Tech firms have been funneling billions of dollars into quantum computers for years. The hope is that they’ll be a game changer for fields as diverse as finance, drug discovery, and logistics. Those expectations have been especially high in physics and chemistry, where the weird effects of quantum mechanics come into play. In theory, that is where quantum computers could have an enormous advantage over conventional machines.
Enter AI: But while the sector struggles with the realities of tricky quantum hardware, one other challenger is making headway in a few of these most promising use cases. AI is now being applied to fundamental physics, chemistry, and materials science in a way that means quantum computing’s purported home turf won’t be so secure in spite of everything.
Given the pace of recent advances, a growing variety of researchers at the moment are asking whether AI could solve a considerable chunk of essentially the most interesting problems in chemistry and materials science before large-scale quantum computers turn out to be a reality. Read more from Edd Gent here.
Bits and Bytes
The Saudis are planning a $100 billion AI powerhouse
Speaking of the race for AI dominance, this piece looks at how Saudi Arabia wants in on AI motion. And it’s putting its money where its mouth is. The country is investing a large sum to develop a tech hub that it hopes will rival the neighboring United Arab Emirates. (Bloomberg)
AI is making it harder to consider what’s real and what isn’t
Two recent examples show just how influential AI slop could be in warping our sense of reality. In Dublin, crowds gathered in the town center to attend for a Halloween parade to happen. There was no parade planned, however the listing was created by AI after which picked up by social media users and native media. By the use of contrast, some social media users dismissed shocking images of the devastating recent floods in Spain as AI-generated, despite them being entirely real.
AI firms are getting comfortable offering their technology to the military
Militaries world wide have been pouring money into latest technologies, including AI. Meta and Anthropic are the most recent tech firms to start out courting them, joining the likes of Google and OpenAI. (The Washington Post)
OpenAI is shifting its strategy as the advance in its AI tools slows down
The present paradigm in AI development is to make things larger to make them higher. But OpenAI’s latest model, code-named Orion, only performs barely higher than its predecessors. As an alternative, OpenAI is shifting to improving models after their initial training. (The Information)
