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NASA is using an AI-powered technique called “generative design” to dramatically speed up the process of designing hardware for upcoming missions — and one of the first AI-designed missions will use a massive balloon to lift a telescope to the stratosphere.

The need: Weight is one of the most important considerations when NASA engineers are designing parts for new spacecraft — the heavier the final object is, the more fuel will be needed to launch it, and the more expensive the mission will be.

Continue reading “NASA’s new balloon-borne telescope was designed with AI” »

Steven Jones, who runs an AI-generated porn images website, is shocked by what users want the AI to spit out.

Like Gates, Leslie doesn’t dismiss doomer scenarios outright. “Bad actors can take advantage of these technologies and cause catastrophic harms,” he says. “You don’t need to buy into superintelligence, apocalyptic robots, or AGI speculation to understand that.”

“But I agree that our immediate concerns should be in addressing the existing risks that derive from the rapid commercialization of generative AI,” says Leslie. “It serves a positive purpose to sort of zoom our lens in and say, ‘Okay, well, what are the immediate concerns?’”

In his post, Gates notes that AI is already a threat in many fundamental areas of society, from elections to education to employment. Of course, such concerns aren’t news. What Gates wants to tell us is that although these threats are serious, we’ve got this: “The best reason to believe that we can manage the risks is that we have done it before.”

Meta researchers are trying to “loosen up” the model so that it could at least provide context to a query it deems controversial.

Meta Platforms is planning to release the newest version of its artificial-intelligence large language model Llama 3 in July which would give better responses to contentious questions posed by users, The Information reported on Wednesday.

EXCLUSIVE: The Brazilian bloke dubbed Living Nostradamus is back with more bold claims about artificial intelligence and has claimed that recent advancements have come at a very specific moment.

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OpenAI is accusing the New York Times of “hacking” its products in the ongoing copyright dispute.

In a legal filing, OpenAI claims that an individual paid by the Times used “deceptive prompts” to create copies of NYT articles. These prompts would violate OpenAI’s terms of service.

The NYT demonstrated that OpenAI’s GPT models could generate copies of NYT articles when it filed a lawsuit against OpenAI for copyright infringement.

BRIGGS, Texas (KXAN) — More rockets will soon be built in the Austin area. Firefly Aerospace, an end-to-end space transportation company, think space truckers, is unveiling its newest Rocket Ranch facility Wednesday.

The expanded facility will allow the company to produce and assemble new rockets, as well as test engines with 230,000 pounds of thrust. A new 100-foot test stand is part of the facility.

In addition, the facility will give the company access to a new automated fiber placement machine, allowing them to build rocket components at a faster pace as well as a new robotic powermill. This device will allow the company to rotate rockets with an 18-foot diameter.

The industrial innovation fund is seeking to invest in start-ups that can support the ecommerce group’s aims of becoming “more efficient, safer for our associates, and increase the speed of delivery to our customers.” Bossart said.

She said the Amazon fund would expand its focus this year, including by seeking to invest in companies involved in the “last mile” of deliveries, when packages arrive with customers, as well as geographically and in later-stage companies. However, Bossart would not be drawn on how much the fund has deployed so far, declining to comment on a report it has invested $110 million as of June.

The focus on the automation of warehouses and logistics was not about cutting people out of them altogether, but would result in a “shift in jobs” as more robots and automated vehicles took on repetitive or dangerous tasks, she said. “We’re also a long way off from replacing all humans,” she added.

In a groundbreaking study published on the arXiv server, a team of Swiss researchers introduces Pedipulate, an innovative controller enabling quadruped robots to perform complex manipulation tasks using their legs. This development marks a significant leap forward in robotics, showcasing the potential for legged robots in maintenance, home support, and exploration activities beyond traditional inspection roles.

The study, titled “Pedipulate: Quadruped Robot Manipulation Using Legs,” challenges the conventional design of legged robots that often rely on additional robotic arms for manipulation, leading to increased power consumption and mechanical complexity. By observing quadrupedal animals, the researchers hypothesized that employing the robot’s legs for locomotion and manipulation could significantly simplify and reduce the cost of robotic systems, particularly in applications where size and efficiency are crucial, such as in space exploration.

Pedipulate is trained through deep reinforcement learning, employing a neural network policy that tracks foot position targets. This policy minimizes the distance between the robot’s foot and the target point while penalizing undesirable movements such as jerky motions or collisions. The controller was tested on the ANYmal D robot, which features 12 torque-controlled joints and force-torque sensors on each foot, proving the feasibility of leg-based manipulation in real-world scenarios.