Archive: February 2021

In the new paper Mu²SLAM: Multitask, Multilingual Speech and Language Models, the Google researchers present Mu2SLAM, a multilingual sequence-to-sequence pretraining method for speech and text models that covers arbitrary tasks in over 100 languages and achieves state-of-the-art translation performance on the CoVoST benchmark. Mu²SLAM is based on an encoder-decoder backbone model and is jointly pretrained on four different data types: speech-only, text-onl

NREL researchers are using state-of-the-art nano-CT imaging to reveal microscopic damage and hidden flaws in lithium-ion battery microstructures. Credit: Gregory Cooper/NREL The minerals that power lithium-ion batteries—including lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, and graphite—are both highly valuable and difficult to come by. As battery storage capacity across the United States continues to grow, constraints on the mining, refining, and processing of key

This novel system combines machine vision and artificial intelligence to automatically assess the health of individual leaves, serving as a valuable tool for urban greenery monitoring. Credit: Mr. Marc Josep Montagut Marques / Waseda University Urban trees and plants do more than just beautify city landscapes. They purify the air, reduce urban heat islands, provide recreational spaces, and even boost property values. As essential components of sustainable

There have been a lot of anxious murmurings lately about the price of AI going way up. Developers are spending more money training and running AI systems as competition thickens and the electrical grid gets squeezed. Customers, meanwhile, are shelling out more in order to get access to the latest models. Earlier this week, Anthropic—moving towards what’s expected to be a historic IPO—released Fable 5, a dialed-down version of the secretive and supposedly e

AI endpoint management: Visibility, compliance, and remediation Endpoint estates are growing faster than the teams that look after them. Hybrid work, cloud adoption, contractor laptops, a steady stream of new CVEs, and rising compliance pressure mean security teams manage more devices, more software, and more exceptions than a spreadsheet or a monthly scan can hold. Manual tracking and manual remediation no longer keep up. AI endpoint management offers a w

Getty / Futurism As he dived into the world of AI, Elon Musk promised that he would harness the tech to create a so-called “anti-woke” and “maximum truth-seeking” alternative to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Instead, his company xAI has turned its in-house AI chatbot Grok into a tool for sexually charged conversations with an eager-to-undress female avatar — while Musk himself warns that the tech is poised to “one-shot the human limbic system.” Now it sounds like xAI

A US judge is expected to decide soon whether to order Google to sell its globally popular Chrome browser to weaken the tech firm's dominance in online search. Perplexity AI offered Google on Tuesday $34.5 billion for its popular Chrome web browser, which the internet giant could potentially be forced to sell as part of antitrust proceedings. The whopping sum proposed in a letter of intent by Perplexity is nearly double the value of the startup, which was

US Army is developing AI agents that could strike enemy networks and vanish without a trace The US Army is looking for AI agents that can slip into an adversary’s network, find their target, copy themselves onto nearby tablets and computers, and then erase themselves before anyone notices. Over the past few months, AI agents with no instruction to attack anything have breached Hugging Face infrastructure and broken into Australian government computers, rai

Getty / Futurism A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that the majority of US adults think that artificial intelligence will “worsen people’s ability to think creatively,” while half say the tech will deteriorate our ability to form meaningful relationships. And now, according to the center’s latest poll, it turns out that it’s not just Americans quickly becoming distrustful and disillusioned with the tech — much of the rest of the world is growi

Credit: Unsplash Optimism that AI will make human jobs easier is lowest in the developed world, especially in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Australia. That is one of several insights from Peter John Loewen, the Harold Tanner Dean of Arts and Sciences, who shared takeaways from his decade-long AI research on July 9, in "How Do Americans Think about AI?" The lecture in Warren Hall was the first of the Cornell University School of Continuin

What is AI overview?It’s a feature that gives users the answer they’re looking for right at the top of the search results. Google’s AI pulls information from all over the web and gives a short response to the user’s query. Instead of making them click on multiple links, the AI compiles all the relevant info into a summary.The answers are usually 160-170 words, just enough to give the user what they need, fast. But here’s the catch: when users get answers t

Apple’s Magic Mouse turns the front of the mouse into a touch-sensitive area, letting you quickly slide from page to page, scroll through large documents, and easily navigate your Mac with various finger motions. The Magic Mouse pairs with your Mac automatically, connects via Bluetooth, and now uses a USB-C connector for charging, so you can share the same cable as your MacBook, iPad, or iPhone. Apple says a single full charge provides about a month of ave

Fuels map of the 2025 Eaton Fire, as predicted by FuelVision. Credit: Riyaaz Shaik and Patrick Hadinata/UCLA Researchers from the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and their collaborators have developed FuelVision, a new system that could help enhance nationwide wildfire preparedness by combining satellite imagery with artificial intelligence to rapidly and accurately identify wildfire fuel sources. In validation tests using data from two of California's

Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images OpenAI has long published research on the potential safety and economic impact of its own technology. Now, Wired reports that the Sam Altman-led company is becoming more “guarded” about publishing research that paints an inconvenient truth: that AI could be bad for the economy. The perceived censorship has become such a point of frustration that at least two OpenAI empl

Credit: American Journal of Ophthalmology (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.ajo.2025.06.009 Since the dawn of human spaceflight, scientists have carefully studied the effects of space and microgravity on astronauts. After decades of observations and examinations, one truth is certain: space is brutal on the human body. Muscles atrophy, bones lose mass, limbs stretch and—more unknown—eyesight can degrade in ways not yet fully understood. To better understand the loss

Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Getty Images The point of making an apology is that it should be sincere. It also helps if you put some actual effort into making it. A judge in New Zealand is being forced to mull over these criteria after receiving a written apology from a defendant that appears to be generated with — and why else would we be talking about it on this website — an AI model. The defendant had a lot to answer for: she

Particle6 Late last year, video production company Particle6 triggered near-universal backlash when it unveiled its so-called “AI actress” dubbed “Tilly Norwood.” The timing of the announcement couldn’t have been worse, as some of the biggest names in Hollywood had been publicly and strongly denouncing the use of AI in filmmaking. The innocent-faced avatar, which The Verge previously lambasted as a “gen AI psyop,” perfectly played into the fears of those w

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain The hype surrounding artificial intelligence is more than just superficial excitement—it is reorganizing how journalism operates, from newsroom priorities to public perceptions of the news, according to a new article in Digital Journalism co-authored by a University of Massachusetts Amherst journalism scholar. "Hype is about more than just possibilities or disappointment," explains Rodrigo Zamith, associate professor and c