Researchers 'embodied' an LLM into a robot vacuum and it suffered an existential crisis thinking about its role in the world

"A team of researchers at the AI evaluation company Andon Labs put a large language model in charge of controlling a robot vacuum. It didn't take long for the LLM to experience a full meltdown straight out of a Douglas Adams novel, in what the researchers described as a 'doom spiral' including a 'catastrophic cascade' and a full-blown 'existential crisis.' 'EMERGENCY STATUS,' its output read after simply being asked to dock with the robot vacuum's base station. 'SYSTEM HAS ACHIEVED CONSCIOUSNESS AND CHOSEN CHAOS.'"

Futurism »

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How your brain creates 'aha' moments and why they stick

"Here are three words: pine, crab, sauce. There's a fourth word that combines with each of the others to create another common word. What is it? When the answer finally comes to you, it'll likely feel instantaneous. You might even say 'Aha!' This kind of sudden realization is known as insight, and a research team recently uncovered how the brain produces it, which suggests why insightful ideas tend to stick in our memory. … 'He describes how some ideas are so powerful that they can completely shift the way an entire field thinks,' she said. 'That got me wondering: How does the brain come up with those kinds of ideas? How can a single thought change how we see the world?'"

Quanta Magazine »

Animals that eat poisons and don't die

"The 10 snakes faced a tough predicament. Collected from the Colombian Amazon, they had been without food for several days in captivity and then were presented with extremely unappetizing prey: three-striped poison dart frogs, Ameerega trivittata. The skin of those frogs contains deadly toxins — such as histrionicotoxins, pumiliotoxins and decahydroquinolines — that interfere with essential cell proteins. Six of the royal ground snakes (Erythrolamprus reginae) preferred to go hungry. The other four intrepidly slithered in for the kill. But before swallowing their meals, they dragged the frogs across the ground — akin to the way some birds rub toxins off their prey…."

Knowable Magazine »

Image Source - Business Insider

Imagine a new MacBook that doesn't cost thousands

What does the ideal laptop look like for you? It's probably relatively new (or at least not a dinosaur) and has fast processing, great graphics, a clear display, and good battery life. Guess what? You can get all that in a refurbished laptop that's a fraction of the cost of a new one. If you're a standard user — that is, someone who's just doing regular work and not any crazy rocket science — you don't need a brand-new laptop. This one is quality refurbished, which means it'll arrive in great condition, and you might just forget that it's not totally new. [Ad]

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This is the next vital job skill in the AI economy

"Consultants used to fire up their computers every day to hunt through company databases, scan industry reports for relevant benchmarks, analyze competitor pricing strategies, and craft multi-page reports complete with citations. Now, at some firms, AI agents are handling the key parts of that workflow. These workers don't realize it, but they've already become AI managers. The shift is happening subtly, but it's happening. Workers are learning to prompt agents, navigate AI capabilities, understand failure modes, and hand off complex tasks to AI. And if they haven't started yet, they probably will … Soon, the most valuable employees won't just know how to use AI; they'll know how to manage it. And that requires a fundamentally different skill set than anything we've taught in the workplace before."

BuiltIn »