Daily Archives: August 1, 2017

BBC News

The 'creepy Facebook AI' story that captivated the media BBC News The newspapers have a scoop today - it seems that artificial intelligence (AI) could be out to get us. "'Robot intelligence is dangerous': Expert's warning after Facebook AI 'develop their own language'", says the Mirror. Similar stories have appeared ... Dystopian Fear Of Facebook's AI Experiment Is Highly ExaggeratedForbes Facebook didn't kill its language-building AI because it was too smartit was actually too dumbQuartz This is how Facebook's shut-down AI robots developed their own language and why it's more common than you thinkThe Independent Gizmodo -CBS Los Angeles -Fast Co. Design -Facebook Code all 205 news articles »

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The 'creepy Facebook AI' story that captivated the media - BBC News

Investopedia

Facebook Buys AI Startup Ozlo for Messenger Investopedia According to media reports, past demos on the company's website show how an AI digital assistant developed by the company can tell a user if a restaurant is group-friendly by gathering and analyzing all the reviews of the establishment. On its website ... Facebook Acquires AI Startup OzloInc.com Facebook buys Ozlo to boost its conversational AI effortsTechCrunch Facebook acquired an AI startup to help Messenger build out its ...Recode YourStory.com -Fortune -GeekWire all 53 news articles »

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Facebook Buys AI Startup Ozlo for Messenger - Investopedia

LogMeIn, the company that provides authentication and other connectivity solutions for those who connect remotely to networks and services, has made another acquisition to expand the products it offers to customers, specifically in its new Bold360 CRM platform, launched in June. The company has picked up Nanorep, a startup out of Israel that develops chatbots and other AI-based tools to help people navigate self-service apps.

LogMeIn is paying $45 million plus up to $5 million more in earn-outs based on performance and employees staying put over the next two years.

Nanorep had raised just under $7 million from investors that included Titanium out of Russia (which had also backed Cloudyn, recently acquired by Microsoft), Oryzn Capital and OurCrowd.

The startup already had around 500 large customers, including big names like FedEx, ToysRUs and Vodafone. In essence, its platform helps anticipate what customers are trying to do when theyre on a website say in a technical support or search situation and reduces the number of steps needed to get there. It looks like all of Nanoreps existing business will continue as its tech also gets integrated into Bold360.

LogMeIns launch of Bold360 earlier this year was intended to help the company expand the range of services that it offered to customers, beyond authentication and IT management within an organisation, and into more cloud-based services where the business interfaces with its customers.

However, the CRM space is already very crowded, and so its no surprise to see that LogMeIn has made an acquisition to add more features to the service to help set it apart from the pack.

With Nanorep, its also tapping into the recent enthusiasm and interest in AI and building intelligent services that mimic human behaviours, specifically in CRM.

Artificial intelligence is changing the way we interact with our favorite brands and will play a critical role in the future of customer engagement, said Bill Wagner, CEO, LogMeIn, in a statement. With Nanorep, we gain proven technology and AI expertise that expands our Bold360 offering, accelerates our customer engagement vision and provides a natural path for us to leverage these emerging technologies across our entire portfolio. We believe in the ability of technology to unlock the potential of the modern workforce and with the addition of Nanorep we are going to be able to deliver solutions that will help our customers achieve the next generation of humanized and personalized customer service.

Although LogMeIn has acquired Nanobot to help raise its game in CRM, on another level this is also an important move just to keep up.

Gartner predicts that conversational agents which you can interpret as a more fancy way of saying chatbots will account for 30 percent of all customer service interactions by 2022, up from just three percent today.

There are many others that are also active in this same area, includingSalesforce with its Einstein AI, Gong, which provides real-time processing and teaching to live agents; and Hubspot, which just made an acquisition of its own, of Kemvi.

What Nanorep is tapping into that is interesting is the fact that the vast range of businesses in the world are not tech-centric, and so they will be less capable of building AI solutions like chatbots themselves, nor will they want to spend an arm and a leg to get them: like all software, AI is gradually moving into the realm of being off-the-shelf, and LogMeIn is hoping to be a part of that trend.

This is publicly traded LogMeIns seventh acquisition, and its first since acquiring password manager LastPass in 2015 for $110 million.

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LogMeIn acquires chatbot and AI startup Nanorep for up to $50M - TechCrunch

YouTube says new, tougher rules will be implemented against supremacist content. Photograph: Sergei Konkov/TASS

Google has pledged to continue developing advanced programs using machine learning to combat the rise of extremist content, after it found that it was both faster and more accurate than humans in scrubbing illicit content from YouTube.

The company is using machine learning along with human reviewers as part of a mutli-pronged approach to tackle the spread of extremist and controversial videos across YouTube, which also includes tougher standards for videos and the recruitment of more experts to flag content in need of review.

A month after announcing the changes, and following UK home secretary Amber Rudds repeated calls for US technology firms to do more to tackle the rise of extremist content, Googles YouTube has said that its machine learning systems have already made great leaps in tackling the problem.

A YouTube spokesperson said: While these tools arent perfect, and arent right for every setting, in many cases our systems have proven more accurate than humans at flagging videos that need to be removed.

Our initial use of machine learning has more than doubled both the number of videos weve removed for violent extremism, as well as the rate at which weve taken this kind of content down. Over 75% of the videos weve removed for violent extremism over the past month were taken down before receiving a single human flag.

One of the problems YouTube has in policing its site for illicit content is that users upload 400 hours of content every minute, making filtering out extremist content in real time an enormous challenge that only an algorithmic approach is likely to manage, the company says.

YouTube also said that it had begun working with 15 more NGOs and institutions, including the Anti-Defamation League, the No Hate Speech Movement, and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue in an effort to improve the systems understanding of issues around hate speech, radicalisation and terrorism to better deal with objectionable content.

Google will begin enforcing tougher standards on videos that could be deemed objectionable, but are not illegal, in the coming weeks. The company said that YouTube videos flagged as inappropriate that contain controversial religious or supremacist content, but that do not breach the companys policies on hate speech or violent extremism will be placed in a limited state.

A YouTube spokesperson said: The videos will remain on YouTube behind an interstitial, wont be recommended, wont be monetised, and wont have key features including comments, suggested videos, and likes.

YouTube has also begun redirecting searches with certain keywords to playlists of curated videos that confront and debunk violent extremist messages, as parts of its effort to help prevent radicalisation.

Google plans to continue developing the machine learning technology and to collaborate with other technology companies to tackle online extremism.

YouTube is the worlds largest video hosting service and is one of the places extremist and objectionable content ends up, even if it originates and is removed from other services, including Facebook, making it a key battleground.

Big-name brands, including GSK, Pepsi, Walmart, Johnson & Johnson, the UK government and the Guardian pulled millions of pounds of advertising from YouTube and other social media properties after it was found their ads were placed next to extremist content.

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Google says AI better than humans at scrubbing extremist YouTube ... - The Guardian

BBC News

Better drugs, faster: The potential of AI-powered humans BBC News Scientists working in tandem with artificial intelligence (AI) could slash the time it takes to develop new drugs - and, crucially, the cost - say tech companies. Developing pharmaceutical drugs is a very expensive and time-consuming business. and more »

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Better drugs, faster: The potential of AI-powered humans - BBC News

The retail industry has been gradually ramping up its use of artificial intelligence and voice-activation skills, there are still some holdouts due the lack of human-ness that nuanced and complex customer service tends to demand, a study cited by eMarketer shows.

Pointing to a survey of retailers by AI platform Linc and Brand Garage from May, eMarketer notes that over a third (34.1 percent) of US retail executives claim to be piloting AI programs.

The main use cases involve assisting human sales and customer service reps in dealing with shoppers problems or through quick conversations via chatbots.

As companys like Facebook continue to explore the use the AI and chatbots, retailers and other brick-and-mortar brands, along with their customers, will be experiencing more contact with AI whether theyre ready or not.

This week, Facebook acquired AI developer Ozlo to support its Messenger platform. Ozlo is primarily focused on building messenger bots that allows AI systems to respond to text-based take-out orders, connect consumers with ride-hailing services, among many other things.

Facebook has been building out its own intelligent agent, dubbed M, for over a year. By incorporating deeper machine learning techniques to better understand consumers and recommend a food order or ride service, the social network may help address one of the pain points that retailers say continues to hold them back from fully adopting AI programs.

At the moment, just 7.7 percent of retailers surveyed by Linc and Brand Garage have an existing, ongoing role for AI in their customer service programs.

For the ones who have not created a program for voice-activated assistants or chatbots, over a third (36.2 percent) say the technology isnt sophisticated enough to do what they need. Many retailers say they dont have the technical resources to support an AI initiative. Still others remain dubious that the technologies are ready to reach the mainstream at this early point.

On top of that, a perceptible minority 8.7 percent contend that implementing machine-based conversations would repel some consumers because of the sense that the direct connection with consumers would be eroded.

If someone wants a human, they will obviously be disappointed by an AI bot/assistant, says eMarketer principal analyst Victoria Petrock. However, as the systems learn customers preferences and become more sophisticated at predicting their wants and needs, AI bots might actually deliver up a more precise and personalized experience. They also may free up the employees to do higher-level work.

Erik Lautier, EVP of e-commerce/CMO at Francescas, a US-based womens clothing and accessories boutique with hundreds of locations, is one retail executive that has been bullish on AI.

Were currently experimenting with two things: first, our chatbot on Facebook Messenger shows our customers weather-based outfitting recommendations, closest boutique locations, etc.; second, our customers can receive shipping updates via Facebook Messenger or SMS, Lautier said in the Linc/Brand Garage survey.

While ROI is a challenge to measure near-term, as we enhance our capabilities in CRM, I expect well develop an understanding of how segments that interact with AI perform relative to others, Lautier added. We also havent approached our testing with an ROI first mentality. Weve developed these things because we felt a certain customer segment would find genuine value in it, and we expect that segment to grow in the months to come.

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Why A Third Of Retailers Continue To Shun AI And Voice-Activation - GeoMarketing (blog)

Panasonic came up with five different levels of potential drowsiness: not drowsy at all, slightly drowsy, drowsy, very drowsy and seriously drowsy (their terms). The system aims to figure out exactly where you are on that scale and take the appropriate measures.

To do so, the camera uses AI facial recognition to detect eyeblinks and expressions. If your eyelids droop and the speed of your blinks slow down drastically, for instance, you're likely on a level five journey to sleepyville. All told, it can detect around 1,800 facial expressions and blink parameters related to drowsiness.

The infrared sensor, meanwhile, can tell how fast you're losing heat regardless of how much clothing you're wearing. If heat loss levels are higher, generally a driver will become drowsy more quickly. Furthermore, if it's dark rather than light, you'll also tend to get sleepy over a shorter period of time.

To counter that, the system adjusts lighting, airflow and temperature based on how drowsy it thinks you are. The system doesn't want to freeze you out, though, so, Panasonic worked with Nara Women's University to calculate your "thermal sensation," the ideal level of airflow, light and warmth needed to keep you "comfortably awake," Panasonic says.

Unlike other systems, it works silently in the background so that drivers don't even notice they're being monitored. Rather, you'll (hopefully) just feel generally more awake during the trip, unless you try to pull off a 20-hour all-night trip. In that case, it'll rightfully tell you to pull the hell over so you don't endanger yourself and others. Panasonic plans to make their system available to automakers by October, and it might come to your favorite car model sometime after that.

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Panasonic AI senses drowsy drivers and cranks up the AC - Engadget