Daily Archives: February 28, 2017

Forbes

Growth of AI Means We Need To Retrain Workers... Now Forbes Picture a future where a robot suggests where to go for dinner, which meetings to take or which hotel you should stay at during an important client event. That's just an example of the impact artificial intelligence (AI) can have on the ways we work ...

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Growth of AI Means We Need To Retrain Workers... Now - Forbes

By Jared Lindzon 02.28.17 | 5:55 am

Artificial Intelligence may still be in its infancy, but its already forcing leadership teams around the world to reconsider some of their core structures.

Advances in technology are causing firms to restructure their organizational makeup, transform their HR departments, develop new training models, and reevaluate their hiring practices. This is according to Deloittes 2017 Human Capital Trends Report, which draws on surveys from over 10,000 HR and business leaders in 140 countries. Much of these changes are a result of the early penetration of basic AI software, as well as preparation for the organizational needs that will emerge as they mature.

What we concluded is that what AI is definitely doing is not eliminating jobs, it is eliminating tasks of jobs, and creating new jobs, and the new jobs that are being created are more human jobs, says Josh Bersin, principal and founder of Bersin by Deloitte. Bersin defines more human jobs as those that require traits robots havent yet mastered, like empathy, communication, and interdisciplinary problem solving. Individuals that have very task-oriented jobs will have to be retrained, or theyre going to have to move into new roles, he adds.

The survey found that 41% of respondents have fully implemented or made significant progress in adopting AI technologies in the workforce, yet only 15% of global executives say they are prepared to manage a workforce with people, robots, and AI working side by side.

As a result, early AI technologies and a looming AI revolution are forcing organizations to reevaluate a number of established strategies. Instead of hiring the most qualified person for a specific task, many companies are now putting greater emphasis on cultural fit and adaptability, knowing that individual roles will have to evolve along with the implementation of AI.

On-the-job training has become more vital to transition people into new roles as new technologies are adapted, and HRs function is quickly moving away from its traditional evaluation and recruiting functionwhich can increasingly be done more efficiently using big data and AI softwaretoward a greater focus on improving the employee experience across an increasingly contingent workforce.

The Deloitte survey also found that 56% of respondents are already redesigning their HR programs to leverage digital and mobile tools, and 33% are utilizing some form of AI technology to deliver HR functions.

The integration of early artificial intelligence tools is also causing organizations to become more collaborative and team-oriented, as opposed to the traditional top-down hierarchal structures.

To integrate AI, you have to have an internal team of expert product people and engineers that know its application and are working very closely with the frontline teams that are actually delivering services, says Ian Crosby, cofounder and CEO of Bench, a digital bookkeeping provider. When we are working AI into our frontline service, we dont go away to a dark room and come back after a year with our masterpiece. We work with our frontline bookkeepers day in, day out.

In order to properly adapt to changing technologies, organizations are moving away from a top-down structure and toward multidisciplinary teams. In fact, 32% of survey respondents said they are redesigning their organizations to be more team-centric, optimizing them for adaptability and learning in preparation for technological disruption.

Finding a balanced team structure, however, doesnt happen overnight, explains Crosby. Very often, if theres a big organization, its better to start with a small team first, and let them evolve and scale up, rather than try to introduce the whole company all at once.

Crosby adds that Benchs eagerness to integrate new technologies also impacts the skills the company recruits and hires for. Beyond checking the boxes of the jobs technical requirements, he says the company looks for candidates that are ready to adapt to the changes that are coming.

When youre working with AI, youre building things that nobody has ever built before, and nobody knows how that will look yet, he says. If theyre not open to being completely wrong, and having the humility to say they were wrong, we need to reevaluate.

As AI becomes more sophisticated, leaders will eventually need to decide where to place human employees, which tasks are best suited for machines, and which can be done most efficiently by combining the two.

Its a few years before we have actual AI, its getting closer and closer, but AI still has a big problem understanding human intent, says Rurik Bradbury, the global head of research and communication for online chat software provider LivePerson. As more AI software becomes available, he advises organizations to think of those three different categorieshuman, machine, or cyborgand decide who should be hired for this job.

While AI technologies are still in their infancy, it wont be long before every organization is forced to develop their own AI strategy in order to stay competitive. Those with the HR teams, training program, organizational structures, and adaptable staff will be best prepared for this fast-approaching reality.

is a freelance journalist born, raised and residing in Toronto, covering technology, entrepreneurship, entertainment and more for a wide variety of publications in Canada, the United States and around the world.When he's not playing with gadgets, interviewing entrepreneurs or traveling to music festivals and tech conferences you can usually find him diligently practicing his third-person bio writing skills.

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How AI Is Changing The Way Companies Are Organized ... - Fast Company

The best approach for border security and immigration control is a layered strategy, experts tell Fox News. This harnesses artificial intelligence, aerial drones, biometrics and other sophisticated technologies in addition to existing or future fencing or walls along U.S. borders.

Dr. Brandon Behlendorf, a noted border security expert and professor at the University of Albany, New York, told Fox News that advancements in technology have made virtual border security much more feasible. Motion sensors, surveillance systems, drone cameras, thermal imaging -- they help form a barrier that is fed into operations centers all across the border.

[This hinges on] the use of physical and virtual infrastructure, combined with patrol and response capabilities of agents, to provide multiple opportunities for detecting and interdicting illegal border crossings not just at the border, but also some distance from the border, he said. You need to leverage the benefits of each with properly trained and outfitted agents to provide the most effective approach to border security. Neither a wall nor technology itself will suffice.

HOW AI FIGHTS THE WAR AGAINST FAKE NEWS

One of the most interesting innovations is called the Edgevis Shield, a surveillance platform originally developed for use in Afghanistan. The platform uses ground-based sensors that detect activity, and they are self-healing. The sensors form a mesh network, so if one of them is compromised, the entire network can self-correct and keep functioning. The shield can detect whether someone is moving on foot or in a vehicle; and, it uses a low latency wireless network.

Charles King, principal analyst of the Hayward, Calif.-based tech research firm Pund-IT, says other advancements are helping create a virtual border. Because a physical wall only stops illegal border crossings above ground, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection plans to deploy surveillance robots called Marcbots that can explore tunnels, similar to what the military uses today for bomb detections, he says.

The AVATAR (or Automated Virtual Agent for Truth Assessments in Real-time) is a kiosk being developed at San Diego State University. The kiosk uses artificial intelligence to ask questions at a border crossing and can detect physiological changes in expression, voice, and gestures.

NEW $27 MILLION FUND AIMS TO SAVE HUMANITY FROM DESTRUCTIVE AI

For example, the kiosk might ask an immigrant if he or she is carrying any weapons, then look for signs of deception. The kiosk is currently being tested at Canadian border crossings.

Behlendorf says some of the most interesting work related to border patrol is in development at computer labs in the U.S., not at the actual border. Today, there are reams of data from the past that show how illegal immigrants have moved across the border and are then apprehended. This data provides a rich trove for machine learning to look for patterns and even predict likely behavior in the future. Its more than only tracking or blocking one individual crossing.

Developments in other fields related to pattern recognition, machine learning, and predictive analytics could greatly enhance the information with which sector and station commanders have to decide on allocations of key resources, Behlendorf said. Those efforts are starting to develop, and in my opinion over the next few years will form a cornerstone of virtual fence development.

WHITE HOUSE: WE'RE RESEARCHING AI, BUT DONT WORRY ABOUT KILLER ROBOTS

One example of this: using analytics data, border patrol agents could determine where to allocate the most resources to augment a physical wall. Theres already a precedent for this, he says. Los Angeles International Airport uses game theory to randomize how security guards go on patrol, rather than relying on the same set pattern that criminals and terrorists could predict.

The technologies required for supporting a virtual wall, from sensors to surveillance drones to wireless networks and communications to advanced analytics, are more capable and mature today than they have ever been in the past, said Pund-ITs King. The stars are better aligned for the development and deployment of virtual border security today than in the past.

In the future, border patrols could rely more on a virtual infrastructure -- the technology on the back end that looks for patterns, the facial recognition technology at borders -- for security.

In the end, its all of the above that will help protect U.S. borders.

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How AI and tech could strengthen America's border wall - Fox News

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Setting up meetings can be a pain, since they often require folks to send emails back and forth figuring out a time before finally sending off a calendar invitation to block everyones schedule. A New York startup called x.ai wants to simplify that with a helpful bot, and they just launched a product aimed at serving businesses.

The service provides users with access to x.ais assistant, which can go by Andrew or Amy Ingram, to automatically set up meetings with people inside a company and help schedule time with folks who work elsewhere. Its an extension of the companys existing service, which is built for individuals.

Both share the same core functionality: users can loop x.ais assistant into an email conversation by copying it on the thread, and the assistant will jump in to help figure out a time when everyone can meet. The assistant can analyze an email to identify parameters for a meeting, and then look through a users calendar to see what times work.

Once it has a time to suggest, the assistant will reach out to other participants in the conversation to gather their availability and book a meeting.

Business users get a few additional benefits: people inside a company can use the assistant to automatically schedule time with one another, without requiring any back and forth. Administrators will get a dashboard to manage and track employee use of the service, and companies will be able to customize the assistants signature and use a custom domain name for the email address needed to summon it.

While that all sounds lovely, the service comes at a high price: businesses are expected to pay $59 per active user per month. To put that in context, Microsoft's most expensive Office 365 Enterprise subscription costs $35 per user per month.

The good news is that x.ai wont charge companies for people who dont use its service to schedule meetings, even if those folks have access to it.

X.ai CEO Dennis Mortensen argued that its worth paying so much for the service because of the productivity gains that users receive from it. The companys hypothesis is that companies will see productivity gains from its service to offset the cost.

Theres also the question of security and privacy. In situations when x.ais automated systems dont understand input, the service will send human reviewers slices of an email to try and get the correct result. Those people are supposed to only see parts without context in such a way that would prevent them from seeing whats being discussed, but that may not be an acceptable risk for some businesses.

In order to use the assistant, people have to give it access to their calendars, too. However, Mortensen wanted to make clear that the companys business is helping with scheduling, and it doesnt resell user data to try and make a buck.

Theres also another benefit to users on the security side: the assistant is designed to protect the calendar of the person its working for by default, keeping them from being scheduled for meetings they dont want. It also wont give away information about a users availability to salespeople or other social engineers, like a human assistant might.

Right now, the assistant only understands English, so companies looking for other language support will need to wait for x.ai to add it.

The startup already has a handful of customers signed up, including venture capital firm Work-Bench, and Assist, another AI startup.

Blair Hanley Frank is primarily focused on the public cloud, productivity and operating systems businesses for the IDG News Service.

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AI scheduling startup launches subscription for businesses | PCWorld - PCWorld

Naked Security

MWC: Completely superfluous 'AI' added to consumer items Naked Security All of a sudden, Olay famous for its skincare products and cheering inducements to Love the skin you're in has an artificial intelligence (AI) capability. You heard it right: Olay, maker of your mum's face cream, is now in the machine ...

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MWC: Completely superfluous 'AI' added to consumer items - Naked Security

Forbes

Three Key Skills For Staying Relevant In The AI Economy Forbes As our technological capabilities grow, the list of jobs at risk from artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning is expanding rapidly from manual and less skilled roles, such as driver and personal assistant, to knowledge worker roles such ...

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Three Key Skills For Staying Relevant In The AI Economy - Forbes