Photo-illustration for UF Biodiversity Institute feature image
Pam Soltis has spent her adult life studying the Earth’s living things, first from the perspective of plants and in recent years on a broader scale as she and her husband, Doug, have worked to create a “Tree of Life” that organizes and illustrates how all living things interact.
Hero image for Explore Summer '21 feature story, "All-Seeing Algorithms"
Artificial intelligence and computer science researchers say getting machines to do the right thing has turned out to be relatively easy. We program Roombas to vacuum our homes, but don’t expect them to brew our coffee. We program robotic arms to sort parts in factories, but not to decide which colors to paint cars. We program doorbells to tell us who is at the door, but not to let them in. Most of our machines do one thing and do it well, usually in error-free fashion. They get the task right.