#98 - Autonomous Boats, DeepMind’s General AI, Google’s DALLE-2, Cringe AI Novel

Our 98th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!

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Outline:

(00:00) Intro
(2:22) Autonomous cargo ship completes 500 mile voyage, avoiding hundreds of collisions
(6:47) Investors pull back on artificial intelligence 
(9:49) Clearbot Neo autonomously clears plastic from harbors - "Open Ocean Engineering’s Clearbot Neo is a robotic boat that autonomously navigates harbors, canals and rivers to collect trash that would otherwise wash into the ocean."
(10:30) You can practice for a job interview with Google AI - "Never mind reading generic guides or practicing with friends — Google is betting that algorithms can get you ready for a job interview. The company has launched an Interview Warmup tool that uses AI to help you prepare for interviews across various roles."
(11:02) Uber Eats Dabbles With Delivering Food Via Robots - "Uber Eats is now testing autonomous food delivery in the Los Angeles area."
(12:12) Ford-backed robotaxi startup Argo AI is ditching its human safety drivers in Miami and Austin - "Robotaxi startup Argo AI said Tuesday it has begun operating its autonomous test vehicles without human safety drivers in two U.S. cities — Miami and Austin — a major milestone for the Ford- and Volkswagen-backed company. For now, those driverless vehicles won't be carrying paying customers."

(13:17) DeepMind’s new AI can perform over 600 tasks, from playing games to controlling robots
(20:10) Google claims its text-to-image AI delivers 'unprecedented photorealism'
(25:30) Simultaneous emulation of neuronal and synaptic properties promotes the development of brain-like artificial intelligence - "Researchers have reported a nano-sized neuromorphic memory device that emulates neurons and synapses simultaneously in a unit cell, another step toward completing the goal of neuromorphic computing designed to rigorously mimic the human brain with semiconductor devices."
(26:27) Face-to-face screening combined with machine learning model performs best at suicide risk prediction - "According to a study published in JAMA Network Open, a combination of in-person screenings and machine learning worked better than either method alone when it came to predicting suicide attempts and suicidal ideation in adults."
(27:11) Google’s Universal Pretraining Framework Unifies Language Learning Paradigms - "Their 20B parameter model surpasses the state-of-the-art 175B GPT-3 on the zero-shot SuperGLUE benchmark and triples the performance of T5-XXL on one-shot summarization tasks."
(27:49) Robotic surgery is safer and improves patient recovery time - "Robot-assisted surgery used to perform bladder cancer removal and reconstruction enables patients to recover far more quickly and spend significantly (20 per cent) less time in hospital, concludes a first-of-its kind clinical trial led by scientists at UCL and the University of Sheffield."
(28:20) Ad break

(35:09) Israeli firm hopes AI can curb drownings

(38:12) Fatal Tesla Model S Crash in California Prompts Federal Probe - "The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating a fatal crash involving a 2022 Tesla Model S that may have had its automated driving system activated."

(39:10) Facebook issues $397 checks to Illinois residents as part of class-action - "More than a million Illinois residents will receive a $397 settlement payment from Facebook this week, thanks to a legal battle over the platform’s since-retired photo-tagging system that used facial recognition."

(39:50) Clearview AI's Facial Recognition Tool Coming to Apps, Schools - “Clearview AI is expanding sales of its facial recognition software to companies from mainly serving the police, it told Reuters, inviting scrutiny on how the startup capitalizes on billions of photos it scrapes from social media profiles. Instead of online photo comparisons, the new private-sector offering matches people to ID photos and other data that clients collect with subjects' permission. It is meant to verify identities for access to physical or digital spaces.”

(41:00) A Novelist and an AI Cowrote Your Next Cringe-Read

(44:03) AI Made This Thumbnail!

(45:46) Outro