Items tagged with artificial-intelligence
Artificial intelligence has the potential to change lots of things (in good ways) for humanity. Some people, notably Elon Musk, fear an AI arms race could lead to another world war. AI has shown that it is capable of beating humans in games that humans have mastered over many years, such as Google's AlphaGo AI defeating Go world champion Lee Sedol. Now, AI has invented an entirely new sport using data from 400 existing sports. The new sport is called Speedgate, and it was created after design agency AKQA feed the AI neural network data on 400 existing sports. The AI came up with some wacky ideas for sports; one of them was exploding Frisbees making it a good thing that the AI can't force...
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AI is being integrated into everything from speakers that are placed around your home to smartphones, cars, and wearables today. One of the places that AI assistance can have a big impact on the lives of users is when it comes to health. Wearables running Wear OS and the Apple Watch already can detect early warning signs of very serious health conditions like diabetes. Google is working on something, according to a new rumor, that will take AI-assisted health and fitness to the next level. This system is called Google Coach (known as Project Wooden internally) and it will be more than an exercise tracker and go well beyond what Google Fit currently offers according to reports. Google Coach...
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Google both impressed and creeped out a lot of people out there when it showed off Duplex AI back in May. The problem that many had is that in the tech demo that Google showed, the AI didn’t identify itself to let the person on the other end of the call know they weren't talking to a human. Google later promised that the AI would identify itself in the future. While that tech demo focused on Duplex AI helping humans to make appointments, call centers want to flip the script. Duplex AI is being eyed by call center operators as the first line of assistance for customer inquiries. Reports indicate that at least one insurance company is eyeing Duplex to handle routine calls. The idea is...
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MIT has created a new AI that we sincerely hope never escapes into the wild because this IS how you get Skynet. This AI is called Norman and it is a psychopath. How did Norman turn into a psycho? All the image data MIT fed Norman came from what it calls "an infamous subreddit" that the researchers refuse to name specifically due to its graphic content. However, the team does say that this subreddit is "dedicated to documenting and observing the disturbing reality of death." The goal with Norman was to prove that when people say that an AI can be biased and unfair, the fault isn't the algorithm but the biased data that the algorithm consumes. When an AI algorithm is trained as Norman was, it sees...
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While testifying before Congress over the Cambridge Analytical privacy scandal, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly talked about the need to further develop artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to tackle several of the challenges the company currently faces. Apparently that includes designing its own chips, too. Facebook is looking to hire silicon design engineers to develop ASIC and FPGA hardware that will drive its next generation technologies. The job listing does not go into great detail about Facebook's semiconductor plans, though it does mention designing semi-custom and fully custom ASICs. By assembling its own chip design team, Facebook would ultimately make itself less reliant...
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Some Google employees aren't happy that their employer is working on a project with the Pentagon that involves artificial intelligence (AI). The program in question is called Project Maven and the goal isn't to create some sort of fancy technology destroying AI to be deployed in times of war, but to create AI that can analyze drone footage. The workers involved in the protest have been circulating a letter inside the company that demands CEO Sundar Pichai pull the plug on the effort. According to The New York Times, the letter has been signed by over 3,100 Google workers. Part of the letter reads, "We believe that Google should not be in the business of war." Word of Project Maven first...
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Microsoft is heading in a slightly different direction. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced to employees this past week that Terry Myerson, the Executive Vice President of the Windows and Devices Group, would be leaving the company. Myerson’s departure signifies Microsoft’s shift away from their Windows software to cloud platforms and artificial intelligence. Micorosft CEO Satya Nadella Myerson’s departure had already been planned for "some time”. The Duke University alumni originally founded Intersé Corporation in 1992, a company focused on website development and data mining software. Intersé Corporation was acquired by Microsoft in 1997. Myerson worked...
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Microsoft today announced that it will be bringing a new artificial intelligence platform to Windows 10 with the upcoming spring update. The AI platform, which is being called Windows ML, will allow developers to use pre-trained machine learning models within their apps to use across a broad spectrum of Windows-based devices. When it comes to hardware support, Microsoft says that Windows ML is "tuned for efficiency across the diverse silicon" that is already supported on Windows platforms. Microsoft will support current and future hardware (including CPUs, and GPUs that support DirectX 12) and a wide range of device types including desktops, workstations, servers, IoT edge devices and even HoloLens....
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Intel has rolled out a new program that is aimed at making it easier for developers to bring AI prototypes to market. The new program is called “AI: In Production” and works along with the Intel Movidius Neural Compute Stick (NCS) that launched last July. That Movidius device has a developer base in the tens of thousands currently according to Intel. Intel wrote, “Once developers have a prototype, the next step is to take it into production, which can be challenging and costly for small companies and entrepreneurs. To make it easier, Intel selected AAEON Technologies, a leading manufacturer of advanced industrial and embedded computing platforms, as the first Intel AI: In Production...
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Google CEO Sundar Pichai was recently interviewed, and the conversation covered many topics in the tech world. One of the areas that was touched upon was artificial intelligence (AI) and what the future will hold for the technology. In that regard, Pichai likens AI to fire. Pichai said in the interview, "AI is one of the most important things that humanity is working on. It’s more profound than, I don’t know, electricity or fire." "[While fire is good] it kills people, too. They learn to harness fire for the benefits of humanity, but we have to overcome its downsides, too." The Google exec thinks that AI will do great things for humanity, like helping to find a cure for cancer. However,...
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Three years ago, Elon Musk, arguably one of the smartest men on the planet, had an important warning. He equated the rapid development of AI as summoning 'the demon', and it's really not that hard to understand why. It's hard to talk about this kind of thing without name-dropping "Skynet", but is there a better example of the threat? While Skynet was once definitively a sci-fi theory, strong AI growth over the past few years has begun to make such outcomes seem not so outrageous. It's especially scary when you think about the type of warfare equipment that's been available in the past decade, which has already been extremely "smart" as far as their capabilities go. AI will, without question,...
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It might not quite be Skynet, but Saudi Arabia this week made an announcement concerning one of its newest citizens. However, we aren't talking about a human in this case; Saudi Arabia has granted citizenship to a humanoid robot named Sophia. The announcement was made at the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh, and Sophia was constructed by Hanson Robotics. Sophia was on stage during the conference when she was given the "news" by CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin that she is now a Saudi citizen. "I want to think very much the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I’m very honored and proud for this unique distinction," said Sophia as the crowd applauded. "This is historical to be the first robot in the world...
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Perhaps Google should invest in a bumper sticker that reads, "My AI is an honor student," and then motor around Redmond and Cupertino where Microsoft and Apple are respectively headquartered. Compared to Bing and Siri, Google's artificial intelligent system is a cut above the competition, according to new research at Cornell University. Researchers Feng Liu, Yong Shi, and Ying Liu set out to test and rank the intelligence quotient (IQ) of various natural and artificial intelligent systems, including humans, Google, Bing, Baidu, and Siri. Based on the tests conducted, Google's AI has an IQ of 47.28. That ranks just below a six-year child with an IQ of 55.5, but is twice as high as Siri with an...
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Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX head, is worried about the future of artificial intelligence (AI). While Musk and his companies are working on AI, with his OpenAI DOTA 2 bot recently destroying the best human gamers, he recently criticized Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for having limited knowledge of the dangers of AI. Musk isn't alone in his fears of AI; Mark Cuban also thinks that AI will take jobs from humans. Elon Musk said late last week that people should be more concerned with AI than the risks posed by North Korea. Musk tweeted Friday, "If you're not concerned about AI safety, you should be. Vastly more risk than North Korea." If you're not concerned about AI safety, you should be....
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There have been almost six hundred terrorist attacks in 2017 alone. Facebook just released an outline of its latest methods to combat this threat by increasingly employing artificial intelligence and other high-tech techniques. Monika Bickert, Facebook's Director of Global Policy Management, and Brian Fishman, Counterterrorism Policy Manager, remarked in their latest blog post, “We agree with those who say that social media should not be a place where terrorists have a voice. We want to be very clear how seriously we take this — keeping our community safe on Facebook is critical to our mission.” Facebook plan to use artificial intelligence in particular to eliminate terrorism on their site....
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Rumor has it that Apple is developing a brand new processor dedicated to artificial intelligence tasks, including facial and speech recognition. Apple may have gotten an early start in AI with Siri, however, this chip would allow the company to catch up to competitors like Google and Amazon, which are blazing new trails with the Google Assistant and Alexa, respectively. The chip has reportedly been dubbed the “Apple Neural Engine”, and would take over AI duties currently handled by the iPhone's processor and graphics chip. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 incorporates such a module. Apple Headquarters, Image from: Wikimedia Commons, Joe RaviApple hopes that the chip will be able to handle facial...
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The Internet is not always the friendliest and kindest place to traverse. However, Google is hoping to clean up the Internet’s act with its new AI tool, Perspective. Perspective uses machine learning models to scan online content and determine a comment's “toxicity” level. Perspective was developed by Jigsaw and Google’s Counter Abuse Technology. The ultimate goal of Perspective is to determine “the perceived impact a comment might have on a conversation”. Google hopes that Perspective will give commenters feedback, allow readers to find the most relevant content, and help moderators to do their job. This is only the first of Google’s promised machine learning models. Publishers will ultimately...
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Microsoft is wasting no time in putting it new Artificial Intelligence and Research Group to work. The company just announced that its Microsoft Cognitive Services now includes 25 tools that form the backbone for the Skype Translator and Cortana (among other Microsoft products). Two of those new APIs are Bing Speech and Content Moderator. Bing Speech is capable of not only translating speech into text, but it can also convert text to speech. Microsoft’s speech recognition technology uses acoustic and language models to tailor its services for a specific language, and to make it easier to distinguish between similar-sounding words. “If the previous words are ‘The player caught the,’” explained...
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Don’t panic but Google’s AI may have accidentally (or not so accidentally), sort of, kind of, created its own secret language. This internal self-taught language has apparently been developed by the company's Neural Machine Translation (NMT) and not a human. How was the secret language created and discovered in the first place? Google announced their new Neural Machine Translation this past September. The Neural Machine Translation translates entire sentences instead of small pieces. It examines the broader context of the sentence in order to produce the more relevant translation. The result is a translation that uses proper grammar and does not sound like a robot. The Neural Machine Translation...
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Let’s face it, cancer sucks! We’re sure that at all of us knows someone who is battling cancer or has lost a friend of close family member due to the perils of cancer. Given that this disease touches just about all of us, it should come as no surprise that billions of dollars are poured into researching cancer and ways to eradicate it for good. Luckily, the fine folks at Microsoft are well on their way to cracking the secret code that allows cancer to propagate in a host body. Microsoft’s researchers from around the world are working together using artificial intelligence to effectively “solve” the cancer problem. Microsoft is attacking cancer from multiple fronts, with some of its research teams...
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At its Build conference this past spring, Microsoft unveiled the latest killer feature for its Skype service: Chatbots. Chatbots are bots, as the name implies, that can chat intelligently with users to give them the information they're looking for quickly and easily. While customer service is a focal point of many chatbots, we've likely yet to see the full potential of these natural language-equipped AI beings. In fact, we've yet to see the full potential of chatbot adoption, too. In a recent blog post, Microsoft notes that an impressive 30,000 developers have begun working with Skype's chatbots feature since it was announced, and given that initial surge, the company isn't planning to slow...
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When Jeopardy game show champion Ken Jennings made light of the beating he took at the hand of IBM's Watson supercomputer, by noting "I for one welcome our new computer overlords," not many at the time took Ken's musing for much more than a light-hearted pat on the back for IBM's big data analytics and AI ambassador. Since then, a lot has changed and advances in artificial intelligence and deep learning machines are beginning to do amazing things, from autonomous vehicles to near-human language comprehension, to AI assistants that blow Siri clean out of the water. And with big, powerful companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, IBM and NVIDIA all racing to develop AI hardware, software and...
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