Engineering
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Opinion: We’re scientists. We use AI. And we fear it.
Opinion piece by UC Santa Cruz Professors J. Xavier Prochaska and David Haussler issuing a stark warning about the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence, along with a call for urgent global cooperation to ensure that technology remains a tool for human benefit rather than a force for societal displacement. Also in the East Bay Times.
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Scientists Are Trying to Train Lab-Grown Brains. The Brains Have Started to Solve Problems.
In a new study published in the journal Cell Reports, a team of scientists from the University of California, Santa Cruz successfully trained a brain organoid, developed from mouse-derived stem cells, to solve an engineering benchmark known as the “cart-pole problem.”
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‘The warming trend nearly doubled after 2014’: The rate of global warming has accelerated more in the past decade than ever before
Robert Lund, a statistician at the University of California, Santa Cruz, also agrees there is solid evidence that the Earth is warming, but was less sure if we’re experiencing an accelerated warming rate.
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It’s a colorful pangenome world
A pangenome can reveal the spectrum of genome variation within a species. The toolbox for working with pangenomes is filling up.
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Lab-Grown Brains Growing More Powerful
Scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz are taking lab-grown mini-brains into their toddler era, after demonstrating that brain organoids can process information in real time.
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Research Shows How Self-Driving AI Can Be Hijacked With Nothing But Ink and Paper
A team at the University of California, Santa Cruz has published new research showing how visual-language AI models that help control self-driving cars can be exploited or hijacked with carefully coded real-world commands. Or, in other words, tricking them by holding up a sign.
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As Brain Organoid Science Grows More Complex, So Do the Questions
“If we can figure out ways in which living neural networks compute so efficiently, we would have a big breakthrough in terms of trying to find and develop a better architecture for artificial computing,” said Tal Sharf, an assistant professor of biomolecular engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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UCSC students develop website to support Seabright small businesses amid Murray Street Bridge overhaul
As the Murray Street Bridge overhaul disrupts Seabright traffic, students from University of California, Santa Cruz step up with a new website to spotlight local shops and keep the neighborhood thriving.
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The Winter Olympics feel like a 90s snowboarding game, and I’m here for it
The Guardian’s games reporter Keith Stuart recommends UC Santa Cruz professor Noah Wardrip-Fruin’s book “Animal Crossing: New Horizons: Can a Game Take Care of Us?” to his readers.
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Climate action moves forward despite Trump’s policy rollbacks. Will it be enough?
In addition to making current methods of travel more efficient, changes in the transportation sector could include providing the public with better options, said Anne Criss, director of climate and sustainability initiatives at the University of California, Santa Cruz’s Baskin School of Engineering.
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Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign
Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Johns Hopkins showed that, in simulated trials, AI systems and the large vision language models (LVLMs) underpinning them would reliably follow instructions if displayed on signs held up in their camera’s view.
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Trove of Mexican genomes could help guide prescribing decisions
Risk of an adverse drug reaction may be influenced by specific Indigenous ancestry groups. Genetic studies using a broad population category such as “Latino” or even “Mexican” wouldn’t pick up these elevated risks, the researchers say. Yet that’s the level of detail usually available in large population-based gene banks, says Max Haeussler, head of the…