Category Archives: Ai

Healthcare inequalities are systemic and closely intertwined with social inequalities. In the US, black men and women can be expected to live a decade less than their white counterparts, and are also much more likely to die from heart disease, various types of cancer, and stroke. Rates of diabetes in Hispanic Americans are around 30% higher than in whites. Gay, lesbian, and bisexual adults are twice as likely to suffer with mental-health problems. Access to and quality of healthcare is similarly dismal when it comes to diversity, starkly cutting across racial, social, and economic divides.

If developed and used sensitively, artificial intelligence systems could go a long way to mitigating these inequalities by removing human bias. A careless approach, however, could make the situation worse.

AI has the potential to revolutionize healthcare, ushering in an age of personalized, accessible, and lower-cost medicine for all. But theres also a very real risk that those same technologies will perpetuate existing healthcare inequalities. A large part of this risk comes from existing biases in healthcare data.

AIs transformative potential comes from its ability to interrogate, parse, and analyze vast amounts of data. From this information, AI systems can find patterns and links that would have previously required great levels of expertise or time from human doctors. For this reason, AI is particularly useful in diagnostics, creating personalized treatment plans, and even helping doctors keep up to date with the latest medical research.

If we want to use AI to facilitate a more personalized medicine for all, it would help if we could first provide medicine that works for half the population.But this use of data risks exacerbating existing inequalities. Data coming from randomized control trials are often riddled with bias. The highly selective nature of trials systemically disfavor women, the elderly, and those with additional medical conditions to the ones being studied; pregnant women are often excluded entirely. AIs are trained to make decisions using this skewed data, and their results will therefore favor the biases contained within. This is especially concerning when it comes to medical data, which weighs heavily in the favor of white men.

The consequences of this oversight are pernicious. Women are far more likely to suffer the deleterious side effects of medication than men. Pregnant women get sick, but the consequences of taking many medications when pregnant are chronically understudied, or worse yet, unknown entirely. Women are far less likely to receive the correct treatment for heart attacks because their symptoms do not match typical (read: male) symptoms.

If evidence-based medicine is already far less evidence-based for anybody who is not a white male, how can the use of this unmodified data do anything other than unwittingly perpetuate this inequality? If we want to use AI to facilitate a more personalized medicine for all, it would help if we could first provide medicine that works for half the population.

The effects of this data can be even more insidious. AI systems often function as black boxes, which means technologists are unaware of how an AI came to its conclusion. This can make it particularly hard to identify any inequality, bias, or discrimination feeding into a particular decision. The inability to access the medical data upon which a system was trainedfor reasons of protecting patients privacy or the data not being in the public domainexacerbates this. Even if you had access to that data, the often proprietary nature of AI systems means interrogation would likely be impossible. By masking these sources of bias, an AI system could consolidate and deepen the already systemic inequalities in healthcare, all while making them harder to notice and challenge. Invariably, the result of this will be a system of medicine that is unfairly stacked against certain members of society.

This is especially true of less-connected communities. There is already an unhealthy digital divide where poorer and older members of society dont have access to the digital technologies that can be used to improve healthcare. This also means theyre not producing the data that comes with its use, and as this chasm grows, the system will stack against older and poorer patients even further than it currently does. Even if they were to readily gain access to these technologies in the next decade, it would be too late, as the systems will already be calibrated for younger, more urban bodies.

If we dont closely monitor AIs use in healthcare, theres a risk it will perpetuate existing biases and inequalities by building systems with data that systemically fails to account for anyone who is not white and male. At its core, this is not a problem with AI, but a broader problem with medical research and healthcare inequalities as a whole. But if these biases arent accounted for in future technological models, we will continue to build an even more uneven healthcare system than what we have today.

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If you're not a white male, artificial intelligence's use in healthcare could be dangerous - Quartz

A $27 million fund aimed at applying artificial intelligence to the public interest has announced the first targets for its beneficence: $7.6 million will be split unequally between MITs Media Lab, Harvards Berkman Klein Center and seven smaller research efforts around the world.

The Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Fund was created by Reid Hoffman, Pierre Omidyar and the Knight Foundation back in January; the intention was to ensure that social scientists, ethicists, philosophers, faith leaders, economists, lawyers and policymakers have a say in how AI is developed and deployed.

To that end, this first round of fundings supports existing organizations working along those lines, as well as nurturing some newer ones.

The lions share of this initial round, $5.9 million, will be split by MIT and Harvard, as the initial announcement indicated. Media Lab is, of course, on the cutting edge of many research efforts in AI and elsewhere; Berkman Klein focuses more on the legal and analysis side of things.

The funds focuses are threefold:

Those two well-known organizations will be pursuing issues related to those (theyre already working together anyway), but the seven smaller efforts are also being more modestly funded.

Digital Asia Hub, FAT ML and ITS Rio will be hosting conferences and workshops to which experts across fields will be invited, advancing and enriching the conversations around various AI issues. ITS Rio also will be translating debates on the topics a critical task, since there are important thinkers worldwide and these conversations shouldnt be limited by something as last-century as native language.

On the research side, AI Now will be looking at bias in data collection and healthcare; the Leverhulme Center will be looking at interpretability of AI-related data; Data & Society will be conducting ethnographically-informed studies on the human element of AI and data for example, how demographic imbalances in who runs real estate businesses might inform the systems they create and use.

Access Now (which doesnt really fit in either category) will be working to create a set of guidelines for businesses and services looking to conform to major upcoming data regulations in the EU.

For this initial cohort, we looked for projects that fit our goal of building networks across fields, and that would complement the work of our anchor partners at the Media Lab and Berkman Klein, said Knights VP of Technology and Innovation, John Bracken, in an email to TechCrunch.

We think its vital that civil society has a strong voice in the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning. We see these projects as part of a growing set of researchers, engineers, and policy makers who will be part of ensuring that these new tools are developed ethically.

Although the funds are in the public interest, they arent just handouts; I asked Bracken whether there were any concrete expectations for the organizations involved.

Absolutely, he said. The discussion around artificial intelligence is no longer a far-off, speculative thing. Each of the grants were making have deliverables planned for the next twelve months, and well be showcasing them as they launch.

Well hear about them soon, no doubt.

A few million bucks may seem like a drop in the bucket among the herds of unicorns we track here at TechCrunch, but on the other hand it may seem cheap when the studies and events being funded come to fruition and result in the kind of productive dialogue this fast-moving field needs.

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Ethics and Governance AI Fund funnels $7.6M to Harvard, MIT and independent research efforts - TechCrunch

Designed by Pierpaolo Lazzarini from Italian company Jet Capsule. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph.

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A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore

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A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore

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Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea

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Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea

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The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie 'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company

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Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea

Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Images

Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi

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Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session

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A test line of a new energy suspension railway resembling the giant panda is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China

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A test line of a new energy suspension railway, resembling a giant panda, is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China

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A concept car by Trumpchi from GAC Group is shown at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China

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A Mirai fuel cell vehicle by Toyota is displayed at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China

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A visitor tries a Nissan VR experience at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China

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A man looks at an exhibit entitled 'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London

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A new Israeli Da-Vinci unmanned aerial vehicle manufactured by Elbit Systems is displayed during the 4th International conference on Home Land Security and Cyber in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv

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Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S

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The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar. This is a production preview of the Jaguar I-PACE, which will be revealed next year and on the road in 2018

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Japan's On-Art Corp's CEO Kazuya Kanemaru poses with his company's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot 'TRX03' and other robots during a demonstration in Tokyo, Japan

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Japan's On-Art Corp's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot 'TRX03'

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Japan's On-Art Corp's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot 'TRX03' performs during its unveiling in Tokyo, Japan

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Singulato Motors co-founder and CEO Shen Haiyin poses in his company's concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China

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The interior of Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China

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Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0

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A picture shows Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China

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Connected company president Shigeki Tomoyama addresses a press briefing as he elaborates on Toyota's "connected strategy" in Tokyo. The Connected company is a part of seven Toyota in-house companies that was created in April 2016

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A Toyota Motors employee demonstrates a smartphone app with the company's pocket plug-in hybrid (PHV) service on the cockpit of the latest Prius hybrid vehicle during Toyota's "connected strategy" press briefing in Tokyo

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An exhibitor charges the battery cells of AnyWalker, an ultra-mobile chasis robot which is able to move in any kind of environment during Singapore International Robo Expo

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A robot with a touch-screen information apps stroll down the pavillon at the Singapore International Robo Expo

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An exhibitor demonstrates the AnyWalker, an ultra-mobile chasis robot which is able to move in any kind of environment during Singapore International Robo Expo

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Robotic fishes swim in a water glass tank displayed at the Korea pavillon during Singapore International Robo Expo

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An employee shows a Samsung Electronics' Gear S3 Classic during Korea Electronics Show 2016 in Seoul, South Korea

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Visitors experience Samsung Electronics' Gear VR during the Korea Electronics Grand Fair at an exhibition hall in Seoul, South Korea

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Amy Rimmer, Research Engineer at Jaguar Land Rover, demonstrates the car manufacturer's Advanced Highway Assist in a Range Rover, which drives the vehicle, overtakes and can detect vehicles in the blind spot, during the first demonstrations of the UK Autodrive Project at HORIBA MIRA Proving Ground in Nuneaton, Warwickshire

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Chris Burbridge, Autonomous Driving Software Engineer for Tata Motors European Technical Centre, demonstrates the car manufacturer's GLOSA V2X functionality, which is connected to the traffic lights and shares information with the driver, during the first demonstrations of the UK Autodrive Project at HORIBA MIRA Proving Ground in Nuneaton, Warwickshire

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Ford EEBL Emergency Electronic Brake Lights is demonstrated during the first demonstrations of the UK Autodrive Project at HORIBA MIRA Proving Ground in Nuneaton, Warwickshire

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Full-scale model of 'Kibo' on display at the Space Dome exhibition hall of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Tsukuba Space Center, in Tsukuba, north-east of Tokyo, Japan

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Miniatures on display at the Space Dome exhibition hall of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Tsukuba Space Center, in Tsukuba, north-east of Tokyo, Japan. In its facilities, JAXA develop satellites and analyse their observation data, train astronauts for utilization in the Japanese Experiment Module 'Kibo' of the International Space Station (ISS) and develop launch vehicles

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The robot developed by Seed Solutions sings and dances to the music during the Japan Robot Week 2016 at Tokyo Big Sight. At this biennial event, the participating companies exhibit their latest service robotic technologies and components

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The robot developed by Seed Solutions sings and dances to music during the Japan Robot Week 2016 at Tokyo Big Sight

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Government and industry are working together on a robot-like autopilot system that could eliminate the need for a second human pilot in the cockpit

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Aurora Flight Sciences' technicians work on an Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automantion System (ALIAS) device in the firm's Centaur aircraft at Manassas Airport in Manassas, Va.

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Stefan Schwart and Udo Klingenberg preparing a self-built flight simulator to land at Hong Kong airport, from Rostock, Germany

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Google hopes to prevent robot uprising with new AI training technique - The Independent

Ai Weiwei accused western governments of failing to speak up for activists such as Liu for fear of damaging economic ties with Beijing. Photograph: Matej Divizna/Getty Images

The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has added his voice to growing calls for China to release its most famous political prisoner, the critically ill Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo.

Speaking for the first time about the plight of his longtime friend, who was recently diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer while serving an 11-year jail term, Ai urged Beijing to immediately free Liu, who was jailed in 2009 for his role in a pro-democracy manifesto called Charter 08.

I think the government should release him. This is a historic mistake, Ai told the Guardian from Berlin, where he now lives.

The government should just release him and have a better record because this is going to be remembered by the whole world what they are doing.

They [must] admit that this was a horrible mistake to sacrifice the best people in this nation the best minds in this nation and to put them in such a horrible situation. That is what they continue to do now and it is unacceptable.

Ai was speaking as Chinese president Xi Jinping came under intense pressure to let Liu, who doctors have said is close to death, leave the country for medical treatment.

Beijing has so far rebuffed calls from countries including the United States for the 61-year-old activist to be allowed to travel overseas, accusing them of meddling in its internal affairs.

Chinese doctors at the hospital where Liu has been receiving treatment since being granted medical parole several weeks ago claimed he was too unwell to be moved. However, that claim was contradicted on Sunday by two foreign specialists who were allowed to visit Liu in hospital, where he is reportedly under police guard.

While a degree of risk always exists in the movement of any patient, both physicians believe Liu can be safely transported with appropriate medical evacuation care and support, the German and US doctors said in a statement, adding that their hospitals were ready to offer Liu the best care possible.

That announcement sparked an immediate outcry, as friends, supporters and activists demanded Lius complete release.

Jared Genser, a US lawyer acting for Liu, said that if Xi refused to let the dying dissident seek potentially life-extending medical treatment abroad he would be viewed as having deliberately cut short a mans life.

My view is that if Xi doesnt do that then it will be viewed publicly as an extraordinarily callous and weak position for China to put itself in, Genser, who is known for his work with prisoners of conscience, including Aung San Suu Kyi, told the Guardian.

China can show its strength to the world and its security in its own governance by not being afraid of one man who has dared repeatedly to stand up to the one-party system, he added.

I hope and pray that we can succeed. We dont have a lot of time quite clearly so it is going to be a very difficult challenge. But I hope that President Xi will see that its in China interests to not be viewed as not only silencing a man but wilfully and intentionally shortening his life.

In a statement, a group of Chinese supporters said the doctors statement conclusively rebutted the official propaganda that it is unsafe for Liu Xiaobo to be transported overseas.

Liu Xiaobos life is now in imminent danger Any delay and obstruction are no different from a drawn-out murder, it said.

Amnesty International also appealed to Xi for Lius release. There is only one person in China that has the authority to rule on the fate of Liu Xiaobo and that is Xi Jinping, said Nicholas Bequelin, Amnesty Internationals East Asia director.

Ai, who has known Liu since the 1980s, said his friend, who Beijing claims tried to overthrow the Communist party, was unjustly imprisoned and now deserved the right to decide where he wanted to spend his final days.

He absolutely should be a free man and a free man should have a choice to make all the choices by himself, he said.

He should not have been sentenced. He should be completely out of jail, released without any conditions. He should be a free man, then he should make a free judgment about where to stay and where to get medical care, and who he wants to be associated with.

Ai also attacked what he described as the hypocrisy of western governments, which he accused of feigning concern for activists such as Liu, but had failed to speak up for them for fear of damaging economic ties with Beijing. To me, it is disgusting. For any Chinese [who] looks at that I mean, my God, just for the money, he said.

There are so many people, lawyers, or human rights defenders or activists, in jail, and many of them in secret detention without trial for years and they are all being mistreated, Ai said.

The artist accused western politicians of caring only about striking lucrative deals with Chinas authoritarian rulers.

Each of those deals sacrifices someone like Xiaobo. So dont pretend, when Liu Xiaobo is dying, or Liu Xiaobo [is in] such difficult circumstances, dont pretend anybody is innocent.

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'Liu Xiaobo should be a free man': Ai Weiwei joins calls to release dying dissident - The Guardian

While there are many trending and debate-worthy topics within the world of artificial intelligence, theres a rather profound one that few people are starting to discuss openly. Namely, theres a fundamental disconnect between how the tech industry communicates about innovations in AI versus the actual value delivered to consumers and enterprises. Worse, AI is not fully democratized and is not the bastion of major tech companies. Fortunately, that is about to change.

As consumers, we are awash in a myriad of daily stories concerning AI and machine learning, from IBM Watsons latest use case to the warnings of Stephen Hawking to the rise of AI-style terminators. The average user is perhaps vaguely aware that AI powers everything from their inbox to their music playlists to their social media feeds. Savvier users may be more familiar with AIs potential to impact industries on a global scale, such as in health care, advertising, finance, security, and more.

The impression we have, therefore, is that AI is widespread and easily accessible that humanity is benefiting from these groundbreaking applications, and that they impact our lives in a meaningful and helpful way. But this is a big misconception. The reality is that we have enormous strides to make in democratizing AI development, and making these innovations truly accessible and available to mankind.

As it stands now, the vast majority of AI is being developed within the enormous black hole of a few major technology platform companies. These household name tech giants are monopolizing the best and brightest human capital, and they have access to Big Data and other critical resources which is limiting the ability of other major global enterprises, let alone small to mid-size companies, to compete. These industry giants have their own specific business models and requirements, and as a result, they tend to focus on a relatively limited subset of AI applications. The problems they are tackling, while very real and worthwhile, are still just a tiny portion of AIs potential to impact specific industry vertical use cases and the overall economy, not to mention humanity as a whole.

A few tech industry titans thus control the vast majority of talent, data, and other resources necessary to develop life-changing technologies, and this is bad for any number of stakeholders who stand to benefit from AI. Competition should happen at the application and business levels, and not be based on a single industry monopoly.

The good news is that weve reached a tipping point, and AI is actually helping to shift the dynamics and level the playing field. As our systems become more advanced and the costs to develop new AI software begin their predictable fall, its becoming easier and easier for startups and smaller companies to rise up against the tech giants. Rather than focusing on a confined set of problems, these up-and-coming players will be free to cook up innovative, disruptive solutions that arent restricted by existing business models and product services.

Consider the infamous Innovators Dilemma as demonstrated by Clayton Christensen. If youre not familiar, the idea is that successful companies (so-called incumbents) can do everything right and by the books, yet theyll still lose their market leadership to new and rising competitors. There are two key parts to this dilemma. One is that the value to innovation is an S-curve, meaning that product improvement necessarily takes time and involves multiple iterations. By finding the right application and market, startups are able to find the sweet spot of value using iteration at a much faster rate, and thus enter and disrupt the more mature markets of the incumbents.

The second is the idea of incumbent-sized deals which means, while incumbents may have the advantage of a huge customer base, this carries higher expectations for yearly sales and performance. Startups dont need to worry as much about these requirements, and thus have more time and energy to focus on innovating a new entry, next-gen product.

AI has so many applications beyond the business needs of a few of black-hole tech platforms. Weve reached an exciting time when emerging technologies are facilitating smarter, faster, and better businesses processes at increasingly lower costs, and this is opening up the playing field to smaller, leaner players. It will become more and more common to see five-person startups go up against the tech behemoths. Top AI talent that has been incubated inside these companies will inevitably start to leave and create their own startups, addressing new use cases that had been ignored by their past employers. As more newcomers and startups make progress in AI development, we will surely witness a broader spectrum of adoption and, thus, a much greater and meaningful impact on society.

Roger Jin is the cofounder and CEO ofRul.ai,focusing on AI technologies.

Above: The Machine Intelligence Landscape This article is part of our Artificial Intelligence series. You can download a high-resolution version of the landscape featuring 288 companies by clicking the image.

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The dangers of letting Big Tech control AI - VentureBeat

In BriefScientists have created an artificially intelligent systemthat is capable of producing cutting edge paintings that someconsider to be better than works created by humans. How do thepaintings, and other AI creations, relate to seminal criticisms ofmodern art? An AI Picasso

Scientists are using artificial intelligence (AI)to find a new system for generating art and testing their results on the public. The system, called a generative adversarial network (GAN), works by pairing two AI neural networks:a generator, which produces images, and a discriminator, which judges the paintings. It does this based on the 81,500 example paintings and knowledge of different artistic styles (such as Baroque, Impressionism, and Modernism) it was taught. The suggester creates an image, the discriminator criticizes it, and the conversation leads to a work of art.

The scientists changed the way that AI usually produces art by having the generatoronly create works that did not fall into a preexistent category of painting they did this by maximizing deviation from established styles and minimizing deviation from art distribution, according to the abstract.

Mark Riedl, an associate professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta,said that he liked the idea that people are starting to push GANs out of their comfort zone this is the first paper Ive seen that does that.

After the paintings were produced, the scientists conducted a survey with members of the public in which they mixed the AI works with paintings produced by human artists. They found that the public preferred the works by AI, and thought they were more novel, complex, and inspiring.

Paul Valry, who Walter Benjamin used as a starting point for his essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, wrote in 1931: We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art.

He was referring to the modernist period, in which new techniques and ideologies changed the way art was perceived. We may be experiencing a similar upheaval in the art world. Benjamins criticism of the exact copies that could be produced by the second half of the 20th century centered around the idea that even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.

This AI project possesses this property. It does not just copy or manipulate, as Google Deep Dream does, but is able to producetrue works of art by being actively programmed to be novel and creating originals in a specific place. These pieces are more similar to Aiva, an AI composerthat also could not be detected by humans, than it is to Deep Dream.

We are entering an age where AI is becoming increasingly ubiquitous and competent in almost every fieldElon Musk thinks it will exceed humans at everything in by 2030 but art has been viewed as a pantheon of humanity, something quintessentially human that an AI could never replicate.

Studies such as this show that our artistic leanings may not be off limits and with AI conquering humans at our own games, like chess how long is it before we create a Picasso program that is superior to any current human artist and immortal to boot?

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AI Can Now Produce Better Art Than Humans. Here's How. - Futurism

If youre not doing AI today, dont expect to be around in a few years, says Japjit Tulsi, VP of engineering at eBay,It really is that important for companies to invest in especially commerce companies.

Tulsi will speak next week at MB 2017, July 11 and 12 in SF, MobileBeats flagship event where this year weve gathered more than 30 brands to talk about how AI is being applied in businesses today.

eBay is working to stay ahead of the curve, now that machine learning and AI is growing in importance. It has focused on the potential of AI for the past ten years. The companys approach to AI has been built on a platform of research and development, Tulsi says, plus decades of insights and data about consumer behavior, making even the simplest applications incredibly valuable.

As an example, Tulsi points to the merchandizing strip at the bottom of every item page, which shows similar items that a shopper might be intrigued by, and often leads them down a positive rabbit hole of shopping and buying.

Itsmachine learning and AI at the very simplest level, and weve seen a tremendous amount of return on investment on that. Tulsi says.

However, evolving that into more sophisticated personalization has proven difficult, say Tulsi, because of the limitations on computing power in the past 10 years. Then in 2015 or so, processors hit the event horizon, with game-changing advances in GPUs and the dedicated hardware used for deep learning.

Massive calculations can now be made swiftly and cost-effectively. New algorithms are increasing the speed and depth of learning. And deep learning can now go broad across billions of data points with thousands of aspects and dozens of layers.

eBay has no shortage of data. The company manages about 1 billion live listings and 164 million active buyers daily, and receives 10 million new listings via mobile every week.

So another big bet was born: Investment in AI technologies like natural language understanding, computer vision, and semantic search, to drive growth and, Tulsi says, reinvent the future of commerce.

The future looks pretty much like their engineering team building descriptive and predictive models from the enormous volume of behavioral and description data generated by eBays many buyers, sellers, and products. It requires the complex fusion of massive amounts of behavior log, text, and image data, all with a particular emphasis on on developing data-driven models to improve user experience.

The question now is, can we provide you with even further personalized, relevant information over the course of the next ten years? he says. Were very focused on how AI will impact commerce.

Specifically, how it will impact the primary goal of commerce: understanding consumer buying intent wherever they are, from bricks and mortar to online browsing. Of course, cross-platform understanding of what a shopper wants is the key to delivering a truly personal, contextual shopping experience.

You want an exact item that youre looking for whether you want it, you need it, or you just like it at the price point you care about, Tulsi says. With AI, our aim is to achieve that kind of perfection underneath the hood so you dont have to spend a lot of time finding that ideal match for you.

He points at one of their beta projects, launched last year on Facebook Messenger: the eBay ShopBot. Its essentially a multimodal search engine, or a personalized shopping assistant, powered by contextual understanding, predictive modeling, and machine learning.

Keywords are not enough any more, and dont offer the most optimized shopping experience. With ShopBot, consumers can text, talk, or snap a picture, and then the assistant asks questions to better understand your intent and dig up hyper-personalized recommendations. And it gets smarter about what you want, every time you use it.

These consumer interactions also yield a tremendous amount of intent data, which can be poured right back into the algorithm.

Across the three spectrums of multimodal AI that it represents, were starting to get much much better at understanding you and whichever way that you want to interact with us, Tulsi says.

And as theyre able to improve their ability to simulate human cognitive capabilities like perception, language processing. and visual processing, the company expects that commerce will become increasingly conversational even to the point where the search box becomes redundant.

What I think is really exciting going forward is the machine will actually do the thinking for you, Tulsi laughs. You will just talk naturally to it as if youre talking to a friend and spitballing and the machine should be able to understand your intent.

And just as importantly, commerce will will become present wherever and whenever the user is engaged on their social messaging platforms.

Its an approach that digital assistant-focused companies should sit up and take notice of, Tulsi adds. They need to start investing in commerce capabilities or partnering with commerce companies to really make their assistant pan out from a financial model perspective.

From our perspective, every company should be heavily investing in AI, and it shouldnt just be about using cognitive services but actually developing your own models that keep you on the cutting edge of technology, Tulsi says. And that will hold you in good stead over the course of the next many years to come.

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For eBay, AI is ride or die - VentureBeat

Emerging Tech

Artificial intelligence is helping the Army keep its Stryker armored vehicles in fighting shape.

Army officials are using IBMs Watson AI system in combination with onboard sensor data, repair manuals and 15 years of maintenance data to predict mechanical problems before they happen. IBM and the Armys Redstone Arsenal post in Alabama demonstrated Watsons abilities on 350 Stryker vehicles during a field test that began in mid-2016.

The Army is now reviewing the results of that test to evaluate Watsons ability to assist human mechanics, and the early insights are encouraging.

The Watson AI enabled the pilot programs leaders to create the equivalent of a personalized medicine plan for each of the vehicles tested, said Sam Gordy, general manager of IBM U.S. Federal. Watson was able to tell mechanics that you need to go replace this [part] now because if you dont, its going to break when this vehicle is out on patrol, he added.

The Army is one of a handful of early adopters in the federal government, and several other agencies are looking into using AI, machine learning and related technologies. AI experts cite dozens of potential government uses, including cognitive chatbots that answer common questions from the public and complex AIs that search for patterns that could signal Medicaid fraud, tax cheating or criminal activity.

There are, for a lack of a better number, a gazillion sweet spots for AI in government, said Daniel Enthoven, business development manager at Domino Data Lab, a vendor of AI and data science collaboration tools.

Still, many agencies will need to answer some difficult questions before they embrace AI, machine learning and autonomous systems. For instance, how will the agencies audit decisions made by intelligent systems? How will they gather data from often disparate sources to fuel intelligent decisions? And how will agencies manage their employees when AI systems take over tasks previously performed by humans?

Intelligence agencies are using Watson to comb through piles of data and provide predictive analysis, and the Census Bureau is considering using the supercomputer-powered AI as a first-line call center that would answer peoples questions about the 2020 census, Gordy said.

A Census Bureau spokesperson added that the AI virtual assistant could improve response times and enhance caller interactions.

Using AI should save the bureau money because you have a computer doing this instead of people, Gordy said. And if trained correctly, the system will provide more accurate answers than a group of call-center workers could.

You train Watson once, and it understands everything, he said. Youre getting a very consistent answer, time after time after time.

For many agencies, however, its still early in the AI adoption cycle. Use of the technology is very, very nascent in government, said William Eggers, executive director of Deloittes Center for Government Insights and co-author of a recent study on AI in government. If it was a nine-inning [baseball] game, were probably in the first inning right now.

He added that over the next couple of years, agencies can expect to see AI-like functionality being incorporated into the software products marketed to them.

The first step for many civilian agencies appears to be using AI as a chatbot or telephone agent. Daniel Castro, vice president of theInformation Technology and Innovation Foundation, said intelligent agents should be able to answer about 90 percent of the questions agencies receive, and the people asking those questions arent likely to miss having a human response.

Its not like people are expecting to know their IRS agents when they call them up with a question, he said.

The General Services Administrations Emerging Citizen Technology program launched an open-source pilot project in April to help federal agencies make their information available to intelligent personal assistants such as Amazons Alexa, Googles Assistant and Microsofts Cortana. More than two dozen agencies including the departments of Energy, Homeland Security and Transportation are participating.

Many vendors and other technology experts see huge opportunities for AI inside and outside government. In June, an IDC study sponsored by Salesforce predicted that AI adoption will ramp up quickly in the next four years. AI-powered customer relationship management activities will add $1.1 trillion to business revenue and create more than 800,000 jobs from 2017 to 2021, the study states.

In the federal government, using AI to automate tasks now performed by employees would save at least 96.7 million working hours a year, a cost savings of $3.3 billion, according to the Deloitte study. Based on the high end of Deloittes estimates, AI adoption could save as many as 1.2 billion working hours and $41.1 billion every year.

AI-based applications can reduce backlogs, cut costs, overcome resource constraints, free workers from mundane tasks, improve the accuracy of projections, inject intelligence into scores of processes and systems, and handle many other tasks humans cant easily do on our own, such as sifting through millions of documents in real time for the most relevant content, the report states.

Although some might fear a robot takeover, Eggers said federal workers should not worry about their jobs in the near term. Although theres likely to be pressure from lawmakers to use AI to reduce the governments headcount, agencies should look at AI as a way to supplement employees work and allow them to focus on more creative and difficult tasks, he added.

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Is government ready for AI? - FCW.com

One of the promises of voice-based computing is the ability to make home automation simpler something that major tech companies, including Amazon, Apple and Google, are now tackling with their own voice assistants and smart speakers. But their solutions are still somewhat clunky, both in terms of the software interface for configuring your smart home and the voice commands you use to take actions. Thats where the startup Josh.ai comes in.

The company has now raised $11 million to design a better voice-controlled system for smart homes, and will later this year release its own hardware dedicated to this purpose.

Headquartered in Denver with offices in L.A., Josh.ai is the product of serial entrepreneursAlex Capecelatro, CEO, and Tim Gill, CTO. The two previously worked together on a social recommendations app Yeti, which had begun its life as At The Pool, andwas sold back in 2015. Gill, who had previously founded and sold Quark (Quark XPress), had joined Yeti as a technical advisor, and wrote a number of the algorithms used in the app.

Following the sale of Yeti, the two teamed up again to work on a project in the smart home space something they were both interested in for personal reasons.

Gill, for example, had spent years developing his own home automation system his version of Mark Zuckerbergs Jarvis to run inside the large residential property he was building in Denver.

He was well underway in building the house and understanding what the competition looked likewhat the product offerings looked like, explainsCapecelatro. And he was pretty dissatisfied with what was out there.

Meanwhile,Capecelatro was also building a home for himself in L.A., and running into the same problems.

I was just amazed that all of the big automation systems Crestron, Control4, and Savant they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the [user interface] looks like its from the 90s, he says. It was weird that for a ton of money in my home where you want to have a delightful experience, the best offerings on the table just werent that good.

The founders saw a need in the market for something that sits above mass market solutions, like Apples Home app, or Alexas smart home control, which focus more on tying together after-market devices, like security cameras, smart doorbells, or smart lights like Philips Hue.

They founded the startup Josh.ai in March 2015, and shipped the first product the following year.

The solution, as it exists today, includes a kit with a Mac mini and iPad, and software that runs the home. After plugging in the Mac, Josh.ai auto-discovers devices on the network. It can identify those from over 50 manufacturers. For example, it can control lighting and shades like those from Lutron, music systems like Sonos, dozens of brands of security cameras, Nest thermostats, Samsung smart TVs, and even more niche products like Global Cachs box for controlling IR devices (such as your not-so-smart TVs).

The automatic speech recognition (AKA speech-to-text) portion of Josh.ais system is handled in the cloud, while Mac mini handles the natural language processing to know what your commands mean.

What makes Josh.ai unique is not just its software interface, but how users interact with the system. You speak to the voice assistant Josh to tell the home what to do. (You can also change its name if thats an issue, or even pick from a variety of male and female voices and accents.)

Josh, or the wake word youve chosen, precedes your command, which can be spoken using more natural language. The system is better than many when it comes to interpreting what you mean, by nature of its single-purpose focus on home automation.

For instance, you can tell Josh to turn it off, and it will know what it means because it remembers what it had turned on before. Or you can say, its hot in here, and Josh will know how to adjust your thermostat.

It can also deep-link to streaming video content, so you can ask to watch Planet Earth, and Josh will turn on the TV, switch to the right input, launch Netflix, then start playing the show.

Josh.ai supports scenes, as well, allowing you to configure a number of devices to work together like lights, shades, music, fans, thermostats, and other switches. That way, you can say things like turn everything off, and Josh knows to shut down all the connected devices in the home.

Where the system gets really smart is in its ability to handle complex, compound commands meaning controlling multiple devices in one sentence.

You can say to Josh, play Simon and Garfunkel and turn on the lights, for example. Or, play Explosions in the sky in the kitchen, and play Simon and Garfunkel in the living room. Other systems could get tripped up by the and and the in the in the artists names, but Josh.ai understands when those words are a break between two commands, and when theyre part of something else.

The current system which was largely designed for high-end homes is sold by professional integrators at around $10,000 and up, depending on the components involved. To date, the team has sold more than 50 and fewer than 100 installations.

Josh.ai can work over your Echo or Google Home, if you prefer, and includes interfaces for iOS, Android and the web. But the company is now preparing to launch its own, farfield mic solution in a new hardware device thats built specifically for use in the home.

While the new hardware will perform some basic virtual assistant type tasks telling you the weather, perhaps (the company isnt confirming specific features at this time) the main focus will be on home automation.

Above: a tease of the new device

The hardware wont be a cylindrical shape like Echo or Google Home, but will be designed with an aesthetic appeal in mind.

It also wont be super cheap.

It will still be a premium product, but it will be a lot less than where the current product is. And the idea is this will enable our mass market rollout in probably a year to eighteen months, notesCapecelatro, speaking of his plan to keep bringing Josh.ais technology to ever larger audiences.

Josh.ai, a team of 15 soon to be 25, recently closed on $8 million in new funding, largely from the founders personal networks. The investors names arent being disclosed because theyre not institutional firms. To date, Josh.ai has raised $11 million, but has not yet added anyone to its board.

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Josh.ai raises $11 million for a premium home automation system ... - TechCrunch

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