This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through October 17) – Singularity Hub

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

A Radical New Technique Lets AI Learn With Practically No DataKaren Hao | MIT Technology ReviewShown photos of a horse and a rhino, and told a unicorn is something in between, [children] can recognize the mythical creature in a picture book the first time they see it. Now a new paper from the University of Waterloo in Ontario suggests that AI models should also be able to do thisa process the researchers call less than one-shot, or LO-shot, learning.

Artificial General Intelligence: Are We Close, and Does It Even Make Sense to Try?Will Douglas Heaven | MIT Technology ReviewA machine that could think like a person has been the guiding vision of AI research since the earliest daysand remains its most divisive idea. So why is AGI controversial? Why does it matter? And is it a reckless, misleading dreamor the ultimate goal?

The Race for a Super-Antibody Against the CoronavirusApoorva Mandavilli | The New York TimesDozens of companies and academic groups are racing to develop antibody therapies. But some scientists are betting on a dark horse: Prometheus, a ragtag group of scientists who are months behind in the competitionand yet may ultimately deliver the most powerful antibody.

How to Build a Spacecraft to Save the WorldDaniel Oberhaus | WiredThe goal of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, is to slam the [spacecraft] into a small asteroid orbiting a larger asteroid 7 million miles from Earth. It should be able to change the asteroids orbit just enough to be detectable from Earth, demonstrating that this kind of strike could nudge an oncoming threat out of Earths way. Beyond that, everything is just an educated guess, which is exactly why NASA needs to punch an asteroid with a robot.

Inside Gravitys Daring Mission to Make Jetpacks a RealityOliver Franklin-Wallis | WiredThe first time someone flies a jetpack, a curious thing happens: just as their body leaves the ground, their legs start to flail. Its as if the vestibular system cant quite believe whats happening. This isnt natural. Then suddenly, thrust exceeds weight, andtheyre aloft. Its that moment, lift-off, that has given jetpacks an enduring appeal for over a century.

Inside Singapores Huge Bet on Vertical FarmingMegan Tatum | MIT Technology Reviewto cram all [of Singapores] gleaming towers and nearly 6 million people into a land mass half the size of Los Angeles, it has sacrificed many things, including food production. Farms make up no more than 1% of its total land (in the United States its 40%), forcing the small city-state to shell out around $10 billion each year importing 90% of its food. Here was an example of technology that could change all that.

The Effort to Build the Mathematical Library of the FutureKevin Hartnett | QuantaDigitizing mathematics is a longtime dream. The expected benefits range from the mundanecomputers grading students homeworkto the transcendent: using artificial intelligence to discover new mathematics and find new solutions to old problems.

Image credit:Kevin Mueller /Unsplash