International AI Safety Report — from internationalaisafetyreport.org
About the International AI Safety Report
The International AI Safety Report is the world’s first comprehensive review of the latest science on the capabilities and risks of general-purpose AI systems. Written by over 100 independent experts and led by Turing Award winner Yoshua Bengio, it represents the largest international collaboration on AI safety research to date. The Report gives decision-makers a shared global picture of AI’s risks and impacts, serving as the authoritative reference for governments and organisations developing AI policies worldwide. It is already shaping debates and informing evidence-based decisions across research and policy communities.
Eye implant and high-tech glasses restore vision lost to age — from newscientist.com by Chris Simms
Age-related macular degeneration is a common cause of vision loss, with existing treatments only able to slow its progression. But now an implant in the back of the eye and a pair of high-tech glasses have enabled people with the condition to read again
People with severe vision loss have been able to read again, thanks to a tiny wireless chip implanted in one of their eyes and a pair of high-tech glasses.
“This is an exciting and significant study,” says Francesca Cordeiro at Imperial College London. “It gives hope for providing vision in patients for whom this was more science fiction than reality.”
The 2025 AI Index Report — from Stanford University’s Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Lab (hai.stanford.edu); item via The Neuron
Top Takeaways
Also see:
The Neuron’s take on this:
So, what should you do? You really need to start trying out these AI tools. They’re getting cheaper and better, and they can genuinely help save time or make work easier—ignoring them is like ignoring smartphones ten years ago.
Just keep two big things in mind:
So, use the tools, find what helps you, but don’t trust them completely.
We’re building this plane mid-flight, and Stanford’s report card is just another confirmation that we desperately need better safety checks before we hit major turbulence.
Addendum on 4/16:
You can now use Deep Research without $200 — from flexos.work
Accelerating scientific breakthroughs with an AI co-scientist — from research.google by Juraj Gottweis and Vivek Natarajan
We introduce AI co-scientist, a multi-agent AI system built with Gemini 2.0 as a virtual scientific collaborator to help scientists generate novel hypotheses and research proposals, and to accelerate the clock speed of scientific and biomedical discoveries.
Now decides next: Generating a new future — from Deloitte.com
Deloitte’s State of Generative AI in the Enterprise Quarter four report
There is a speed limit. GenAI technology continues to advance at incredible speed. However, most organizations are moving at the speed of organizations, not at the speed of technology. No matter how quickly the technology advances—or how hard the companies producing GenAI technology push—organizational change in an enterprise can only happen so fast.
Barriers are evolving. Significant barriers to scaling and value creation are still widespread across key areas. And, over the past year regulatory uncertainty and risk management have risen in organizations’ lists of concerns to address. Also, levels of trust in GenAI are still moderate for the majority of organizations. Even so, with increased customization and accuracy of models—combined with a focus on better governance— adoption of GenAI is becoming more established.
Some uses are outpacing others. Application of GenAI is further along in some business areas than in others in terms of integration, return on investment (ROI) and expectations. The IT function is most mature; cybersecurity, operations, marketing and customer service are also showing strong adoption and results. Organizations reporting higher ROI for their most scaled initiatives are broadly further along in their GenAI journeys.
(Excerpt from the 12/4/24 edition)
Robot “Jailbreaks”
In the year or so since large language models hit the big time, researchers have demonstrated numerous ways of tricking them into producing problematic outputs including hateful jokes, malicious code, phishing emails, and the personal information of users. It turns out that misbehavior can take place in the physical world, too: LLM-powered robots can easily be hacked so that they behave in potentially dangerous ways.
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania were able to persuade a simulated self-driving car to ignore stop signs and even drive off a bridge, get a wheeled robot to find the best place to detonate a bomb, and force a four-legged robot to spy on people and enter restricted areas.
“We view our attack not just as an attack on robots,” says George Pappas, head of a research lab at the University of Pennsylvania who helped unleash the rebellious robots. “Any time you connect LLMs and foundation models to the physical world, you actually can convert harmful text into harmful actions.”
…
The robot “jailbreaks” highlight a broader risk that is likely to grow as AI models become increasingly used as a way for humans to interact with physical systems, or to enable AI agents autonomously on computers, say the researchers involved.
Virtual lab powered by ‘AI scientists’ super-charges biomedical research — from nature.com by Helena Kudiabor
Could human-AI collaborations be the future of interdisciplinary studies?
In an effort to automate scientific discovery using artificial intelligence (AI), researchers have created a virtual laboratory that combines several ‘AI scientists’ — large language models with defined scientific roles — that can collaborate to achieve goals set by human researchers.
The system, described in a preprint posted on bioRxiv last month1, was able to design antibody fragments called nanobodies that can bind to the virus that causes COVID-19, proposing nearly 100 of these structures in a fraction of the time it would take an all-human research group.
Can AI agents accelerate AI implementation for CIOs? — from intelligentcio.com by Arun Shankar
By embracing an agent-first approach, every CIO can redefine their business operations. AI agents are now the number one choice for CIOs as they come pre-built and can generate responses that are consistent with a company’s brand using trusted business data, explains Thierry Nicault at Salesforce Middle.
AI Turns Photos Into 3D Real World — from theaivalley.com by Barsee
Here’s what you need to know:
Why it matters:
This technology opens up exciting possibilities for industries like gaming, film, and virtual experiences. Soon, creating fully immersive worlds could be as simple as generating a static image.
Also related, see:
From World Labs
Today we’re sharing our first step towards spatial intelligence: an AI system that generates 3D worlds from a single image. This lets you step into any image and explore it in 3D.
Most GenAI tools make 2D content like images or videos. Generating in 3D instead improves control and consistency. This will change how we make movies, games, simulators, and other digital manifestations of our physical world.
In this post you’ll explore our generated worlds, rendered live in your browser. You’ll also experience different camera effects, 3D effects, and dive into classic paintings. Finally, you’ll see how creators are already building with our models.
Addendum on 12/5/24:
