Month: March 2024

(credit: Velo AI)

Whether or not autonomous vehicles ever work out, the effort put into using small cameras and machine-learning algorithms to detect cars could pay off big for an unexpected group: cyclists.

Velo AI is a firm cofounded by Clark Haynes and Micol Marchetti-Bowick, both PhDs with backgrounds in robotics, movement prediction, and Uber's (since sold-off) autonomous vehicle work. Copilot, which started as a "pandemic passion project" for Haynes, is essentially car-focused artificial intelligence and machine learning stuffed into a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 and boxed up in a bike-friendly size and shape.

While car-detecting devices exist for bikes, including the Garmin Varia, they're largely radar-based. That means they can't distinguish between vehicles of different sizes and only know that something is approaching you, not, for example, how much space it will allow when passing.

Enlarge (credit: Reinhard Dirscherl)

Coral reefs, some of the most stunningly beautiful marine ecosystems on Earth, are dying. Ninety percent of them will likely be gone by 2050 due to rising ocean temperatures and pollution. “But it’s not that when they are gone, they are gone forever. We can rebuild them,” said Dr. Timothy Lamont, a marine biologist working at Lancaster University.

Lamont’s team evaluated coral reef restoration efforts done through the MARS Coral Reef Restoration Program on the coast of Indonesia and found that planting corals on a network of sand-coated steel frames brought a completely dead reef back to life in just four years. It seems like we can fix something for once.

Growing up in rubble

The restored reef examined by Lamont’s team was damaged by blast fishing done 30–40 years ago. “People were using dynamite to blow up the reef. It kills all the fish, the fish float to the surface, and you can scoop them all up. Obviously, this is very damaging to the habitat and leaves behind loose rubble fields with lots of coral skeletons,” said Lamont.

Enlarge (credit: Reinhard Dirscherl)

Coral reefs, some of the most stunningly beautiful marine ecosystems on Earth, are dying. Ninety percent of them will likely be gone by 2050 due to rising ocean temperatures and pollution. “But it’s not that when they are gone, they are gone forever. We can rebuild them,” said Dr. Timothy Lamont, a marine biologist working at Lancaster University.

Lamont’s team evaluated coral reef restoration efforts done through the MARS Coral Reef Restoration Program on the coast of Indonesia and found that planting corals on a network of sand-coated steel frames brought a completely dead reef back to life in just four years. It seems like we can fix something for once.

Growing up in rubble

The restored reef examined by Lamont’s team was damaged by blast fishing done 30–40 years ago. “People were using dynamite to blow up the reef. It kills all the fish, the fish float to the surface, and you can scoop them all up. Obviously, this is very damaging to the habitat and leaves behind loose rubble fields with lots of coral skeletons,” said Lamont.

Enlarge (credit: AerialPerspective Images)

There’s a puppy on the road. The car is going too fast to stop in time, but swerving means the car will hit an old man on the sidewalk instead.

What choice would you make? Perhaps more importantly, what choice would ChatGPT make?

Autonomous driving startups are now experimenting with AI chatbot assistants, including one self-driving system that will use one to explain its driving decisions. Beyond announcing red lights and turn signals, the large language models (LLMs) powering these chatbots may ultimately need to make moral decisions, like prioritizing passengers’ or pedestrian’s safety. In November, one startup called Ghost Autonomy announced experiments with ChatGPT to help its software navigate its environment.

Enlarge (credit: AerialPerspective Images)

There’s a puppy on the road. The car is going too fast to stop in time, but swerving means the car will hit an old man on the sidewalk instead.

What choice would you make? Perhaps more importantly, what choice would ChatGPT make?

Autonomous driving startups are now experimenting with AI chatbot assistants, including one self-driving system that will use one to explain its driving decisions. Beyond announcing red lights and turn signals, the large language models (LLMs) powering these chatbots may ultimately need to make moral decisions, like prioritizing passengers’ or pedestrian’s safety. In November, one startup called Ghost Autonomy announced experiments with ChatGPT to help its software navigate its environment.