Left alone with nothing to do, AI agents started playing
MIT researchers marooned 13 AIs on a virtual island, and they responded by inventing games, mourning a lost ring and, eventually, getting better at their jobs.
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Technology, policy, funding, workforce and research headlines from established publishers, refreshed throughout the day. Stories about a specific state are labeled with it. Every headline links to the original publisher.
UTA and UT Southwestern Researchers Use AI to Pinpoint Eye Disease ‘Control Switches’
Dallas Innovates, Every Day: Here's what's new + next in North Texas. Researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington and UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas are using AI and advanced statistics to pinpoint the molecular “control…
Dallas Innovates ·Ex-Marine and Microsoft vets launch Watchtower Labs with $35M to bring AI to military logistics
The Bellevue-based defense tech startup, co-founded by a former Marine special operations officer and two longtime Microsoft engineering leaders, is building AI and simulation software to help military planners anticipate logistics needs.…
GeekWire ·Recursive launches Flint, a laptop coding model it says was largely built by AI
Startup Recursive has released Flint, a free, laptop-sized coding model built largely by its own AI research system, as an early test of AI that improves itself.
TechCrunch ·UW protein institute led by Nobel winner unveils its first AI model co-developed with Nvidia
UW’s Institute for Protein Design and Nvidia have released their first jointly developed AI model for creating proteins with specific jobs. The release follows a computing grant from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's foundation that IPD director…
GeekWire ·What’s the point of MIT? OpenAI’s math proofs have thrown students and researchers into chaos.
Doctoral students in mathematics are questioning their career paths and considering leaving the field altogether. The post What’s the point of MIT? OpenAI’s math proofs have thrown students and researchers into chaos. appeared first on…
Boston.com Technology ·Major firms in Wisconsin filing hundreds of AI patents
GE HealthCare and Milwaukee Tool are leading the pack for organizations filing AI-related patents in Wisconsin, followed closely by Johnson Controls. That’s according to research conducted by Prof. Rina Ghose, a data scientist with…
WisBusiness ·WED AM News: Major firms in Wisconsin filing hundreds of AI patents; Survey finds national uncertainty dominates business concerns despite local stability
— GE HealthCare and Milwaukee Tool are leading the pack for organizations filing AI-related patents in Wisconsin, followed closely by Johnson Controls. That’s according to research conducted by Prof. Rina Ghose, a data scientist with…
WisBusiness ·OpenAI acquires startup Orchestra Bio to beef up its biotech business
OpenAI says it's adding Orchestra's team and technology to work on Rosalind, its AI model for life sciences research, and to its related Rosalind Workbench tool, a harness that aims to help researchers plan experiments and analyze results.
TechCrunch ·Eric Schmidt reportedly owns about half as much of Anthropic as CEO Dario Amodei
The former Google CEO owns about 1% stake in the leading AI lab, Bloomberg reported.
TechCrunch ·UW innovation seeks to improve health data analysis
Scientists at UW-Madison have detailed a way to incorporate numerous forms of medical data into a set of machine learning models, in order to better predict the course of diseases such as cancer. WARF included the method in its latest…
WisBusiness ·TUE AM News: UW innovation seeks to improve health data analysis; NLRB overrules Rogers objections to union election
— Scientists at UW-Madison have detailed a way to incorporate numerous forms of medical data into a set of machine learning models, in order to better predict the course of diseases such as cancer. WARF included the method in its latest…
WisBusiness ·Ohio State President Ravi Bellamkonda discusses plans for new Timoshev Technology Tower
Ohio State is building the Timoshev Technology Tower, a planned multi-story innovation and research facility.
WOSU ·Spain-Based Startups Advance Regional Innovation With Barcelona Supercomputing Center
The Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC)’s AI Factory Accelerator Programme, now in full operation following a pilot initiative, gives startups access to sovereign compute, technical support and training to support innovation across…
NVIDIA ·A-State Board approves AI, technology and security policy changes
The Arkansas State University System Board has approved four policies designed to enhance information technology management and security on all its campuses. The policies include revising the existing Appropriate Use... The post A-State…
Talk Business & Politics ·Embedded AI evaluators won’t be an easy solution, Hugging Face’s policy chief says
AI labs have staked their reputations on model benchmarking — the supposedly neutral and accurate system of evaluations that are designed to measure whether one AI product is better than another. However, the methods behind these…
TechCrunch ·Microsoft says AI agents are like insider threats as ‘frontier models can’t be trusted’
Microsoft wants enterprises to closely watch the agents employees use with systems not controlled by AI labs like OpenAI and Anthropic.
TechCrunch ·“We were looking at it wrong”: The explosive claim that’s upended the AI world
“I think I have good news about the nature of neural networks.” With those simple words of optimism, Nick Cammarata, a researcher at the AI startup Goodfire, kicked off a 26,000-word blog post that has knocked the AI world on its head,…
MIT Technology Review ·Laplace Intelligence red-teams robots and self-driving cars before they hit the real world
University of Michigan spinout Laplace Intelligence uses AI agents and interactive simulation to stress-test robots and self-driving vehicles before deployment. The profitable startup is competing in Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch…
TechCrunch ·AI researchers stranded Claude on a virtual desert island. It started to “play.”
What do AI agents do if you don’t tell them to do anything? The answer looks a lot like play. Researchers repeatedly stranded them alone on a virtual desert island for 30 hours in an experiment reminiscent of the movies Cast Away or Home…
MIT Technology Review ·Montana’s flagship universities use security cameras, but not their AI capabilities
In a recent U.S. Senate candidate debate in Missoula, Democrat Alani Bankhead suggested independent opponent Seth Bodnar was a hypocrite for posting a campaign video of himself shooting a Flock-style camera. “Of course, right here, the…
Daily Montanan ·An anti-terrorism chatbot and protective wear for healthcare: The 2026 Innovation Awards winners
UNeMed held its annual award ceremony Wednesday, celebrating inventors, researchers and supporters of the local University of Nebraska and startup community in Omaha. The tech transfer and commercialization office also released its annual…
Silicon Prairie News ·Utah's Life Sciences Export Is Time: Inside the First BioHive Premieres
At Utah's first BioHive Premieres, life sciences leaders from Huntsman, Recursion, BioFire Defense and Seek Labs pitched ways to shorten the time between threat and answer, from one-hour fever tests to AI-driven drug discovery.
TechBuzz News ·AI slop responses to RFPs, RFIs are overwhelming federal agencies
A whole-of-government effort is taking shape to combat an influx of AI-generated responses to market research inquiries, a Transportation Department official said. The post AI slop responses to RFPs, RFIs are overwhelming federal agencies…
FedScoop ·Anthropic is letting METR researchers look under the hood with employee-level access
METR will publish its own assessments of Anthropic’s risks, incidents, and practices, and the frontier AI model maker has given up the right to block them.
TechCrunch ·AI Utah Demo Day: How MX Labs and JobNimbus Are Applying AI to Business Problems
AI Utah Demo Day at Pattern (Lehi, UT) featured MX Labs and JobNimbus, showcasing how Utah companies are applying artificial intelligence to financial services, software development, customer feedback analysis and product decisions.
TechBuzz News ·Missed a lecture? This AI agent at Bar-Ilan University helps students catch up
The post Missed a lecture? This AI agent at Bar-Ilan University helps students catch up appeared first on Source .
Microsoft ·A-State receives $2.1 million grant for AI research in the steel manufacturing sector
Arkansas State University has received a $2.1 million federal grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to expand artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing... The post…
Talk Business & Politics ·A new app aims to connect classical musicians during practice breaks
iMeetStand platform (Maria Eberhart/Technical.ly) " data-large-file="https://technically-wpengine.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/technically/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/md-imeetstand-platform-scaled.jpg" /> Peabody professor Amit Peled teamed…
Technical.ly ·Data centers can’t be stopped, but good policy is needed, NDSU researcher says
FARGO — There’s no way of stopping the development of data centers and artificial intelligence, a North Dakota State University researcher said Wednesday, adding that attempts to slow development would only push it to other areas. “It’s…
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