Emerging Technologies Roundtable Resources

A glob of jelly can play Pong thanks to a basic kind of memory. "Researchers trained a polymer gel to play the computer game Pong by passing electric current through it and measuring the concentration of ions."

July 2024

Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500. "Calculating Empires is a large-scale research visualization exploring how technical and social structures co-evolved over five centuries. The aim is to view the contemporary period in a longer trajectory of ideas, devices, infrastructures, and systems of power. It traces technological patterns of colonialism, militarization, automation, and enclosure since 1500 to show how these forces still subjugate and how they might be unwound. By tracking these imperial pathways, Calculating Empires offers a means of seeing our technological present in a deeper historical context. And by investigating how past empires have calculated, we can see how they created the conditions of empire today."

Robots As A Service (RaaS)? GXO is installing Digit robots and Agility Arc, Agility’s cloud platform, to deploy and control Digit fleets as part of their Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) agreement.

Are you Team Mammoth? Stunning 3D chromosomes in frozen mammoths may help resurrect the beasts.

OpenAI's leaked AGI roadmap "Consider this: if ChatGPT can replace five copywriters, AGI could replace an entire company—from the C-suite to marketing and beyond. AGI is considered “Level 5” in OpenAI’s new internal classification system. According to a company insider, OpenAI recently laid out its blueprint for building AGI at an all-hands meeting this week. Here’s what it looks like:
Level 1: Chatbots: what we currently have.
Level 2: Reasoners: PhD-level problem solvers.
Level 3: Agents: AI systems that can spend days taking actions for you.
Level 4: Innovators: your AI version of Thomas Edison.
Level 5: Organizations: a single AI doing the job of a whole company.

Apparently, we're on the cusp of Level 2. OpenAI execs used the meeting to demonstrate a new research project that the company believes rises to human-like reasoning. "

June 2024

Long-Range EVs Now Cost Less Than the Average New Car in the US "“Darwinian” competition and a slew of new models helped electric cars with at least 300 miles of range reach another milestone in price parity."

We just broke ground on America’s first next-gen nuclear facility "...The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission accepted TerraPower’s construction permit application for review last month. It’s a step that sounds bureaucratic but is, in fact, a huge deal and the first time something like this has happened with a commercial non-light water reactor in more than 40 years."

Brazil is using ChatGPT to help fight its court battles "Companies aren’t the only ones teaming up with OpenAI for access to its generative platforms. It turns out, countries want a piece of the pie, too. In Brazil, ChatGPT is donning a lawyer’s robe and starting a career as a paralegal."

From the Project Drawdown newsletter, this link to the Potential Energy organization and their efforts to raise climate change awareness through changing how we talk about extreme weather events: "From record-breaking heat waves to supercharged hurricanes, climate change is leading to more frequent and intense extreme weather events. To raise awareness of the fact that fossil fuel pollution is driving this trend, the climate communications and marketing organization Potential Energy recommends shifting how we refer to such events from natural to unnatural disasters. The Unnatural Disasters: Resource Hub.

May 2024

Deepfakes and the Liar's Dividend: Watch out for false claims of deepfakes, and actual deepfakes, this election year.

World-first tooth-regrowing drug will be given to humans in September. Can Skele-Gro be far behind?

FAA issues final airworthiness criteria for Archer Midnight eVTOL "The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued the final airworthiness criteria for Archer Aviation’s piloted four-passenger Midnight eVTOL aircraft, the company has announced. The significant regulatory milestone means Archer has been provided with a pathway to achieving type certification for Midnight, and it comes two months after Joby Aviation became the first eVTOL developer to achieve the feat with the U.S. regulator."

Atlanta POV: Join thousands of Metro Atlantans and make your voice heard!

April 2024

Gartner foresees sizeable uptake for next-gen humanoid robots "[Gartner]...estimates that by 2027, 10% of all intralogistics smart robots sold will be next-generation humanoid robots. Gartner places various types of intelligent robotic platforms—both mobile and fixed position systems—under the intralogistics smart robot umbrella."

"...the prediction is meant as a thought-provoking planning assumption of what may soon be possible. The next generation of humanoid bots are from startups who are only now starting to have some companies test their bots in pilot programs."

"For Gartner’s 10% prediction to take hold, says Klappich, these robots will have to get faster in their movements, and their fine dexterity in terms of grasping and manipulating objects will need to further improve to open up more use cases."

Domestic Data Streamers: Synthetic Memories "Synthetic Memories is an expanding global research project with a view to harnessing AI to recreate memories of which there are no records, and preserve the unique identity of those they belong to. Ultimately, the goal is to improve quality of life for as many people as possible, and better understand our interconnected story through personal memories."

Hello, Electric Atlas "Boston Dynamics introduces a fully electric humanoid robot that... [is] powered by batteries and electric actuators, no more messy hydraulics. It exceeds human performance in terms of both strength and flexibility. And for the first time, Boston Dynamics is calling this humanoid robot a product. "

Major U.S. newspapers sue OpenAI, Microsoft for copyright infringement "The big picture: The outcome of these lawsuits could fundamentally shift the way news companies are compensated for their work in the AI era. News publishers have relied on ad revenue from search results for two decades. Generative AI tools could wipe out much of that traffic. Text-based news companies are especially vulnerable to AI firms scraping their content and using it for free to train their models because most of their archives are available online and paywalls have proven insufficient in blocking data crawlers." You've likely read about the insatiable demand for AI model training data. We should expect to see many other content rich outlets continuing to push back against unsanctioned (and unpaid) data scraping.

March 2024

February 2024

Minesto's first megawatt-scale tidal kite powerplant begins production. Energy generation through less obvious means?

Spatial Computing Definition: What Does It Actually Mean?

Inhalable nanoparticles could help treat chronic lung disease

Top Trends in Parks and Recreation for 2024: Artificial intelligence, four-day work weeks and cricket top the list

Figure in the news again...Humanoid robots draw millions from Bezos, OpenAI and more. AI plus X, or how AI will be applied to an ever-increasing number of platforms and industries. We've seen this emerging and familiar narrative before with previous industrial revolutions: new technologies will replace humans doing "work that's too dangerous or repetitive for people".

January 2024

December 2023