The information: A brand new robotic coaching mannequin, dubbed “KnowNo,” goals to show robots to ask for our assist when orders are unclear. On the similar time, it ensures they search clarification solely when vital, minimizing unnecessary back-and-forth. The consequence is a great assistant that tries to ensure it understands what you need with out bothering you an excessive amount of.
Why it issues: Whereas robots might be highly effective in lots of particular eventualities, they’re typically unhealthy at generalized duties that require widespread sense. That’s one thing giant language fashions may assist to repair, as a result of they’ve lots of commonsense information baked in. Learn the complete story.
—June Kim
Medical microrobots that journey contained in the physique are (nonetheless) on their method
The human physique is a labyrinth of vessels and tubing, stuffed with boundaries which are troublesome to interrupt by means of. That poses a severe hurdle for docs. Sickness is commonly brought on by issues which are laborious to visualise and troublesome to entry. However think about if we may deploy armies of tiny robots into the physique to do the job for us. They may break up hard-to-reach clots, ship medicine to even essentially the most inaccessible tumors, and even assist information embryos towards implantation.
We’ve been listening to about the usage of tiny robots in drugs for years, possibly even a long time. They usually’re nonetheless not right here. However specialists are adamant that medical microbots are lastly coming, and that they may very well be a sport changer for quite a lot of severe illnesses. Learn the complete story.
—Cassandra Willyard