Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA
There was a time, not so long ago, when AI-generated content was very easy to spot. It was surreal, ridiculous — like Jesus made out of Shrimp.We’re in a new time now, and AI slop looks so good, it’s hard to tell from the real thing. I’ve been fooled by it. You probably have, too, even if you don’t think you have. For example, this extremely realistic video of Nicolás Maduro doing TikTok dances in prison with Diddy. You know it’s AI only because it’s improbable, not because the video quality is poor.So in a post-slop world, what comes next?…
A London-based startup that provides software to help companies speed up AI training has raised $7.5 million in funding.AgileRL has created a platform called Arena that engineers and data scientists can drop their AI models into, run simulations, fine-tune them before deployment, and monitor them while they are running.The startup, cofounded by Param Kumar and Nicholas Ustaran-Anderegg in 2023, focuses on reinforcement learning, or RL, an AI training technique in which systems learn by trying actions and improving based on the feedback they receive.Reinforcement learning has roots dating back to the 1950s, but at AI labs, it is experiencing a…
Even with two incomes, Charity Pallum said she and her husband would not be able to afford child care for their 1-year-old twins. But because of federal child care subsidies, both Pallum, a teacher, and her husband, who works at a car dealership, are able to work full-time. Now, the Trump administration is increasing the reporting burdens for states to access the money. If Pallum’s family were to lose that support, her husband might have to stop working, putting a pinch on their family budget.“I guess our plans are, ’We’re just going to see how this goes,’” said Pallum, a…
Jan 7 (Reuters) – Online pharmacy platform SaveRxCanada.to said on Wednesday it has begun offering Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster diabetes drug, Ozempic, sourced from India to U.S. patients, as demand for cheaper options grows.The Canada-based company said the India-sourced Ozempic injections are priced from about $280 per pen, compared with U.S. retail pharmacy prices that typically range between $900 and $1,100 per pen depending on dose and location.A Novo Nordisk spokesperson said the company will investigate the matter, while the U.S. Food and Drug Administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.SaveRxCanada.to also did not immediately respond to a…
SCARBOROUGH, Maine (AP) — Messy winter weather brought snow, ice, freezing rain and dangerous driving to the New England states on Wednesday as the region prepared for more unpleasant conditions later in the week.The combination of rain, snow and slush blanketed the region, causing dozens of school districts to close for the day or begin on a delay. Snow accumulations were not expected to be high, but the road conditions made it unsafe to roll buses on Wednesday morning, districts said. Sam Ruth of Brattleboro, Vt., shovels the walkway after a wintry mess passed through the region on Wednesday, Jan.…
By Nancy LapidJan 7 (Reuters) – Artificial intelligence can use brain recordings from a single night in a sleep lab to predict a person’s risk of developing more than 100 health conditions, researchers say.Known as SleepFM, the AI model was trained on more than half a million hours of sleep data collected via polysomnography from 65,000 participants.Polysomnography is considered the gold-standard overnight sleep exam that uses various sensors to record brain activity, heart activity, respiratory signals, body movements, eye movements and other data. It is “an untapped gold mine of physiological data,” according to the researchers.“We record an amazing number…
Articul8, an enterprise AI company spun out of Intel in early 2024, has secured more than half of a planned $70 million funding round at a $500 million pre-money valuation, according to its CEO, as it looks to capitalize on growing demand for AI systems in regulated industries. The Series B funding round is structured in two installments, with the first led by Spain’s Adara Ventures, Articul8 founder and CEO Arun K. Subramaniyan (pictured above, center) said in an interview. He declined to disclose the size of the initial installment, but said the company expects to close the round in…
Nvidia is challenging Tesla’s robotaxi dreams — but Elon Musk isn’t worried yet.The Tesla CEO said it would take years for the company’s rivals to match its self-driving tech, after Nvidia unveiled an alternative suite of tools it said would help automakers “fast-track” robotaxi deployments.Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unveiled the tech, called Alpamayo, at the CES conference on Monday and said it would bring “reasoning” to autonomous vehicles. Responding to questions on X about what Alpamayo means for Tesla, Musk said that even with Nvidia’s help, it would take “several years” for automakers to advance their self-driving systems from being…
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is giving Iowa more power to decide how it spends its federal education money, signing off on a proposal that is expected to be the first of many as conservative states seek new latitude from a White House promising to “return education to the states.”Iowa was the first state to apply for an exemption from certain spending rules after Education Secretary Linda McMahon invited states to request the flexibility last year. Such waivers have been offered for years but are finding new interest as Trump officials leverage all available tools to remove the federal…
At 25 years old, Molly Graham was thriving in Facebook’s HR department when a senior executive urged her to transfer out of her stable role and help build a mobile phone instead.She took the risk — and it could have derailed her career.But Graham, who later became a C-suite executive at some of America’s biggest companies and philanthropies, now views that risky bet as one of the most important moves she ever made.”It just felt like falling off a cliff,” Graham, now the founder of Glue Club, said in a recent interview on Lenny Rachitsky’s podcast. “Taking risks, accepting the…