Microsoft: The UK must increase its AI skills, or risk falling behind

A report from Microsoft warns that the UK faces an AI skills gap which may harm its global competitiveness.

The research, titled AI Skills in the UK, shines a spotlight on some concerning issues.

For its UK report, Microsoft used data from a global AI skills study featuring more than 12,000 people in 20 countries to see how the UK is doing in comparison to the rest of the world.

Most notably, compared to the rest of the world, the UK is seeing a higher failure...

12 August 2020 | Adoption

University College London: Deepfakes are the ‘most serious’ AI crime threat

Researchers from University College London have released a ranking of what experts believe to be the most serious AI crime threats.

The researchers first created a list of 20 expected ways AI will be used by criminals within the next 15 years. 31 experts were then asked to rank them by potential severity.

Deepfakes – AI-generated images, videos, and articles – ranked top of the list as the most serious threat.

New and dangerous territory

It’s of little...

6 August 2020 | Deepfakes

Musk predicts AI will be superior to humans within five years

Elon Musk has made another of his trademark predictions – this time, it’s that AI will be superior to humans within five years.

Musk has been among the most vocal prominent figures in warning about the dangers of artificial intelligence. In 2018, for example, Musk famously warned that AI could become “an immortal dictator from which we would never escape” and that the technology is more dangerous than nuclear weapons.

Speaking in a New York Times interview, Musk...

28 July 2020 | Adoption

Dorian Selz, CEO, Squirro: Why the AI revolution will take time

Imagine you are riding in a fully driverless car - with no human controls - down a narrow countryside road, with no lights or road markings. Upon emerging from a twisting bend a flock of sheep confront you. What happens next?

These types of situations are what programs such as the MIT-developed Moral Machine have been looking to unlock. The site has for the past four years canvassed public opinion by presenting a series of ethical dilemmas: should an autonomous car...

26 May 2020 | Adoption

CB Insights: The majority of promising AI startups are US-based

usa most promising ai artificial intelligence startups cb insights research report

A new report from CB Insights suggests the majority of promising AI startups are still based in the US.

Despite increasing AI investments around the world, 65 percent of the top 100 AI startups were located in the US. However, some of the companies also had headquarters in other countries.

It’s little surprise to see the most promising AI companies based in the world’s largest economy, but some of the others are more surprising.

The UK and Canada were in...

3 March 2020 | Research

Elon Musk wants more stringent AI regulation, including for Tesla

tesla elon musk ai artificial intelligence regulation policy

Elon Musk has once again called for more stringent regulations around the development of AI technologies.

The founder of Tesla and SpaceX has been one of the most vocal prominent figures in expressing concerns about AI – going as far as to call it humanity’s “biggest existential threat” if left unchecked.

Of course, given the nature of the companies Musk has founded, he is also well aware of AI’s potential.

Back in 2015, Musk co-founded OpenAI – an...

19 February 2020 | Ethics

MIT software shows how NLP systems are snookered by simple synonyms

Here’s an example of how artificial intelligence can still seriously lack behind some human attributes: tests have shown how natural language processing (NLP) systems can be tricked into misunderstanding text by merely swapping one word for a synonym.

A research team at MIT developed software, called TextFooler, which looked for words which were most crucial to an NLP classifier and replaced them. The team offered an example:

“The characters, cast in impossibly...

12 February 2020 | Education

UK govt ‘failing on openness’ around public sector AI – but specific regulator not the answer

The UK does not need a specific regulator for artificial intelligence (AI), according to a new government report – yet more clarity needs to be given around usage and ethics in the public sector.

The report, ‘Artificial Intelligence and Public Standards: A Review by the Committee on Standards in Public Life’ (pdf, no opt-in, 78 pages), said the government was ‘failing on openness’, although adding that fears over ‘black box AI’, whereby data produces results...

11 February 2020 | Ethics

Meena is Google’s first truly conversational AI

google meena ai conversational artificial intelligence virtual assistant technology

Google is attempting to build the first digital assistant that can truly hold a conversation with an AI project called Meena.

Digital assistants like Alexa and Siri are programmed to pick up keywords and provide scripted responses. Google has previously demonstrated its work towards a more natural conversation with its Duplex project but Meena should offer another leap forward.

Meena is a neural network with 2.6 billion parameters. Google claims Meena is able to handle...

29 January 2020 | Google

Intel examines whether AI can recognise faces using thermal imaging

intel thermal imaging ai artificial intelligence facial recognition face

Researchers from Intel have published a study examining whether AI can recognise people’s faces using thermal imaging.

Thermal imaging is often used to protect privacy because it obscures personally identifying details such as eye colour. In some places, like medical facilities, it’s often compulsory to use images which obscure such details.

AI is opening up many new possibilities so Intel’s researchers set out to determine whether thermal imaging still offers a...

10 January 2020 | Face Recognition