Sandrine Ceurstemont

London

Science and Tech Writer and Journalist at Freelance

Freelance science and tech journalist, bylines @NewScientist @BBC_Future @NatGeo @HorizonMagEU @Mental_Floss @hakaimagazine @sciafmag she/her

Articles

Automating Tools for Prompt Engineering

2 weeks ago | cacm.acm.org | Sandrine Ceurstemont |Orit Hazzan |Micah Beck |Marc Rotenberg

Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) started making waves a few years ago with the release of systems such as ChatGPT and DALL-E. They are able to produce sophisticated and human-like text, code, or images after the models powering them are trained on large quantities of data. However, it soon became apparent that the specific phrasing of a question or statement input by a user, known as a prompt, had an impact on the quality of the resulting output.
Communications of the ACM

1 month ago | cacm.acm.org | Karen Emslie |Shuchi Grover |Sandrine Ceurstemont

The exponential growth of big data has powered a multitude of technology innovations. Yet, it was the mass adoption of Generative AI (GenAI) that pushed large language models (LLMs), built on enormous volumes of data, into the public consciousness.
Computer Science Under Trump

1 month ago | cacm.acm.org | Logan Kugler |Shuchi Grover |Sandrine Ceurstemont |Alex Vakulov

In November 2024, voters in the U.S. elected Donald Trump to a second, non-consecutive term as the nation’s 47th President. Given U.S. prominence in the world, and the strong executive powers of the President, Trump and his administration will have a massive impact on everything from national security to the economy to the tenor of civic discourse—both inside and outside America. One area of impact being watched especially closely by policy experts: computer science.
GenAI as a Teacher Guide and Coding Companion (Part 1)

1 month ago | cacm.acm.org | Shuchi Grover |Sandrine Ceurstemont |Alex Vakulov |David Geer

Like many in the K-12 CSEd community, I‘ve been reflecting on the changing landscape of computing—and coding—education in the age of Generative AI (GenAI). I have shared these evolving thoughts in recent presentations and keynote addresses (including a couple in India, at IISc Bangalore and IIT Gandhinagar in December 2024).
Self-Correction in Large Language Models

1 month ago | cacm.acm.org | Sandrine Ceurstemont |Alex Vakulov |David Geer

The latest generation of chatbots includes valuable tools to help with a variety of tasks, from providing information about a topic to generating computer code. Yet despite their impressive abilities, anyone who uses them regularly will have noticed that they make various types of mistakes.
Identifying Political Bias in AI

Dec 12, 2024 | cacm.acm.org | Sandrine Ceurstemont

If you ask ChatGPT a political question, it will aim to provide balanced information and perspectives in its answer. However, it may contain biases acquired from the large quantities of data scraped from the Internet on which it was trained.
Controlling AI’s Growing Energy Needs

Nov 27, 2024 | cacm.acm.org | Sandrine Ceurstemont |Orit Hazzan |David Geer

The huge amount of energy required to train artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming a concern. To train the large language model (LLM) powering Chat GPT-3, for example, almost 1,300 megawatt hours of energy was used, according to an estimate by researchers from Google and the University of California, Berkeley, a similar quantity of energy to what is used by 130 American homes in one year.
Defeating Bluetooth Trackers

Sep 13, 2024 | cacm.acm.org | R. Colin Johnson |Sandrine Ceurstemont

In 2022, for the first time, researchers at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) described how to identify the unique “fingerprint” of any Bluetooth-equipped device by tracking hardware imperfections using an inexpensive software-defined radio. Since then, the UCSD researchers have been working toward a solution to what is described as the fingerprint identification vulnerability.
The Commoditization of LLMs – Communications of the ACM | Flipboard

Sep 12, 2024 | flipboard.com | Sandrine Ceurstemont

Mira Murati15 hours agoOpenAI Announces a New AI Model, Code-Named Strawberry, That Solves Difficult Problems Step by StepWIRED - Will Knight • 15hThe ChatGPT maker reveals details of what’s officially known as OpenAI o1, which shows that AI needs more than scale to advance. OpenAI made the last …Computer Science10 hours agoChatGPT to the rescue? science.org - H.
Nobel Laureates Consider the State of Quantum Computing

Sep 12, 2024 | cacm.acm.org | Sandrine Ceurstemont |Herbert Bruderer |Alex Vakulov

The advent of quantum computers is surrounded by a lot of hype. New breakthroughs reported in the media often suggest the technology could soon be widely used to solve complex problems that are beyond the scope of classical computers.