Opinion: AI for software development is already here

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Being a developer is more demanding than ever. The repetitive tasks that make up so much of software development can be time-consuming and error-prone. Talent is in short supply, teams are overworked, and many businesses can’t keep up with both increasingly complex existing code and the growing market for new application development. 

For AI enthusiasts, speculating about how artificial intelligence can improve software development is exciting. Will AI help create prototypes in...

25 November 2019 | Developers

Do you even AI, bro? OpenAI Safety Gym enhances reinforcement learning

Elon Musk-founded OpenAI has opened the doors of its "Safety Gym" designed to enhance the training of reinforcement learning agents.

OpenAI describes Safety Gym as "a suite of environments and tools for measuring progress towards reinforcement learning agents that respect safety constraints while training."

Basically, Safety Gym is the software equivalent of your spotter making sure you're not going to injure yourself. And just like a good spotter, it will check your...

22 November 2019 | OpenAI

F-Secure details nature-inspired AI project harnessing ‘swarm intelligence’

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Cybersecurity giant F-Secure has detailed Project Blackfin, an AI initiative which harnesses nature-inspired “swarm intelligence” techniques.

The concept sounds similar to Fetch.ai in that decentralised autonomous AI agents will collaborate in order to achieve common goals.

Cambridge-based Fetch.ai is focusing its efforts on the use of autonomous AI agents for IoT purposes. Naturally, F-Secure is currently seeking to use such agents to further improve the company’s...

21 November 2019 | Security

Japan will welcome Pope Francis with a song partly composed by AI

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A Japanese artist will use a song partly composed by AI to welcome Pope Francis, who recently shared his concerns about the technology.

The song, “Protect all Life - The Signs of the Times,” is written by Jun Inoue.

Inoue is a Catholic himself and created an AI program which can generate a song in just a few seconds.

“I thought I should give everything I had to the song, so I decided to put in all the cutting-edge technology I had,” Inoue told...

20 November 2019 | Japan

LG ThinQ: Our experience with AI so far and what’s next for the industry

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AI News spoke with LG corporate vice president Samuel Chang about ThinQ, the company’s brand for products and services incorporating AI.

Chang played a major role in this year’s AI & Big Data Expo in Santa Clara last week, taking part in both a solo presentation on “Process Automation from IoT Data” and a panel discussion on “Data and the Customer”.

Following the event, AI News decided to catch up with Chang to discuss LG’s current experience in...

18 November 2019 | Adoption

Moveworks raises $75m in series B funding to accelerate conversational AI for IT support

Moveworks has raised $75m in a series B funding round to boost its conversational AI technology for automated IT support as the company says it is ‘still in its first inning.’

The round was led by new investors ICONIQ Capital, Kleiner Perkins and Sapphire Ventures. Along with these new investors, existing investors like Lightspeed Venture Partners, Bain Capital Ventures, and Comerica Bank. The fundraiser also received personal investment from John W. Thompson, partner at...

15 November 2019 | Enterprise

Gaming legend John Carmack is stepping back at Oculus to focus on AI

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Gaming industry legend John Carmack is stepping back from his role at Oculus to focus on AI development.

Carmack made his name in the video game industry after being responsible for groundbreaking titles such as Wolfenstein, DOOM, and Quake. He took up the role of CTO at Oculus to help bring about the next big thing in gaming, VR.

While not entirely stepping down from Oculus, Carmack is transitioning into a "Consulting CTO" role. This role, he says, will enable him to...

14 November 2019 | AGI

Project Nightingale: Google denies using private health data for its AI research

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Google has denied using private health data for its own AI research following The Wall Street Journal’s exposé of Project Nightingale.

Project Nightingale is Google’s codename for its partnership with Ascension, the US’ second-largest health system. The project enables Google to access the health information of around 50 million American patients.

Ascension reportedly did not tell doctors and patients that it was sharing data – including the names, histories,...

13 November 2019 | Ethics

Deepfake has Johnson and Corbyn advocating each other for Britain’s next PM

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A think tank has released two deepfake videos which appear to show election rivals Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn advocating each other for Britain’s top role.

The clips are produced by Future Advocacy and intend to show that people can no longer necessarily trust what they see in videos, not just to question what they read and hear.

Here’s the Johnson video:

Boris Johnson has a message for you.#GE2019...

12 November 2019 | Deepfakes

Report: UK leads AI developments in Europe, Iran in Middle-East

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The latest Scimago Institutions Rankings (SIR) indicates the UK is leading AI developments in Europe while Iran is leading in the Middle-East.

SIR has ranked global research and education institutions since 2009. The ranking is based on their performance and the number of articles they’ve published in highly-regarded publications.

In the field of AI, the UK ranks number one in Europe and fourth globally. Iran ranks number one in the Middle-East and is ninth overall...

11 November 2019 | Europe