Monthly Archives: May 2017

An expert panel ponders how AI will change our lives.

A Starship Technologies commercial delivery robot navigates a pavement during a live demonstration in front of the headquarters of Metro AG in Duesseldorf, Germany, June 7, 2016..

When we think of the city of the future, we might think about flying cars and scenes from Star Trek or The Jetsons. But coming new technologies are shaping deeper and more fundamental changes in our cities.

These changes are already well underway. CityLab readers already know how ride-hailing companies are transforming the nature of mobility and car ownership. Cities have overtaken suburbs to become a major center for high tech firms and the talent that drives them. Initiatives like Googles Sidewalk Labs are attempting to deepen the connection between technology and urbanism and transform the city itself into a platform for new technology and innovation.

A report by a panel of leading experts on technology, business, and cities takes a deep dive into the changes that will come about as a result of one key new technologyartificial intelligence.

The panel was chaired by Peter Stone of University of Texas at Austin along with researchers from Rethink Robotics, Allen Institute for AI, Microsoft, and academics from Harvard, MIT, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, UC Berkeley, and other universities from around the world. Their study, Artificial Intelligence and Life in 2030, outlines the dramatic impact artificial intelligence (AI) is having and will continue to have for our cities and the way we live and work in them over the next couple of decades. It outlines the implications of several key dimensions of AI, including:

The report outlines what these technologies mean for cities and raises deep policy (and downright philosophical) questions about their impact across several areas of urban life. Here are a few thoughts reflecting on what this new technological might promise for cities.

Everyone and their mother is talking about autonomous vehicles, or AVs, which are already being tested on the streets of several cities, including Pittsburgh. The potential relief from traffic congestion and the tragedy of human error on the road make this a top priority for the dream of personal transportation. But technical, economic, and ethical questions about our autonomous future aboundfrom the possible (major) glitch of pedestrian deaths to the potential job losses from automation to the possible fatal erosion of public transportation. We need to be ready for the next time the car transforms the city.

Artificial intelligence could also help systems be more dynamic. Real-time information, machine learning, and algorithms could turn public transportation into a much more vibrant public good, eliminating much of the current frustrations and frictions they generate now. AI could allow us to better allocate resources to make transportation more reliable and more equitable.

Cities have already begun to deploy a wide variety of AI technologies for security purposes. Expect those trends to continue through to 2030. Analytics have successfully helped combat white collar crime, such as credit-card fraud, and could also prove useful in preventing cyber-crimes in the future. These technologies might not only help police departments solve crimes with less effort but also could assist crime prevention and prosecution by improving record keeping and automatically processing video for anomalies (including evidence of abusive policing).

But as weve seen with this kind of technology deployed for surveillance and predictive policing at the street level, the central question for cities is building trust and eliminating discriminatory targeting. The study argues that with proper research and resources, AI prediction tools could help remove or reduce human bias rather than reinforcing the current systemic problems. But these same powerful tools have a way of replicating the bias of the humans who create the technology in the first place. And techniques like network analysis, which can be used to disrupt criminal or terrorist plots, also have the potential for overreaching, threatening civil liberties, and violating the privacy of city residents.

Artificial intelligence also portends major changes to health care, education, home care, and related services. AI may enable more efficient economic development of so called low-resource communities that have higher rates of poverty, joblessness, and therefore have limited funds for public programs and infrastructure. With data mining leading incentives and priorities, theres promise to the idea that AI might unburden systems with limited resources and allocate resources better. Algorithms could connect restaurants to food banks to turn excess in to resources or connect the unemployed to jobs, for example. Harnessing social networks could also help distribute health-related information and address homelessness.

Predictive models could not only help government agencies put limited budgets to better use, they could produce more complex thinking to anticipate future problems rather than reacting to a crisis such as the lead poisoning in Flint. After a crisis hits, AI might assist in allocating resources, say by identifying children at risk of exposure or finding women who are pregnant that might need prenatal care to mitigate adverse birth outcomes.

A key caveat would be to make sure these tools act as a guard against discriminatory behavioridentifying people for services without baking racial indicators or proxy factors into the machine learning of these systems.

AI brings a contradictory future to our cities. On the hand, tech-optimists see technology like autonomous vehicles, mobile healthcare, and robot teachers freeing us from mundane chores like commuting and waiting in doctors offices and making our cities better, more inclusive and sustainable places. On the other hand, techno-pessimists see a dystopian future where AI and robots take away jobs and we live in a state of perpetual surveillance.

The report takes a more measured approach. AI will likely replace tasks rather than jobs in the near term, and will also create new kinds of jobs, the authors state. But the new jobs that will emerge are harder to imagine in advance than the existing jobs that will likely be lost.

The study highlights a need for a new set of strategies and policies to guide the use of AI in the city, spanning legality and liability, certifications, agency control, innovation and privacy, labor and taxation. It also calls for more research, training and funding for cities and local governments to better understand and be ready for this coming revolution.

AI presents a complex set of considerations for cities. As with any big new technology, the possibilities are excitingbut mayors, policy makers, and urbanists must be vigilant to ensure that we set in place the regulations and institutions required to make the most of these new technologies while minimizing their downsides.

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Experts Ponder Artificial Intelligence and Cities - CityLab

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Sandy Cohen, Ap Entertainment Writer

Killer artificial intelligence returns in 'Alien: Covenant'

LOS ANGELES (AP) Modern movie culture would have you believe artificial intelligence is out to kill us all.

In "2001: A Space Odyssey," Hal, the AI computer aboard a space flight to Jupiter, develops a mind of its own and turns against the crew. "The Terminator" makes his mission clear in the movie's title. Ava, the pretty-faced android in "Ex Machina," has a killer instinct. David, the pretty-faced android in "Prometheus," also doesn't have the best intentions for human survival.

"Prometheus" director Ridley Scott, who further explores the cunning side of artificial intelligence in his new "Alien: Covenant," says, "If you're going to use something that's smarter than you are, that's when it starts to get dangerous."

It's been a running theme through Scott's three films set in the "Alien" universe, dating back to the 1979 original in which Sigourney Weaver battles not only an alien killing machine but also Ash, an android who views his human crewmates as expendable. "Prometheus" in 2012 introduced David, an earlier android version with a similar lack of scruples about protecting humanity.

Filmmakers have long projected that artificial intelligence could spell the end of humanity, and some top scientists and tech leaders including Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk share their concern.

Musk, an early investor in the development of AI, told Vanity Fair earlier this year that he worries the technology could ultimately "produce something evil by accident," such as "a fleet of artificial intelligence-enhanced robots capable of destroying mankind."

But astrophysicist, author and film fan Neil deGrasse Tyson said he believes there's nothing to worry about. Killer androids may make for fun film fodder, but he doesn't think they're an imminent, or eventual, reality.

"I'm completely fearless of AI," Tyson said last week.

Tyson noted that human beings have been inventing machines to replace human labor since the days of the Industrial Revolution, and computers have succeeded in outsmarting people since before Watson beat Ken Jennings at "Jeopardy!"

In movies, artificially intelligent beings might look human, but most real-life robots don't, he said. The robots welding parts on automobile assembly lines look like machines, not mechanics.

"The first thing we think of when we have a machine that has capacity is not to put it into something that looks human," Tyson said. "Because the human form is not very good at anything, so why have it look human?"

An exception would be "sex robots," he said, adding rhetorically, "Is this robot going to take over the world?"

For Scott, the possibility of evil artificial intelligence comes back to the question of the creator: Who is doing the creating, and for what purpose?

"Whoever the inventor is, he's going to want to go the whole nine yards," the filmmaker said. "Hence you get the expression of the mad professor who makes a mistake in going too far where the alien is way smarter than he is or the monsters are way smarter than he is and that's where you get problems.

"But we will definitely go there.... Because what it's leading to is the question of creation. And creation, I don't care who you are, is on everyone's mind."

Tyson is also fascinated with creation. His latest book, "Astrophysics for People in a Hurry," is about the birth of the universe and carbon-based life.

Androids, though, "are just completely pointless," he said. And they couldn't become self-aware without consciousness, something scientists have yet to fully grasp.

"You're saying we're going to end up programming this into a machine and then it's going to decide we shouldn't exist, when we don't even understand our own consciousness? I just don't see it," he said.

Besides, if somehow artificially intelligent androids do go rogue, Tyson has a solution.

"This is America," he said. "I can shoot the robot."

___

AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen at http://www.twitter.com/APSandy.

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Killer artificial intelligence returns in 'Alien: Covenant' - SFGate

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The Lack of Intelligence About Artificial Intelligence Forbes Everyone's talking about artificial intelligence (AI). Most of the talk is wrong, misleading and often intended to frighten us about a future that's unlikely to occur. AI will not steal our babies, hold us hostage for Bitcoins or start nuclear wars ...

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The Lack of Intelligence About Artificial Intelligence - Forbes

Artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are dramatically reshaping nearly every sector of the economy and every job. A recent report from digital thought leader McKinsey & Co. indicates that as many as 45 percent of activities performed for pay could be automated right now with current technologies.

Nowhere is this trend more evident than in the accounting profession where even in smaller firms, software and subscription services can now automatically collect and organize data on everything from payroll and inventory to audits and contract language, and, according to Xero, even perform analysis once the sole province of human intervention on tedious tasks like bank reconciliation.

But while the rise of the machines may invoke fear in some reactionaries, more visionary accounting professionals are asking themselves how human advisors can sustain their relevance and value among emerging supercomputers and automated applications.

How can they win, they wonder, in this new AI landscape?

As the accounting profession moves into the AI age, Roman Yampolskiy, PhD, a professor of computer engineering and computer science at the University of Louisville and a leading researcher on AI, emphasizes the importance of not fully relying on todays software because of the one thing that AI currently lacks: common sense.

Certain functions should not be passed on from our hands to machines, which, I remind you, have no common sense, Yampolskiy said.

Maureen Schwartz, executive director of global public accounting association BKR International, concurs: Even in the age of supercomputers, data will always remain most valuable when interpreted through the common sense of knowledgeable advisors.

Here, according to BKR International, are three ways firms can employ common sense as they explore the potential for automation and AI in the accounting industry:

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How Your Firm Can Win with Artificial Intelligence - Accountingweb.com

It is hardly surprising that Artificial Intelligence was a major focus of Microsofts Build 2017 conference. In fact, given the rapid advancements in all areas of AI technology and the raging debates about if or rather, when robots will take over our jobs, it would be surprising if one of the worlds biggest technology companies werent thinking about these problems in a big way.

When Harry Shum Executive Vice President of Microsofts AI and Research group took to the main stage on Monday, he talked about how soon it will be almost impossible to imagine a technology that doesnt tap into the power of AI in one way or another. What made this possible, he continued, was the convergence of three forces increased cloud computing power, algorithms running off deep neural networks, and access to massive datasets. This means that AI does indeed have the potential to disturb every single industry and process out there.

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But while the disruption does seem inevitable, companies like Microsoft are betting they can make it a positive one, talking about the possibilities it brings to amplify human ingenuity, augmenting peoples capabilities and helping them to be more productive.

Im really glad were having all these conversations about the disruptive power of AI, and its a good thing that were being so thoughtful about the ways in which were designing these systems, because its crucial that they are designed for people, to help them do their jobs better, says Lili Cheng distinguished engineer, general manager FUSE labs.

Microsoft has been creating building blocks for the current wave of AI breakthroughs for more than two decades, and now it wants to leverage that accumulated research with the massive amounts of data available to them through the Microsoft Graph portfolio of products and Azures computing power, moving towards its vision of the Intelligent Cloud.

One of the things weve done with our bot framework and the cognitive services is that we componentized things so that they can be reused into other context. For Cognitive Services there are 29 and you can choose whichever one(s) you choose, explains Cheng.

So by adding a few lines of code, developers can mix, match and customize AI functionalities to suit their needs, spanning functions such as translation, video deconstruction and search, gesture recognition and real-time captioning.

Broadly speaking, therefore, Cognitive Services are plugin functionalities that developers can use to enable systems within their apps to hear, speak, understand and interpret human needs. For example, LUIS (Language Understanding Intelligent Service) helps developers to integrate language models to understand users using either prebuilt or customized models. While the Custom Vision Service makes it easy to create your own image recognition service.

The overarching idea is to move towards what the company calls conversational AI, (where instead of humans having to learn about computers, computers will be able to understand humans) and thus enable more fluid and natural interactions between humans and machines.

Clearly when one thinks of conversational AI this includes Cortana Microsofts personal intelligent assistant which is already used by 145 million people across the world, and the company is certainly focusing heavily on making it easier for developers to reach this growing audience by working in partnership with companies like HP, Intel and Harman on IoT devices such as Invoke intelligent speaker.

However, this is an extension of the Cognitive Services offering the company launched back in 2015, which has since attracted over 568,000 developers from more than 60 countries to sign up. Microsoft now wants to redefine itself with AI by infusing it into every product and service it offers, from Xbox to Windows, from Bing to Office.

An example of this was the demo showcased during the keynote which showed how Microsofts translation APIs could provide real-time translation in multiple languages during any PowerPoint presentation. It not only embeds live transcriptions of the presenter into a specific language, but also generates an unique link which lets attendees get further live translations into their own preferred languages all in real time. Other such functionalities include Project Prague an early stage SDK that matches captured user movement against an extensive library of hand poses, allowing the developer to tie app actions to gestures and create a more intuitive user experience through gesture interaction.

The ease with which developers can incorporate these elements into their apps, together with this growing emphasis on natural interaction, means that AI has the potential to become a much more creative tool across the board, not something that can only be leverage and understood by Data Scientists. This democratization of AI is in fact a cornerstone of Microsofts vision, and something Cheng is very keen to enable:

You need to make people laugh, and you need creativity and you need all this stuff because thats what being human is about. This better be a creator platform for writers and other non-technical people. AI cant be just for people with PhDs we want people who are writers, artists or builders to be able to use those tools to get their jobs done better. Were super committed to that. Theres a lot more to AI than writing code, and I think that has to be our goal, to make people want to make the things they live in all day, she concludes.

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How Microsoft wants us all to get creative with Artificial Intelligence - TNW

MANILA - Automation will impact business process outsourcing (BPO) companies by eliminating low level work, but it will also enhance the effectiveness of the human work force, according to a Filipino businessman and innovator in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).

"It really depends on the maturity of the company. If you do mostly transactional work, or repetitive work, then yes you're in danger," said Gian dela Rama, chief executive officer of Innovantage.

"AI moves at a blistering pace. Next year you may actually see solutions that replace a call center agent in voice," Dela Rama told ANC's Early Edition.

"You'll have the Alexas of the world, connected to a CRM (customer relations management), and the voice at the other end might be a bot," he added referring to Amazon's intelligent personal assistant.

Dela Rama however insisted that not all was bad with regards to AI's impact on employment. He said that BPOs that deal with higher level work can actually benefit from AI as it enhances the abilities of their existing workforce.

"It's about providing people, humans with superpowers," he said.

Dela Rama said AI solutions like 'assistive intelligence' can free BPO workers from repetitive tasks and allow them to concentrate on work that really matters.

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Artificial Intelligence to give humans 'superpowers' says AI innovator - ABS-CBN News

Artificial intelligence brings risks along with rewards Columbus Business First Although it may be some time before we commute to work in flying cars or teleport to our company's lunar outpost, a concept once thought to be outside the realm of possibility is now on the verge of transforming the modern workplace working side-by ... and more »

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