The concept of robots transforming the way we build and live is as exciting as it is transformative. House-building robots, such as the 3D printers already being deployed, show the potential to revolutionise construction. Yet, while these machines are undeniably impressive, they often rely on concrete, a material with a heavy carbon footprint. Concrete production accounts for a significant proportion of global CO₂ emissions, primarily due to the energy-intensive process of producing cement. This reliance poses a challenge: how can we embrace the convenience and efficiency of these technologies while aligning them with a sustainable vision for the future?
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Author: Tam
Turning Rubbish into a High-Tech Treasure Hunt
When we think about how artificial intelligence and robotics might change our lives, we often leap to dramatic visions of self-driving cars, robot chefs, or AI assistants managing our every whim. Yet some of the most exciting possibilities might come from areas we rarely consider. Take litter sorting, for instance. At present, people across Europe are tearing their hair out over recycling. Six bins, endless rules, and still, most of us get it wrong. It’s hardly a recipe for success.
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You Cannot Eat Promises of a Brighter Tomorrow
The Industrial Revolution upended traditional ways of working. In its early stages, farmers and weavers who had once sold their goods locally found themselves undercut by machinery that churned out more at lower prices. With fewer customers and dwindling earnings, these people became part of a restless mass whose livelihoods had been overturned in the pursuit of efficiency. It’s crucial to remember that the new factory jobs which eventually replaced older roles did not appear overnight. Rather, they arrived slowly, in dribs and drabs, while the displaced workers struggled to pay rent or even secure a hot meal. That gap – between the promise of future prosperity and the immediate reality of being unable to make ends meet – created a tinderbox of public anger. Coupled with inadequate social support and a rapidly expanding wealth divide, the situation lit the fuse of protest and, in some instances, revolts. The lesson is that disruption on this scale rarely proceeds without resistance from those bearing its harshest consequences.
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How Intelligent Is ChatGPT o3?
On 20 December 2024, OpenAI announced the release of its groundbreaking o3 model, a leap forward in artificial intelligence. The announcement included a slew of benchmark results that highlight its extraordinary capabilities. On ARC-AGI, o3 more than tripled the previous model’s score on low compute tasks and achieved a score of 87%. On EpochAI’s Frontier Math, o3 solved 25.2% of problems, a massive leap where no other model exceeded 2%. In SWE-Bench Verified, it outperformed its predecessor by 22.8 percentage points in software engineering benchmarks. On Codeforces, o3 achieved a rating of 2727, surpassing OpenAI’s Chief Scientist’s score of 2665. It also scored 96.7% on AIME 2024, missing only one question, and achieved 87.7% on GPQA Diamond, far above human expert performance.
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Postliteracy: When Reading and Writing Become Optional
“Reading maketh a full man, […] and writing an exact man,” said Sir Francis Bacon. But what happens when the written word is overshadowed by the spoken one?
Welcome to a new era – call it postliteracy if you will – where endless paragraphs give way to short snippets, audiobooks and podcasts grow ever more popular and artificial intelligence reliably handles the nitty-gritty of spelling, grammar and style. It’s a time when you can speak your mind, quite literally, into a microphone and watch the words appear on screen, automatically polished for publication.
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Why the Autonomous Car Manufacturers Are Getting Europe Wrong
Autonomous car manufacturers like Zoox or Waymo have, for the most part, been perfecting their technology in environments like San Francisco, Phoenix and Seattle – cities known for broad avenues, sprawling suburbs, and a distinct lack of comprehensive public transport. From a purely technological standpoint, it’s understandable: America offers controlled-access highways, relatively predictable road layouts, and plenty of space for trial and error. Yet this approach overlooks the fact that Europe’s transport ecosystems are quite different, and it’s a difference that could undermine the success of self-driving cars if ignored.
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Three-Armed Spot: The Domestic Robot We Really Need
The world is abuzz with the promise of domestic robots – devices designed to transform our homes and lives. Yet, as I watch the glossy promotional videos and lofty claims, I can’t help but wonder if the focus is all wrong. Many companies are so busy trying to make their robots look and act like humans that they’re overlooking the more practical needs of their future users. Let’s face it: most of us don’t want a humanoid butler pouring our tea. We need a robust, functional workhorse for the gritty, unpleasant tasks we’d rather avoid.
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Counterurbanisation
It’s hard to believe that just five years ago, many of us were living through a worldwide lockdown, trying to make sense of new ways of working and living. Back then, I believed the pandemic would dramatically and permanently accelerate the move away from big cities in favor of smaller towns and the countryside – something often referred to as counterurbanisation. In hindsight, my predictions weren’t entirely off the mark, but I was definitely too optimistic about how quickly these changes would reshape our world.
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Fleets Over Ownership: The Case for Autonomous Vehicles
When I first wrote about this topic in 2016, it felt like a provocative prediction: self-driving cars would never be something the average person owns. Nearly a decade later, much of what I foresaw has come to pass, and the trajectory of autonomous vehicles (AVs) confirms that private ownership of these technological marvels will remain a niche luxury. Let’s revisit and update the reasoning behind this.
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From Microwaved Meals to Robot Foragers: A Vision for the Future of Food
In twenty years, dinner might look a lot different than it does today. Picture this: instead of a frozen, microwaved meal, you’re enjoying a plate of seasonal, locally sourced food – picked, foraged, or raised by robots. It’s a culinary revolution as transformative as the agricultural and industrial revolutions that came before, merging tradition with cutting-edge technology.
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