Neural networks can now transfer the style of one photo to another
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As we see continue to see the rise of new types of synthetic content and tools style transfer could one day help us create new games and videos faster. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. As we continue...
AI’s new trick is predicting when you’re going to die
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Every year over 7,000 people in the UK die from pulmonary heart disease die, and this technology could help save their lives. You could argue that artificial intelligence (AI) is already spooky enough. Whether we’re dreaming up new ways in which we think it...
Google’s new AI learns nearly as fast as humans
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Artificial intelligence can only progress as fast as it can learn, and now that it can learn at almost human speed it’s going to be progressing much, much faster. Make no mistake, artificial intelligence (AI) has humans in its perfect, heightened, machine vision sights. Deep...
New breakthrough gives AI a human memory
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Unknown to many AI’s are amnesiacs, they forget almost everything they’re taught, but now a new human like memory system could be about to take AI to the next level and make them much, much smarter. When researchers decide to train their latest and greatest...
Kurzweil: AI aces Turing Test in 2029, and the Singularity arrives in 2045
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As the capabilities of artificial intelligence increase, and as technology improves at an exponential rate Kurzweil re-affirms his predictions. Most people will know of, or at least heard of, Ray Kurzweil, Google’s famed Director of Engineering, and one of the world’s leading futurists. He’s...
Researchers want to revolutionise artificial intelligence by teaching it common sense
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The world’s leading AI researcher believes that teaching AI’s common sense will lead to a revolution in how they learn and take them to the next level. Around five years ago artificial intelligence (AI) made a giant leap forward and suddenly, almost overnight, became...
Google DeepMind publishes breakthrough Artificial General Intelligence architecture
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF DeepMind is trying to create a new Artificial General Intelligence architecture by creating an adaptable, massive neural network that draws on thousands of other “sub” neural networks. On January 20th Google’s DeepMind division, the division behind a myriad of artificial intelligence (AI) firsts, quietly...
Disney hopes children will love its new autonomous story-telling robots
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Sometimes the best technology is the technology that comes across as magic, and that’s what Disney is playing up to. It’s rare that Disney ever lifts the covers off of its R&D labs, and that sucks when I want to write about it. However, while...
World’s top AI experts met to discuss Doomsday scenarios, and solutions
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Showcasing how AI will destroy the world is easy but finding a solution isn’t. Today’s press is full of column inches on the future impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on society. On one side of the fence AI optimists predict a brave new world...
Artificial intelligence identifies skin cancer as well as trained doctors
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Every year tens of millions of people around the world are diagnosed with skin cancer, and Stanford’s artificial intelligence app could save tens of thousands of lives. It’s scary enough making a doctor’s appointment to see if a strange mole could be cancerous so...
Descartes Labs new AI visual search tool lets you find everything on Earth
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF People have been using satellites to take photos of the Earth for decades but until now you’ve never been able to search it to find things of interest, or combine it with other data to identify patterns. Recently a company called Planet increased the...
Wall Street supremo’s pile into a new AI hedge fund dubbed the future of finance
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Until now the financial services industry has never been able to benefit from a network effect, but that’s about to change and it could tip Wall Street on its head. The “Network Effect” is a phenomenon known the world over, it’s where a service...
No humans required, the fully autonomous AI running a Wall Street hedge fund
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Companies that use artificial intelligence to augment their human workers is nothing new, but companies that are run by artificial intelligence, without any human input, are. I’ve been documenting the emergence of fully autonomous organisations – organisations that are able to run and scale...
China guns for dominance in AI, builds out national labs
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Artificial intelligence is the world’s next key battle ground, and China wants to lead it. The Chinese government, who recently announced they want to build AI based cruise missiles and a new nationwide Social Credit Scoring system, has approved a plan to create a...
Softbank CEO predicts the Singularity will occur in 2047
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The Singularity, the point at which we see runaway technological growth that result in unfathomable changes to human civilisation, is approaching, and we need to be prepared. In 30 years, the Singularity, the point at which we see runaway technological growth that result in...
JPMorgan unleashes artificial intelligence to automate its legal work
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF With massive technology budgets and a paranoia of startups stealing a march Wall Street is going all in on innovation and automation. With companies like LawGeex and ROSS Intelligence trying to automate the legal world it was only a matter of time before the...
Microsoft’s AI has learnt how to write it’s own code and create its own programs
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF An AI that can code and build new computer programs from scratch could change the world, give rise to a whole new generation of entrepreneurs. And put a lot of people out of jobs… For many of us the digital world’s an alien place....
Researchers use artificial intelligence to automatically age faces
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The ability to age people accurately is one of the cornerstone abilities that can help people find missing persons. People have been fascinated with age ever since, well, perhaps forever, and for many people being able to get a glimpse of how they’ll look...
Google let its AI loose on the internet to slaughter gamers
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Compared to the sterile environment of a lab, for an artificial intelligence the internet must seem like a playground. If you ever wondered what would happen if an artificial intelligence (AI) ever got online then you’re about to get your answer thanks to Google...
Hunting terrorists and preventing suicides, inside Zuckerberg’s plan for AI
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Facebooks human operators can’t police everything on the network fast enough, so Zuckerberg is prioritising artificial intelligence In a letter published earlier this week Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook, the company that one day wants to be the world’s largest telepathic network, will be...
