Daily Archives: February 9, 2022

GAINESVILLE, Fla. The University of Florida announced this week a new collaboration with tech giant IBM to launch a comprehensive skills program designed to extend UFs vision to be an international leader in artificial intelligence, data science, fintech, and other related technologies that can help solve societys biggest challenges.

UF already ranked by U.S. News & World Report as one of the nations most innovative universities and IBM will work together to support UFs faculty and students as they develop diverse and high-demand skillsets in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, quantum cloud computing and data science that align with industry needs and trends. The collaboration will extend to West Palm Beach, where UF is exploring an opportunity to co-create academic programming at a new campus that will serve the needs of the regions rapid influx of companies across sectors, including finance and technology.

The collaboration is the next step in UFs ambitious goal to be the leading AI University in the nation. The initiative will help UF transform the nations workforce and bolster research by embedding technology into its curriculum across disciplines.

This collaboration with IBM puts us on the fast track to leadership in helping the world meet the greatest challenges of the 21st century, UF President Kent Fuchs said. By deepening our progress in artificial intelligence and other critical information technology, it will give our professors, scientists and students the right tools at the right time benefiting everyone from teachers preparing schoolchildren for career success to doctors providing patients the very best health care to farmers growing more sustainable, healthier, productive crops.

In a memorandum of understanding, IBM is pledging to UF software and tools to bolster the universitys work in AI and data science, including hybrid cloud. The multi-year initiative with IBM includes plans to developat least one newdegree program in AI,and the provision of online coursework, software, lecturers and case studies from the IBM Academic Initiative.IBM will also help establish a campus center that focuses on finance and technology education and research, and will provide curated course content, access to the IBM Cloud, and digital certificates to award upon course completions.

The collaboration with IBM follows last years substantial and transformational investments from UF alumnus and NVIDIA co-founder Chris Malachowsky to boost the universitys AI and data science capabilities.UFs AI University initiative is highlighted by more than $250 million in support from the university, the state of Florida and generous donors.

Working side-by-side with a company the caliber of IBM moves UF a giant step toward our efforts to transform how people work, learn and play, said Cammy Abernathy, dean of UFs Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering. Our motto in our college is Powering the new Engineer, and that exactly what IBM is doing.

IBMs relationship with UF is part of the companys Global UniversityPrograms, which provide assets,training, curriculum content, hands-on labs and software to academic institutionsto advance relevant skills for todays workforce.Through IBMs Global University Programs more than 900,000 students are enrolled in at least 334 specialized academic courses inover 10,000universities and schools across the world. The companyhascommitted to train 30 million peopleworldwide by 2030.

IBMs investment in UF supercharges the universitys efforts to serve Floridians and others throughout the world. Plans include using advanced technology to reimagine how industries operate and prepare for the future. By embracing artificial intelligence and other powerful technologies, UF can help Florida become an economic powerhouse while addressing some of the worlds most pressing concerns, university leaders say.

If we are going to be successful in advancing technologies such as AI and training people to apply it to civic, social and business challenges, it will require us to partner with key institutions of higher education and research like the University of Florida, said Justina Nixon, an IBM Vice President and Global Head of Corporate Social Responsibility. Skills are a human right and we aim to work with partners to make state of the art education and career readiness as widely accessible as possible. Todays announcement with the University of Florida is designed to advance this critical agenda.

The University of Florida, which traces its roots to 1853, has a long history of established programs in international education, research and service, and is one of only 17 public, land-grant universities in the Association of American Universities, which comprises Americas leading research universities. UF is ranked No. 5 in the most recent U.S. News and World Reports list of best public universities.

Source: IBM

Go here to read the rest:

IBM and University of Florida Collaboration to Bolster Research in AI and Data Science - HPCwire

Welcome to the qualifying round of the 2022 US Investment Olympics.

The goal of the games is simple: beat the S&P 500, either by generating higher returns or playing dirty and going for higher risk-adjusted returns.

Let the games begin!

Qualification

Like the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, the US Investment Olympics are not easy to qualify for. Mutual funds are automatically barred from participation. Their fees are just too high for them to have a realistic shot against the S&P 500. Hedge funds have even higher fees and theoretically should be hedged, so they cannot compete with the stock market either. In fact, the only securities capable of matching the index are ETFs.

So far, there are eight ETF contestants representing three themes:

Although less expensive than the average mutual or hedge fund, the ETFs have fees of 64 basis points (bps) and are not cheap compared to low-cost index trackers. But then again, top-notch performance is not free.

Despite their contemporary themes, our ETFs have yet to resonate much with the investment community. Their cumulative assets under management (AUM) are only $700m, even though some have track records going back to 2012. But then again, who doesnt love cheering for the underdog?

Link:

Smart money, crowd intelligence and AI - ETF Stream

A team of horticulture researchers and data scientists from the prestigious China Agricultural University is taking part in the Pinduoduo tomato-growing contest to evaluate how useful artificial intelligence is in helping farmers improve production.

AI assists growersCalling themselves CyberTomato, the researchers are using computer vision techniques to find signs of plant disease, forecast fruit output and make recommendations such as when and how much to water and fertilize. The role of AI in this scenario is to assist farmers in making decisions instead of replacing them.

That is closer to how farmers will use AI in real-life operations, according to Yang Hao, a PhD student at China Agricultural University and CyberTomato team member. He was part of the winning team in the inaugural Smart Agriculture Competition in 2020/21.

Last year, we had to build comprehensive AI models to manage the overall production in the greenhouse, while this year AI is more focused on helping plants to grow well, said Yang. In this sense, AI is playing a supporting role instead of a leading role this year.

Spearheaded by Pinduoduo, Chinas largest agriculture platform, the Smart Agriculture Competition aims to provide a platform for top agricultural and computer science researchers to develop practical, cost-effective technology that can help farmers to improve production, and by extension, their livelihoods.

The contest is co-organized by China Agricultural University and Zhejiang University and supported by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and Wageningen University & Research, giving the participants a high-profile avenue to showcase their work to global experts.

In the inaugural competition, technology teams outperformed traditional growing teams by producing 196% more strawberries by weight on average. By demonstrating the potential of AI in increasing production yield, the competition now focuses on how to integrate and apply the technology in conditions that more closely mimic commercial agriculture.

Technology useChina is promoting the use of technology in agriculture to close the gap with developed countries in production yield and become self-sufficient in staple foods. That has ranged from the increasing deployment of drones for mapping and spraying, to highly automated greenhouses that use sensors to detect minute changes in soil composition and climate.

Technology is the key to overcoming Chinas lack of arable land. It takes about 1 acre to feed the average US consumer, while China has only about 0.2 acres of arable land per citizen.

However, there are obstacles standing in the way of adoption, from the availability of trained labor to operate sophisticated technology, to the cost-effectiveness of such technology. Ensuring that researchers are developing technology that is commercially feasible thus takes on added importance.

China is facing the challenge of rising labor costs and aging farming population, said Liu Haojie, a member of CyberTomato who founded his own agtech business after graduation. Toward the later stage of the competition we will review our technologies and come up with a viable solution, and ultimately we hope to commercialize it to help farmers.

CyberTomatoCyberTomato is one of four teams that have seen selected for the finals of the Smart Agriculture Competition, now entering its final stretch at Pinduoduos smart greenhouse based in Yunnan.

Contestants will take a multidisciplinary approach, applying nutrition science, precision farming, and other relevant technology to cultivate tomatoes. The winners will be judged on yield, nutritional value, environmental sustainability, and commercial viability.

I think it is a particularly good direction if we can put this kind of scientific and technological means to solve the problem of agricultural production and then to be able to use less land to feed more people, said Yang Ruimei, a PhD student specializing in controlled greenhouse environment at China Agricultural University.

I come from the countryside, and I think that if agriculture is to be developed, there is a need for more talented young people to join the development of agriculture.

For more information on the competition:Smart Agricultural Competitionstories.pinduoduo-global.com

Continued here:

"Our AI models are focused on helping plants to grow well" - hortidaily.com

Tech like AI, advanced telehealth systems and remote devices will be change healthcare for physicians and patients alike in the coming year.

For the past two years, our health and the healthcare industry have been at the front of our collective continuousness like at no time in recent memory. And as we move into 2022, technologies such as AI, wearables and new telehealth systems will play a significant role in helping us get and stay healthy.

Dr. Michael Aragon, chief medical officer at Outset Medical, a medical device manufacturer, shared his top five 2022 trends for healthcare with TechRepublic, and technology was front and center.

Wearables like the Apple Watch and Fitbit brought personal health tracking to the masses and in the past few years, the market has expanded dramatically to include a variety of in-home health teach that will monitor your blood pressure, heart rate, spO2, ECG, PPG, sleep quality and even neurological disorders.

This trend will continue to grow as individuals want the ability to have their health monitored without theneed to visit their physician, Dr. Aragon said. He expects a flood of new products to hit the market in 2022.

Dr. Aragon isnt the only one predicting dramatic growth in the wearables market. According to Deloitte Global, 320 million consumer health and wellness wearable devices will ship worldwide in 2022, and by 2024, that figure could hit 440 million units as more health care providers recommend them to patients.

SEE: Top 5 tech trends for 2022 (TechRepublic)

According to September 2021 report from Grand View Research, the global home healthcare market reached $299 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.88% from 2021 to 2028. This was a shift from 2019 to 2020, when the home healthcare market declined 1.64%.

The pandemic increased the demand for home healthcare equipment with patients, particularly those most at risk when exposed to COVID-19, Dr. Aragon said. He doesnt see this trend ending, as patients refuse to give up the benefits of at-home healthcare being received during the pandemic.

Outsets Tablo Hemodialysis System is an example of a home healthcare device as it gives patients the option to dialyze in their own home.

According to research from Arizton, the global healthcare AI market is predicted to reach $44.5 billion by 2026, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 46.21%. This increased use of artificial intelligence will be driven by pharmaceutical companies using technology to boost innovations, the increase in patient volume and the shrinking workforce in healthcare facilities.

The addition of AI reduces human error, whether in radiology tools and immunotherapy for cancer patients, determining the best treatment for a dialysis patient, or identifying where the latest infectious disease is spreading around the world, Dr. Aragon said.

According to global management consultants, McKinsey & Company, the use of telehealth services skyrocketed during the pandemic, hitting a level 78 times higher in April 202o compared to before Covid-19. That level has since fallen, but telehealth usage still remain 38 times higher than before the pandemic. Dr. Aragon see this trend continuing.

Innovation has skyrocketed due to increased interest in telehealth, and it will continue to grow as new virtual healthcare models and business models evolve and new services and health solutions are made available, Dr. Aragon said. Visiting the doctor will soon become a virtual experience for many patients.

Citing statistics that show minorities and people of color are not given equal access to quality care, Dr. Aragon said that this is the year that the healthcare industry will take a strong look at these disparities and find ways to create healthcare that leads to cultural competency among healthcare providers so that they can better meet the unique social and cultural needs of their patients.

Go here to see the original:

2022 Healthcare trends will be driven by AI, wearables and virtual medicine - TechRepublic

Its algorithmic, generative 70s sci-fi pulp, courtesy OpenAI. Artist Lewis tells us about how it was done. Meanwhile, see how many friends will pretend to have heard of Neytiri A. Quaritchs pioneering tome, Green Glass is the Color of the Wind.

Whether youre a hardcore sci-fi fan or have just been rummaging 70s paperbacks at a flea market, Ill give you a moment to just soak this in before we get into the explanation of the machine learning techniques behind the scenes. I had to clean up some coffee I chortled out my nose.

The way a lot of press gets this wrong, of course, is to say things like the AI made some sci-fi book covers. Even as these algorithms get a lot more sophisticated than averaged pixels or a Markov chain, they are still just algorithms, lacking in agency, albeit with enormous data sets as source material. In turn, though, that makes some of the aesthetic peculiarities they generate all the more interesting, and means that its helpful to understand them as generative tools in the hands of artists. Theyre the outcome of a lot of human effort in mathematics, code, and ultimately human choice, even if that last bit upsets those in search of general artificial intelligence.

Lewis Hackett is that artist, and cleverly selected what were seeing, combining a graphics technique called Clip Guided Diffusion for the imagery with familiar GPT3 techniques for the titles. And hes done a great job selecting the results and aping the typography style by hand.

Lewis explains his process to CDM; Ive added links to the relevant machine learning notebooks and code:

Ive been experimenting with various Google Colab notebooks to see how I can incorporate AI / GAN [Generative Adverserial Networks] techniques into my creative workflows, both for idea generation and for finding interesting ways to use them conceptually.

When exploring CLIP guided diffusion notebooks I came across nshepperds JAX CLIP Guided Diffusion v2.3 which is based on Katherine Crowsons CLIP guided diffusion notebook. Im a huge fan of 70s sci-fi artwork and tried various prompts around the theme of 70s sci-fi book cover artwork which already produced some amazing results. I fine-tuned the prompt and ran off a batch of about 100 variations with different seed values.

Next, I started testing out OpenAIs GPT-3 since it became publicly accessible in November 2021. I opened up a chat conversation and asked it for title ideas for my science fiction novel, and followed up with other queries such as something more mysterious or something less obvious until it started giving me interesting titles. I repeated the same process but instead asked it for fake author names.

Once I had the titles and authors, I used these to help curate the final collection of generated artworks and created the typography using popular fonts from the 70s. I also used Waifu2X to upscale the artworks since they were originally generated in low resolution. I think the final outputs are fascinating because they convey that same sense of mystery that book cover artists use to get people to pick them up and read them.

Im equally interested in the concept of having a complete product generated with AI techniques. Even though it required my input and curation, I expect that this might lessen over time as the technologies advance and we finally get to see the electric sheep that androids dream about,

I tend to be allergic to the idea that technology will advance, but theres some concrete reason to believe he might be correct about AI-generated work partly because you could train the AI to self-direct some of the curation he describes. You still might have to give an end goal, but the process could theoretically involve at least less intervention. Its an intriguing question.

Meanwhile, these covers are just hilarious. And given that weve had a couple of generations of tools giving us fairly obvious choices in toolsets, they also illustrate a world in which creative art tools might be a lot well, trippier than they are now.*

On the topic of GPT-3, heres some essential reading by AI journalist Will Douglas Heaven of MIT Technology Review:

The new version of GPT-3 is much better behaved (and should be less toxic)

More enjoy!

Follow Lewis on Twitter.

Bonus round:

Seen previously doing beautiful things with Unity.

I wonder what a Kais Power Tools would look like powered by these kinds of AI techniques instead of the fractal and channel operation techniques developer Kai Krause used to create branching possibility trees. Kids, ask your parents or Wikipedia. Speaking of blast-from-the-90s KPT is now in PaintShop Pro, sold by Corel, in a new version. PaintShop Pro? Kai? Corel? Now theres a name I havent Oh yeah, and it also has AI, so there you go.

Read the rest here:

Artist uses AI to perfectly fake 70s science fiction pulp covers - artwork and titles - CDM Create Digital Music - Create Digital Music

Hello and welcome to Protocol Enterprise! Today: How Salesforces AI ethics team manages internal and third-party AI dilemmas, Intel makes a big investment in its foundry business and the latest funding deals in enterprise tech.

Data silos are a major challenge for 90% of IT leaders, according to MuleSofts latest report. And that number hasnt changed since MuleSoft conducted the survey a year ago. Data may be everywhere, but that doesnt mean it's integrated.

When Salesforces engineers were incorporating tools that use natural-language processing and machine learning to analyze peoples sentiments toward products or brands in social media or reviews, they discovered a problem. The system automatically labeled content featuring words such as gay, Black or Muslim as negative. It even happened if the statements around them were positive, as in, Im gay and proud.

Kathy Baxter and her Ethics by Design team inside Salesforce stepped in to assess the algorithmic tool, but despite the potential for discrimination, some product management decision-makers at the company still wanted to roll out the product in beta anyway to get customer feedback.

Some of the companies that are subject to the most intense scrutiny of their AI practices say they have embedded ethics into product development.

But for many companies, putting AI principles into practice is not as common, and many are looking to government to create regulations to guide that process.

Still, Salesforce isnt just what is built by Salesforce. Like many cloud platforms, Salesforce is a dense forest of software applications and tools.

Education is the companys primary tool for fostering more ethical practices among partners in its sprawling app marketplace. She also said in 2022 the companys account reps are expected to offer customers additional AI ethics education and services.

For now, it's a nice-to-have, it's a pretty rare thing to have someone on staff dedicated to ethics in development of products or services, Baxter said. But in a few years, it will be madness not to have at least one of these in your company.

Dataiku is the only AI platform that connects data and doers, enabling anyone to transform data into real business results from the mundane to the moonshot. Because AI can do so much, but there's no soul in the machine, only in front of it. Without you, it's just data.

Learn more

As part of Intels bid to regain its one-time leadership position in chip manufacturing, the company announced a series of steps on Monday aimed to support its contract chip business, Intel Foundry Services. Intel said that it had launched an ecosystem alliance called Accelerator designed to help companies bring new chips to market, and a $1 billion fund to support companies building tech to support the foundry ecosystem.

Intel said the fund would focus on helping companies interested in tech around modular products, and support an open chiplet platform adding several different types of chips to a single package, compared with cramming a bunch of designs onto one chip.

Foundry customers are rapidly embracing a modular design approach to differentiate their products and accelerate time to market, CEO Pat Gelsinger said in a statement.

To support the companys efforts, Intel said it would support designs that use multiple instruction set architectures, or ISAs, including x86, Arm and RISC-V. The company said that a key part of its contract chip strategy is a broad range of tech offerings, including RISC-V. Intel said it had joined RISC-V International, the consortium that oversees the RISC-V open-source architecture.

Max A. Cherney (email | twitter)

The cloud let chief information officers become more strategic and focused on building business value instead of managing IT as a cost center. Then the pandemic thrust CIOs into an even more central role: They became crucial leaders when managing remote work, navigating abrupt changes in business operations and accelerating digital transformation.

Flexport raised $935 million from Shopify and other investors at a valuation of $8 billion for its global logistics platform.

Chargebee was valued at $3.5 billion after raising $250 million from Tiger Global and Sequoia Global for its subscription management software.

Productboard was valued at $1.7 billion after raising $125 million for its product management software.

Loadsmart raised $200 million to automate logistics, valuing the company at $1.3 billion.

TTTech Auto raised $285 million at a $1 billion valuation for its automated driving software.

Butterfly was valued at $1 billion after raising $125 million to provide employers with a digital benefits platform.

Dataiku is the only AI platform that connects data and doers, enabling anyone to transform data into real business results from the mundane to the moonshot. Because AI can do so much, but there's no soul in the machine, only in front of it. Without you, it's just data.

Learn more

Thanks for reading see you tomorrow!

Visit link:

Does your AI ethics team have real power? - Protocol

Artificial intelligence may just be the key to getting your employees to talk about their mental health.

Data has shown that 82% of individuals believe that robots can support their mental health needs better than another human, according to a study conducted by software company Oracle. In fact, of the 85% of employees that say their mental health issues at work negatively affect their home life, 68% would prefer to talk to a robot over their manager about stress and anxiety.

As more people have moved remote, organizations have begun to realize that they need to support employees and understand how well their support is working, says Jo Aggarwal, CEO of Wysa, an AI-driven behavioral health platform. And I think traditional forms of mental health support arent able to do that.

Read More: 4 ways to use technology to enhance the benefits experience

Globally, an estimated 264 million people suffer from depression, one of the leading causes of disability, with many of these people also suffering from symptoms of anxiety, according to the World Health Organization. Left unchecked, it can cost the economy $1 trillion per year in loss of productivity.

But while 70% of employees have felt more stress and anxiety at work this year than any other previous year, according to the Oracle report, not every employee is in need of traditional mental health options like therapy or psychiatric evaluations. In reality, over half of employees struggling with their mental health are in a language middle, which means they need more than a meditation app but less than medical intervention, says Aggarwal.

Which is where AI can come in.

Read More: Can AI help you save money on healthcare? This insurance company thinks so

We all want to feel heard, but we don't want to feel seen in that state, Aggarwal says. AI handles that really well because it's like interactive journaling it does give [employees] that [anonymous] validation and guide them towards the right therapeutic path.

AI can also simplify and streamline the search for the right treatment, and guide employees through the process. The technology can be used to find options, be it traditional mental health options, an EAP or telehealth, and then review it with the user to find the most personalized care for them.

At Wysa, the app provides an anonymous AI-driven chat that allows users to talk out their symptoms and their feelings while providing clinical validation which is the process of determining the severity of symptoms in order to tailor its treatment approach.

[With AI], employees can be engaged both in building habits on a day-to-day basis or being supported on days they're feeling nervous, while also integrating all the different things that the organization already has, Aggarwal says. It integrates everything and people finally have a pathway or the right people get the right support.

Read this article:

AI can help employees with their mental health - Employee Benefit News

ATLANTA

Codoxo, a trusted provider of healthcare artificial intelligence solutions for healthcare payers and agencies, announces the achievement of critical milestones and growth that showcases increasing momentum helping healthcare payers battle fraud, waste, abuse and payment integrity issues using the industrys most advanced healthcare AI platform. The company ended 2021 with a $20 million Series B round and substantial traction complemented by a strategic brand revitalization that underscores the companys commitment to reimagining cost containment to make healthcare more affordable and effective. Codoxos 2021 achievements include:

Revenue growth and Series B funding:Codoxo revenues more than doubled last year and the company ended 2021 with a $20 million Series B funding led by QED Investors and participation by Sands Capital among others.

Client growth and collaboration: Client go-lives increased by 60 percent in 2021 with deployments covering the gamut of Codoxos Healthcare Integrity Suite offerings, with 50 percent of Codoxos existing clients choosing to expand their work with the company. And Codoxos healthcare payer and agency customers are realizing swift, measurable benefits compared with others whove chosen to stick with conventional, reactive cost containment methods. For its customers, Codoxo has identified $500 million in savings and added customers that cover an additional 9 million lives in just a few short years.

Awards and recognition:Noted for its academic roots and forward-looking AI skills, Codoxo was named a Leading Contender in strength and industry prominence by Aite Group in the 2021 Aite Matrix: Payment Integrity in Healthcare report. Codoxo was also a finalist in the Fierce Healthcare Innovation Awards and named the Technology Association of Georgias 2021 Top 10 Most Innovative Companies list.

Technology and innovation: Since introducing its Healthcare Integrity Suite and Forensic AI Platform in December 2020, Codoxo has enhanced its solutions in addition to helping customers onboard and expand their use of the solutions, including notably the addition of Schemes 2.0 to the Fraud Scope solution. Schemes 2.0 compliments Fraud Scopes current Targets and Report detection capabilities, giving investigators more flexibility and function to identify providers for investigation and audit.

Key leadership hires: Since December 2020, Codoxo has more than doubled its full-time employee base and expects to do so again in 2022. Key executive hires include Rena Bielinski as VP of Customer Success, Rajesh Razdan as VP of Product Development, Stacia Whelan as Director of Marketing, and Saurav Subedi as Director of Data Science. These appointments, among others, are integral to Codoxos deep focus on client services and engagement as well as product and technology innovation to meet the growing demand for unified cost containment solutions.

Culture and community building:Codoxo met the challenge of building culture among employees during a predominately work-from-home environment by adopting best practices to encourage community and collaboration, such as team social hours, virtual games and networking. Codoxo is particularly proud to have built and nurtured a welcoming, entrepreneurial, and empowering culture including the expansion of team and employee benefits and perks.

Brand refresh: In October, Codoxo debuted a new look and feel highlighting its customer partnerships, AI innovation, and solutions and services that measurably improve healthcare payer and agency performance and reduce the cost of healthcare delivery. Inviting industry stakeholders to See Tomorrow, Today, Codoxos brand transformation encourages all healthcare decision-makers to embrace change to drive meaningful healthcare outcomes.

Codoxos impact on healthcare affordability and effectiveness is grounded in our disruptive AI technology and talented people who are dedicated to helping healthcare payers understand and adopt proven new methods, stated Musheer Ahmed, Codoxos Chief Executive Officer. Together with our customers, were creating a movement to demonstrate how innovative approaches can drive down healthcare costs in our case, by stopping rampant fraud, waste, and abuse in the U.S. healthcare system today.

To find out more about Codoxo, its Healthcare Integrity Suite of solutions and its Forensic AI Platform, please visit https://www.codoxo.com.

###

Codoxos mission is to make healthcare more affordable and effective for everyone and serves as the premier provider of artificial intelligence-driven solutions and services that help healthcare companies and agencies proactively detect and reduce risks from fraud, waste, and abuse. The Codoxo Healthcare Integrity Suite helps clients manage costs across network management, clinical care, provider coding and billing, payment integrity, and special investigation units. Our software-as-a-service applications are built on our proven Forensic AI Platform, which uses patented AI-based technology to identify problems and suspicious behavior far faster and earlier than traditional techniques. Our solutions are HIPAA- compliant and operate in a HITRUST-certified environment. For additional information, visit http://www.codoxo.com.

Follow this link:

Codoxo's AI Innovation and Resulting Growth Underscore Mission to Disrupt the Healthcare Cost Containment Industry - Healthcare Dive

Multifactor authentication (MFA) became mainstream in 2021. Google began pushing to make MFA its default for all users. The Biden administration even required all federal agencies and contractors to implement MFA in its Executive Order on Improving the Nation's Cybersecurity.

MFA adds in extra layers of verifying a user's identity so that attackers cannot compromise an account solely with credentials. It includes measures such as biometric access (e.g., fingerprints), personal information, and codes sent to a second device or account.

While MFA is necessary, it is ultimately only a perimeter defense. And no matter how tightly sealed the perimeter of a digital environment may be, attackers will still slip in. Mitigating these threats means accepting that breaches are inevitable and implementing cyber defense technologies that can detect and respond to threats once an intruder is already inside your system. In this article, we'll delve into a real-world attack scenario where attackers successfully evaded MFA but were spotted and stopped by our artificial intelligence (AI).

Breaking Into a Microsoft 365 AccountA member of the financial team at a company with over 10,000 Microsoft 365 users had their account hijacked despite the company having MFA security in place. The attacker successfully passed MFA by manipulating the user's details, modifying the registered phone number so the authentication text message was sent directly to them. The attacker used social engineering to achieve the initial phone number change in this instance, but a variety of methods exist to bypass MFA.

In this case, the security team was also relying on AI as another line of defense to detect and respond to attacks that made it past the perimeter.

After the initial intrusion, the AI detected a series of suspicious logins where the Microsoft 365 account was accessed from unusual locations in the US and Ghana. This was atypical for the specific organization and user, not based on global trends or abstract threat intelligence.

The AI then discovered the attacker changing email rules on the victim's account, as well as a number of shared inboxes, including one related to credit control. The attacker could have been undertaking several malicious activities, such as seeking sensitive data or learning the victim's writing style to craft compelling phishing emails to further targets. The intruder also deleted multiple emails in an apparent attempt to conceal their presence.

How AI Investigated the ThreatWhile this attack successfully managed to sidestep the other security tools in this organization's arsenal, it was still identified because the company was using AI to monitor Microsoft 365 for unusual behavior. By using machine learning to investigate, the AI technology connected the dots between these suspicious events to form a cohesive outline of an account takeover. The resulting incident summary report gave the security team the details they needed to take action. As a result, they were able to react before the threat actor could wreak major damage by exploiting critical shared mailboxes.

Intellectual property and sensitive financial information regarding the organization and its customers could have been accessed by the attacker had the threat progressed. This information could have set off a chain reaction that enabled future requests for fraudulent payments, potentially leading to costs exceeding tens of thousands of dollars.

Defending Inside and OutUsing preventive controls like MFA remains an important strategy for defending digital environments in-depth, but attackers will find their way around these hurdles and continue to innovate as target environments complexify and expand. The rapid adoption of software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms has made digital environments even more unwieldy.

Fortunately, the AI was able to understand the pattern of life for all users across the compromised organization's cyber ecosystem, identifying the subtle signs of threat behavior. Further, the enterprisewide application allowed the AI to operate throughout the entire digital environment, including covering attacks in the cloud and SaaS. By spotting and stopping the threat at its earliest stages, AI prevented the compromise from escalating into a crisis.

The rest is here:

When Multifactor Authentication Is Compromised: Fighting Back With AI - DARKReading

Recently, Fujitsu announced that it will be opening an AI ethics and governance office to address the growing concerns of AI and its use in everyday life. What challenges does AI present, what will Fujitsu do, and why is AI regulation potentially futile?

While practical AI systems have only been around for a decade, it is astonishing how far they have come. What used to be algorithms that could learn to recognise basic shapes can now collect terabytes of data, correlate different data sets that have no apparent relationship, and use predictive analysis to make decisions. For example, AI is quickly being used with sensors in industrial environments to try and predict when machinery requires repair before it breaks down. This allows production cycles to be better organised, prevent sudden breakdowns, and allow operators time to prepare.

But as with any other technology, AI also presents challenges that must be addressed before it becomes widespread; otherwise, it may be hard to draw lines that are not crossed if those lines already have been crossed.

One of the biggest challenges AI faces is its ability to make decisions autonomously. While a machine that can think for itself is great when used to predict machine failure, it is not so great when its choices affect the lives of individuals. For example, an AI could be created to automatically determine the cost of insurance services for individuals. Still, if this AI is allowed to take into account protected traits (such as race, gender, and orientation), it may be able to deploy stereotypes and unfairly characterise individuals. This matter is made worse when considering that such an AI system would not comprehend the impacts of its decision from a moral standing, and its inability to recognise that people have emotions means that its decisions would be fundamentally uncaring, cold, and logical.

Another challenge faced with AI is that its ability to think allows it to replace humans in many jobs, which could quickly give rise to massive unemployment. While many economics analysts repeatedly state that automation and AI will replace old jobs with new ones, they often lack understanding of the nature of automation and AI. If AI systems can be used to replace service sector jobs such as office, reception, and shop assistants, then there are virtually no alternative jobs available, and those jobs that are created will be for high-end engineers and robotics specialists.

AI also poses challenges concerning data privacy. For AI to improve itself (i.e., learn), it needs new data that it hasnt seen before, and such data is generated en masse by the public every day, whether through phone calls, social media, or browsing the internet. This data is extremely valuable, but it is also highly personal, and the use of this data must be done so with extreme care. If such data were to be leaked or hacked, it could potentially expose peoples conversations, search history, and preferences to the world, and such data can be used in an alarming number of ways, including blackmail.

Recently, Fujitsu announced that it will be opening a new office to address the rising concerns of AI, including its development and deployment. The new office is being headed by Junichi Arahori, and its primary goal will initially start by looking to secure the deployment of leading-edge AI technologies ethically and safely.

The ethics and practices that will be followed will be based on existing practices and legal frameworks that have already begun to be formed worldwide, including the EUs desire to introduce AI legislation that will ban its use in key applications. Taking action on AI ethics early makes it easier to prevent the misuse of AI in the future. Limiting AI applications now helps secure future designs that could require AI systems to be removed (that would come at large costs).

Until today, ethics in AI have been nothing more than a talking point, and just about anyone could integrate AI into any application without any repercussions or thought. The formation of the Fujitsu AI Ethics and Governance Office marks the start of serious AI ethics.

As much as we may want to regulate AI, a fundamental problem plagues AI development can never be ignored; if we dont do it, someone else will. Simply put, while the west introduces legislation to stop research and development into unethical AI, other nations (such as China) will use that to their advantage and develop vastly superior AI.

As this scenario is unacceptable for the west, there is no option left but to develop AI that is at least on par, which means the development of unethical AI systems. The general public would not like the idea of AI being developed with the sole purpose to identify targets via drones or AI that can predict future crimes and then use investigative powers to spy on individuals despite not actually having committed any crime.

Thus, we conclude that western governments will have to resort to developing such AI in secrete despite those very same governments outlining regulations that prevent the development and use of unethical AI. The secrete development of AI defeats the purpose of such legislation, and therefore we are left with the unsettling truth that we face one of two options; either accept that we cannot regulate AI and allow government resources to create potentially unethical AI, or create a society that outright rejects the use of AI and fight against nations that do use AI unethically in a scenario not too far from the plot of Terminator whereby nations that do use unethical AI are Skynet.

Excerpt from:

Fujitsu forms AI ethics and governance office to challenge the use of AI and ML - Electropages