Lifeboat Foundation

In the last few months, the mask has really come off.

OpenAI is far from its days of being an altruistic, non-profit company.

It is now the face of a booming AI industry and is effectively for-profit in all but name, steaming ahead with little regard for its technology’s environmental toll, or for the potentially existential risks it poses to society.

Continue reading “AI Researcher Slams OpenAI, Warns It Will Become the ‘Most Orwellian Company of All Time’” »

The RUBIK Pi is a dev board from Thundercomm that’s positioned as a platform for developers looking to work a Qualcomm AI processor.

At the heart of the board is a Qualcomm QCS6490 processor with eight ARMv8 CPU cores, Qualcomm Adreno 643 graphics, and a 6th-gen Qualcomm AI Engine that delivers up to 12.5 TOPS of AI performance. Thundercomm hasn’t announced how much the board will cost yet, but says it will be available for pre-order starting in early November.

The Army has sent at least one “robot dog” armed with an artificial intelligence-enabled gun turret to the Middle East for testing as a fresh counter-drone capability for U.S. service members, service officials confirmed.

Photos published to the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service last…

The Army was testing at least one armed quadrupedal unmanned ground vehicle at an installation in Saudi Arabia.

Continue reading “Army Testing Robot Dogs Armed with Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Rifles in Middle East” »

Neural networks have a remarkable ability to learn specific tasks, such as identifying handwritten digits. However, these models often experience “catastrophic forgetting” when taught additional tasks: They can successfully learn the new assignments, but “forget” how to complete the original. For many artificial neural networks, like those that guide self-driving cars, learning additional tasks thus requires being fully reprogrammed.

Biological brains, on the other hand, are remarkably flexible. Humans and animals can easily learn how to play a new game, for instance, without having to re-learn how to walk and talk.

Inspired by the flexibility of human and animal brains, Caltech researchers have now developed a new type of algorithm that enables neural networks to be continuously updated with new data that they are able to learn from without having to start from scratch. The algorithm, called a functionally invariant path (FIP) algorithm, has wide-ranging applications from improving recommendations on online stores to fine-tuning self-driving cars.

Sometimes, the LLMs have the internal knowledge to self-correct their responses. They just need the right training technique to use it.

China’s state-backed JFS Laboratory has unveiled the country’s first silicon photonics chip, a significant advancement that could revolutionize AI and high-performance computing. This novel technology uses lasers instead of traditional copper wires, offering increased bandwidth, reduced latency, and improved energy efficiency.

Engineers at King’s College London created a fluid pressure circuit that enables robots to operate independently of electricity.

Summary: Researchers have developed an AI-powered “electronic tongue” capable of distinguishing subtle differences in liquids, such as milk freshness, soda types, and coffee blends. By analyzing sensor data through a neural network, the device achieved over 95% accuracy in identifying liquid quality, authenticity, and potential safety issues. Interestingly, when the AI was allowed to select its own analysis parameters, it outperformed human-defined settings, showing how it holistically assessed subtle data.

This technology, which uses graphene-based sensors, could revolutionize food safety assessments and potentially extend to medical diagnostics. The device’s AI insights also provide a unique view into the neural network’s decision-making process. This innovation promises practical applications across industries where quality and safety are paramount.

Two researchers whose work has led to the AI revolution won the 2024 Nobel Prize in physics. A materials physicist explains statistical mechanics, the physics field behind their discoveries.