Artificial intelligence diagnoses disease by listening to your voice
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Your voice can tell people a lot about how you’re feeling, but now machine learning is taking diagnosis to the next level. Over the past few years technology has been finding a way to produce more and more innovative ways to diagnose disease, but...
Google RAISR sharpens photos and gives you super vision
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Sight is one of our most crucial senses, now one technology promises infinite zoom and super crisp images. Let’s face it – the last thing many of us want it to take what we think is a great family photo only to find out...
Google tests AI’s natural killer instincts, discovers society must be very, very careful
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As artificial intelligence is embedded into more of our world’s digital fabric inevitably AI’s will come into conflict with one another, but rules might help us stave off armageddon – or bring it about. If climate change, nuclear weapons or pandemics don’t kill us...
Nowhere to hide for Goldman’s elite as AI culls jobs
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Banking is one of the world’s oldest professions, but people only have a profession if they have a job, and as Wall Street drives to full automation there are fewer jobs to go round. At its height back in 2000, the US cash equities...
New mind reading machine lets people with locked in syndrome communicate
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF People who have locked in syndrome, like ALS have the worst of both worlds – being alive but unable to communicate, now a breakthrough gives them their “voices” back. For decades, one of the most troubling difficulties of treating patients with certain types of...
Liberatus AI whips world’s top poker players to take $1.7m pot
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Poker is unpredictable, and noone predicted an AI would beat four of the world’s top players – not even its creators. An artificial intelligence (AI) called Libratus from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) has beaten four of the world’s best poker players in a gruelling...
UK’s NHS gives millions of Londoners their own on call AI doctor
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF For better or worse, more and more healthcare services are being augmented and automated using new artificial intelligence services, only time will tell what the results will be. A few months ago Baidu rolled out a limited trial of a new virtual doctors service,...
Google’s AI’s are learning how to build new AI’s
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Logically speaking getting AI’s to build AI’s makes sense, but as AI’s continue to proliferate and be woven into the digital fabric of our society it opens up a dangerous pandoras box. As many companies, large and small will tell you, creating a good artificial...
Zuckerberg wants to turn Facebook into the world’s largest telepathic network
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Telepathic communication is the stuff of true sci-fi but we’ve already demonstrated that we can achieve it using technology, now Zuckerberg wants to plug that telepathic tech into Facebook and turn the social network into the world’s largest telepathic network. One of my favourite...
Researchers new artificial nervous system helps robots feel pain
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Pain plays a vital role in shaping how we interact with our world and each other, and it plays a pivotal role in helping us determine what’s safe and what isn’t. By helping robots experience pain it’s hoped that it will help them too stay...
Bach lives again, in AI form
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Trying to emulate human skills and talents isn’t easy – even for humans – but increasingly AI is muscling in on what we once considered to be unique human traits. Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasing parking its caravan on humanity’s lawn. Traits that we...
Japanese insurer announces it will replace office workers with artificial intelligence
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF More and more companies are experimenting with AI as a way to automate away jobs, and as the human toll continues to increase this is just the beginning Fukoku Mutual Life, a Japanese insurance company with a turnover of $6.8 Billion in 2016, announced...
The world’s largest hedge fund is using AI to automate its entire management team
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The news is filled with news about automation and machines that are taking our jobs, arguably for the first time we can see companies who are automating both the workers at the base of the pyramid, and the executives at the top. In the next...
China to build artificially intelligent, fire and forget, cruise missiles
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The increasing use of intelligent, autonomous systems is getting people spooked, so much so that the UN are getting involved It’s the start of 2017 and I knew there was a void – something I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but something I...
Velodyne’s new miniature LiDAR means many more autonomous things
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Most of the new smart things that we are creating rely on sensors to map, move around and interact with our world, and LiDAR is a key sensing technology that helps things see, Velodyne’s new product will accelerate the creation of smart, autonomous things...
Banks are using mind reading technology to interview graduates
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Every business is becoming a technology business and nowhere is that truer than in the financial services industry, now as banks try to compete with start ups and established technology companies for tech talent they could find themselves getting into warm water… Want to...
Mark Zuckerberg shows off Jarvis, the AI that runs his home
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF There’s a good chance that Jarvis, Mark Zuckerberg’s in house digital assistant, is more than just a quirky hobby to pass the time, it could be a beta test for a new Facebook product or feature At the beginning of this year, Facebook CEO...
Manga legend scolds AI created zombie animation as an insult to life
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Artificial intelligence systems are getting increasingly good at constructing, designing and animating their own short movies, automating more of the tasks that, up until now, have been thought of as the preserve of humans and humans alone Born in 1964 it’s safe to say...
IEEE publishes the worlds first framework for coding ethical behaviours into AI
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Artificial intelligence is rapidly being embedded into the worlds digital fabric but increasingly these systems are black boxes whose behaviours and decision making processes flummox even their designers, and with no ethical codes to follow many people worry about the negative consequences that these advanced...
Uber pulls the covers off of its new AI lab
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As the capability of new artificial intelligence systems improve more organisations are leveraging AI products and tools to help them maintain and extend their competitive edge Uber have announced that they’ve launched an artificial intelligence (AI) lab and acquired Geometric Intelligence, an AI startup,...
