Archive: May 2021

When there was social media chatter on Monday about an AI-written short story supposedly having won a “prestigious literary prize,” I opted not to blog about it. I hadn’t heard of the Commonwealth Prize, so how prestigious was it really? Plus, there was nothing even close to proof of what was being alleged—just some complaints, and people trying to prove their point with extremely fallible AI detectors. But the social media allegations have metastasized in

As I write this, Apple’s 2026 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) kicks off tomorrow, and rumor has it the unveiling of a feature-rich new version of Apple’s AI assistant, Siri, will play a major role in WWDC’s kickoff. But apparently, the recent history of Siri has been as messy behind the scenes as it has been in public, and if this version of Siri is a success, it sounds like the guy largely responsible—at least according to Bloomberg’s reporting—isn

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain When you log onto LinkedIn, you're normally presented with suggestions to connect with people you know, either because you went to the same university as them, or worked in the same company or industry. However, the suggestions can sometimes take us by surprise, like when the algorithm recommends a relative or family friend even though they work in a totally different field to you. Given the total lack of professional ove

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain In a study published in the journal Information Systems Research, Texas Tech University's Shuo Yu and his collaborators developed a generative machine learning model to detect instability before a fall occurs. The hope is that the model could work within fall detection devices, such as anti-fall airbag vests or medical alert systems, to minimize injuries, increase emergency response effectiveness and lower medical costs. "

"Meschers" can create multi-dimensional versions of objects that break the laws of physics with convoluted geometries, such as buildings you might see in an M.C. Escher illustration (left) and objects that are shaded in impossible ways (center and right). Credit: Alex Shipps/MIT CSAIL, using assets from Pixabay and the researchers M.C. Escher's artwork is a gateway into a world of depth-defying optical illusions, featuring "impossible objects" that break t

Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Kevin Sabitus / Craig Ambrosio / WWE via Getty Images Whether you’re a longtime fan or you couldn’t care less, it’s hard to deny how much skill — and blood — goes into professional wrestling. Though plot lines are scripted ahead of time and the impacts are staged, the physicality is very real. At its highest level, pro wrestling is basically a decades-long soap opera acted out by highly-trained stuntm

Getty / Futurism Experts have long warned that artificial intelligence could soon put countless white collar workers out of a job. It’s an alarming prospect, at least if that’s currently your career. But first, a practical question: how close are today’s AIs to being able to actually run a company on their own, with little to no human oversight? In a fascinating experiment, journalist Evan Ratliff populated his own fictional tech startup that he called Hur

Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Getty Images You know those memes about how there’s no such thing as a free VPN? Here’s the ultimate cautionary tale. A recent investigation by Tel Aviv-based security firm Koi uncovered a massive data harvesting operation tied to a voluntary extension on Google’s Chrome browser. Called Urban VPN Proxy, the free extension has some six million users at the time of writing, and even a “featured” badge o

One of the great promises of artificial intelligence was that it would help to cure diseases that have thus far stumped humanity. It hasn’t gotten there yet, but it has now created a new, viable virus not found in nature—which is one of those technical achievements that is both impressive and unnerving. Researchers at the Palo Alto, California-based Arc Institute believe they have accomplished a new first by using AI to manufacture new viral genomes by fir

Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Getty Images Watch out, bartenders: your jobs might be next on the AI chopping block — at least if tech startup Breakreal has anything to say about it. With CES 2026 in full-swing, tech insiders and industry journalists are getting a first-hand look at the madcap gadgets that research and development teams are forcing into the world. One of those devices is the Breakreal R1, a cocktail dispenser that

Published on March 10, 2026 at 14:30 Commenter 0 𝕏 Print © École polytechnique Yann LeCun, former head of AI at Meta and one of the "patrons" of modern artificial intelligence, has gathered a diverse team around his new startup, AMI (for Advanced Machine Intelligence). The young startup has raised an initial round of funding of $1 billion, one of the largest fundraising efforts in Europe for an AI different from large language models. Yann LeCun made headl