Addressing climate change impacts
This research examines how US businesses view their climate change risk and the steps they are taking to adapt to...
World
The Download: EV subsidies risks, and introducing The Debrief
Sales of new electric vehicles in Germany have plummeted, dropping nearly 37% in July 2024 from the same month one...
Some countries are ending support for EVs. Is it too soon?
The end of the subsidy program isn’t the only factor contributing to Germany’s EV slowdown, but the abrupt axing certainly...
The Download: training robots for unfamiliar environments, and all-new bird flu
What’s new: It’s tricky to get robots to do things in environments they’ve never seen before. Typically, researchers need to...
AI models let robots carry out tasks in unfamiliar environments
These models were deployed on Stretch, a robot consisting of a wheeled unit, a tall pole, and a retractable arm...
Flu season is coming—and so is the risk of an all-new bird flu
I was reminded of that fact when my littlest woke me for an early-morning cuddle, sneezed into my face, and...
The Download: bird flu concerns, and tracking AI’s impact on elections
Bird flu has been spreading in dairy cows in the US—and the scale is likely to be far worse than...
How AI can help spot wildfires
Anything from stray fireworks to lightning strikes can start a wildfire. While it’s natural for many ecosystems to see some...
Why virologists are getting increasingly nervous about bird flu
And while many ducks and geese seem to be able to survive being infected with the virus, other bird species...
AI-generated content doesn’t seem to have swayed recent European elections
Those fears seem to have been unwarranted, says Sam Stockwell, the researcher at the Alan Turing Institute who conducted the...
The Download: Congress’s AI bills, and Snap’s new AR spectacles
More than 120 bills related to regulating artificial intelligence are currently floating around the US Congress. This flood of bills...
There are more than 120 AI bills in Congress right now
The lack of a focus on equity and minority issues came into view during the Senate markup session at the...
Here’s what I made of Snap’s new augmented-reality Spectacles
These fifth-generation Spectacles can display visual information and applications directly on their see-through lenses, making objects appear as if they...
The Download: OpenAI’s latest model, and 4D printing’s potential
Last week OpenAI released a new model called o1 (previously referred to under the code name “Strawberry” and, before that,...
Why OpenAI’s new model is such a big deal
I thought OpenAI’s GPT-4o, its leading model at the time, would be perfectly suited to help. I asked it to...
Google is funding an AI-powered satellite constellation that will spot wildfires faster
Agencies around the world should be able to receive hourly wildfire updates once about half of the constellation is operational,...
The Download: an AI safety hotline, and tech for farmers
—Kevin Frazier is an assistant professor at St. Thomas University College of Law and senior research fellow in the Constitutional...
Why we need an AI safety hotline
How to sound the alarm In theory, external whistleblower protections could play a valuable role in the detection of AI...
The Download: conspiracy-debunking chatbots, and fact-checking AI
1 OpenAI has released an AI model with ‘reasoning’ capabilitiesIt claims it’s a step toward its broader goal of human-like...
Neuroscientists and architects are using this enormous laboratory to make buildings better
Suddenly everyone seemed to be rushing around, slipping past each other and trying to move quickly while avoiding collisions. “It’s...