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H+ Weekly - Issue #340
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This week - DeepMind's answer to GPT-3; the most advanced human-shaped robot ever; a drone gets bird-like legs; AI training is outpacing Moore's Law; and more!
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Language Modelling at Scale: Gopher, Ethical considerations, and Retrieval
DeepMind presents Gopher - their own language model and their response to OpenAI's GPT-3 and similar AIs. In this blogpost, DeepMind shows what this 280 billion parameter language model can do, address ethical and social risks with these kinds of AIs and describe their Internet-scale retrieval mechanism.
AI Training Is Outpacing Moore’s Law
The gains to AI training performance since MLPerf benchmarks began “managed to dramatically outstrip Moore’s Law,” says David Kanter, executive director of the MLPerf parent organization MLCommons.
The Movement to Hold AI Accountable Gains More Steam
As automated decision-making systems impact our lives more and more, advocates of legally requiring AI to be able "to explain itself" gets more support. In New York, City Council last month adopted a law requiring audits of algorithms used by employers in hiring or promotion. In Washington, DC, members of Congress are drafting a bill that would require businesses to evaluate automated decision-making systems. Similar initiatives are getting more momentum across the world, too.
ROBOTICS
Jet-Powered Robot Prepares for Liftoff
Italian roboticists published a paper titled Momentum-Based Extended Kalman Filter for Thrust Estimation on Flying Multibody Robots which describes their experiments with a humanoid robot equipped with jet engines and taught balance thrust. The robot hasn't flown yet and I hope it is a matter of time until it flies.
► Ameca Humanoid (0:41)
Engineered Arts presents Ameca - "the world’s most advanced human shaped robot representing the forefront of human-robotics technology", as they state on their website.
► Stanford engineers create perching bird-like robot (2:50)
Inspired by a peregrine falcon, an engineer from Stanford built bird-like legs and attached them to a drone enabling it to perch and carry objects like a bird.
Pompeii’s Ruins to Be Reconstructed by Robot
Over the next few months, researchers will be building and training robots to help archaeologists piece together Roman frescos uncovered from the ruins of Pompei. It is an interesting challenge - the robot will need to solve a 2000-year old jigsaw puzzle and figure out how the fresco looked like before it was destroyed.
BIOTECHNOLOGY
Rapid Rise and Promising Future of CRISPR Cell and Gene Therapies
Synthego prepared this handy exploring the history of cell and gene therapies, the CRISPR revolution, the current state of play and recent boom in the CRISPR cell and gene therapy field, and the future of these life-changing treatments.
Study identifies factor in ‘young blood’ that helps rejuvenate aged mouse muscle
Do you want to have vampires? Because that's how you get vampires. A new study showed that giving older mice blood of the young mice helped regenerate their muscles.
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Conrad Gray (@conradthegray)
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