Reinforcement learning techniques could be the keys to integrating robots — who use machine learning to output more than words — into the real world ..read more

Technology that creates deepfake bots of dead loved ones may need safeguards, experts warn ..read more

Using machine learning, researchers trained Emo to make facial expressions in sync with humans ..read more

New research used the game Overcooked to show how offline reinforcement learning algorithms could teach bots to collaborate with — or manipulate — us ..read more

Apart from the northward advance of killer bees in the 1980s, nothing has struck as much fear into the hearts of headline writers as the ascent of artificial intelligence. Ever since the computer Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997, humans have faced the prospect that their supremacy over machines is merely temporary. Back then, though, it was easy to show that AI failed miserably in many realms of human expertise, from diagnosing disease to transcribing speech. But then about a decade ago or so, computer brains — known as neural networks — received an IQ boost ..read more

Foodies of the future may be dining on beefed-up rice. A new lab-grown meat product merges rice grains with cow cells, scientists report February 14 in Matter. The rice acts as a scaffold that supports the growth of fat or muscle cells. Together, the ingredients form a rice-meat hybrid that steams up to a pinkish-brown mash. It tasted delicious, “nutty and a little sweet,” says Sohyeon Park, a chemical engineer at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. Lab-made beefy rice isn’t ready for the dinner table yet, she says, but it could one day offer a more sustainable way to eat meat.  Curr ..read more

The AI program was way less cute than a real baby. But like a baby, it learned its first words by seeing objects and hearing words. After being fed dozens of hours of video of a growing tot exploring his world, an artificial intelligence model could more often than not associate words — ball, cat and car, among others — with their images, researchers report in the Feb. 2 Science. This AI feat, the team says, offers a new window into the mysterious ways that humans learn words (SN: 4/5/17). Some ideas of language learning hold that humans are born with specialized knowledge that allows us to so ..read more

A new device makes it possible for a person with an amputation to sense temperature with a prosthetic hand. The technology is a step toward prosthetic limbs that restore a full range of senses, improving both their usefulness and acceptance by those who wear them.   A team of researchers in Italy and Switzerland attached the device, called ”MiniTouch,” to the prosthetic hand of a 57-year-old man named Fabrizio, who has an above-the-wrist amputation. In tests, the man could identify cold, cool and hot bottles of liquid with perfect accuracy; tell the difference between plastic, glass and c ..read more

When astronauts land on Mars, a couple of decades from now, perhaps, they’ll need to find a way to communicate — with each other, with equipment on and around the planet, and with mission control back on Earth. Despite living so far from home, they’ll no doubt want to connect with loved ones, keep their playlists up-to-date or stream the latest episodes of their favorite shows. But setting up a Wi-Fi connection to Earth’s internet won’t be an option. Earth is simply too far away — around 55 million to 400 million kilometers, depending on where the planets are in their orbits. Spacefarers will ..read more

Nuts and Bolts Roma Agrawal W.W. Norton & Co., $29.99 What do you get when you pose a challenge, weave in a cast of characters driven by hunger, frustration, curiosity, compassion or maybe even a little spite, and throw in a few twists and turns? A book about engineering. In Nuts and Bolts, structural engineer Roma Agrawal offers an updated twist on the list of six basic machines — the lever, wheel and axle, pulley, inclined plane, wedge and screw — that Renaissance scientists and engineers identified as fundamental to that era’s technology. Seven elements, Agrawal argues, “form the basis ..read more