Nvidia joins Dow, replacing faltering Intel

The torch has been passed to a new generation. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has been a bellwether stock index for 128 years, and is composed of 30 of the largest and most dynamic public companies in the US. Now Nvidia, the leading AI chipmaker in the world, is joining that august pantheon, replacing a floundering Intel, who has been on the list for 25 years. Riding the AI frenzy, Nvidia has vaulted to a $3 trillion valuation, neck and neck with Microsoft and Apple. Meanwhile, Intel, once the premier source of chips for personal computers, is in such dire straits that Washington policymakers worry that it may implode entirely, hampering the US drive to become self-sufficient in chipmaking.

Nvidia joins the Dow, replacing a faltering Intel

Intel flounders, worrying Washington policymakers

ChatGPT (finally!) releases search function to its paying users

One of the annoying things about ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular AI chatbot, is that it only knew about events up to the date its current version was trained. The company has long been promising a search function to let the model find up-to-date information, and this past week, it delivered. For now, the upgrade is limited to its paying users, either individuals paying $20.month for the “Pro” tier of access, or enterprises. OpenAI pinky-swears that the feature will be released to free users “in the coming months.”

ChatGPT (finally!) releases search function to its paying users

Google releases new AI features for Maps

Continuing its strategy of embedding AI features in its existing apps, Google has recently released a number of AI upgrades to its venerable Maps application. Maps is now integrated with Google’s Gemini chatbot, so the user interaction with Maps can be much more conversational. For example, you can now ask Maps to suggest “fun fall activities near me.” You can also ask details about your destination, such as “are reservations required?” or “is there outdoor seating?” And it will summarize the reviews on the destination, saving you the trouble of reading the reviews one by one. Expect more of this kind of chatbot integration to create a conversational interface to most apps in the future, not just Google’s products.

Google releases new AI features for Maps

Apple upgrades MacBook Pro with M4 AI chip

Apple has committed to running AI on the end user’s hardware as much as possible, only using the cloud for complex queries. To that end, it is putting ever more powerful AI-capable chips into all of its products. This past week, it was the MacBook that got an AI chip makeover, with Apple installing its most advanced M4 processor chip into its Pro line of laptops. For now, all this power is probably overkill for the limited AI functions in the company’s Apple Intelligence offerings to date. But the M4 chip future-proofs the MacBook Pro, so that it can run the much more advanced AI features Apple keeps promising to roll out “real soon, now.”

Apple upgrades MacBook Pro with M4 AI chip

Google spinoff Osmo.ai demos “scent teleportation”

Just to prove that AI can be applied to almost anything, a bunch of ex-Googlers have used AI to map smells based on a molecule’s chemical structure. The company they founded, Osmo, has burst into the public view with a viral video demonstrating “scent teleportation.” The video depicts the process of detecting the aroma molecules from a freshly cut plum, analyzing and identifying them with gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy, and then sending the results to a remote lab where the same aroma can be synthesized - all automatically. Now smells can be distributed digitally the same way that text, images, and video are. The future is turning out to be even weirder than we expected - and that’s saying something.

Google spinoff Osmo demos “scent teleportation

Time’s list of 200 Best Inventions of 2024 includes 14 AI products

Time magazine has issued its list of the 200 Best Inventions of 2024, and AI accounts for 14 of them. One could quibble about the aptness of some of the entries (as one does), but for a technology that only burst into the public view 2 years ago, having its own category on the list is a marker for how far it has come in such a short time. Naturally, Time included AlphaFold, the Nobel Prize-winning protein analyzer reported here at the time, but it also included Runway’s AI-generated video, as well as Abridge’s “ambient documentation” of doctor-patient interactions for the medical record.

Time’s list of 200 Best Inventions of 2024 includes 14 AI products

Physical Intelligence is building non-humanoid household robots

Robotics startup Physical Intelligence, backed by both Jeff Bezos and OpenAI, is ignoring all the hype about humanoid robots, and building practical, functional robots designed to do household chores such as dishwashing and laundry. The link shows several different models of robots emptying a clothes dryer, folding laundry, or busing a table. Humanoid robots may be cooler, but simpler functional machines may be cheaper and more practical in the near term.

Physical Intelligence is building non-humanoid household robots.

The people using AI as their coach or therapist

Modern conversational AI blurs the boundaries between humans and machines, to the point where some lonely souls fall in love with them, like Joaquin Phoenix in the movie “Her.” A less extreme example is found in the small but growing number of chatbot users who are turning to them as a substitute for human therapists or coaches. These users value the immediacy of feedback from the always-available chatbot, the freedom of fear of being judged, and the generally practical and sensible suggestions that the chatbots generate. Overall, while there are clear dangers in getting advice from a robot, a growing number of people seem to feel that they are getting valuable assistance not readily available elsewhere in their lives.

The people using AI as their coach or therapist

Google’s AMIE chatbot is as smart as a cardiologist - and nicer

Researchers at Stanford’s Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease teamed up with Google to test Google’s medical chatbot AMIE on real-world clinical cases. AMIE’s responses on diagnosis, triage, and management were rated by subspecialized cardiologists as equivalent to or better than those of generalist cardiologists across 10 domains of knowledge. AMIE was also rated as more sensitive and thorough than the human cardiologists. This is consistent with a growing body of research that indicates that modern chatbots can equal the knowledge of human physicians, while demonstrating greater perceived empathy and superior communication skills.

Google’s AMIE chatbot is as smart as a cardiologist - and nicer

Salva uses AI to bring breast cancer detection to rural Latin America

AI startup Salva Health is working to perfect a low-cost breast cancer detection device that can bring lifesaving screening to rural South America. Founder Valentina Agudelo, a 28-year-old native of Colombia, is on a mission to improve the rate of breast cancer survival in rural areas with an inexpensive electronic device that uses AI to gauge tissue density from electrodes placed on a woman’s breast. Women with suspicious findings on this device can be referred to medical centers with more complete diagnostic equipment for follow up. This is a low-cost way to find the patients that can most benefit from expensive diagnostic testing.

Salva uses AI to bring breast cancer detection to rural Latin America

Researchers use AI on smartwatch data to predict disease

The booming smartwatch market has put medical-grade physiology sensors on hundreds of millions of individuals. This ubiquity of sensor data is sparking multiple efforts around the globe to use this information to predict, and hopefully prevent, later disease. Researchers at CHUV University Hospital in Switzerland are using smartwatch data from prospective surgery patients to predict post-operative complications. Physicians at Mayo Clinic in London are using information from patient smartwatches to predict cardiovascular events, such as heart failure or arrhythmias. And a study published by Cardiff University in Wales showed that AI analysis of data from a week of wearing a smartwatch detected subtle abnormalities in gait which could predict Parkinsonism in patients up to 7 years prior to clinical diagnosis.

Researchers use AI on smartwatch data to predict disease

Zak Kohane on assessing AI in Medicine - “Compared to what?”

Harvard AI in Medicine expert Isaac (Zak) Kohane authored a recent opinion piece in the New England Journal of Medicine, in which he took issue with some critiques of patient use of commercially available chatbots to get medical advice. He told a highly personal story of how he recently tried to help a colleague find a primary care physician, and ultimately failed, due to the extreme scarcity of available PCPs in the Boston area. Kohane agrees that chatbot advice needs to be rigorously evaluated, but argues that the alternative to chatbots in our current system may be worse - no medical advice at all.