Apple to overhaul entire Mac line with AI-focused M4 chips

Texas is replacing thousands of human graders with AI

• Apple to overhaul entire Mac line with AI-focused M4 chips

• Texas is replacing thousands of human exam graders with AI

• The AI chipmaking world hedges its Taiwan bets

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Apple to overhaul entire Mac line with AI-focused M4 chips

Apple, which released its first Macs with M3 chips five months ago, is already nearing production of the next generation — the M4 processor — according to people with knowledge of the matter. The new chip will come in at least three main varieties, and Apple is looking to update every Mac model.

The new Macs are underway at a critical time. After peaking in 2022, Mac sales fell 27% in the last year. Apple also is playing catch-up in AI, where it’s seen as a laggard to Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and other tech peers. The new chips are part of a broader push to weave AI capabilities into all its products.

Apple is aiming to release the updated computers beginning late this year and extending into early next year. There will be new....

By Mark Gurman of Bloomberg

Texas is replacing thousands of human exam graders with AI

An “automated scoring engine” that utilizes natural language processing — the technology that enables chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT to understand and communicate with users — is being rolled out by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to grade open-ended questions on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) exams. The agency is expecting the system to save $15–20 million per year by reducing the need for temporary human scorers, with plans to hire under 2,000 graders this year compared to the 6,000 required in 2023.

According to a slideshow hosted on TEA’s website, the new scoring system was trained using….

By Jess Weatherbed of The Verge

The AI chipmaking world hedges its Taiwan bets

For months, if not years, governments and industries that rely on semiconductors have worried about the possibility of China invading Taiwan. The island, after all, makes about 92 percent of the most advanced computer chips that now run practically every aspect of our lives, and any disruption to its chipmaking ability would quickly have cascading effects.

Last week, the world served up a grim reminder that China is not the only threat when a 7.4-magnitude earthquake hit Taiwan’s eastern coast—the biggest quake. “It just reinforces the point [that] we need resilience in the supply chains,” said Intel’s chief executive officer, Pat Gelsinger, during an event at the Council on Foreign Relations last week. But add to that the threat posed by China, just 100 miles away, and “boy, this is not a sustainable situation for the world,” he said…..

By Rlshl Lyengar of Foreign Policy Magazine