Computing
Breaking Encryption With a Quantum Computer Just Got 10 Times EasierKarmela Padavic-Callaghan | Latest Scientist ($)
“In 2019, Craig Gidney at Google Quantum AI co-authored a paper that reduced [the requirement to break RSA encryption] from 170 million to twenty million quantum bits, or qubits. And in 2025, Gidney devised a technique to slash that number to lower than 1,000,000 qubits. Now, Paul Webster at Iceberg Quantum in Australia and his colleagues have managed to diminish the number even further to about 100,000 qubits.”
FUTURE
Tech Has Never Caused a Job Apocalypse. Don’t Bet on It Now.Greg Ip | The Wall Street Journal ($)
“Nobody should dismiss any scenario, even probably the most dystopian, with high conviction. Definitely not journalists, whose lifestyle is in AI’s crosshairs. But I keep stumbling over one small problem with the doomsday vision: It requires a breakdown in how the market economy functions. Nothing prefer it has happened within the US before, and there is no such thing as a evidence it is occurring now.”
Tech
A Recent 3D Printing Breakthrough Brings Us One Step Closer to You Downloading a AutomotiveJustin Caffier | Gizmodo
“A team at [MIT] has recently developed a printer with 4 different extruders that outputs five different materials to supply a completely functioning linear motor in about three hours. …The team explained how by retrofitting a printer with enough extruders to handle the assorted materials needed to make a working motor, they decimated the standard production time for such a tool and brought the fabric costs right down to around $0.50.”
Computing
Human Brain Cells on a Chip Learned to Play Doom in a WeekAlex Wilkins | Latest Scientist ($)
“A clump of human brain cells can play the classic computer game Doom. While its performance shouldn’t be as much as par with humans, experts say it brings biological computers a step closer to useful real-world applications, like controlling robot arms.”
Robotics
Waymo Robotaxis Are Now Operating in 10 US CitiesKirsten Korosec | TechCrunch
“‘Waymo is serving more riders than ever, as we’re on course to serve over a million rides per week by the tip of this yr,’ Mawakana said in a blog post Tuesday, adding that the corporate is laying the groundwork for robotaxi service in greater than 20 cities.”
Artificial Intelligence
AI Will Never Be ConsciousMichael Pollan | Wired ($)
“By the point I finished digesting the Butlin report, the Copernican moment I’d fearful about seemed more distant than the report’s daring conclusion had led me to consider. After reviewing the half‑dozen or so theories of consciousness covered by the report, it seemed clear that every one of them stacked the deck by taking without any consideration that consciousness might be reduced to some sort of algorithm.”
Artificial Intelligence
Andrew Ng Says AGI Is A long time Away—and the Real AI Bubble Risk Is within the Training LayerVictor Dey | Fast Company ($)
“Possibly a yr ago, AGI felt 50 years away. Over the past yr, perhaps we’ve made a solid 2% of progress, with one other 49 years to go. These numbers are metaphorical, so don’t take them too seriously. [Laughs] But we’re closer than before, yet many many years away from an AI that matches human intelligence. In case you follow the unique definition—aligned with what people genuinely imagine AGI to be—we remain very, very far-off.”
FUTURE
The Hidden Cost of Letting AI Make Your Life EasierShai Tubali | Big Think
“‘[AI] is designed to take over tasks which are effortful for us,’ Nyholm says. …The problem, he adds, is that many effortful tasks are precisely those that carry meaning. Deep relationships require patience, friction, and vulnerability. Skills demand time, frustration, and persistence. …When effort, creativity, and skill fall away, meaningfulness not seems the precise category.”
Robotics
The Human Work Behind Humanoid Robots Is Being HiddenJames O’Donnell | MIT Technology Review ($)
“The roboticist Aaron Prather told me about recent work with a delivery company that had its staff wear movement-tracking sensors as they moved boxes; the info collected will likely be used to coach robots. The trouble to construct humanoids will likely require manual laborers to act as data collectors at massive scale. ‘It’s going to be weird,’ Prather says. ‘No doubts about it.'”
Computing
The 5 Biggest Obstacles to AI Data Centers in SpaceEthan Siegel | Big Think
“Is that this an example of an emerging technology that might provide an off-world solution to the issue of competing demands for limited resources? Or is it, just like the hyperloop, an example of grift: where the concept itself isn’t exactly physically unimaginable, but is rendered so impractical on account of the actual physical constraints of the endeavor, that it absolutely cannot materialize as advertised?”
Artificial Intelligence
Meta Director of AI Safety Allows AI Agent to By accident Delete Her InboxMatthew Gault | 404 Media
“As countless people on X have said in response to her post, seeing the person in control of ensuring powerful AI tools are secure at considered one of the largest tech corporations on the earth trust an AI agent that is understood to pose several serious security risks, doesn’t encourage loads of confidence in what Meta and other big AI corporations are doing.”