Latest news with #Exploratorium
San Francisco Chronicle
31-07-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Are you smarter than a computer? New Exploratorium exhibition puts AI to the test
If the Exploratorium's newest exhibition is already the most popular, it's also one of the quietest. 'Adventures in AI' puts visitors of all ages face-to-face with different forms of artificial intelligence, forcing them to confront their qualms and explore the various applications of the rapidly developing technology. But it does so with an uncharacteristic calm and quiet that contrasts from the rest of the museum's summertime buzz. Doug Thistlewolf, the waterfront museum's manager of exhibit development, attributes the vibe shift to how deeply it engrosses visitors. 'We really wanted to shape this show into something that was engaging for people (and) met them where their fears are or their excitement is,' he told the Chronicle. 'Everybody's kind of got a different entry point.' The show runs through Sept. 14, featuring 20 exhibits and eight artworks. Its range of hands-on experiences allow visitors of all ages to interact with AI, investigating ethical and environmental concerns and exploring the ways in which it can detect objects, engage in conversation and more. One challenges visitors to make shadow puppets for the technology to recognize, while another allows participants to train it with photos taken at the exhibition. 'I think it's a good way for everyone to get their hands wet in AI and (see) what it's all about,' East Bay resident Tim Wong, 60, said during a recent trip to the exhibition with his family. 'Especially for the younger kids, the term is thrown around a lot, and it's going to be a big part of their world when they grow up.' The exhibition is organized around a central plaza filled with AI-related pieces for visitors to play with, from a 9-foot-tall robotic hand to a giant thought-provoking distorted mirror. From there, it branches off into more in-depth topics such as social impacts and bias. Thistlewolf noted that 'Adventures in AI' has drawn a diverse array of demographics since opening last month, from families and children's summer camp groups to tech insiders and Gen Zers. While many of the adults, like Wong, have expressed excitement about the technology, some of the Exploratorium's younger visitors weren't as convinced. 'I think it's pretty cool how the AI can think of things, but I think it definitely needs to work on its thinking of concepts,' Luna Fischer Loya, 11, said during a trip to the museum with her grandmother. 'Sometimes I get a little intimidated by it.' Similarly skeptical of the technology, even after exploring the exhibition, 10-year-old Bruce Black admitted that AI is still 'a little bit scary' to him. 'It made me feel a little uncertain of what's going to happen,' he said after exploring a few exhibits. 'There are people saying that AI would take over the world, and I'm like, 'If that's going to happen, why am I using it? '' The Sacramento resident visited the Exploratorium with his mother, 34-year-old Abbie Black, who had a more positive outlook. She noted that as long as AI doesn't replace humans' jobs and is used for 'making life easier,' she's all for it. Thistlewolf acknowledged the broad range of feelings toward AI. 'There's a lot of nuance,' he said, adding that at the very least, he hopes that visitors can leave 'Adventures in AI' with a more thorough understanding. 'We're not trying to force people to change their opinion,' he said. 'We know that people are afraid,' he added. 'But they're probably afraid of the wrong thing.'
San Francisco Chronicle
07-06-2025
- Automotive
- San Francisco Chronicle
Amid San Francisco's beauty is the odor of civic failure
I have a friend who owns a beautiful car. It's a mid-'50s classic, bright red with gleaming chrome, polished so that it looks brand-new. The owner is proud of this car, starts the powerful engine regularly and takes it for a short spin once a week. But the owner never goes very far because the classic car has problems: There are no seat belts, and the brakes don't inspire confidence. It's a car to be seen, not driven. If this automobile were a city, it would be San Francisco. Beautiful to see, but don't look too closely. Sometimes San Francisco people forget how beautiful the city can be. Instead they see all the negatives: the drugs, the tents, the political squabbles that have become our sport. San Franciscans are always arguing. It's in the air, like summer fog. I've been driving and walking around the city a bit lately. Lots of small errands. It's an interesting time of the year with long days and a twilight that extends until almost 9 o'clock; not quite summer. A good time to look at the city. We drove the Embarcadero on one of those long summery evenings, headed south toward Interstate 280. Past the South Beach marina, past the ballpark, slowed up for traffic. There was a huge roar from the ballpark, as if someone hit a grand slam. 'What was that?' my companion said. 'I thought the Giants were out of town.' The Giants were indeed on the road. The roar at the baseball park was from 40,000 people, there to hear a band I'd never heard of. There's a lot we never heard of. Or forgot. I was on the Embarcadero a couple of days later on a Saturday morning. The walkways on the edge of the street were crowded with people walking, running, riding bikes, pushing baby strollers. There was a farmers market at the Ferry Building, a landmark from an older San Francisco, now repurposed for a newer city. It was like a county fair in the city: eggs, sausages, fine cheese, fresh produce, all manner of goods for sale. The market comes with San Francisco Bay as a backdrop. We headed north around the sweeping curve that points toward the Golden Gate Bridge, past the Exploratorium, past tugboats and small craft tied up, past the cruise ship dock, past the pier where people line up to catch a boat that takes them to Alcatraz, past bits and pieces of the seafaring past. Years ago I worked my way through college unloading mail trucks just off the Embarcadero at the time when San Francisco's working waterfront was fading away. Freight trains and big trucks ruled the street. It was romantic, colorful, and vaguely dangerous. There were dive bars full of tough guys. They made B movies about the waterfront. 'Hell on Frisco Bay' was one of them. When the port started to slip they built a double-deck freeway that cut the city off from the bay. It loomed over the Embarcadero with all the grace of a prison wall. Now we have a new and much different waterfront. We forget sometimes that change is not always bad. The old Liberty ship Jeremiah O'Brien was offering one of its occasional bay cruises that day and I went aboard, out the Golden Gate for a quick taste of the ocean, back along the city front, under the Bay Bridge by the ballpark and back again. We forget sometimes how graceful the Golden Gate Bridge is, especially from the water. The south tower stands alone, like an orange tower framing the city on its hills. From sea level the north tower blends into the Marin cliffs. Nothing like it. The Bay Bridge has its own grace, but it's different, unpretentious, hard working. It gives off roars; cars, trucks. It's the main street of the bay region. The usual afternoon wind had died down and the bay was flat calm. You could look right up the streets: Folsom, Howard, Mission. Beyond that, steel and glass towers. 'The city looks pretty good from here,' I said, half to myself. 'Yeah,' the man next to me said, 'You can't even get the smell.' Everyone knows what that means — it's the sour smell of civic failure. You can see it a couple of blocks up Market Street where a homeless man sleeps under an advertisement for artificial intelligence. You can see it on Van Ness Avenue across from City Hall where another man made his home for the day at a bus stop. You can see it in the people who walk by the lost souls without a glance. We've contained the misfits, the drug addicts, the homeless to certain areas, and if you're lucky you can go for a couple of days without seeing them. Out of sight, out of mind. We forget, sometimes, how beautiful and how conflicted this city is. George Sterling, the poet, called San Francisco 'serene, indifferent to fate.' And more famously, 'The cool, gray city of love.' But we also forget how cold that gray city can be.
Axios
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
Explore how AI works at the Exploratorium this summer
This summer, the Exploratorium is bringing AI to life with hands-on science. Why it matters: Artificial intelligence is transforming every aspect of modern life from the workplace and education to the media and beyond with the potential to reshape how we live, think and work. Driving the news: "Adventures in AI" — the Exploratorium's new exhibit — takes a deep dive into the science, logic and ethics of the burgeoning technology to make it accessible for kids and adults alike. Inside the room: The exhibit features 20 interactive displays that explain how artificial intelligence works. Think robots that test your trust in machines, AI tools to experiment with making music, and games that ask you to think like a computer. One of the most spectacular ones includes "Manifold" — a nine-foot-tall robotic hand covered in soft pink fabric designed to roam the museum, created by Dr. Catie Cuan, the museum's artist-in-residence. What they're saying:"It will have microphones that are picking up language and doing sentiment analysis," said Ann Meisinger, project director of the artist-in-residence program. "This robot is going to attempt to learn how to endear itself to our visitors." Between the lines: The exhibition is backed by Anthropic, a Bay Area company behind the "Claude" AI language model. "We definitely tried to focus on concepts in AI and machine learning that are going to be timeless," said Doug Thistlewolf, the museum's manager of exhibit development. "We have exhibits on the floor that have been here for 50 years, and the science is still accurate… so with this burgeoning new world, how are we holding that same standard?," he added.
Voice of America
15-03-2025
- Science
- Voice of America
Pi Day counts on never-ending numerical sequence for March 14 celebrations
March 14 is Pi Day, an annual celebration of the mathematical constant of pi, representing the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. The holiday is observed on March 14 or 3/14 because 3.14 are the first three digits of the infinite number pi — 3.14159 ... and on and on. The celebration of Pi Day was the brainchild of physicist Larry Shaw and was first observed in 1988 at San Francisco's Exploratorium, a science museum, and has since grown into an international event. At that first simple salute to pi in 1988, Shaw and his wife, Catherine, took — guess what? — pies — and tea to the museum for the celebration of the infinite number. Shaw became known as the Prince of Pi and reigned over the museum's annual honoring of the never-ending number for years, until his death in 2017. Pi Day festivities grew to include the honoring of mathematical genius Albert Einstein because he was born on March 14. The U.S. House of Representatives officially designated March 14 as National Pi Day in 2009. The Exploratorium posted on its website that this year's observance of pi would include the annual Pi Procession, which the museum described as being executed by 'a high spirited crowd' through the museum and would circle the museum's Pi Shrine 3.14 times, while 'waving the digits of pi and dancing along' to a brass band. And, of course, all participants in the revelry would be rewarded with a free slice of pie. Pi Day is now celebrated around the world by pi lovers and is viewed as a way to arouse interest in the sciences among young people. Pi lovers had a special treat in 2015, reports. That year Pi Day was celebrated on 3/14/15 at 9:26:53 a.m. The combined numbers of the date and time represent the first 10 digits of pi — 3.141592653.
Associated Press
14-03-2025
- Science
- Associated Press
What's Pi Day all about? Math, science, pies and more
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Math enthusiasts around the world, from college students to rocket scientists, celebrate Pi Day, which is March 14 or 3/14 — the first three digits of an infinite number with many practical uses. Many people will mark the day with a slice of pie — sweet, savory or even pizza. Simply put, pi is a mathematical constant that expresses the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. It figures into numerous formulas used in physics, astronomy, engineering and other fields, dating back thousands of years to ancient Egypt, Babylon and China. Pi Day itself dates to 1988, when physicist Larry Shaw began celebrations at the Exploratorium science museum in San Francisco. The holiday didn't really gain national recognition until two decades later. In 2009, Congress designated every March 14 to be the big day — in the hopes of spurring more interest in math and science. Fittingly enough, the day is also Albert Einstein's birthday. Here's a little more about the holiday's origin and how it's celebrated today. What is pi? Pi can calculate the circumference of a circle by measuring the diameter — the distance straight across the circle's middle — and multiplying that by the 3.14-plus number. It is considered a constant number and it is also infinite, meaning it is mathematically irrational. Long before computers, historic scientists such as Isaac Newton spent many hours calculating decimal places by hand. Today, using sophisticated computers, researchers have come up with trillions of digits for pi, but there is no end. Why is it called pi? It wasn't given its name until 1706, when Welsh mathematician William Jones began using the Greek symbol for the number. Why that letter? It's the first Greek letter in the words 'periphery' and 'perimeter,' and pi is the ratio of a circle's periphery — or circumference — to its diameter. What are some practical uses? The number is key to accurately pointing an antenna toward a satellite. It helps figure out everything from the size of a massive cylinder needed in refinery equipment to the size of paper rolls used in printers. Pi is also useful in determining the necessary scale of a tank that serves heating and air conditioning systems in buildings of various sizes. NASA uses pi on a daily basis. It's key to calculating orbits, the positions of planets and other celestial bodies, elements of rocket propulsion, spacecraft communication and even the correct deployment of parachutes when a vehicle splashes down on Earth or lands on Mars. Using just nine digits of pi, scientists can calculate the Earth's circumference so accurately it errs by only about a quarter of an inch (0.6 centimeters) for every 25,000 miles (about 40,000 kilometers). It's not just math, though Every year the San Francisco museum that coined the holiday organizes events, including a parade around a circular plaque, called the Pi Shrine, 3.14 times — and then, of course, festivities with lots of pie. Across the country, many events now take place on college campuses. At Florida Atlantic University in Jupiter, Florida, students in the Jupiter Mathematics Club are hosting a Pi Day Extravaganza with a raffle to hit math professors with a pie, along with a contest for who can memorize the most digits of pi. Restaurants across the country, including some pizza chains, also offer $3.14 specials on Pi Day. NASA holds its annual Pi Day Challenge online, offering plenty of games and puzzles, some directly from the space agency's own playbook, such as calculating the orbit of an asteroid or the distance a moon rover would need to travel each day to survey a certain lunar area. What about Einstein? Possibly the world's best-known scientist, Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, in Germany. The infinite number of pi was used in many of his breakthrough theories and now Pi Day gives the world another reason to celebrate his achievements. In a bit of math symmetry, famed physicist Stephen Hawking died on March 14, 2018, at age 76. Still, pi is not a perfect number. He once had this to say: 'One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn't exist. Without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist.'
