“Wait, what? How?” Emily Jones wasn’t used to being left behind. A top sim-racing driver with multiple wins to her name, Jones jerked the steering wheel in the esports rig, eyes fixed on the screen in front of her: “I’m pushing way too hard to keep up— How does it do that?” Her staccato commentary intercut with squealing tires, Jones flung her virtual car around the virtual track at 120 miles per hour—then 140, 150—chasing the fastest Gran Turismo driver in the world.
Built by Sony AI, a research lab launched by the company in 2020, Gran Turismo Sophy is a computer program trained to control racing cars inside the world of Gran Turismo, a video game known for its super-realistic simulations of real vehicles and tracks. In a series of events held behind closed doors last year, Sony put its program up against the best humans on the professional sim-racing circuit.
What they discovered during those racetrack battles—and the ones that followed—could help shape the future of machines that work alongside humans, or join us on the roads. Read More
Daily Archives: July 19, 2022
The US military wants to understand the most important software on Earth
Open-source code runs on every computer on the planet—and keeps America’s critical infrastructure going. DARPA is worried about how well it can be trusted
It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that the whole world is built on top of the Linux kernel—although most people have never heard of it.
It is one of the very first programs that load when most computers power up. It enables the hardware running the machine to interact with the software, governs its use of resources, and acts as the foundation of the operating system.
It is the core building block of nearly all cloud computing, virtually every supercomputer, the entire internet of things, billions of smartphones, and more.
But the kernel is also open source, meaning anyone can write, read, and use its code. And that’s got cybersecurity experts inside the US military seriously worried. Its open-source nature means the Linux kernel—along with a host of other pieces of critical open-source software—is exposed to hostile manipulation in ways that we still barely understand. Read More
Microsoft launches drone simulation software Project AirSim
Microsoft is offering a preview of its new AI-powered simulator for drones, flying taxis, and other advanced aerial mobility (AAM) vehicles. Project AirSim can be used to build, train, and test autonomous drones through hyper-realistic simulations of real-world scenarios. The goal is to help drone makers encode autonomy without the need for deep expertise in AI.
Project AirSim is a result of five years of research and experimentation into deep learning and AI. While the earlier open-source research project is being retired, Microsoft said learnings from the same have inspired the launch of this new end-to-end platform that would allow AAM customers to test and train AI-powered aircraft in simulated 3D environments more easily. Read More
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