Report: AI can help to keep the NHS alive

A report from think tank Reform has illustrated how artificial intelligence can help to keep the NHS alive in the face of tough conditions. The UK’s health service continues to be underfunded despite an increasing number of warnings from doctors and staff. Patients lined up in corridors are now a sight often seen in hospitals up and down the country. Reform highlights 16 areas where AI can be used to improve efficiency in the NHS. Without adequate funding in sight, the recommendations...

15 January 2018 | Healthcare

Report: AI will increase the wealth inequality between the rich and poor

Artificial intelligence advancements will increase the disparity of wealth between the rich and poor, according to a new report. The report titled "Artificial Intelligence and Its Implications for Income Distribution and Unemployment" was presented last month through the National Bureau of Economic Research. Economists Anton Korinek (Johns Hopkins University) and Joseph E. Stiglitz (Columbia University) believe economic inequality “is one of the main challenges posed by the proliferation of...

11 January 2018 | Government

Constable Alexa: Police consider using Amazon’s AI to fight crime

Lancashire Constabulary considers using Amazon’s popular voice assistant, Alexa, in a bid to improve efficiency and fight crime. Users would be able to report crimes using the assistant on supported device, or have warnings about local issues spoken to them. For example, a spate of car thefts in the area could prompt an alert to neighbours to be more vigilant of people acting suspiciously around vehicles. In the event of a developing situation, such as a suspect fleeing from a scene on...

4 January 2018 | Government

Huawei and Baidu form alliance to lead in AI-powered smartphones

Huawei and Baidu have formed an alliance with the intention of sharing their expertise to lead the new generation of AI-powered smartphones. Many flagship smartphones are launching with dedicated AI chips — including, of course, Huawei’s very own Mate 10. Over the course of the next year, we expect these chips to be available in most high-end devices. Research firm Counterpoint Technology forecasts that more than half a billion smartphones that will be shipped around the world in 2020...

21 December 2017 | Smartphones

AI legend Andrew Ng wants to revolutionise manufacturing with Landing.ai

Andrew Ng co-founded Google Brain and led Baidu’s AI group, and now he’s launching a startup initially focused on using AI to revolutionise manufacturing. The new startup, Landing.ai, chose this industry to begin with as “it is through manufacturing that human creativity goes beyond pixels on a display to become physical objects. By bringing AI to manufacturing, we will deliver a digital transformation to the physical world.” Ng believes AI technology is well suited to addressing...

14 December 2017 | Manufacturing

Musk: Tesla is building its own AI chips

In an unsurprising revelation, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has finally admitted his company is building its own AI chips. Tesla is a pioneering and forward-looking company and, as our readers know well, AI is the future of just about everything. It would have been a safe bet Tesla intends to be at the forefront. During a Tesla-hosted party at the NIPS intelligence conference in Long Beach, which has been called ‘draft day’ for how AI companies use it to recruit talent, Musk told attendees: "I...

8 December 2017 | Connected Cars

Netflix wants to feed your binge with personalised, AI-powered trailers

Researchers at Netflix are experimenting with using AI to create personalised trailers for its growing library of content. I don’t know about you, but it will already take me years to get through my existing backlog. The current amount of content is staggering. Netflix has distribution rights from studios around the world and reinvests its profits into creating lauded original content such as ‘Stranger Things’ and ‘Orange Is The New Black’ which cannot be found...

6 December 2017 | Entertainment

Research: AI mimics the human brain’s subconscious

ai brain research huawei artificial intelligence

The true extent of subconscious decisions made by the human brain has drawn parallels to artificial intelligence. Huawei commissioned the research and found the average person is unaware of 99.68 percent of their decisions. Approximately 35,000 decisions are made per day by the human brain although, on average, respondents believe they only make around 111. “The research shows how human intelligence works just like Artificial Intelligence, operating in the background to empower us in...

5 December 2017 | Research

‘Robot Ethics Charter’ drawn up — as report claims US at risk of losing AI arms race

ai arms race robot ethics charter

An ethics charter has been drawn up to “regulate the relationship between humans and robots” as a report claims the US is at risk of losing the AI arms race. Starting with the charter, Andrey Neznamov — head of Russian robot research centre, Robopravo — drew it up in response to fears machines possessing AI could lead to the "destruction of humanity" if they’re not sufficiently regulated. To some, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, these fears are overblown and...

30 November 2017 | Ethics

Editorial: Facebook excluding the EU from AI advancement heralds a trend

EU regulations have forced Facebook to exclude citizens of member states from its new AI-powered suicide prevention tool, and it heralds a worrying trend. Facebook’s new suicide prevention tool aims to use pattern recognition to detect posts or live videos where someone might be expressing thoughts of suicide, and to help respond to reports faster. In a post announcing the feature, Facebook wrote: “We are starting to roll out artificial intelligence outside the US to help identify...

28 November 2017 | Regulation