This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on robotics and AI, follow Robert Hart. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. We're taking a winter break! The Stepback will be back on Januar...
A new tool is revealing the invisible networks inside cancer
Spanish researchers have created a powerful new open-source tool that helps uncover the hidden genetic networks driving cancer. Called RNACOREX, the software can analyze thousands of molecular interactions at once, revealing how genes communicate inside tumors and how those signals relate to patient...
New York Governor Kathy Hochul signs RAISE Act to regulate AI safety
The bill will require large AI developers to publish information about their safety protocols and report safety incidents to the state within 72 hours.
The average human IQ is 100. Statistical fact – not an insult. For decades, that number has quietly defined what we meant by “normal intelligence.” But in 2025, something strange is happening. Machines with no consciousness, no emotions, and no lived experience are now scoring higher than humans on ...
Gemini isn’t replacing Google Assistant on Android just yet
Google isn't quite ready to replace Assistant with Gemini on Android devices. The company said on Friday that it will "continue our work to upgrade Assistant users to Gemini on mobile devices into 2026," instead of its original plans to make the switch by the end of 2025. "We're adjusting our previo...
Google sues web scraper for sucking up search results ‘at an astonishing scale’
Google has filed a lawsuit against SerpApi, a company that offers tools to scrape content on the web, including Google's search results. SerpApi is accused of violating the Copyright Act by using "deceptive means" to automatically access and take Google's search results "at an astonishing scale" bef...
Hardware’s brutal week: iRobot, Luminar, and Rad Power go bankrupt
The hardware world had a brutal week, with iRobot, Luminar, and Rad Power Bikes all filing for bankruptcy. Each company faces its own mix of tariff pressures, supply chain issues, and shifting markets, but together they tell a larger story about the challenges of building physical products in an er...
OpenAI adds new teen safety rules to ChatGPT as lawmakers weigh AI standards for minors
OpenAI updated its guidelines for how its AI models should behave with users under 18, and published new AI literacy resources for teens and parents. Still, questions remain about how well policies translate into practice....
Agentic AI Swarm Optimization using Artificial Bee Colonization (ABC)
Using Agentic AI prompts with the Artificial Bee Colony algorithm to enhance unsupervised clustering and optimization workflows.
The post Agentic AI Swarm Optimization using Artificial Bee Colonization (ABC) appeared first on Towards Data Science....
Rapid advances in AI and robotics are set to become both powerful tools for police and potent weapons for criminals, a 48-page report from pan-European police agency Europol argues. Earlier this month, Europol's Innovation Lab published "The Unmanned Future(s): The impact of robotics and unmanned sy...
Six Lessons Learned Building RAG Systems in Production
Best practices for data quality, retrieval design, and evaluation in production RAG systems
The post Six Lessons Learned Building RAG Systems in Production appeared first on Towards Data Science....
AI agents are reshaping how we build intelligent systems. AgentOps is quickly becoming a core discipline in AI engineering. With the market expected to grow from $5B in 2024 to $50B by 2030, the demand for production-ready agentic systems is only accelerating. Unlike simple chatbots, agents can sens...
DiscoverDCP: A Data-Driven Approach for Construction of Disciplined Convex Programs via Symbolic Regression
arXiv:2512.15721v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: We propose DiscoverDCP, a data-driven framework that integrates symbolic regression with the rule sets of Disciplined Convex Programming (DCP) to perform system identification. By enforcing that all discovered candidate model expressions adhere to DCP...
Hybrid Quantum-Classical Ensemble Learning for S\&P 500 Directional Prediction
arXiv:2512.15738v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Financial market prediction is a challenging application of machine learning, where even small improvements in directional accuracy can yield substantial value. Most models struggle to exceed 55--57\% accuracy due to high noise, non-stationarity, and ...
How Do Graph Signals Affect Recommendation: Unveiling the Mystery of Low and High-Frequency Graph Signals
arXiv:2512.15744v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Spectral graph neural networks (GNNs) are highly effective in modeling graph signals, with their success in recommendation often attributed to low-pass filtering. However, recent studies highlight the importance of high-frequency signals. The role of ...
LLaDA2.0: Scaling Up Diffusion Language Models to 100B
arXiv:2512.15745v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: This paper presents LLaDA2.0 -- a tuple of discrete diffusion large language models (dLLM) scaling up to 100B total parameters through systematic conversion from auto-regressive (AR) models -- establishing a new paradigm for frontier-scale deployment....
BED-LLM: Intelligent Information Gathering with LLMs and Bayesian Experimental Design
We propose a general-purpose approach for improving the ability of Large Language Models (LLMs) to intelligently and adaptively gather information from a user or other external source using the framework of sequential Bayesian experimental design (BED). This enables LLMs to act as effective multi-tu...
NVIDIA, US Government to Boost AI Infrastructure and R&D Investments Through Landmark Genesis Mission
NVIDIA will join the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Genesis Mission as a private industry partner to keep U.S. AI both the leader and the standard in technology around the world. The Genesis Mission, which is part of an Executive Order recently signed by President Trump, aims to redefine American...