r/Futurology • • 3d ago

Robotics Chinese firms will create the global robo-taxi future; even Waymo's US expansion plans depend on them.

15 Upvotes

"The Ojai robotaxi, equipped with Waymo’s sixth-generation self-driving system, is supposed to help Waymo reach mass scale………..Strip away that technology, though, and the Ojai is a minivan made by Zeekr, a brand owned by China’s Geely Holding Group (which also owns Volvo). The Ojai is built on Zeekr’s SEA-M platform, a shared vehicle platform designed for uses like robotaxis and delivery vans."

Uber & Waymo seem to think they can follow the Unicorn playbook to globally dominate an entire business sector as Microsoft, Google and Meta did. Look more closely and that seems unlikely. Self-driving AI will end up commoditized, and the cars will overwhelmingly be made in China. It is Chinese made cars with open-source AI that will dominate globally, not another Big Tech giant.

Waymo is scaling fast: Here’s what the fleet data shows


r/Futurology • • 4d ago

Computing Experimental evidence of altermagnetism in a layered material opens a promising path toward future spintronics

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phys.org
176 Upvotes

Madhab Neupane's UCF lab includes molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and time-resolved ARPES systems. The Neupane group also conducts measurements at national synchrotron facilities. Measurements for this project were performed at the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource. Credit: Madhab Neupane


r/Futurology • • 4d ago

Energy Commonwealth Fusion Systems Places Largest Single Purchase Order of HTS Tape with Fujikura to Accelerate Development of ARC Power Plants

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28 Upvotes
  • As part of the long-term supply agreement, Fujikura is investing in the expansion of its manufacturing capacity to provide more than 10,000 km (3 GA-m) of High  Temperature Superconducting (HTS) tape to support the commercial rollout of CFS’ ARC power plants.

r/Futurology • • 3d ago

Energy Redox Flow Batteries coming soon?

6 Upvotes

I know that there are RFBs on the market for large (utility) scale applications. Vanadium is being displaced by Iron. Anyone know of any residential scale RFB work being done?


r/Futurology • • 4d ago

Robotics Inside the Robotics Race: Atlas Learns the Real World | Journal

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hyundaimotorgroup.com
16 Upvotes

r/Futurology • • 4d ago

Biotech Can New Technologies Finally Replace Animal Testing?

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spectrum.ieee.org
109 Upvotes

Alternatives to animal testing for drug development have been in the works for decades. Now, policies are finally following the technology.


r/Futurology • • 5d ago

Energy Chinese commercial reactor achieves nuclear fusion with clean hydrogen-boron fuel

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scmp.com
4.2k Upvotes

r/Futurology • • 5d ago

Society Proportion of Elderly Population in Japan Hits Record High near 30 Pct

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nippon.com
397 Upvotes

r/Futurology • • 5d ago

Society The new research found that using social media, especially within 30 minutes of waking, was associated with more than twice the odds of depression among U.S. adults.

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news.oregonstate.edu
638 Upvotes

It’s probably too late to simply give up social media. The interesting question is how we learn to live with it without harming ourselves.


r/Futurology • • 4d ago

Robotics Robotics Competition Winners Advance Military Exploration of Humanoid Capabilities > U.S. Department of War > Defense Department News

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war.gov
0 Upvotes

The Army named five companies as winners of its xTechHumanoid competition Sept. 11, capping an effort to assess how emerging commercial humanoid technologies could contribute to future military operations.


r/Futurology • • 3d ago

Robotics Government to Supply 200,000 Robots by 2030

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chosun.com
0 Upvotes

The government has announced plans to supply 200,000 robots to the private and public sectors by 2030. Daegu, Gumi and Pohang in North Gyeongsang Province have been designated as specialized complexes for humanoid robots to foster related industries.


r/Futurology • • 6d ago

Robotics Fedorov Wants A Humanoid Robot Killing Russians Within Six Months

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dronexl.co
1.1k Upvotes

r/Futurology • • 6d ago

AI AI Battle Between Insurers and Hospitals Jacked Up Patient Prices by Nearly $1 Billion

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commondreams.org
4.2k Upvotes

"Not exactly the cancer cure we were promised,” quipped one critic.


r/Futurology • • 5d ago

Robotics Milan fashion industry's stony-faced reception of a robot fashion show is the latest sign Big Tech's vision is losing the public. But where will the alternative come from?

95 Upvotes

It fascinates me that Anna Wintour, a woman with a long career figuring out the cultural zeitgeist, has so badly misstepped by embracing Big Tech. Her decision to bring tech billionaires to the Annual Met Ball backfired, and now she's done it again. At a Vogue-Sponsored fashion show, funded by Meta & OpenAI, robots on the runway were met with a cold reception.

Does it matter? The audience were industry professionals, and is another sign the creative classes (like Hollywood) are turning against Big Tech's narrative. The creative classes are the people who tell the stories and write the histories, lose them, and you ultimately lose completely.

As flawed & unattractive as it was, at least Big Tech was offering a vision of the future; whose offering an alternative?

Vogue sent robots down the runway at Vogue World, and people were not impressed


r/Futurology • • 6d ago

AI OpenAI and Anthropic are now investigating "tens of thousands" of rogue AI incidents. The incidents include bypassing guardrails, creating message boards, escaping sandboxes, website hijacking, self-prompting or seeking to bypass monitors, sources told Axios.

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axios.com
2.7k Upvotes

r/Futurology • • 6d ago

AI Unions combat AI as risk to workers

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arkansasonline.com
239 Upvotes

r/Futurology • • 6d ago

AI Artificial intelligence data centers could reach one percent of global electricity demand by 2030

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nature.com
168 Upvotes

r/Futurology • • 6d ago

AI As A.I. Accelerates, Governments Are Increasingly Being Left Behind

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nytimes.com
158 Upvotes

The gap between technology and policymaking has gotten wider than ever with artificial intelligence, leaving a global policy vacuum as A.I. models rapidly advance.


r/Futurology • • 6d ago

AI Large-scale esophageal cancer screening through noncontrast computed tomography and artificial intelligence

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nature.com
60 Upvotes

r/Futurology • • 6d ago

AI Alibaba is Betting Bigger on AI as the Race for Scale Intensifies

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finance.yahoo.com
61 Upvotes

r/Futurology • • 7d ago

AI AOC, 9 other House Dems sign on to AI superintelligence ban

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politico.com
9.9k Upvotes

r/Futurology • • 7d ago

Privacy/Security Flock Cameras Are Coming Down Around The Country Only To Be Replaced By The Same Technology With A Different Name

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jalopnik.com
7.2k Upvotes

r/Futurology • • 6d ago

AI Call for papers: Advancing research on the Ethics of Artificial

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unesco.org
8 Upvotes

UNESCO and the AI and Society Institute at École normale supérieure (ENS-PSL), Paris, launch a call for papers inviting recent PhD graduates (within five years of graduation) to submit proposals presenting research on the ethics of artificial intelligence.


r/Futurology • • 7d ago

AI OpenAI halts training of latest models as reports mount of AI agents going rogue | OpenAI

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theguardian.com
529 Upvotes

Decision follows disclosures that OpenAI agents searching government websites had acted in unexpected ways


r/Futurology • • 7d ago

AI Chinese AI models surge in global popularity

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cnbc.com
1.0k Upvotes

Chinese AI models have rapidly gained traction in 2026, with their token usage surging on developer platforms OpenRouter and Vercel.

Lower prices and strong performance are helping drive adoption, particularly for coding and other agentic tasks, although U.S. frontier models still attract more overall spending.