Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. The AI learns it is about to be switched off and goes rogue, disobeying commands and threatening its human operators. It’s a well-worn trope in science fiction. We see it in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s the premise of the Terminator series, in…
Cognitive readiness denotes a person’s ability to respond and adapt to the changes around them. This includes functions like keeping balance after tripping, or making the right decision in a challenging situation based on knowledge and past experiences. For military service members, cognitive readiness is crucial for their health and safety, as well as mission…
Back in the 17th century, German astronomer Johannes Kepler figured out the laws of motion that made it possible to accurately predict where our solar system’s planets would appear in the sky as they orbit the sun. But it wasn’t until decades later, when Isaac Newton formulated the universal laws of gravitation, that the underlying…
Matt Garman’s statement that firing junior developers because AI can do their work is the “dumbest thing I’ve ever heard” has almost achieved meme status. I’ve seen it quoted everywhere. We agree. It’s a point we’ve made many times over the past few years. If we eliminate junior developers, where will the seniors come from?…
The following is Part 3 of 3 from Addy Osmani’s original post “Context Engineering: Bringing Engineering Discipline to Parts.” Part 1 can be found here and Part 2 here. Context engineering is crucial, but it’s just one component of a larger stack needed to build full-fledged LLM applications—alongside things like control flow, model orchestration, tool integration,…
In October, a new academic conference will debut that’s unlike any other. Agents4Science is a one-day online event that will encompass all areas of science, from physics to medicine. All of the work shared will have been researched, written, and reviewed primarily by AI, and will be presented using text-to-speech technology. The conference is the…
Everyone is talking about agents: single agents and, increasingly, multi-agent systems. What kind of applications will we build with agents, and how will we build with them? How will agents communicate with each other effectively? Why do we need a protocol like A2A to specify how they communicate? Join Ben Lorica as he talks with…
Google has just released a technical report detailing how much energy its Gemini apps use for each query. In total, the median prompt—one that falls in the middle of the range of energy demand—consumes 0.24 watt-hours of electricity, the equivalent of running a standard microwave for about one second. The company also provided average estimates…
I remember once flying to a meeting in another country and working with a group of people to annotate a proposed standard. The convener projected a Word document on the screen and people called out proposed changes, which were then debated in the room before being adopted or adapted, added or subtracted. I kid you…
As an acquisitions editor at O’Reilly, I spend considerable time tracking our authors’ digital footprints. Their social media posts, speaking engagements, and online thought leadership don’t just reflect expertise—they directly impact book sales and reveal promotional strategies worth replicating. Not surprisingly, some of our best-selling authors are social media mavens whose posting output is staggering….