1 . We can picture a future world where machines will enlarge our human abilities and help us make better life choices, from health to wealth, as we live longer and longer and technology continues its rapid development. Through our dialogue and digital pieces, AI (人工智能) will understand our life goals and wishes, our duties and limitations. It will help us plan different life events, so we can spend more time enjoying life’s moments.

The ability for AI to understanad the complexities (复杂性) and slight differences of human conversation is, however, one hurdle (障碍). There are several thousand known living languages in the world today. Adding to the difficulties are the varied ways words are shared and used across different cultures, including grammar, levels of education and styles of the speakers. Google Duplex, the technology supporting Google Assistant, which places phone calls using a natural-sounding human voice instead of a robotic one, is an early attempt to address such challenges in human communications. But these are just initial whispers in voice of AI’s long journey.

Beyond making reservations and conducting simple dialogues, virtual assistants will need to become far more useful and further fit into the parts of our everyday lives. Not only will they need to foresee what we need before we ask, they also need to understand the context of our conversations and react accordingly. Imagine a snow day when school is canceled for the kids. Knowing that you must now stay at home with your children, your phone would remind you, asking if you’d like your meetings moved to the following day. Or imagine how much more pleasant your journey home from a business trip would be if your phone could automatically arrange for a ride waiting to pick you up at the airport, based on your travel plan, location, and habits. The possibilities are endless.

3 . Laughter comes in many forms, from a polite and quiet laugh to a great hearty laugh. Scientists are now developing an AI system to recreate different laughs in proper social contexts (环境). The team behind the laughing robot Erica said that the system could improve natural conversations between people and an AI robot. “We think that one of the important functions of conversational AI is empathy (共情),” said Dr Koji Inoue, the lead author of the research. “So we decided that one way a robot can empathize with its users is to share their laughter.”

The team have set out to teach their AI system the art of conversational laughter. They gathered training data from more than 80 daily dialogues between male subjects and the robot that was initially operated by four actresses remotely. The dialogue data was grouped into social laughs (where polite or embarrassed laughter isn’t involved) and laughter of joy. Based on the audio files, the robot learned the basic characteristics of social laughs, which tend to be softer, and merry laughs, with the aim of mirroring these inappropriate situations.

“Our biggest obstructor in the work was identifying the actual cases of shared laughter because as you know, most laughter is actually not shared at all,” said Inoue. “We had to carefully decide exactly which laughs we could use for our analysis and we couldn’t just assume (认为) that any laugh can be responded to. It was really not easy work.” The team said laughter could help create robots with their own distinct character although it could take more than 20 years before it would be possible to have a casual chat with a robot like we would with a friend.

“One of the things we’d keep in mind is that a laughing robot will never be able to understand you or the meaning of laughter,” points out Prof. Sandra Wachter of the Oxford Internet Institute. “But with their development, they might get very good at tricking you into believing they understand what’s going on.”

4 . ChatGPT maker OpenAI from the United States stepped up the global artificial intelligence race in mid-February when it released its text-to-video generation tool Sora. That made me wonder — how long before China develops its own Sora? And, will AI become China’s critical new productive force?

According to OpenAI’s explainer, Sora is capable of generating complex scenes with a very high degree of accuracy, including multiple characters, specific types of movements, themes and backgrounds. It understands not only what the user requests, but also how these things exist in the physical world.

On Feb 16, Zhou Hongyi, founder of cybersecurity firm 360 Security Technology, said Sora may bring a huge disruption to the advertising industry, movie trailers and the short-video industry; what’s more, the realization of generative AI may be shortened from 10 years to one or two years.

“Although the development level of large-scale models in China seems to be close to GPT-3.5, there is still an 18-month gap compared to GPT-4.0. OpenAI should still have an ace or two up its sleeve, whether it is GPT-5.0 or machine self-learning to generate content,” Zhou said, adding that it is worth paying attention.

According to a report by the Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission, China had developed at least 254 AI large language models by October last year. Currently, most domestic large models still have a huge gap with GPT-4.0.

But the country could make use of such frontier AI technologies in more industry-specific fields. Or, to put it simply, China needs to apply such technologies to real use, to develop them into productive forces and narrow the gap between itself and the US.

Though China still has a gap with the US in such a large model, Chinese AI startup ModelBest Inc launched last month its latest lightweight large model, an emerging less expensive AI technology that aims at more targeted commercialized fields.

5 . A new study suggests that long periods in space can cause the human heart to shrink (缩小). The study—by a team of American researchers—comes as the U.S. makes plans to build a long-term base on the moon and prepares to send astronauts to Mars.

Part of the study was based on the experiences of the retired astronaut Scott Kelly. The U.S. space agency NASA says that during his career, Kelly spent more time in space than any other American astronaut. One of Kelly’s stays aboard the International Space Station (ISS) lasted 340 days. Researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UT Southwestern) in Dallas collected and analyzed the physical data during Kelly’s long stay aboard the ISS. The goal was to learn the effects of weightlessness on heart health and performance. The team found that during Kelly’s stay in space, the left ventricle (心室) of his heart shrank about 0.74 grams per week.

Dr. Benjamin Levine is a professor at UT Southwestern. He was the leader of the research. In a statement, he explained that because of the conditions in space, the heart does not have to work as hard to pump (输送) blood uphill from the feet. Over time, this can cause shrinkage. In an effort to keep their hearts and bodies healthy in space, astronauts are required to perform different kinds of exercises throughout their stay.

Reductions in heart size are also seen in patients who spend long periods in bed because they are lying flat and the heart does not have to work as hard to pump. A second part of the study examined data from a long-distance swimmer who spent nearly a year trying to cross the Pacific Ocean. The swimmer, Benoit Lecomte, was chosen because he swam more than 2,800 kilometers over 159 days. Levine says long-distance swimming has similar effects on weightlessness. The study showed that during Lecomte’s swim, his left heart ventricle shrank about 0.72 grams per week.

10 . With almost all big employers in the United States now using artificial intelligence (AI) and automation in their hiring processes, the public is considering some urgent questions: How can you prevent discrimination in hiring when a machine is keeping the discrimination? What kind of methods might help?

Some 83% of employers, including 99% of Fortune 500 companies, now use some form of automated tools as part of their hiring process, said the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s ( EEOC) chair Charlotte Burrows, at a hearing on Tuesday. She said everyone needs to speak up on the debate over these technologies. “The risks are simply too high to leave this topic just to the experts.”

Last year, the EEOC issued some guidance around the use of cutting-edge hiring tools, noting many of their shortcomings. The agency found that resume( 简历) scanners which prioritize keywords and programs which evaluate a candidate’s facial expressions and speech patterns in video interviews can create discrimination. Take, for example, a video interview that analyses an applicant’s speech patterns to determine their ability to solve problems. A person with a speech problem might score low and automatically be screened out. The problem will be for the EEOC to root out discrimination or stop it from taking place.

The EEOC is considering the most appropriate ways to handle the problem. It’s agreed that inspections are necessary to ensure that the software used by companies avoids intentional or unintentional discrimination. But who would conduct those inspections is a more challenging question. Each option presents risks, Burrows pointed out. A third party may turn a blind eye to its clients, while a government-led inspection could potentially stop innovation.

In previous remarks, Burrows has noted the great potential that AI decision making tools have to improve the lives of Americans, but only when used properly. “We must work to ensure that these new technologies do not become a high-tech pathway to discrimination,” she said.