Recent AI models are surprisingly humanlike in their ability to generate text, audio, and video when prompted. However, so far these algorithms have largely remained relegated to the digital world, rather than the physical, three-dimensional world we live in. In fact, whenever we attempt to apply these models to the real world even the most…
Whether any of them will implement chatbots and agents well or in new and exciting ways is much harder to say. While the addition of AI may have been enough to garner the investment needed to build a device, it may not be enough to get people to actually buy the thing. Chatbots and AI…
Fable, a popular social media app that describes itself as a haven for “bookworms and bingewatchers,” created an AI-powered end-of-year summary feature recapping what books users read in 2024. It was meant to be playful and fun, but some of the recaps took on an oddly combative tone. Writer Danny Groves’ summary for example, asked…
Over the holiday weekend, all but one member of the editorial board of Elsevier’s Journal of Human Evolution (JHE) resigned “with heartfelt sadness and great regret,” according to Retraction Watch, which helpfully provided an online PDF of the editors’ full statement. It’s the 20th mass resignation from a science journal since 2023 over various points…
2024 was another year defined by generative AI, with software features put into the hands of millions of people worldwide and unavoidably built into popular services, like Google Search. While some AI tools, like ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode and Google’s NotebookLM, were delightful to interact with, the prevailing narrative remained on the technology’s inherent flaws,…
Hilariously, almost all the third-party integrations the company launched—DoorDash, Uber, Midjourney, and more—are being retired, so those functions just don’t work. (Not that they really worked before.) The scroll wheel is less janky, and the interface improvements are welcome. For example, you can now press and hold the push-to-talk button and scroll up or down…
Many pieces of AI-generated content were used to express support for or fandom of certain candidates. For instance, an AI-generated video of Donald Trump and Elon Musk dancing to the BeeGees song “Stayin’ Alive” was shared millions of times on social media, including by Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican. “It’s all about social signaling….
In 2025, it will be commonplace to talk with a personal AI agent that knows your schedule, your circle of friends, the places you go. This will be sold as a convenience equivalent to having a personal, unpaid assistant. These anthropomorphic agents are designed to support and charm us so that we fold them into…
In 2025 we will see AI and machine learning leveraged to make real progress in understanding animal communication, answering a question that has puzzled humans as long as we have existed: “What are animals saying to each other?” The recent Coller-Dolittle Prize, offering cash prizes up to half-a-million dollars for scientists who “crack the code”…
If Google’s generative AI Gemini Assistant chatbot is to surpass OpenAI’s ChatGPT in popularity in the coming years, it may have to do so without some of the promotional partnerships that helped thrust Google search front and center into Americans’ lives. In a US federal court filing on Friday, Google proposed a series of restrictions…