Each Saturday we submit a selection of our favorite science and technology articles from the week. With 2024 nearing its finish, we dug by means of all these posts once more to floor 25 tales value revisiting. Right here you’ll discover meditations on AI’s evolution, a ChatGPT second in robotics, first contact with whale civilization, the inaugural jet go well with grand prix, and 5 sci-fi visions from the 12 months 2149—amongst many extra value your time.
Blissful studying. See you in 2025!
The GPT Era Is Already Ending
Matteo Wong | The Atlantic
“[OpenAI] has been unusually direct that the o1 sequence is the longer term: Chen, who has since been promoted to senior vp of analysis, advised me that OpenAI is now targeted on this ‘new paradigm,’ and Altman later wrote that the corporate is prioritizing’ o1 and its successors. The corporate believes, or desires its customers and traders to imagine, that it has discovered some recent magic. The GPT period is giving solution to the reasoning period.”
Falcon 9 Reaches a Flight Rate 30 Times Higher Than Shuttle at 1/100th the Cost
Eric Berger | Ars Technica
“Area fanatic Ryan Caton additionally crunched the numbers on the variety of SpaceX launches this 12 months in comparison with a few of its opponents. To this point this 12 months, SpaceX has launched as many rockets as Roscosmos has since 2013, United Launch Alliance since 2010, and Arianespace since 2009. This 12 months alone, the Falcon 9 has launched extra instances than the Ariane 4, Ariane 5, or Atlas V rockets every did throughout their whole careers.”
Google’s New Project Astra Could Be Generative AI’s Killer App
Will Douglas Heaven | MIT Know-how Overview
“Final week I used to be taken by means of an unmarked door on an higher ground of a constructing in London’s King’s Cross district right into a room with robust secret-project vibes. The phrase ‘ASTRA’ was emblazoned in big letters throughout one wall. …’The pitch to my mum is that we’re constructing an AI that has eyes, ears, and a voice. It may be wherever with you, and it will probably assist you to with something you’re doing,’ says Greg Wayne, co-lead of the Astra group. ‘It’s not there but, however that’s the type of imaginative and prescient.’”
Is Robotics About to Have Its Own ChatGPT Moment?
Melissa Heikkilä | MIT Know-how Overview
“For many years, roboticists have kind of targeted on controlling robots’ ‘our bodies’—their arms, legs, levers, wheels, and the like—by way of purpose-driven software program. However a brand new era of scientists and inventors believes that the beforehand lacking ingredient of AI may give robots the flexibility to study new abilities and adapt to new environments sooner than ever earlier than. This new strategy, simply perhaps, can lastly carry robots out of the manufacturing unit and into our houses.”
Cheap Solar Panels Are Changing the World
Zoë Schlanger | The Atlantic
“‘In a single 12 months, in a single expertise, we’re offering as a lot new electrical energy because the entirety of world progress the 12 months earlier than,’ Kingsmill Bond, a senior power strategist at RMI, a clean-energy nonprofit, advised me. A decade or two in the past, analysts ‘didn’t think about of their wildest desires that photo voltaic by the center of the 2020s would already be supplying the entire progress of world electrical energy demand,’ he stated. But right here we’re.”
The Race for the Next Ozempic
Emily Mullin | Wired
“These medicine are actually wildly common, in scarcity in consequence, and massively worthwhile for the businesses making them. Their success has sparked a frenzy amongst pharmaceutical firms on the lookout for the subsequent blockbuster weight-loss drug. Researchers are actually racing to develop new anti-obesity medicines which are more practical, extra handy, or produce fewer negative effects than those at present available on the market.”
SpaceX Catches Returning Rocket in Mid-Air, Turning a Fanciful Idea Into Reality
Stephen Clark | Ars Technica
“This achievement is the primary of its variety, and it’s essential for SpaceX’s imaginative and prescient of quickly reusing the Starship rocket, enabling human expeditions to the moon and Mars, routine entry to area for mind-bogglingly large payloads, and novel capabilities that no different firm—or nation—appears near attaining.”
Mechazilla has caught the Tremendous Heavy booster! pic.twitter.com/6R5YatSVJX
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 13, 2024
Silicon Valley’s Trillion-Dollar Leap of Faith
Matteo Wong | The Atlantic
“These firms have determined that one of the best ways to make generative AI higher is to construct larger AI fashions. And that’s actually, actually costly, requiring assets on the dimensions of moon missions and the interstate-highway system to fund the info facilities and associated infrastructure that generative AI will depend on. …Now a lot of voices within the finance world are starting to ask whether or not all of this funding can repay.”
Apple Vision Pro Review: Magic, Until It’s Not
Nilay Patel | The Verge
“The Imaginative and prescient Professional is an astounding product. It’s the kind of first-generation gadget solely Apple can actually make, from the unbelievable show and passthrough engineering, to using the entire ecosystem to make it so seamlessly helpful, to even getting everybody to just about ignore the entire exterior battery scenario. …However the surprising factor is that Apple might have inadvertently revealed that a few of these core concepts are literally useless ends—that they will’t ever be executed effectively sufficient to turn into mainstream.”
Hands On With Orion, Meta’s First Pair of AR Glasses
Alex Heath | The Verge
“They appear nearly like a standard pair of glasses. That’s the very first thing I discover as I stroll right into a convention room at Meta’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California. The black Clark Kent-esque frames sitting on the desk in entrance of me look unassuming, however they characterize CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s multibillion-dollar wager on the computer systems that come after smartphones. They’re known as Orion, and so they’re Meta’s first pair of augmented actuality glasses.”
People Are Worried That AI Will Take Everyone’s Jobs. We’ve Been Here Before.
David Rotman | MIT Know-how Overview
“[Karl T. Compton’s 1938] essay concisely framed the controversy over jobs and technical progress in a manner that is still related, particularly given at this time’s fears over the impression of synthetic intelligence. …Whereas at this time’s applied sciences actually look very totally different from these of the Thirties, Compton’s article is a worthwhile reminder that worries over the way forward for jobs will not be new and are finest addressed by making use of an understanding of economics, moderately than conjuring up genies and monsters.”
How First Contact With Whale Civilization Could Unfold
Ross Andersen | The Atlantic
“One night time final winter, over drinks in downtown Los Angeles, the biologist David Gruber advised me that human beings would possibly sometime discuss to sperm whales. …Gruber stated that they hope to document billions of the animals’ clicking sounds with floating hydrophones, after which to decipher the sounds’ which means utilizing neural networks. I used to be instantly intrigued. For years, I had been toiling away on a e book in regards to the seek for cosmic civilizations with whom we’d talk. This one was proper right here on Earth.”
8 Google Employees Invented Modern AI. Here’s the Inside Story
Steven Levy | Wired
“They met by probability, obtained hooked on an thought, and wrote the ‘Transformers’ paper—probably the most consequential tech breakthrough in current historical past. …Approaching its seventh anniversary, the ‘Consideration’ paper has attained legendary standing. The authors began with a thriving and bettering expertise—quite a lot of AI known as neural networks—and made it into one thing else: a digital system so highly effective that its output can really feel just like the product of an alien intelligence.”
The Best Qubits for Quantum Computing Might Just Be Atoms
Philip Ball | Quanta
“Within the seek for probably the most scalable {hardware} to make use of for quantum computer systems, qubits product of particular person atoms are having a breakout second. …’We imagine we will pack tens and even a whole lot of 1000’s in a centimeter-scale gadget,’ [Mark Saffman, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin] stated.”
Why AI Could Eat Quantum Computing’s Lunch
Edd Gent | MIT Know-how Overview
“The size and complexity of quantum techniques that may be simulated utilizing AI is advancing quickly, says Giuseppe Carleo, a professor of computational physics on the Swiss Federal Institute of Know-how (EPFL). …Given the tempo of current advances, a rising variety of researchers are actually asking whether or not AI might clear up a considerable chunk of probably the most attention-grabbing issues in chemistry and supplies science earlier than large-scale quantum computer systems turn into a actuality.”
The Very First Jet Suit Grand Prix Takes Off in Dubai
Mike Hanlon | New Atlas
“A brand new sport kicked away this month when the primary ever jet-suit race was held in Dubai. Every racer wore an array of seven 130-hp jet engines (two on every arm and three within the backpack for a complete 1,050 hp) which are managed by hand-throttles. After that, the pilots use the three thrust vectors to realize raise, transfer ahead and attempt to keep above floor degree whereas negotiating the course…sooner than anybody else.“
What If Your AI Girlfriend Hated You?
Kate Knibbs | Wired
“It appears as if we’ve arrived for the time being within the AI hype cycle the place no thought is simply too bonkers to launch. This week’s eyebrow-raising AI mission is a brand new twist on the romantic chatbot—a cellular app known as AngryGF, which presents its customers the uniquely disagreeable expertise of getting yelled at by way of messages from a faux particular person.”
Pocket-Sized AI Models Could Unlock a New Era of Computing
Will Knight | Wired
“When ChatGPT was launched in November 2023, it might solely be accessed by means of the cloud as a result of the mannequin behind it was downright huge. Immediately I’m operating a equally succesful AI program on a Macbook Air, and it isn’t even heat. The shrinkage exhibits how quickly researchers are refining AI fashions to make them leaner and extra environment friendly. It additionally exhibits how going to ever bigger scales isn’t the one solution to make machines considerably smarter.”
On Self-Driving, Waymo Is Playing Chess While Tesla Plays Checkers
Timothy B. Lee | Ars Technica
“Many Tesla followers see [limitations like remote operators and avoiding freeways] as indicators that Waymo is headed for a technological useless finish. …However I predict that when Tesla begins its driverless transition, it would notice that security requires a Waymo-style incremental rollout. So Tesla hasn’t discovered a distinct, higher solution to carry driverless expertise to market. Waymo is simply to date forward that it’s coping with challenges Tesla hasn’t even began enthusiastic about. Waymo is enjoying chess whereas Tesla continues to be enjoying checkers.”
World’s ‘Largest Solar Precinct’ Approved by Australian Government
Keiran Smith | Related Press
“Australian firm Solar Cable plans to construct a 12,400-hectare photo voltaic farm and transport electrical energy to the northern Australian metropolis of Darwin by way of an 800-kilometer (497-mile) overhead transmission line, then on to large-scale industrial prospects in Singapore by means of a 4,300-kilometer (2,672-mile) submarine cable. The Australia-Asia PowerLink mission goals to ship as much as six gigawatts of inexperienced electrical energy annually.”
The Year Is 2149 and…
Sean Michaels | MIT Know-how Overview
“Novelist Sean Michaels envisions what life will seem like 125 years from now: ‘The 12 months is 2149 and other people largely dwell their lives “on rails.” That’s what they name it, “on rails,” which is to dwell in keeping with the meticulous directions of software program. Software program is aware of most issues about you—what causes you anxiousness, what raises your endorphin ranges, the whole lot you’ve ever looked for, all over the place you’ve been. Software program sends messages in your behalf; it listens in on conversations. ‘”
Geothermal Energy Could Outperform Nuclear Power
Editorial Employees | The Economist
“How large might EGS [or enhanced geothermal systems] get? Sufficiently big. Although DOE analyses recommend solely round 40GW of standard geothermal useful resource exist in America, new methods develop the theoretical potential to a whopping 5,500GW throughout a lot of the nation, with robust potential in over half of states. The warmth is certainly on.”
Hidden ‘BopSpotter’ Microphone Is Constantly Surveilling San Francisco for Good Music
Jason Koebler | 404 Media
“Bop Spotter is a mission by technologist Riley Walz wherein he has hidden an Android cellphone in a field on a pole, rigged it to be photo voltaic powered, and has set it to document audio and periodically sends it to Shazam’s API to find out which songs persons are enjoying in public. Walz describes it as ShotSpotter, however for music. ‘That is tradition surveillance. Nobody notices, nobody consents. However it’s not about catching criminals,’ Walz’s web site reads. ‘It’s about catching vibes.’”
Two Students Created Face Recognition Glasses. It Wasn’t Hard.
Kashmir Hill | The New York Occasions
“Mr. Nguyen and a fellow Harvard scholar, Caine Ardayfio, had constructed glasses used for figuring out strangers in actual time, and had demonstrated them on two ‘actual folks’ on the subway station, together with Mr. Hoda, whose title was incorrectly transcribed within the video captions as ‘Vishit.’ Mr. Nguyen and Mr. Ardayfio, who’re each 21 and finding out engineering, stated in an interview that their system relied on extensively out there applied sciences.”
Electric Cars Could Last Much Longer Than You Think
James Morris | Wired
“Somewhat than having a shorter lifespan than inner combustion engines, EV batteries are lasting manner longer than anticipated, shocking even the automakers themselves. …A ten-year-old EV may very well be nearly pretty much as good as new, and a 20-year-old one nonetheless very usable. That may very well be one more disruption to an automotive business that depends on vehicles largely heading to the junkyard after 15 years.”
Picture Credit score: SpaceX
