AI did spot the coronavirus outbreak (in late 2019), and did flag it up before people did, but that comes with a caveat – it took humans to sift through all the flags to recognize this as a potential global epidemic. Which makes this the first AI-human disease-busting super-doctor partnership in human-computer history. Read more here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
An AI machine learning data cruncher has invented a new antibiotic – and it’s wiping out some of the superbugs that had built up an immunity to every other antibiotic known to man. Here is where AI can change the world. Read more here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
The EU has released its paper on AI and now the Commission’s cogs will soon start whirring. There is no moratorium on face recognition suggested (as an early leak had us believe) but there are some interesting ideas about responsibility, human oversight of black box processes and a law to inform someone whenever they are interacting with an AI entity. Read the report here and an analysis here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
In more chilling news for driverless cars, the simple application of black tape to a speed limit sign tricked two Teslas into putting their AI feet down – and rocketing ing up from 35 to 85 mph! Where’s an AI traffic cop when you need one? More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
OpenAI was founded to ensure that AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) would be a benevolent rather than terrifying master. Their method was to be good guys themselves – non-profit, transparent, etc. But a new article from MTR paints a different picture, and even one of its founders, the Musk himself, says that ALL AI developers should be regulated. Read more here and here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
A new report from the UK government entitled Artificial Intelligence and Public Standards provides some interesting reading and self-criticism. There’s also 8 tips for public bodies using AI (including full transparency, where it presently falls far short) and 7 tips for AI developers. Read it here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
In a development which could lead to an ultra-secure internet, inter-galactic travel or the coolest magic show since that Tesla one in the film, a Chinese scientist managed quantum entanglement over the distance of 50km! More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
Machines are outperforming human brains on the best stock picks, at least in the long term, according to a new Indiana University study. Which could mean the collapse of the entire financial system – or just go to show quite how bad at their jobs most stock-pickers are. More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
The driver who reported the AI self-drive feature in his Tesla had been remotely disabled reported that it has been (remotely) re-enabled – and the switch-off blamed on a ‘miscommunication’. Which is nice, but kind of unease-inducing. Mean to say, we thought when you bought a car, it was yours? More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
The WHO has so dubbed the coronovirus, due to the inordinate quantities of both information and misinformation swirling around the interweb about it. It could also be the first time enough data is generated to start some real AI number crunching in the fight against the spread of disease. So good news here or bad news here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
In a TV moment that can only be described as gut-wrenching, a mother was reunited with her deceased daughter through VR and haptic feedback. Whether this can be therapeutic or not can be left to the experts, because TV is just going plough right ahead! Check it out here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
With the growing sophistication of phishing attacks (with success rates having grown from 3% to 70%), it is perhaps no surprise that machines are far better at cyber conmen than their human overlords. Time to put AI on the case. More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
Facebook may have just advanced the cause of translation AI immensely (not that it was doing so badly already) by releasing a set of over 4.5 billion ‘parallel sentences’ (sentences that mean the same in two languages) from 576 languages. More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
In another setback for the AI surveillance software community in the EU, the use of an algorithm to spot possible welfare fraud has been declared illegal in Holland. On the other side of the Atlantic, a New York State high school has started using AI face recognition. Talk about polar opposites! More here and here respectively.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
We keep hearing about racism, sexist and otherwise objectionable AI, which is apparently just ‘born that way’ or something. Here’s an article explaining just how it can happen – and how innocently.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
Turns out the high scores achieved by some AI bots in recognising syntactic differences in sentences might be inflated by a small set of test sentences and the ability of AI to use other clues to make a conclusion. On a larger data set more carefully controlled, AI only fell from 90% to between 59.4 and 79.1% (as compared to humans’ 96%). More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
Turns out the high scores achieved by some AI bots in recognizing syntactic differences in sentences might be inflated due to a small set of test sentences and the ability of AI to use other clues to make a conclusion. On a larger data set with more carefully randomized parameters, AI fell from 90% to 59.4-79.1% (as compared to humans’ 96%). More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
MIT has released this nifty little bingo game that you can use to help your kid get the concept of AI and deep learning (that’s if they don’t know more than you already!). Suitable for ages 9-14.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
This very upbeat look at the use of drones to warn people to go home or put on their masks during the coronavirus epidemic perhaps hides a little of the nuance behind using drones and AI to control crowds…
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
Research is showing that AI which has more of an ‘ego’ is better at making generalizations about the world. Scientists put their AI at dead centre of the game it was playing, and it started getting better results in terms of forming general rules about the game. But does an AI entity with an ego really sound like such a good idea? More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
AI’s Meena is outperforming other chatbots by quite a margin, and coming close to matching real people in terms of relevance of response (44-51%, 79% and 86% respectively), plus coming up with some un-terrible humour along the way. (Small question: why do humans only hit 86%?) More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
A sea change in AI approaches came when switching blackbox for glassbox AI was mooted. Blackbox means we don’t care how AI gets the result, as long as the result’s good; glassbox has AI tell us how it got there. This could be great – though with a proviso. Studies found that glassbox AI was better at persuading people it was right even when it wasn’t! More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
Warehouse could be getting emptier of people fast, as AI Covariant claims their software, Covariant Brain, can turn a robot from a frankly lousy 15% accuracy in picking products off shelves to a frankly impressive 95%. More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
The battle for AI’s soul continues, with the US gov putting new restrictions on the export of software – this hard on the heels of pressuring the UK not to use Huawei for 5G. The new restriction requires exporters of geospatial imagery software to run it past Defence first, and Canada is the only country exempt – which could attract a lot of foreign capital to the Great White North. More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
Small caveat following yesterday’s glowing health report: doctors are warning there might be such a thing as being too good at diagnosing cancer, as AI entities get better and better at analyzing scans. Much better than talking about replacing radiologists, AI should be used to cut down their workload and focus their expertise. More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
We’ve said it before, but the field of health is fertile ground for the AI seed, and it’s the place where arguably the biggest inroads are being made. This report, sponsored by GE Insurance, gives a great overview of where things stand today – plus some projections.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
Hot on the heels of the EU’s mooted decision to mull over a temporary ban on AI facial recognition, New Jersey has barred the police from using a facial recognition app. At the other end of the spectrum, London’s Metropolitan Police are steaming ahead, rolling out facial recognition cameras that by some counts get wrong results 81% of the time!
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
Space-Eye uses AI to rapidly analyse aerial shots of the Med to find possible migrant boats – and judge whether they’re in trouble and need help send. AI as a force for good. Read more here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
With self-driving cars being tests on the road with success (in the main), the future of urban transport is looming. So no surprise that GM have released pictures of and info about their self-driving car of the future, the Cruise. Very cool looking, very roomy, very weird (Where’s the steering wheel?). Check it out here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
If you’re in LA on March 23, you’ll want to attend the MIT’s West Coast conference, EmTech Digital 2020. Featuring AI stars like Andrew Ng, Fei-Fei Li and Harry Shum, and with topics like ‘What are the opportunities and threats of AI?’ and ‘How do we improve our lives and businesses with AI – technically, legally and ethically?’ under discussion, it’s not to be missed – and tickets are now available. Get one here!
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
The big hitters in tech are responding to the EU’s proposed temporary ban on face recognition AI, some positively, some not so. Alphabet, for example, is an aye, whereas Microsoft in a nay. Quick question: which one do you think sells face recognition software? More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
A neat new toolbox called AdvBox allows non-techies to create their own adversarial attacks on AI newtworks. Meant as a force for good, to test systems’ effectiveness, never has anything sounded more like the backstory to a dystopian sci-fi movie. Like, what could go wrong? More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
AI can do stuff with colossal lumps of data that paleontologists just don’t have time to, and the latest is to show that one of the supposed mass extinction events – the one at the end of the Devonian period, 375m years ago, which wiped out much of the sea life – was more like a steady decline over the course of 50m years. More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
Dominic Cummings, the AI and election/referendum guru at Westminster, is currently hiring, and he’s looking for the real Joker, or something approaching. More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
With Germany planning to put AI facial recognition in train stations and airports, they seem to be on the verge of a legal fight with … themselves! This since according to many lawyers it breaks German privacy laws and the EU data protection act. Many citizens are up in arms too. More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
The principle of data protection and digital forgottenness (as prescribed by the EU) is hard to square with the need of AI to collect and pool vast wodges of data. But a new advance could make it easier to untangle yourself from the clutches of AI – with the help of AI, of course! More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
Interestingly, marketing site Albert.ai is sick to death of being told that AI is going to put it out of business. They predict that in-house marketers are going to get their hands on AI this year and start making real things happen. More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
Govtech is convinced that AI is going to take us down the road of cyber insecurity, with bots persuading our grandparents to sign over their fortune to their ‘long-lost son/daughter (delete as appropriate) ’. Joking aside, 2020 is definitely the year for AI caution. More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
AItrends has gone out on a limb and predicted what it calls ‘holistic adoption’ of AI by businesses. This seems to be the idea that companies will send entire cohorts of staff to AI training courses in order to transform the economy. We are not convinced, though sure that the ones that do will be the ones that win. More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
InsideBigData is sure – like a number of other outlets, to be honest – that advances in AI voice recognition will make 2020 the year when the human race makes AI their best friend. More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
Fortune leads with regulations, certain that 2020 is the year when states and other authorities start to crack down on the Ma-Ma that AI is becoming. The EU has already made noises about it, and where the EU goes, USA is bound to follow. More predictions follow here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
It’s jobs, jobs, jobs, according to FusionInformatics. Next year’s AI winners will be the ones with the ability, skills and experience to implement AI solutions on a company level – because absolutely everyone everywhere will be hiring. So update those resumes! More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
MindMatters.ai believes that AI is all about the voice in 2020, with the most prominent advance likely to be people muttering to themselves in the office, as they tell their digital assistant what they want it to do over the course of the day (before, presumably, heading out to a long liquid lunch). More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
Designboom is notably downbeat about 2020’s AI, ringing the warning bell for deepfakes in the US presidential election and predicting increasing use of AI emotion recognition (one of the shakier areas of AI) in advertising, job applications and police interrogations. More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
VentureBeat asked 5 top AI gurus what they thought 2020 would bring us AI-wise, and the consensus seems to be: it needs to be – and could be – the year when AI stops talking the talk and starts walking the walk, goes from theory to practice, goes from blue-sky to real-world thinking. More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy
As with many voices out there in the void, Anaconda’s straw poll for AI/2020 reveals (among other things) a wish that AI would get real, and into the everyday world more, with usable tools for us everyday fools 😉 Less lofty dreams, in other words, and more nuts and bolts. There’s a cautious optimism that this will start to happen in 2020. Read here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy!
Forbes has asked 99 top people for their textbites, which makes for interesting reading. Many are enthused by voice recognition AI, which gives everyone from CEOs to civilians and the average worker an easy in to AI, which is the ‘giant leap’ that changes AI from a talking point to a point of departure, in our opinion. Read them all here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy!
Datanami sees AI as going mainstream in 2020, with worker suspicion turning into admiration, camaraderie and the occasion lunchtime drink. This depends, however, on machine learning and AI software becoming more user-friendly, so that the average Jo(e) can use it just as they do a word processing program, browser or company database today. This will obviously require a new approach, which in our opinion requires quite a little beyond 12 months to achieve, but with voice recognition reaching such heights, a start could easily be made to turning computers into mini-me’s you can command through a microphone. More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy!
IBM are predictably upbeat about the progress of AI, naming chemistry (including the creation of new medicines) and automation as being two key areas that will take great strides. In the latter, however, they reassure jittery employees that it will only change the nature of their work, not its existence. Their third prediction regards trust – the steps governments, businesses and other organizations will be taking to ensure people’s trust does not get eroded (further). More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy!
Like revelers waking on New Year’s Day, many business leaders are going to be taking a more realistic and hard-headed approach to AI, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. Not to be frowned at, this means seeing where AI can really help (for example, in day-to-day office mundanities) rather than seeing it as a magical unicorn that can cure all ills. More here.
Today’s Simple AI – AI made easy!
