heart and soul of engineering.
By Anna Demming -
Artificial Intelligence
AI chatbots can be tricked into misbehaving. Can scientists stop it?
To develop better safeguards, computer scientists are studying how people have manipulated generative AI chatbots into answering harmful questions.
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Physics
50 years ago, timekeepers deployed the newly invented leap second
After more than 50 years, metrologists will stop using the leap second to align the time kept by atomic clocks with the rate of Earth’s spin.