Microsoft and OpenAI join forces in the quest for artificial general intelligence

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Microsoft has announced a $1 billion investment in OpenAI as part of a shared ambition to achieve the holy grail of artificial general intelligence (AGI).

If you’ve spent your life binging on sci-fi flicks and shows, today’s AI is far from the likes of HAL and Jarvis. For those kinds of experiences, AGI is needed.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said:

“The creation of AGI will be the most important technological development in human history, with the potential...

22 July 2019 | AGI

Ofcom: AI is not ready to effectively moderate online content ‘for the foreseeable future’

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Ofcom and Cambridge Consultants have teamed up on a report examining the effectiveness of AI-powered online content moderation.

Governments around the world have put increasing amounts of pressure on social networks and communication services to take responsibility for content posted on them. Society itself is becoming more aware of the dangers following live-streamed terror attacks, cyberbullying, political manipulation, and more.

With some platforms having billions...

22 July 2019 | Social Media

No Rekognition: Police ditch Amazon’s controversial facial recognition

Orlando Police have decided to ditch Amazon’s controversial facial recognition system Rekognition following technical issues.

Rekognition was called out by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for erroneously labelling those with darker skin tones as criminals more often in a test using a database of mugshots.

Jacob Snow, Technology and Civil Liberties Attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, said:

“Face surveillance will be used to...

19 July 2019 | Amazon

Musk wants to link human brains with machines to ‘stop the AI apocalypse’

Elon Musk’s ambitious Neuralink project to link human brains with machines is part of the entrepreneur's crusade to “stop the AI apocalypse”.

Musk has been vocal with his concerns about AI, famously saying we’re “summoning the devil” with its development. The SpaceX and Tesla founder created OpenAI in part due to concerns that AI could pose an existential risk if developed carelessly.

In February last year, Musk left OpenAI over disagreements with the...

18 July 2019 | Hardware

Rubik’s Cube proves AI isn’t always best at computational tasks

A humble Rubik’s Cube has proven that AI isn’t always best at performing computational tasks.

Researchers from the University of California developed an AI system capable of solving a Rubik’s Cube in 1.2 seconds.

That sounds impressive – and to us mere humans it most certainly is, with the world record at 3.47 seconds being held by Yusheng Du – but the AI solved the Rubik’s Cube around three times slower than the fastest algorithm not trained using a neural...

16 July 2019 | Reinforcement Learning

AI enables ‘hybrid drones’ with the attributes of both planes and helicopters

Researchers have developed an AI system enabling ‘hybrid drones’ which combine the attributes of both planes and helicopters.

The propeller-forward designs of most drones are inefficient and reduce flight time. Researchers from MIT, Dartmouth, and the University of Washington have proposed a new hybrid design which aims to combine the perks of both helicopters and fixed-wing planes.

In order to support the new design, a new AI system was developed to switch between...

15 July 2019 | Drones

Human-beating StarCraft 2 AI will compete anonymously in Europe

DeepMind’s professional StarCraft 2-playing AI is set to play against human players in the European competitive ladder.

StarCraft 2 is a complex real-time strategy game that can still throw surprises at you even years after playing. In other words, StarCraft 2 is great for testing an AI.

Back in January, AI News reported DeepMind’s so-called ‘AlphaStar’ AI beat professional human eSports players Grzegorz Komincz and Dario...

11 July 2019 | DeepMind

IDC: Half of AI projects fail for one in four companies

Research from IDC has found that half of AI projects fail for one in four companies on average.

Put in such a context, the research offers little comfort for businesses considering AI investments. On the other hand, it means half of AI projects are successful for three out of four companies; a far more incentivising statistic.

The two leading reasons for an AI project failing are:

A lack of required skills.Unrealistic expectations.

IDC’s research found...

9 July 2019 | Enterprise

Baidu and Geely announce collaboration in AI technologies

Baidu has announced plans to strategically collaborate with Geely on the application of AI technologies to various fields.

Announced during this year’s Baidu Create conference, the companies say they will focus on areas such as the smart home, intelligent connectivity, smart mobility, and e-commerce.

Geely is a privately held global automotive group headquartered in the city of Hangzhou and is most well-known for owning the Volvo and Lotus car brands.

The...

8 July 2019 | China

Facebook outage gave a glimpse at how its AI analyses images

Facebook’s issue displaying images yesterday gave users an interesting look at how the social media giant’s AI analyses their uploads.

An outage yesterday meant Facebook users were unable to see uploaded images, providing a welcome respite from the usual mix of food and baby photos. In their place, however, was some interesting text.

Text in the placeholder where the image should have been displayed showed how Facebook’s AI automatically tagged the...

4 July 2019 | Facebook