In the beginning, computer programmers translated their desires into the language of machines. Now, those machines are becoming conversant in the language of their programmers. OpenAI’s newly released Codex, a machine learning algorithm that can parse everyday language and computer code, sits

Surrounding Earth is a powerful magnetic field created by swirling liquid iron in the planet’s core. Earth’s magnetic field may be nearly as old as the Earth itself—and stands in stark contrast to the Moon, which completely lacks a magnetic field today. But did the Moon’s core generate a magnetic

Last year, DeepMind researchers wrote that future AI developers may spend less time programming algorithms and more time generating rich virtual worlds in which to train them. In a new paper released this week on the preprint server arXiv, it would seem they’re taking the latter part of that

Charles Darwin famously discussed the “imperfections” of the geological record in his book On the Origin of Species. He correctly pointed out that unless conditions are just right, it’s unlikely for organisms to be preserved as fossils, even those with bones and shells. He also said “no organism

One of the most important open questions in science is how our consciousness is established. In the 1990s, long before winning the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for his prediction of black holes, physicist Roger Penrose teamed up with anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff to propose an ambitious answer.