World first as Google DeepMind’s AI crushes the world’s top Starcraft players
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Starcraft is a game of strategy, and as a result DeepMind’s AI had to learn an entirely new type of game play in order to thrash its opponents. AI agents developed by Google’s DeepMind subsidiary have finally beaten human pros at Starcraft II — a first...
Facebook 3D photos sources depth information straight from your camera
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The cameras in our gadgets can do alot more than take photos, and with just a minor tweak we can use them to create living 3D photos. Leveraging the extra “depth” data found in some iPhone photographs, Facebook today announced the rollout of 3D Photos – images...
A new algorithm helps machines sense and respond to human trust
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As humans and machines start working closely together researchers think we need to create machines that we can trust, but simulating trust might not be the right answer. As robots and other machines become more entwined with our daily lives, the field of improving...
Creative AI’s have learnt how to create their own video games
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF AI is getting increasingly capable at creating quality synthetic content, and that includes books, scripts, and worlds. Today we have AI’s building other AI’s and fake news stories, and AI’s that write their own code, and doing a better job of it than the...
New AI Fake News generator is too dangerous to release, say its creators
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF It will not be long before we cannot differentiate the difference between real content and fake content, and that has a myriad of very serious implications, none of which we are prepared for. There are several very scary AI’s in existence today, take for...
MIT’s new neural network can explain its decisions
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As AI gets more deeply embedded into the world’s digital fabric, in everything from self-driving cars to high frequency stock trading, it’s crucial we know how it makes its decisions. A child is presented with a picture of various shapes and is asked to...
Researchers want to revolutionise AI by combining Quantum computers and Neural Networks
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Today, I talk not just about Exponential Technologies but also about Exponential Combinations, by combining Quantum Computing with Neural Networks we’d revolutionise both. A new research project led by researchers at the Heriot-Watt University in the US aims to harness the power of quantum computers, computers...
Google creates a neural network that picks out individual voices in video
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Not only does this technology have benefits for video search, but it also has surveillance and privacy implications. Recently I talked about a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) advancement from Hitachi that let’s its AI’s pick out and follow individuals in a crowd – something that...
DARPA announces plans to build conscious robots using insect brains
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF On the one hand you can write advanced AI software to control your robots, or we can use what nature’s already given us… There’s a field called Neurobiotics that, unsurprisingly, many people haven’t heard of that I came across recently where scientists try to...
OpenAI develops curious AI’s that learn for themselves
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Today’s AI’s are force fed training information but companies around the world are trying to create AI’s that learn for themselves which will revolutionise the field. When playing a video game, what motivates you to carry on? This question is perhaps too broad to...
New “revolutionary” Google AI training method trains AI’s at the edge and protects user privacy
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF One of the biggest problems with training AI’s is the shortage of data, and the issue of privacy, Federated AI Learning overcomes this problem by training AI’s on the devices and smartphones at the network’s edge. When big tech firms use Artificial Intelligence (AI)...
Lexus turns to IBM to create the world’s first AI scripted advert
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF In time all adverts, and the majority of content, will be created by AI, and people won’t be able to tell it from the “real” thing. Over the past eighteen months or so I’ve been discussing how Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been becoming increasingly...
A creative AI designed NASA’s next spider-like interplanetary lander
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As humans we tend to believe that creativity is our exclusive domain, but AI is muscling in in a big way, and creative machines are improving all the time. Over the past couple of years I’ve been banging the drum, through my articles and...
DeepFake busting app spots even a single pixel out of place
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Increasingly most people don’t believe the news they’re seeing is real, this new technology helps news organisations and outlets regain that trust. Falsifying photos and videos used to take a lot of work – either you used CGI to generate photorealistic images from scratch,...
MIT trained an AI to spot fake and biased news stories
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Being able to detect and weed out fake news is quickly rising up the political agenda, and companies are in an arms race to try to find solutions fast. Any fact-checker who works in the media has a straightforward but challenging job – make...
A portrait created by an AI just sold at Christies for $432,000
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF We’re told that machines can’t be creative, at least in the human sense, but nevertheless they can still “create” art – and sell it. A few months ago I wrote an article about a Google backed Artificial Intelligence (AI) based out of Germany that...
AI could take your job, but Baidu’s newest AI can also help you find one
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Artificial Intelligence is being used more and more to vet candidates, now it could soon be used to help match them to jobs too. Recently I wrote a report on the Future of Education 2020 to 2070, and there’s been plenty of speculation about...
Quantum artificial life created for the first time
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Scientists have long wondered what the smallest unit that could sustain life and replicate itself would be, and now they know. Scientists have created quantum artificial life for the first time using a revolutionary new quantum algorithm and IBM’s experimental quantum computing platform. The...
Smart drug use hits all time high as people try to boost mental performance
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF There is an increasing amount of interest in creating drugs that improve cognition and intelligence, and their use is on the rise. The use of drugs by people hoping to boost mental performance is rising worldwide, finds the largest ever study of the trend....
Three people played Tetris telepathically together in world first
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As we unlock more secrets of the human brain we are slowly but surely getting better at communicating with each other telepathically. Telepathic communication is nothing new but it’s still in its early years as a technology. The first major telepathic breakthrough came in 2012...
