Q&A
His Artificial Intelligence Sees Inside Living Cells
The computer vision scientist Greg Johnson is building systems that can recognize organelles on sight and show the dynamics of living cells more clearly than microscopy can.
Q&A
Curious About Consciousness? Ask the Self-Aware Machines
Consciousness is a famously hard problem, so Hod Lipson is starting from the basics: with self-aware robots that can help us understand how we think.
Abstractions blog
Sum-of-Three-Cubes Problem Solved for ‘Stubborn’ Number 33
A number theorist with programming prowess has found a solution to 33 = x³ + y³ + z³, a much-studied equation that went unsolved for 64 years.
Q&A
A New Approach to Understanding How Machines Think
Neural networks are famously incomprehensible, so Been Kim is developing a “translator for humans.”
Wired to Learn: The Next AI
Clever Machines Learn How to Be Curious
Computer scientists are finding ways to code curiosity into intelligent machines.
Q&A
A Life Inspired by an Unexpected Genius
Greatness was always expected of Ken Ono. But as he struggled with his parents’ expectations, he found solace and inspiration in the life of two-time college dropout — and mathematical genius — Srinivasa Ramanujan, the subject of the film The Man Who Knew Infinity.
Q&A
Searching for the Algorithms Underlying Life
The biological world is computational at its core, argues computer scientist Leslie Valiant.
Computer Science
A New Map Traces the Limits of Computation
A major advance in computational complexity reveals deep connections between the classes of problems that computers can — and can’t — possibly do.