Afrigather What’s new: It’s tough to get robots to do issues in environments they’ve by no means seen earlier than. Sometimes, researchers want to coach them on new information for each new place they encounter, which might change into very time-consuming and costly. Now, researchers have developed a collection of AI fashions that educate robots to finish primary duties in new environment with out additional coaching or fine-tuning.
What they achieved:
The 5 AI fashions, referred to as robotic utility fashions, (RUMs), permit machines to finish 5 separate duties: opening doorways and drawers, and choosing up tissues, luggage and cylindrical objects in unfamiliar environments with a 90% success charge.
The large image: The workforce hope their findings will make it faster and simpler to show robots new expertise whereas serving to them operate inside previously-unseen domains. The strategy may make it simpler and cheaper to deploy robots in our houses in future. Learn the complete story.
—Rhiannon Williams
Flu season is coming—and so is the chance of an all-new chook flu
September will quickly be drawing to an in depth. The youngsters are again to high school, and people of us within the Northern Hemisphere are experiencing the thrill the tip of summer season brings: the cooling temperatures, the falling leaves, and, inevitably, the beginning of flu season.
Within the US, the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention recommends the flu vaccine for everybody over six months outdated. This 12 months, following the unfold of the “chook flu” H5N1 in cattle, the CDC is very urging dairy farm employees to get vaccinated.
The objective just isn’t solely to guard these employees from seasonal flu, however to guard us all from a doubtlessly extra devastating consequence: the emergence of a brand new type of flu that might set off one other pandemic. That hasn’t occurred but, however sadly, it’s wanting more and more attainable. Learn the complete story.
—Jessica Hamzelou
This story is from The Checkup, our weekly well being and biotech e-newsletter. Enroll to obtain it in your inbox each Thursday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the web to search out you immediately’s most enjoyable/necessary/scary/fascinating tales about know-how.
1 Issues aren’t wanting good for the Doomsday Glacier
It’s quickly melting, and its collapse seems imminent. (CNN)
+ If that occurred, it’d be a catastrophe for world sea ranges. (Bloomberg $)
+ However we nonetheless have time to affect how quickly the method unfolds. (New Scientist $)
+ Interventional measures have been in place for years. (MIT Know-how Overview)
2 Main social media corporations harvested huge quantities of person information
To the extent that it qualifies as mass surveillance. (NYT $)
+ The US FTC accused corporations of failing to guard person privateness. (WP $)
3 Apple’s new Mac replace is breaking cybersecurity methods
The Sequoia replace has tousled instruments from CrowdStrike and others. (TechCrunch)
+ The corporate’s suite of AI instruments is now accessible to check out in public betas. (The Verge)
4 Tech firms are pushing to weaken the EU AI Act
It’s a final ditch try and foyer for lighter regulation earlier than its codes of observe are finalized. (Reuters)
+ The AI Act is completed. Right here’s what is going to (and received’t) change. (MIT Know-how Overview)
5 To construct higher batteries, we’d like new anodes
Cathodes get all the eye, however different parts are equally necessary. (Economist $)
+ Three takeaways concerning the present state of batteries. (MIT Know-how Overview)
6 Most of us can’t afford to keep away from microplastics
Non-plastic alternate options are wildly costly. So what can we do? (The Atlantic $)
+ Microplastics are in all places. What does that imply for our immune methods? (MIT Know-how Overview)
7 Crypto thieves offered $243 million from a single individual
The creditor of a defunct buying and selling agency fell for a complicated rip-off. (CoinDesk)
8 Blue gentle glasses aren’t as helpful as they declare to be
You’re higher off taking common display screen breaks as a substitute. (WP $)
9 This supply robotic knocked over a passing pedestrian
The robotic really drove away, reversed and hit them for a second time. (404 Media)
+ The corporate has supplied the sufferer vouchers in compensation. (The Verge)
10 iPhones are nudging their house owners to test in with their exes
No thanks! (Insider $)
Quote of the day
“Self-regulation has been a failure.”
—The Federal Commerce Fee criticizes social media platforms and video streaming companies’ surveillance of their customers in a damning new report, the Verge stories.
The large story
Inside efficient altruism, the place the far future counts much more than the current
October 2022
Since its beginning within the late 2000s, efficient altruism has aimed to reply the query “How can these with means have probably the most impression on the world in a quantifiable means?”—and equipped strategies for calculating the reply.
It’s no shock that efficient altruisms’ concepts have lengthy confronted criticism for reflecting white Western saviorism, alongside an avoidance of structural issues in favor of summary math. And as believers pour even better quantities of cash into the motion’s more and more sci-fi beliefs, such fees are solely intensifying. Learn the complete story.
—Rebecca Ackermann
We are able to nonetheless have good issues
A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction to brighten up your day. (Received any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)+ Mmmm, doughnuts 🍩
+ Gents, step away from the chore jacket.
+ As soon as a spelling bee champion, all the time a spelling bee champion. However what do they do as soon as they grow old?
+ Why Hugh Grant is the right villain, really.
