Nobel Prize winner John Martinis on making quantum physics visible | IBM
Nobel Prize winner John Martinis speaks with the calm precision of someone who has spent his life studying uncertainty.
Sascha Brodsky
Science and Technology Journalist
Recent Work
The mathematicians teaching AI to reason | IBM
The camera captures him in a moment of stillness, a soft geometry of light and shadow. Terence Tao sits before a blackboard in his UCLA office, chalk poised, the faint ghost of old equations forming a pale mist across the slate.
The baby in the machine: How filmmakers are reimagining cinema with AI | IBM
On a film set in Lower Manhattan, actress Audrey Corsa held nothing in her arms. The baby she appeared to cradle was not on set. It would be created later by an artificial intelligence model trained on hundreds of photographs and one woman’s first memory. That memory was the moment of her own birth.
IBM Chief Scientist Ruchir Puri makes the case for useful artificial intelligence | IBM
The quest to create human-like thinking machines—AI systems that can reason, adapt and tackle a broad range of challenges—is dominating headlines and reshaping tech agendas. But Ruchir Puri, IBM Research’s Chief Scientist, is pushing for a different kind of breakthrough: AI that earns its keep by being useful now, not some hypothetical date in the future.
NVIDIA and IBM push AI agents into the enterprise fast lane | IBM
AI agents—autonomous systems powered by large language models (LLMs) that can take actions, call tools and interact with software—are no longer simply answering questions. They’re beginning to function more like digital coworkers.
The scientific sprint: how AI is rewriting discovery timelines | IBM
A new breed of artificial intelligence threatens to upend centuries of scientific tradition by conducting experiments faster and at scales impossible for humans to match. While scientists have long relied on intuition, methodical research and painstaking trial and error, companies like Lila Sciences are now building what they call "Science Factories"—autonomous labs where AI systems generate hypotheses, design experiments and analyze results with minimal human intervention
Think smart, not hard: How Claude's hybrid reasoning could change AI economics | IBM
The inner workings of large language models (LLMs) have traditionally been opaque. A model would receive a prompt and generate a response, without revealing its internal reasoning steps.
Hybrid reasoning changes this dynamic by exposing a model’s step-by-step thinking process. When activated, systems like Granite 3.2 show their work, making the logical paths they follow visible.
The man who taught AI to learn believes human-level intelligence is closer than you think | IBM
Richard Sutton, one of the pioneers behind modern artificial intelligence, is not convinced that simply throwing more computing power at AI will lead to machines that think like humans. In fact, he argues today’s obsession with scaling up deep learning might be holding AI back from its full potential.
Sutton, alongside his longtime collaborator Andrew Barto, won this year’s Turing Award—often called the "Nobel Prize of Computing"—for his work in reinforcement learning. He believes the real brea...
Diffusion models challenge GPT as next-generation AI emerges | IBM
A new class of AI models is challenging the dominance of GPT-style systems, promising faster, cheaper and potentially more powerful alternatives.
Inception Labs, a startup founded by researchers from Stanford, recently released Mercury, a diffusion-based language model (dLLM) that refines entire phrases at once, rather than predicting words one by one. Unlike traditional large language models (LLMs), which use an autoregressive approach—generating one word at a time, based on the preceding text...
Beyond big models: Why AI needs more than just scale to reach AGI | IBM
The idea of artificial general intelligence—machines that can think, learn and reason as well as humans—has captivated scientists, entrepreneurs and science-fiction writers alike. Industry leaders like OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis suggest that AGI could be within reach, powered by the relentless scaling of neural networks. The thinking goes: the bigger the model, the smarter the AI.
But a new survey of AI experts reveals a growing skepticism of this idea. While today...
The scientific sprint: how AI is rewriting discovery timelines | IBM
The rise of scientific superintelligence raises profound questions about the future role of human scientists. Will AI eventually replace them? Or will it serve as a powerful collaborator enhancing human ingenuity?
IBM Principal Research Scientist Payel Das told IBM Think she believes AI will augment rather than replace human creativity. "The human-AI interaction remains central to turbocharging the discovery process," she says. "Human experts define the problem space and provide guidance, while...
NVIDIA and IBM push AI agents into the enterprise fast lane | IBM
AI agents—autonomous systems powered by large language models (LLMs) that can take actions, call tools and interact with software—are no longer simply answering questions. They’re beginning to function more like digital coworkers.
NVIDIA recently introduced AI-Q and AgentIQ, a new open-source blueprint and toolkit aimed at helping businesses deploy multiple agents simultaneously to tackle complex problems. These tools are designed to enable agents to reason, plan and work together across softwa...
Pioneering reinforcement learning researcher contemplates AI's future | IBM
Reinforcement learning excels in video games and simulations but struggles in the real world. The problem? These systems learn by exploring different actions—a strength in virtual environments but a major risk in reality. "Exploration is both the biggest selling point of RL and its biggest limiting factor for real-world use," explains Riemer, highlighting why both researchers see this transition as a critical challenge.
"In the real-world, outside of simulation, exploration can lead to the agen...
DeepSeek shows there's room for more AI players | IBM
The AI arms race is no longer just for the billion-dollar giants.
Companies like OpenAI, Google and Microsoft have dominated the headlines when it comes to artificial intelligence conversation. However, a new wave of open-source innovation—exemplified by the recent DeepSeek model—is leveling the playing field. The model’s success underscores a growing trend: smaller firms can increasingly challenge AI’s most prominent players.
“This just reinforces things we already knew,” says David D. Cox, V...
Meet your AI twin: It acts just like you | IBM
Your digital doppelgänger has arrived. Researchers from Stanford have created AI versions of more than 1,000 people who can supposedly think and make decisions just like their human counterparts. The virtual copies, detailed in a recent paper, don't just mimic basic behaviors; they match their originals' personalities, moral choices and decision-making patterns with uncanny precision.
Voice AI surge: How talking tech could reshape business - IBM Blog
Voice AI technology is rapidly evolving, promising to transform enterprise operations from customer service to internal communications.
In the last few weeks, OpenAI has launched new tools to simplify the creation of AI voice assistants and expanded its Advanced Voice Mode to more paying customers. Microsoft has updated its Copilot AI with enhanced voice capabilities and reasoning features, while Meta has introduced voice AI to its messaging apps.
Tesla's new self-driving software throws out its old code entirely
Tesla, the pioneering electric vehicle manufacturer known for its innovative and sometimes controversial approach to self-driving technology, has recently made a significant change to its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software. The company, led by Elon Musk, has decided to completely overhaul its existing FSD code, opting for a novel approach in the months leading up to the planned launch of its Robotaxi service.
Can we stop AI hallucinations? And do we even want to?
As AI continues to advance, one major problem has emerged: “hallucinations.” These are outputs generated by the AI that have no basis in reality.
Amazon's 'Just Walk Out' Pivot: Reimagining Tech
Amazon is scaling back its artificial intelligence (AI) system that lets customers leave stores without having to provide payment, and experts say there are lessons to be drawn from this decision.
MIT Engineers Aim to Advance Household Robots With AI Integration
Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, household robots are getting smarter and could soon evolve far beyond their current roles as mostly self-guided vacuum cleaners.
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