The week's developments in AI, quantum, and biotech, explained | 4.10.23

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Amazon is gearing up to broaden its drone delivery horizons, with plans to expand its advanced MK30 drone, to the UK next year. Amazon envisions accomplishing 500 million drone deliveries by the end of this decade. 

Meanwhile, can AI have a favourite food? Researchers at Penn State certainly believe so, as they work toward an electronic tongue, they hope will bolster EQ in artificial intelligence. 

And, meet EVEscape, the AI that is future-proofing vaccines with its accurate mutation predictions for SARS-CoV-2, HIV and influenza. 

We cover these stories and more — from 3D printed organs to your second brain — in the CogX Must Reads.

I hope you enjoy it!

Charlie and the Research and Intelligence Team

P.S. Did you miss any speakers? The CogX Festival 2023 is now available on demand - watch our curated AI & DeepTech playlist for all the top sessions exploring biotech, quantum, and the future of AI on our YouTube channel now.

CogX Must Reads

Innovation and Releases

Amazon drone deliveries will expand to UK

Amazon plans to introduce its drone delivery to the UK, Italy, and another undisclosed US location by 2024 using the MK30 drone, which has improved range, noise, and weather capabilities. The company's goal is 500 million drone deliveries by 2030. (TechCrunch) 

AI tool can make vaccines variant proof 

EVEscape is an AI tool for predicting viral mutations, and has demonstrated impressive predictive capabilities with SARS-CoV-2, HIV and influenza variants. The tool will help us make future vaccines more adaptable and effective against emerging strains. (TNW)

3D printed organs for transplants

Vital3D, a Lithuanian startup, is working on bioprinting body parts, specifically kidneys, to address the widening gap between organ demand and supply. Given the complexity of kidneys, their replication through bioprinting poses challenges but Vital3D’s advanced laser technology offers a promising solution to navigate these complexities. (TNW)

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Latest Research

Soft robots for minimally invasive surgeries 

Researchers have developed tiny, bio robots, for use in minimally invasive medical procedures, such as biopsies and transporting cells or tissues. The robots can change shape when exposed to chemicals, have a self-healing ability, letting researchers mould the robots into different forms without needing adhesives, and can be magnetically manipulated. (University of Waterloo)

Can AI develop emotion, through food?

Researchers are creating an electronic tongue, to improve the emotional intelligence of AI. Using human cravings as a basis, like desiring sweets when full, the current model detects primary tastes: sweet, salt, sour, bitter and umami. The team aims to broaden its taste range and eventually encompass all human senses. (Penn State)

Reinforcement learning, without human feedback

Reinforcement Learning is designed to align AI models with human intentions, using human feedback as a reward function. However, recent studies suggest ‘reward functions’ may not be the most effective learning approach. Researchers propose Contrastive Preference Learning as a suitable alternative, teaching AI from contrastive objectives and avoiding the need for a reward function  (Arxiv)

AI Tools of the Week

👨‍💻 Code - Xero.ai is a no code tool to build AI, using AI. Users can clean and augment data, and train unlimited customizable machine learning models. 

✍ Write - Zupyak is an AI-powered tool to generate high-quality, SEO content. It provides guidance on topics, keywords, and even writes your first draft for you. 

🧠 Grow MindPal is your second brain, to helps store, and chat with your files in a natural way. It supports all media types, from PDF’s, to Youtube Videos. 

In case you missed it

Meet Hologen - a multi-modal foundation model that has organised the world’s neurological data (think brains, cognition, behaviour) into a single foundation model. No one has done this before. Hear more from the CogX Festival 2023 exclusive.

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