For the first time, MIT sent an organized engagement to the global Conference of the Parties for the Convention on Biological Diversity, which this year was held Oct. 21 to Nov. 1 in Cali, Colombia. The 10 delegates to COP16 included faculty, researchers, and students from the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI), the Department of…
At the start of 2024, OpenAI’s rules for how armed forces might use its technology were unambiguous. The company prohibited anyone from using its models for “weapons development” or “military and warfare.” That changed on January 10, when The Intercept reported that OpenAI had softened those restrictions, forbidding anyone from using the technology to “harm…
Google DeepMind has unveiled an AI model that’s better at predicting the weather than the current best systems. The new model, dubbed GenCast, is published in Nature today. This is the second AI weather model that Google has launched in just the past few months. In July, it published details of NeuralGCM, a model that…
Creating realistic 3D models for applications like virtual reality, filmmaking, and engineering design can be a cumbersome process requiring lots of manual trial and error. While generative artificial intelligence models for images can streamline artistic processes by enabling creators to produce lifelike 2D images from text prompts, these models are not designed to generate 3D…
A startup called Exa is pitching a new spin on generative search. It uses the tech behind large language models to return lists of results that it claims are more on point than those from its rivals, including Google and OpenAI. The aim is to turn the internet’s vast and chaotic tangle of web pages…
This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get it in your inbox first, sign up here. President Biden first witnessed the capabilities of ChatGPT in 2022 during a demo from Arati Prabhakar, the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, in the oval office. That demo set…
The deep neural network models that power today’s most demanding machine-learning applications have grown so large and complex that they are pushing the limits of traditional electronic computing hardware. Photonic hardware, which can perform machine-learning computations with light, offers a faster and more energy-efficient alternative. However, there are some types of neural network computations that…
Generative AI has taken off. Since the introduction of ChatGPT in November 2022, businesses have flocked to large language models (LLMs) and generative AI models looking for solutions to their most complex and labor-intensive problems. The promise that customer service could be turned over to highly trained chat platforms that could recognize a customer’s problem and…
A Japanese publishing startup is using Anthropic’s flagship large language model Claude to help translate manga into English, allowing the company to churn out a new title for a Western audience in just a few days rather than the 2-3 months it would take a team of humans. Orange was founded by Shoko Ugaki, a…
President Biden’s administration will end within two months, and likely to depart with him is Arati Prabhakar, the top mind for science and technology in his cabinet. She has served as Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy since 2022 and was the first to demonstrate ChatGPT to the president in…