Welcome to the June 26, 2023, edition of ACM TechNews, providing timely information for IT professionals three times a week.
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AI's Use in Elections Sets Off a Scramble for Guardrails
The New York Times
Tiffany Hsu; Steven Lee Myers
June 25, 2023
Artificial intelligence (AI)-generated political campaign materials designed to stoke anxiety have spurred demands for safeguards from consultants, election researchers, and lawmakers. In the run-up to the 2024 presidential race, the Republican National Committee issued a video with synthetic dystopian images associated with a Biden victory; the Democrats found AI-drafted fundraising messages often encouraged more engagement and donations than human-written copy. Election advocates are urging legislation to regulate synthetically produced ads, as social media rules and services that purport to police AI content have fallen short. A group of Democratic lawmakers has proposed legislation requiring disclaimers to accompany political ads with AI-generated material, and the American Association of Political Consultants said using deepfake content in political campaigns constitutes an ethics code violation.
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Computer Memory Reduces Energy Use, Improves Performance
University of Cambridge (U.K.)
June 23, 2023
A team of scientists in the U.S. and the U.K. designed a new form of computer memory that improves performance and energy efficiency by processing data like the human brain's synapses. The researchers constructed the devices from hafnium oxide infused with barium, creating self-assembled barriers that can be raised or lowered to allow the passage of electrons. Markus Hellenbrand at the U.K.'s University of Cambridge explained, "This allows multiple states to exist in the material, unlike conventional memory which has only two states." This process changes the device's electrical resistance, enabling the coincident location of information processing and memory. The composite material exhibits high-level performance and uniformity.
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VR Suit Could Help You 'Feel' Things in the Metaverse
EuroNews
Roselyne Min
June 23, 2023
Engineers at Switzerland's ETH Zurich constructed a full-body tactile suit to amplify immersive virtual reality (VR) experiences. ETH Zurich's Maximilan Eberlein said the Meta Suit's sensors and hydraulically amplified self-healing electrostatic actuator (Hasel) muscles are designed to make VR interaction more natural. The muscles contract and expand with an electrical current to transmit haptic feedback so the wearer can "feel" the VR environment. Said Eberlein, "You have pouches that are filled with a special fluid and you spray electrodes on them and you apply a voltage on these electrodes so that these muscles zip together and this leads to a contraction of the muscle."
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Robot Uses Fake Raspberry to Practice Picking Fruit
Popular Science
Charlotte Hu
June 24, 2023
Scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL) Computational Robot Design & Fabrication Laboratory engineered a robot that practiced raspberry-picking on a silicone raspberry mockup with an artificial stem to ensure it learned how to handle the fragile fruit. The researchers said the stem "can 'tell' the robot how much pressure is being applied, both while the fruit is still attached to the receptacle and after it's been released." Experiments showed the robot could harvest 60% of the fruits while keeping them intact versus the human average of 90%. An improved raspberry model could help enhance the robot's performance, while an extended setting that simulates "environmental conditions such as lighting, temperature, and humidity could further close the Lab2Field reality gap," according to the researchers.
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Wearable Monitor Detects Stress Hormone Levels All Day Long
University of Bristol News (U.K.)
June 21, 2023
Researchers at the University of Bristol and the University of Birmingham in the U.K. and Norway's University of Bergen have developed a wearable device that measures stress hormone levels over an extended period. The device tracks adrenal steroid levels at high resolution. This will help determine normal hormonal rhythms to establish a baseline and improve disease diagnoses based on abnormal hormone levels. Worn around the waist, U-RHYTHM takes samples from beneath the skin every 20 minutes for up to 72 hours, eliminating the need for blood collection. Samples are taken during daily activities, including work and sleep. The researchers developed adrenal hormone profiles for 214 healthy participants who wore the device for 24 hours. University of Bristol's Thomas Upton said, "The information we have gathered forms an entirely new reference range, which has the potential to revolutionize how diseases of the stress hormone system are diagnosed and treated."
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NASA Engineers Help Create Virtual World of Data
NASA
Andrew Wagner
June 23, 2023
Engineers at the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) partnered to develop software for virtually exploring relationships between points of data using artificial intelligence and three-dimensional visualization. Explained JPL's Scott Davidoff, "We made a data world where an analyst could look at any science or engineering problem and see patterns and correlations more clearly than they can in a flat version." This process, called intelligent exploration, can extract immediate insights beyond the capabilities of two-dimensional graphs "because it's literally drag and drop," according to Caltech's Ciro Donalek.
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Mining Companies Bet on Autonomous Technology to Make Dangerous Jobs Safer
CBC News (Canada)
Amanda Stephenson
June 25, 2023
Mining companies are implementing advanced technologies to make hazardous jobs safer. Canada-based potash miner Nutrien used tele-remote technology to mine a complete production wing at its underground site in the town of Lanigan last fall without any human workers present. The artificial intelligence-powered system operated a boring machine from a control room several hundred meters from the mining face, using radar, cameras, sensors, and other state-of-the-art techniques. Meanwhile, Teck Resources has replaced drivers at a steel-making coal mine in British Columbia with an autonomous haulage system. Productivity is another purported advantage of autonomous mining; Imperial Oil's Brad Corson stated earlier this year his company's automated Caterpillar truck fleet is 10% to 15% more productive than staffed trucks at its Kearl oilsands mine in Alberta.
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Atlas of Human Brain Blood Vessels Highlights Changes in Alzheimer's Disease
MIT News
Rachel Gordon
June 21, 2023
Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University, and Chicago’s Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center created a molecular atlas of human brain blood vessels to highlight Alzheimer's disease (AD)-related changes across six regions. The atlas encompassed 428 donors, including 220 receiving AD diagnoses and 208 controls. The researchers defined more than 22,514 vascular cells from the six brain regions, gauging the expression of thousands of genes for each cell. The subsequent datasets exposed gene expression changes across different regions, markedly differentiating persons with and without AD. Said Manolis Kellis of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the work provides “a map to guide biological and therapeutic investigations earlier in disease progression.”
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How Big Tech Embraced Disabled Users
France 24
June 21, 2023
Big tech companies increasingly are rolling out technologies that aim to help disabled users. Apple's Live Speech, for instance, recreates a user's voice using artificial intelligence (AI), allowing those with speech issues to have typed messages read aloud in their natural voices. Meanwhile, an updated version of Google's Lookout app, which uses AI to describe images to visually impaired users, will be able to identify objects without labels. Representatives of both companies said at a recent tech event in Paris that accessibility is a priority. Other companies also are working to help those with sensory impairments; Microsoft’s SeeingAI describes photos for visually impaired people, while French firm Sonar Vision is developing technology to guide visually impaired people around cities, and the company Equally AI is harnessing ChatGPT to improve the accessibility of websites.
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3D-Printing Structures with Two Metals
WSU Insider
Sara Zaske
June 22, 2023
Washington State University's Lile Squires, Ethan Roberts, and Amit Bandyopadhyay three-dimensionally (3D)-printed single-layer bimetallic structures, integrating common welding equipment inside a computer numerical control system to produce parts using precise computer programming and two welding machines. The researchers demonstrated that the welding heads worked sequentially on a circular layer to print a non-corroding stainless-steel core within an outer "mild" steel casing. Said Squires, "Going in a circle essentially allows one material to ‘bear hug’ the other material, which can't happen when printing in a straight line or in sandwiched layers." Tests indicated the bimetallic alloy was 33% to 42% stronger than either metal alone.
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U.S.-Based Generative AI Job Postings Up 20% in May
Reuters
Chavi Mehta
June 22, 2023
The job portal Indeed reported a gain of about 20% in the number of generative artificial intelligence (AI)-related job postings to 204 per million in May, more than double the number of postings in the same month of 2021. Of the AI job postings on Indeed's U.S. platform, 5% were for data scientists. Also found to be in demand were software engineers, machine learning engineers, and data engineers. Indeed's Nick Bunker said, "There has been a notable increase in job seeker interest in AI-related jobs, especially since the introduction of ChatGPT." However, Indeed reported a 43.6% overall decrease in U.S. tech jobs from June 2022. The platform reported interest in AI jobs surpassed availability. Last month, searches for generative AI jobs totaled 147 per million total jobs searched, up from virtually zero in May 2022.
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