Ken Garen, CPA, Co-Founder and President, UBCC

Will AI replace doctors who read X-rays, or just make them better than ever? As AI moves into medicine, perhaps no one has more to gain or lose than radiologists, the doctors who review medical scans for signs of cancer and other diseases By MATTHEW PERRONE AP Health Writer May 14, 2024, 9:16 AM ET WASHINGTON -- How good would an algorithm have to be to take over your job? It’s a new question for many workers amid the rise of ChatGPT and other AI programs that can hold conversations, write stories and even generate songs and images within seconds. For doctors who review scans to spot cancer and other diseases, however, AI has loomed for about a decade as more algorithms promise to improve accuracy, speed up work and, in some cases, take over entire parts of the job. Predictions have ranged from doomsday scenarios in which AI fully replaces radiologists, to sunny futures in which it frees them to focus on the most rewarding aspects of their work. That tension reflects how AI is rollin...

Quantum Teleportation Nears Perfection In New Experiment Nikola Pajtic May 7, 2024 Researchers have recently made a huge breakthrough in quantum teleportation. In a new experiment, they carried through a near-perfect transfer of quantum information by using a specific type of noise to improve the quality of teleportation. This was done by disturbing the entanglement connection between quantum particles before the teleportation protocol. To understand the matter better, in conventional teleportation, noise can disrupt the transfer of information, resulting in low-quality information. Quantum Particles Transferred For those unfamiliar with quantum teleportation, it is a process in which the information of a quantum particle, called a qubit, is transferred from one location to another. Now, what is more interesting is that the particle isn’t physically moved from one place to another. This is a mind-bending feat that was first discovered back in 1997. Ever since then, the scientists...

What Is an AI Anyway? | Mustafa Suleyman | TED Apr 22, 2024 #TED #TEDTalks #ai When it comes to artificial intelligence, what are we actually creating? Even those closest to its development are struggling to describe exactly where things are headed, says Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman, one of the primary architects of the AI models many of us use today. He offers an honest and compelling new vision for the future of AI, proposing an unignorable metaphor — a new digital species — to focus attention on this extraordinary moment. (Followed by a Q&A with head of TED Chris Anderson) If you love watching TED Talks like this one, become a TED Member to support our mission of spreading ideas: https://ted.com/membership https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKNCiRWd_j0

The City That’s Trying to Replace Politicians With Computers (It’s Working) After sneaking his AI-written water bill into law, Ramiro Rosário says government press-release writers could go, too By Samantha Pearson and Luciana Magalhaes Dec. 22, 2023 8:58 am ET PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil — In a country with a history of corruption and government inefficiency, Councilman Ramiro Rosário has come up with what he believes is a winning strategy to improve the work of politicians: replace them with computers. The 37-year-old legislator in Brazil’s southern city of Porto Alegre passed the country’s first law in November that was written entirely by ChatGPT, the artificial-intelligence chatbot developed by the San Francisco startup OpenAI. The law itself was purposefully boring—a proposal to stop the local water company from charging residents for new water meters when they were stolen from their front yards. It would easily pass, calculated Rosário. One recent day, donning jeans and sneakers...

DeepMind Says Its AI Solved a Math Problem That Humans Were Stumped By Story by Noor Al-Sibai December 16, 2023 AI has, for seemingly the first time, solved a famously difficult math problem — and folks, this discovery is huge if true.© Provided by Futurism Fun Times DeepMind claims that for the first time, an AI has solved a famously difficult math problem with a solution that eluded human mathematicians — which could be huge if it holds up to scrutiny. In interviews with MIT Technology Review and The Guardian, Google DeepMind researchers waxed prolific about their new AI tool, which they claim has generated a brand new solution to what's known as the "cap set problem," which involves plotting more and more dots without any of them ever forming a straight line. The novel findings, which the researchers announced in a paper published in the journal Nature, would mark the first time AI has made a unique scientific discovery which, because it was previously unknown, w...

Scientists discover ‘magical’ material that’s stronger than steel and lighter than aluminum — and its potential is dizzying Story by Rick Kazmer • September 21, 2023 Galvorn is stronger than steel, lighter than aluminum, and has the conductivity of copper, according to an article on LinkedIn. While the jury is still out on whether it’s faster than a speeding bullet, experts at Houston-based DexMat suggest their product can revolutionize the green tech landscape. Galvorn can be an alternative to rare and expensive copper — a crucial metal in electronics, according to a report from GreenBiz. What’s more, the inventors plan to displace dirty materials, contribute to cleaner air, and advance green tech as their “magical” material is rolled out. Galvorn is the result of a more than $20 million investment from two U.S. Air Force research agencies, the Department of Energy, and NASA, among other tech heavy hitters, GreenBiz reports. “DexMat’s potential climate impact gets us dizzy,” ...

Evidence of a Wooden Structure That Predates Our Species Uncovered Story by Mike McRae • September 20, 2023 A pair of interlocking logs that haven't seen sunlight in half a million years could challenge some fundamental assumptions about the technology and culture of our Stone Age ancestors. Uncovered in 2019 at the Kalambo Falls in Zambia, the objects provide archaeologists with an exceptionally rare look at wooden technology from mid-Paleolithic Africa, a time better known for an acceleration in the innovations of stone tools. The logs also predate the evolution of our own species, Homo sapiens. An analysis conducted by an international team of researchers has now come to the astonishing conclusion that the wooden artifacts were once part of a permanent structure of some kind, such as a platform or building. If so, the discovery complicates the conventional image of hominins as nomads hunting migrating herds or gathering seasonal flora with relatively basic tools. "Th...

These Industries Are Most 'At Risk' For AI Automation BY TYLER DURDEN FRIDAY, JUN 30, 2023 - 09:20 PM Since the release of tools like ChatGPT, artificial intelligence (AI) has begun to permeate industries worldwide, transforming the way we work and live. To gain insight into this rapidly evolving landscape, Visual Capitalist's Marcus Lu and Sabrina Lam - using data from MSCI - has ranked U.S. industries by their estimated share of employment that could be exposed to AI-driven automation. Data and Highlights This analysis comes from a March 2023 report published by Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research. The authors estimated automation exposure for over 900 U.S. jobs using the O*NET occupational database, which provides details on the types of tasks each occupation conducts. Exposure estimates were then weighted by the employment share of each occupation, and aggregated to the industry level. Industry Estimated Share of U.S. Employment Exposed to AI (%) Office and...

Carbon Footprint Of Lab-Grown Beef "Orders Of Magnitude" Worse Than Traditionally Raised: Study BY TYLER DURDEN WEDNESDAY, MAY 31, 2023 - 05:45 PM A new study from the University of California, Davis, has found that lab-grown, or "cultivated" meat's environmental impact is likely to be "orders of magnitude" higher than retail beef based on current and near-term production methods. The preprint study, which has yet to undergo peer review, concludes that the energy needed and greenhouse gasses emitted during all stages of production of lab-grown meat is far greater than traditionally raised beef. Researchers conducted a life-cycle assessment of the energy needed and greenhouse gases emitted in all stages of production and compared that with beef. One of the current challenges with lab-grown meat is the use of highly refined or purified growth media, the ingredients needed to help animal cells multiply. Currently, this method is similar to the biotech...

Wendy's Plans New Underground Delivery System for Mobile Orders BY TYLER DURDEN WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 2023 - 04:00 PM Fast food chain Wendy's is testing new technology to automate its stores. This is more bad news for human workers as automation and artificial intelligence invade the fast food industry. Wendy's announced a new partnership with Pipedream, a hyper logistics company, to pilot-test the first underground autonomous robot system that will allow food from the kitchen to be sent to designated parking spots via an underground network of pipes. "The partnership marks another bold step for Wendy's in driving industry innovation as it strives to serve digital-forward customers with greater ease, speed, and accuracy," Wendy's wrote in a press release. "We know that serving orders quickly and accurately leads to increased customer satisfaction. "Pipedream's Instant Pickup system has the potential to unlock greater mobile order speed...

Experiment contradicts Einstein and reveals ‘spooky quantum action’ with superconducting qubits 30 meters apart Story by Raúl Limón • May 11, 2023 6PM EDT Physicist James Trefil once said that quantum mechanics is a “place where the human brain will simply never feel comfortable.” This discomfort happens because nature, at a microscopic scale, obeys laws at odds with our perception of macroscopic reality. These laws include superposition (a particle can simultaneously be in different states, like Erwin Schrödinger’s live and dead cat), and quantum entanglement at a distance. Albert Einstein described the latter as “spooky action at a distance,” a principle allowing particles separated by distance to respond instantaneously and behave as a single system. A spectacular experiment that defies the speed of light was recently published in Nature by an international team of scientists led by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, collaborating with Spain’s Institute of...

AI Is About To Be Everywhere Authored by Aden Tate via The Organic Prepper blog, May 10, 2023 Do you remember when drones were first released to the commercial market? There was a lot of talk about the privacy implications of them, and more than one case of where people were flying them over other peoples’ property, looking in peoples’ windows, and more of the like. Now, drones are firmly entrenched in modern society and they’re not going anywhere anytime soon. They’ve not only been incorporated into militaries throughout the world, but they’re now in search and rescue operations, used for photography, security, and more. During Covid, Baltimore PD even wanted to use them to enforce social distancing. You probably don’t even think about it anymore. Now enter AI. AI is already all around you, but most recognize that ChatGPT ushered in a new era of AI. Right now, we’re all in the same stage that we were when drones were first released – theorizing about potential fears, costs, and wh...

Wendy's Unveils Google-Powered AI Chatbot At Drive-Thru BY TYLER DURDEN TUESDAY, MAY 09, 2023 - 09:00 PM Wendy's is reportedly developing an artificial intelligence chatbot powered by Google's natural-language software designed to automate drive-thrus. The Wall Street Journal spoke with Wendy's Chief Executive Todd Penegor, who said the fast-food chain's chatbot would be rolled out in June at a company-owned restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. The Wendy's drive-thru chatbot "will be very conversational," Penegor explained. He said, "You won't know you're talking to anybody but an employee." Wendy's software engineers have been working with Google to build a large language model to understand words, popular expressions, and phrases in various dialects and accents when a customer orders. It'll understand acronyms unique to Wendy's, like "JBC" for a junior bacon cheeseburger. "Google Cloud's generative...

Scientists just made a massive breakthrough on an alternative to lithium-ion batteries: ‘These batteries are essential’ Story by Laurelle Stelle • May 6, 2023 Researchers have recently discovered a way to make an efficient battery out of zinc — an inexpensive, commonly found metal — instead of the rare metals used in lithium batteries. Most rechargeable batteries today are lithium-ion batteries, which include other metals like cobalt and nickel, Tech Xplore reports. As electric vehicles (EVs) and large-scale energy storage get more common, we’ll need more and more of those metals — but because they’re uncommon, the costs are often massive. Many researchers are working on cheaper battery options to reduce or replace these metals. One Chinese company has created a car powered by a sodium battery, and a University of Maryland researcher has invented a partly biodegradable battery made of zinc and crab shells. Researchers have even found not one but two ways to store energy in ordinary...

'Godfather Of AI' Quits Google And Warns World About Impending 'AI-Driven' Crisis BY TYLER DURDEN WEDNESDAY, MAY 03, 2023 - 09:50 PM The "Godfather of AI" resigned from his position at Google, where he has worked for over a decade. He joined a growing chorus of critics who warn of the existential risk artificial intelligence systems pose to humans. On Monday, Google computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton tweeted: "In the NYT today, Cade Metz implies that I left Google so that I could criticize Google. Actually, I left so that I could talk about the dangers of AI without considering how this impacts Google. Google has acted very responsibly." In an interview with The New York Times, Hinton said it was only after quitting Google that he could openly talk about the dangers of AI. He still believed the systems were inferior to the human brain in some ways but he thought they were eclipsing human intelligence in others. "Maybe what is going on in th...

CEOs are getting closer to finally saying it — AI will wipe out more jobs than they can count Story by hchowdhury@insider.com (Hasan Chowdhury) • Yesterday 9:38 AM Tech workers are finding out what it's like to be replaced by AI. IBM said on Monday that it would pause hiring on roles that it thought AI could do instead. It's the boldest statement yet from tech firms turning to AI to help them get efficient. What's it like to be told that you're not just out of a job, but that your bosses think your job can be done by AI? Tech workers are about to find out. On Monday, per a report by Bloomberg, it emerged that IBM is preparing to pause hiring on roles that it believed could be better performed by AI. That leaves 7,800 jobs at the tech giant vulnerable to being eradicated for good. Since the release of ChatGPT, tech CEOs have been racing to decide if the generative AI technology underlying the buzzy chatbot is more than a gimmick and can deliver on its promises to...

MIT Scientists Create New Nanoparticle Sensors To Detect Early Cancer Via Simple Paper Test Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), April 30, 2023 Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have designed nanoparticle sensors that could diagnose early-stage cancer through a simple urine test on a strip of paper. The scientists said these sensors, designed to detect many cancerous proteins, could also distinguish the type of tumor, how it responds to treatment, and whether it has metastasized. “We are trying to innovate in a context of making technology available to low- and middle-resource settings. Putting this diagnostic on paper is part of our goal of democratizing diagnostics and creating inexpensive technologies that can give you a fast answer at the point of care,” said Sangeeta Bhatia, a biomedical engineer at MIT and senior author of the study published on April 24 in Nature Nanotechnology. Bhatia’s team had initially investigated the co...

Google Bard Can Now Help Write Software Code Friday, 21 April 2023 12:35 PM EDT Alphabet Inc.'s Google said Friday it will update Bard, its generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, to help people write code to develop software, as the tech giant plays catch-up in a fast-moving race on AI technology. Last month, the company started the public release of Bard to gain ground on Microsoft Corp. The release of ChatGPT, a chatbot from the Microsoft-backed startup OpenAI, last year caused a sprint in the technology sector to put AI into more users' hands. Google describes Bard as an experiment allowing collaboration with generative AI, technology that relies on past data to create rather than identify content. Bard will be able to code in 20 programming languages including Java, C++ and Python, and can also help debug and explain code to users, Google said Friday. The company said Bard can also optimize code to make it faster or more efficient with simple prompts such a...

AI Will Eventually Be 'As Good A Tutor As Any Human': Bill Gates Authored by Samantha Flom via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), April 21, 2023 Artificial intelligence (AI) may not be advanced enough to replace teachers now, but according to Bill Gates, that time is not far off. “The AIs will get to that ability to be as good a tutor as any human ever could,” the Microsoft co-founder said at the ASU+GSV Summit in San Diego on April 18. “We have enough sample sets of those things being done well that the training can be done,” he added. “So, I’d say that is a very worthwhile milestone, is to engage in a dialogue where you’re helping to understand what they’re missing. And we’re not that far.” Gates’ comments came within the context of a larger conversation about the future role of technology in education with Jessie Woolley-Wilson, CEO of DreamBox Learning. “AI has, ever since the focus became machine learning, it’s achieved some unbelievable milestones,” Gates told Woolley-...

X.AI - Musk Reportedly Creating ChatGPT Artificial Intelligence Rival BY TYLER DURDEN SATURDAY, APR 15, 2023 - 07:55 AM Despite recent outspoken criticism of artificial intelligence - warning of the "danger of training AI to be woke" - it appears Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is working on an AI-related project that will reportedly take on ChatGPT. The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times reported that Musk has started a new AI firm called X.AI Corp. Developing artificial intelligence is nothing new for Musk. Together with the company’s current CEO, Sam Altman, he co-founded and chaired OpenAI in 2015. The revelation came after information surfaced that Musk is assembling a team of AI researchers and engineers, according to The FT. Musk incorporated a company named X.AI on March 9, according to Nevada business records. He is the company’s only director, its secretary is listed as Jared Birchall, the ex-Morgan Stanley banker who manages Musk’s wealth. Musk rec...