Author: The Conversation

A parent asked a question in a private Facebook group in April 2024: Does anyone with a child who is both gifted and disabled have any experience with New York City public schools? The parent received a seemingly helpful answer that laid out some characteristics of a specific school, beginning with the context that “I have a child who is also 2e,” meaning twice exceptional. On a Facebook group for swapping unwanted items near Boston, a user looking for specific items received an offer of a “gently used” Canon camera and an “almost-new portable air conditioning unit that I never…

If you search “shrimp Jesus” on Facebook, you might encounter dozens of images of artificial intelligence (AI) generated crustaceans meshed in various forms with a stereotypical image of Jesus Christ. Some of these hyper-realistic images have garnered more than 20,000 likes and comments. So what exactly is going on here? The “dead internet theory” has an explanation: AI and bot-generated content has surpassed the human-generated internet. But where did this idea come from, and does it have any basis in reality? What is the dead internet theory? The dead internet theory essentially claims that activity and content on the internet,…

AlphaFold 3, unveiled to the world on May 9, is the latest version of an algorithm designed to predict the structures of proteins – vital molecules used by all life – from the “instruction code” in their building blocks. Predicting protein structures and the way they interact with other molecules has been one of the biggest problems in biology. Yet, AI developer Google DeepMind has gone some way to solving it in the last few years. This new version of the AI system features improved function and accuracy over its predecessors. Like the next release in a video game franchise, structural biologists – and most recently…

OpenAI’s new generative Sora tool has sparked lively technology discussions over the past week, generating both enthusiasm and concern among fans and critics. Sora is a text-to-video model that significantly advances the integration of deep learning, natural language processing and computer vision to transform textual prompts into detailed and coherent life-like video content. In contrast to previous text-to-video technologies, like Meta’s Make-A-Video, Sora is able to overcome limitations related to the type of visual data it can interpret, video length and resolution. From what OpenAI has demonstrated, Sora can generate videos of various lengths, from short clips to full-minute narratives, and in high definition, accommodating a wide range of creative…

We might soon see AI step up to the next level, with impending upgrades to artificial intelligence (AI) systems developed by OpenAI and Meta. OpenAI’s GPT-5 will be the new “engine” within the AI chatbot ChatGPT, while Meta’s upgrade will be named Llama 3. Among other things, the current version of Llama powers chatbots on Meta’s social media platforms. Statements to the media by executives at both OpenAI and Meta suggest that some ability to plan ahead will be incorporated into these upgraded systems. But how exactly will this innovation change the capabilities of AI chatbots? Imagine you are driving from home to work and want to select…

OpenAI’s new “strategic partnership” and licensing agreement with the Financial Times (FT) follows similar deals between the US tech company and publishers such as Associated Press, German media giant Axel Springer and French newspaper Le Monde. OpenAI will licence the FT’s content to use as training data for its products, including successors to its AI chatbot ChatGPT. The AI systems developed by OpenAI are exposed to this data to help them improve their performance in terms of use of language, context and accuracy. The FT will receive an undisclosed payment as part of the deal. This is happening against a global backdrop of legal…

Earlier this week OpenAI launched GPT-4o (“o” for “omni”), a new version of the artificial intelligence (AI) system powering the popular ChatGPT chatbot. GPT-4o is promoted as a step towards more natural engagement with AI. According to the demonstration video, it can have voice conversations with users in near real-time, exhibiting human-like personality and behaviour. This emphasis on personality is likely to be a point of contention. In OpenAI’s demos, GPT-4o sounds friendly, empathetic and engaging. It tells “spontaneous” jokes, giggles, flirts and even sings. The AI system also shows it can respond to users’ body language and emotional tone. Launched with a streamlined…

Physicists consider black holes one of the most mysterious objects that exist. Ironically, they’re also considered one of the simplest. For years, physicists like me have been looking to prove that black holes are more complex than they seem. And a newly approved European space mission called LISA will help us with this hunt. Research from the 1970s suggests that you can comprehensively describe a black hole using only three physical attributes – their mass, charge and spin. All the other properties of these massive dying stars, like their detailed composition, density and temperature profiles, disappear as they transform into a black hole. That is how simple…

Many people understand the concept of bias at some intuitive level. In society, and in artificial intelligence systems, racial and gender biases are well documented. If society could somehow remove bias, would all problems go away? The late Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, who was a key figure in the field of behavioural economics, argued in his last book that bias is just one side of the coin. Errors in judgments can be attributed to two sources: bias and noise. Bias and noise both play important roles in fields such as law, medicine and financial forecasting, where human judgments are central. In our work as computer and information scientists, my…

At the weekend, millions of people around the world were treated to a mesmerising display of the aurora borealis and aurora australis, better known as the northern and southern lights. The lights, usually seen in crown-like regions surrounding the Earth’s poles, were pushed to mid-latitudes by heightened activity from the Sun. The same geomagnetic storms causing the auroras can cause havoc with our planet’s human-made infrastructure. These storms, caused by high energy particles from the Sun hitting our atmosphere, have the potential to knock out electrical grids and satellites. So what were the impacts of this recent burst of stormy space weather? Around May 8, an…