Jonathan Bowl, Hitachi Vantara: On the changing face – and pace – of big data

We have all heard the ‘data is the new oil’ aside, usually elicited by someone who honestly believes you’re hearing it for the first time. Indeed, the caveat that data needs to be built upon – as oil is only thick goop before refinement – is never too far away either.

Thankfully Jonathan Bowl, vice president and general manager of big data analytics and IoT at Hitachi Vantara, has a much more refreshing take on this aphorism. Data is not the new oil, he explains. Data...

19 July 2019 | Big Data

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

Instagram uses ‘AI intervention’ to help counter bullying

Media sharing platform Instagram is launching an ‘AI intervention’ system designed to help counter the scourge of cyberbullying.

With 95 million photos and videos uploaded to Instagram every day, manual content moderation is impossible. Inappropriate content must be reported for moderation today, and the psychological damage it can do to human moderators is well-documented.

AI has long been herald as a means to automate the moderation process, but today it still...

10 July 2019 | Social Media

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

Smells Like AI Spirit: Baidu will help develop Intel’s Nervana neural processor

Intel announced during Baidu’s Create conference this week that Baidu will help to develop the former’s Nervana Neural Network Processor.

Speaking on stage at the conference in Beijing, Intel corporate vice president Naveen Rao made the announcement.

“The next few years will see an explosion in the complexity of AI models and the need for massive deep learning compute at scale. Intel and Baidu are focusing their decade-long collaboration on building radical new...

3 July 2019 | Intel