Which Weapon Does the Autonomous AI Robot Dog Choose?

Hey there curious minds,

Dylan Curious here with your latest dive into the fascinating world of AI. In this newsletter, we'll explore some of the most eye-catching AI developments that have been making waves lately.

First up, a company put a flamethrower on an autonomous robot. While it looks undeniably cool with the smoke, fog and lasers, I have to question whether this is really a good idea in the real world, as awesome as it would look in a sci-fi flick.

Next, Jennifer Lopez is starring in a new AI movie called Atlas about trusting AI to save humanity. The plot involves J-Lo teaming up with a renegade robot to capture another bot. It sounds like an entertaining ride, even if the "AI saves the world" angle veers into propaganda territory.

China surprised everyone by unveiling a new humanoid robot called Astribot S1 with impressive dexterity and strength in its hands. It can rapidly manipulate objects weighing up to 15 pounds. Pretty amazing stuff coming out of left field.

Adobe has made big strides in upscaling video with its new VideoGigaGAN tool. The demos are stunning, showing blurry old footage transformed with realistic detail in elements like water, reflections, and facial features. As a video editor, I'm excited to try this out.

In more cerebral AI news, researchers are using AI to help sift through the mind-bending higher-dimensional geometry problems in string theory, which aims to describe the fundamental nature of the universe. AI is also being applied to precision gene editing with a new tool called OpenCRISPR-1. The implications are profound.

Apple threw its hat in the AI ring by open-sourcing a model called OpenELM designed for efficient on-device usage. While its capabilities are modest, I applaud the approach of enabling AI that doesn't rely on the cloud.

An fascinating line of research is probing AI's ability to detect human deception and build trust. Using a dataset from a gameshow all about bluffing and double-crossing, AI was able to predict deceptive behavior more accurately than humans by picking up on subtle cues.

Well, that's all we have space for in this edition. The world of AI never fails to amaze. I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for what incredible development emerges next. In the meantime, stay curious!

Warmly, Dylan Curious