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Nvidia CEO Addresses Wall Street’s AI Bubble Concerns During Market Downturn: ‘We Excel at Every Step of AI’

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Global stock markets experienced an upward trend following Nvidia’s impressive third-quarter profits, which surpassed Wall Street forecasts, easing concerns that the AI company’s skyrocketing valuations might have reached their limit.

On Wednesday, all attention turned to Nvidia, the frontrunner in the AI industry and the highest valued publicly traded company globally. Analysts and investors were eager for the chip maker’s third-quarter results, hoping they would dispel worries about an impending bubble in the sector.

Nvidia’s founder and CEO, Jensen Huang, addressed these apprehensions right at the start of the earnings call, emphasizing that a significant transformation is underway in AI, and Nvidia stands at the core of this change.

“Many discuss the AI bubble,” Huang noted. “From our viewpoint, the situation looks quite different. To clarify, Nvidia differs from other accelerators. We shine at every phase of AI, from pre-training through to inference.”

The company consistently exceeded Wall Street’s expectations across multiple metrics, indicating that the substantial AI economic boom is not decelerating. Nvidia announced diluted earnings per share of $1.30 on total revenues of $57.01 billion, which topped investor expectations of $1.26 per share on revenues of $54.9 billion. Sales surged by 62% year over year, with data center revenues reaching $51.2 billion—surpassing the anticipated $49 billion. The company also forecasts fourth-quarter sales to be around $65 billion, exceeding analyst expectations of $61 billion.

During a conference call with investors, Huang outlined three pivotal shifts in platforms: the move from general-purpose computing to accelerated computing, the transition toward generative AI, and the development of agential and physical AI, such as robotics and autonomous vehicles.

“When contemplating infrastructure investments, consider three fundamental dynamics,” Huang stated. “Each one adds to the wealth of infrastructure. Nvidia… facilitates all three transitions, and we do so across all types and modalities of AI.”

He further noted that demand for Nvidia’s chips continues to expand.

“AI permeates everywhere and operates on multiple fronts simultaneously.”

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According to Thomas Monteiro, Senior Analyst at Investing.com, “This clarifies many uncertainties surrounding the AI revolution; the essence is clear: The AI revolution is far from nearing its peak. Despite investor concerns that rising capital expenditures may compel firms to decelerate their adoption cycles for AI, Nvidia continues to demonstrate that data center growth is not merely an alternative but an essential requirement for every tech company globally.”

Analysts and experts expressed confidence that Nvidia would exceed Wall Street’s forecasts but were keenly awaiting further insights regarding industry demand for the company’s AI chips.

“There’s no denying Nvidia maintains its position as the dominant player in AI-centric chips,” noted David Meyer, a senior analyst at the investment platform Motley Fool. “We anticipate that revenue, margins, and cash flow will align closely with analysts’ predictions. However, invaluable insights are more likely to stem from management’s commentary on their market outlook, whether concerning the AI sector or new markets they are exploring.”

In November, Nvidia’s shares experienced a 7.9% decline amid significant investors offloading their holdings. Peter Thiel’s hedge fund teal macro divested its entire stake in the chipmaker in the last quarter, with estimates of around $100 million in assets, according to Reuters. SoftBank also offloaded $5.8 billion worth of its shares, heightening concerns regarding an AI bubble.

Following the news, Nvidia’s shares, having recently achieved the milestone of being the world’s first $5 trillion company, increased by over 5% in after-hours trading, with S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures also climbing. Asian markets rose on Thursday as well.

However, Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management cautioned: “NVIDIA’s latest forecast has thus far alleviated some of the most intense apprehensions regarding an AI bubble looming over global markets… Nevertheless, this situation still leaves markets precariously balanced between exuberance over AI and the sobering reality marked by debt.”

“We do not believe Nvidia’s growth can be sustained in the long run,” asserted Alvin Nguyen, senior analyst at Forrester. “Although the demand for AI is unmatched, we anticipate Nvidia’s stock growth may slow if market corrections occur, balancing supply with demand, innovation progresses at a slower pace, or companies become acclimated to the current rate.”

Source: www.theguardian.com

AI Research Sheds Light on Why Super-Recognition Skills Excel in Face Identification

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They are salisbury novichok addict uncovering a murder suspect or even identifying a sexual predator. The research offers fresh insights into why superrecognizers excel at facial recognition.

Previous studies indicate that individuals with exceptional facial recognition skills observe more regions of the entire face compared to average individuals.

Recently, researchers have employed advanced AI techniques to reveal how this perspective enhances their capabilities.

“It’s not solely about seeing everything, it’s about using your vision intelligently,” stated the lead author of the study, Dr. James Dunn from UNSW Sydney.


In a recent article published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Dunn et al. highlight how they extracted eye-tracking data from a previous study involving 37 superrecognizers and 68 typical recognizers.

In their experiment, participants viewed both images of entire faces and segmented images focusing on the regions they were examining.

In this new research, the team utilized this data to reconstruct the visual information that was available to the participants’ eyes.

This “retinal information” was processed through a deep neural network (DNN), an AI system trained for facial recognition. Participants provided the AI with either a complete image of the same face they had seen or a different one.

In all instances, the AI generated a score indicating how closely the retinal information matched a given complete facial image.

The research team compared outcomes between typical participants and super-recognizers, along with data drawn from randomly chosen areas of the initial facial images.

The findings indicated that the AI system’s effectiveness improved as the visibility of the observed facial feature increased.

Moreover, across all levels of visibility, the AI performed optimally when relying on retinal data from superrecognizers.

“This suggests that variations in facial recognition capability are partly due to our active exploration and sampling of visual data, rather than just post-processing by the brain,” Dunn remarked.

The team then examined whether their findings simply indicated that superrecognizers looked at more areas of the face and gathered more data.

However, they discovered that even when the same amount of retinal information was captured, the AI performed better with data from super-recognizers.

“Their advantage lies not only in the quantity but also in the quality of information,” says Dunn. “They focus on areas that provide more identity cues, making each ‘pixel’ they select significantly more valuable for facial recognition.”

Dr. Rachel Bennett, a facial processing expert from Brunel University in London who was not involved in the study, praised the research.

“The key contribution to understanding super-recognition is that effective facial recognition isn’t only about examining specific areas or spending more time looking at the face. Super-recognizers explore not just larger areas, but also gather more advantageous data,” she asserted.

Dr. Alejandro Estudillo from Bournemouth University noted that the study was conducted by showing participants still images in highly controlled environments.

“It will be crucial to see if the same patterns emerge in more natural, dynamic contexts,” he said.

This study implies there are strategies to enhance facial recognition; however, it seems unlikely that anyone can train to become a super-recognizer.

“At present, we cannot determine if these eye movement patterns can be effectively trained,” Bennett remarked.

Dunn stated that research indicates super-recognition is likely influenced by genetics and is often inherited.

“Superrecognizers appear to instinctively identify the most crucial features. This is challenging to teach, as it differs from one face to another,” he explained.

Researchers have created a free test to help identify supercognitive traits: New South Wales face test.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Excel Exposed: Unveiling the High-Stakes Realm of Competitive Spreadsheets

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sIX years ago, Melbourne-based filmmaker Christina Kraskov was inspired by an article about the international Microsoft Excel competition. Her first thought was, “What on Earth, this isn’t the real deal.” Her second thought: “I need a film about this. I want to see it desperately.”

With no existing films on competitive spreadsheet use, Kraskov resolved to create her own. The topic intrigued her as it showcases “a unique inner world that often goes unnoticed.”

The documentary “Spreadsheet Champions,” which will premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival, follows six young competitors from various countries as they prepare for the 2023 Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship. Introducing their skills, it may seem trivial, but Excel is an incredibly sophisticated tool. The documentary reveals that the average user taps into only 10-15% of its capabilities, whereas competitors must master around 70%.

Organized by Certiport, a performance-based assessment provider endorsed by Microsoft, the competition consists of two parts. The first assesses proficiency in formulas, functions, and overall knowledge through complex questions judged on both accuracy and speed. The second part emphasizes a more creative use of these skills. As Kraskov puts it, “It’s about understanding the narrative behind data or grasping the essence of what it conveys.”




“It helped me a lot”… Carmina, a teenage competitor from Guatemala, spreadsheet champion. Photo: Presented by Melbourne International Film Festival

The championship has been held since 2002 and is open to students aged 13 to 22. Participants must first achieve the highest qualification in their home nations. Despite the niche focus, the stakes are remarkably high, as each competitor can only participate in the MOS Championship once.

“In most sports, there’s a returning champion, creating a defined rivalry; however, here, you can only compete once.”

“This creates unique challenges as competitors qualify in their home countries at vastly different times. Once everyone is qualified, we communicate via Zoom and navigate from there.”

The six featured competitors include Arkimini, 20, from Greece; Braydon, 16, from Australia; Carmina, 16, from Guatemala; Dela Pikes, 19, from Cameroon (who has to study in school due to lacking a laptop or WiFi); Mason, 15, from the United States; and Nam, 21, from Vietnam. Each contestant adds their unique personality to the film, varying from the shy, stereotypical “nerd” to the enthusiastic and outgoing. “Our aim is to showcase how extraordinary this competition is. We’re not here to mock or belittle anyone,” Kraskov explains.




Dela Pikes from Cameroon lacks a laptop or WiFi, so he has had to prepare for the competition through school. Photo: Presented by Melbourne International Film Festival

Kraskov and producer Anna Charalambus spent about a week with each competitor in their respective countries, immersing themselves in their daily lives at home, school, and with families and friends.

“If you observe their lives closely, people naturally reveal their true selves,” Kraskov remarks. “Adolescents are still developing, thus they often don’t connect aspects of their identities – they simply exist in the moment. The insights provided by their parents were invaluable.”

Many contest details were kept secret, adding another layer of challenge for the filmmakers. This competition exemplifies the concept of nominal determinism, overseen by someone deeply invested in security.

“The level of security is extremely high,” notes Kraskov. “Eventually, Microsoft entrusted us and asked us important questions. Ultimately, he must conduct a rigorous, secure global evaluation next year.”

By participating in the MOS Championship, these young individuals are stepping closer to adulthood. Carmina, now 18, is pursuing a degree in mechatronics engineering at university. The film captures her vibrant spirit as a teenager passionate about exploring new things (which remains true).


Watching the documentary allowed Carmina to reflect on her past competition experiences and her younger self, realizing the insights gained. “Even though I knew the outcome, watching it again felt a bit suspenseful,” she shares. “[Competing taught me to engage and explore… it was extremely beneficial.]”

“Spreadsheet Champions” had its world premiere at SXSW in Texas earlier this year, with five out of the six participants attending MIFF. Kraskov takes pride in showcasing these individual stories – ordinary people engaging in something slightly different from the norm.

“Celebrities, musicians, and models tend to hog the spotlight,” she reflects. “But it’s those dedicated to pursuits that many overlook that I find even more compelling.”

Source: www.theguardian.com

Children who excel in one intellectual skill may not see improvement in others

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As children grow, they grow in many ways. Children make mental progress in how they feel, think and act – what scientists call them Cognitive Control. Researchers view creativity, fluid inference, and academic achievement as part of human cognitive control. They found that people with good cognitive control also improve mental health. However, scientists still don't know the best type of training to help children develop cognitive control.

Previous researchers found that training can improve cognitive functions such as working memory in children. However, they have not decided whether the same training improves the child's associated function or overall cognitive control. Therefore, an international team of researchers recently investigated whether improving one cognitive function helped improve overall cognitive control in children.

They focus on specific cognitive functions that have not been studied more thoroughly than others; Response inhibition. Response suppression is the ability of a person to stop himself from responding to a previously responded queue. They wanted to test how long it took to suppress training responses to affect other cognitive functions in children, such as creativity and reasoning.

The researchers explained that previous researchers studying cognitive control in children found conflicting results. Some found that training children with response suppression increased overall cognitive control, while others found that training skills only improved. The team proposed that the methodological problems of previous researchers had contradictory results. Therefore, they sought to address these issues by clearly defining how children train, making training schedules unpredictable and attractive, and testing larger groups of children than in previous studies.

The researchers studied 235 children aged 6 to 13 from the Great London region of England. They divided the children into two groups, 119 and 116. They introduced both groups of children to a series of seven different computer games that they attended over eight weeks.

During the video game, the children sailed around the island picking up coins. Their goal was to win as many coins as possible. The first group of 119 children received training in response suppression. This means that you have received the coin after you have stopped performing the requested action. The other 116 children served as control groups. This means that you've been in the same game.

To determine how children's cognitive skills change throughout the experiment, researchers collect self-reports from children, perform standardized skill tests, and take neuroimaging of the brain to physiology. We have confirmed the changes. These data were collected before, immediately after the experiment, and 1 year later.

Researchers found that trained children had better response suppression than non-sex children, but they found that overall cognitive control was not good. For example, they found that trained children did not have test results to show that their academic performance improved over their children in the control group. They also found that brain imaging showed no physiological differences between the two children's groups. The researchers interpreted these results as meaning that response inhibition training did not improve overall cognitive control in children.

Researchers concluded that training children with a single cognitive skill does not improve overall cognitive control. However, they acknowledged that the sample of children participating in this study was from families with above average socioeconomic status and thus may not be representative of lower social classes. Ta. Anyway, they recommended that future researchers look for alternative ways to promote the development of cognitive control in children.


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Source: sciworthy.com

Research Shows Chimpanzees Excel at Challenging Computer Tasks in the Presence of Others

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Human cognitive abilities can be greatly influenced by the presence of an audience. Although often associated with reputation management, which is thought to be unique to humans, it is unclear to what extent this phenomenon is common to non-human animals. To investigate such audience effects in chimpanzees, researchers Kyoto University Contains performances by 6 people Chimpanzee (pan-troglodytes) Over a period of 6 years, we conducted experiments on three different numerical touch screen tasks of varying difficulty and cognitive demands, in a variety of audience compositions. The results showed that chimpanzee performance was influenced by the number and type of audience present.

To investigate whether chimpanzees' task performance is influenced by the presence of an audience, Lin others. analyzed multiple chimpanzee cognitive task data across different types of tasks. Image provided by: Akiho Muramatsu

“It was very surprising to discover that chimpanzees were influenced by the audience, and even by the human audience, in their task performance,” said Kyoto University researcher Dr. Kristen Lin.

“Although we might not expect chimpanzees to particularly care whether other species are watching them perform a task, chimpanzees are influenced by human spectators even depending on the difficulty of the task. The fact that it looks like this suggests that this relationship is more complex than we thought and initially expected. ”

Lin and his colleagues wanted to find out whether the audience effect often attributed to reputation management in humans also existed in non-human primates.

People knew that paying attention to who was looking at them, sometimes unconsciously, would affect their performance.

Chimpanzees live in hierarchical societies, but it was not clear to what extent they were also influenced by the people observing them.

“Our research site is special in that the chimpanzees frequently interact with and even enjoy human company, participating in various touchscreen experiments almost daily for food rewards. '' said Dr. Akiho Muramatsu of Kyoto University.

“So we thought there was an opportunity to not only explore potential similarities in effects that are relevant to viewers, but also do it in the context of chimpanzees, which share a unique bond with humans.”

The researchers made this discovery after analyzing thousands of sessions in which chimpanzees completed touchscreen tasks over a six-year period.

The researchers found that across three different number-based tasks, the chimpanzees performed better on the most difficult task as the number of experimenters observing them increased.

In contrast, they also found that on the simplest tasks, chimpanzees performed worse when they were observed by more experimenters and other familiar people.

Scientists note that the specific mechanisms underlying these audience-related effects remain unclear, even in humans.

They suggest that further studies in non-human apes may provide more insight into how this trait evolved and why it developed.

“Our findings suggest that how much humans care about witnesses and audiences may not be so unique to our species,” said Shinya Yamamoto of Kyoto University. said the doctor.

“These characteristics are a core part of how our society is primarily based on reputation, and if chimpanzees also pay special attention to their audience when performing their tasks, then these It stands to reason that audience-based traits may have evolved before reputation-based traits.''Society arose in our great ape lineage. ”

of the team findings Published in a magazine iscience.

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Kristen Lin others. The presence of an audience influences chimpanzees' performance on cognitive tasks. isciencepublished online on November 8, 2024. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.111191

Source: www.sci.news

Readers’ Reflections on the Timeless Allure of Microsoft Excel | Microsoft

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“I’m a boring guy,” says Mike Erwin, an energy management consultant based in Warrington. “My friends think it’s crazy how much I use Microsoft Excel, but it’s a very useful tool.”

Erwin, 56, has been using Excel to organize his life for years, from mapping his finances to plotting medical test results to monitoring his home’s energy usage. When his son was born in 2007, he created a spreadsheet of his feeding schedule.

“We were recording the feeding time and the amount of milk, and calculating when we could fall asleep.” None of this data was very helpful, “but then I felt better.” added Erwin.

Still, he’s an evangelist about Excel. “I have charts from 10 years ago,” he says. “Some of my friends have Mickeys, and now they’re starting to use them to plan their vacations.”

Erwin is one of dozens of people who responded to an online call for love Excel has celebrated its 40th anniversary.

Many people have found uses for the software that were probably not intended by the developers.

“I grew up with it,” says John Severn, 35, Mansfield’s marketing director. “When I was 11, I couldn’t afford Warhammer models, so I wrote the names of the models in Excel and printed them out and did elf-dwarf battles on the cheap.”




John Severn playing a board game (not generated by Excel). Photo: Guardian Community

Mr. Severn’s innovations puzzled some opponents. The Warhammer tabletop game is meant to be played with intricately painted models rather than a labeled grid.

“The children of my mother’s wealthy friends weren’t very keen,” he says. “They had spent a lot of money getting some beautifully painted models and they were laying them out on a table with landscapes. And what I brought in was basically a square piece of paper. .”

Although Severn has graduated from being a model soldier, he still plays Warhammer. “I still don’t like drawing.”

For Lucy, 41, Excel proved useful in a long-distance relationship when her partner moved from London to Macclesfield in 2010.

“I love Excel,” she says. “I devised a spreadsheet to track trains and fares. I lived in London and traveled every weekend in shifts for 18 months. We split the cost so that higher income earners pay proportionately more.”

Lucy admits how “unromantic” this sounds. But “this is very convenient and we are more inclined to share money. Now we have children and we have bought a house. Excel is working with the administrator on this matter. They supported me.”

Excel played a role in helping London civil servant Luke name his two sons. “My wife and I were talking about baby names, and at one point we pasted the list of names into a spreadsheet called Names for Baby V.1.xlsx.”

He shared the spreadsheet with his office in hopes that his colleagues would find inspiration. “I remember there was a good push for Frederick and Maximilian, and Optimus Prime and Herodotus were also added,” he says. “The Russian wife liked Igor and Ivan.''

Luke and his wife ultimately did not accept his colleague’s idea at all. But I created a separate spreadsheet for my younger son. “His name came from a suggestion from a colleague I met at a drinking party at work. But it also tested very well with Names for Baby V.2.xlsx,” he added.

Nick Owen of Lincoln took that enthusiasm a step further by featuring Excel as the centerpiece of his 2019 wedding.

“We wanted to get as many friends together as possible and we managed to get 250 people together,” says Owen, 68. Since there were so many guests, he decided to appoint seven talented men to help plan the day.




Nick Owen wedding t-shirt. His spreadsheet is printed on the back. Photo: Guardian Community

“I call them the ‘Magnificent Seven,’ and they each had a different role.” These jobs include rings, meals, speeches, and drinks. “I diligently created a spreadsheet of what everyone had done that day with little crosses in cells for each hour.I went through all of this with them the night before. “There was some resistance,” he says.

“It was April in Cumbria and the weather was poor for a few weeks leading up to the wedding day. But miraculously the clouds parted, the sun shone and my wedding spreadsheet worked. ”

To remember that day, Owen printed T-shirts for his men. “They had a picture of Yul Brynner.” [from the Magnificent Seven film] It has a photo of my spreadsheet on the front and on the back. ”

Source: www.theguardian.com