A technique to manipulate electrons with light could bring quantum computing up to room temperature.
A team of researchers in Germany and at the University of Michigan have demonstrated how infrared laser pulses can shift electrons between two different states, the classic 1 and 0, in a thin sheet of semiconductor.
A computer programme modelled on the human brain learnt to navigate a virtual maze and take shortcuts, outperforming a flesh-and-blood expert, its developers said Wednesday.
While artificial intelligence (AI) programmes have recently made great strides in imitating human brain processing—everything from recognising objects to playing complicated board games—spatial navigation has remained a challenge.
Continue reading “Self-navigating AI learns to take shortcuts: study” »
Upcoming anti-viral medication for smallpox…
As bioterrorism fears grow, the first treatment for smallpox is nearing approval.
Called tecovirimat, the drug stops the variola virus, which causes smallpox, from sending out copies of itself and infecting other cells. “If the virus gets ahead of your immune system, you get sick,” says Dennis Hruby, the chief scientific officer of pharmaceutical company SIGA Technologies, which took part in developing the drug. “If you can slow the virus down, your immune system will get ahead.”
Continue reading “The first smallpox treatment is one step closer to FDA approval” »
Many people in tech point out that artificial narrow intelligence, or A.N.I., has grown ever safer and more reliable—certainly safer and more reliable than we are. (Self-driving cars and trucks might save hundreds of thousands of lives every year.) For them, the question is whether the risks of creating an omnicompetent Jeeves would exceed the combined risks of the myriad nightmares—pandemics, asteroid strikes, global nuclear war, etc.—that an A.G.I. could sweep aside for us.
Thinking about artificial intelligence can help clarify what makes us human—for better and for worse.
