The codeless computers of the future and the fall of the programming elite

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...

Read more
MIT’s new AI can create videos of the future by looking at a photo

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?...

Read more
Scientists may have discovered the algorithm for Human intelligence

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...

Read more
GE’s revolutionary industrial machines can have conversations with engineers

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...

Read more
Google Translate has made up its own secret language

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.  ...

Read more
Adobe’s new software lets you Photoshop voices on demand

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...

Read more
Watch your mouth, Google’s DeepMind lip reads better than humans

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...

Read more
Facebooks new app gives your smartphone AI super powers

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...

Read more
Google AIs learnt how to encrypt their communications to stop people spying on them

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...

Read more
Scientists use facial recognition to create a Facebook for whales

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...

Read more
Cornell’s new AI is cataloguing nature – starting with trees

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...

Read more
World first as Microsofts speech recognition software becomes as accurate as humans

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 –...

Read more
Apples CEO Tim Cook speaks out the future of AI

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...

Read more
Google’s DeepMind team have created a human like memory for their AI

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...

Read more
Techs biggest names are working together to regulate AI research

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...

Read more
Google teaches robots to learn from each other using a hive mind

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...

Read more
Sit down, the creative machines are innovating chairs

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...

Read more
Google and UK NHS team up to use AI to improve cancer treatment

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...

Read more
Microsoft wants to democratise Artificial Intelligence

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...

Read more
Machine learning boosts Google’s translation capabilities to near human levels

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...

Read more