Monthly Archives: May 2017

Finally, a good use for virtual reality: training robots – Quartz

Posted: May 17, 2017 at 1:53 am

Virtual reality companies like Oculus and HTC mainly market their devices for entertainment: Play in a virtual world, or be immersed in 360 video. But researchers at OpenAI, the non-profit AI firm backed by Elon Musk, have found another use for the technology: instructing robots how to move.

By recording an action in virtual reality just once, an system of two AI algorithms were able to decode and replicate the action with a physical machine, according to a post on OpenAIs blog today. The action demonstrated was simplestacking blocksbut this kind of learning through imitation could be more widely applicable to robots that carry boxes or flip burgers.

OpenAIs system works using two AI algorithms: One that interprets where everything is, and one that guesses why and how an action is happening. The researchers call these vision and imitation networks. Usually, these kinds of algorithms need to be trained on thousands of real-world examples of machines looking at blocks to tell where they are, and then examples of real machines picking up blocks, to figure out how to do the action itself.

OpenAIs breakthrough is accomplishing all of that through virtual simulation. The machine was able to accurately copy a humans VR action in the real world, without ever having moved before.

Nothing in our technique is specific to blocks, says Josh Tobin, a researcher at OpenAI, in a video. This system is an early prototype, that will form the backbone of the general-purpose robotics systems were developing here at OpenAI.

The system is expected to work well with other objects that are rigid, OpenAI communications and strategy director Jack Clark tells Quartz, but computers struggle to perfectly simulate fluid or flexible objects, so the data necessary to train robots to carry such objects is harder to generate. The OpenAI researchers plan to work on objects beyond blocks, as well as robots ability to carry objects, instead of just stacking them.

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NAU researchers study use of virtual reality in creating more mindfulness, awareness – NAU News

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What if virtual reality could help people be happier in their actual reality?

Heidi Wayment, a professor of social psychology at Northern Arizona University, studies what she calls the quiet egoa set of characteristics that can be cultivated to create a more compassionate sense of self, leading to positive implications for an individuals health and well-being.

Wayment and Ann Futterman Collier, an associate professor of clinical and health psychology at NAU, are combining the concepts of the quiet ego and virtual reality as they begin clinical applications to test virtual realitys effectiveness on mental well-being interventions in their Applied Research with Immersive Experiences (ARIES) lab at NAU.

There are four characteristics of the quiet ego, Wayment said: detached awareness, or mindfulness; sense of interconnectedness with others; perspective-taking; and growth, or the ability to conceptualize challenges as an opportunity for meaningful personal development.

In a recent study, we have found that by encouraging people to think about these key quiet ego principles through a contemplative intervention, people not only increased these quiet ego characteristics, but improved pluralistic thinking and reduced mind-wandering, Collier said. Thus, our findings suggested that a simple intervention with the quiet ego may help people going through stress to cope more effectively.

The two are examining the quiet ego when delivered through virtual reality technology, which uses a combination of audio and visual stimulation, often in the form of nature scenes, to users.

Unlike standard-format audio recordings, which they previously used in the quiet ego trials, virtual reality offers a more comprehensive and immersive environment, allowing users to better engage quiet ego characteristics.

Virtual reality seemed like a natural way to increase engagement and arousal when delivering psychological interventions, Collier said. Previous research on virtual reality suggests most psychological interventions, when delivered through immersive and interactive technology, are more effective than standard treatments so far. Our preliminary results do indeed support this.

Currently, the ARIES team is in the midst of conducting studies with university students, a population that exhibits higher-than-average levels of stress and anxiety. In the future the team plans to develop quiet ego applications to help individuals coping with severe stress and post-traumatic stress disorder and those undergoing cancer treatments.

The research is done in conjunction with the Immersive + Interactive Virtual Reality Lab.

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When Will Virtual Reality Become Common In Marketing? – Forbes – Forbes

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When Will Virtual Reality Become Common In Marketing? - Forbes
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VR hasn't taken over the world yet, so marketers are still speculative about its potential value. But why is this the case? And when will it become common in the ...

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SF Virtual Reality Startup Sued By Former Employee – NBC Bay Area

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A San Francisco virtual reality startup is being sued by a former employee who claims the company created an "unbearable environment for women."

The suit claims UploadVR degraded female employees, throwing parties with prostitutes and even putting a bed in one of its offices and calling it the "kink room."

The lawsuit also alleges that women employees were discriminated against, given menial tasks and were not reimbursed for business expenses. Also, the company paid male employees more despite female employees holding the same positions and having similar responsibilities, the suit claims.

Meg Virick, the director of San Jose State's School of Management, says the details of the lawsuit are frustrating. It's just the latest in a string of incidents in which Silicon Valley companies treat women badly, she said.

"I am beginning to see more and more that women are tending to leave," Virick said. "They're talented, they're engineers, and they're running into barriers we are imposing on them because top management needs to step up and say this needs to become an inclusive environment for everyone."

UploadVR co-founders Will Mason and Taylor Freeman were also named in the lawsuit, according to a report from TechCrunch. Freeman is CEO and Mason holds the title of president.

The pair released a statement Tuesday, saying, "Our employees are our greatest asset, and the sole reason for the success of this company. We are confident that the true nature of how we treat our employees and how we operate as leaders will shine through this unfortunate situation and confirm that these allegations are entirely without merit."

Mason and Freeman were recently named in the media section of Forbes 30 under 30 list. Their company has received funding from General Catalyst, Greycrofts GC Tracker fund, Colopl and others, according to TechCrunch.

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It’s time to prepare yourself for ‘VR panic’ – Wired.co.uk

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Ever been tempted to get high with virtual reality? Well, you're in luck: Microsoft is developing "hallucination experiences" at least according to certain sections of the media.

In late 2016, dozens of news outlets claimed Microsoft was either predicting, or developing, hallucinogenic VR. MailOnline declared that "Microsoft says virtual reality could make you HALLUCINATE in the same way as LSD", writing of VR's "free-love, bongo-bashing vibe". The source? A post on Microsoft's blog presenting predictions from female researchers in order to inspire young people into STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) which used the word "hallucinations" in a metaphorical sense, and made no mention of LSD.

Look back to the birth of other new forms of media and you'll see how quickly public sentiment shifts into moral panic. Victorians embraced telegrams for the purposes of commerce and government, then panicked at the idea of women sending telegrams to clandestine lovers. The rapid adoption of the telephone in the early 1900s was followed by fears it would lead to the demise of the "old practice of visiting friends". When games consoles became commonplace in the 90s, that lead to hand-wringing that they could incite violence in young men.

The term "moral panic" was defined by Stanley Cohen in the 60s as public alarm expressed in response to an issue that is regarded as threatening the moral fabric of society. More recently, Intel researcher Genevieve Bell built on Cohen's theory by outlining the reasons some technologies (TV, the internet) lead to more panic than others (fountain pens, fax machines). Bell specified three areas to watch. If a new media technology affects our relationship with time, space and each other, then panic conditions are ripe. Which leads us back to VR.

Those of us who work in VR might not want to admit it, but a moral panic is almost certainly coming and as VR succeeds, it will grow. There'll be a rash of VR-induced mental-health stories, ranging from post-VR panic attacks to episodes of psychosis. Then there'll be concerns about addiction: what if the virtual world's lack of limitation creates environments that are more enticing than the real one? Sex will be next expect stories about teledildonic infidelity, lowered birth rates and lawsuits against unofficial sex experiences with CG versions of celebs. Following Bell, we might say that the underlying fear is that our bodies will become irrelevant slabs of flesh, existing purely for the purpose of keeping our brains alive.

It's easy to dismiss these scare stories, but while moral panics are usually wildly exaggerated, they often stem from authentic concerns. Take the Great Cyberporn Scare of 1995, sparked when TIME magazine published a cover story on the hazards of "cyberporn", citing an undergraduate study claiming that 83.5 per cent of images on this new thing called the internet were pornographic. The methodology and reasoning may have been flawed, but there was an underlying concern which has played out into something valid. According to two NSPCC studies in 2015 and 2016, ten per cent of British 12- to 13-year-olds are worried they are addicted to porn, and most young people think that porn doesn't teach consent.

The same goes for VR. I've seen all sorts of responses to immersion, ranging from quiet discombobulation to a frenzied screaming episode. I've actually experienced depersonalisation of my own: the first time I tried Batman: Arkham VR, I came out, looked at my hands and didn't recognise them as my own.

In the best-case scenario, the coming moral panic might encourage the VR industry to reflect constructively on itself. Early adopters can help steer towards this best-case scenario by seeing their role as the "critical friend"; helping reflection happen sooner rather than later. As for VR creators, they must take their role seriously and seek user input as early on in a product's development as possible. They can also think carefully about the content they decide to produce, and how it might affect society in the long term.

It's clear that VR is scary, exciting and powerful. It we treat this power with care then we're far more likely to end up with an industry that not only weathers the storm ahead, but comes out stronger. And in the meantime, when you see a story about VR, don't forget to question what you read.

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Google I/O 2017: Expect a clearer understanding of Google’s ‘AI first’ future – Recode

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A year ago, Google CEO Sundar Pichai laid out a vision for an AI first future at Google, where the concept of computing is focused less on devices, with the computer taking the form of an omnipresent intelligent assistant.

At this years annual Google I/O developers conference, which kicks off tomorrow in Mountain View, Calif., were hoping to get a clearer understanding of what Pichai meant. (The keynote starts Wednesday, May 17 at 10 am PT, 1 pm ET.)

Weve seen the concept of AI-first computing fleshed out a bit with Googles Assistant software that runs on the Google Home device and later versions of Android. But for the most part, the idea of AI first remains abstract.

Ideally, well come out of I/O with a better big-picture understanding of what this new direction for Google means. At the very least, well come back with a smattering of new details that point in the direction of where Google is headed.

Dont expect new hardware devices, as Google tends to save those announcements for its fall hardware event. (There are exceptions: Google did announce the Home device at last years I/O.) But we dont think there will be a Home with a screen popping up, for example, to compete with Amazons new Echo Show.

Heres what were expecting:

Google, Google, everywhere. Expect Google to announce that its pushing Assistant to more hardware. Bloomberg reported that Google will unveil integrations with the iPhone and GE home devices including dishwashers, ovens, washers and dryers. That means users will be able to talk to their appliances, telling the oven to preheat or asking if the laundry is done, for example.

More Home features. The Information reported last month that Google planned to add Wi-Fi capabilities to Home so that the device can be used to extend a households Wi-Fi network. This may be an announcement at I/O.

Tensorflow. For software developers, Google may have news pertaining to its open-source machine learning framework Tensorflow, which Google uses for AI capabilities like recognizing objects and people in photos and understanding language. This could include announcing that Tensorflow will be supported by more platforms, which would mean developers could have more flexibility in the devices on which they run programs they build with Tensorflow.

More AI smarts in more places. In general, expect Google to announce that it is expanding its application of AI technology in more places, and that Google products are getting more automated. The whole point of AI is that its supposed to do most of the work.

VR and AR. We may learn that more phone manufacturers are releasing or updating phones with features compatible with Googles Daydream virtual reality platform. What would also be interesting is to find out whether Google plans to release more open-source VR or AR software. Google has already made its VR art software Tilt Brush open-source.

Android O. Earlier this year, Google released a developer preview of Android O, the latest version of the Android operating system under development. We already know a little bit about O, which doesnt yet have a full name: Its being designed for improved battery life and is expected to have simplified app-notification settings, for example. We may learn more about it at I/O.

Enterprise. Pichai wrote in his founders letter last year that enterprise cloud computing and workplace software and tools is a prime place to see AI advances take hold. Automated features figured prominently in announcements earlier this year at Googles cloud conference, Next. Some announcements could be focused on workplace productivity or cloud computing.

Wild card. All of these predictions and hunches are pretty straightforward. But Google tends to have something more exciting at I/O than mere iteration of what we already know the company is doing. So, whats the wild card here? One guess is that Google could announce a new operating system. Ars Technica published photos of a reported open-source smartphone OS from Google, supposedly called Fuchsia.

Join Recode for live coverage of I/O beginning Wednesday, May 17 at 10 am PT, 1 pm ET.

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How AI Pioneers Will Affect The Car Industry, And Why It’s A Good Thing – Forbes

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How AI Pioneers Will Affect The Car Industry, And Why It's A Good Thing
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Vehicles have becoming increasingly more sophisticated under those plush seats and high-performance engine. Onboard technology has turned them into computers on wheels. New platforms like telematics where fleet vehicles can get information about ...

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AI group gets bigger as Sony, Intel, eBay and others join – CNET – CNET

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Resistance is futile.

The AI club just got bigger.

The Partnership on AI, a nonprofit group researching the uses of artificial intelligence, said Tuesday it's welcoming 22 new members. Eight of the new members are for-profit companies, including Intel, eBay, Sony and Salesforce. Nonprofits, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and UNICEF, make up the balance.

The new partners expand a group that already counts heavyweights in computing as members. Microsoft, Google and IBM are long-standing participants in the group. ("Long standing" is relative; the partnership was announced in September.) Even secretive Apple decided to be part of the club.

The growth of the PAI comes as the group takes on new initiatives.

PAI said it will create working groups to research and define best practices for specific topics and sectors within the field. It's also creating a fellowship to assist nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations looking to participate in AI issues.

PAI is also establishing an award for best paper on the topic of "AI, People, and Society" and a series of AI Grand Challenges.

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Why AI And Healthcare Must Learn To Play Together – Forbes

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Why AI And Healthcare Must Learn To Play Together
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Because artificial intelligence (AI) has become so buzzy, and applied so indiscriminatelyAI for pot, AI for beer brewing, AI for horse care, AI for sex ed (all examples courtesy of CB Insights)it's easy to dismiss as just another passing trend, like ...

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Phil Libin exits General Catalyst for All Turtles, a new AI ‘startup … – TechCrunch

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AIis one of the buzzwords of the moment in the world of tech, with startups coming at the concept from all angles computer vision, machine learning, unstructured data inference and natural language processing being just a handful in a wider effort to create more intelligentmachines. Now comes a new organization that hopes to find and foster the next wave of AI businesses and products, co-founded by the ex-CEO of Evernote, Phil Libin (pictured above), who has left his role as a managing director at General Catalyst to build it (but he tells me hell stay on as an advisor).

All Turtles, as the new company is called, is not your traditional startup incubator. In an interview with TechCrunch earlier, Libin (whose other co-founders are Jessica Collier (Product Design) and Jon Cifuentes (Research and Operations)describedit as startup studio, more akin to Netflixs push to develop original content than to 500 Startups.It will start out with locationsin San Francisco, Tokyo and Paris.

The idea with All Turtles is not necessarily to seek out fully formed businesses, but to find and develop interesting concepts en route to them possibly becoming businesses (or at least goodideas that other businesses might like to buy), with people and startups collaborating together to collectively grow. (This is also where the All Turtles name comes from: an apocryphal story about how the world is formed on the back of others work, that its a group effort in the end.)

This is not Libins first attempt to foster a group of AI startups: last year, after he parted ways with Evernote, Libin joined General Catalyst and kicked off a new project there to find, fund and grow startups building bots tools that chatted with you, ahuman, using conversational artificial intelligence, to help you find information, solve a problem, order a sofa, and much more.

In case you are wondering (I was), Libin said that his departure from General Catalyst and subsequent move to develop the idea further in a separate studiowas his decision a way to dive deeper into the development angle beyond the primary financial one of VCs.

Phils an incredible product guy and were excited to back him at All Turtles where he can focus on bringing awesome AI-driven products to market, a spokesperson from General Catalyst told TechCrunch in an email. Phil will continue on with General Catalyst as a senior advisor and will continue to work with many of the young bot companies he funded as an investor here.

There will also remain several strands connecting Libin, the startups and GC.

For starters, several startups that Libin backed as part of that bot effort at General Catalyst are now joining All Turtles as foundation members.

The list of foundation membersincludeButter, a teams assistant bot that works in Slack that helps you find information across multiple files as you need it;Growbot, a recognition bot to commemorate achievements and milestones at work;Edwin, aFacebook Messenger bot that tutors you in English vocabulary; Replika, an AI friend that acts as a companion and journal; robot lawyerDoNotPay; Loic Le Meurs talent finderLeade.rs; social selling botOctane AI; and home security and drone startupSunflower Labs. There will be more coming on that will be announced soon, Libin told me.

On top of that list, General Catalyst, along with Japans Digital Garage, are coming on as backers of All Turtles. Libin declined to disclose the amountthey are investing, or any numbers: more backers are going to be revealed later in the year, when All Turtles will also disclose more details as well.

Libin saidthat as part of staying on as an advisor at General Catalyst, hell also continue to be involved in the investments that he led for the company.

I had a conversation with Libin about what led to him starting All Turtles, what he hopes to achieve, and what he thinks about AI today. An edited version of it is below:

Why exactlydid you decide to leave General Catalyst? You were already running a seed fund forbots, so didnt you just develop this within that existing structure?

Id been thinking about this for a while, for years really. Its the job I thought I would have when I joined General Catalyst. I want to expand what entrepreneurship is. Toptier VCs are not the best place to do that, being adjacent to VC is best. I think this hasworked out great. Many of the portfolio and studio companies arethe ones I invested in General Catalyst, so its a natural progression.

It was my decision to do this and they supported me as primary backers of thecompany. I just realised that its more than investing. Just investing is not really enough to change how the industry works. I wanted to create a hands-on, more hybrid model.

You started with an effort to seek out bots. Now this has moved to AI but you are still primarily listing bots in All Turtles initial list. What is the roadmap here?

The first theme for us is practical AI bots,and conversational AI is a starting point. But I think this will moves quickly. Sunflower for example ismaking AI-based sensors and drones for security. So there is also a hardware component there. There are alsoa couple of others that havent been announced yet that we will be backing.

Do you feel like AI has become too hackneyed?

AI is a buzzword similar to what mobile feltlike to me when we started Evernote. Today, everyone is still talking about AI in a way that is similar to how people used to talk about mobile. Years ago, it wasstill possible to seek out and invest in companies building mobile apps. Now mobile is a part of everything and every company develops a mobile version.

I think something similar is happeningwith AI. Itmeans a specific set of algorithms and technology, but within three to five years it wont be AI companies anymore. It will fundamentally be baked into everything.

And thats what this is about for us: we want to catch something before it goes mainstream.

You are opening from the start in three geographies, San Francisco, Tokyo and Paris. A lot of VCs in Silicon Valley tend to like to invest more locally.Whats the story there?

I wantedto do this internationallyfrom the beginning. I missbeing in other parts of the world and talking to entrepreneurs there. We wanted to be in more than just San Francisco, andit was important to get great investors in Japan and Europe and Asia to go into all those areas.

Do you see other studio models a la Betaworks or Science or Expa as your models for this?

We are tryingto learn as many lessons from the likes of them as we can but I thinkwhat were doing is pretty different. Were modelling ourselves after Netflixrather than startupincubators. But rather than makingthe worlds best original TV shows, we want to makethe best AIproducts. We want to attractthe best people toproduce these in a professional setting and help them with the distribution. Its probably more Hollywood than Silicon Valley.

The other thing is that the goal in the tech industryis still to make companies. Acceleratorsand incubators have acompany fetish. Itsall companies and a company-first mentality. Butin AI, the company isnt necessarily theinteresting thing, its the product. We want tofocuson that first. Some will become companies, and some will not. We want the best.

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