Calls for action on the climate emergency have reached a crescendo with the COP25 in Madrid. It is good to see the new Commission re-claiming EUs leadership in climate technology with the Green Deal presented this Wednesday. But for a faster energy transition, it is not enough just to have more renewables, writes Hanno Schoklitsch.

Hanno Schoklitsch is the CEO and founder of Kaiserwetter Energy Asset Management.

Communication makes the right points when they promise to accelerate the energy transition and clearly state that Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things and Cloud Computing can have an important impact on tackling environmental challenges. However, the specific impact on the energy transition is ignored.

For an accelerated energy transition, just more renewables are not enough. Germany, for example, has an installed renewable capacity of almost 120 Gigawatt whilst peak demand is never higher than 75 Gigawatt.

Nevertheless, Germany is far behind its climate targets. You see: We need more efficiency and accurateness in the energy transition. This is above all a data problem, but it is a problem that is easily be resolvable by innovative technology.

The future of energy, driven by IoT and AI

To understand the whole context, we have to see: The future of energy will be marked by the radical decentralization of energy supply, including so-called flexibility options like storage, load management, power-to-heat or power-to-gas.

Virtual power plants will assume a central role. All those technologies will help to realize a demand-side economic approach. This means that the power supply follows the energy demand.

And for this approach Internet of Things (IoT) combined with Artificial Intelligence (AI: Machine Learning, Deep Learning) is key. They will help to optimize the match between regional generation and regional demand something that is unthinkable without advanced data intelligence.

For more than a century, we have lived in a baseload world which means that a few central megawatt power plants run the whole year, more or less independently from the actual demand. The unintelligent, inefficient usage of dirty energy resources is doubtlessly the main cause of the climate crisis.

Therefore, the energy transition must be seen as a shift towards renewables and energy intelligence. To fulfil the Paris goals, we need a faster energy transition, for sure, but above all, we need a more intelligent energy system.

The Energy Cloud for Nation our approach to attaining energy intelligence

While most of the energy value chain will be organized in a decentralised way, data collection and analytics must be organised centrally. There are solutions providing national and international governments and authorities with detailed insights into their energy systems based on real-time production.

Planning of new capacities, including renewable generation, storage, grid expansion and load shifting gains a new, unprecedented accurateness. Speeding up energy transition without the risk of false decision-making and failed investments becomes possible.

IoT and AI can help governments and authorities to cope with the increasing complexity of the energy transition an important point especially for countries that aspire a pioneering role in climate policy but fear the energy transitions ramifications.

Attracting and activating the needed investment capital is one of the major challenges, and risk mitigation and investment certainty will need to be considered as key. IoT and AI can make a crucial difference.

The Green Revolution also a digitisation revolution

The combination of IoT and AI will be key drivers for a successful, risk-minimized shift to a green economy in general. Inefficient usage of resources was characteristic of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The digitisation will make it easy to open a new economy mode characterized by the efficient, spatially and timely accurate match between supply and demand. The energy sector will be the front-runner followed by other sectors that use critical resources such as water, agriculture, transportation and so on.

It is based on that reasoning that I am convinced that IoT and AI can make a major contribution to securing the planet for generations to come.

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How Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence pave the way to climate neutrality - EURACTIV

Tommie Experts taps into the knowledge of St. Thomas faculty and staff to help us better understand topical events, trends and the world in general.

Last month, School of Engineering Dean Don Weinkauf appointed Manjeet Rege, PhD, as the director for the Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence.

Rege is a faculty member, author, mentor, AI expert, thought leader and a frequent public speaker on big data, machine learning and AI technologies. The Newsroom caught up with him to ask about the centers launch in response to a growing need to educate ethically around AI.

Were partnering with industry in a number of ways. One way is in our data science curriculum. There are electives; some students take a regular course, while others take a data science capstone project. Its optional. Students who opt for that through partnership with the industry, companies in the Twin Cities interested in embarking on an AI journey can have several business use cases that they want to try AI out with. In an enterprise, you typically have to seek funding, convince a lot of people; in this case, well find a student, or a team, who will be working on that industry-sponsored project. Its a win-win for all. The project will be supervised by faculty. The company gets access to emerging AI talent, gets to try out their business use case and the students end up getting an opportunity working on a real-world project.

Secondly, a number of companies are looking to hire talent in machine learning and AI. This is a good way for companies to access good talent. We can build relationships, sending students for internships, or even students who work on these capstone projects become important in terms of hiring.

There are also a number of professional development offerings well come out with. We offer a mini masters program in big data and AI. The local companies can come and attend an executive seminar for a week on different aspects of AI. Well be offering two- or three-day workshops on hands-on AI, for someone within a company who would like to become an AI practitioner. If they are interested in getting in-depth knowledge, they can go through our curriculum.

We also have a speaker series in partnership with SAS.

In May well be hosting a data science day, a keynote speaker, and a panel of judges to review projects the data science students are working on (six of which are part of the SAS Global Student Symposium). Theyll get to showcase the work theyve done. That panel of judges will be from local companies.

Everybody is now becoming aware that AI is ubiquitous, around us and here. The ship has already left the dock, so to speak, in terms of AI being around us. The best way to succeed at the enterprise level is to embrace this and make it a business enabler. Its important for enterprises to transform themselves into an AI-first company. Think about Google. It first defined itself as a search company. Then a mobile company. Now, its an AI-first company. That is what keeps you ahead, always.

Being aware of the problems that may arise is so important. For us to address AI biases, we have to understand how AI works. Through these multiple offerings were hoping we can create knowledge about AI. Once we have that we can address the issue of AI bias.

For example, Microsoft did an experiment where it had AI go out on the web, read the literature and learn a lot of analogies. When you went in and asked that AI questions based on, say, what man is to a woman, father is to what? Mother. Perfect. What man is to computer programmer as woman is to what? Homemaker. Thats unfortunate. AI is learning the stereotypes that exist in the literature it was learned on.

There have been hiring tools that have gender bias. Facial recognition tools that work better for lighter skin colors than darker skin colors. Bank loan programs with biases for certain demographics. There is a lot of effort in the AI community to minimize these. Humans have bias, but when a computer does it you expect perfection. An AI system learning is like a child learning; when that AI system learned about different things from the web and different relationships between man and woman, because these stereotypes existed already in the data, the computer just learned from it. Ultimately an AI system is for a human; whenever it gives you certain output, we need to be aware and go back and nudge it in the right direction.

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Tommie Experts: Ethically Educating on Artificial Intelligence at St. Thomas - University of St. Thomas Newsroom

2019 has seen artificial intelligence and machine learning take centre stage for many industries, with companies increasingly looking to harness the benefits of the technology for a wide range of use cases. With its advances, ethical implications and impact on humans likely to dominate conversations in the technology sector for years to come, how will AI continue to develop over the next 12 months?

Weve asked experts from a range of organisations within the AI sphere to give their predictions for 2020.

In both the private and public sectors, organisations are recognising the need to develop strategies to mitigate bias in AI. With issues such as amplified prejudices in predictive crime mapping, organisations must build in checks in both AI technology itself and their people processes. One of the most effective ways to do this is to ensure data samples are robust enough to minimise subjectivity and yield trustworthy insights. Data collection cannot be too selective and should be reflective of reality, not historical biases.

In addition, teams responsible for identifying business cases and creating and deploying machine learning models should represent a rich blend of backgrounds, views, and characteristics. Organisations should also test machines for biases, train AI models to identify bias, and consider appointing an HR or ethics specialist to collaborate with data scientists, thereby ensuring cultural values are being reflected in AI projects.

Zachary Jarvinen, Head of Technology Strategy, AI and Analytics, OpenText

A big trend for social media this year has been the rise of deepfakes and were only likely to see this increase in the year ahead. These are manipulated videos that are made to look real, but are actually inaccurate representations powered by sophisticated AI. This technology has implications for past political Facebook posts. I believe we will start to see threat actors use deepfakes as a tactic for corporate cyberattacks, in a similar way to how phishing attacks operate.

Cyber crooks will see this as a money-making opportunity, as they can cause serious harm on unsuspecting employees. This means it will be vital for organisations to keep validation technology up-to-date. The same tools that people use to create deepfakes will be the ones used to detect them, so we may see an arms race for who can use the technology first.

Jesper Frederiksen, VP and GM EMEA, Okta

When considering high-volume, fast turnaround hiring efforts, its often impossible to keep every candidate in the loop. Enter highly sophisticated artificial intelligence tools, such as chatbots. More companies are now using AI programs to inform candidates quickly and efficiently on where they stand in the process, help them navigate career sites, schedule interviews and give advice. This is significantly transforming the candidate experience, enhancing engagement and elevating overall satisfaction.

Chatbots are also increasingly becoming a tool for employees who wish to apply for new roles within their organisation. Instead of trying to work up the nerve to ask HR or their boss about new opportunities, employees can interact with a chatbot that can offer details about open jobs, give skills assessments and offer career guidance.

Whats more, some companies are offering day in the life virtual simulations that allow candidates to see what a role would entail, which can either enhance interest or help candidates self-select out of the process. It also helps employers understand if the candidate would be a good fit, based on their behavior during the simulation. In Korn Ferrys global survey of HR professionals, 78 percent say that in the coming year, it will be vital to provide candidates with these day in the life type experiences.

Byrne Mulrooney, Chief Executive Officer, Korn Ferry RPO, Professional Search and Korn Ferry Digital

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Despite fears that it will replace human employees, in 2020 AI and machine learning will increasingly be used to aid and augment them. For instance, customer service workers need to be certain they are giving customers the right advice. AI can analyse complex customer queries with high numbers of variables, then present solutions to the employee speeding up the process and increasing employee confidence.

Lufthansa for one is already using this method, and with a faster, more accurate and ultimately more satisfying customer experience acting as a significant differentiator more will follow. Over the next three years this trend will keep accelerating, as businesses from banks to manufacturers use AI to support their employees decisions and outperform the competition.

Felix Gerdes, Director of Digital Innovation Services at Insight UK

In 2020 were going to see increased public demand for the demystification and democratisation of AI. There is a growing level of interest and people are quite rightly not happy to sit back and accept that a robot or programme makes the decisions it does because it does or that its simply too complicated. They want to understand how varying AI works in principle, they want to have more of a role in determining how AI should engage in their lives so that they dont feel powerless in the face of this new technology.

Companies need to be ready for this shift, and to welcome it. Increasing public understanding of AI, and actively seeking to hear peoples hopes and concerns is the only way forward to ensure that the role of AI is both seen as a force for good for everyone in our society and as a result able to realise the opportunity ahead historically not something that tech industry as a whole have been good at, we need to change.

Teg Dosanjh, Director of Connected Living for Samsung UK and Ireland

As the next decade of the transforming transportation industry unfolds, investment in autonomous vehicle development will continue to grow dramatically, especially in the datacenter and AI infrastructure for training and validation. Well see a significant ramp in autonomous driving pilot programs as part of this continued investment. Some of these will include removal of the on-board safety driver. Autonomous driving technology will be applied to a wider array of industries, such as trucking and delivery, moving goods instead of people.

Production vehicles will start to incorporate the hardware necessary for self-driving, such as centralized onboard AI compute and advanced sensor suites. These new features will help power Level 2+ AI assisted driving and lay the foundation for higher levels of autonomy. Regulatory agencies will also begin to leverage new technologies to evaluate autonomous driving capability, in particular, hardware-in-the-loop simulation for accurate and scalable validation. The progress in AV development underway now and for the next few years will be instrumental to the coming era of safer, more efficient transportation.

Danny Shapiro, Senior Director of Automotive, NVIDIA

As AI tools become easier to use, AI use cases proliferate, and AI projects are deployed, cross-functional teams are being pulled into AI projects. Data literacy will be required from employees outside traditional data teamsin fact, Gartner expects that 80% of organisations will start to roll out internal data literacy initiatives to upskill their workforce by 2020.

But training is an ongoing endeavor, and to succeed in implementing AI and ML, companies need to take a more holistic approach toward retraining their entire workforces. This may be the most difficult, but most rewarding, process for many organisations to undertake. The opportunity for teams to plug into a broader community on a regular basis to see a wide cross-section of successful AI implementations and solutions is also critical.

Retraining also means rethinking diversity. Reinforcing and expanding on how important diversity is to detecting fairness and bias issues, diversity becomes even more critical for organisations looking to successfully implement truly useful AI models and related technologies. As we expect most AI projects to augment human tasks, incorporating the human element in a broad, inclusive manner becomes a key factor for widespread acceptance and success.

Roger Magoulas, VP of Radar at OReilly

The hottest trend in the industry right now is in Natural Language Processing (NLP). Over the past year, a new method called BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) has been developed for designing neural networks that work with text. Now, we suddenly have models that will understand the semantic meaning of whats in text, going beyond the basics. This creates a lot more opportunity for deep learning to be used more widely.

Almost every organisation has a need to read and understand text and spoken word whether it is dealing with customer enquiries in the contact centre, assessing social media sentiment in the marketing department or even deciphering legal contracts or invoices. Having a model that can learn from examples and build out its vocabulary to include local colloquialisms and turns of phrase is extremely useful to a much wider range of organisations than image processing alone.

Bjrn Brinne, Chief AI Officer at Peltarion

Voice assistants have established themselves as common place in our personal lives. But 2020 will see an increasing amount of businesses turning to them to improve and personalise the customer experience.

This is because, advances in AI-driven technology and natural language processing are enabling voice interactions to be translated into data. This data can be structured so that conversations can be analysed for insights.

Next year, organisations will likely begin to embrace conversational analytics to improve their chatbots and voice applications. This will ultimately result in better data-driven decisions and improved business performance.

Alberto Pan, Chief Technical Officer, Denodo

Organisations are already drowning in data, but the flood gates are about to open even wider. IDC predicts that the worlds data will grow to 175 zettabytes over the next five years. With this explosive growth comes increased complexity, making data harder than ever to manage. For many organisations already struggling, the pressure is on.

Yet the market will adjust. Over the next few years, organisations will exploit machine learning and greater automation to tackle the data deluge.

Machine learning applications are constantly improving when it comes to making predictions and taking actions based on historical trends and patterns. With its number-crunching capabilities, machine learning is the perfect solution for data management. Well soon see it accurately predicting outages and, with time, it will be able to automate the resolution of capacity challenges. It could do this, for example, by automatically purchasing cloud storage or re-allocating volumes when it detects a workload nearing capacity.

At the same time, with recent advances in technology we should also expect to see data becoming more intelligent, self-managing and self-protecting. Well see a new kind of automation where data is hardwired with a type of digital DNA. This data DNA will not only identify the data but will also program it with instructions and policies.

Adding intelligence to data will allow it to understand where it can reside, who can access it, what actions are compliant and even when to delete itself. These processes can then be carried out independently, with data acting like living cells in a human body, carrying out their hardcoded instructions for the good of the business.

However, with IT increasingly able to manage itself, and data management complexities resolved, what is left for the data leaders of the business? Theyll be freed from the low-value, repetitive tasks of data management and will have more time for decision-making and innovation. In this respect AI will become an invaluable tool, flagging issues experts may not have considered and giving them options, unmatched visibility and insight into their operations.

Jasmit Sagoo, Senior Director, Head of Technology UK&I at Veritas Technologies

2020 will be the year research & investment in ethics and bias in AI significantly increases. Today, business insights in enterprises are generated by AI and machine learning algorithms. However, due to these algorithms being built using models and data bases, bias can creep in from those that train the AI. This results in gender or racial bias be it for mortgage applications or forecasting health problems. With increased awareness of bias in data, business leaders will demand to know how AI reaches the recommendations it does to avoid making biased decisions as a business in the future.

Ashvin Kamaraju, CTO for Cloud Protection and Licensing activity atThales

2020 will be the year of health data. Everyone is agreed that smarter use of health data is essential to providing better patient care meaning treatment that is more targeted or is more cost effective. However, navigating through the thicket of consents and rules as well as the ethical considerations has caused a delay to advancement of the use of patient data.

There are now several different directions of travel emerging which all present exciting opportunities for patients, for health providers including the NHS, for Digital Health companies and for pharmaceutical companies.

Marcus Vass, Partner, Osborne Clarke

Artificial intelligence isnt just something debated by techies or sci-fi writers anymore its increasingly creeping into our collective cultural consciousness. But theres a lot of emphasis on the negative. While those big picture questions around ethics cannot and should not be ignored, in the near-term we wont be dealing with the super-AI you see in the movies.

Im excited by the possibilities well see AI open up in the next couple of years and the societal challenges it will inevitably help us to overcome. And its happening already. One of the main applications for AI right now is driving operational efficiencies and that may not sound very exciting, but its actually where the technology can have the biggest impact. If we can use AI to synchronise traffic lights to impact traffic flow and reduce the amount of time cars spend idling, that doesnt just make inner city travel less of a headache for drivers it can have a tangible impact on emissions. Thats just one example. In the next few years, well see AI applied in new, creative ways to solve the biggest problems were facing as a species right now from climate change to mass urbanisation.

Dr Anya Rumyantseva, Data Scientist at Hitachi Vantara

Businesses are investing more in AI each year, as they look to use the technology to personalize customer experiences, reduce human bias and automate tasks. Yet for most organizations AI hasnt yet reached its full potential, as data is locked up in siloed systems and applications.

In 2020, well see organizations unlock their data using APIs, enabling them to uncover greater insights and deliver more business value. If AI is the brain, APIs and integration are the nervous system that help AI really create value in a complex, real-time context.

Ian Fairclough, VP of Services, MuleSoft

2020 is going to be a tipping point, when algorithmic decision making AI will become more mainstream. This brings both opportunities and challenges, particularly around the explainability of AI. We currently have many blackbox models where we dont know how its coming to decisions. Bad guys can leverage this and manipulate these decisions.

Using machine identities, they will be able to infiltrate the data streams that feed into an AI models and manipulate them. If companies are unable to explain and see the decision making behind their AI this could go unquestioned, changing the outcomes. This could have wide reaching impacts in everything from predictive policing to financial forecasting and market decision making.

Kevin Bocek, Vice President, Security Strategy & Threat Intelligence at Venafi

Until now, robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI) have been perceived as two separate things: RPA being task oriented, without intelligence built in. However, as we move into 2020, AI and machine learning (ML) will become an intrinsic part of RPA infused throughout analytics, process mining and discovery. AI will offer various functions like natural language processing (NLP) and language skills, and RPA platforms will need to be ready to accept those AI skill sets. More broadly, there will be greater adoption of RPA across industries to increase productivity and lower operating costs. Today we have over 1.7 million bots in operation with customers around the world and this number is growing rapidly. Consequently, training in all business functions will need to evolve, so that employees know how to use automation processes and understand how to leverage RPA, to focus on the more creative aspects of their job.

RPA is set to see adoption in all industries very quickly, across all job roles, from developers and business analysts, to programme and project managers, and across all verticals, including IT, BPO, HR, Education, Insurance and Banking. To facilitate continuous learning, companies must give employees the time and resources needed to upskill as job roles evolve, through methods such as micro-learning and just in time training. In the UK, companies are reporting that highly skilled AI professionals, currently, are hard to find and expensive to hire, driving up the cost of adoption and slowing technological advancement. Organisations that make a conscious decision to use automation in a way that enhances employees skills and complements their working style will significantly increase the performance benefit they see from augmentation.

James Dening, Vice President for Europe at Automation Anywhere

Read more: Artificial intelligence to create 133 million jobs globally: Report

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Artificial intelligence predictions for 2020: 16 experts have their say - Verdict

Artificial Intelligence is being accused of fueling inequality and climate change as revealed by a new report.

Recently, a paper was published by the AI Now Institute with a title AI Now 2019 Report and it is highlighting the societal impacts of artificial intelligence and is also putting in front some recommendations for the tech industry and policymakers.

The artificial intelligence is being controlled by the people who already have power and is promoting inequality, and disempowering people who lack power.

According to the claims by AI Now, the artificial intelligence industry is promoting the mistreatment and discrimination of workers as the tech companies are moving more towards facial recognition technologies and ignoring the facts that these energy-running A.I. systems are the reason behind the increase of carbon dioxide in the environment.

According to the co-founder of AI Now Kate Crawford, her organization is concerned about the effects of the recognition technology that is promoting to determine the personality or emotional state of a person via their facial expression and this type of technology is being used by vet job applicants, to track students and to gather data on the emotional states of shoppers inside the stores. So the organization is asking for a ban on this technology before it can be used in furthermore critical decisions like hiring.

In this report AI NOW 2019, the researchers also recommend Senator Bernie Sanders to make a ban on police facial recognition as a part of his presidential campaign to help stop the misuse before its too late.

Another major concern raised via this report is the impact of power-hungry artificial intelligence programs on the environment and AI Now also displayed a report of a group of University of Massachusetts, Amherst which determined that the energy consumed by A.I. training model produced 600,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions and due to this reason the only solution provided by the researchers of AI was to put completely end the usages of carbon dioxide emitting technology to stop the increase of climate change.

This report also highlights the issue of Biometric Information Privacy as it can be used to track a person easily so the recommendations also include the enabling of the Biometric Information Privacy act so that legal action can be taken against the collection of biometric information by a person or company without consent.

Another issue raised in this report was the lack of diversity in the tech industry, as the tech industry is slowly squeezing out the involvement of human employees which means the tech works cant speak about the ethical concerns regarding their work to A.I. enabled systems as most of the department decisions are now being down by the A.I. enabled systems which are inaccessible to the workers and the public.

According to the report, three municipalities in the United States have already banned the use of facial recognition from the government and the San Francisco, Oakland, and Somerville, Massachusetts have stalled its use so far.

KENGKAT via Getty Images

Read next: The Emerging Jobs to look out for in 2020 According to LinkedIn

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Artificial Intelligence might be a factor behind the Climate Change - Digital Information World

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Innovations in Artificial Intelligence-, Cloud-, and IoT-based Security" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

This Cyber Security TechVision Opportunity Engine (TOE) provides a snapshot on emerging cyber security solutions powered by artificial intelligence, cloud, and IoT innovations that help companies protect from threats, data breaches, phishing, other advanced and targeted attacks. They also defend against and prevent modern attacks residing within cloud, endpoints, and various network layers.

Cyber Security TechVision Opportunity Engine's mission is to investigate new and emerging developments that aim to protect the network infrastructure and the resources operating in the network. The TOE offers strategic insights that would help identify new business opportunities and enhance technology portfolio decisions by assessing new developments and product launches in: anti-spam, anti-virus, phishing, identity management, disaster recovery, firewalls, virtual private networks, end-point security, content filtering,

Web application security, authentication and access control, intrusion prevention and detection systems, encryption algorithms, cryptographic techniques, and pattern recognition systems for network security.

Highlights of this service include technology roadmapping of network security technologies; IP portfolio analysis; information on funding and investment opportunities; evaluation of commercial opportunities from technology developments; technology assessment; analysis of technology accelerators and challenges and many more.

Key Topics Covered:

Companies Mentioned

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/n3ivvh

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Innovations in Artificial Intelligence-, Cloud-, and IoT-based Security, 2019 Research Report - ResearchAndMarkets.com - Business Wire

By now, almost everyone knows a little bit about artificial intelligence, but most people arent tech experts, and many may not be aware of just how big an impact AI has. The truth is most consumers interact with technology incorporating AI every day. From the searches we perform in Google to the advertisements we see on social media, AI is an ever-present feature of our lives.

To help nonspecialists grasp the degree to which AI has been woven into the fabric of modern society, 12 experts from Forbes Technology Council detail some applications of AI that many may not be aware of.

1. Offering Better Customer Service

Calling customer service used to be as exciting as seeing a dentist. AI has changed that: You no longer have to repeat the same information countless times to different call center agents. Brands are able to tap into insights on all their previous interactions with you. Data analytics and AI help brands anticipate what their customers want and deliver more intelligent customer experiences. - Song Bac Toh, Tata Communications

2. Personalizing The Shopping Experience

Every time you shop online at an e-commerce site, as soon as you start clicking on a product the site starts to provide personalized recommendations of relevant products. Nowadays most of these applications use some form of AI algorithms (reinforced learning and others) to come up with such results. The experience is so transparent most shoppers dont even realize its AI. - Brian Sathianathan, Iterate.ai

3. Making Recruiting More Efficient

Next time you go to look for a new job, write your rsum for a computer, not a recruiter. AI is aggregating the talent pool, slimming the selection to a shortlist and ranking matches based on skills and qualifications. AI has thoroughly reviewed your rsum and application through machine learning before a human ever gets to look at them. - Tammy Cohen, InfoMart Inc.

4. Keeping Internet Services Running Smoothly

Consumers have come to expect their favorite apps and services to run smoothly, and AI makes that possible. AI does what humans cannot: It monitors apps, identifies problems and helps humans resolve them in a fraction of the time it would take manually. AI has the ability to spot patterns at scale in monitored data with the goal of having service interruptions solved before customers even notice. - Phil Tee, Moogsoft

5. Protecting Your Finances

For credit card companies and banks, AIs incredible ability to analyze massive amounts of data has become indispensable behind the scenes. These financial institutions leverage machine learning algorithms to identify potential fraudulent activity in your accounts and get ahead of any resulting detrimental effects. Every day, this saves people from tons of agony and headaches. - Marc Fischer, Dogtown Media LLC

6. Enhancing Vehicle Safety

Even if you dont have a self-driving vehicle, your car uses artificial intelligence. Lane-departure warnings notify a driver if the car has drifted out of its lane. Adaptive cruise control ensures that the car maintains a safe distance while cruising. Automated emergency braking senses when a collision is about to happen and applies the brakes faster than the driver can. - Amy Czuchlewski, Bottle Rocket

7. Converting Handwritten Text To Machine-Readable Code

The post office has tech called optical character recognition that converts handwritten text to machine-readable code. Reading handwriting requires human intelligence, but there are machines that can do it, too! Fun fact: This technology was invented in 1914 (yes, you read that right!). So, we experience forms of AI all the time. Its just a lot trendier now to call it AI. - Parry Malm, Phrasee

8. Improving Agriculture Worldwide

Most people dont think of AI when they eat a meal, but AI is improving agriculture worldwide. Some examples: satellites scanning farm fields to monitor crop and soil health; machine learning models that track and predict environmental impacts, like droughts; and big data to differentiate between plants and weeds for pesticide control. Thank AI for the higher crop yields. - John McDonald, ClearObject

9. Helping Humanitarian Efforts

While we often hear about AI going wrong, its doing good things, like guiding humanitarian aid, supporting conservation efforts and helping local government agencies fight droughts. AI always seems to get painted as some sci-fi type of endeavor when really its already the framework of many things going on around us all the time. - Alyssa Simpson Rochwerger, Figure Eight

10. Keeping Security Companies Safe From Cyberattacks

AI has become the main way that security companies keep us safe from cyber attacks. Deep learning models run against billions of events each day, identifying threats in ways that were simply unimaginable five years ago. Unfortunately, the bad actors also have access to AI tools, so the cat-and-mouse game continues. - Paul Lipman, BullGuard

11. Improving Video Surveillance Capabilities

In cities, along highways and in neighborhoods, video cameras are proliferating. Federal, state and/or local authorities deploy these devices to monitor traffic and security. In the background, AI-related technologies that include object and facial recognition technologies underpinned by machine and deep learning capabilities speed problem identification, reducing crime and mitigating traffic. - Michael Gurau, Kaiser Associates, Inc.

12. Altering Our Trust In Information

AI will change how we learn and the level of trust we place in information. Deepfakes and the ability to create realistic videos, pictures, text, speech and other forms of communication on which we have long relied to convey information will give rise to concerns about the foundational facts used to inform decision-making in every aspect of life. - Mike Fong, Privoro

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12 Everyday Applications Of Artificial Intelligence Many People Aren't Aware Of - Forbes

Artificial Intelligence has had many breakthroughs in 2019. In fact, we can go as far as to say that it has trickled down to every single facet of modern life. With its intervention in our daily life, it is imperative that everyone knows about how it is affecting our lives, bringing about change in it, the threats and possible solutions.

While there are some people who still think AI is only robots and chatbots, it is important that they know of the advancements in the field. There are many online courses and books on artificial intelligence that give a comprehensive understanding to the reader whether it is a professional or an AI enthusiast.

In this article, we have compiled a list of books on artificial intelligence published in 2019 that one can use to learn more about this fascinating technology:

Written by Dr Eric Topol, an American cardiologist, geneticist and digital medicine researcher, Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again, is Amazon #1 bestseller this year.

This book boldly sets out the potential of AI in healthcare and deep medicine. Topol calls AI the next industrial revolution. The book contains short examples to highlight AIs importance along with a proper expansion on likely AI is going to transform the medical industry. Topol believes that AI can not only help in enhancing diagnosis and treatment but also help them in saving time in other activities like taking notes, reading scans which will eventually help them to spend more time on the patients. This is a resourceful book for someone interested in AI and its impact on healthcare.

Written by Dr Stuart Russell, Human Compatible: AI and the Problem of Control is possibly one of the most important books of this year on AI. The book talks about the threats by artificial intelligence and solutions to it. The author, Stuart Russell, makes use dry humour not to make his book sound like a boring information magazine.

The book is for both the public and AI researches, Stuart Russel, in this doesnt hammer AI, he points out the threats and solution as someone who feels a sense of responsibility towards the changes and revolution his own field is bringing.

This book is written by Marcus du Sautoy, a professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford and a researcher fellow at the Royal Society.

This book is a fact-packed, funny journey to the world of AI. It questions the present meaning of the word creativity and about how the machine will be able to crack the code on human emotions.

This book dances around the concept of using AI assistance in art-making. The book discusses the math behind ML and AI as its centre point of discussion in art.

Janelle Shanes AIwierdness.com is an AI humour blog and looks to have a different take on AI, the part of AI. In this book, the author makes use of humorous cartoons and pop-culture illustrations to try and take a look inside the algorithms that are used in machine learning.

The authors of this book Gary Marcus, a scientist and the founder and CEO of Robust.AI and Ernest Davis, a professor of computer science at NYU tell what AI is, what it is not, its potentials if we worked towards it with more resilience and be more creative. Many authors seem to hype up AI, not just the good part about it but also the wrong side about it. The authors here seem to have found the balance in between.

The book, Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust, highlights the weaknesses of the current technology, where it is going wrong and what should we be doing to find the solutions. It isnt just some book that only researchers can read but also for the general public. It illustrates many examples and excellent use of humour wherever needed.

The first edition of the series of books written by the Alex Castrounis, answer one of the most critical questions in todays age concerning business and AI, How can I build a successful business by using AI?

The AI for People and Business: A Framework for Better Human Experiences and Business Success is exclusively written for anyone interested in making use of AI in their organisation.

The author examines the value of Ai and gives solutions for developing an AI strategy that benefits both people and businesses.

This book by Andriy Burkov remains true to its name and just manages to do the seemingly impossible task of trying to bundle all of the machine learning inside of a hundred-page book.

This book provides an in-depth introduction to the field of machine learning with the smart choice of topics for both theory and practice.

If you are new to the field of machine learning, then this book gives you a comprehensive introduction to the vocabulary/ terminology.

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Top Artificial Intelligence Books Released In 2019 That You Must Read - Analytics India Magazine

When AI goes into the machine learning space, it opens up a range of issues such as biases and privacy, she says. Boards have to be switched on to this and be able to ask the right questions.

According to Williams, a significant proportion of the challenges caused by AI usage within companies comes from the fact that the technology is far from transparent. Even the people who build it dont really know why it does what it does, she says. The board is critical. If it is successfulin understanding AI, developing strategies for it, and integrating it into mainstream business strategy, the payoff is huge.

Asked to nominate other technology-related issues occupying the minds board members, panel members pointed to a range including security and the ability to withstand cyber attacks.

Cyber security is really at the top of the list, says David Attenborough, managing director and chief executive at betting company Tabcorp. This is because any company is under permanent attack from different directions and you need to be protecting your customers, your networks and youremployees from those attacks.

The other major issue that keeps me awake at night is the resilience of networks because we have multiple systems supporting a massive retail network and a big digital network. On big days, such as the Melbourne Cup, if you have a system that goes down it is incredibly expensive and disruptiveand reputationally damaging.

David Attenborough, managing director and chief executive at betting company Tabcorp, says cyber security is top priority.Jesse Marlow

While information technology is a critical component for organisations of all sizes, the panellists also stressed that Australian businesses must be more than simply technology consumers.

To achieve long-term growth, it is vital to deploy new technologies to underpin sustained and far-reaching innovation.

The board wants too see a pipeline of ideas, says Stops. They want to know that the company is constantly thinking about new ways to do things and that the pipeline is constantly being filled and fed through.

She says innovation is not something that is unique to a particular group. Rather, it has to be a mindset and something that is in place right across an organisation.

The usual approach within a lot of companies has been to carve off a group and call it an innovation team, she says. Companies are now realising that this is not creating an innovation culture - its just putting some smart people in a corner.

Stops warns, however, that its important how innovation and new ideas are handled. Care needs to be taken that it doesnt get caught up in traditional multi layers of approval which can lead to a good idea dying before it can be fully developed.

The board should be keen to make sure there is a way in which those ideas can move through the organisation quite quickly, she says.

Also, there is a need to create a culture in which it is OK to fail. A lot of organisations spend money on innovation and new ideas and if they dont work people are shot and off they go. That is not what an innovation culture is all about.

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Artificial intelligence must be used with care - The Australian Financial Review

Squirrel AI Learning is not only a global leader in artificial intelligence education enterprises, but also the only Chinese high-tech education enterprise that is invited to participate in this event. Derek Li, Founder and Chief Educational Technology Scientist of Squirrel AI Learning, gathered in the same hall with Tony Blair, former British Prime Minister, Brad Smith, President of Microsoft, Ping Guo, Vice Chairman and Rotating Chairman of Huawei, Marc Raibert, Founder and CEO of Boston Dynamics and other big names, which brought brilliant sharing and demonstration to everyone.

With a long history, Web Summit has been held once a year since 2009. After ten years of development, it has become a world-renowned and large-scale technology event, and the 2019 Summit has attracted attention from all walks of life. The event not only brought together more than 70,000 leaders of technology enterprises, founders of start-ups and policy makers from more than 160 countries, but also invited more than 2,600 media from all over the world to attend the summit, which has a powerful influence in the world.

Gathering of Big Names to Discuss the Changes Brought by the Latest Technology

Although the concept of artificial intelligence is hot, the specific empowerment of artificial intelligence in all walks of life cannot be accomplished at one stroke. At the "Davos Forum of Tech-geeks", many guests shared wonderful perspectives, and expressed their opinions around transportation technology, artificial intelligence, financial technology, earth technology, future technology, wearable devices, big data, front-end design, content creation, fashion and music industry technology and other fields.

Ping Guo, Vice Chairman and Rotating CEO of Huawei, explained the golden opportunities that 5G may bring to the development of all from the perspective of 5G technology. Ping Guo said that"5G + X" will bring an "Age of Wisdom where X can be artificial intelligence, big data, augmented reality, virtual reality and other technologies." He also predicted that about sixty 5G commercial networks will be put into use by the end of this year, and the 5G era will come earlier than we expected.

Marc Raibert, Founder and CEO of Boston Dynamics, showed everyone the first commercial intelligent robot dog, Spot, which is a four-legged mobile intelligent robot that can identify the environment, avoid obstacles, and perform complex tasks such as exploration, patrol and logistics transportation.

AI is Applied to Education, and Teaching Students According to Their Aptitude Promotes Educational Equality

With the development of AI technology, many industries around the world are facing new changes. Education is the foundation of the nation, and how technology empowers traditional education industry has always been paid much attention. On the day of the summit, Derek Li, Founder and Chief Educational Technology Scientist of Squirrel AI Learning, delivered a wonderful speech, which brought the whole event to a climax.

As the first company in China that developed an artificial intelligence self-adaptive learning engine with complete independent intellectual property rights and advanced algorithms as the core, Squirrel AI Learning has used a variety of AI technologies, such as evolutionary algorithms, neural network technology, machine learning, graph theory and Bayesian networks, to recommend personalized learning solutions to students in the past few years of practice. The further in-depth application of technology and the real-time improvement and update of products are closely related to the education status and future of hundreds of millions of students. Derek Li, its Founder and Chief Educational Technology Scientist, first introduced everyone the overall architecture of Squirrel AI Learning at the summit.

Squirrel AI Learning intelligent adaptive learning system provides a student-centered intelligent and personalized education, which applies artificial intelligence technology in the instructional process of teaching, learning, assessment, testing and training, to achieve the purpose of surpassing the real person teaching on the basis of simulating excellent teachers.

Squirrel AI Learning uses more than ten algorithms, deep learning and other technologies. It has MCM ability training system (Model of Thinking, Capacity and Methodology), cause-of-mistakes knowledge map reconstruction, nanoscale knowledge point decomposition, association probability of non-associated knowledge points, MIBA and other global first AI application technologies. It can accurately give the most suitable learning path for each child, drive learning with interest and encouragement, and improve learning efficiency. In addition, Squirrel AI Learning adopts the mode of artificial intelligence + real human teachers to effectively solve the problems of high class cost, few famous teacher resources and low learning efficiency of traditional education, so as to promote education equality.

Later, Derek Li shared three real stories to everyone, which made the audience more directly feel the achievements of Squirrel AI Learning in the instructional practice of teaching students according to their aptitude and promoting educational equality.

The first story is the daughter of Derek Li's driver, who only scored 25 points through various other types of tutoring. After receiving the Squirrel AI's adaptive learning engine's instruction and learning, she was able to be admitted to the best school within her own ability - the best Boeing aircraft maintenance major in vocational high school. It is just because of the personalization and pertinence of AI teachers that the fate of a so-called "Poor Student" in a traditional education has been changed.

The second story is Derek Li's own two twin boys, who are excellent students since childhood, but after using the MCM system, their overall personal skills has been greatly improved. "Education is not about the learning of knowledge points and test scores, quality education should be that after you have forgotten all the knowledge, your ability allows you to face any problems in your life," Derek Li concluded. In this year, his eldest son in the second grade of primary school has been able to make a speech to 2,500 audiences without any stage fright. This is the success of MCM, which enables the students with outstanding achievements to obtain a great improvement in their overall quality in addition to exam-oriented education.

The third story took place in Qingtai County, a poverty-stricken county in China. Squirrel AI Learning took two months to help the children in mountain areas by using the methods of "tracing the source" for student learning. Within two months, the achievement level of these rural children not only exceeded that of the children in the county, but also some children's level far exceeded the average level of students in Wuhan (the provincial city of Hubei, China). High-quality education resources are scarce in China, which is not only uneven in China's second, third and fourth tier cities, but also uneven in China's first-tier cities. If everyone has a most knowledgeable AI teacher around him/her, then education equity is not just a slogan, but every poor child can realize his/her own different dream completely.

Derek Li also said that the ultimate wish is to build Squirrel AI Learning into an omniscient and omnipotent teacher like Confucius + Da Vinci + Einstein, hoping to really use artificial intelligence to change the development history of human education.

Conclusion

Using technological innovation to leverage the personalized education market, Squirrel AI Learning is making every child have an AI super teacher that combines Confucius + Da Vinci + Einstein.

In the past five years, Squirrel AI Learning has opened more than 2,300 learning centers in more than 700 cities and counties in more than 20 provinces in China. With the business model of connecting online and offline, Squirrel AI Learning builds the core AI technology into a K12 full-course extracurricular tutoring intelligent system, which has taught nearly 2 million registered students accumulatively. It is believed that with the efforts of Squirrel AI Learning by Yixue Group, the future artificial intelligence technology can break through the limitations of traditional education mode and bring personalized education to every child.

SOURCE Squirrel AI Learning

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Squirrel AI Learning Attends the Web Summit to Talk About the Application and Breakthrough of Artificial Intelligence in the Field of Education -...

16 December 2019, 16:31

Beethovens unfinished symphony is set to be completed by artificial intelligence, in the run-up to celebrations around the 250th anniversary of the composers birth.

A computer is set to complete Beethovens unfinished tenth symphony, in the most ambitious project of its kind.

Artificial intelligence has recently been used to complete Schuberts Unfinished Symphony No. 8, as well as to attempt to match the playing of revered 20th-century pianist, Glenn Gould.

Beethoven famously wrote nine symphonies (you can read more here about the Curse of the Ninth). But alongside his Symphony No. 9, which contains the Ode to Joy, there is evidence that he began writing a tenth.

Unfortunately, when the German composer died in 1827, he left only drafts and notes of the composition.

Read more: What is the Curse of the Ninth and does it really exist? >

A team of musicologists and programmers have been training the artificial intelligence, by playing snippets of Beethovens unfinished Symphony No. 10, as well as sections from other works like his Eroica Symphony. The AI is then left to improvise the rest.

Matthias Roeder, project leader and director of the Herbert von Karajan institute, told Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung: No machine has been able to do this for so long. This is unique.

The quality of genius cannot be fully replicated, still less if youre dealing with Beethovens late period, said Christine Siegert, head of the Beethoven Archive in Bonn and one of those managing the project.

I think the projects goal should be to integrate Beethovens existing musical fragments into a coherent musical flow, she told the German broadcaster Deutshe Welle. Thats difficult enough, and if this project can manage that, it will be an incredible accomplishment.

Read more: AI to compose classical music live in concert with over 100 musicians >

It remains to be seen and heard whether the new completed composition will sound anything like Beethovens own compositions. But Mr Roeder has said the algorithm is making positive progress.

Read more: Googles piano gadget means ANYONE can improvise classical music >

The algorithm is unpredictable, it surprises us every day. It is like a small child who is exploring the world of Beethoven.

But it keeps going and, at some point, the system really surprises you. And that happened the first time a few weeks ago. Were pleased that its making such big strides.

There will also, reliable sources have confirmed, be some human involvement in the project. Although the computer will write the music, a living composer will orchestrate it for playing.

The results of the experiment will be premiered by a full symphony orchestra, in a public performance in Bonn Beethovens birthplace in Germany on 28 April 2020.

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Beethovens unfinished tenth symphony to be completed by artificial intelligence - Classic FM