Category Archives: Ai

Researchers have developed a new tool, powered by artificial intelligence, that can create realistic-looking videos of speech from any audio clip, and they've demoed the tech by synthesising four artificial videos of Barack Obama saying the same lines.

The tool isn't intended to create a flurry of fake news and put false words in people's mouths though it's designed partly as a way to eventually spot forgeries and videos that aren't all they appear to be.

According to the team from the University of Washington, as long as there's an audio source to use, the video can include realistic mouth shapes that are almost perfectly aligned to the words being spoken. Those synthesised shapes can then be grafted onto an existing video of someone talking.

"These type of results have never been shown before," says one of the researchers, Ira Kemelmacher-Shlizerman. "Realistic audio-to-video conversion has practical applications like improving video conferencing for meetings, as well as futuristic ones such as being able to hold a conversation with a historical figure in virtual reality."

"This is the kind of breakthrough that will help enable those next steps."

The video synthesising stages. Credit: University of Washington

There are two parts to the system: first a neural network is trained to watch large volumes of videos to recognise which audio sounds match with which mouth shapes. Then the results are mixed with moving images of a specific person, based on previous research into digital modelling carried out at UW.

The tool is impressively good, as you can see from the demo clips (below), but it needs source audio and video files to work from, and can't generate speeches from thin air. In the future, the researchers say, the AI system could be trained using video from messaging apps, and then used to enhance their quality.

"When you watch Skype or Google Hangouts, often the connection is stuttery and low-resolution and really unpleasant, but often the audio is pretty good," says one of the team, Steve Seitz. "So if you could use the audio to produce much higher-quality video, that would be terrific."

When it comes to spotting fake video, the algorithm used here could be reversed to detect clips that have been doctored, according to the researchers.

You can see the tool in action below:

As you might know from video games and animated movies, scientists are working hard to solve the "uncanny valley" problem, where computer-generated video of someone talking looks almost right but still somehow off-putting.

In this case the AI system does all the heavy lifting when it comes to working out mouth shape, chin position, and the other elements needed to make a clip of someone talking look realistic.

Artificial intelligence excels at machine learning problems like this, where masses of data can be analysed to teach computer systems to do something whether that's recognising dogs in an image search or producing natural-looking video.

"There are millions of hours of video that already exist from interviews, video chats, movies, television programs and other sources," says lead researcher Supasorn Suwajanakorn. "And these deep learning algorithms are very data hungry, so it's a good match to do it this way."

It's another slightly scary step forward in the quality of digital fakery, similar to Adobe's Project VoCo, which we saw last year another AI system that can produce new speech out of thin air after studying just 20 minutes of someone talking.

However, this particular neural network has been designed to work with just one individual at a time using authentic audio clips, so you can still trust the footage you see on the news for a while yet.

"We very consciously decided against going down the path of putting other people's words into someone's mouth," says Seitz. "We're simply taking real words that someone spoke and turning them into realistic video of that individual."

The research is being presented at the SIGGRAPH 2017 computer graphics conference and you can read the paper here.

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Scarily Realistic AI Video Software Puts Words in Obama's Mouth - ScienceAlert

An aspect of artificial intelligence thats sometimes overlooked is just how good it is at creating fake audio and video thats difficult to distinguish from reality. The advent of Photoshop got us doubting our eyes, but what happens when we cant rely on our other senses?

The latest example of AIs audiovisual magic comes from the University of Washington, where researchers have created a new tool that takes audio files, converts them into realistic mouth movements, and then grafts those movements onto existing video. The end-result is a video of someone saying something they didnt. (Not at the time, anyway.) Its a confusing process to understand by just reading about it, so take a look at the video below:

You can see two side-by-side clips of Barack Obama. The one on the left is the source for the audio, and the one on the right is from a completely different speech, with the researchers algorithms use to graft new mouth shapes onto the footage. The resulting video isnt perfect (Obamas mouth movements are a little blurry a common problem with AI-generated imagery) but overall its pretty convincing.

The researchers said they used Obama as a test subject for this work because high-quality video footage of the former president is plentiful, which makes training the neural networks easier. Seventeen hours of footage were needed as data to track and replicate his mouth movements, researcher Ira Kemelmacher told The Verge over email, but in future this training constraint could be reduced to just an hour.

The researchers say their tech could be used to improve Skype calls

The team behind the work say they hope it could be used to improve video chat tools like Skype. Users could collect footage of themselves speaking, use to train the software, and then when they need to talk to someone, video on their side would be generated automatically using just their voice. This would help in situations where someones internet connection is shaky, or if theyre trying to save mobile data.

Of course, theres also the worry that tools like this can and will be used to generate misleading video footage the sort of stuff that would give some real heft to the term fake news. Combine a tool like this with technology that can recreate anyones voice using just a few minutes of sample audio and youd be forgiven for thinking there are scary times ahead. Similar research has been able to change someones facial expression in real-time; create 3D models of faces from a few photographs; and more.

The team from the University of Washington is understandably keen to distance themselves from these sorts of uses, and make it clear they only trained their neural nets on Obamas voice and video. (You cant just take anyones voice and turn it into an Obama video, said professor Steve Seitz in a press release. We very consciously decided against going down the path of putting other peoples words into someones mouth.) But in theory, this tech could be used to map anyones voice onto anyones face, will everyone be so scrupulous if the technology becomes widespread?

You can check a more detailed video of the neural nets in action below:

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New AI research makes it easier to create fake footage of someone speaking - The Verge

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AI and 'Enormous Data' Could Make Tech Giants Harder to Topple - WIRED

Photograph by Mehau Kulyk/SPL Getty Images/Science Photo Library RF

Microsoft has created a unit within its broader artificial intelligence and research organization that will take on tough AI challenges, like how to use different AI technologies, to make software smarter.

The subset organization, called Microsoft Research AI, was announced in London on Wednesday by Microsoft executive vice president Harry Shum. It will employ about 100 researchers and be based at Microsoft's Redmond, Wash. headquarters.

The new unit is roughly analogous to Google's DeepMind AI research organization.

Broadly speaking, AI comprises several technologies meant to endow software with human-like intelligence. Computers that recognize speech and images are manifestations of AI. Thus when you ask Amazon Alexa to order a pizza, or ask Apple ( aapl ) Siri, or Google Assistant, about a fun fact, you are tapping the fruits of extensive AI research.

Tech companies see gold in AI which is why IBM ( ibm ) , Google ( googl ) , Salesforce ( crm ) and others slather their marketing materials with references to AI when applicable. And even when not.

Related; Microsoft Loses Key Exec But Gains New AI Unit

If there is any doubt that AI is a hotbed of activity, the number of press releases generated claiming some link to it is a good measure. Other than this Microsoft news, this week IBM announced a new service based on its Watson AI technology running on IBM ( ibm ) cloud infrastructure. Its job: to automate the management of customer computer networks.

On Tuesday, business software maker Infor announced Coleman, its brand for the new AI underpinnings to its business applications. The name refers to pioneering NASA engineer Katherine Johnson Colemanplayed by Tarji P. Henson in the movie Hidden Figures . Coleman is Infor's version of Einstein , the brand Infor rival Salesforce slapped on its AI technologies last year.

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On Wednesday, travel services company Sabre ( sabr ) launched a text-activated chat bot , built with Microsoft AI technologies. If you've used a customer service chat app on a web site, you have likely interacted with a chatbot, which is supposed to answer questions so human customer service agents don't have to.

Two Sabre-affiliated travel agencies are testing the new chatbot to see if it can give their clients an easy way to deal with the logistics of their trips. If the chatbot can handle frequently asked questions, travel agents can, theoretically, focus on more important, things.

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Microsoft Debuts AI Unit to Take on Tricky Questions - Fortune

Barron's

IBM's Watson, Despite Hype, Outgunned in AI, Says Jefferies Barron's Despite increasing mention by IBM over the years of its Watson artificial intelligence system, Jefferies's James Kisner argues the technology is too expensive to compete with the offerings of Amazon and others, and unlikely to ever pay off financially ... and more »

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IBM's Watson, Despite Hype, Outgunned in AI, Says Jefferies - Barron's

The new Seeing AI app from Microsoft narrates the world for the visually impaired. (Microsoft Photos, via App Store)

Microsoft released a new artificial intelligence app for iPhone this morning that can read text from signs and documents aloud, describe people and their emotions, identify currency values, and narrate the activity taking place in front of the user, among other futuristic features.

The app, called Seeing AI, is designed for the visually impaired but also serves as a showcase for Microsofts artificial intelligence capabilities. The initial release on iPhone continues Microsofts approach, under CEO Satya Nadella, of working with a variety of platforms beyond its own Windows operating system.

Seeing AI was first previewed at a Microsoft conference last year, but wasnt available publicly until now.

The news was part of an event this morning in London where the company made a series of AI announcements, including a new AI research and incubation hub inside Microsoft Research, a new Ethical Design Guide for AI andan initiative called AI for Earth to encourage the use of artificial intelligence for environmental solutions.

Microsoft is competing against a variety of tech companies seeking to make a mark in artificial intelligence, including Amazon, Google, Facebook, Salesforce and others. The company last year formed a new 5,000-person engineering and research team, called the Microsoft AI and Research Group, led by veteran technology exec Harry Shum, to further its AI initiatives.

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Microsoft's new AI app describes the world for the visually impaired now available on iPhone - GeekWire

Some more M&A news in the world of artificial intelligence. Today it was made public that Google has acquired Halli Labs, a very young (its first public appearance was on May 22 of this year) startup based out of Bengaluru, India, that was focused on building deep learning and machine learning systems to address what it describes as old problems.

The company says it will be joining Googles Next Billion Users team to help get more technology and information into more peoples hands around the world.

Halli announced the news itself earlier today in a short post on Medium, and Caesar Sengupta, a product management VP at Google, also confirmed the acquisition with a Tweet.

Google has now also confirmed the acquisition with a short statement it provided to TechCrunch.

We are excited that the Halli Labs team is joining Google, said spokesperson Taj Meadows. Theyll be joining our team that is focused on building products that are designed for the next billion users coming online, particularly in India.

Its not clear whether or not Halli Labs (Halli means village in Kannada, the company notes) was funded. The companys founder, Pankaj Gupta, is a data scientist with an interesting history that includes running recommendation and personalization at Twitter, and a role as CTO at now-defunct Indian Airbnb rival Stayzilla, among other entrepreneurial ventures.

Its also not clear how many more people were working at Halli Labs. Were trying to find that out too.

The acquisition is significant for a couple of reasons.

One is that it shows the ongoing interest by the largest tech companies in the world to double down on AI and its many facets, from software through to hardware, and pure research through to practical applications.

Google has been one of the leaders in this field, with extensive programs in house augmented by acquisitions and other efforts. It hassnapped up companies like DeepMind in the UK and hasforgedstrong programs with educational institutions to tap into talent early.

(Notably, Googles parent company Alphabet has also offloaded some assets, such as its Boston Dynamics unit, which seems to imply that it is shifting away from AI-based hardware into more AI-based applications around software.)

The other trend here is that we are continuing to see a significant amount of consolidation in the field of AI.

A huge number of startups have been founded breaking new ground in deep learning, neural networks, computer vision, natural language processing, robotics, and more. While some of these will grow longer term as independent entities Element.ai, as one example, is banking on the idea of staying independent as a counter lever to the big tech giants the very biggest tech players are also serving as magnets bringing some of the smaller players and their talent together.

Companies besides Google and its parent company Alphabet that are acquiring AI expertise through acquisitions include Baidu, Samsung, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and Snap, among many others.

Its notable to me, too, that Halli came out of India (with a Silicon Valley pedigree, but still based in India). Along with Samsung making its first acquisition out of Greece this week, you can see how the race for talent is seeing companies cast their nets far and wide beyond the valley; and also how talent doesnt have to be located within spitting distance of US 101 to get noticed.

Updated with comment from Google.

Excerpt from:

Google acquires India's Halli Labs, which was building AI tools to fix 'old problems' - TechCrunch

IBM is launching a new machine learning-centric product for enterprises today: the IBM Services Platform. This new service aims to help businesses manage their IT infrastructure and make better data-driven decisions to keep that infrastructure running smoothly.

Because there cant be a machine learning service from IBM that doesnt invoke the Watson brand, the services full name is IBM Services Platform with Watson.

The overall idea here is to take all of the data that enterprises gather from their networks and operations and to use it to predict and prevent potential problems. In the best case scenario, the platform will be able to prevent issues by taking action ahead of time, but it can also autonomously fix issues if its too late to stop them from escalating.

As IBM stresses, though, the focus here is on pairing human and machine not necessarily on completely removing IT from the operations. In addition to its autonomous features, the service also provides IT staff with information about the state of their networks and tools to help them make their own data-driven decisions, too.

As a company spokesperson told me, the service can run client workloads on premises and in the cloud. Existing services can be integrated into the platform so that their data becomes available to the Services Platform for analysis. Thanks to this, users can continue to run their workloads on their preferred clouds.

The platform supports the entire managed services life-cycle, from designing to building, integrating and running services, with autonomic operations and augmented subject matter expertise, IBM explains in todays announcement. The company also notes that its service can look at unstructured data from emails and chats to gather insights about issues.

All of this sounds a bit abstract and IBMs announcement is a bit short on details, but there can be little doubt that IT infrastructure automation which is essentially what this new service provides will be a fast-growing market. And it makes sense to look to cognitive services like this to manage the increasingly complex IT infrastructure that is now at the heart of virtually every major enterprise.

As far as how this service is structured in practice, IBM says that it uses the IBM Data Lake to gather all of this data, with a dashboard for its users on top of that. This dashboard gives IT real-time access and visibility into the companys IT environment and keep tabs on the autonomous services that will aim to keep everything running.

On the startup side, services like Heili and others also offer AI-driven cloud infrastructure management services that use machine learning to keep a watchful eye over a companys infrastructure. Sunview and others offer similar capabilities.

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IBM's new Services Platform uses AI to help businesses manage their IT operations - TechCrunch

BBC News

Microsoft's pitch to be an AI winner - BBC News - BBC.com BBC News Microsoft wants to be seen as a strong contender in the race to develop artificial intelligence. Microsoft Research forms new AI unit - Business InsiderMarkets Insider Microsoft launches AI for Earth to give $2M in services to environmental projectsTechCrunch Microsoft Creates New AI Lab to Take on Google's DeepMind ...Bloomberg Windows Central -Neowin all 13 news articles »

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Microsoft's pitch to be an AI winner - BBC News - BBC.com - BBC News

AI beat us at chess, and now they're looking to defeat us in soccer too.

Look out, Messi. After Google's AlphaGo artificial intelligence bested our best Go player, South Korea is now setting its sights on making AI that can play soccer.

Hosted by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST), the AI World Cup will see university students across South Korea developing AI programs to compete in a series of online games, reportedThe Korea Times. The prelims will begin in November.

"The football matches will be conducted in a five on five tournament," a KAIST spokesperson told the publication on Tuesday. "Each of the five AI-programmed players in such positions as striker, defender and goalkeeper will compete with their counterparts."

That's not all though, as competing students will also build AI experts that can provide post-game analysis.

It's not the first time researchers are putting their tech developments to the test using soccer. The first Robot World Cup soccer games (or RoboCup), an annual international robotics competition that aims to advance robotics and AI research, put competitive soccer-playing robots in the field a decade ago. But soccer isn't the only thing that tech can do -- in the same year, IBM's computer, Deep Blue, defeated Garry Kasparov in a game of chess.

While the competition is only limited to university students in South Korea this time, it will be opened to international teams "in the first half of 2018," Kim Jong-hwan, president of the AI World Cup committee said in the statement.

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After Go, developers are now building AI to beat us at soccer - CNET