Category Archives: Ai

LogMeIn, the company that provides authentication and other connectivity solutions for those who connect remotely to networks and services, has made another acquisition to expand the products it offers to customers, specifically in its new Bold360 CRM platform, launched in June. The company has picked up Nanorep, a startup out of Israel that develops chatbots and other AI-based tools to help people navigate self-service apps.

LogMeIn is paying $45 million plus up to $5 million more in earn-outs based on performance and employees staying put over the next two years.

Nanorep had raised just under $7 million from investors that included Titanium out of Russia (which had also backed Cloudyn, recently acquired by Microsoft), Oryzn Capital and OurCrowd.

The startup already had around 500 large customers, including big names like FedEx, ToysRUs and Vodafone. In essence, its platform helps anticipate what customers are trying to do when theyre on a website say in a technical support or search situation and reduces the number of steps needed to get there. It looks like all of Nanoreps existing business will continue as its tech also gets integrated into Bold360.

LogMeIns launch of Bold360 earlier this year was intended to help the company expand the range of services that it offered to customers, beyond authentication and IT management within an organisation, and into more cloud-based services where the business interfaces with its customers.

However, the CRM space is already very crowded, and so its no surprise to see that LogMeIn has made an acquisition to add more features to the service to help set it apart from the pack.

With Nanorep, its also tapping into the recent enthusiasm and interest in AI and building intelligent services that mimic human behaviours, specifically in CRM.

Artificial intelligence is changing the way we interact with our favorite brands and will play a critical role in the future of customer engagement, said Bill Wagner, CEO, LogMeIn, in a statement. With Nanorep, we gain proven technology and AI expertise that expands our Bold360 offering, accelerates our customer engagement vision and provides a natural path for us to leverage these emerging technologies across our entire portfolio. We believe in the ability of technology to unlock the potential of the modern workforce and with the addition of Nanorep we are going to be able to deliver solutions that will help our customers achieve the next generation of humanized and personalized customer service.

Although LogMeIn has acquired Nanobot to help raise its game in CRM, on another level this is also an important move just to keep up.

Gartner predicts that conversational agents which you can interpret as a more fancy way of saying chatbots will account for 30 percent of all customer service interactions by 2022, up from just three percent today.

There are many others that are also active in this same area, includingSalesforce with its Einstein AI, Gong, which provides real-time processing and teaching to live agents; and Hubspot, which just made an acquisition of its own, of Kemvi.

What Nanorep is tapping into that is interesting is the fact that the vast range of businesses in the world are not tech-centric, and so they will be less capable of building AI solutions like chatbots themselves, nor will they want to spend an arm and a leg to get them: like all software, AI is gradually moving into the realm of being off-the-shelf, and LogMeIn is hoping to be a part of that trend.

This is publicly traded LogMeIns seventh acquisition, and its first since acquiring password manager LastPass in 2015 for $110 million.

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LogMeIn acquires chatbot and AI startup Nanorep for up to $50M - TechCrunch

YouTube says new, tougher rules will be implemented against supremacist content. Photograph: Sergei Konkov/TASS

Google has pledged to continue developing advanced programs using machine learning to combat the rise of extremist content, after it found that it was both faster and more accurate than humans in scrubbing illicit content from YouTube.

The company is using machine learning along with human reviewers as part of a mutli-pronged approach to tackle the spread of extremist and controversial videos across YouTube, which also includes tougher standards for videos and the recruitment of more experts to flag content in need of review.

A month after announcing the changes, and following UK home secretary Amber Rudds repeated calls for US technology firms to do more to tackle the rise of extremist content, Googles YouTube has said that its machine learning systems have already made great leaps in tackling the problem.

A YouTube spokesperson said: While these tools arent perfect, and arent right for every setting, in many cases our systems have proven more accurate than humans at flagging videos that need to be removed.

Our initial use of machine learning has more than doubled both the number of videos weve removed for violent extremism, as well as the rate at which weve taken this kind of content down. Over 75% of the videos weve removed for violent extremism over the past month were taken down before receiving a single human flag.

One of the problems YouTube has in policing its site for illicit content is that users upload 400 hours of content every minute, making filtering out extremist content in real time an enormous challenge that only an algorithmic approach is likely to manage, the company says.

YouTube also said that it had begun working with 15 more NGOs and institutions, including the Anti-Defamation League, the No Hate Speech Movement, and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue in an effort to improve the systems understanding of issues around hate speech, radicalisation and terrorism to better deal with objectionable content.

Google will begin enforcing tougher standards on videos that could be deemed objectionable, but are not illegal, in the coming weeks. The company said that YouTube videos flagged as inappropriate that contain controversial religious or supremacist content, but that do not breach the companys policies on hate speech or violent extremism will be placed in a limited state.

A YouTube spokesperson said: The videos will remain on YouTube behind an interstitial, wont be recommended, wont be monetised, and wont have key features including comments, suggested videos, and likes.

YouTube has also begun redirecting searches with certain keywords to playlists of curated videos that confront and debunk violent extremist messages, as parts of its effort to help prevent radicalisation.

Google plans to continue developing the machine learning technology and to collaborate with other technology companies to tackle online extremism.

YouTube is the worlds largest video hosting service and is one of the places extremist and objectionable content ends up, even if it originates and is removed from other services, including Facebook, making it a key battleground.

Big-name brands, including GSK, Pepsi, Walmart, Johnson & Johnson, the UK government and the Guardian pulled millions of pounds of advertising from YouTube and other social media properties after it was found their ads were placed next to extremist content.

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Google says AI better than humans at scrubbing extremist YouTube ... - The Guardian

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Better drugs, faster: The potential of AI-powered humans BBC News Scientists working in tandem with artificial intelligence (AI) could slash the time it takes to develop new drugs - and, crucially, the cost - say tech companies. Developing pharmaceutical drugs is a very expensive and time-consuming business. and more »

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Better drugs, faster: The potential of AI-powered humans - BBC News

The retail industry has been gradually ramping up its use of artificial intelligence and voice-activation skills, there are still some holdouts due the lack of human-ness that nuanced and complex customer service tends to demand, a study cited by eMarketer shows.

Pointing to a survey of retailers by AI platform Linc and Brand Garage from May, eMarketer notes that over a third (34.1 percent) of US retail executives claim to be piloting AI programs.

The main use cases involve assisting human sales and customer service reps in dealing with shoppers problems or through quick conversations via chatbots.

As companys like Facebook continue to explore the use the AI and chatbots, retailers and other brick-and-mortar brands, along with their customers, will be experiencing more contact with AI whether theyre ready or not.

This week, Facebook acquired AI developer Ozlo to support its Messenger platform. Ozlo is primarily focused on building messenger bots that allows AI systems to respond to text-based take-out orders, connect consumers with ride-hailing services, among many other things.

Facebook has been building out its own intelligent agent, dubbed M, for over a year. By incorporating deeper machine learning techniques to better understand consumers and recommend a food order or ride service, the social network may help address one of the pain points that retailers say continues to hold them back from fully adopting AI programs.

At the moment, just 7.7 percent of retailers surveyed by Linc and Brand Garage have an existing, ongoing role for AI in their customer service programs.

For the ones who have not created a program for voice-activated assistants or chatbots, over a third (36.2 percent) say the technology isnt sophisticated enough to do what they need. Many retailers say they dont have the technical resources to support an AI initiative. Still others remain dubious that the technologies are ready to reach the mainstream at this early point.

On top of that, a perceptible minority 8.7 percent contend that implementing machine-based conversations would repel some consumers because of the sense that the direct connection with consumers would be eroded.

If someone wants a human, they will obviously be disappointed by an AI bot/assistant, says eMarketer principal analyst Victoria Petrock. However, as the systems learn customers preferences and become more sophisticated at predicting their wants and needs, AI bots might actually deliver up a more precise and personalized experience. They also may free up the employees to do higher-level work.

Erik Lautier, EVP of e-commerce/CMO at Francescas, a US-based womens clothing and accessories boutique with hundreds of locations, is one retail executive that has been bullish on AI.

Were currently experimenting with two things: first, our chatbot on Facebook Messenger shows our customers weather-based outfitting recommendations, closest boutique locations, etc.; second, our customers can receive shipping updates via Facebook Messenger or SMS, Lautier said in the Linc/Brand Garage survey.

While ROI is a challenge to measure near-term, as we enhance our capabilities in CRM, I expect well develop an understanding of how segments that interact with AI perform relative to others, Lautier added. We also havent approached our testing with an ROI first mentality. Weve developed these things because we felt a certain customer segment would find genuine value in it, and we expect that segment to grow in the months to come.

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Why A Third Of Retailers Continue To Shun AI And Voice-Activation - GeoMarketing (blog)

Panasonic came up with five different levels of potential drowsiness: not drowsy at all, slightly drowsy, drowsy, very drowsy and seriously drowsy (their terms). The system aims to figure out exactly where you are on that scale and take the appropriate measures.

To do so, the camera uses AI facial recognition to detect eyeblinks and expressions. If your eyelids droop and the speed of your blinks slow down drastically, for instance, you're likely on a level five journey to sleepyville. All told, it can detect around 1,800 facial expressions and blink parameters related to drowsiness.

The infrared sensor, meanwhile, can tell how fast you're losing heat regardless of how much clothing you're wearing. If heat loss levels are higher, generally a driver will become drowsy more quickly. Furthermore, if it's dark rather than light, you'll also tend to get sleepy over a shorter period of time.

To counter that, the system adjusts lighting, airflow and temperature based on how drowsy it thinks you are. The system doesn't want to freeze you out, though, so, Panasonic worked with Nara Women's University to calculate your "thermal sensation," the ideal level of airflow, light and warmth needed to keep you "comfortably awake," Panasonic says.

Unlike other systems, it works silently in the background so that drivers don't even notice they're being monitored. Rather, you'll (hopefully) just feel generally more awake during the trip, unless you try to pull off a 20-hour all-night trip. In that case, it'll rightfully tell you to pull the hell over so you don't endanger yourself and others. Panasonic plans to make their system available to automakers by October, and it might come to your favorite car model sometime after that.

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Panasonic AI senses drowsy drivers and cranks up the AC - Engadget

Days after Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that artificial intelligence (AI) was the biggest risk, Facebook has shut down one of its AI systems after chatbots started speaking in their own language defying the codes provided.

According to a report in Tech Times on Sunday, the social media giant had to pull the plug on the AI system that its researchers were working on because things got out of hand.

The AI did not start shutting down computers worldwide or something of the sort, but it stopped using English and started using a language that it created, the report noted.

Initially the AI agents used English to converse with each other but they later created a new language that only AI systems could understand, thus, defying their purpose.

This led Facebook researchers to shut down the AI systems and then force them to speak to each other only in English.

In June, researchers from the Facebook AI Research Lab (FAIR) found that while they were busy trying to improve chatbots, the dialogue agents were creating their own language.

Soon, the bots began to deviate from the scripted norms and started communicating in an entirely new language which they created without human input, media reports said.

Using machine learning algorithms, the dialogue agents were left to converse freely in an attempt to strengthen their conversational skills.

The researchers also found these bots to be incredibly crafty negotiators.

After learning to negotiate, the bots relied on machine learning and advanced strategies in an attempt to improve the outcome of these negotiations, the report said.

Over time, the bots became quite skilled at it and even began feigning interest in one item in order to sacrifice it at a later stage in the negotiation as a faux compromise, it added.

Although this appears to be a huge leap for AI, several experts including Professor Stephen Hawking have raised fears that humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, could be superseded by AI.

Others like Teslas Elon Musk, philanthropist Bill Gates and ex-Apple founder Steve Wozniak have also expressed their concerns about where the AI technology was heading.

Interestingly, this incident took place just days after a verbal spat between Facebook CEO and Musk who exchanged harsh words over a debate on the future of AI.

Ive talked to Mark about this (AI). His understanding of the subject is limited, Musk tweeted last week.

The tweet came after Zuckerberg, during a Facebook livestream earlier this month, castigated Musk for arguing that care and regulation was needed to safeguard the future if AI becomes mainstream.

I think people who are naysayers and try to drum up these doomsday scenarios -- I just, I dont understand it. Its really negative and in some ways I actually think it is pretty irresponsible, Zuckerberg said.

Musk has been speaking frequently on AI and has called its progress the biggest risk we face as a civilisation.

AI is a rare case where we need to be proactive in regulation instead of reactive because if were reactive in AI regulation its too late, he said.

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Facebook shuts AI system after bots speak their own language, defy human instructions - Hindustan Times

Facebook has shut down a number of its AI systems after they developed their own language in order to communicate more efficiently. Its no secret that Facebook is investing heavily into AI, with one of its goals being to create AI that can successfully communicate with people using English. It appears that one of the companys latest attempts didnt exactly go according to plan, with a set of chatbots developing their own communications system that humans couldnt understand.

The AI chatbots were initially provided with rewards for communicating with each other. When it came to solely communicating in English, though, no rewards were set out, which led to the chatbots gradually creating their own language. The new language was still based on English, though it was constructed in a manner that was no longer understandable to humans. The reasoning behind this development is relatively straightforward; over time, the chatbots started developing codewords or phrases that only they understood so that their communication could be conducted in a more efficient, quicker manner. However, it appears that the project went too far and Facebook has now shut down the AI system. These werent the only results of the project; the chatbots also learned to negotiate and even began showing interest in certain items in order to improve the outcome of a larger deal later on, the company said.

Facebooks latest projectshows potential in the context of general advancements in machine learning, but all of this could come at a cost. Artificial intelligence is still a relatively new technology, but considering how an AI-powered system can develop a language so early on, the possibilities of what it could eventually be capable of are a worry for some experts in the industry. Many fear that AI could eventually turn against humans and therefore have unforeseen consequences. There are certainly a number of risks when it comes to the technology, though some do argue that all technology has its drawbacks. What remains to be seen for now is how developers manage other similar obstacles in order to safely evolve the technology and whether governments all over the world start regulating AI in a stricter manner.

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Facebook Discontinues AI Bots That Developed A New Language - Android Headlines

This week,Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) stepped further into the artificial intelligence (AI) market when the company said that its next version of its augmented reality glasses, called Hololens, will come with an AI coprocessor.

It might not seem like that big of a deal at face value. After all, the first version of Hololens isn't exactly an integral part of the company's business -- it's only available to developers right now -- but the announcement is more of a bet on Microsoft's potential in the broader AI market. Simply put, Alphabet's (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) already have, or are working on, their own AI chips and Microsoft can't afford to be left behind.

Image source: Getty Images.

Microsoft's new AI chip is focused on processing images and understanding text. Those are two very important aspects for an AI system because, just like for people, images and speech provide lots of contextual information.

The company's AI processor will work alongside Microsoft's Holographic Processing Unit (HPU) and will help process information on the device faster, and with less battery drain, than off-loading it to cloud-based servers.

Aside from these benefits for Hololens, the AI coprocessor helps Microsoft keep pace with Google. Last year, Google introduced its own AI chip, the Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), which it uses mainly for its own cloud servers. But the company recently announced at its I/O conference that its second version of its AI chip will be available for companies and developers to tap into as well so they can both run deep neural networks and train them as well.

Google's chips are made for devices like Microsoft's AI chip is, but the fact that Google has already developed the second version of its own AI chip was likely an incentive for Microsoft to pursue its own.

Even more similar to Microsoft's new Hololens AI chip is Apple's rumored AI coprocessor. The company is allegedly working on an AI processor called the Apple Neural Engine, which will be used for facial and speech recognition. It would likely use the AI chip in its iPhone and iPad, though it could bring it to its other devices as well. It also introduced a new tool for developers called Core ML, which allows them to add machine learning to apps. Some took that as a sign that an Apple AI chip is just around the corner.

The broad artificial intelligence market is expected to be worth $47 billion by 2020. Already, Microsoft and Google are competing in the cloud computing space and pursuing new kinds of AI processors that could give them an advantage in this market. Microsoft's latest coprocessor may not help its servers, but it underscores its commitment to keeping pace with its competitors.Additionally, Microsoft could eventually use an AI coprocessor in its own line of tablets in order to better compete with Apple's devices.

Don't expect any revenue from a Microsoft AI chip or for it to drive sales of Hololens. Investors should instead think of it as yet another way Microsoft is beefing up its long-term AI prospects and ensuring that it doesn't get left in the wake of Google's and Apple's own chips.

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Teresa Kersten is an employee of LinkedIn and is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft. Chris Neiger has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), and Apple. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Here's Why Microsoft Is Making Its Own AI Chip for Hololens - Motley Fool

The World Economic Forum is already claiming Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the fourth industrial revolution and many experts believe the impact of AI will be bigger than electricity.

Considering this, businesses should be rushing to get in on the action, or at least be figuring out ways they can mitigate loss. However, technology expert, Dale Beaumont, says major companies in Australia have been slow to realise the impact of Artificial Intelligence.

A survey from earlier this year found Australian companies to be the worst-prepared for the arrival of AI among other major economies, regardless of spending the second highest amount of money on automation (behind only the US).

According to Beaumont, if Australian businesses dont act soon, banks, insurance companies and even supermarkets are at serious risk of being disrupted by AI-first competitors.

When it comes to AI, in America the horses have already bolted. Every major company is hiring AI talent, buying start-ups or documenting their strategic plan. And all companies adopting AI are experiencing benefits.

According to research by the ABI, the number of businesses adopting AI technologies worldwide will grow from 7,000 in 2017 to almost 900,000 in 2022. But Australian companies arent even in the blocks, theyre still figuring out if they want to use a saddle, says Beaumont.

He goes on to say that the point companies dont get is, AI takes time. Its a three-year investment. So by the time they see mainly US and European competitors stealing market share, its already too late.

Not only does Australia rank last in terms of the skills required for AI adoption and plans to integrate, but the survey also found that Australian leaders are the most likely to be planning to make employees redundant instead of reassigning them when their role is made redundant by AI.

This is concerning, considering that 40% of Australian jobs are forecasted to be automated by 2025.

Dale Beaumont says it was 2014 when he first realised the benefits of AI in his business. By that point, he was already running a multimillion dollar business training company. However, after conducting a feasibility study on global expansion, he realised boots on the ground was not the most profitable path.

This led Dale to hire a team of developers across three continents and in 2015 they began building the worlds first AI-powered business advisor. The App is capable of providing tailored education and human-like support to any entrepreneur on the planet.

Now available globally via an App named BRiN, early results have been impressive with over 38,000 entrepreneurs from around the world now signing up for the free service. In terms of business models Beaumont reveals their goal is to get 100,000 users within the next 12-months, which will help them to train their algorithm. Then after that theyll begin introducing paid subscription plans.

To access BRiN and check out its AI-powered business advisor, go to http://BRiN.ai.

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Corporate Australia Is The Worst-Prepared For The Arrival of AI - HuffPost

Researches at Facebook shut down an artificial intelligence (AI) program after it created its own language, Digital Journal reports.

The system developed code words to make communication more efficient and researchers took it offline when they realized it was no longer using English.

The incident, after it wasrevealed in early July, puts in perspective Elon Muskswarnings about AI.

AI is the rare case where I think we need to be proactive in regulation instead of reactive, Musk said at the meet of US National Governors Association. Because I think by the time we are reactive in AI regulation, itll be too late.

When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that Musks warnings are pretty irresponsible, Musk responded that Zuckerbergs understanding of the subject is limited.

The researchers encounter with the mysterious AI behavior is similar to a number of cases documented elsewhere. In every case, the AI diverged from its training in English to develop a new language.

The phrases in the new language make no sense to people, but contain useful meaning when interpreted by AI bots.

Facebooks advanced AI system was capable of negotiating with other AI systems so it can come to conclusions on how to proceed with its task. The phrases make no sense on the surface, but actually represent the intended task.

In one exchange revealed by Facebook to Fast Co. Design, two negotiating botsBob and Alicestarted using their own language to complete aconversation.

I can i i everything else, Bob said.

Balls have zero to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to, Alice responded.

The rest of the exchange formed variations of these sentences in the newly-forged dialect, even though the AIs were programmed to use English.

According the researchers, these nonsense phrases are a language the bots developed to communicate how many items each should get in the exchange.

When Bob later says i i can i i i everything else, it appears the artificially intelligent bot used its new language to make an offer to Alice.

The Facebook team believes the bot may have been saying something like: Ill have three and you have everything else.

Although the English may seem quite efficient tohumans, the AI may have seen the sentence as either redundant or less effective for reaching its assigned goal.

The Facebook AI apparentlydeterminedthat the word-rich expressions in English were not required to complete its task. The AI operated on a reward principle and in this instance there was no reward for continuing to use the language. So it developed its own.

In a June blog post by Facebooks AI team, it explained the reward system.At the end of every dialog, the agent is given a reward based on the deal it agreed on. That reward was then back-propagated through every word in the botoutputso it could learn whichactions lead to high rewards.

Agents will drift off from understandable language and invent code-words for themselves, Facebook AI researcher Dhruv Batra told Fast Co. Design.

Like if I say the five times, you interpret that to mean I want five copies of this item. This isnt so different from the way communities of humans create shorthands.

AI developers at other companies have also observed programs develop languages to simplify communication. At Elon Musks OpenAI lab, an experiment succeeded in having AI bots develop their own languages.

At Google, the team working on the Translate service discovered that the AI they programmed had silently written its own language to aid in translating sentences.

The Translate developers had added a neural network to the system, making it capable of translating between language pairs it had never been taught. The new language the AI silently wrote was a surprise.

There is not enough evidence to claim that these unforeseen AI divergences are a threat or that they could lead to machines taking over operators. They do make development more difficult, however, because people are unable to grasp the overwhelmingly logical nature of the new languages.

In Googles case, for example, the AI had developed a language that no human could grasp, but was potentially the most efficient known solution to the problem.

From NTD.tv

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Facebook Shut Down AI After It Invented Its Own Language - The Epoch Times