The codeless computers of the future and the fall of the programming elite
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Programming is one of todays most in demand skills but as we continue to train, not code our latest computer systems, the trend won’t last. Before the invention of the computer, most experimental psychologists thought the brain was an unknowable black box that they’d...
MIT’s new AI can create videos of the future by looking at a photo
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The human brain is good at looking at a scene and figuring out what happens next, now an AI can look at a photo and create a video of the future from it and that opens up some interesting applications. Love the Exponential Future?...
Scientists may have discovered the algorithm for Human intelligence
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF It seems algorithms rule the world, now scientists think they have identified the algorithm responsible for human intelligence, if true then it could revolutionise artificial intelligence. Little might you realise but as you read this article there’s a good chance your brain is running...
GE’s revolutionary industrial machines can have conversations with engineers
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As emerging technologies combine we’re entering the era where we can talk to machines in the same way we talk to other people – and the possibilities are staggering. As more and more emerging technologies mature – or, at least improve, we are gradually...
Google Translate has made up its own secret language
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Not being able to speak other languages divides us, and it prevents us and the machines from understanding each other and the content we all generate. By breaking down communication barriers we are opening ourselves up to a new world of data and possibilities. ...
Adobe’s new software lets you Photoshop voices on demand
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The ability to perfectly “Photoshop”, edit and manipulate people’s voices opens up new opportunities for media companies but it could also create problems for companies who rely on biometric authentication, such as banks. I love Photoshop – I’ve been using it for the past...
Watch your mouth, Google’s DeepMind lip reads better than humans
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Machines and computer systems that can lip read accurately will help enhance the lives of people living with hearing impairments, but it will also help organisations and “institutions” invade people’s privacy and listen in on otherwise private conversations. Even professional lip readers can figure...
Facebooks new app gives your smartphone AI super powers
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Pushing artificial intelligence to the edge of the network – to the device, and untethering it from the datacenter, will help make devices smarter and revolutionise the software that runs on them, making it exponentially more powerful and capable In a speech today at...
Google AIs learnt how to encrypt their communications to stop people spying on them
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Artificial intelligence is being embedded into every device and service, AIs that can dynamically encrypt their own communications could help to increase the security of those services exponentially. If you were worried about the news that AIs are already building other AIs then the...
Scientists use facial recognition to create a Facebook for whales
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Smile. You won’t find these faces in the shops looking for deals… Creating new algorithms that identify our friends in nature seems to be a growing trend – and it’s about time too. Now researchers have developed a facial-recognition algorithm for whales that could...
Cornell’s new AI is cataloguing nature – starting with trees
What type of tree is that anyway? Cornell is creating a catalogue for Nature Engineers from Caltech have developed a method that uses data from satellite and street-level images, such as the ones that you can see in Google Maps, to automatically create an inventory of street trees that cities...
World first as Microsofts speech recognition software becomes as accurate as humans
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF After almost forty years of research speech recognition systems are now as good as humans. Microsoft have announced that they have made a major breakthrough in speech recognition and created a technology that, finally, recognises the words in conversational speech as well as humans do –...
Apples CEO Tim Cook speaks out the future of AI
Apples latest announcements on its plans for AI are, well, boring Pixar founder George Lucas might have given the world the word “Droid” before he sold the company to Apple’s Steve Jobs but now Apple CEO Tim Cook is making no secret of the fact that he wants the company to play...
Google’s DeepMind team have created a human like memory for their AI
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Memory fills the gaps in information that even todays best AI algorithms can’t. Google’s DeepMind artificial intelligence lab does more than just develop computer programs capable of beating the world’s best human players in the ancient game of Go. The DeepMind unit has also been working...
Techs biggest names are working together to regulate AI research
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF AI, the Genie we’ve let out of the bottle is on the cusp of improving at an exponential rate and we need to talk about the potential consequences. Artificial intelligence is hitting its stride, already giving us machines that can drive themselves, talk to...
Google teaches robots to learn from each other using a hive mind
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Robots learning from other robots will ultimately mean robots will learn new skills faster, accelerating the robot revolution. The robots of the world are uniting – and that’s either a great thing or a terrifying thing depending on your view. Google has a plan to...
Sit down, the creative machines are innovating chairs
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Machines might not have a consciousness, per se, but they’re becoming increasingly “innovative and creative” Innovation is an algorithm… Earlier this year I wrote a post discussing how we were beginning to see the emergence of the first signs of creative machines – and...
Google and UK NHS team up to use AI to improve cancer treatment
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Machine learning could cut the time it takes to plan a patient’s radiotherapy treatment by hours. Working out how to zap a tumour with radiation is a laborious process for physicians and Google’s machine learning division, DeepMind, thinks AI can help ease the burden. When...
Microsoft wants to democratise Artificial Intelligence
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Microsoft wants to to give everyone access to artificial intelligence and a supercomputer. Earlier this year, Google’s DeepMind artificial brain conquered a world class champion at the game of Go — a feat that even amazed Elon Musk. But Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is less impressed, at...
Machine learning boosts Google’s translation capabilities to near human levels
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The technology behind Google’s AlphaGo is about to give Google Translate a major upgrade and it’s within a whisker of being as good at it as humans are. Last year, a computer system built by a team of Google engineers beat one of the world’s...
