The new frontiers of AI and robotics | Lessons from one of the world’s first metaverses

The new frontiers of AI and robotics: On the newest episode of the GeekWire Podcast, we discuss robotics and artificial intelligence with Martial Hebert (above), dean of the Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science in Pittsburgh. Our discussion doubled as a preview of a trip that GeekWire’s news team will soon be making to Pittsburgh, revisiting the city that hosted our temporary GeekWire HQ2 in 2018, and reporting from the Cascadia Connect Robotics, Automation & AI conference. Listen and read more here. 

Lessons from ‘Second Life’: Philip Rosedale has spent a lot of time thinking about the “metaverse,” long before it became a buzzword in today’s tech world. The founder of Linden Lab and creator of the open-ended game "Second Life" has plenty of lessons to share with technologists building related software for the future. Read more. 

Multimodal learning for machines: A group of Seattle researchers helped create a new artificial intelligence model for multimodal commonsense understanding, enabling machines to learn from vision, language, and sound together.

In case you missed it:

• A new law in Washington state will require companies to disclose a salary range.

• Gopuff hired another Seattle-area tech exec with the addition of Maria Renz, a former technical advisor to Jeff Bezos.

• Seattle startup Shipium landed $27 million to help online retailers compete with Amazon.

• We spoke with government and business leaders about Seattle’s controversial payroll tax on big businesses, which generated an unexpected surplus in its first year.

• The Seattle waterfront project could provide a boost to downtown and impact how tech companies interact with the city.