Author: The Conversation

How would an artificial intelligence (AI) decide what to do? One common approach in AI research is called “reinforcement learning”. Reinforcement learning gives the software a “reward” defined in some way, and lets the software figure out how to maximise the reward. This approach has produced some excellent results, such as building software agents that defeat humans at games like chess and Go, or creating new designs for nuclear fusion reactors. However, we might want to hold off on making reinforcement learning agents too flexible and effective. As we argue in a new paper in AI Magazine, deploying a sufficiently advanced reinforcement learning agent…

Virgin Orbit, a US company which provides launch services for satellites, has announced that the first orbital space mission from the UK will blast off from Cornwall. The rocket, which will carry nine satellites, along with a launch aircraft have been delivered by an RAF C-17 – a military, heavy-lift strategic transport plane. This is primed to be a new phase for the UK and its involvement in space missions. It has the potential to bring tourism, economic benefits and jobs to the country. But is it a practical launch site and could we expect the likes of SpaceX or Nasa to…

Unlike the carefully scripted dialogue found in most books and movies, the language of everyday interaction tends to be messy and incomplete, full of false starts, interruptions and people talking over each other. From casual conversations between friends, to bickering between siblings, to formal discussions in a boardroom, authentic conversation is chaotic. It seems miraculous that anyone can learn language at all given the haphazard nature of the linguistic experience. For this reason, many language scientists – including Noam Chomsky, a founder of modern linguistics – believe that language learners require a kind of glue to rein in the unruly nature of everyday…

The big idea A new type of material can learn and improve its ability to deal with unexpected forces thanks to a unique lattice structure with connections of variable stiffness, as described in a new paper by my colleagues and me. The new material is a type of architected material, which gets its properties mainly from the geometry and specific traits of its design rather than what it is made out of. Take hook-and-loop fabric closures like Velcro, for example. It doesn’t matter whether it is made from cotton, plastic or any other substance. As long as one side is a fabric…

In the UK, a quarter of people who take their own lives were in contact with a health professional the previous week, and most have spoken to someone within the last month. Yet assessing patient suicide risk remains extremely difficult. There were 5,219 recorded deaths by suicide in England in 2021. While the suicide rate in England and Wales has declined by around 31% since 1981, the majority of this decrease happened before 2000. Suicide is three times more common in men than in women, and this gap has increased over time. A study conducted in October 2022, led by the Black Dog Institute in…

A Victorian coroner has cited problematic gaming behaviour as the driver of a mood disorder which contributed to the 2019 death of regional school boy Oliver Cronin. The findings from Coroner Paresa Spanos’s investigation were released on Wednesday. Spanos wrote in the report: In the 12 months preceding his death, Oliver appears to have become obsessed or addicted to video gaming. He became irrational and aggressive at times. His parents tried to restrict his access to the gaming devices in an attempt to temper this behaviour, but this led to an escalation in Oliver’s behaviour escalating to verbal and physical abuse against his…

You might suppose Hollywood is good at predicting the future. Indeed, Robert Wallace, head of the CIA’s Office of Technical Service and the US equivalent of MI6’s fictional Q, has recounted how Russian spies would watch the latest Bond movie to see what technologies might be coming their way. Hollywood’s continuing obsession with killer robots might therefore be of significant concern. The newest such movie is Apple TV’s forthcoming sex robot courtroom drama Dolly. I never thought I’d write the phrase “sex robot courtroom drama”, but there you go. Based on a 2011 short story by Elizabeth Bear, the plot concerns a billionaire killed by…

We all have to make hard decisions from time to time. The hardest of my life was whether or not to change research fields after my PhD, from fundamental physics to climate physics. I had job offers that could have taken me in either direction – one to join Stephen Hawking’s Relativity and Gravitation Group at Cambridge University, another to join the Met Office as a scientific civil servant. I wrote down the pros and cons of both options as one is supposed to do, but then couldn’t make up my mind at all. Like Buridan’s donkey, I was unable to move to either the…

When Facebook reinvented itself into Meta in October 2021, it was widely reported that Meta would be focusing on virtual reality (VR) by being at the forefront of the metaverse. But Meta has not given up on the world of bricks and mortar yet, as reflected by the company’s massive investment in augmented reality (AR) glasses. My research considers smart real estate and human-computer interactions in smart environments. Meta is only one among many companies betting that the future of physical space will involve merging with digital space, resulting in an augmentation of our reality. Apple, Google, Snap, Microsoft and a string of…

Recently, when scrolling through TikTok – purely for research purposes of course – we paused on a video “spilling the tea” (that means sharing the goss) on the hottest new social media app, BeReal. As social media researchers and teachers of Gen Z university students, we try to stay current with the latest trends. BeReal is a refreshing change from curated feeds – however, as with most new social media platforms, free speech issues may lurk just around the corner. @itvnews Why are people switching their social apps to BeReal? #learnontiktok #bereal #trending #genz #socialmedia ♬ original sound – itvnews A…