World’s first AI government policy maker gives China a diplomatic advantage
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF AI will play an increasingly central role in both government policy making and governing as China rolls out their first AI policy maker. If you’re a foreign policy maker with a government then, whether you like it or not, you’ll soon be working with...
Mine hunting bees tracked with Lidar help farmers boost crop yields
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Bees help pollinate nearly 75 percent of our crops, this new system can track their progress and predict deadly colony collapses before they happen. You might expect to hear an angry buzzing when honeybees have been disturbed. But some apiarists reckon they can also...
Collapsing bee colonies prompt researchers to build robotic bees to replace them
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF We rely on bees to pollinate nearly 75 percent of our crops, but as colonies continue to collapse researchers are looking for new alternatives to pollinate crops. Food security continues to come under the spotlight which is why we’ve recently seen research that uses...
Hackers use data science to evade state of the art AI cybersecurity systems
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF By figuring out what data sets cybersecurity are training their AI’s on hackers have found a way to create malware that can’t be detected. Walking around the exhibition floor at this week’s massive Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas many people were struck...
AI can now tell your boss what skills you lack and how to get them
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Every job is a combination of different competencies but most training courses only focus on a few, now AI can tell you all the competencies you lack and how to get them. Here’s the conundrum with corporate online learning, there are so many classes available from...
Jeff bezos announces target to build the world’s first Moon base in 2023
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF At some point in the future humanity will become an interplanetary species, and several billionaires want it to be sooner rather than later. Blue Origin, the space company run by Jeff Bezos, who wants to one day use the service to deliver goods to...
Stopping the DIY bio-terrorists, US military embraces AI and Ginkgo Bioworks
WHY THIS MATTERS As the cost of powerful DIY gene editing kits continue to fall bioterrorism is going to be on the rise, so we need a way to defend against it. Recently I gave a talk on the “Future of Cybersecurity” in the Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) sector...
200 Quadrillion calculations per second, Summit, world’s most powerful AI supercomputer goes live
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As supercomputers become increasingly powerful they will increasingly help us realise new breakthroughs in everything from drug discovery and energy generation, through to materials and space travel, and everything in between. It’s the most powerful computing platform on Earth, for now at least –...
Revolutionary AI chip that replaces GPU’s hailed as the “future” by ARM’s founder
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The future will be powered by AI and Machine Learning, and it could also be powered by a new type of chip, an “Intelligence Processing Unit,” which is the next evolutionary step after the GPU. What comes after the CPU and the GPU? The...
US military and DARPA team up to develop tech to uncover fake news
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The advent of powerful AI tools, adaptable neural networks and the democratisation of hi definition rendering have taken fake news to a new level and this program aims to unmask the fakes. We’ve all seen that video where Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered algorithms make it seem like Barack...
CGI “Virtual influencers” on Instagram battle it out in public, snag real ad cash
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Today we are used to the majority of our influencers, and contacts, being human, but as we progress into the future more of the encounters we have will be with virtual entities, in the form of avatars, bots and virtual vloggers like these. It...
General AI, the “holy grail” of AI, demonstrated for the first time
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF AI’s that can learn quickly, and from very small data sets, will fundamentally change how we train AI’s, their capabilities, and how fast they are deployed into the market. Recently we saw a new “Master algorithm” that could be used to create the first...
This AI reads your mind to recreate the faces you’re thinking of
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Being able to read someone’s mind leads down two roads. It can either be used as part of a dystopian state apparatus, or to help catch criminals and help people who can’t communicate communicate. It’s frustrating to have a clear mental image of something...
Rigetti combines Quantum computing with Machine Learning to boost AI
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Tomorrow’s ultra powerful Quantum Computers could revolutionise the direction and development of future AI’s, and companies are making some interesting breakthroughs. While many of Quantum computing’s practical applications remain largely unknown, with, arguably, only our imagination being the limit of what we can do...
UK Government mulls creating the world’s first Robo-Regulator for fintechs
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Regulating industries and companies is an increasingly complicated task, and some are arguing that it’s one that should be automated and given to the machines, but that opens up its own set of challenges. The love affair British politicians have enjoyed with fintech since...
AI starts reading sentences directly from people’s brains
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As AI becomes increasingly adept at helping unlock the secrets of the brain it’s also becoming more adept at helping decode and visualise complex thoughts onto TV’s and other devices. The capabilities and accuracy of Artificial Intelligence (AI) “mind reading” systems, as they are increasing...
MIT’s “mind reading” wearable let’s you silently interact with all your devices
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As computing becomes ubiquitous, and embedded in the devices around us, we won’t always want to talk out loud to use them, that’s one of the many use cases for this technology. MIT researchers have developed a new form of computer interface called AlterEgo...
JPMorgan is automating the world of finance
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The world of finance is being automated faster than almost any other industry and JPMorgan is leading the charge. At JPMorgan Chase a learning machine is parsing financial deals that once kept legal teams busy for thousands of hours. The program, called COIN, for...
Ultrasound on a smartphone, Butterfly Network release the iQ
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Healthcare in many countries is expensive and difficult to access, tools like these help democratise access to vital services helping people live longer, healthier lives. Engineer Jonathan Rothberg became famous for creating the world’s first DNA sequencer on a chip called the Ion Torrent back in...
Google’s revolutionary new “Codeless AI” lets non programmers build their own AI’s
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF AI will help revolutionise every corner of society and Google is helping democratise the technology so everyone, with any capability, programmers and non programmers, can build models and make use of it. With the dramatic rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in recent years it’s...
