Category Archives: Artificial Intelligence

There are plenty of companies you could choose from if you wanted to benefit from the growing artificial intelligence (AI) market. I won't get into all of them, but it's safe to say that nearly all the big players in the tech sector -- like Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Facebook, and a slew of others -- believe AI could reach a market size of $59.8 billion by 2025.

But that's not helpful if you want to know which companies are making the biggest moves in the space, and which have the most potential to benefit. To help answer that, we need to take a closer look at NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL). These companies may differ in their approach to AI, but both deserve to be at the top of the list for AI investments. Here's why.

Image source: Getty Images.

NVIDIA is basically a tech investor's dream at the moment, mainly because its share price has gained more than 200% over the past 12 months. NVIDIA makes graphics processors that are used in computers for things like high-performance gaming, but the company has been taking its graphics processing unit (GPU) know-how and wisely applying it to AI businesses as well.

For example, the company has built a self-driving supercomputer, called Drive PX 2, that processes a massive amount of image information so that semi-autonomous cars can perceive the world around them. Audi, Toyota, Tesla, and others are already using the company's AI tech for their semi-autonomous vehicles, and NVIDIA believes its total addressable market for AI-powered self-driving cars is about $8 billion 2025.

In fact, NVIDIA believes that its total addressable market for all AI will be around $40 billion between 2020 and 2025. That includes everything from self-driving cars to AI cities and GPU-powered deep-learning data centers.

The company's data-center segment is a growing AI opportunity because more and more companies are looking to GPUs to power intense image processing on their servers. Goldman Sachs analyst Toshiya Hari thinks the company already holds nearly 90% of the market for chips used for computer-training tasks, a part of the machine-learning and AI markets.

One thing investors should know is that NVIDIA's "top AI stock" designation comes from the company's potential in the space, and not necessarily from its current revenues. In fiscal first-quarter 2018, the company brought in just 7% of its total revenues from the automotive market (which includes its Drive PX system) and about 21% from its data-center business. Meanwhile, GPU sales for gaming accounted for about 53% of revenue.

But the potential here for NVIDIA is too large to ignore. Graphics processing is an integral part of many AI learning systems, and NVIDIA's chips are some of the best in the business. With automakers already betting on the company's AI computer and tech companies looking to NVIDIA for their AI data centers, it's only a matter of time before the company's AI revenues follow its opportunities.

Like NVIDIA, Alphabet is pursuing AI in several different ways, but one of the most important is using it to serve up better ads to its users.

Alphabet's Google debuted its Smart Bidding learning system last year, which uses machine learning to better automate bids on AdWords and DoubleClick. Google said at the time that the system accounts for many more factors than a person or team could determine, in order to make ads more efficient. The importance of serving up the most relevant ads becomes clear when you consider that Google is expected to earn about 78% of all U.S. search ad revenue this year, and more than 80% by 2019, according to data from eMarketer.

But Google has been very persistent in expanding its AI footprint in other areas as well. According to Recode, the company has acquired at least 20 AI companies over the past few years. One of those is DeepMind, which Google plans to use to do things like cure diseases, and find new ways for companies to reduce energy consumption.

And, of course, the company is using its AI to build some of the most advanced driverless cars. Google spun out its self-driving car business into its own company, called Waymo, late last year, but it still falls under the broader umbrella of Alphabet companies. The opportunity for Alphabet here is in using AI-powered self-driving technology to earn revenues from self-driving car services, and in selling the technology to other companies to implement in their own vehicles. Waymo is already testing its technology with public riders in Phoenix, as part of a partnership with Fiat Chrysler.

Additionally, Google is using its AI to improve its voice assistant, called Google Assistant. Google Assistant now comes on newer versions of Android phones and in the company's smart home speaker, Google Home. Smart home speakers are expected to become a $13 billion market by 2024.

But Alphabet's biggest opportunity in AI remains in how it's used to sell more ads. Google's ad revenue accounted for 88% of Alphabet's total revenue in 2016, so it's very likely that the company will continue to apply its AI efforts to keep that trend going.

Remember that the artificial intelligence market is just getting started, which means that there's tons of time to reap the benefits, but it could also be a while before the market takes off. Investors looking to Alphabet and NVIDIA for AI gains will likely get them -- but should plan for the benefits to come over the next several years, as opposed to the next few quarters.

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 and C shares), Apple, Facebook, Nvidia, and Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends Intel. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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2 Top Stocks for Artificial Intelligence Investors -- The Motley Fool - Motley Fool

It is increasingly looking like the future belongs to artificial intelligence.

Two of the hottest stocks in that industry are Nvidia NVDA, +1.04% and Advanced Micro Devices AMD, -2.32% The strength of those stocks is largely attributable to the excitement around the artificial-intelligence capabilities of their processors.

A key to success in hot technology companies is to keep an eye on newly developing competition. Prudent investors tend to sell into strength when new competition emerges. The momo (momentum) crowd is often left holding the bag.

Increased competition may be coming to Nvidia and AMD in the form of a new artificial-intelligence processor thats 10 times more powerful than their current offerings. Lets take a look at this. First, a chart.

Chart

Please click here for the annotated chart. Its a 30-minute chart of Nvidia covering the period during which the smart money has been taking the news of potential new competition into its analysis.

Please note from the chart that the VUD indicator has been consistently orange. The VUD indicator is the most sensitive measure of supply and demand in real time. Orange indicates a higher supply than demand. The VUD indicator staying mostly orange when the price does not move much or goes higher is often an early indicator of the strength of sellers in a stock.

Ask Arora: Nigam Arora answers your questions about investing in stocks, ETFs, bonds, gold and silver, oil and currencies. Have a question? Send it to Nigam Arora.

New competitor is a heavyweight

The new competitor is Fujitsu FJTSY, +4.47% of Japan. Fujitsu was founded in 1935 and employees 159,000 people in more than 100 countries. Fujitsu produces some of the most advanced processors for super computers. Fujitsu also produces processors for SPARC servers. SPARC servers have been popular and are now owned by Oracle ORCL, +0.02% after the company bought Sun Microsystems.

The new processor from Fujitsu will consist of 16 deep-learning processing elements, each of which will contain eight execution units. Fujitsu is targeting 10 times the performance of Nvidia and AMD processors. The new processor will be available in 2018.

Previously, another heavyweight, Intel INTC, +0.17% announced it would introduce competing processors for artificial-intelligence applications.

The software hurdle

As an engineer, I am reasonably confident that competitors are likely to come up with better hardware than Nvidia and AMD. However, the new competitors may have a difficult time catching Nvidia in software and development tools.

Investment implications

The momo crowd is still aggressively buying those stocks, but the smart money is inactive. Please see Professional investors are no longer excited about popular technology stocks and Momentum investors buy stocks even though gold and bonds are warning them buys stocks.

Prudent investors ought to pay attention to actions of the smart money. Yes, there are potential rewards in Nvidia and AMD, but the risks are high. It is fine to trade them for the short term when good setups appear, but caution is warranted if investing for the long term.

Based on my 30 years-plus in the markets, my firm conclusion is that most investors are better off by focusing on risk-adjusted returns. I have repeatedly seen traders who ignore risk making lots of money and then losing it all.

Disclosure: Subscribers to The Arora Report may have positions in the securities mentioned in this article or may take positions at any time. All recommended positions are reviewed daily at The Arora Report.

Nigam Arora is an investor, engineer and nuclear physicist by background, has founded two Inc. 500 fastest-growing companies, is the developer of the adaptive ZYX Global Multi Asset Allocation Model and the ZYX Change Method to profit from change in trading and investing. He is the founder of The Arora Report, which publishes four newsletters. Nigam can be reached at Nigam@TheAroraReport.com.

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Opinion: Nvidia and AMD must brace for competition from a super-powerful artificial-intelligence processor - MarketWatch

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk responds to a question by Nevada Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval during the third day of the National Governors Association's meeting on Saturday in Providence, R.I. Among other things, Musk warned governors that artificial intelligence poses a "fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization." Stephan Savoia/AP hide caption

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk responds to a question by Nevada Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval during the third day of the National Governors Association's meeting on Saturday in Providence, R.I. Among other things, Musk warned governors that artificial intelligence poses a "fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization."

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, speaking to U.S. governors this weekend, told the political leaders that artificial intelligence poses an "existential threat" to human civilization.

At the bipartisan National Governors Association in Rhode Island, Musk also spoke about energy sources, his own electric car company and space travel. But when Gov. Brian Sandoval of Nevada, grinning, asked if robots will take everyone's jobs in the future Musk wasn't joking when he responded.

Yes, "robots will do everything better than us," Musk said. But he's worried about more than the job market.

"AI is a fundamental existential risk for human civilization, and I don't think people fully appreciate that," Musk said. He said he has access to cutting-edge AI technology, and that based on what he's seen, AI is "the scariest problem."

Musk told the governors that AI calls for precautionary, proactive government intervention: "I think by the time we are reactive in AI regulation, it's too late," he said.

He was clearly not thrilled to make that argument, calling regulation generally "not fun" and "irksome," but he said that in the case of AI, the risks are too high to allow AI to develop unfettered.

"I think people should be really concerned about it," Musk said. "I keep sounding the alarm bell."

It's true: For years, Musk has issued Cassandra-like cautions about the risks of artificial intelligence. In 2014, he likened AI developers to people summoning demons they think they can control. In 2015, he signed a letter warning of the risk of an AI arms race.

Musk has invested in a project designed to make AI tech open-source, which he asserts will prevent it from being controlled by one company. And earlier this year, Maureen Dowd wrote a lengthy piece for Vanity Fair about Musk's "crusade to stop the A.I. apocalypse." Dowd noted that some Silicon Valley leaders including Google co-founder Larry Page do not share Musk's skepticism, and describe AI as a possible force for good.

Critics "argue that Musk is interested less in saving the world than in buffing his brand," Dowd writes, and that his speeches on the threat of AI are part of a larger sales strategy.

Back at the governors conference, some politicians expressed skepticism about the wisdom of regulating a technology that's still in development. Musk said the first step would be for the government to gain "insight" into the actual status of current research.

"Once there is awareness, people will be extremely afraid," Musk said. "As they should be."

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Elon Musk Warns Governors: Artificial Intelligence Poses 'Existential Risk' - NPR

Wall Street Journal (subscription)

Robotic Hogwash! Artificial Intelligence Will Not Take Over Wall Street Wall Street Journal (subscription) A decade on, artificial intelligence and machine learning are the buzzwords in automated investment. But for all the hype, applying AI to investment still has ... and more »

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Robotic Hogwash! Artificial Intelligence Will Not Take Over Wall Street - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

Artificial intelligence is infiltrating our daily lives, with applications that curate your phone pics, manage your email, and translate text from any language into another. Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft are all heavily researching how to integrate AI into their major services. Soon youll likely interact with an AI (or its output) every time you pick up your phone. Should you trust it? Not always.

AI can analyze data more quickly and accurately than humans, but it can also inherit our biases. To learn, it needs massive quantities of data, and the easiest way to find that data is to feed it text from the internet. But the internet contains some extremely biased language. A Stanford study found that an internet-trained AI associated stereotypically white names with positive words like love, and black names with negative words like failure and cancer.

Luminoso Chief Science Officer Rob Speer oversees the open-source data set ConceptNet Numberbatch, which is used as a knowledge base for AI systems. He tested one of Numberbatchs data sources and found obvious problems with their word associations. When fed the analogy question Man is to woman as shopkeeper is to... the system filled in housewife. It similarly associated women with sewing and cosmetics.

While these associations might be appropriate for certain applications, they would cause problems in common AI tasks like evaluating job applicants. An AI doesnt know which associations are problematic, so it would have no problem ranking a womans rsum lower than an identical rsum from a man. Similarly, when Speer tried building a restaurant review algorithm, it rated Mexican food lower because it had learned to associate Mexican with negative words like illegal.

So Speer went in and de-biased ConceptNet. He identified inappropriate associations and adjusted them to zero, while maintaining appropriate associations like man/uncle and woman/aunt. He did the same with words related to race, ethnicity, and religion. To fight human bias, it took a human.

Numberbatch is the only semantic database with built-in de-biasing, Speer says in an email. Hes happy for this competitive advantage, but he hopes other knowledge bases will follow suit:

This is the threat of AI in the near term. Its not some sci-fi scenario where robots take over the world. Its AI-powered services making decisions we dont understand, where the decisions turn out to hurt certain groups of people.

The scariest thing about this bias is how invisibly it can take over. According to Speer, some people [will] go through life not knowing why they get fewer opportunities, fewer job offers, more interactions with the police or the TSA... Of course, he points out, racism and sexism are baked into society, and promising technological advances, even when explicitly meant to counteract them, often amplify them. Theres no such thing as an objective tool built on subjective data. So AI developers bear a huge responsibility to find the flaws in their AI and address them.

There should be more understanding of whats real and whats hype, Speer says. Its easy to overhype AI because most people dont have the right metaphors to understand it yet, and that stops people from being appropriately skeptical.

Theres no AI that works like the human brain, he says. To counter the hype, I hope we can stop talking about brains and start talking about whats actually going on: its mostly statistics, databases, and pattern recognition. Which shouldnt make it any less interesting.

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What Makes an Artificial Intelligence Racist and Sexist - Lifehacker

Artificial intelligence (AI) promises to revolutionise our lives, drive our cars, diagnose our health problems, and lead us into a new future where thinking machines do things that were yet to imagine.

Or does it? Not everyone agrees.

Even billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, who admits he has access to some of the most cutting-edge AI, said recently that without some regulation AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.

So what is the future of AI? Michael Milford and Peter Stratton are both heavily involved in AI research and they have different views on how it will impact on our lives in the future.

Michael:

Answering this question depends on what you consider to be artificial intelligence.

Basic machine learning algorithms underpin many technologies that we interact with in our everyday lives - voice recognition, face recognition - but are application-specific and can only do one very specific defined task (and not always well).

More capable AI - what we might consider as being somewhat smart - is only now becoming widespread in areas such as online retail and marketing, smartphones, assistive car systems and service robots such as robotic vacuum cleaners.

Peter:

The most obvious and useful examples of current AI are the speech recognition on your phone, and search engines such as Google. There is also IBMs Watson, which in 2011 beat human champion players at the US TV game show Jeopardy, and is now being trialled in business and healthcare.

Most recently, Googles DeepMind AI called AlphaGo beat the world champion Go player, surprising a lot of people especially since Go is an extremely complex game, way surpassing chess.

Peter:

Many auto manufacturers and research institutions are competing to create practical driverless cars for general road use. While currently these cars can drive themselves for much of the time, many challenges remain in dealing with bad weather (heavy rain, fog and snow) and random real-world events such as roadworks, accidents and other blockages.

These incidents often require some degree of human judgement, common sense and even calculated risk to successfully navigate through. We are still a long way from fully autonomous vehicles that dont need a licensed driver ready to take control in an instant.

The same can be said for all the AI that we will see over the coming 10-20 years, such as online virtual personal assistants, accountants, legal and financial advisers, doctors and even physical shop-bots, museum guides, cleaners and security guards.

They will be advanced tools that are very useful in specific situations, but they will never fully replace people because they will have little common sense (probably none, in fact).

Michael:

We will definitely see a range of steady, incremental improvements in everyday AI. Online product recommendations will get better, your phone or car will understand your voice increasingly well and your vacuum cleaner robot wont get stuck as often.

Its likely that well see some major advances beyond todays technology in some but not all of the following areas: self-driving cars, healthcare, utilities (electricity, water, and so on) management, legal, and service areas such as cleaning robots.

I disagree on self-driving cars - theres no real reason why there wont be fully autonomous controlled ride-sharing fleets in the affluent centres of cities, and this is indeed the strategy of companies such as NuTonomy, working in Singapore and Boston.

Michael:

Major advances will come from two sources.

First, there is a long runway of steady incremental improvements left in many areas of conventional AI - large, complex neural networks and algorithms. These systems will continue to improve steadily as more training data becomes available and as scientists perfect them.

The second area will likely be biological inspiration. Scientists are only just starting to tap into the knowledge about how brain networks work, and its likely they will copy or adapt what we know about animal and human brains to make current deep learning networks far more capable.

Peter:

Old-fashioned AI, which was based on pure logic and computer programs that tried to get machines to behave intelligently, basically failed to do anything that humans are good at and computers are not (speech and image recognition, playing complex strategic games, for example).

Whats quite clear now is that our best-performing AI is based on how we think the brain works.

But our current brain-based AI (called Deep Artificial Neural Networks) is still light years away from emulating an actual brain. Enhanced AI capabilities in the future will come from developing better theories of how the brain works.

The fundamental science needed to cultivate these theories will probably come from publicly funded research institutions, which will then be spun off into commercial start-up companies, and then quickly acquired by interested large corporations if they look like they might be successful.

Peter:

Most jobs wont be under threat for a long time, probably several generations. Real people are needed to actually make any significant decisions because AI currently has no common sense.

Instead of replacing jobs, our overall quality of life will go up. For example, right now few people can afford a personal assistant, or a full-time life coach. In the near future, well all have (a virtual) one!

Our virtual doctor will be working for us daily, monitoring our health and making exercise and lifestyle suggestions.

Our houses and workplaces might be cleaner, but we will still need people to clean the spots the robots miss. Well also need people to deploy, retrieve and maintain all the robots.

Our goods will be cheaper due to reduced transport costs, but well still need human drivers to cover all the situations the self-drivers cant.

All this doesnt even mention the whole new entertainment technologies and industries that will spring up to capture our increased disposable income and to cash-in on our improved quality of life.

So yes, jobs will change, but there will still be plenty of them.

Michael:

Its likely that a significant fraction of jobs will be under threat over the coming decade. Its important to note that this wont necessarily be divided by blue-collar versus white-collar, but rather by which occupations are easily automatable.

Its unlikely that an effective plumber robot will be built in the near future, but aspects of the so far undisrupted construction industry may change radically.

Some people say machines will never have the emotional capabilities of humans. Whether that is true or not, many jobs will be under threat with even the most rudimentary levels of emotional understanding and interaction.

Dont think about the complex, nuanced interaction you had with your psychologist; instead think about the one with that disinterested, uncaring part-time hospitality worker. The bar for disruption is not as high as many think.

That leaves the question of what happens then. There are two scenarios - the first being that, like in the past, new types of jobs are generated by the technological revolution.

The other is that humanity gradually transitions into a Utopian society where scientific, artistic and sporting pursuits are pursued at leisure. The short to medium-term reality is probably somewhere in between.

Michael:

Its unlikely in the near future but possible. The real danger is the unpredictability. Skynet-like killer cyborgs as featured in the Terminator film series are unlikely because that development cycle takes a while, and we have multiple opportunities to stop development.

But AI could destroy or damage humanity in other unpredictable ways. For example, when big companies like Google Deepmind start entering into healthcare, its likely that they will improve patient outcomes through a combination of big data and intelligent systems.

One of the temptations or pressures will be to deploy these extremely complex systems before we completely understand every possible ramification. Imagine the pressure if there is good evidence it will save thousands of lives per year.

As we well know, we have a long history of negative unintended consequences with new technology that we didnt fully understand.

In a far-fetched but not impossible healthcare scenario, deploying AI may lead to catastrophic outcomes - a world-wide AI network deciding in ways invisible to us human observers to kill us all off to optimise some misguided performance goal.

The challenge is that with newly developing technologies, there is an illusion of 100% control, which doesnt really exist.

Peter:

All our current AI, and any that we can possibly create in the foreseeable future, are just tools developed for specific jobs and totally useless outside of the exact duties they were designed for. They dont have thoughts or feelings. These AIs are just as likely to try to take over the world as your Xbox or your toaster.

One day, I believe, we will build machines that rival us in intelligence, and these machines will have their own thoughts and possibly learn in an unconstrained way. This sounds scary. But humans are dangerous for exactly the reasons that the machines wont be.

Humans evolved in a constant struggle for life and death, which made us innately competitive and potentially treacherous. When we build the machines, we can instead build them with any underlying motivation that we would like.

For example, we could build an intelligent machine whose only desire is to dismantle itself. Or, we could build in a hidden remote-controlled off switch that is completely separate from any of the machines own circuits, and an auto-shutdown reflex if the machine somehow ever notices it.

All these safeguards will be trivial to implement. So there is simply no way that we could accidentally build a machine that then tries to wipe out the human race.

Of course, because humans themselves are dangerous, someone could build a machine that doesnt have these safeguards and use it for nefarious purposes. But we have that same problem now with nuclear weapons.

In the future, just as now, we have to hope that we are simply smart enough to use our technology wisely.

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The future of artificial intelligence: two experts disagree - The Conversation AU

Diego Oppenheimer, CEO of Algorithmia. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota)

This time, it seems like its actually going to happen.

Weve been hearing promises about how artificial intelligence and machine learning are going to change the world for decades, but in 2017, its hard to deny that real breakthroughs are being made. AI is changing the way tech products are developed, data is evaluated, and even the way we communicate with each other.

At our GeekWire Cloud Tech Summit last month, we invited three AI experts Jensen Harris, CTO of Textio; Diego Oppenheimer, CEO of Algorithmia; and Jasjeet Thind, vice president of data science and engineering at Zillow to deliver a series of technical talks on how artificial intelligence and machine learning are being incorporated into products and services. Theyre presented below, and worth watching if youve been thinking about how AI would make sense in your application or service, but arent quite sure how to make it all work.

Diego Oppenheimer, Algorithmia

Oppenheimer blended a little of our serverless and microservices technical track into his talk, which focused on how developers are actually building applications that take advantage of artificial intelligence. Every application is going to become an intelligence application over the next couple of years, he said, and Googles new AI venture capital firm agrees, having invested $10.5 million into the company a few weeks after his appearance.

Jensen Harris, Textio

The next disruptive technology in productivity, and especially in writing, is machine intelligence, Harris said, early into his presentation on how Textio built its augmented writing system. He walked attendees through the process Textio went through in developing its AI technology, and some of the unsolved challenges that remain.

Jasjeet Thind, Zillow

Once youve deployed artificial intelligence algorithms into your application or service, how do you make sure everything runs the way it should? Thind explained how Zillow tests and deploys AI-powered applications by overcoming some unique challenges that AI presents in the testing process.

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Learn how three experts are bringing the power of artificial intelligence to cloud computing - GeekWire

The Ideas piece, by Emily Kumler, The bias in the machine (July 9), states, Typically, a programmer instructs a machine with a series of commands, and the computer follows along.

This statement captures in broad stokes the larger contours of the here and now of computing and artificial intelligence though far from entirely so, of course. Reality isnt that lock-step the computer [slavishly] following along with a series of commands. To that point, the essay further assumes a straight-line development of AI, such that whats expected longer term is more sophisticated programming leading to still-genuflecting computer obedience.

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The future of AI, however, will likely be very different than that. Rather, AI will depend decreasingly on human intervention for its thinking and increasingly on its self-programming, as machines learn more and more heuristically. That is, the trajectory of AI systems will be to independently acquire, curate, adapt, and apply knowledge in order to inform and shape and reshape its own behaviors and eventually to do so, if human egos can relinquish some of AIs executive functions, far more competently than erstwhile human programmers.

Keith Tidman

Bethesda, Md.

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The 'bias' of artificial intelligence - The Boston Globe

The industrial revolution emerged in the 18th century and altered life for mankind. The computer age that came along in the 20th century did likewise. Now, artificial intelligence, an advanced technology that utilizes algorithms a sequence of actions that combines calculations, data processing and automated reasoning will allow computers to read, understand and analyze as the human mind does. Thus, America is poised to embark on an innovative boom of historic proportions that will transform our everyday life and make some alert investors very wealthy.

Ninety percent of all data produced and collected since the beginning of our time has been done in the last two years, and will be doubled (at the present rate) in the next five years. This incredible statement of facts is difficult to absorb even for the highly intelligent mind. The human brain has astonishing capability. Once our technologists are freed from the monotonous task of sorting out the billions of pages of data now published daily by computer software, our minds can focus on creative research such as medical science, financial analysis and robotics (to name only a few). Just recently, an automobile drove itself and four passengers through the Albany area for 6.1 miles in the first ever test of an autonomous vehicle in New York state.

Artificial intelligence will also enhance human productivity growth. The McKinsey Global Institute recently reported that almost half of all paid technology research work can be automated by AI. This would increase human productivity by .8 percent to 1.4 percent, compounded every year. This will give our country a substantial manpower economic boost.

Unfortunately, artificial intelligence has also empowered a cast of twisted minds, criminals and terrorists who are building a worldwide audience to promote their views. However, AI technologists are already busy creating algorithms that can sweep digital networks and automatically purge incorrect and extremist content.

Amy Hirsh Guarino, an expatriate from upstate New York (who happens to be my niece) has been living and working in Silicon Valley for many years now. Recently, she was recruited by Kyndi (kyndi.com), one of the leading companies in the growing field of artificial intelligence technologists. She is now chief operating officer and considered to be one of the top 100 women technologists in Silicon Valley.

The time is coming when humans can no longer keep up with the volume of reading in our modern age. We foresee a time when every technologist worker must be partnered with an artificial intelligence assistant, she told me during my interview with her. Next, Guarino explained digital forensics as understanding how and why something happens (the TV series "Forensic Files" is a dramatized example of digital forensics).

AI will be able to utilize all the current medical journal information plus medical reports and patient reports to tailor the diagnosis and treatment plans based on individual symptoms, genetics and patient history, Guarino said.

The key of artificial intelligence is being able to process lots of combinations of systems in real time, plus being aware of the latest research. AI will never replace doctors, but it will help them make the right decisions since the systems will be able to recall all known diseases, and, in theory, they dont have bias. With that said, doctors know their patients, and AI will help them provide a filter based on that knowledge.

America is entering a new age call it the information technology age where there will be wonderful opportunities among technologists, innovators and businessmen alike. The key to it all is education.

Harold Miller is a businessman and Auburn native. He can be reached at hmillermod@aol.com.

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Miller: Artificial intelligence a life-altering technology - Auburn Citizen

Appearing before a meeting of the National Governors Association on Saturday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk described artificial intelligence as the greatest risk we face as a civilization and called for swift and decisive government intervention to oversee the technologys development.

On the artificial intelligence front, I have access to the very most cutting edge AI, and I think people should be really concerned about it, an unusually subdued Musk said in a question and answer session with Nevada governor Brian Sandoval.

Musk has long been vocal about the risks of AI . But his statements before the nations governors were notable both for their dire severity, and his forceful call for government intervention.

AIs a rare case where we need to be proactive in regulation, instead of reactive. Because by the time we are reactive with AI regulation, its too late," he remarked. Musk then drew a contrast between AI and traditional targets for regulation, saying AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization, in a way that car accidents, airplane crashes, faulty drugs, or bad food were not.

Those are strong words from a man occasionally associated with so-called cyberlibertarianism, a fervently anti-regulation ideology exemplified by the likes of Peter Thiel, who co-founded Paypal with Musk.

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Musk went on to argue that broad government regulation was vital because companies are currently pressured to pursue advanced AI or risk irrelevance in the marketplace:

Thats where you need the regulators to come in and say, hey guys, you all need to just pause and make sure this is safe . . . You kind of need the regulators to do that for all the teams in the game. Otherwise the shareholders will be saying, why arent you developing AI faster? Because your competitor is.

Part of Musks worry stems from social destabilization and job loss. When I say everything, the robots will do everything, bar nothing," he said.

But Musk's bigger concern has to do with AI that lives in the network, and which could be incentivized to harm humans. [They] could start a war by doing fake news and spoofing email accounts and fake press releases, and just by manipulating information," he said. "The pen is mightier than the sword.

Musk outlined a hypothetical situation, for instance, in which an AI could pump up defense industry investments by using hacking and disinformation to trigger a war.

Im against overregulation for sure, Musk emphasized, But man, I think with weve got to get on that with AI, pronto.

Musks comments on AI only took up a small part of the hour-long exchange. He also speculated about the future of driverless cars and space travel, and mourned that meeting the sky-high expectations surrounding him was "quite a difficult emotional hardship" and "a whole lot less fun than it may seem."

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Elon Musk Says Artificial Intelligence Is the 'Greatest Risk We Face as a Civilization' - Fortune