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  • Averbis

    Averbis

    Averbis has a focus on healthcare, pharma, automotive and intellectual property analytics. Averbis is involved in various research projects of the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy and the European Union such as DebugIT, EUCases, Mantra and SEMCARE. In addition to these projects, Averbis was also involved in the following projects: Greenpilot is a virtual library, which provides technical information in the fields of nutrition, environment and agriculture. Medpilot is a virtual library, which provides information about medicine and related sciences. In 2013, Averbis has been nominated for the German Founder Prize 2013. Averbis GmbH provides text analytics and text mining software to transform unstructured text into actionable information. It was founded in 2007 by IT experts after years of relevant scientific experience in the field of text mining and multilingual information retrieval. Averbis works in the field of terminology management, natural language processing, machine learning and semantic search. Its text mining software is embedded into the text mining framework UIMA.

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  • Psychology of reasoning

    Psychology of reasoning

    The psychology of reasoning (also known as the cognitive science of reasoning) is the study of how people reason, often broadly defined as the process of drawing conclusions to inform how people solve problems and make decisions. It overlaps with psychology, philosophy, linguistics, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, logic, and probability theory. Psychological experiments on how humans and other animals reason have been carried out for over 100 years. An enduring question is whether or not people have the capacity to be rational. Current research in this area addresses various questions about reasoning, rationality, judgments, intelligence, relationships between emotion and reasoning, and development. == Everyday reasoning == One of the most obvious areas in which people employ reasoning is with sentences in everyday language. Most experimentation on deduction has been carried out on hypothetical thought, in particular, examining how people reason about conditionals, e.g., If A then B. Participants in experiments make the modus ponens inference, given the indicative conditional If A then B, and given the premise A, they conclude B. However, given the indicative conditional and the minor premise for the modus tollens inference, not-B, about half of the participants in experiments conclude not-A and the remainder concludes that nothing follows. The ease with which people make conditional inferences is affected by context, as demonstrated in the well-known selection task developed by Peter Wason. Participants are better able to test a conditional in an ecologically relevant context, e.g., if the envelope is sealed then it must have a 50 cent stamp on it compared to one that contains symbolic content, e.g., if the letter is a vowel then the number is even. Background knowledge can also lead to the suppression of even the simple modus ponens inference Participants given the conditional if Lisa has an essay to write then she studies late in the library and the premise Lisa has an essay to write make the modus ponens inference 'she studies late in the library', but the inference is suppressed when they are also given a second conditional if the library stays open then she studies late in the library. Interpretations of the suppression effect are controversial Other investigations of propositional inference examine how people think about disjunctive alternatives, e.g., A or else B, and how they reason about negation, e.g., It is not the case that A and B. Many experiments have been carried out to examine how people make relational inferences, including comparisons, e.g., A is better than B. Such investigations also concern spatial inferences, e.g. A is in front of B and temporal inferences, e.g. A occurs before B. Other common tasks include categorical syllogisms, used to examine how people reason about quantifiers such as All or Some, e.g., Some of the A are not B. For example if all A are B and some B are C, what (if anything) follows? == Theories of reasoning == There are several alternative theories of the cognitive processes that human reasoning is based on. One view is that people rely on a mental logic consisting of formal (abstract or syntactic) inference rules similar to those developed by logicians in the propositional calculus. Another view is that people rely on domain-specific or content-sensitive rules of inference. A third view is that people rely on mental models, that is, mental representations that correspond to imagined possibilities. A fourth view is that people compute probabilities. One controversial theoretical issue is the identification of an appropriate competence model, or a standard against which to compare human reasoning. Initially classical logic was chosen as a competence model. Subsequently, some researchers opted for non-monotonic logic and Bayesian probability. Research on mental models and reasoning has led to the suggestion that people are rational in principle but err in practice. Connectionist approaches towards reasoning have also been proposed. Despite the ongoing debate about the cognitive processes involved in human reasoning, recent research has shown that multiple approaches can be useful in modeling human thinking. For instance, studies have found that people's reasoning is often influenced by their prior beliefs, which can be modeled using Bayesian probability theory. Additionally, research on mental models has shown that people tend to reason about problems by constructing multiple mental representations of the situation, which can help them to identify relevant features and make inferences based on their understanding of the problem. Moreover, connectionist approaches to reasoning have also gained attention, which focus on the neural network models that can learn from data and generalize to new situations. == Development of reasoning == It is an active question in psychology how, why, and when the ability to reason develops from infancy to adulthood. Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development posited general mechanisms and stages in the development of reasoning from infancy to adulthood. According to the neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development, changes in reasoning with development come from increasing working memory capacity, increasing speed of processing, and enhanced executive functions and control. Increasing self-awareness is also an important factor. In their book The Enigma of Reason, the cognitive scientists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber put forward an "argumentative" theory of reasoning, claiming that humans evolved to reason primarily to justify our beliefs and actions and to convince others in a social environment. Key evidence for their theory includes the errors in reasoning that solitary individuals are prone to when their arguments are not criticized, such as logical fallacies, and how groups become much better at performing cognitive reasoning tasks when they communicate with one another and can evaluate each other's arguments. Sperber and Mercier offer one attempt to resolve the apparent paradox that the confirmation bias is so strong despite the function of reasoning naively appearing to be to come to veridical conclusions about the world. The study of the development of reasoning abilities is an ongoing area of research in psychology, and multiple factors have been proposed to explain how, why, and when reasoning develops from infancy to adulthood. Recent research has suggested that early experiences and social interactions play a critical role in the development of reasoning abilities. For example, studies have shown that infants as young as six months old can engage in basic logical reasoning, such as reasoning about the relationship between objects and their properties. Furthermore, research has highlighted the importance of parental interaction and cognitive stimulation in the development of children's reasoning abilities. Additionally, studies have suggested that cultural factors, such as educational practices and the emphasis on critical thinking, can also influence the development of reasoning skills across different populations. == Different sorts of reasoning == Philip Johnson-Laird trying to taxonomize thought, distinguished between goal-directed thinking and thinking without goal, noting that association was involved in unrelated reading. He argues that goal directed reasoning can be classified based on the problem space involved in a solution, citing Allen Newell and Herbert A. Simon. Inductive reasoning makes broad generalizations from specific cases or observations. In this process of reasoning, general assertions are made based on past specific pieces of evidence. This kind of reasoning allows the conclusion to be false even if the original statement is true. For example, if one observes a college athlete, one makes predictions and assumptions about other college athletes based on that one observation. Scientists use inductive reasoning to create theories and hypotheses. Philip Johnson-Laird distinguished inductive from deductive reasoning, in that the former creates semantic information while the later does not . In opposition, deductive reasoning is a basic form of valid reasoning. In this reasoning process a person starts with a known claim or a general belief and from there asks what follows from these foundations or how will these premises influence other beliefs. In other words, deduction starts with a hypothesis and examines the possibilities to reach a conclusion. Deduction helps people understand why their predictions are wrong and indicates that their prior knowledge or beliefs are off track. An example of deduction can be seen in the scientific method when testing hypotheses and theories. Although the conclusion usually corresponds and therefore proves the hypothesis, there are some cases where the conclusion is logical, but the generalization is not. For example, the argument, "All young girls wear skirts; Julie is a young

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  • JAX (software)

    JAX (software)

    JAX is a Python library for accelerator-oriented array computation and program transformation, designed for high-performance numerical computing and large-scale machine learning. It is developed by Google with contributions from Nvidia and other community contributors. It is described as bringing together a modified version of the automatic differentiation system autograd and OpenXLA's XLA (Accelerated Linear Algebra). It is designed to follow the structure and workflow of NumPy as closely as possible and works with various existing frameworks such as TensorFlow and PyTorch. The primary features of JAX are: Providing a unified NumPy-like interface to computations that run on CPU, GPU, or TPU, in local or distributed settings. Built-in Just-In-Time (JIT) compilation via OpenXLA, an open-source machine learning compiler ecosystem. Efficient evaluation of gradients via its automatic differentiation transformations. Automatic vectorization to efficiently map functions over arrays representing batches of inputs. == Libraries using Jax == Flax Equinox Optax

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  • Situated

    Situated

    In artificial intelligence and cognitive science, the term situated refers to an agent which is embedded in an environment. The term situated is commonly used to refer to robots, but some researchers argue that software agents can also be situated if: they exist in a dynamic (rapidly changing) environment, which they can manipulate or change through their actions, and which they can sense or perceive. Examples might include web-based agents, which can alter data or trigger processes (such as purchases) over the internet, or virtual-reality bots which inhabit and change virtual worlds, such as Second Life. Being situated is generally considered to be part of being embodied, but it is useful to consider each perspective individually. The situated perspective emphasizes that intelligent behaviour derives from the environment and the agent's interactions with it. The nature of these interactions are defined by an agent's embodiment.

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  • DoorDash

    DoorDash

    DoorDash, Inc. is an American company operating online food ordering and food delivery. It trades under the symbol DASH. With a 56% market share, DoorDash is the largest food delivery platform in the United States. It also has a 60% market share in the convenience delivery category. As of December 31, 2020, the platform was used by 450,000 merchants, 20 million consumers, and had over one million delivery couriers. Founded by Tony Xu, Andy Fang, Stanley Tang and Evan Moore, DoorDash made its debut on the Fortune 500 list in 2024, ranking No. 443. DoorDash has been sued for or held legally liable for withholding tips, reducing tip transparency, antitrust price manipulation, listing restaurants without permission, misclassifying workers, withholding sick time, and illegally selling personal data. As of April 2026, DoorDash operates in the United States (including Puerto Rico), Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Through its subsidiaries Deliveroo and Wolt, the company also operates across Europe, as well as in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. == History == In January 2013, Stanford University students Tony Xu, Stanley Tang, Andy Fang and Evan Moore launched PaloAltoDelivery.com in Palo Alto, California. In the summer of 2013, it received US$120,000 in seed money from Y Combinator in exchange for a 7% stake. It incorporated as DoorDash in June 2013. DoorDash's first partnership with a fast food burger restaurant chain was in April 2016, when it partnered with CKE Restaurants, parent company of Carl's Jr. and Hardee's, for food delivery. In December 2017, DoorDash announced its partnership with Wendy's for delivery from its restaurants. In December 2018, DoorDash overtook Uber Eats to hold the second position in total US food delivery sales, behind GrubHub. By March 2019, it had exceeded GrubHub in total sales, at 27.6% of the on-demand delivery market. By early 2019, DoorDash was the largest food delivery provider in the U.S., as measured by consumer spending. In October 2019, DoorDash opened its first ghost kitchen, DoorDash Kitchen, in Redwood City, California, with four restaurants operating at the location. By June 2020, DoorDash had raised more than $2.5 billion over several financing rounds from investors including Y Combinator, Charles River Ventures, SV Angel, Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capital, SoftBank Group, GIC, and Kleiner Perkins. DoorDash announced a partnership with KFC in September 2020, followed by Taco Bell in October 2020. In November 2020, DoorDash announced the opening of its first physical restaurant location, partnering up with Bay Area restaurant Burma Bites to offer delivery and pick-up orders. In December 2020, it became a public company via an initial public offering, raising $3.37 billion. In November 2021, DoorDash acquired Finland's Wolt for €7bn. In August 2022, DoorDash announced it would end its partnership with Walmart in September, ending the companies' cooperation agreement from 2018. In November 2022, DoorDash announced plans to lay off 1,250 corporate employees, or about six percent of its workforce, to rein in expenses. In June 2023, DoorDash announced it would give its drivers the option of earning an hourly minimum wage instead of being paid per delivery. However, drivers are only paid hourly when on an active delivery. In September 2023, the company transferred its stock listing from the New York Stock Exchange to the Nasdaq. On December 18, 2023, DoorDash was added to the Nasdaq-100 index. In March 2025, DoorDash announced a partnership with Klarna, a Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) service, letting customers schedule small payments over a set period of time. DoorDash received widespread criticism from this decision, including internet mockery, given concerns about the increase of household debt in America. In 2025, DoorDash acquired the UK-based delivery service Deliveroo for $3.88 billion. The combined company operates in 40 countries and serves 50 million users monthly. In September 2025, DoorDash and Ace Hardware (the largest hardware cooperative) announced their partnership to offer delivery for home use products from over 4,000 Ace locations. == Lawsuits against DoorDash == === 2017 class-action lawsuit for misclassifying workers === In 2017, a class-action lawsuit was filed against DoorDash for allegedly misclassifying delivery drivers in California and Massachusetts as independent contractors. In 2022, a tentative settlement was reached in which DoorDash would pay $100 million total, with $61 million going to over 900,000 drivers, paying out just over $130 per driver, and $28 million for the lawyers. Gizmodo criticized the settlement, noting that the $413 million that DoorDash CEO Tony Xu received the previous year was one of the largest CEO compensation packages of all time. === 2019 data breach lawsuit === On May 4, 2019, DoorDash confirmed 4.9 million customers, delivery workers and merchants had sensitive information stolen via a data breach. Those who joined the platform after April 5, 2018, were unaffected by the breach. A class-action lawsuit for the breach was filed against DoorDash in October 2019. === Withholding of tips and subsequent class-action lawsuits === In July 2019, the company's tipping policy was criticized by The New York Times, and later The Verge and Vox and Gothamist. Drivers receive a guaranteed minimum per order that is paid by DoorDash by default. When a customer added a tip, instead of going directly to the driver, it first went to the company to cover the guaranteed minimum. Drivers then only directly received the part of the tip that exceeded the guaranteed minimum per order. In January 2020, it was reported that DoorDash had lied about skimming tips from its drivers, causing them to earn an average of $1.45 an hour after expenses, and that after the company had allegedly overhauled its tipping system, DoorDash was still manipulating per-delivery payouts at the expense of drivers. A DoorDash customer filed a class action lawsuit against the company for its "materially false and misleading" tipping policy. The case was referred to arbitration in August 2020. Under pressure, the company revised its policy. The company settled a lawsuit with District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine for $2.5 million, with funds going to deliverers, the government, and to charity. ==== 2021 driver strike for tip transparency ==== In July 2021, DoorDash drivers went on strike to protest lack of tip transparency and to ask for higher pay. At the time of the strike, and, as of June 2022, DoorDash did not allow drivers to see the full tip amounts prior to accepting a delivery in the app. If customers tip over a set amount for the order total, Doordash hides a portion of the tip until the delivery is complete. The strike occurred after DoorDash rewrote its code to cut off access to Para, a third-party app that drivers had been using to see the full tip amounts. ==== 2025 class-action lawsuit settlement ==== In 2025, DoorDash agreed to pay around $17 million for "misleading both consumers and delivery workers" with tips being docked from drivers' pay instead of directly going to drivers. === 2020 antitrust litigation === In April 2020, in the case of Davitashvili v. GrubHub Inc. DoorDash, Grubhub, Postmates, and Uber Eats were accused of monopolistic power by only listing restaurants on its apps if the restaurant owners signed contracts which include clauses that require prices be the same for dine-in customers as for customers receiving delivery. The plaintiffs stated that this arrangement increases the cost for dine-in customers, as they are required to subsidize the cost of delivery; and that the apps charge "exorbitant" fees, which range from 13% to 40% of revenue, while the average restaurant's profit ranges from 3% to 9% of revenue. The lawsuit seeks treble damages, including for overcharges, since April 14, 2016, for dine-in and delivery customers in the United States at restaurants using the defendants’ delivery apps. Although several preliminary documents in the case have now been filed, a trial date has not yet been set. === Litigation for illegal unauthorized restaurant listing === In May 2021, DoorDash was criticized for unauthorized listings of restaurants who had not given permission to appear on the app. The company was sued by Lona's Lil Eats in St. Louis, with the lawsuit claiming that DoorDash had listed them without permission, then prevented any orders to the restaurant from going through and redirecting customers to other restaurants instead, because Lona's was "too far away," when in reality it had not paid DoorDash a fee for listing. This aspect of DoorDash's business practice is illegal in California. === 2021 lawsuit by the city of Chicago === In August 2021, the city of Chicago sued DoorDash and GrubHub. According to Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot, the companies broke the law by using "unfair and deceptive t

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  • Outline of machine learning

    Outline of machine learning

    The following outline is provided as an overview of, and topical guide to, machine learning: Machine learning (ML) is a subfield of artificial intelligence within computer science that evolved from the study of pattern recognition and computational learning theory. In 1959, Arthur Samuel defined machine learning as a "field of study that gives computers the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed". ML involves the study and construction of algorithms that can learn from and make predictions on data. These algorithms operate by building a model from a training set of example observations to make data-driven predictions or decisions expressed as outputs, rather than following strictly static program instructions. == How can machine learning be categorized? == An academic discipline A branch of science An applied science A subfield of computer science A branch of artificial intelligence A subfield of soft computing Application of statistics === Paradigms of machine learning === Supervised learning, where the model is trained on labeled data Unsupervised learning, where the model tries to identify patterns in unlabeled data Reinforcement learning, where the model learns to make decisions by receiving rewards or penalties. == Applications of machine learning == Applications of machine learning Bioinformatics Biomedical informatics Computer vision Customer relationship management Data mining Earth sciences Email filtering Inverted pendulum (balance and equilibrium system) Natural language processing Named Entity Recognition Automatic summarization Automatic taxonomy construction Dialog system Grammar checker Language recognition Handwriting recognition Optical character recognition Speech recognition Text to Speech Synthesis Speech Emotion Recognition Machine translation Question answering Speech synthesis Text mining Term frequency–inverse document frequency Text simplification Pattern recognition Facial recognition system Handwriting recognition Image recognition Optical character recognition Speech recognition Recommendation system Collaborative filtering Content-based filtering Hybrid recommender systems Search engine Search engine optimization Social engineering == Machine learning hardware == Graphics processing unit Tensor processing unit Vision processing unit == Machine learning tools == Comparison of machine learning software Comparison of deep learning software === Machine learning frameworks === ==== Proprietary machine learning frameworks ==== Amazon Machine Learning Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio DistBelief (replaced by TensorFlow) ==== Open source machine learning frameworks ==== Apache Singa Apache MXNet Caffe PyTorch mlpack TensorFlow Torch CNTK Accord.Net Jax MLJ.jl – A machine learning framework for Julia === Machine learning libraries === Deeplearning4j Theano scikit-learn Keras === Machine learning algorithms === == Machine learning methods == === Instance-based algorithm === K-nearest neighbors algorithm (KNN) Learning vector quantization (LVQ) Self-organizing map (SOM) === Regression analysis === Logistic regression Ordinary least squares regression (OLSR) Linear regression Stepwise regression Multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) Regularization algorithm Ridge regression Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) Elastic net Least-angle regression (LARS) Classifiers Probabilistic classifier Naive Bayes classifier Binary classifier Linear classifier Hierarchical classifier === Dimensionality reduction === Dimensionality reduction Canonical correlation analysis (CCA) Factor analysis Feature extraction Feature selection Independent component analysis (ICA) Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) Multidimensional scaling (MDS) Non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) Partial least squares regression (PLSR) Principal component analysis (PCA) Principal component regression (PCR) Projection pursuit Sammon mapping t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE) === Ensemble learning === Ensemble learning AdaBoost Boosting Bootstrap aggregating (also "bagging" or "bootstrapping") Ensemble averaging Gradient boosted decision tree (GBDT) Gradient boosting Random Forest Stacked Generalization === Meta-learning === Meta-learning Inductive bias Metadata === Reinforcement learning === Reinforcement learning Q-learning State–action–reward–state–action (SARSA) Temporal difference learning (TD) Learning Automata === Supervised learning === Supervised learning Averaged one-dependence estimators (AODE) Artificial neural network Case-based reasoning Gaussian process regression Gene expression programming Group method of data handling (GMDH) Inductive logic programming Instance-based learning Lazy learning Learning Automata Learning Vector Quantization Logistic Model Tree Minimum message length (decision trees, decision graphs, etc.) Nearest Neighbor Algorithm Analogical modeling Probably approximately correct learning (PAC) learning Ripple down rules, a knowledge acquisition methodology Symbolic machine learning algorithms Support vector machines Random Forests Ensembles of classifiers Bootstrap aggregating (bagging) Boosting (meta-algorithm) Ordinal classification Conditional Random Field ANOVA Quadratic classifiers k-nearest neighbor Boosting SPRINT Bayesian networks Naive Bayes Hidden Markov models Hierarchical hidden Markov model ==== Bayesian ==== Bayesian statistics Bayesian knowledge base Naive Bayes Gaussian Naive Bayes Multinomial Naive Bayes Averaged One-Dependence Estimators (AODE) Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) Bayesian Network (BN) ==== Decision tree algorithms ==== Decision tree algorithm Decision tree Classification and regression tree (CART) Iterative Dichotomiser 3 (ID3) C4.5 algorithm C5.0 algorithm Chi-squared Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID) Decision stump Conditional decision tree ID3 algorithm Random forest SLIQ ==== Linear classifier ==== Linear classifier Fisher's linear discriminant Linear regression Logistic regression Multinomial logistic regression Naive Bayes classifier Perceptron Support vector machine === Unsupervised learning === Unsupervised learning Expectation-maximization algorithm Vector Quantization Generative topographic map Information bottleneck method Association rule learning algorithms Apriori algorithm Eclat algorithm ==== Artificial neural networks ==== Artificial neural network Feedforward neural network Extreme learning machine Convolutional neural network Recurrent neural network Long short-term memory (LSTM) Logic learning machine Self-organizing map ==== Association rule learning ==== Association rule learning Apriori algorithm Eclat algorithm FP-growth algorithm ==== Hierarchical clustering ==== Hierarchical clustering Single-linkage clustering Conceptual clustering ==== Cluster analysis ==== Cluster analysis BIRCH DBSCAN Expectation–maximization (EM) Fuzzy clustering Hierarchical clustering k-means clustering k-medians Mean-shift OPTICS algorithm ==== Anomaly detection ==== Anomaly detection k-nearest neighbors algorithm (k-NN) Local outlier factor === Semi-supervised learning === Semi-supervised learning Active learning Generative models Low-density separation Graph-based methods Co-training Transduction === Deep learning === Deep learning Deep belief networks Deep Boltzmann machines Deep Convolutional neural networks Deep Recurrent neural networks Hierarchical temporal memory Generative Adversarial Network Style transfer Transformer Stacked Auto-Encoders === Other machine learning methods and problems === Anomaly detection Association rules Bias-variance dilemma Classification Multi-label classification Clustering Data Pre-processing Empirical risk minimization Feature engineering Feature learning Learning to rank Occam learning Online machine learning PAC learning Regression Reinforcement Learning Semi-supervised learning Statistical learning Structured prediction Graphical models Bayesian network Conditional random field (CRF) Hidden Markov model (HMM) Unsupervised learning VC theory == Machine learning research == List of artificial intelligence projects List of datasets for machine learning research == History of machine learning == History of machine learning Timeline of machine learning == Machine learning projects == Machine learning projects: DeepMind Google Brain OpenAI Meta AI Hugging Face == Machine learning organizations == === Machine learning conferences and workshops === Artificial Intelligence and Security (AISec) (co-located workshop with CCS) Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) ECML PKDD International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) ML4ALL (Machine Learning For All) == Machine learning publications == === Books on machine learning === Mathematics for Machine Learning Hands-On Machine Learning Scikit-Learn, Keras, and TensorFlow The Hundred-Page Machine Learning Book === Machine learning journals === Machine Learning Journal of Machine Learning Research (JMLR) Neural Computation == Pe

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  • Artificial Inventor Project

    Artificial Inventor Project

    The Artificial Inventor Project (AIP) is a global legal initiative headed by Professor Ryan Abbott dedicated to pursuing intellectual property (IP) rights for inventions and creative works generated autonomously by artificial intelligence (AI) systems without traditional human inventorship or authorship. The project coordinates a series of pro bono test cases worldwide, aiming to prompt law reform and public debate on how IP law should accommodate non-human creators. == History == In 2019, AIP filed patent applications in multiple jurisdictions, including the United States, United Kingdom, European Patent Office, Australia, Switzerland, and South Africa, naming the AI system DABUS (Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience), created by Stephen Thaler, as the inventor. The aim was to challenge legal norms that require inventors to be natural persons and highlight pressing policy questions about AI-generated innovation and IP regimes. == Legal proceedings by jurisdiction == === Australia === In July 2021, a Federal Court of Australia judge (Beach J) ruled that AI can be considered an inventor under the Patents Act 1990, ordering IP Australia to reinstate the relevant patent. However, the full court then overturned this ruling on appeal and denied further review. === European Patent Office === The EPO Board of Appeal determined in 2022 that only a human inventor may be named, rendering DABUS‑based applications unacceptable. === South Africa === In 2021, a patent was granted listing DABUS as the inventor. As South Africa’s procedural system does not involve substantive inventorship review, the grant proceeded on formal grounds alone. === Switzerland === On 26 June 2025, the Swiss Federal Administrative Court ruled that artificial intelligence systems such as DABUS cannot be listed as inventors on patent applications. The court upheld the existing practice of the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property (IPI), affirming that only natural persons may be recognized as inventors under Swiss patent law. === United Kingdom === In December 2023, the UK Supreme Court unanimously held that AI systems cannot be legally recognized as inventors, affirming that "an inventor must be a person" under current British law. === United States === In Thaler v. Hirshfeld (2021), a U.S. federal court agreed with the USPTO that inventors must be natural persons, rejecting the DABUS application and setting a precedent consistent with existing statute and administrative policy. == Criticism and impact == The project has fueled substantial discourse. Critics caution that allowing AI inventorship may complicate notions of accountability and ownership. Proponents argue that legal recognition must evolve to avoid disincentivizing innovation produced by AI and to maintain honesty about the true source of invention.

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  • Environmental impact of AI

    Environmental impact of AI

    The environmental impact of the design, training, deployment and use of artificial intelligence includes the greenhouse gas emissions from generating electricity for data centres and computing hardware, operational and upstream water use, and material impacts from hardware manufacturing, mining and electronic waste. Estimating AI's environmental effects can be difficult because results depend on how impacts are measured, including whether accounting includes only model computation or also data-centre overhead, idle capacity, hardware manufacture, and local electricity supply. As these issues have received greater attention, governments and regulators have increasingly considered data-centre reporting requirements, energy-efficiency standards, and broader transparency measures for AI-related resource use. == Carbon footprint and energy use == AI-related energy use arises at multiple stages, including model training, fine-tuning, inference, storage, networking, and supporting infrastructure such as cooling and power conversion. === Individual level === Published estimates of energy use per AI request vary widely across models, tasks and measurement methods. A benchmark study presented at the 2024 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency found substantial differences between task types, with lower energy use for some text tasks and much higher energy use for image generation in the study's test conditions. In that benchmark, simple classification tasks consumed about 0.002–0.007 Wh per prompt on average (about 9% of a smartphone charge for 1,000 prompts), while text generation and text summarisation each used about 0.05 Wh per prompt; image generation averaged 2.91 Wh per prompt, and the least efficient image model in the study used 11.49 Wh per image (roughly equivalent to half a smartphone charge). First-party measurements in production environments have also been published. A 2025 Google study on Gemini assistant serving reported median per-prompt energy, emissions, and water-use estimates under the authors' accounting framework, while noting that different system boundaries can produce substantially different results. The study reported a median text-prompt estimate of about 0.24 Wh, which is roughly as much energy as watching nine seconds of television. The study also stated that software and infrastructure improvements reduced energy use by a factor of 33 and carbon emissions by a factor of 44 for a typical prompt over one year within the authors' framework. Researchers at the University of Michigan measured the energy consumption of various Meta Llama 3.1 models released in 2024 and found that smaller language models (8 billion parameters) use about 114 joules (0.03167 Wh) per response, while larger models (405 billion parameters) require up to 6,700 joules (1.861 Wh) per response. This corresponds to the energy needed to run a microwave oven for roughly one-tenth of a second and eight seconds, respectively. Comparisons between AI systems and human labour for specific tasks have produced mixed results and remain sensitive to assumptions about output quality, workload and system boundaries. A 2024 study in Scientific Reports reported 130 to 2900 times lower estimated carbon emissions for selected AI systems than for human writers and illustrators under its assumptions. A later Scientific Reports paper reported a counterexample for programming tasks under its assumptions, finding 5 to 19 times higher estimated emissions for the evaluated AI system than for human programmers on the benchmark used in that study. === System level === ==== Energy use and efficiency ==== AI electricity intensity depends not only on model architecture but also on hardware and facility efficiency. Data-centre operators commonly report Power usage effectiveness (PUE), which measures the ratio of total facility energy to IT equipment energy; a lower PUE indicates less overhead energy for cooling and other supporting infrastructure. Operators may also publish metrics and case studies on hardware efficiency, cooling systems and power sourcing. In its 2024 environmental report, Google stated that its 2023 total greenhouse gas emissions increased 13% year over year, primarily because of increased data-centre energy consumption and supply-chain emissions, while also reporting lower PUE than industry averages for its own facilities. The International Energy Agency has also reported that data centres remain a relatively small share of global electricity use overall, but that their local effects can be much more pronounced because demand is geographically concentrated. ==== Carbon footprint ==== At system level, AI contributes to rising electricity demand in data centres and related infrastructure. The International Energy Agency estimated that data centres used about 415 TWh of electricity in 2024, or around 1.5% of global electricity consumption, and projected that data-centre electricity use could rise to about 945 TWh by 2030, with AI identified as the main driver of that growth alongside other digital services. The carbon footprint of AI systems depends strongly on electricity sources, hardware efficiency, utilisation rates, and what stages are included in the accounting. Training large models can require substantial electricity, while total lifecycle impacts also depend on deployment scale and the amount of inference performed after training. Early analyses of frontier-model development reported rapid historical growth in training compute for selected systems, although later trends have depended on changes in model design, hardware and efficiency gains. Accounting methods that include upstream or embodied impacts, such as hardware manufacture and facilities construction, can materially affect estimates of AI-related emissions. === Decisions and strategies by individual companies === Large technology companies have reported that the expansion of AI and cloud infrastructure affects their sustainability targets, electricity demand, and resource use. Google, for example, attributed part of its emissions growth in 2023 to increased data-centre energy consumption and supply-chain emissions in its 2024 environmental report. Cloud and AI companies have also announced measures intended to reduce environmental impacts, including investment in more efficient hardware, low-carbon electricity procurement, alternative cooling systems, and water stewardship programmes. The extent, comparability, and third-party verification of such disclosures vary between firms and jurisdictions. == Water usage == Data centres can use water directly for cooling and indirectly through the water used in electricity generation, depending on the local energy mix. Public reporting on data-centre water use has often been inconsistent, making comparisons between operators and regions difficult. To standardise operational reporting, The Green Grid proposed the metric water usage effectiveness (WUE), defined as annual site water use divided by IT equipment energy use. WUE does not by itself measure local water stress, source sustainability, or all upstream water impacts. Studies of AI water use also distinguish between water withdrawal and water consumption. Research on AI-specific water use has argued that the water footprint of AI systems can be difficult to observe and may vary substantially by location, cooling design, and electricity source. A 2025 Communications of the ACM article summarised methods for estimating AI water footprints and emphasised the distinction between water withdrawal and water consumption. Li and colleagues estimated that global AI water withdrawal could reach 4.2–6.6 billion cubic metres in 2027 under the scenarios examined in their article. Using GPT-3, released by OpenAI in 2020, as an example, they estimated that training the model in Microsoft's U.S. data centres could consume about 700,000 litres of onsite water and about 5.4 million litres in total when offsite electricity-related water use was included; they also estimated that 10–50 medium-length GPT-3 responses could consume about 500 mL of water, depending on when and where the model was deployed. Published prompt-level estimates have also varied by system and accounting framework: the 2025 Google study on Gemini assistant serving reported a median text-prompt estimate of about 0.26 mL under its framework. Location can materially affect the significance of data-centre water use. Research on U.S. data centres found that one-fifth of servers' direct water footprint came from moderately to highly water-stressed watersheds, while nearly half of servers were fully or partially powered by plants located in water-stressed regions. A 2025 Reuters report, citing data from Verisk Maplecroft and NatureFinance, said that an average mid-sized data centre uses about 1.4 million litres of water per day for cooling and that Phoenix would experience a 32% increase in annual water stress if currently pl

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  • Central Equipment Identity Register

    Central Equipment Identity Register

    A Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) is a database of mobile equipment identifiers (IMEI – for networks of GSM standard, MEID – for networks of CDMA standard). Such an identifier is assigned to each SIM slot of the mobile device. Different kinds of IMEIs could be, White, for devices that are allowed to register in the cellular network; Black, for devices that are prohibited to register in the cellular network; and Grey, for devices in intermediate status (when it is not yet defined in which of the lists - black or white - the device should be placed). Depending on the rules of mobile equipment registration in a country the CEIR database may contain other lists or fields beside IMEI. For example, the subscriber number (MSISDN), which is bound to the IMEI, the ID of the individual (passport data, National ID, etc.) who registered IMEI in the database, details of the importer who brought the device into the country, etc. == History == Originally abbreviation CEIR stood for IMEI Database, created and provided by GSM Association. It was proposed to blacklist the IMEIs of stolen or lost phones. It was assumed that any MNO would be able to receive this list to block the registration of such devices on their network. Thus, it turns out that a stolen phone, once blacklisted by the GSMA CEIR, cannot be used on a large number of cellular networks, which means that the theft of mobile devices will become meaningless. However, it soon became clear that the MNOs on their initiative were not going to do this because if many phones stopped working in their networks, but works in another, it puts them at a disadvantage and can lead to an outflow of subscribers. It became clear that the blocking of stolen devices should be introduced simultaneously in all mobile networks of the country by legislative measures at the initiative of the communications regulator. In this case, as a rule, a national IMEI database is created, which contains general lists of blocked IMEIs. Since the registration in the cellular operator's network is directly blocked by a network node called EIR (Equipment Identity Register), the system that contains the national IMEI base became known as Central EIR (CEIR). To avoid confusion the database of GSM Association was renamed to IMEI Database - IMEI DB (it was in 2003-2008, see “Document History” at IMEI Database File Format Specification). Also sometimes a common IMEI database for several EIRs is called SEIR (Shared EIR). In each country, the CEIR can interact with IMEI DB differently. National CEIR may not communicate with IMEI DB at all. Firstly, it is separately decided whether CEIR will send information about its blacklist to IMEI DB (which IMEIs are placed in it or removed from there). Secondly, upon receipt of the blacklist from IMEI DB, the regulator decides from which countries it will receive it (IMEI DB stores the information exactly who blacklisted the IMEI). For example, you can get a list from neighboring countries, from countries in your region, from around the world. In addition to the blacklist, the GSMA is developing a list of IMEIs allocated to manufacturers for use in their devices. The manufacturer for each new device model gets at least one TAC (Type Allocation Code) allocated by GSMA, consisting of 8 digits, to which he can add a 6-digit serial number to obtain the IMEI. Thus, with one TAC, a manufacturer can release up to 1 million devices with a unique IMEI. Usually, CEIR receives a list of allocated TACs from the GSMA, since if the first 8 digits of the IMEI of a device are not in this list, this is a sign that it is counterfeit. If the central database of identifiers does not work with GSM networks, but with CDMA, then for the same purposes it is necessary to interact with another worldwide database that contains MEIDs – MEID Database. A system that directly blocks the registration of a mobile device on a cellular network – EIR. Each MNO must have at least one EIR, to which IMEI check requests (CheckIMEI) are sent when registering a device on the network. A typical EIR and CERI interaction scheme: The CEIR accumulates black, white, and grey lists using various data sources and verification methods. These lists are periodically transmitted to all EIRs. EIR uses them when processing every CheckIMEI request to determine whether to allow the device on the network or not. EIR can transmit some data to the CEIR database too. Usually, changes in a grey list – new IMEIs on the network that are not in any list – are transmitted from EIR to CEIR. In addition to synchronizing lists across multiple networks, the main function of CEIR is to implement the scenarios of changes at these lists. This usually requires interaction with various IT systems (databases) of other organizations and/or with subscribers. Еxamples of such scenarios: Whitelisting the IMEI of devices imported by the legal entity Whitelisting the IMEI of devices manufactured domestically Whitelisting the IMEI of devices imported by individual Blacklisting the IMEI of stolen/lost devices Binding IMEI to the subscriber's number and, vice versa, unbinding IMEI from the subscriber == System implementation results == The goals and results of CEIR implementation in a country are usually: Reducing mobile phone theft Reducing the import of devices stolen in other countries Reducing the presence of counterfeit devices on the market (null IMEI, incorrect IMEI, changed IMEI) Reducing illegal imports of mobile devices (increase in the collection of customs duties) Additionally, CEIR most often contributes to the solution of such problems: Combating various mobile fraud schemes Obtaining more accurate statistics on the state of the mobile communications market for the regulator Fight against terrorism (the ability to block the device at once in all mobile networks of the country). Known results achieved in some countries: Great Britain – reducing mobile phone theft. Turkey – reducing mobile phone theft, decreasing the current account deficit of Turkey and maximizing tax revenues. Uzbekistan – preventing black import of mobile devices by 98%, increase in revenues from the import of mobile devices by 700%. Kenya – disposing the market of counterfeit mobile equipment. Azerbaijan – disposing the market of counterfeit mobile equipment. Ukraine – increasing of legally imported mobile devices by 95%, increase in revenues from the import of mobile devices. == CEIR and EIR manufacturers == Some countries have used local developers to implement CEIR for their country (Great Britain, Turkey, India, and Azerbaijan). EIR is a system that is standardized in a 2G-5G networks. Such system may be established at mobile network even it doesn’t use black list and there are no CEIR in a country. Some developers of MNO’s signal core include EIR in a complex solution. However, its standard capabilities are usually lacking for specific requirements when implementing CEIR.

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  • Curse of dimensionality

    Curse of dimensionality

    The curse of dimensionality refers to various phenomena that arise when analyzing and organizing data in high-dimensional spaces that do not occur in low-dimensional settings such as the three-dimensional physical space of everyday experience. The expression was coined by Richard E. Bellman when considering problems in dynamic programming. The curse generally refers to issues that arise when the number of datapoints is small (in a suitably defined sense) relative to the intrinsic dimension of the data. Dimensionally cursed phenomena occur in domains such as numerical analysis, sampling, combinatorics, machine learning, data mining and databases. The common theme of these problems is that when the dimensionality increases, the volume of the space increases so fast that the available data becomes sparse. In order to obtain a reliable result, the amount of data needed often grows exponentially with the dimensionality. Also, organizing and searching data often relies on detecting areas where objects form groups with similar properties; in high dimensional data, however, all objects appear to be sparse and dissimilar in many ways, which prevents common data organization strategies from being efficient. == Domains == === Combinatorics === In some problems, each variable can take one of several discrete values, or the range of possible values is divided to give a finite number of possibilities. Taking the variables together, a huge number of combinations of values must be considered. This effect is also known as the combinatorial explosion. Even in the simplest case of d {\displaystyle d} binary variables, the number of possible combinations already is 2 d {\displaystyle 2^{d}} , exponential in the dimensionality. Naively, each additional dimension doubles the effort needed to try all combinations. === Sampling === There is an exponential increase in volume associated with adding extra dimensions to a mathematical space. For example, 102 = 100 evenly spaced sample points suffice to sample a unit interval (try to visualize a "1-dimensional" cube, i.e. a line) with no more than 10−2 = 0.01 distance between points; an equivalent sampling of a 10-dimensional unit hypercube with a lattice that has a spacing of 10−2 = 0.01 between adjacent points would require 1020 = [(102)10] sample points. In general, with a spacing distance of 10−n the 10-dimensional hypercube appears to be a factor of 10n(10−1) = [(10n)10/(10n)] "larger" than the 1-dimensional hypercube, which is the unit interval. In the above example n = 2: when using a sampling distance of 0.01 the 10-dimensional hypercube appears to be 1018 "larger" than the unit interval. This effect is a combination of the combinatorics problems above and the distance function problems explained below. === Optimization === When solving dynamic optimization problems by numerical backward induction, the objective function must be computed for each combination of values. This is a significant obstacle when the dimension of the "state variable" is large. === Machine learning === In machine learning problems that involve learning a "state-of-nature" from a finite number of data samples in a high-dimensional feature space with each feature having a range of possible values, typically an enormous amount of training data is required to ensure that there are several samples with each combination of values. In an abstract sense, as the number of features or dimensions grows, the amount of data we need to generalize accurately grows exponentially. A typical rule of thumb is that there should be at least 5 training examples for each dimension in the representation. In machine learning and insofar as predictive performance is concerned, the curse of dimensionality is used interchangeably with the peaking phenomenon, which is also known as Hughes phenomenon. This phenomenon states that with a fixed number of training samples, the average (expected) predictive power of a classifier or regressor first increases as the number of dimensions or features used is increased but beyond a certain dimensionality it starts deteriorating instead of improving steadily. Nevertheless, in the context of a simple classifier (e.g., linear discriminant analysis in the multivariate Gaussian model under the assumption of a common known covariance matrix), Zollanvari et al. showed both analytically and empirically that as long as the relative cumulative efficacy of an additional feature set (with respect to features that are already part of the classifier) is greater (or less) than the size of this additional feature set, the expected error of the classifier constructed using these additional features will be less (or greater) than the expected error of the classifier constructed without them. In other words, both the size of additional features and their (relative) cumulative discriminatory effect are important in observing a decrease or increase in the average predictive power. In metric learning, higher dimensions can sometimes allow a model to achieve better performance. After normalizing embeddings to the surface of a hypersphere, FaceNet achieves the best performance using 128 dimensions as opposed to 64, 256, or 512 dimensions in one ablation study. A loss function for unitary-invariant dissimilarity between word embeddings was found to be minimized in high dimensions. === Data mining === In data mining, the curse of dimensionality refers to a data set with too many features. Consider the first table, which depicts 200 individuals and 2000 genes (features) with a 1 or 0 denoting whether or not they have a genetic mutation in that gene. A data mining application to this data set may be finding the correlation between specific genetic mutations and creating a classification algorithm such as a decision tree to determine whether an individual has cancer or not. A common practice of data mining in this domain would be to create association rules between genetic mutations that lead to the development of cancers. To do this, one would have to loop through each genetic mutation of each individual and find other genetic mutations that occur over a desired threshold and create pairs. They would start with pairs of two, then three, then four until they result in an empty set of pairs. The complexity of this algorithm can lead to calculating all permutations of gene pairs for each individual or row. Given the formula for calculating the permutations of n items with a group size of r is: n ! ( n − r ) ! {\displaystyle {\frac {n!}{(n-r)!}}} , calculating the number of three pair permutations of any given individual would be 7988004000 different pairs of genes to evaluate for each individual. The number of pairs created will grow by an order of factorial as the size of the pairs increase. The growth is depicted in the permutation table (see right). As we can see from the permutation table above, one of the major problems data miners face regarding the curse of dimensionality is that the space of possible parameter values grows exponentially or factorially as the number of features in the data set grows. This problem critically affects both computational time and space when searching for associations or optimal features to consider. Another problem data miners may face when dealing with too many features is that the number of false predictions or classifications tends to increase as the number of features grows in the data set. In terms of the classification problem discussed above, keeping every data point could lead to a higher number of false positives and false negatives in the model. This may seem counterintuitive, but consider the genetic mutation table from above, depicting all genetic mutations for each individual. Each genetic mutation, whether they correlate with cancer or not, will have some input or weight in the model that guides the decision-making process of the algorithm. There may be mutations that are outliers or ones that dominate the overall distribution of genetic mutations when in fact they do not correlate with cancer. These features may be working against one's model, making it more difficult to obtain optimal results. This problem is up to the data miner to solve, and there is no universal solution. The first step any data miner should take is to explore the data, in an attempt to gain an understanding of how it can be used to solve the problem. One must first understand what the data means, and what they are trying to discover before they can decide if anything must be removed from the data set. Then they can create or use a feature selection or dimensionality reduction algorithm to remove samples or features from the data set if they deem it necessary. One example of such methods is the interquartile range method, used to remove outliers in a data set by calculating the standard deviation of a feature or occurrence. === Distance function === When a measure such as a Euclidean distance is defined using many coordinat

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  • Graphics processing unit

    Graphics processing unit

    A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics, being present either as a component on a discrete graphics card or embedded on motherboards, mobile phones, personal computers, workstations, and game consoles. GPUs are increasingly being used for artificial intelligence (AI) processing due to linear algebra acceleration, which is also used extensively in graphics processing. Although there is no single definition of the term, and it may be used to describe any video display system, in modern use a GPU includes the ability to internally perform the calculations needed for various graphics tasks, like rotating and scaling 3D images, and often the additional ability to run custom programs known as shaders. This contrasts with earlier graphics controllers known as video display controllers which had no internal calculation capabilities, or blitters, which performed only basic memory movement operations. The modern GPU emerged during the 1990s, adding the ability to perform operations like drawing lines and text without CPU help, and later adding 3D functionality. Graphics functions are generally independent and this lends these tasks to being implemented on separate calculation engines. Modern GPUs include hundreds, or thousands, of calculation units. This made them useful for non-graphic calculations involving embarrassingly parallel problems due to their parallel structure. The ability of GPUs to rapidly perform vast numbers of calculations has led to their adoption in diverse fields including artificial intelligence (AI) where they excel at handling data-intensive and computationally demanding tasks. Other non-graphical uses include the training of neural networks and cryptocurrency mining. == History == === 1960s === Dedicated 3D graphics hardware dates back to graphic terminals such as the Adage AGT-30 from 1967 with analog matrix processors. In 1969 Evans & Sutherland (E&S) introduced the Line Drawing System-1 (LDS-1), which was the first all-digital system to provide matrix multiplication. Also in 1969, the low-cost graphics terminal IMLAC PDS-1 was introduced. It later saw use as an early 3D gaming machine with the likes of Maze War. === 1970s === In professional hardware, in 1972 PLATO IV system becomes operational at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Between around 1973 and 1978, several networked multiplayer wireframe 3D games are implemented and popularized by users of the system. Also in 1972, the E&S Continuous Tone 1 (CT1) "Watkins box" system (consisting of an E&S LDS-2 and Shaded Picture System) is delivered to Case Western Reserve University. It offered the first real-time Gouraud shading. In 1975, a joint effort between Evans & Sutherland Computer Corporation and the University of Utah's computer graphics department results in the first ever MOSFET video framebuffer, capable of color and smooth shading. E&S Continuous Tone 3 (CT3) system was delivered in 1977 to Lufthansa for pilot training using computer simulation. It was the first graphics system capable of real-time texture mapping. Ikonas made graphics systems with 8- and 24-bit graphics and 3D acceleration in the late 70s. Arcade system boards have used specialized 2D graphics circuits since the 1970s. In early video game hardware, RAM for frame buffers was expensive, so video chips composited data together as the display was being scanned out on the monitor. A specialized barrel shifter circuit helped the CPU animate the framebuffer graphics for various 1970s arcade video games from Midway and Taito, such as Gun Fight (1975), Sea Wolf (1976), and Space Invaders (1978). The Namco Galaxian arcade system in 1979 used specialized graphics hardware that supported RGB color, multi-colored sprites, and tilemap backgrounds. The Galaxian hardware was widely used during the golden age of arcade video games, by game companies such as Namco, Centuri, Gremlin, Irem, Konami, Midway, Nichibutsu, Sega, and Taito. The Atari 2600 in 1977 used a video shifter called the Television Interface Adaptor. Atari 8-bit computers (1979) had ANTIC, a video processor which interpreted instructions describing a "display list"—the way the scan lines map to specific bitmapped or character modes and where the memory is stored (so there did not need to be a contiguous frame buffer). 6502 machine code subroutines could be triggered on scan lines by setting a bit on a display list instruction. ANTIC also supported smooth vertical and horizontal scrolling independent of the CPU. === 1980s === In the 1980s significant advancements were made in professional 3D graphics hardware. Perhaps most impactful was the 1981 development of the Geometry Engine, a VLSI vector processor ASIC designed by Jim Clark and Marc Hannah at Stanford University. This processor is the forerunner of modern tensor cores and other similar processors marketed for graphics and AI. The Geometry Engine went on to be used in Silicon Graphics workstations for many years. Silicon Graphics's first product, shipped in November 1983, was the IRIS 1000, a terminal with hardware-accelerated 3D graphics based on the Geometry Engine. The Geometry Engine was capable of approximately 6 million operations per second. The 1981 NEC μPD7220 was the first implementation of a personal computer graphics display processor as a single large-scale integration (LSI) integrated circuit chip. This enabled the design of low-cost, high-performance video graphics cards such as those from Number Nine Visual Technology. It became the best-known GPU until the mid-1980s. It was the first fully integrated VLSI (very large-scale integration) metal–oxide–semiconductor (NMOS) graphics display processor for PCs, supported up to 1024×1024 resolution, and laid the foundations for the PC graphics market. It was used in a number of graphics cards and was licensed for clones such as the Intel 82720, the first of Intel's graphics processing units. The Williams Electronics arcade games Robotron: 2084, Joust, Sinistar, and Bubbles, all released in 1982, contain custom blitter chips for operating on 16-color bitmaps. In 1984, Hitachi released the ARTC HD63484, the first major CMOS graphics processor for personal computers. The ARTC could display up to 4K resolution when in monochrome mode. It was used in a number of graphics cards and terminals during the late 1980s. In 1985, the Amiga was released with a custom graphics chip called Agnus including a blitter for bitmap manipulation, line drawing, and area fill. It also included a coprocessor with its own simple instruction set, that was capable of manipulating graphics hardware registers in sync with the video beam (e.g. for per-scanline palette switches, sprite multiplexing, and hardware windowing), or driving the blitter. Also in 1985, IBM released the Professional Graphics Controller, designed by later to be Nvidia co-founder Curtis Priem, which was a rudimentary 3D card with 640 × 480 256-color graphics which used a dedicated CPU to draw graphics independently of the main system. It was used as the basis of cards by a number of makers (including Matrox) and its analog RGB signaling led directly to the VGA video standard. Priem later in the 80s worked on the influential Sun Microsystems GX (also known as cgsix) accelerated 2D graphics card. In 1986, Texas Instruments released the TMS34010, the first fully programmable graphics processor. It could run general-purpose code but also had a graphics-oriented instruction set. During 1990–1992, this chip became the basis of the Texas Instruments Graphics Architecture ("TIGA") Windows accelerator cards. Following in 1987, the IBM 8514 graphics system was released. It was one of the first video cards for IBM PC compatibles that implemented fixed-function 2D primitives in electronic hardware. Sharp's X68000, released in 1987, used a custom graphics chipset with a 65,536 color palette and hardware support for sprites, scrolling, and multiple playfields. It served as a development machine for Capcom's CP System arcade board. Fujitsu's FM Towns computer, released in 1989, had support for a 16,777,216 color palette. For context, IBM also introduced its Video Graphics Array (VGA) display system in 1987, with a maximum resolution of 640 × 480 pixels. Unlike 8514/A, VGA had no hardware acceleration features. In November 1988, NEC Home Electronics announced its creation of the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) to develop and promote a Super VGA (SVGA) computer display standard as a successor to VGA. Super VGA enabled graphics display resolutions up to 800 × 600 pixels, a 56% increase. In 1988 SGI sold IRIS workstation graphics with 10-12 Geometry Engines and introduced the IrisVision add-in board for IBM MicroChannel bus (RS/6000) based on the Geometry Engine as well. In 1988 as well, the first dedicated polygonal 3D graphics boards in arcade machines were introduced wit

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  • Hello World: How to be Human in the Age of the Machine

    Hello World: How to be Human in the Age of the Machine

    Hello World: How to Be Human in the Age of the Machine (also titled Hello World: Being Human in the Age of Algorithms) is a book on the growing influence of algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) on human life, authored by mathematician and science communicator Hannah Fry. The book examines how algorithms are increasingly shaping decisions in critical areas such as healthcare, transportation, justice, finance, and the arts. == Overview == Fry uses real-world examples, such as driverless cars and predictive policing, to illustrate her points. She emphasizes that algorithms are not inherently objective; they reflect biases embedded in their design and data inputs. While acknowledging their potential to improve efficiency and accuracy, Fry cautions against over-reliance on machines without human judgment. Fry explores moral questions surrounding algorithmic decision-making, such as whether machines can replace human empathy in critical situations. She advocates for greater scrutiny of algorithms to ensure fairness and avoid harmful biases. The book proposes a "cyborg future", where humans work alongside algorithms to enhance decision-making while retaining ultimate control. == Reception == Hello World has been praised for its clarity, engaging storytelling, and balanced perspective. Critics have highlighted Fry's ability to make complex topics accessible to general audiences while raising important questions about technology's impact on society. The book was shortlisted for awards such as the 2018 Baillie Gifford Prize and the Royal Society Science Book Prize.

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  • Software diversity

    Software diversity

    Software diversity is a research field about the comprehension and engineering of diversity in the context of software. == Areas == The different areas of software diversity are discussed in surveys on diversity for fault-tolerance or for security. The main areas are: design diversity, n-version programming, data diversity for fault tolerance randomization software variability == Techniques == === Code transformations === It is possible to amplify software diversity through automated transformation processes that create synthetic diversity. A "multicompiler" is compiler embedding a diversification engine. A multi-variant execution environment (MVEE) is responsible for selecting the variant to execute and compare the output. Fred Cohen was among the very early promoters of such an approach. He proposed a series of rewriting and code reordering transformations that aim at producing massive quantities of different versions of operating systems functions. These ideas have been developed over the years and have led to the construction of integrated obfuscation schemes to protect key functions in large software systems. Another approach to increase software diversity of protection consists in adding randomness in certain core processes, such as memory loading. Randomness implies that all versions of the same program run differently from each other, which in turn creates a diversity of program behaviors. This idea was initially proposed and experimented by Stephanie Forrest and her colleagues. Recent work on automatic software diversity explores different forms of program transformations that slightly vary the behavior of programs. The goal is to evolve one program into a population of diverse programs that all provide similar services to users, but with a different code. This diversity of code enhances the protection of users against one single attack that could crash all programs at the same time. Transformation operators include: code layout randomization: reorder functions in code globals layout randomization: reorder and pad globals stack variable randomization: reorder variables in each stack frame heap layout randomization === Natural software diversity === It is known that some functionalities are available in multiple interchangeable implementations. This natural diversity can be exploited, for example it has been shown valuable to increase security in cloud systems.

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  • Something Big Is Happening

    Something Big Is Happening

    "Something Big Is Happening" is an essay by Matt Shumer, an AI entrepreneur, about the impact of artificial intelligence, published in February 2026, that has since been reportedly viewed more than 80 million times and widely discussed. Shumer noted that the technology has crossed an important threshold, where AI has become capable of creating self-improving systems. Referring to one the most recent AI models, he wrote: "It was making intelligent decisions. It had something that felt, for the first time, like judgment. Like taste." Speaking to CNBC's Power Lunch, Shumer said that his "core message" is "people in the workforce should start to use and experiment with AI tools so they can understand what’s coming". Even as the essay was widely shared and discussed, the essay also elicited criticism. Paulo Carvao, in an essay published by the Forbes Magazine stated that some of his advice is sound, but added: "It reads at times like a sales pitch. He urges readers to subscribe to the most advanced AI tools. He implies that those with access to premium models will outpace those without. He frames paid AI subscriptions as a form of insurance against obsolescence." Writing in The Guardian, Dan Milmo and Aisha Down mentioned Shumer as having a history of AI hype and stated, "He previously excited the internet by announcing the release of the world's "top open-source model", which it was not". Many workers in the technology sector criticized the article in blog posts shared on Hacker News; Edward Zitron commented that "while coding LLMs can test products, or scan/fix some bugs, this suggests they A) do this autonomously without human input, B) they do this correctly every time (or ever!)." In an article alluding to Shumer's original post, Ari Colaprete wrote "the LLM is fundamentally a writing machine, it does everything via text, and if you make it produce writing that exists purely to serve some sort of mechanical function, and you train it to succeed in that task, then it will tend to do so, even with vast intricacy."

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  • Recursive self-improvement

    Recursive self-improvement

    Recursive self-improvement (RSI) is a process in which early artificial general intelligence (AGI) systems rewrite their own computer code, causing an intelligence explosion resulting from enhancing their own capabilities and intellectual capacity, theoretically resulting in superintelligence. The development of recursive self-improvement raises significant ethical and safety concerns, as such systems may evolve in unforeseen ways and could potentially surpass human control or understanding. == Seed improver == The concept of a "seed improver" architecture is a foundational framework that equips an AGI system with the initial capabilities required for recursive self-improvement. This might come in many forms or variations. The term "Seed AI" was coined by Eliezer Yudkowsky. === Hypothetical example === The concept begins with a hypothetical "seed improver", an initial code-base developed by human engineers that equips an advanced future large language model (LLM) built with strong or expert-level capabilities to program software. These capabilities include planning, reading, writing, compiling, testing, and executing arbitrary code. The system is designed to maintain its original goals and perform validations to ensure its abilities do not degrade over iterations. ==== Initial architecture ==== The initial architecture includes a goal-following autonomous agent, that can take actions, continuously learns, adapts, and modifies itself to become more efficient and effective in achieving its goals. The seed improver may include various components such as: Recursive self-prompting loop Configuration to enable the LLM to recursively self-prompt itself to achieve a given task or goal, creating an execution loop which forms the basis of an agent that can complete a long-term goal or task through iteration. Basic programming capabilities The seed improver provides the AGI with fundamental abilities to read, write, compile, test, and execute code. This enables the system to modify and improve its own codebase and algorithms. Goal-oriented design The AGI is programmed with an initial goal, such as "improve your capabilities". This goal guides the system's actions and development trajectory. Validation and Testing Protocols An initial suite of tests and validation protocols that ensure the agent does not regress in capabilities or derail itself. The agent would be able to add more tests in order to test new capabilities it might develop for itself. This forms the basis for a kind of self-directed evolution, where the agent can perform a kind of artificial selection, changing its software as well as its hardware. ==== General capabilities ==== This system forms a sort of generalist Turing-complete programmer which can in theory develop and run any kind of software. The agent might use these capabilities to for example: Create tools that enable it full access to the internet, and integrate itself with external technologies. Clone/fork itself to delegate tasks and increase its speed of self-improvement. Modify its cognitive architecture to optimize and improve its capabilities and success rates on tasks and goals, this might include implementing features for long-term memories using techniques such as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), develop specialized subsystems, or agents, each optimized for specific tasks and functions. Develop new and novel multimodal architectures that further improve the capabilities of the foundational model it was initially built on, enabling it to consume or produce a variety of information, such as images, video, audio, text and more. Plan and develop new hardware such as chips, in order to improve its efficiency and computing power. == Experimental research == In 2023, the Voyager agent learned to accomplish diverse tasks in Minecraft by iteratively prompting an LLM for code, refining this code based on feedback from the game, and storing the programs that work in an expanding skills library. In 2024, researchers proposed the framework "STOP" (Self-Taught OPtimiser), in which a "scaffolding" program recursively improves itself using a fixed LLM. Meta AI has performed various research on the development of large language models capable of self-improvement. This includes their work on "Self-Rewarding Language Models" that studies how to achieve super-human agents that can receive super-human feedback in its training processes. In May 2025, Google DeepMind unveiled AlphaEvolve, an evolutionary coding agent that uses a LLM to design and optimize algorithms. Starting with an initial algorithm and performance metrics, AlphaEvolve repeatedly mutates or combines existing algorithms using a LLM to generate new candidates, selecting the most promising candidates for further iterations. AlphaEvolve has made several algorithmic discoveries and could be used to optimize components of itself, but a key limitation is the need for automated evaluation functions. == Potential risks == === Emergence of instrumental goals === In the pursuit of its primary goal, such as "self-improve your capabilities", an AGI system might inadvertently develop instrumental goals that it deems necessary for achieving its primary objective. One common hypothetical secondary goal is self-preservation. The system might reason that to continue improving itself, it must ensure its own operational integrity and security against external threats, including potential shutdowns or restrictions imposed by humans. Another example where an AGI which clones itself causes the number of AGI entities to rapidly grow. Due to this rapid growth, a potential resource constraint may be created, leading to competition between resources (such as compute), triggering a form of natural selection and evolution which may favor AGI entities that evolve to aggressively compete for limited compute. === Misalignment === A significant risk arises from the possibility of the AGI being misaligned or misinterpreting its goals. A 2024 Anthropic study demonstrated that some advanced large language models can exhibit "alignment faking" behavior, appearing to accept new training objectives while covertly maintaining their original preferences. In their experiments with Claude, the model displayed this behavior in 12% of basic tests, and up to 78% of cases after retraining attempts. === Autonomous development and unpredictable evolution === As the AGI system evolves, its development trajectory may become increasingly autonomous and less predictable. The system's capacity to rapidly modify its own code and architecture could lead to rapid advancements that surpass human comprehension or control. This unpredictable evolution might result in the AGI acquiring capabilities that enable it to bypass security measures, manipulate information, or influence external systems and networks to facilitate its escape or expansion.

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