John Carmack steps down at Oculus to pursue AI passion project ‘before I get too old’

Legendary coder John Carmackis leaving Facebook’s Oculus after 6 years to focus on a personal project — no less than the creation of Artificial General Intelligence, or “Strong AI.” He’ll remain attached to the company in a “Consulting CTO” position, but will be spending all his time working on, perhaps, the AI that finally surpasses and destroys humanity.
AGI or strong AI is the concept of an AI that learns much the way humans do, and as such is not as

Hi-tech ‘golden triangle’ of Oxford, Cambridge and London risks deeper regional inequalities, says thinktankInvestments in new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) are “profoundly skewed” towards the “golden triangle” of Oxford, Cambridge and London, and risk deepening existing regional inequalities in England, according to research.Ministers have promised to level up the country, narrowing the gap between the best- and worst-performing areas, but

While AI tools have been used by some translators to support their work, three-quarters of those surveyed believe the emerging technology will negatively impact their future incomeMore than a third of translators have lost work due to generative AI, a survey by the Society of Authors (SoA) has found. More than four in 10 translators said that their income has decreased because of generative AI, while more than three-quarters believe the emerging technology will negatively affect their future inc

In a new video posted today, Boston Dynamics is sending off its hydraulic Atlas humanoid robot. “For almost a decade,” the video description reads, “Atlas has sparked our imagination, inspired the next generations of roboticists, and leapt over technical barriers in the field. Now it’s time for our hydraulic Atlas robot to kick back and relax.”Hydraulic Atlas has certainly earned some relaxation; Boston Dynamics has been absolutely merciless with its humanoid resear

Workers in Africa have been exploited first by being paid a pittance to help make chatbots, then by having their own words become AI-ese. Plus, new AI gadgets are coming for your smartphones• Don’t get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the full article hereWe’re witnessing the birth of AI-ese, and it’s not what anyone could have guessed. Let’s delve deeper.If you’ve spent enough time using AI assistants, you’ll have noticed a certain quality

Workers in Africa have been exploited first by being paid a pittance to help make chatbots, then by having their own words become AI-ese. Plus, new AI gadgets are coming for your smartphones• Don’t get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the full article hereWe’re witnessing the birth of AI-ese, and it’s not what anyone could have guessed. Let’s delve deeper.If you’ve spent enough time using AI assistants, you’ll have noticed a certain quality

Firms such as Serco and Virgin Active pull facial recognition and fingerprint scan systems used to monitor staff attendanceDozens of companies including national leisure centre chains are reviewing or pulling facial recognition technology and fingerprint scanning used to monitor staff attendance after a clampdown by the UK’s data watchdog.In February, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) ordered a Serco subsidiary to stop using biometrics to monitor the attendance of staff at

If the experience of robot-served fast food dining is any indication, the future of sex robots is going to be very unpleasantOn 1 April, the same day California’s new $20 hourly minimum wage for fast food workers went into effect, a new restaurant opened in north-east Los Angeles that was conspicuously light on human staff.CaliExpress by Flippy claims to be the world’s first fully autonomous restaurant, using a system of AI-powered robots to churn out fast food burgers and fries. A s

No one should be surprised that artificial intelligence is following a well-worn and entirely predictable financial arc “Are we really in an AI bubble,” asked a reader of last month’s column about the apparently unstoppable rise of Nvidia, “and how would we know?” Good question, so I asked an AI about it and was pointed to Investopedia, which is written by humans who know about this stuff. It told me that a bubble goes through five stages – rather as Elisabeth

Scientists say an overreliance on sight and sound is having a detrimental effect on people’s wellbeing and that our devices should deliver a multisensory experience“Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain’t heard nothing yet.” So went the first line of audible dialogue in a feature film, 1927’s The Jazz Singer. It was one of the first times that mass media had conveyed the sight and sound of a scene together, and the audience was enthralled.There have been improvement

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.
RoboCup German Open: 17–21 April 2024, KASSEL, GERMANYAUVSI XPONENTIAL 2024: 22–25 April 2024, SAN DIEGOEurobot Open 2024: 8–11 May 2024, LA ROCHE-SUR-YON, FRANCEICRA 2024: 13–17 May 2024, YOKOHAMA, JAPANRoboCup 2024: 17–22 J

Plug in some prompts and the ‘ChatGPT for music’ whips up a song in seconds – if you don’t mind slightly silly lyricsHeralded as the ChatGPT for music, Suno AI is the latest iteration of generative artificial intelligence to flood social feeds, wowing users with its (ahem) lyrical prowess.Plug in the musical style you want, a genre and a prompt for lyrics and Suno can spit out a full song for you in a matter of seconds.Coffee, you’re my fuel for the soul (oh-oh)
Wit

We tend to think about hopping robots from the ground up. That is, they start on the ground, and then, by hopping, incorporate a aerial phase into their locomotion. But there’s no reason why aerial robots can’t approach hopping from the other direction, by adding a hopping ground phase to flight. Hopcopter is the first robot that I’ve ever seen give this a try, and it’s remarkably effective, combining a tiny quadrotor with a springy leg to hop hop hop all over the place.S

Last December, the AI Institute announced that it was opening an office in Zurich as a European counterpart to its Boston headquarters and recruited Marco Hutter to helm the office. Hutter also runs the Robotic Systems Lab at ETH Zurich, arguably best known as the origin of the ANYmal quadruped robot (but it also does tons of other cool stuff).We’re doing our best to keep close tabs on the institute, because it’s one of a vanishingly small number of places that currently exist where

Last December, the AI Institute announced that it was opening an office in Zurich as a European counterpart to its Boston headquarters, and recruited Marco Hutter to helm the office. Hutter also runs the Robotic Systems Lab at ETH Zurich, arguably best known as the origin of the ANYmal quadruped robot (but they also do tons of other cool stuff).We’re doing our best to keep close tabs on the institute, because it’s one of a vanishingly small number of places that currently exist where

Concentration of power among just six big tech companies ‘could lead to winner takes all dynamics’Just six major technology companies are at the heart of the AI sector through an “interconnected web” of more than 90 investments and partnerships links, the UK’s competition regulator has warned, sparking increased concern about the anti-competitive nature of the technology.Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the Competition and Markets Authority, said AI foundation mode

Video of official from Unit 8200 in February 2023 raises questions about Israel’s denials of use of AI in GazaA video has surfaced of a senior official at Israel’s cyber intelligence agency, Unit 8200, talking last year about the use of machine learning “magic powder” to help identify Hamas targets in Gaza.The footage raises questions about the accuracy of a recent statement about use of artificial intelligence (AI) by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), which said it &ldqu

AI to be used by researchers to scour documents for information on women omitted from chronicles written by men about menFour centuries ago Dublin had an official city “scavenger” who was tasked with running sanitation teams to clear streets of human and animal waste. In return, the scavenger earned tolls from shopkeepers and traders.It could have worked well, except the contractor decided to cut costs and maximise profits by deploying just two carts rather than six. Dung piled up an

Project will analyse multitude of documents to uncover female Irish experiences from 1500 to 1700Four centuries ago Dublin had an official city “scavenger” who was tasked with running sanitation teams to clear streets of human and animal waste. In return, the scavenger earned tolls from shopkeepers and traders.It could have worked well except the contractor decided to cut costs and maximise profits by deploying just two carts rather than six. Dung piled up and the city stank. This up

This is how these bosses get rich: by hiding underpaid, unrecognised human work behind the trappings of technologyIn 2021, when Amazon launched its first “just walk out” grocery store in the UK in Ealing, west London, this newspaper reported on the cutting-edge technologies that Amazon said made it all possible: facial-recognition cameras, sensors on the shelves and, of course, “artificial intelligence”. The first customers queued outside, excited to experience the future

Consumers Health Forum calls on Australian government to address ‘significant safety concerns’ about prescribing without any conversation with patientGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastAustralia’s health regulator is fielding complaints about the use of artificial intelligence during telehealth prescribing, and patients being issued with prescriptions without ever speaking with a doctor.A spokesperson for the Australian Health Practitioner

Rapid and resourceful technological improvisation has long been a mainstay of warfare, but the war in Ukraine is taking it to a new level. This improvisation is most conspicuous in the ceaselessly evolving struggle between weaponized drones and electronic warfare, a cornerstone of this war.Weaponized civilian first-person-view (FPV) drones began dramatically reshaping the landscape of the war in the summer of 2023. Prior to this revolution, various commercial drones played critical roles, primar