The Download: training robots with gen AI, and the state of climate tech
Science & Technology

The Download: training robots with gen AI, and the state of climate tech

Technology tamfitronics Plus: OpenAI is worth a whole lot of cash This is today's edition of The Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. AI-generated images can teach robots how to act Generative AI models can produce images in response to prompts within seconds, and they’ve recently been used for everything from highlighting their own inherent bias to preserving precious memories. Now, researchers from Stephen James’s Robot Learning Lab in London are using image-generating AI models for a new purpose: creating training data for robots. They’ve developed a new system, called Genima, that fine-tunes the image-generating AI model Stable Diffusion to draw robots’ movements, helping guide them both in simulations and in the real world. Genima could make it easier to train...
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The Download: safer space travel, and generative AI in video games
Science & Technology

The Download: safer space travel, and generative AI in video games

Technology tamfitronics Plus: Sam Altman says he isn't on course for a massive equity stake in OpenAI This is today's edition of The Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Space travel is dangerous. Could genetic testing and gene editing make it safer? Long-distance space travel can wreak havoc on human health. There’s radiation and microgravity to contend with, as well as the psychological toll of isolation and confinement. Research on identical twin astronauts has also revealed a slew of genetic changes that happen when a person spends a year in space.That’s why some bioethicists are exploring the idea of radical treatments for future astronauts. Once we’ve figured out all the health impacts of space travel, they argue, we should edit the genomes of...
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The Download: a CRISPR patent battle, and the promise of tiny AI
Science & Technology

The Download: a CRISPR patent battle, and the promise of tiny AI

Technology tamfitronics This is today's edition of The Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Two Nobel Prize winners want to cancel their own CRISPR patents in Europe In the decade-long fight to control CRISPR, the super-tool for modifying DNA, it’s been common for lawyers to try to overturn patents held by competitors. But now, in a surprise twist, the team that earned the Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing CRISPR is asking to cancel two of their own seminal patents, MIT Technology Review has learned. ­­The request to withdraw the pair of European patents, by lawyers for Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, comes after a damaging August opinion from a European technical appeals board, which ruled that the duo’s earliest patent...
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The Download: AI lessons for the US election, and our climate tech list is coming
Science & Technology

The Download: AI lessons for the US election, and our climate tech list is coming

Technology tamfitronics Plus: the US is considering banning China and Russia-made tech from connected cars This is today's edition of The Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. What the US can learn from the role of AI in other elections When the generative AI boom kicked off, one of the biggest concerns was that hyperrealistic deepfakes could be used to influence elections. But new research from the Alan Turing Institute recently found that AI-generated falsehoods seem to have had no effect on election results around the world so far this year. However, one of the most consequential elections of the year is still ahead of us. In just over a month, Americans will head to the polls to choose Donald Trump...
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