The 4-Bit Blopera

In COVID-related AI news, Andy and Dave discuss the results of the C3.ai COVID-19 challenge. In regular AI news, the US Air Force announces an AI, ARTUm, controlling a military plane for the first time. A Nature publication shows the AI collaboration links between institutions based on the last 5 years. The IBM T.J. Watson Research Center publishes research on 4-bit training of deep neural networks to accelerate the process. Researchers at Oregon State University publish advances with a new type of optical sensor that can naturally detect moving objects. And the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Crane along with ONR announce a prize challenge for AI in Small Unit Maneuver (AISUM). In meta-research, researchers create a graph-based toolkit for analysis and comparison of games. Other research examines the fossil records to discover patterns in Earth's biological mass extinction events. In the book of the week, the US Army War College Class of 2020 publishes an Estimation of Technological Convergence. György Buzsáki's The Brain from the Inside Out takes a different look at how the brain functions. And for the holidays, Andy and Dave play around with Google's blob opera singers.