Robotics, Trump and Brexit turn up the heat amid the snow of Davos
Graeme Wearden for The Guardian: The “fourth industrial revolution” will once again be a key theme at this year’s Davos, where the focus will be on the problems created by technologies such as smart robots and driverless cars. The WEF will examine whether the loss to these innovations of millions of jobs is undermining social cohesion and contributing to the rise of populist parties.
Davos will also consider whether increased use of artificial intelligence and the “internet of things” are laying firms open to a new wave of cyberthreats and security beaches. This area of technology has until now been only lightly regulated; is the world ready to hand more decision-making powers to machines? Full article:
Eyeris Emotional AI and Face Analytics Technology Gains Momentum in Commercialization in the Automotive and Social Robot Markets
Demos at CES 2017 and Sponsors the Smart Cities Hackathon
Google Tasks Robots with Learning Skills from One Another via Cloud Robotics
Steve Arar for All About Circuits: Humans use language to tap into the knowledge of others and learn skills faster. This helps us hone our intuition and go through our daily activities more efficiently. Inspired by this, Google Research, DeepMind (its UK artificial intelligence lab), and Google X have decided to allow their robots share their experiences. Sharing the learning process among multiple robots, the research team has considerably expedited general-purpose skill acquisition of robots.
Using an artificial neural network, we can teach a robot to achieve a goal by analyzing the result of its previous experiences. At first, the robot may seem to act randomly simply working based on trial and error. However, it examines the result of each trial and, if satisfactory, focuses on similar experiments during the next trials. Making a connection between each experience and the obtained result, the robot would be able to gradually make better choices. Cont'd...
The Aggressively Flying Quadrotor
Steve Arar for All About Circuits: Recently, Vijay Kumar’s lab at the University of Pennsylvania in cooperation with researchers from Qualcomm has unveiled a quadrotor which can fly aggressively through a window. You may think that you have seen similar robots before; however, there is a big difference between previously designed robots and this new technology.
Generally, to exhibit challenging maneuvers, a quadrotor depends on an array of cameras mounted on the walls and some external processors. The image captured by the cameras is processed and the outcome is delivered to the robot. The computer can issue precise commands and the only thing that the robot needs to do is to follow the orders. However, the new robot performs both the image capturing and processing onboard.
The quadrotor carries an IMU, a Qualcomm Snapdragon, and Hexagon DSP. With the onboard sensors and processors, the robot is able to perform localization, state estimation, and path planning autonomously. Cont'd...
Stanford study concludes next generation of robots won't try to kill us
Bruce Brown for DigitalTrends: It sounds like we can all take a breath and forget about robot attacks occurring — at least anytime soon. Robots turning against their makers is a common theme in science fiction. However, there’s “no cause for concern that AI poses an imminent threat to humanity,” according to Fast Company, citing the first report from the One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence (AI100).
The Stanford University-hosted project represents a standing committee of AI scientists. The AI100 project is ongoing but will not issue reports annually — the next one will be published “in a few years.” The first report, Artificial Intelligence and Life in 2030, downloadable at this link, looks at how advances in AI will make a difference in the U.S. between now and 2030. Areas of change explored by the report include transportation, healthcare, education, the workplace, and policing and public safety. Cont'd...
Deep-Domain Conversational AI
Deep-Domain Conversational AI describes the AI technology which is required to build voice and chat assistants which can demonstrate deep understanding of any knowledge domain.
Innovative Machine Learning Training Method Opens New Possibilities for Artificial Intelligence
From AZoRobotics: As a result of a new machine learning algorithm formulated by engineering researchers Parham Aarabi (ECE) and Wenzhi Guo (ECE MASc 1T5) at University of Toronto, smartphones may soon be able to provide users with honest answers.
The researchers prepared an algorithm that was capable of learning directly from human instructions, instead of an existing set of examples, and surpassed conventional techniques of training neural networks by 160%.
But more astonishingly, their algorithm also surpassed its own training by 9% - it learned to identify hair in pictures with better reliability than that enabled by the training, signifying a major leap forward for artificial intelligence. Cont'd...
Virtual Immortality: Reanimating characters from TV shows
From James Charles, Derek Magee, David Hogg:
The objective of this work is to build virtual talking avatars of characters fully automatically from TV shows. From this unconstrained data, we show how to capture a character’s style of speech, visual appearance and language in an effort to construct an interactive avatar of the person and effectively immortalize them in a computational model. We make three contributions (i) a complete framework for producing a generative model of the audiovisual and language of characters from TV shows; (ii) a novel method for aligning transcripts to video using the audio; and (iii) a fast audio segmentation system for silencing nonspoken audio from TV shows. Our framework is demonstrated using all 236 episodes from the TV series Friends (≈ 97hrs of video) and shown to generate novel sentences as well as character specific speech and video... (full paper)
DENSO and Toshiba Agree to Develop Artificial Intelligence Technology, Deep Neural Network-IP, for Next-generation Image Recognition Systems
- Accelerating the development of technology to help achieve advanced driver assistance and automated driving -
What Leading AI, Machine Learning And Robotics Scientists Say About The Future
Jason Lim for Forbes: Every year there is a new hot topic in tech. Today, it’s all about artificial intelligence, machine learning, virtual reality and autonomous vehicles. The difference between now and the past is that everything is becoming interconnected at a faster rate.
We are entering an extremely critical time in history where society will change dramatically – how we work, live and play. Science fiction is morphing into reality. Flying cars exist, cars that drive themselves are on the road, and artificial intelligence that automates our lives is here.
To make all of this amazing science and technology happen, it takes some extremely intelligent and curious people. In many ways, scientists are still at the helm of discovering breakthroughs through research. Cont'd...
Artificial Intelligence Finally Gets Governance, Former Healthcare CFO Leads the Initiative
In response to the rising global concerns about artificial intelligence, Washington DC area based American Institute of Artificial Intelligence has pioneered a multidimensional and comprehensive governance framework and product for artificial intelligence governance. The Institute is announcing the launch of the artificial intelligence governance framework.
A.I. and robotics could replace 6% of U.S. jobs by 2021
Sharon Gaudin for ComputerWorld: In just five years, intelligent systems and robots may have taken up to 6% of U.S. jobs, according to Forrester Research in a report released this week.
As artificial intelligence (A.I.) advances to better understand human behavior and make decisions on its own in complicated situations, it will enable smart software and robots to take on increasingly challenging jobs. That means robotics should be able to take over some jobs traditionally held by humans by 2021.
For instance, Forrester predicts that smart systems like autonomous robots, digital assistants, A.I. software and chatbots will take over customer service rep jobs and eventually even serve as truck and taxi drivers. Cont'd...
LG Electronics To "Aggressively Invest" In Robotics
Joshua Swingle for Android Headlines: LG is certainly no stranger when it comes to robotics and smart appliances, but until now, such products have had limited use. With the company’s latest announcement, this will change. The electronics giant has confirmed that it’s currently investing a lot of resources into robots in the hope of capitalizing on advanced AI, which could eventually be implemented into products that combine hardware with artificial intelligence in order to work with smart home appliances as well as to develop machines that could perform everyday tasks. “We will prepare for the future by aggressively investing in smart home, robots and key components and strengthen the home appliances business’s capabilities,” said Jo Seung-jin, head of LG’s appliances business.
As of now, there’s no time frame for when we’ll see the results of these investments on the shelves, but LG already has plans for products that will work with air conditioners and washing machines, though combining AI with self-driving cars is also something the company is researching. Although such plans aren’t exactly detailed, the investment does hint at a change in the way LG is treating robotics. Up until now, the company has only experimented with products of limited use, but the new change in focus hints at robotics becoming one of LG’s main focus points, meaning that, for consumers, having a robot in their homes could become the norm. Currently, LG has not confirmed the amount of money it plans to invest in robotics. Cont'd...
Sony company chief hints at company's plans to head into robotics and AI
SHIVALI BEST FOR MAILONLINE: While Sony is currently one of the leading producers of smartphones, cameras and home entertainment systems, the company may soon be heading into the realm of robotics and AI. On Thursday, Kazuo Hirai, CEO of the Tokyo-based company, took to the stage at the IFA electronics show in Berlin to discuss the firm's newest products.He said that Sony was keen to explore new areas of technology, and that artificial intelligence and robotics were part of that.
The move towards robotics and AI is part of Sony's 'last one inch' mantra, that refers to getting products close to consumers. Mr Hirai said: 'I think the combination of 'the last one inch' - things that you hold in your hand to access or upload information, entertainment and so on - combined with AI and robotics is the area that is going to be a future growth area in a big way for Sony. Cont'd...
Dexmo Robotics has created a mechanical exoskeleton glove for VR use
Julia Alexander for Polygon: With HTC Vive and Oculus Rift headsets, the first wave of mainstream, consumer VR has officially arrived, and with it, comes the question of how to constantly better the experience for those using it.
As it stands right now, those who want to use devices like the Vive or Rift must do so with controllers; the Rift uses an Xbox One controller while the Vive comes with its own dedicated peripheral. Both are functional and serve their purpose, but they come with certain limitations when trying to achieve the ideal VR experience.
Now, Dexmo Robotics has unveiled what it thinks will solve some of those frustrations: a mechanical exoskeleton glove that can be paired with VR headsets. The glove, which can be seen in the video above, provides 11 degrees of freedom for movement, and the company touts the fact that each finger comes with a pressured sensor. Essentially, if youre playing a first-person shooter, youll be able to feel the in-game gun's trigger bring squeezed as well as the recoil. Full Article:
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