AI & Robotics News and Discussions

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Apple Might Equip Siri With Generative AI
The next-generation smart assistant is expected to roll out with iOS 18.
By Adrianna Nine January 24, 2024
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/a ... erative-ai

Apple appears to be preparing a Siri overhaul to equip the smart assistant with generative AI. Although there haven’t been any official announcements regarding Siri’s potential facelift, analysts anticipate that all-new generative AI capabilities will be announced at Apple’s 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) and rolled out via iOS18.

[caltrek]

Chats with AI Shift Attitudes on Climate Change and Black Lives Matter
January 25, 2024

Introduction:

(Eurkalert) MADISON — People who were more skeptical of human-caused climate change or the Black Lives Matter movement who took part in conversation with a popular AI chatbot were disappointed with the experience but left the conversation more supportive of the scientific consensus on climate change or BLM. This is according to researchers studying how these chatbots handle interactions from people with different cultural backgrounds

Read more of the Eurekalert article here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1032474

For a presentation of study results as published in Scientific Reports: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-51969-w

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Breakthrough could see robots with ‘fingertips’ as sensitive as humans
By Paul McClure
January 29, 2024

Researchers have overcome a major challenge in biomimetic robotics by developing a sensor that, assisted by AI, can slide over braille text, accurately reading it at twice human speed. The tech could be incorporated into robot hands and prosthetics, providing fingertip sensitivity comparable to humans.

Human fingertips are incredibly sensitive. They can communicate details of an object as small as about half the width of a human hair, discern subtle differences in surface textures, and apply the right amount of force to grip an egg or a 20-lb (9 kg) bag of dog food without slipping.

As cutting-edge electronic skins begin to incorporate more and more biomimetic functionalities, the need for human-like dynamic interactions like sliding becomes more essential. However, reproducing the human fingertip’s sensitivity in a robotic equivalent has proven difficult despite advances in soft robotics.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge in the UK have brought it a step closer to reality by adopting an approach that uses vision-based tactile sensors combined with AI to detect features at high resolutions and speeds.

“The softness of human fingertips is one of the reasons we’re able to grip things with the right amount of pressure,” said Parth Potdar, the study’s lead author. “For robotics, softness is a useful characteristic, but you also need lots of sensor information, and it’s tricky to have both at once, especially when dealing with flexible or deformable surfaces.”

https://newatlas.com/robotics/braille-r ... ve-humans/

[caltrek]

Better Fake Muscles Give Robot Fish Real Kick
by Eth Zurich
February 2, 2024

Introduction:

(Futurity) Researchers have developed artificial muscles for robot motion.

Their solution offers several advantages over previous technologies: it can be used wherever robots need to be soft rather than rigid or where they need more sensitivity when interacting with their environment.

Many roboticists dream of building robots that are not just a combination of metal or other hard materials and motors but also softer and more adaptable. Soft robots could interact with their environment in a completely different way; for example, they could cushion impacts the way human limbs do, or grasp an object delicately.

This would also offer benefits regarding energy consumption: robot motion today usually requires a lot of energy to maintain a position, whereas soft systems could store energy well, too. So, what could be more obvious than to take the human muscle as a model and attempt to recreate it?

Read more of the Futurity article here: https://www.futurity.org/artificial-mu ... -3174802

Read a presentation of the results of the study as published in ScienceAdvances here: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi9319

[Time_Traveller]

Labour would force AI firms to share their technology’s test data

Sun 4 Feb 2024 18.51 GMT

Labour plans to force artificial intelligence firms to share the results of road tests of their technology after warning that regulators and politicians had failed to rein in social media platforms.

The party would replace a voluntary testing agreement between tech companies and the government with a statutory regime, under which AI businesses would be compelled to share test data with officials.

Peter Kyle, the shadow technology secretary, said legislators and regulators had been “behind the curve” on social media and that Labour would ensure the same mistake was not made with AI.

Calling for greater transparency from tech firms after the murder of Brianna Ghey, he said companies working on AI technology – the term for computer systems that carry out tasks normally associated with human levels of intelligence – would be required to be more open under a Labour government.

“We will move from a voluntary code to a statutory code,” said Kyle, speaking on BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, “so that those companies engaging in that kind of research and development have to release all of the test data and tell us what they are testing for, so we can see exactly what is happening and where this technology is taking us.”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... -test-data

[spryfusion]

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Shock video shows Atlas robot training for automotive work
By Loz Blain
February 05, 2024

It's a shock video because Atlas is unboxing and racking shocks – sorry about that. But it's also a shock because Atlas has always been a humanoid robotics research platform, not a commercial product – and this new video has us wondering.

The work of building cars is perfect for robotic automation – large volumes, heavy parts, high potential for human injury, high precision and reliability requirements – and indeed, there are already a ton of job-specific robots involved in the manufacturing and assembly lines.

But there are also still a lot of jobs that look much more random and disorganized – and that's where humanoid robots seek to step in. Obviously, that'll be one of the early applications for Tesla's Optimus robot, and we've seen recently that Figure is pursuing a similar path with BMW.

https://newatlas.com/robotics/atlas-suspension-work/

[wjfox]

AI's most popular chipmaker Nvidia is trying to use AI to design chips faster

Feb 6, 2024, 10:56 PM GMT

Companies are vying for Nvidia's limited supply of GPUs — used to train and build AI products — as the AI sector booms. Now, the chip giant is using its own AI to make its chips faster in what appears to be an effort to keep up with the demand.

Nvidia has developed an AI system known as ChipNeMo that aims to speed up the production of its GPUs.

Designing GPUs can be labor-intensive. A chip typically takes close to 1,000 people to build, and each person needs to understand how different parts of the design process work together, Bryan Catanzaro, Nvidia's vice president of applied deep learning research, told The Wall Street Journal.

That's where ChipNeMo can help. The AI system is run on a large language model — built on top of Meta's Llama 2 — that the company says it trained with its own data. In turn, ChipNeMo's chatbot feature is able to respond to queries related to chip design such as questions about GPU architecture and the generation of chip design code, Catanzaro told the WSJ.

So far, the gains seem to be promising. Since ChipNeMo was unveiled last October, Nvidia has found that the AI system has been useful in training junior engineers to design chips and summarizing notes across 100 different teams, according to the Journal.

https://www.businessinsider.com/nvidia- ... ?r=US&IR=T

[Yuli Ban]

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OpenAI's Eve humanoids make impressive progress in autonomous work
By Loz Blain
February 12, 2024

"The video contains no teleoperation," says Norwegian humanoid robot maker 1X. "No computer graphics, no cuts, no video speedups, no scripted trajectory playback. It's all controlled via neural networks, all autonomous, all 1X speed."

This is the humanoid manufacturer that OpenAI put its chips behind last year, as part of a US$25-million Series A funding round. A subsequent $100-million Series B showed how much sway OpenAI's attention is worth – as well as the overall excitement around general-purpose humanoid robot workers, a concept that's always seemed far off in the future, but that's gone absolutely thermonuclear in the last two years.

1X's humanoids look oddly undergunned next to what, say, Tesla, Figure, Sanctuary or Agility are working on. The Eve humanoid doesn't even have feet at this point, or dextrous humanoid hands. It rolls about on a pair of powered wheels, balancing on a third little castor wheel at the back, and its hands are rudimentary claws. It looks like it's dressed for a spot of luge, and has a dinky, blinky LED smiley face that gives the impression it's going to start asking for food and cuddles like a Tamagotchi.

https://newatlas.com/robotics/openai-1x ... noid-work/