【推荐1】The walking, park-touring, and dancing robots made by Boston Dynamics have been darlings of the internet for years, as they danced from labs to Softbank and most recently Hyundai, while owners tried to figure out how to get them off the dance floor and into the factory. Michael Graham Richard showed the family of robots doing all kinds of things a few years ago, but this new video that starts off with two Atlas robots is just amazing. It's designed to assist emergency rescue (紧急救援) workers in search-and-rescue operations, performing tasks such as shutting off gas, opening doors, and operating powered equipment in environments where humans cannot survive.

But Atlas has never really been out of the lab. In fact, very few of Boston Dynamics robots have been used for work. But after they were bought by Japanese investor Softbank in 2017, they had to go out and get a real job, and Spot, who also dances in the video is the first commercial offering. There are about 400 of them out in the field now. You can buy one for $75,000 and use it as a platform for many different functions (功能), from checking for gas leaks to working for bomb groups, although that did not work out too well. But with that robotic arm option, it looks like it might be able to bring you coffee.

The last robot to join the dance party was Handle, which looked less impressive because of its use of wheels instead of legs. Now that it has been sold to a real manufacturing company, we can probably expect Hyundai to pay off the money to make real working, instead of dancing robots.

【推荐2】“Hallucinate” — the Word of 2023

Cambridge Dictionary has named “hallucinate” as the word of the year for 2023 — while giving it an added new meaning relating to AI (artificial intelligence) technology.

The added Cambridge Dictionary definition (定义) reads: “When an AI hallucinates, it produces false information, which can vary (变化) from suggestions that seem perfectly believable to ones that are clearly non-sense.”

Wendalyn Nichols, Cambridge Dictionary’s publishing manager, said: “The fact that AIs can ‘hallucinate’ reminds us that humans still need to bring their critical (批判的) thinking skills to the use of these tools. AIs can draw out specific information we need from huge amounts and piece it together. That’s amazing. But they just stop there. The more original (原创的) you ask them to be, the likelier they are to go wrong.”

Actually, at their best, AIs can only be as dependable as their training information. Humans’ professional knowledge is more important than ever, to create the truthful and up-to-date information that AIs can be trained on.

AIs can hallucinate in a confident and thus more misleading manner. Their influences have been shown in real-world examples. In Google’s advertisement for its chatbot Bard, the AI tool made an error about the James Webb Space Telescope. A US law company used cases made up by AIs in court after using ChatGPT for legal research.

“The widespread use of the word ‘hallucinate’ to refer to mistakes by AIs offers us a quick look at how we’re treating them as our equals,” said Dr Henry, an AI ethicist at Cambridge University. “‘Hallucinate’ is originally a verb suggesting someone experiencing a disconnect from reality,” he continued. “It mirrors an unnoticeable change in perception (认知): the AI, not the user, is the one ‘hallucinating’”. It seems that as time progresses, psychological vocabulary will be further enlarged to describe the strange abilities of the new intelligences we’re creating.

【推荐3】It’s logical for humans to feel anxious about artificial intelligence. After all, the news is constantly listing job after job where the technology seems to outperform us. But humans aren’t yet headed for all-out replacement. And if you do suffer from so-called AI anxiety, there are ways to alleviate your fears and even change them into a motivating force for good. Here’s how some psychologists and other experts suggest handling our AI fears.

First off, context is key, says Sanae Okamoto, a psychologist and behavioral scientist in the Netherlands. She suggests keeping in mind that the present moment is far from the first time people have feared the rise of an unfamiliar technology. “Computer anxiety”  dates back decades, Okamoto notes. Before that, there was worry over industrial automation. Past technological advances have led to big social and economic shifts. Some fears became reality, and some jobs did disappear, but many of the worst science fiction predictions did not come true.

Facing fears of AI by actually trying out the tools, seeing where and how they can be useful, reading up on how they work and understanding their limitations can turn the tech from a monster into a potential helper, says Jerri Lynn Hogg, a media psychologist. A deeper understanding can empower someone to advocate for meaningful job protections or policies that hold back potential problems.

Mary Alvord, a practicing psychologist, also stresses the importance of addressing the problem directly. “We talk about what actions you can take instead of sticking your head in the sand,” she says. Maybe that means gaining new skills to prepare for a career change or learning about ongoing efforts to control AI. Or maybe it means building a union with colleagues at work, which is important to help people feel more secure and hopeful about the future.        

Perhaps the better response is to use our AI anxiety to push us forward. Mastering a craft—be it drawing, writing, programming or translating — and using that skill to create something new is “the most rewarding thing that we can possibly do.” says Sean Kelly, a Harvard University philosophy professor. So why not let AI motivate more creation instead of replacing it? If the technology produces something interesting, we can build on it. And if it doesn’t, then why worry about it at all?