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Tag: artificial intelligence

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Pre-school edtech startup Lingumi raises 4m, adds some free services during COVID-19

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At these difficult times, parents are concerned for their children’s education, especially given so much of it has had to go online during the COVID-19 pandemic. But what about pre-schoolers who are missing out? Pre-school children are sponges for information but don’t get formal training on reading and writing until they enter the classroom when they are less sponge-like and surrounded by 30 other children. Things are tougher for non-English speaking children who’s parents want them to learn English. Lingumi, a platform aimed at toddlers learning critical skills, has now…

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This Technique Uses AI to Fool Other AIs

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Artificial intelligence has made big strides recently in understanding language, but it can still suffer from an alarming, and potentially dangerous, kind of algorithmic myopia. Research shows how AI programs that parse and analyze text can be confused and deceived by carefully crafted phrases. A sentence that seems straightforward to you or me may have a strange ability to deceive an AI algorithm. That’s a problem as text-mining AI programs increasingly are used to judge job applicants, assess medical claims, or process legal documents. Strategic changes to a handful of…

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White House reportedly aims to double AI research budget to $2B

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The White House is pushing to dedicate an additional billion dollars to fund artificial intelligence research, effectively doubling the budget for that purpose outside of Defense Department spending, Reuters reported today, citing people briefed on the plan. Investment in quantum computing would also receive a major boost. The 2021 budget proposal would reportedly increase AI R&D funding to nearly $2 billion, and quantum to about $860 million, over the next two years. The U.S. is engaged in what some describe as a “race” with China in the field of AI,…

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Snow and Ice Pose a Vexing Obstacle for Self-Driving Cars

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In late 2018, Steven Waslander, a professor at the University of Toronto, compiled a data set of images from snowy and rainy Canadian roads. It includes footage of foggy camera views, blizzard conditions, and cars sliding around, captured over two winters. The individual frames are annotated so that a machine can interpret what the scene conveys. Autonomous driving systems typically use annotated images to inform algorithms that track a car's position and plan its route. The Canadian data should help researchers develop and test algorithms against challenging conditions. But the…

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EU lawmakers are eyeing risk-based rules for AI, per leaked white paper

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The European Commission is considering a temporary ban on the use of facial recognition technology, according to a draft proposal for regulating artificial intelligence obtained by Euroactiv. Creating rules to ensure AI is ‘trustworthy and human’ has been an early flagship policy promise of the new Commission, led by president Ursula von der Leyen. But the leaked proposal suggests the EU’s executive body is in fact leaning towards tweaks of existing rules and sector/app specific risk-assessments and requirements, rather than anything as firm as blanket sectoral requirements or bans. The…

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London Cops Will Use Facial Recognition to Hunt Suspects

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There will soon be a new bobby on the beat in London: artificial intelligence. London’s Metropolitan Police Big Brother Watch in the UK. She says activists in Hong Kong, Russia, or South America may find it more difficult to push back against expanded use of facial recognition as a result. Carlo says facial recognition is already being used in dubious ways in the UK, for example to monitor the Notting Hill Carnival, a major event in British Black culture. “We talk about mission creep, but the mission is already well…

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An AI Epidemiologist Sent the First Warnings of the Wuhan Virus

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On January 9, the World Health Organization notified the public of a flu-like outbreak in China: a cluster of pneumonia cases had been reported in Wuhan, possibly from vendors’ exposure to live animals at the Huanan Seafood Market. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had gotten the word out a few days earlier, on January 6. But a Canadian health monitoring platform had beaten them both to the punch, sending word of the outbreak to its customers on December 31. Related Stories Snakes?! The Slippery Truth of a…

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Meet the Mormon Gamer Who Took Dungeons & Dragons Online

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In late November, a college senior at Brigham Young University named Nick Walton published a short app this week, the player can choose a type of story (fantasy, mystery, zombie, apocalypse, custom), a rank (noble, squire, knight, peasant, ranger, rogue), and any name (i.e. Paul, Dan Nainan, Pete Buttigiegs campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith). The program will generate a premise and from there, the user can input any action (pet the cat, eat a sandwich, drink a melted knife, open a can of beans, eat one whole, and enjoy the salty…

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