When human solvers battle artificial intelligence, who is able to think more cryptically, faster? And are some devious clues just too tough for software? The Times hosts an annual crossword-solving competition and it remains, until such time as the Guardian has its own version, the gold standard. This year’s competitors included a dog. Rather, an AI represented as a jolly coffee-drinking dog named Ross (a name hidden in “crossword”), and who is embedded on the Crossword Genius smartphone app. 1ac MP ousted by Liberal, absolutely without authority (9) 13d Radical overhaul of motorsport’s image (9) Continue reading...

Google and its rivals are increasingly employing AI-generated summaries, but research indicates their results are far from authoritative and open to manipulation Does aspartame cause cancer? The potentially carcinogenic properties of the popular artificial sweetener, added to everything from soft drinks to children’s medicine, have been debated for decades. Its approval in the US stirred controversy in 1974, several UK supermarkets banned it from their products in the 00s, and peer-reviewed academic studies have long butted heads. Last year, the World Health Organization concluded aspartame was “possibly carcinogenic” to humans, while public health regulators suggest that it’s safe to consume in the small portions in which it is commonly used. While many of us may look to settle the question with a quick Google search, this is exactly the sort of contentious debate that could cause problems for the internet of the future. As generative AI chatbots have rapidly developed over the past couple of years, tech companies have been quick to hype them as a utopian replacement for various jobs and services – including internet search engines. Instead of scrolling through a list of webpages to find the answer to a question, the thinking goes, an AI chatbot can scour the internet for you, combing it for relevant information to compile into a short answer to your query. Google and Microsoft are betting big on the idea and have already introduced AI-generated summaries into Google Search and Bing. Continue reading...

From gamifying your to-do list to going for a regular morning walk, top tips for improving concentration from psychotherapists, health coaches and other experts Forty-seven seconds. That was the average length of time an adult could focus on a screen for in 2021, according to research by Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at the University of California. Twenty years ago, in 2004, that number stood at two-and-a-half minutes. Our attention spans – how long we’re able to concentrate without being distracted – are shrinking. Our focus – how intensely we can think about things – is suffering too. The causes: technology that’s designed to demand our attention; endless tools for procrastination at our fingertips; rising stress and anxiety disorders; and poor sleep quality. But there are solutions. From quick-fix hacks to major lifestyle changes, we asked experts for their tips on how to think harder for longer. Continue reading...

System built by Google DeepMind team takes individual views and generates a set of group statements Artificial intelligence could help reduce some of the most contentious culture war divisions through a mediation process, researchers claim. Experts say a system that can create group statements that reflect majority and minority views is able to help people find common ground. Continue reading...

Institute for AI and data science sends memo saying it will concentrate on fewer projects The UK’s national institute for artificial intelligence and data science has launched a consultation process that could lead to redundancies among its 440 staff. In a memo sent to staff this month the Alan Turing Institute gave an update on its new strategy, under which it will concentrate on fewer projects. Continue reading...

Known for her wild ‘Imogenation’, Heap has always reworked pop with tech, but her new data-mining project is her boldest yet. She explains why ‘you can’t stop progress’ It’s a very Imogen Heap way to say hello: “I’ve got to show you this thing – it’s going to change your life!” She beams at me, showing off a mysterious black device. The musician and technologist is an electric, eccentric presence even on video call, talking passionately and changing thoughts like a rally driver turns corners. She whirls me from her kitchen floor to her living room in her family home in Havering near London, familiar to thousands of fans (AKA Heapsters) who tune in to watch her improvise, via livestream, on a grand piano. She points to a glamorous white tent on the edge of a well-kept lawn: “That’s my tent I’ve been sleeping in, by the way,” she laughs, enjoying the surprise. Continue reading...

Creatures can converse and share their stories by voice or text through visitors’ mobile phones at Museum of Zoology If the pickled bodies, partial skeletons and stuffed carcasses that fill museums seem a little, well, quiet, fear not. In the latest coup for artificial intelligence, dead animals are to receive a new lease of life to share their stories – and even their experiences of the afterlife. More than a dozen exhibits, ranging from an American cockroach and the remnants of a dodo, to a stuffed red panda and a fin whale skeleton, will be granted the gift of conversation on Tuesday for a month-long project at Cambridge University’s Museum of Zoology. Continue reading...

The computer scientist’s dogged belief in the potential of neural networks helped unlock machine learning. But he’d be wise to remember the experience of a fellow laureate Way back in 2011 Marc Andreessen, a venture capitalist with aspirations to be a public intellectual, published an essay entitled “Why Software Is Eating the World”, predicting that computer code would take over large swaths of the economy. Thirteen years on, software now seems to be chomping its way through academia as well. This, at any rate, is one possible conclusion to be drawn from the fact that the computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton shares the 2024 Nobel prize in physics with John Hopfield, and that the computer scientist Demis Hassabis shares half of the Nobel prize in chemistry with one of his DeepMind colleagues, John Jumper. The award to Hassabis and Jumper was, in a way, predictable, for they built a machine – AlphaFold2 – that enables researchers to solve one of the toughest problems in biochemistry: predicting the structure of proteins, the building blocks of biological life. Their machine has been able to predict the structure of virtually all the 200m proteins that researchers have identified. So it’s a big deal – for chemistry. Continue reading...

Recognition for Demis Hassabis and Geoffrey Hinton marks moment when important ingredients came together It was more than even the most ardent advocates expected. After all the demonstrations of superhuman prowess, and the debates over whether the technology was humanity’s best invention yet or its surest route to self-destruction, artificial intelligence landed a Nobel prize this week. And then it landed another. First came the physics prize. The American John Hopfield and the British-Canadian Geoffrey Hinton won for foundational work on artificial neural networks, the computational architecture that underpins modern AI such as ChatGPT. Then came the chemistry prize, with half handed to Demis Hassabis and John Jumper at Google DeepMind. Their AlphaFold program solved a decades-long scientific challenge by predicting the structure of all life’s proteins. Continue reading...

Google DeepMind chief believes in benefits of AI but says risks must be taken as seriously as the climate crisis Most 17-year-olds spend their days playing video games, but Britain’s latest Nobel prize winner spent his teenage years developing them. Sir Demis Hassabis, who was jointly awarded the chemistry prize on Wednesday, got his big break in the tech world as co-designer of 1994’s hit game Theme Park, where players create and operate amusement parks. Continue reading...