Waymo's latest research shows its self-driving cars have 80-90% fewer accidents than human drivers, and in future could possibly save 34,000 U.S. lives annually if they replaced all human-driven cars.
Waymo's peer-reviewed study in Traffic Injury Prevention, PDF, 58 pages found its self-driving cars safely drove 56.7 million miles across four U.S. cities without a human safety driver. With 80-90% level reduction for different types of accidents.
56.7 million miles is a tiny fraction of the overall US miles driven, only about 0.002%. Current self-driving AI wouldn't be as good for all road types and conditions. But it will get there, the only question is when. When it does that 80-90% reduction in accidents means 34,000 lives saved in the US, and hundreds of thousands globally - every single year.
The day is going to come where the public conversation is going to be about banning human driving, like no-seatbelts and indoor smoking before it. I've a suspicion the same people who said losing a few hundred thousand lives to 'herd
A new crowd-trained way to develop LLMs over the internet could shake up the AI industry with a giant 100 billion-parameter model later this year.
The AI jobs crisis is here, now: It's not coming, it has already arrived.
Unless they are trained otherwise, AI will pick up all the biases in its training data. So far, as that's the content of the entire internet, I'm not surprised at this outcome. I'd guess AI training is the next battleground for the woke/anti-DEI crowd, so they can preserve these prejudices.
It often tends to be forgotten, but solar energy has a twin - renewable lunar energy - harnessing the power of the tides. Not everywhere in the world is suited to it. However, this company says there's enough of it to meet 10% of global electricity demand. Some places are especially well suited,, and they point out Alaska could get 100% of its electricity from tidal power.
A Swedish company deploying underwater tidal kites in the Faroe Islands, says 500 of them would supply 100% of Alaska's electricity needs.
For sure, I find it very useful for those purposes. But I think it says something significant so many people are using it for companionship.
This is a tentative result, it's only one patient, and large scale trials would be needed to confirm it. Still, if it is confirmed it's a significant breakthrough. HuidaGene is also working on treatments for Huntington's Disease, Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD among other diseases. It's also working on various Ophthalmology related conditions.
HuidaGene Therapeutics used CRISPR gene-editing (Cas13) to modify genes in the brain for the first time, successfully treating a 9-year-old with MECP2 duplication syndrome.
New research shows the top reason people are using generative AI is for therapy and companionship.
The Complexity As To How and Why People Use Generative Artificial Intelligence Based on the Latest Research
New York wants to use AI and cameras to detect subway crime before it happens.
MTA Chief Security Officer Michael Kemper said (via The Gothamist) that the agency is working with AI companies to develop the software that can analyze real-time subway...
I pretty sure that is the tariffs, this doesn't look like its replacing 20,000 just yet.
That figure is up from 200,000 in February, before Waymo opened in Austin and expanded in the San Francisco Bay Area in March.
UPS in Talks With Startup Figure AI to Deploy Humanoid Robots.
Used EV batteries could power vehicles, houses or even towns if their manufacturers share vital data.
Around the world, more and more electric vehicles are hitting the road. Last year, more than 17 million battery-electric and hybrid vehicles were sold. Early forecasts suggest this year's figure might reach 20 million. Nearly 20% of all cars sold today are electric.
The big caveat here is that 'cured in lab tests' and a viable human treatment are two different things, and sadly the former doesn't always lead to the latter. Still, this points to what may work in the future. Just how much of our tissue could be replaced by brand new 3-d printed tissue?
Carnegie Mellon researchers have used FRESH 3D bioprinting to 3D-print living tissue that has cured Type 1 diabetes in lab tests.
We tend to focus on the many bad effects of AI, but its doing, and will do, plenty of good too.
That's odd. I see it all. Here's an archive.ph version.
We need to add a 4th law of robotics
Explore UBI's true cost, inflation concerns, political hurdles, and how it could reshape society in an AI-driven future, according to Scott Santens.
A recent study published by political scientists at Freie Universität Berlin, Christopher Olk and Louis Miebs, indicates that the global cryptocurrency system has been undergoing significant transformations. The crypto system, which was originally intended as an alternative to currencies that depend...
A controversial study found that AI LLMs on Reddit persuaded users at rates three to six times higher than humans.
👀Today’s AIs are already hyper persuasive. A controversial study where LLMs tried to persuade users on Reddit found that: “Notably, all our treatments surpass human performance substantially, achieving persuasive rates between three and six times higher than the human baseline.”
Thanks to AI, half of all searches don’t actually generate any kind of web traffic for the website that produced the search results.
As consumers rely more on AI-based search and summaries, how will brands adapt their strategies?
General Motors is testing Kepler K2 humanoid robots at its Shanghai factory.
Kepler’s K2 humanoid robot debuts at SAIC-GM automotive plant, starting real-world testing in quality checks and assembly operations.
There's a few different efforts like this. DeepMind have another one. I follow these types of developments as much as possible, because I think robotics is soon going to take off thanks to recent advances in AI.
Yeah they mention it can reduce stress on joints, for people with arthritis and other conditions this could be a lot more than a hiking toy.
I've no relationship with the company! In fairness, it does seem to work. I posted it as it seemed quite cool.
New research from Virginia Tech suggests that low-intensity electrical pulse therapy could enhance the immune system’s ability to combat tumors by modifying the tumor environment.
High-intensity electrical pulses have been medically used to destroy tumors while sparing healthy tissue. But lower-intensity pulses may have a different effect—they reshape the battlefield, making tumors more vulnerable to the body's own defenses.
Researchers at Cornell University have developed RHyME (Retrieval for Hybrid Imitation under Mismatched Execution), a novel AI-powered system that significantly enhances robotic learning.
Cornell University researchers have developed a new robotic framework powered by artificial intelligence—called RHyME (Retrieval for Hybrid Imitation under Mismatched Execution)—that allows robots to learn tasks by watching a single how-to video.
Hypershell X is a $999 AI-powered exoskeleton that says it makes hiking, running and walking 30% easier.
The Hypershell X helps redistribute weight and relieve strain on your muscles, so you can carry heavier loads with less effort.
I disagree. There are definitely people who sincerely believe in AI 'consciousness'. Ironically, they are usually the first to throw about terms like 'woo woo' in any discussions about human consciousness.
When it gets to the point AI is self-recursively improving itself, is this a version of 'life' as we know it? Perhaps with humans as the ultimate parent? In a sense those AIs would be our descendents.
My problem with Big Tech leading these efforts, is that they are so often anti-human welfare, why would we trust them with the issue of anyone else's? Big Tech's desire to have zero regulation is an expression of how little concern they have for other humans. The ease with which all the Big Tech firms help the military slaughter tens of thousands of civilians is another. I can't help thinking they'll use any effort to elevate AI 'welfare', to harm the interests of inconvenient humans, which means most of us to them.
Corresponding author of the paper Dr Ana Angelova Volponi, King’s College London, said: “As the field progresses, the integration of such innovative techniques holds the potential to revolutionise dental care, offering sustainable and effective solutions for tooth repair and regeneration.
Growing a tooth is one thing, I wonder how hard integrating it into a mouth will be. These teeth need to integrate with nerves and blood vessels.
They mention people will own them outright after 6 years. So it's free electricity from that point onwards.
This is an innovative model. They are working with people on low incomes, renters and apartment dwellers. All people cut out of traditional rooftop solar. People will be paying $35 a month for two free-standing 7 by 4 feet panels. There doesn't seem to be any upfront cost, though a qualified electrician needs to install them.
If those two panels generate more than $35 worth of electricity a month, then this seems like a no brainer.
Yes.
There are probably quite a few inflection points coming, and that is one of them.
I think another is when they are capable of most unskilled work (supermarket shelf stacking, cleaning, etc), but cost less to employ than humans paid Western-country minimum wages.
Humanoid robots, like all technologies, will be adopted on an s-curve. First, there will be just a few of them, and then rapidly they will be everywhere, as their adoption heads for market saturation.
Are humanoid robots ready for their s-curve take off phase? Seeing Xpeng's IRON humanoid in action might make you think they are. Xpeng say they expect to start mass-producing these next year, and say they are investing $13.8 billion to scale production.
IRON's specs look impressive. Xpeng says it operates at 3,000 TOPS of processing power with their Turing AI chip. For reference, Microsoft's baseline for an AI PC is 40 TOPS (Trillions of Operations Per Second).
The world is full of economic alliances with acronyms. The EU, ASEAN, and the G7 are just some. The EU functions more as a nation-state, while most are much looser. The BRICS alliance, founded in 2009 by Brazil, Russia, India, and China (hence the name) has significant differences from the others.
Its primary goal is to create an alternative to the existing global economic order dominated by the West/US. In particular, it seeks to create alternatives to the dollar-dominated world trade system, SWIFT interbank payment system, and IMF & World Bank.
So far, it hasn't made huge progress with this agenda. The US dollar's role in global trade is firmly embedded. The only other currency that comes close in volume/importance is the Euro. As China doesn't allow its currency to float freely or have open capital markets, the Chinese Renminbi can't currently replace the dollar's international role.
But is this about to change? The current US administration rejects much of the old global economic order. Ironic, considering it originally created it. Since 2009 China and Russia have even more reasons to want a global financial alternative the US doesn't have a role in. Maybe the US is helping them to create it?
Alien life on exoplanets is in the news after possible biosignatures were found on K2-18b, 124 light-years away. The gas dimethyl disulfide hints at life, but it's not proof.
A new coronagraph design could boost the search for alien microbes by improving exoplanet atmosphere analysis. Detecting life through atmospheric chemistry will likely be how we first confirm it.
There are several space telescopes from ESA, NASA and China due for launch in the next ten years that will improve on current abilities. However, it's possible definitive proof may even come before then with current space telescopes.
The James Webb Space Telescope detected the dimethyl disulfide on K2-18b, and it is lined up to look at other alien-life candidate exoplanets in the coming months and years.