Artificial Intelligence
Google’s New AI Generates Hypotheses for ResearchersRyan Whitwam | Ars Technica
“Over the past few years, Google has embarked on a quest to jam generative AI into every product and initiative possible. …And sometimes, the output of generative AI systems can be surprisingly good despite lacking any real knowledge. But can they do science? Google Research is now angling to turn AI into a scientist—well, a ‘co-scientist.'”
Robotics
Norway’s 1X Is Building a Humanoid Robot for the HomeBrian Heater | TechCrunch
“Norwegian robotics firm 1X unveiled its latest home robot, Neo Gamma, on Friday. The humanoid system will succeed Neo Beta, which debuted in August. Like its predecessors, the Neo Gamma is a prototype designed for testing in the home environment. Images of the robot show it performing a number of household tasks like making coffee, doing the laundry, and vacuuming.”
BIOTECH
Your Next Pet Could Be a Glowing RabitEmily Mullin | Wired
“Humans have been selectively breeding cats and dogs for thousands of years to make more desirable pets. A new startup called the Los Angeles Project aims to speed up that process with genetic engineering to make glow-in-the-dark rabbits, hypoallergenic cats and dogs, and possibly, one day, actual unicorns.”
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
DeepSeek Goes Beyond ‘Open Weights’ AI With Plans for Source Code ReleaseKyle Orland | Ars Technica
“Last month, DeepSeek turned the AI world on its head with the release of a new, competitive simulated reasoning model that was free to download and use under an MIT license. Now, the company is preparing to make the underlying code behind that model more accessible, promising to release five open source repos starting next week.”
3D PRINTING
Nature-Inspired Breakthrough Yields Thinnest 3D-Printed Fibers YetMargherita Bassi | Gizmodo
“Professionals of all kinds—from artists to architects to scientists—have been drawing inspiration from nature for millennia. Now, engineers have managed to produce extremely fine fibers inspired by spider silk and hagfish slime. A team of international researchers has used a new 3D-printing technique to create microfibers just 1.5 microns thick.”
Future
AI Agents Will Outmaneuver Salespeople by Optimizing PersuasionLouis Rosenberg | Big Think
“AI agents have evolved from simple heuristics to sophisticated systems that analyze human personalities in real time to optimize persuasion.
These conversational agents could soon engage us daily, adapting their tactics based on our traits, emotions, and behaviors. In this op-ed, AI researcher Louis Rosenberg argues that as conversational AI agents become more interactive and personalized, they will surpass human influencers in their ability to shape our decisions without us realizing it.”
ROBOTICS
Reinforcement Learning Triples Spot’s Running SpeedEvan Ackerman | IEEE Spectrum
“If Spot running this quickly looks a little strange, that’s probably because it is strange, in the sense that the way this robot dog’s legs and body move as it runs is not very much like how a real dog runs at all. ‘The gait is not biological, but the robot isn’t biological,’ explains Farbod Farshidian, roboticist at the RAI Institute. ‘Spot’s actuators are different from muscles, and its kinematics are different, so a gait that’s suitable for a dog to run fast isn’t necessarily best for this robot.'”
future
AI Is Prompting an Evolution, Not Extinction, for CodersSteve Lohr | The New York Times
“‘The skills software developers need will change significantly, but AI will not eliminate the need for them,’ said Arnal Dayaratna, an analyst at IDC, a technology research firm. ‘Not anytime soon anyway.’ The outlook for software engineers offers a window into the impact that generative AI—the kind behind chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT—is likely to have on knowledge workers across the economy, from doctors and lawyers to marketing managers and financial analysts.”
Space
The Lunar Economy Is ComingJorge Garay | Wired
“The lunar economy, complete with its own supply chain, may seem like a distant concept, but its foundations are already here. It will center around using the moon’s natural resources to construct scientific infrastructure on its surface, as well as develop capacity for future space exploration (the moon is a potential spaceport for more distant destinations, such as Mars).”
TECH
Why AI Spending Isn’t Slowing DownChristopher Mims | The Wall Street Journal
“Despite a brief period of investor doubt, money is pouring into artificial intelligence from big tech companies, national governments and venture capitalists at unprecedented levels. To understand why, it helps to appreciate the way that AI itself is changing. The technology is shifting away from conventional large language models and toward reasoning models and AI agents.”
The post This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through February 22) appeared first on SingularityHub.
* This article was originally published at Singularity Hub
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