Meta's open source Llama 3 is already hot on OpenAI's heels.
Will Knight | mad
“OpenAI changed the world with ChatGPT, sparking a wave of AI investment and attracting more than 2 million developers to its cloud APIs. But once the open source model proves to be competitive, developers and entrepreneurs will stop paying for access to OpenAI or Google's latest model and decide to use Llama 3 or one of the other increasingly powerful open source models. You can decide.”
‘Real hope’ trial for cancer treatment with personal mRNA vaccine for melanoma
Andrew Gregory | tutelar
“Experts are testing new injections tailored for each patient and telling the body to hunt down cancer cells to prevent the disease from returning. A phase 2 trial showed the vaccine dramatically reduced the risk of cancer recurrence in melanoma patients. The final phase 3 clinical trial has now begun and is being led by University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH). Dr. Heather Shaw, national coordinating investigator for the trial, said the shot has the potential to treat melanoma patients and is also being tested in other cancers, including lung, bladder and kidney.
digital media
An AI startup created a surreal deepfake of me. I love it so much it’s scary
Melissa Heikilae | MIT Technology Review
“Until now, all AI-generated people videos have had some stiffness, glitches or other unnatural elements that make them easily distinguishable from reality. Because they are so close to reality yet so different from reality, these videos can make people feel irritated, uneasy, or even creepy. This is a phenomenon commonly known as the uncanny valley. Synthesia claims its new technology will finally get us out of the valley.”
Fusion experiments overcome two major operational hurdles.
Matthew Sparks | new scientist
“Fusion reactions have overcome two major barriers to operating in the ‘sweet spot’ required for optimal power production: increasing plasma density and maintaining a dense plasma. “Although commercial nuclear reactors will still be years away, this milestone is another stepping stone toward fusion power.”
Daniel Dennett: 'Why civilization is more fragile than we think'
Tom Chatfield | BBC
“[Dennett’s] The warning was not that a superintelligence had taken over, but that it was a threat that they believed could be existential to a civilization that was nonetheless rooted in the vulnerabilities of human nature. 'If we turn this incredible technology we have for knowledge into a weapon of disinformation, we're in serious trouble,' he said. why? 'Because we will not know what we know, we will not know who to trust, we will not know whether we are being informed or misinformed. We can be paranoid and extremely skeptical, or we can just be apathetic and unmoved. Both are very dangerous paths. And they came upon us.’”
environment
California spent 9.25 hours using only renewable energy.
Adele Peters | Fast Company
“Last Saturday, the entire state ran on 100% clean electricity for more than nine hours as 39 million Californians went about their daily routines like showering, doing laundry, and charging their electric vehicles. The same thing happened on Sunday, when the state received power without fossil fuels for more than eight hours. It was the ninth consecutive day that solar, wind, hydro, geothermal and battery storage supplied power to the grid at least some of the time. It's been happening almost every day for the past six and a half weeks. In some cases, it lasts only 15 minutes. But it often takes hours at a time.”
archive wave
The AI hype is dying down. Can AI companies find a way to make money?
Gerrit de Vinck | washington post
“Some promising startups have collapsed, and the flashy suites of products launched by the biggest players in the AI race – OpenAI, Microsoft, Google and Meta – have yet to transform the way people work and communicate with each other. Money continues to pour into AI, but few companies are making money from the technology, and it is prohibitively expensive to build and operate. Technology executives, technology experts and financial analysts say the road to widespread adoption and business success remains long, winding and full of obstacles.”
Apple launches eight small AI language models aimed at in-device use
Benji Edwards | Ars Technica
“In the AI world, so-called ‘small language models’ have recently become popular because they do not require data center-class computers in the cloud and can run on local devices. On Wednesday, Apple released a small set of source-ready AI language models called OpenELM that are small enough to run directly on smartphones. “For now, it’s mostly a proof-of-concept research model, but it could form the basis for future on-device AI products from Apple.”
If spacecraft were a reality, we would need large cargo carriers for the Moon and Mars.
Eric Berger | Ars Technica
“Unloading tons of cargo on the moon may seem like a far-fetched idea. During Apollo, mass limits were so strict that the lunar module could carry two astronauts, a spacesuit, some food, and only 300 pounds (136 kg) of scientific payload to the lunar surface. In contrast, Starship is designed to carry more than 100 tons to the lunar surface in a single mission. This is an enormous amount of cargo unlike any in the history of spaceflight. [Jaret] Matthews is taking aim.”
Image source: CARTIST / Unsplash