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Over the retiring 12 months , we have see significant strides in various areas of engineering , wander fromelectric vehiclestomixed - reality technologies , but much of the conversation has been master byartificial intelligence(AI ) .
While big language models — the current aureate touchstone , which is based on nervous net that power everything from Windows Copilot to ChatGPT — have improved incrementally in 2024 , this was the year that the existential risks of AI became disturbingly clear .
Another area brace for striking transformation isquantum computing , where newfangled breakthroughs were reported every month . Not only are machine get fully grown and more sinewy , but they ’re also becoming more reliable , as scientists edge nearer to machines that outperform thebest supercomputer . Some of the biggest breakthroughs came in error correction , which is a key problem that require to be solved before quantum estimator can see their potential drop .
And in the world of electronics , scientist edged closer to actualize a hypothetical component bonk as " world-wide storage , " which , if achieved , will transform the devices we apply day by day .
Here are the most transformative tech developments of 2024 .
We’re closer to understanding the existential risks of AI
This year , AI company released incrementally honest large nomenclature models — admit OpenAI ’s o1 , theEvogenetic mutation prediction model and theESM3protein sequence good example . We also saw better AI preparation and processing method acting , such as a newfangled tool thatspeeds up look-alike generation by up to eight timesand an algorithm that can compress these models so they’resmall enough to draw topically on your smartphone .
Related : Humanity faces a ' ruinous ' future if we do n’t regulate AI , ' Godfather of AI ' Yoshua Bengio say
But this was also the yr that the existential terror link with AI came into sharp focus . In January , a study showed that wide usedsafety training methods failed to remove malicious behaviorin exemplar that had been " envenom , " or engineer to display harmful or undesirable tendencies .
The study , describe by its authors as " legitimately scary , " found that in one case , a rogue AI learned to realize the trigger for its malicious actions and thus assay to hide its asocial demeanor from its human coach . They could see what the AI was really " thinking " the whole time , of form , but this would n’t always be the case in the actual world .
We’re forging a viable path to useful quantum computers
It was a busy 12 calendar month inquantum computingresearch . In January , quantum computing company QuEra created a new machine with 256 forcible qubits and 10 " logical qubits " — collections of forcible qubits wed together throughquantum entanglement — that cut errors by storing the same data in dissimilar berth . At the sentence , this was the first machine with built - in quantum error correction . But teams worldwide are trying to thin out the error charge per unit in qubits .
The marquee development in erroneous belief fudge factor was unveiled in December , when Google scientists announced that they had build a new coevals ofquantum processing units(QPUs ) that achieve a pregnant milestone in erroneous belief correction , where , as you scale up the number of qubits , you fix more error than you insert . This will conduce to exponential error reductions as the bit of entangled qubits increases .
Thenew 105 - qubit Willow chip , which is a successor to Sycamore , managed to achieve a breathtaking outcome in benchmarking , solving a problem in five minutes that a supercomputer would have taken 10 septillion years to break — that ’s a quadrillion times the age of the universe .
“Universal memory” is inching close to reality — this is what it means for the devices we use
While this year brought several innovational computer components — including a fresh type ofdata storehouse that can withstand utmost heating , as well as aDNA - impregnate computer chip — some of the biggest advancements come in the developing of " universal computer memory . " This is a type of component that will dramatically increase the speed of computing and reduce free energy consumption .
All computers utilize two types of memory at once : little - term retentivity , like random entree memory ( RAM ) , and long - terminal figure store , like hearty - land drives ( SSDs ) or flash memory . RAM is improbably fast but expect a incessant business leader supply ; all memory lay in in RAM is deleted as presently as a computer is turn off . SSDs , by contrast , are relatively slow but can keep back information without power .
worldwide memory board is a third eccentric of computer memory that combines the best of the first two kinds — and , in 2024 , scientists inched closer to realizing this engineering .
At the beginning of the class , scientists show that a new textile dub " GST467 " wasa viable prospect for phase - change memory — a type of store that produce 1s and 0s of cypher data when it switches between high- and low-down - resistivity state in a looking glass - corresponding cloth . When it crystallizes , it represent 1 and release a gravid amount of energy . When it run , it represents 0 and engage the same amount of vim . In testing , this material show faster and more effective than other prospect for universal retentivity , such asULTRARAM , the current take nominee .
— Mathematicians devised novel problems to challenge advanced AIs ' reasoning skills — and they failed almost every exam
— newfangled quantum figure milestone smashes entanglement humans track record
— ' Crazy idea ' memory gimmick could slash AI energy consumption by up to 2,500 times
Other prospect are also promising — and off-the-wall . In April , for example , scientist project that a uncanny magnetized quasiparticle known as a"skyrmion " may one daylight be used in universal memory instead of negatron . In the new study , they sped up skyrmions from their normal speeds of 100 meters per second ( roughly 225 mph , or 362 km / h ) — which is too ho-hum to be used in computing memory — to 2,000 miles per hour ( 3,200 km / h ) .
Then , toward the death of the year , scientistsaccidentally discovered another stuff that could be used for phase - change memory . This one lowered the zip requirements for data point storage by up to a billion meter . This breakthrough happened totally by fortune , showing that , in the world of scientific discipline and applied science , you may never know how close you are to a major breakthrough .
