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Category: business – Page 51

Debates on the nature of artificial general intelligence

The term “artificial general intelligence” (AGI) has become ubiquitous in current discourse around AI. OpenAI states that its mission is “to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.” DeepMind’s company vision statement notes that “artificial general intelligence…has the potential to drive one of the greatest transformations in history.” AGI is mentioned prominently in the UK government’s National AI Strategy and in US government AI documents. Microsoft researchers recently claimed evidence of “sparks of AGI” in the large language model GPT-4, and current and former Google executives proclaimed that “AGI is already here.” The question of whether GPT-4 is an “AGI algorithm” is at the center of a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk against OpenAI.

Given the pervasiveness of AGI talk in business, government, and the media, one could not be blamed for assuming that the meaning of the term is established and agreed upon. However, the opposite is true: What AGI means, or whether it means anything coherent at all, is hotly debated in the AI community. And the meaning and likely consequences of AGI have become more than just an academic dispute over an arcane term. The world’s biggest tech companies and entire governments are making important decisions on the basis of what they think AGI will entail. But a deep dive into speculations about AGI reveals that many AI practitioners have starkly different views on the nature of intelligence than do those who study human and animal cognition—differences that matter for understanding the present and predicting the likely future of machine intelligence.

The original goal of the AI field was to create machines with general intelligence comparable to that of humans. Early AI pioneers were optimistic: In 1965, Herbert Simon predicted in his book The Shape of Automation for Men and Management that “machines will be capable, within twenty years, of doing any work that a man can do,” and, in a 1970 issue of Life magazine, Marvin Minsky is quoted as declaring that, “In from three to eight years we will have a machine with the general intelligence of an average human being. I mean a machine that will be able to read Shakespeare, grease a car, play office politics, tell a joke, have a fight.”

Revolutionary tech company transforms home energy storage with simple, modular method — here’s how it works

Anyone considering a rooftop solar system will have a lot to like about Texas-based Yotta Energy’s innovation.

Interestingly, it’s what the setup doesn’t include that could be most game-changing for the small-and medium-sized businesses targeted by the company, per a CleanTechnica report.

There’s no extra land area needed for energy storage — and no trenching, no structure, and no foundation, either. Owners won’t need landscaping, fencing, or aesthetics. And there’s no cause for extra building and electrical permits for a big battery.

Lockheed Martin eyes growth in satellite business through partnerships

WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin is looking to team up with more commercial space companies as it aims to stay ahead of the curve in areas like intelligence, surveillance, communications, and small satellites, a senior executive said March 19.

“We’re looking for strategic partners,” said Robert Lightfoot, president of Lockheed Martin Space. “We’re interested in talking with anyone who has an advantage in those areas from a space perspective.”

Lightfoot spoke with SpaceNews at the Satellite 2024 conference.

Pair accused of stealing battery manufacturing secrets from Tesla and starting their own company

Two men are accused of starting a business in China using battery manufacturing technology pilfered from Tesla and trying to sell the proprietary information, federal prosecutors in New York said Tuesday.

Klaus Pflugbeil, 58, a Canadian citizen who lives in Ningbo, China, was arrested Tuesday morning on Long Island, where he thought he was going to meet with businessmen to negotiate a sale price for the information, federal authorities said. Instead, the businessmen were undercover federal agents.

The other man named in the criminal complaint is Yilong Shao, 47, also of Ningbo. He remains at large. They are charged with conspiracy to transmit trade secrets, which carries up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

Microsoft hires DeepMind co-founder Suleyman to run Consumer AI

Microsoft Corp. has named Mustafa Suleyman head of its consumer artificial intelligence business, hiring most of the staff from his Inflection AI startup as the software giant seeks to fend off Alphabet Inc.’s Google in the fiercely contested market for AI products.

Suleyman, who co-founded Google’s DeepMind, will report to Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella and oversee a range of projects, such as integrating an AI Copilot into Windows and adding conversational elements to the Bing search engine. His hiring will put Microsoft’s consumer AI work under one leader for the first time.

Entanglion, a quantum computing board game developed by @IBMQuantum

https://entanglion.github.io

Congratulations, your captain has retired and left you in charge of his galactic shipping business! Now it’s time to make some upgrades as you embark on a journey to reconstruct a quantum computer developed by an ancient race.

Entanglion is a cooperative board game designed for two players. Learn about quantum computing as you work together with your teammate to navigate the three galaxies of the quantum universe, avoid detection by the defense mechanisms left behind by the ancients, and rebuild the quantum computer.

Think you’re up for the challenge?

LinkedIn plans to add gaming to its platform

LinkedIn, the Microsoft-owned social platform, has made a name for itself primarily as a platform for people looking to network and pick up knowledge for professional purposes, and for recruitment — a business that now has more 1 billion users. Now, to boost the time people are spending on the platform, the company is breaking into a totally new area: gaming.

TechCrunch has learned and confirmed that LinkedIn is working on a new games experience. It will be doing so by tapping into the same wave of puzzle-mania that helped simple games like Wordle find viral success and millions of players. Three early efforts are games called “Queens”, “Inference” and “Crossclimb.”

App researchers have started to find code that points to the work LinkedIn is doing. One of them, Nima Owji, said that one idea LinkedIn appears to be experimenting with involves player scores being organised by places of work, with companies getting “ranked” by those scores.

Navigating AI’s Eco Impact

The advent of AI has ushered in transformative advancements across countless industries. Yet for all its benefits, this technology also has a downside. One of the major challenges AI brings is the amount of energy required to power the GPUs that train large-scale AI models. Computing hardware needs significant maintenance and upkeep, as well as uninterruptible power supplies and cooling fans.

One study found that training some popular AI models can produce about 626,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, the rough equivalent of 300 cross-country flights in the U.S. A single data center can require enough electricity to power 50,000 homes. If this energy comes from fossil fuels, that can mean a huge carbon footprint. Already the carbon footprint of the cloud as a whole has surpassed that of the airline industry.

As the founder of an AI-driven company in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry, I am acutely aware of the environmental impact of our business. Here are a few ways we are trying to reduce that effect.

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