Anecdotally, as someone who works on non-AGI-targetting AI research, I find pop-sci articles on AI research to be horribly misrepresentive.
A paper that introduces a new algorithm that guides drones around a simulator by creating sub-tasks might be presented as “AI researchers create a new kind of digital brain—and it has its own goals”. That’s obviously a click-bait headline, but the article itself usually does little to clean things up.
However, I would imagine that AI is currently among the worst fields for this kind of thing due to manufactured hype, culture wars, and the age-old anthropomorphization of AI algorithms.
Thanks for this example. I definitely see ridiculous headlines like that from less reputable places. Do you also have examples from the type of news media I’m talking about like WSJ? For example, searching “Washington Post AI robotics” I get headlines:
“Humanoid robots were sci-fi. Suddenly they’re everywhere” about companies investing in and demoing humanoid robots, which seems to be true.
“Not ready for robots in homes? The maker of a friendly new humanoid thinks it might change your mind” about the product “Sprout” by Fauna Robotics, which seems okay unless Fauna is completely faking it
“Russia’s much-hyped humanoid robot face-plants onstage during debut” OK
“Opinion | The Chinese robots are coming” hard to assess but not particularly hyperbolic
“Robot smaller than grain of salt can ‘sense, think and act’” subtitled “With solar cells and its own propulsion system, the device is a step toward sending robots into the human body”. This seems closest to what you’re talking about. Here’s a press release for it: https://www.seas.upenn.edu/stories/penn-and-umich-create-worlds-smallest-programmable-autonomous-robots/ I’m sure this is an optimistic take on a research project but it seems fairly reasonable
(I realize now that “robotics” wasn’t really in your original statement, I guess I extrapolated that from your drone example.)
Anecdotally, as someone who works on non-AGI-targetting AI research, I find pop-sci articles on AI research to be horribly misrepresentive.
A paper that introduces a new algorithm that guides drones around a simulator by creating sub-tasks might be presented as “AI researchers create a new kind of digital brain—and it has its own goals”. That’s obviously a click-bait headline, but the article itself usually does little to clean things up.
However, I would imagine that AI is currently among the worst fields for this kind of thing due to manufactured hype, culture wars, and the age-old anthropomorphization of AI algorithms.
Thanks for this example. I definitely see ridiculous headlines like that from less reputable places. Do you also have examples from the type of news media I’m talking about like WSJ? For example, searching “Washington Post AI robotics” I get headlines:
“Humanoid robots were sci-fi. Suddenly they’re everywhere” about companies investing in and demoing humanoid robots, which seems to be true.
“Not ready for robots in homes? The maker of a friendly new humanoid thinks it might change your mind” about the product “Sprout” by Fauna Robotics, which seems okay unless Fauna is completely faking it
“Russia’s much-hyped humanoid robot face-plants onstage during debut” OK
“Opinion | The Chinese robots are coming” hard to assess but not particularly hyperbolic
“Robot smaller than grain of salt can ‘sense, think and act’” subtitled “With solar cells and its own propulsion system, the device is a step toward sending robots into the human body”. This seems closest to what you’re talking about. Here’s a press release for it: https://www.seas.upenn.edu/stories/penn-and-umich-create-worlds-smallest-programmable-autonomous-robots/ I’m sure this is an optimistic take on a research project but it seems fairly reasonable
(I realize now that “robotics” wasn’t really in your original statement, I guess I extrapolated that from your drone example.)