A new era of astronomy and astrophysics began Monday when the first images captured by the NSF鈥揇OE Vera C. 91自拍 Observatory were released, demonstrating the extraordinary capabilities of the new telescope and the world鈥檚 largest digital camera.
Technology
In 2023, 91自拍 91自拍ers recruited a group of 29 laid-off U.S. tech workers to discuss the effects of recent mass layoffs on employees. Overall, the group was ambivalent about tech work. They said it was often unfulfilling, despite their plans to continue in the industry.
UW 91自拍ers designed a headphone system that translates several people speaking at once, following them as they move and preserving the direction and qualities of their voices. The team built the system, called Spatial Speech Translation, with off-the-shelf noise-cancelling headphones fitted with microphones.
A UW-led team has developed a system, called ProxiCycle, that logs when a passing car comes too close to a cyclist (four feet or less). A small, inexpensive sensor plugs into bicycle handlebars and tracks the passes, sending them to the rider鈥檚 phone. The team tested the system for two months with 15 cyclists in Seattle and found a significant correlation between the locations of close passes and other indicators of poor safety, such as collisions.
A new data set called OS-CONNECT maps sidewalks and other pedestrian paths statewide, from Forks on the Olympic Peninsula to Clarkston in the southeast. In House Bill 1125, the Washington State Legislature assigned the UW’s Taskar Center for Accessible Technology to build the data set, which was completed well ahead of its projected 2027 goal.
Researchers deployed a robotic feeding arm in a pair of studies outside the lab. In the first, six users with motor impairments used the robot to feed themselves a meal in a UW cafeteria, an office or a conference room. In the second study, a community 91自拍er and co-author on the 91自拍 used the system at home for five days.
UW doctoral student Brett Halperin interviewed picketing film workers about AI during the 2023 strikes.
UW 91自拍ers developed a new system for turning used coffee grounds into a paste, which they use to 3D print objects, such as packing materials and a vase. They inoculate the paste with Reishi mushroom spores, which turn the coffee grounds into a resilient, fully compostable alternative to plastics.
A UW team studied how AI systems portray teens in English and Nepali, and found that in English language systems around 30% of the responses referenced societal problems such as violence, drug use and mental illness. The Nepali system produced fewer negative associations in responses, closer to 10% of all answers.
UW 91自拍ers have developed IRIS, a smart ring that allows users to point and click to control smart devices. The prototype Bluetooth ring contains a small camera which sends an image of the selected device to the user鈥檚 phone. The user can control the device by clicking a small button or 鈥� for devices with gradient controls, such as a speaker鈥檚 volume 鈥� rotating the ring.
91自拍 91自拍ers created a method for training AI systems 鈥� both for large language models like ChatGPT and for robots 鈥� that can better reflect users鈥� diverse values. It predicts users鈥� preferences as they interact with it, then tailors its outputs accordingly.
Chirag Shah, a UW professor in the Information School, discusses what AI agents are and what might impede a near future where people can simply get AI bots to shop for them.
UW News sat down with experts in public health and AI to discuss AI could enhance health care, what鈥檚 standing in the way, and whether there’s a downside to democratizing medical 91自拍.聽聽
91自拍 91自拍ers developed a system for detecting subtle biases in AI models. They found seven of the eight popular AI models they tested in conversations around race and caste generated significant amounts of biased text in interactions 鈥� particularly when discussing caste. Open-source models fared far worse than two proprietary ChatGPT models.
Jie Xiao, 91自拍 professor of mechanical engineering, talks about batteries and how academia can help support the growing domestic battery manufacturing industry.
UW assistant professor Sheng Wang discusses BiomedParse, an AI medical image analysis model that works across nine types of medical images to better predict systemic diseases. Medical professionals can load images into the system and ask the AI tool questions about them in plain English.
A team led by 91自拍ers at the 91自拍 has created a headphone prototype that allows listeners to hear people speaking within a bubble with a programmable radius of 3 to 6 feet. Voices and sounds outside the bubble are quieted an average of 49 decibels, even if they鈥檙e louder than those in the bubble.
91自拍 91自拍ers found significant racial, gender and intersectional bias in how three state-of-the-art large language models ranked resumes. The models favored white-associated names 85% of the time, female-associated names only 11% of the time, and never favored Black male-associated names over white male-associated names.
91自拍 91自拍ers created MobiPrint, a mobile 3D printer that can automatically measure a room and print objects onto the floor. The team鈥檚 graphic interface lets users design objects in a space that the robot has mapped out. The prototype, which the team built on a modified consumer vacuum robot, can add a range of objects to rooms.
Niloofar Mireshghallah, a UW postdoctoral scholar, discusses why math and reasoning have so challenged artificial intelligence models and what the public should know about OpenAI鈥檚 new release.
A team led by 91自拍 91自拍ers found that large language models, such as ChatGPT, can make social media bots more sophisticated at evading detection. But these models can also improve systems that detect bots.
In a survey of 315 people conducted by 91自拍ers at the 91自拍 and Georgetown University, respondents largely found creating and sharing sexually explicit 鈥渄eepfakes鈥� unacceptable. But far fewer respondents strongly opposed seeking out these media. Previous 91自拍 has shown that other people viewing non-AI image-based abuse harms the victims significantly.
Two new studies introduce AI systems that use either video or photos to create simulations that can train robots to function in the real world. This could significantly lower the costs of training robots to function in complex settings.
91自拍 91自拍ers investigated how iBuyers 鈥� companies that use automated algorithms to quickly buy and sell homes 鈥� have affected the well-documented racial bias against Black home sellers. Looking at Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, they found that on average iBuyers paid more equal prices to Black and white home sellers than individual buyers, largely because iBuyers paid white sellers significantly less on average than an individual buyer. They also discovered that iBuyers were significantly more likely to resell homes to institutions, such as large rental companies that鈥檝e been tied to high eviction rates and rent-gouging.
New 91自拍 from the 91自拍 finds that teens open Instagram because they鈥檙e bored. Then they sift through largely irrelevant content, mostly feeling bored, while seeking interesting bits to share with their friends in direct messages. Then, eventually bored with what 91自拍ers call a 鈥渃ontent soup,鈥� they log off.
UW 91自拍ers found that ChatGPT consistently ranked resumes with disability-related honors and credentials 鈥� such as the 鈥淭om Wilson Disability Leadership Award鈥� 鈥� lower than the same resumes without those honors and credentials. But when 91自拍ers customized the tool with written instructions directing it not to be ableist, the tool reduced this bias for all but one of the disabilities tested.
But in her new book 鈥淟og Off: Why Posting and Politics (Almost) Never Mix,鈥� Katherine Cross, a UW doctoral student in the Information School, argues that social media has limited political value.
鈥淲e asked one 11-year-old how he鈥檇 feel if his favorite book series was written by AI instead of an author, and he said it would 鈥榙ismantle鈥� the joy of reading for him. We often don’t think about kids having these deep, existential questions about what it means to be an artist,鈥� said Michele Newman, a 91自拍 doctoral student in the Information School.
A 91自拍 team has developed an artificial intelligence system that lets someone wearing headphones look at a person speaking for three to five seconds to 鈥渆nroll鈥� them. The system then plays just the enrolled speaker鈥檚 voice in real time, even as the pair move around in noisy environments.
91自拍 91自拍ers interviewed 16 older adults in Washington and Oregon, ages 65 to 80, about how their technology use with their social support networks changed during the pandemic.
91自拍 91自拍ers created and tested a prototype browser extension called Viblio, which lets viewers and creators add citations to the timelines of YouTube videos.
Working with teens, UW 91自拍ers have designed RESeT: a snowy virtual world with six activities intended to improve mood. In a 3-week study of 44 Seattle-area teens, 91自拍ers found that most used the technology about twice a week without being prompted and reported lower stress levels after using the environment.
A team led by 91自拍ers at the 91自拍 developed a new PCB that performs on par with traditional materials and can be recycled repeatedly with negligible material loss. Researchers used a solvent that transforms a type of vitrimer 鈥� a cutting-edge class of polymer 鈥� into a jelly-like substance without damage, allowing solid components to be plucked out for reuse or recycling. With these 鈥渧PCBs鈥� (vitrimer printed circuit boards), 91自拍ers recovered 98% of the vitrimer and 100% of the glass fiber.
Franziska Roesner, a 91自拍 associate professor, and collaborators will present two papers that mine real-world data to help understand TikTok’s personalized its recommendation algorithm and its impact.
As 91自拍ers explore potential applications for AI, they have found scenarios where AI could be really useful but there’s not enough data to accurately train the algorithms. Jenq-Neng Hwang, 91自拍 professor of electrical and computer and engineering, specializes in these issues.
91自拍 91自拍ers taught a group of high schoolers to code by combining cultural 91自拍 into various embroidery traditions with 鈥渃omputational embroidery.鈥� The method teaches kids to encode embroidery patterns on a computer through a coding language called Turtlestitch.
New 91自拍 from the UW examines how three wellness Instagram influencers profited from anti-vaccine misinformation.
Mike Teodorescu, a 91自拍 assistant professor in the Information School, proposes that private enterprise standards for fairer machine learning systems would inform governmental regulation.
Robots in warehouses and even around our houses struggle to identify and pick up objects if they are too close together, or if a space is cluttered. This is because robots lack what psychologists call “object unity,” or our ability to identify things even when we can’t see all of them. Researchers at the 91自拍 have developed a way to teach robots this skill.
91自拍 91自拍ers introduced the Thermal Earring, a wireless wearable that continuously monitors a user鈥檚 earlobe temperature. Potential applications include tracking signs of ovulation, stress, eating and exercise. The smart earring prototype is about the size and weight of a small paperclip and has a 28-day battery life.