Category Archives: Ai

It's something we've always wished we had, and now it's almost here.

Google has revealed their work on a new piece of artificial intelligence (AI) tech that will allow users to zoom in on photos or images without them getting blurry. Instead of getting pixelated the photos will continue to look clean and sharp, kind of like the tech used in crime TV series like Crime Scene Investigations.

Something like this, but not quite:

The new AI engines work based on what's known as diffusion models, and involves a technique known as natural image synthesis.

In this technique, details are added to an image that weren't originally captured by the camera or inserted by whatever software was used to make it. The additional details are added using a mix of clever guesswork and deriving info from other similar-looking images.

Of course, this means that the enhanced photo won't turn out exactly like the original, but you can still expect pixelated or blurry images to be transformed into pictures that you can enjoy and use without worrying how others see them.

With regards to the tools used to make this magic happen, Google has said that they currently employ two techniques.

The first is a diffusion model technique called Super-Resolution via Repeated Refinement (or SR3), and basically works by adding extra noise or unpredictable elements to an image, then reversing the process and fixing the image, just like how a photo editor works to improve any image taken from a camera.

Then by using probability math and looking through a huge library of pre-existing images, SR3 can then better predict what a full, clear image should look like despite how blurry or pixelated the original is.

"Diffusion models work by corrupting the training data by progressively adding Gaussian noise, slowly wiping out details in the data until it becomes pure noise, and then training a neural network to reverse this corruption process," explained members of the Google Research team.

The other tool is known as Cascaded Diffusion Models (or CDM), that works by acting as "pipelines" through which diffusion models like SR3 can be directed for the purpose of upgrading images into high-resolution.

While these all sound extremely technical, Google's progress with these techniques have so far been impressive.

In a test conducted on the gigantic image database ImageNet, Google's new AI engine manage to convince 50 volunteer testers that images of human faces generated by SR3 and CDM were real 50 percent of the time pretty amazing for a bunch of images created by performing complex mathematics.

Currently, it's still not known how or when Google plans to introduce their new engine to the mainstream, although the team have confirmed that they're still working on other exciting technologies related to AI and diffusion models.

"With SR3 and CDM, we have pushed the performance of diffusion models to state-of-the-art on super-resolution and class-conditional ImageNet generation benchmarks," the team said. "We are excited to further test the limits of diffusion models for a wide variety of generative modeling problems."

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Cover image sourced from Kishor on Unsplash. For illustration purposes only.

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Google's new AI will let you zoom into photos without blurring everything - Mashable SE Asia

New Capabilities Automate User Access and Makes Achieving Zero Trust Easier for the Enterprise

SAN FRANCISCO, September 08, 2021--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ForgeRock, a global digital identity leader, today announced the availability of its latest version of ForgeRock Autonomous Identity designed to help enterprises reduce risk and more efficiently manage workforce access. The companys AI-driven approach to identity governance and administration (IGA) offers new capabilities to help teams heighten security by avoiding excessive access permissions and eliminating orphaned user accounts -- both prime targets for external attackers and insider threats.

Enterprises have long tried to use role-based access control (RBAC) to simplify the process of managing workforce access permissions. However the effectiveness of this approach erodes over time because traditional IGA and RBAC processes lead to over-provisioning of access permissions -- giving access to people who dont need it -- resulting in an increased attack surface. Organizations have traditionally managed access using manual, labor-intensive processes that can no longer scale to meet todays dynamic security requirements.

The AI-Driven Approach to Zero Trust and Role-based Access Control

According to Gartner Inc. research, titled "Modern Approaches to Identity Governance and Administration Role Modeling*," the firm advises that "the process of updating IGA policies and roles should be automated using machine learning (ML) and advanced analytics, so that it leverages additional inputs, such as actual usage, to mitigate over-entitlement and role proliferation."

ForgeRock is doing exactly that with its latest release of Autonomous Identity. The modern IGA solution now leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to reduce enterprise risk by discovering role-based access patterns across the entire organization and recommending optimized role structures. These specific role recommendations help ensure that users have the level of access they need while increasing the organizations security posture. This enables organizations to customize their own risk criteria without the need for frequent and laborious data analysis.

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"ForgeRock Autonomous Identity has always been about helping IT and security teams work smarter," said Peter Barker, Chief Product Officer, ForgeRock. "With this new release of Autonomous Identity, were introducing new role management capabilities that tackle tedious, manual access and governance processes using AI and ML to more quickly identify and eliminate risky access across the entire enterprise. These new features provide an even more powerful way to give companies control of their data and also organize that data with optimized roles to more efficiently manage and govern access."

"Accenture is a strategic ForgeRock partner as well as a customer, so we know firsthand how essential IGA is to keeping enterprises safe from cyber threats," said Rex Thexton, Managing Director, Global Applied Cybersecurity Services Lead, Accenture. "ForgeRock Autonomous Identitys AI-driven analytics allow us to quickly and accurately prevent over-provisioning account access to our more than half a million employees with a much higher degree of confidence. These new features provide a better way to manage user privileges and help organizations have more visibility across their networks so they can proactively identify risks."

The new Forgerock Autonomous Identity capabilities are available now. For more information please visit http://www.forgerock.com.

About ForgeRock

ForgeRock, a global leader in digital identity, delivers modern and comprehensive identity and access management solutions for consumers, employees and things to simply and safely access the connected world. Using ForgeRock, more than a thousand global customer organizations orchestrate, manage, and secure the complete lifecycle of identities from dynamic access controls, governance, APIs, and storing authoritative data consumable in any cloud or hybrid environment. The company is privately held, and headquartered in San Francisco, California, with offices around the world. For more information and free downloads, visit http://www.forgerock.com or follow ForgeRock on social media: Facebook ForgeRock |Twitter @ForgeRock | LinkedIn ForgeRock.

* - Gartner, Modern Approaches to Identity Governance and Administration Role Modeling, by Nat Krishnan, August 12, 2021. ID G00750252

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210908005637/en/

Contacts

Stacey HurwitzForgeRockStacey.Hurwitz@forgerock.com

OR

Edelman on behalf of ForgeRockDillon TownselDillon.Townsel@edelman.com

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ForgeRock Autonomous Identity Ushers in a New Era of AI-Driven Identity Governance and Administration - Yahoo Finance

Related: UAE enjoys tech jobs boom as pandemic recovery gathers pace

Female tech pioneers from the UAE have described their desire to get more girls to learn about artificial intelligence and coding.

They spoke in an online meeting of thought leaders, organised by the British Embassy UAE on Tuesday.

Gamification and using the power of social media were two suggestions on how to encourage more young people to consider a career in tech.

A lot of people think that working in technology is not for them, because it's too hard, or because there are stereotypes that only white men work in the sector

Joysy John, 01Founders

Emirati student, Fatima Ali Aldhuhoori, who was part of her school's prize-winning robotics team and Radhika Iyer, who studied in the UAE before moving to the UK and winning the Amazon Longitude Explorer Prize for tech design, discussed how much they enjoyed using computer science to solve problems.

Globally, these two women are outliers for their generation. Only 18 per cent of girls in tertiary education are pursuing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics studies, compared to 35 per cent of boys, according to the UN children's fund.

Joysy John, the CEO of 01Founders, a free coding school in the UK, told the online meeting about the dire shortage of software engineers and the need for more young people to learn how to work in the digital space.

"A lot of people think that working in technology is not for them, because it's too hard or because there are stereotypes that only white men work in the sector," said Ms John.

"By changing this stereotype and by having more role models, we can actually change the world in terms of who gets to build the algorithms that are used by everyone."

There is a shortage of women working in tech, although this could soon change, as 56 per cent of the UAE's graduates in STEM courses at government universities are women. Pawan Singh / The National

The UK has placed girls education at the heart of its current presidency of the G7.

In July, the country hosted the Global Education Summit in London and raised $4 billion for global education.

The UAE was the biggest donor from the region at that event, and will host the RewirEd education conference at Expo 2020 Dubai later this year, where international stakeholders will discuss how to redefine education to prepare children for a post-Covid-19 world.

Speaking on the panel, Hanan Ahli, acting director general for the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Authority in the UAE, said the digital gender gap needed to be closed.

"Collectively, we can make together a bigger impact into girls education in AI. We can all empower more young women to enter STEM fields of study and careers," she said.

"The UAE government is proactively addressing this through national strategies such as the UAE Centennial 2071, the Advanced Sciences Agenda 2031 and the UAE's Fourth Industrial Revolution strategy.

"The literacy rate of women in the UAE stands at 95.8 per cent, with a remarkable 56 per cent of the UAE's graduates in STEM courses at government universities are women."

The panellists discussed in detail how to persuade girls that coding, tech and artificial intelligence are not just the domain of white men, despite that currently being the case.

A 2020 study by the AnitaB.org Institute, which aims to advance women in technology, found that women make up only 28.8 per cent of the tech workforce, with Asian women making up just 5 per cent of that number, and Black and Hispanic women accounting for 3 per cent and 1 per cent respectively.

Only 18 per cent of girls in tertiary education around the world are pursuing STEM studies, compared to 35 per cent of boys, according to Unicef. Photo: Getty Images

Salwa Abdulla, director of the projects and programmes department at the Federal Authority for Government Human Resources, said self-empowerment was key to attracting young people into tech.

"It's not about our academic subjects that we study in schools self-learning is also an important aspect that we need to encourage," said Ms Abdulla, who has worked in tech for 18 years.

"There are a lot of open resources on the internet where we can go and just explore, learn more about AI."

In 2018, the UAE launched Madrasa, a free e-learning platform providing 5,000 videos to foster science and maths skills among Arabic-speaking students across the world.

"The platform has gained traction of over 6.5 million visitors, with 61 per cent of them being female," said Ms Ahli.

Ms John said gamification was one tool used at 01Founders to attract young men and women to code, as this helped them indirectly to build the creative and technical skills needed for a career in artificial intelligence.

Ms Abdulla agreed, and suggested teaming up with influencers in the UAE and UK.

"Social media is a great tool. Ladies are influenced by fashionistas. So we need to sponsor an AI engineer who becomes an influencer within social media," she said.

"This person needs to show people the power of AI, the power of technology, so other girls will follow."

Updated: September 8th 2021, 6:01 AM

PROFILE OF HALAN

Started: November 2017

Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga

Based: Cairo, Egypt

Sector: transport and logistics

Size: 150+ employees

Investment: approximately $8 million

Investors include: Singapores Battery Road Digital Holdings, Egypts Algebra Ventures, Uber co-founder and former CTO Oscar Salazar

PROFILE OF HALAN

Started: November 2017

Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga

Based: Cairo, Egypt

Sector: transport and logistics

Size: 150+ employees

Investment: approximately $8 million

Investors include: Singapores Battery Road Digital Holdings, Egypts Algebra Ventures, Uber co-founder and former CTO Oscar Salazar

PROFILE OF HALAN

Started: November 2017

Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga

Based: Cairo, Egypt

Sector: transport and logistics

Size: 150+ employees

Investment: approximately $8 million

Investors include: Singapores Battery Road Digital Holdings, Egypts Algebra Ventures, Uber co-founder and former CTO Oscar Salazar

PROFILE OF HALAN

Started: November 2017

Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga

Based: Cairo, Egypt

Sector: transport and logistics

Size: 150+ employees

Investment: approximately $8 million

Investors include: Singapores Battery Road Digital Holdings, Egypts Algebra Ventures, Uber co-founder and former CTO Oscar Salazar

PROFILE OF HALAN

Started: November 2017

Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga

Based: Cairo, Egypt

Sector: transport and logistics

Size: 150+ employees

Investment: approximately $8 million

Investors include: Singapores Battery Road Digital Holdings, Egypts Algebra Ventures, Uber co-founder and former CTO Oscar Salazar

PROFILE OF HALAN

Started: November 2017

Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga

Based: Cairo, Egypt

Sector: transport and logistics

Size: 150+ employees

Investment: approximately $8 million

Investors include: Singapores Battery Road Digital Holdings, Egypts Algebra Ventures, Uber co-founder and former CTO Oscar Salazar

PROFILE OF HALAN

Started: November 2017

Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga

Based: Cairo, Egypt

Sector: transport and logistics

Size: 150+ employees

Investment: approximately $8 million

Investors include: Singapores Battery Road Digital Holdings, Egypts Algebra Ventures, Uber co-founder and former CTO Oscar Salazar

PROFILE OF HALAN

Started: November 2017

Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga

Based: Cairo, Egypt

Sector: transport and logistics

Size: 150+ employees

Investment: approximately $8 million

Investors include: Singapores Battery Road Digital Holdings, Egypts Algebra Ventures, Uber co-founder and former CTO Oscar Salazar

PROFILE OF HALAN

Started: November 2017

Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga

Based: Cairo, Egypt

See the rest here:

Coding and AI jobs: How do we get more girls into tech? - The National

Steve Dent is an associate editor at Engadget.More posts by this contributor

The voices on Amazons Alexa, Google Assistant and other AI assistants are far ahead of old-school GPS devices, but they still lack the rhythms, intonation and other qualities that make speech sound, well, human. NVIDIA has unveiled new research and tools that can capture those natural speech qualities by letting you train the AI system with your own voice, the company announced at the Interspeech 2021 conference.

To improve its AI voice synthesis, NVIDIAs text-to-speech research team developed a model called RAD-TTS, a winning entry at an NAB broadcast convention competition to develop the most realistic avatar. The system allows an individual to train a text-to-speech model with their own voice, including the pacing, tonality, timbre and more.

Another RAD-TTS feature is voice conversion, which lets a user deliver one speakers words using another persons voice. That interface gives fine, frame-level control over a synthesized voices pitch, duration and energy.

Using this technology, NVIDIAs researchers created more conversational-sounding voice narration for its own I Am AI video series using synthesized rather than human voices. The aim was to get the narration to match the tone and style of the videos, something that hasnt been done well in many AI narrated videos to date. The results are still a bit robotic, but better than any AI narration Ive ever heard.

With this interface, our video producer could record himself reading the video script, and then use the AI model to convert his speech into the female narrators voice. Using this baseline narration, the producer could then direct the AI like a voice actor tweaking the synthesized speech to emphasize specific words, and modifying the pacing of the narration to better express the videos tone, NVIDIA wrote.

NVIDIA is distributing some of this research optimized to run efficiently on NVIDIA GPUs, of course to anyone who wants to try it via open source through the NVIDIA NeMo Python toolkit for GPU-accelerated conversational AI, available on the companys NGC hub of containers and other software.

Several of the models are trained with tens of thousands of hours of audio data on NVIDIA DGX systems. Developers can fine tune any model for their use cases, speeding up training using mixed-precision computing on NVIDIA Tensor Core GPUs, the company wrote.

Editors note: This post originally appeared on Engadget.

Read more:

NVIDIAs latest tech makes AI voices more expressive and realistic - TechCrunch

The synergies of AI and IoT are now making serious headway in the automotive, industrial and medical sectors, according to Omdias Josh Builta.

When it comes to the digital transformation, the smart money is likely to follow IoT applications that integrate with artificial intelligence (AI), according to Josh Builta, research director, Internet of Things, Omdia.

Speaking to IoTWTs parent company Informa Tech at DesignCon 2021, Builta predicted AI would emerge as the practical means to make sense of output from IoT endpoints, forecast to reach 75 billion by the end of the decade.

Theres a virtuous feedback loop, too, Builta added, as AI enhances the conclusions of connected devices but it also refines its judgment based on the data that IoT extracts.

Its hard to imagine any human being able to make sense of that data. And its not only the amount of data, but also whether [enterprises] are able to trust the data at the end, Builta told Chuck Martin, editorial director of AI and IoT at Informa Tech.

While Martin alluded to the reality that credibility issues also arise from AI-driven analysis, Builta posited that quality would likely improve as automation models ingest more data.

With both AI and IoT being key to the digital transformation, Omdia has seen many enterprises accelerating deployments to make the most of connected technology during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Builta cited connected vehicles, industrial and health care as areas where AIoT was already prevalent. A connected car is essentially an IP address, but when you add AI into that you can allow for these vehicles to operate without a human interface. These are the types of examples that were now starting to see.

Here is the original post:

AI and IoT to Ignite Digital Transformation - IoT World Today

Weve had visionary investors onstage before, and weve had science fiction authors onstage but never at the same time, let alone a pair who collaborated on a unique book of stories and essays that make an optimistic prediction of our AI-infused future. Sinovation founder Kai-Fu Lee and author of Waste Tide and others Chen Qiufan will join us at Disrupt (September 21-23) for a discussion of the fiction and fact of todays hottest technology.

Lee, born in Taiwan, attended CMU and obtained a PhD in computer science, working initially on speech recognition before working for Apple, SGI and Microsoft, then establishing Google China as its president. His research and investment company, Sinovation (originally Innovation Works) has been his focus since its founding in 2009, and he has grown to become a leading mind and influential figure in AI.

When we last spoke with Lee, at Disrupt SF 2018, he emphasized that China was catching up to the U.S. on AI research, and had surpassed it in some ways. And certainly his own investments have contributed to that. Since then, as someone who thinks frequently about what the future holds, he has found a kindred spirit in Chen Qiufan.

Qiufan is a Chinese author whose 2013 novel Waste Tide propelled him to literary fame, though like many authors, that wasnt enough to make him quit his day job until a few years later (Wired only just ran a profile on him). But by that time he had attracted the attention of Lee, who proposed a novel project: a collaborative book where the two would put their heads together to create a fictitious future informed by fact and realistic extrapolation.

The result is AI 2041: 10 stories by Qiufan set in the titular year, all over the world, with people from all walks of life encountering AI in the many ways that the authors speculate it may come to shape society over the next two decades. Each is followed by an explanatory essay by Lee that goes into the technical aspects and why they might lead to that future.

Ill be posting a full review of the book ahead of the event, but I can certainly say that its unlike any collection Ive read before. Each story is independent but takes place in something like a shared world, and each illustrates a potential application, conflict or change in thinking that AI could lead to. And, importantly, the AI is recognizable as descended directly from existing technologies.

For instance, one story concerns a talented deepfake creator working out of Lagos, one who knows the ins and outs of generative adversarial networks, image inspection, media pathways and so on. Hes tasked with creating a video of a long-dead celebrity that fools not just people watching it but the hosting services automated scanners, the governments facial recognition algorithms and all the rest but he begins to suspect theres an unsavory motive behind it all (I wont spoil the rest).

What follows the story is Lees essay on GANs, facial recognition and deepfakes that explains the concepts in an understandable but not patronizing way, then explores the risks and benefits in a non-narrative way. It helps ground the stories as real possibilities, not just imagined situations.

With both Qiufan and Lee onstage (virtually this time), the discussion of the book and the issues it brings up should be a lively one not least because it will be moderated by yours truly. But to catch this session, youll need to grab a pass to attend Disrupt happening September 21-23. Get yours today for less than $100 for a limited time!

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Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan will share their vision of our AI-powered future at Disrupt - TechCrunch

(EtiAmmos/Shutterstock)

While there is an increase in the number of investigations companies are conducting in the areas of employee conduct, regulatory compliance, security, and privacy, companies by and large are not making full use of the advanced analytics and AI tools at their disposal, according to a new report by OpenText.

OpenText commissioned Compliance Week to conduct the study, which is based on a survey of 200 compliance, legal, and internal audit professionals. The study found that investigations across employee conduct, regulatory compliance, security, and privacy have increased between 14% and 32% over the past year.

But the investigators are running into obstacles along the way, according to the survey, which found 42% faced time restraints, 39% experienced difficulty collecting data from remote and off-network locations, and another 39% ran into trouble collecting data from new sources of electronically stored information.

Despite the increase in the number of investigations expected to take place over the next two years, budgets are largely expected to be flat over that time, the survey says. Thats a concern, especially considering the lack of automation being applied to the field.

(Source: Compliance Week)

In fact, OpenText reports that 76% of survey responders will use a manual approach to gathering and analyzing data. Just over half (56%) will conduct keyword search and linear batching review, the company says. The report found that 31% will use technology-assisted review or machine learning, and 30% will use advanced analytics, to help them with their work.

The results of the study show that, despite a perceived need for improved efficiencies and better outcomes, companies just arent using analytics and AI to investigate the large amount of electronically stored information.

Data analytics, automation, and machine learning are necessary tools in supporting investigations, Lou Blatt, OpenTexts senior vice president and chief marketing officer says in a press release. Vast increases in information, changing data privacy and compliance requirements, and growing cybersecurity risks are all contributing to the need for a faster approach to managing and conducting investigations that results in better outcomes.

OpenText recommends that companies not only adopt AI and analytics, but also adopt a strike team approach to more efficiently tackling compliance and audit investigations. It further recommends that companies pair these strike teams with a group of existing business leaders in HR, compliance, legal, audit, risk, security, and IT.

You can access the Compliance Week report, which is the subject of a webinar on September 23, at this link.

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Analytics and AI Not Being Fully Utilized for Audits and Compliance Investigations: Report - Datanami

MARKHAM, ON, Aug. 31, 2021 /CNW/ - Canadian Artificial Intelligence (AI) company EAIGLE Inc., specializing in COVID-19 solution technology, has launched a new proof of vaccination platform to provide its existing five (5) million monthly users with an additional layer of health and safety protection. The new feature, which integrates with its portfolio of wellness screening solutions, will be available to clients by September 30th, 2021.

EAIGLE Visitor Management & Wellness Screening With Digital Vaccine Pass Platform (CNW Group/EAIGLE)

"We recognize the growing need to protect workplaces and public spaces via a flexible and automated solution that is reliable, easy to implement, and scalable." said, Amir Hoss, EAIGLE's CEO.

"This is why we have designed a platform that's in line with current market expectations but can easily evolve to meet the needs of a dynamic landscape," Hoss added.

ABOUT EAIGLE'S DIGITAL VACCINE PASS PLATFORM

Governments are making concerted efforts to reopen cities and businesses while new threats continue to emerge. As new variants of COVID-19 are detected, leveraging technology will be vital to ensure a smooth return to normalcy in the workplace.

EAIGLE's Digital Vaccine Pass is a proof of vaccination platform that enables governments and organizations to verify vaccination status at scale. It empowers users to upload their proof of vaccination online or scan it on-site at EAIGLE's wellness stations through a touchless and automated process.

To learn more about EAIGLE's Digital Vaccine Pass, visit: http://www.eaigle.com/digital-vaccine-pass

PRODUCT INNOVATION APPROACH

EAIGLE believes that collaboration with its clients is imperative to new product innovation. Working with our partners has given us unique insights into the needs and challenges of organizations across industries as they design new processes to safeguard their workplaces. Our first wave of loyal clients and innovation partners has helped shape the product development process for EAIGLE's visitor management and wellness screening solutions. We used the same approach to design EAIGLE's Digital Vaccine Pass Platform. By engaging with our clients, we've been able to validate many product assumptions and ensure a market-ready platform at launch.

Story continues

About EAIGLE

EAIGLE is a leader in artificial intelligence and computer vision technology, designing next-generation solutions to address the most complex challenges faced by a variety of industries. From streamlining operational processes to creating the technology layer for smart buildings, EAIGLE's technology helps public and private sector organizations make smarter decisions that enable them to future-proof their operations.

Since the start of the pandemic, EAIGLE has been working with organizations to mitigate disruptions at work and in public spaces in the fight against COVID-19 in an effort to maintain business continuity. The company's deep expertise in AI technology is underpinned by a commitment to high-quality software development through constant innovation and investment in R&D, automation, training, testing, and support. Today, EAIGLE is one of Canada's fastest-growing AI companies, with a customer footprint that spans across North America.

SOURCE EAIGLE

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Canadian AI technology company EAIGLE launches a new proof of vaccination platform to provide organizations with enhanced health and safety protection...

"LXT is committed to providing the customized solutions that have made our clients successful." - Mohammad Omar, CEO

According to IDC, the global AI market is expected to reach more than $550 billion with a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.5% by 2024. Demand has never been greater, and to scale globally and take advantage of this opportunity, organizations need to train AI technology on data that captures the unique cultural and linguistic nuances of every region.

"We are pleased to welcome Phil, Asser and Jodie to our executive team as we pursue our vision to provide the data that powers a much more intelligent and automated world," said Mohammad Omar, LXT founder and CEO. "All three have enterprise leadership experience at companies such as Appen and Shaw Communications that will help to fuel our next phase of growth. While many providers are focused on one-size-fits all solutions, LXT is committed to providing the customized solutions that have made our clients successful and these will remain core to our business."

Phil Hall brings more than 20 years' experience in working with the world's top technology companies and has extensive background in speech and linguistics, AI and machine learning data. Asser ElShanawany has a wealth of experience in leading public organizations, transforming and scaling start-ups to large technology companies, particularly in the telecommunications sector. Jodie Ruby comes to LXT with over 20 years of B2B technology marketing experience, including building and leading marketing teams from the ground up for high-growth organizations.

"LXT is a trusted partner to some of the world's largest technology companies - enabling them to deliver cutting-edge AI applications - and has achieved impressive growth based on its ongoing relationships with these organizations," said Phil Hall, LXT's new Chief Growth Officer. "I am thrilled to join a team with such a strong reputation for agile, reliable and cost-effective delivery of high-quality AI data, and look forward to helping LXT capitalize on its huge growth potential."

For enterprises developing AI-based solutions at scale, the ability to collect and annotate the data needed to train these solutions is limited and slows the pace of innovation. Data annotation requires countless hours of human intelligence and translation while data hungry businesses need reliable data collection and annotation partners with global coverage.

"I am excited to join LXT to help establish the company as a leading player in AI training data in partnership with global top 10 technology organizations," commented LXT's new Chief Financial Officer Asser ElShanawany. "Since we are already profitable, debt free and cash flow positive, our immediate focus is on scale, recapitalization, and many other promising financial milestones on the horizon."

LXT provides data generation, collection and annotation services in more than 200 languages through a secure technology platform that facilitates human insight to improve accuracy and streamlines workflow to reduce costs and optimize turnaround times.

"With the acceleration of AI investment across a wide range of use cases and industries, the demand for high-quality, human-annotated data is stronger than ever," said Jodie Ruby, LXT's new Vice President of Marketing. "LXT has proven itself as a trusted partner to leading global enterprises, and I am excited to join this talented team to help build on the momentum it has already created."

LXT was chosen as the exclusive data collection and annotation partner for the SUPERB program, working alongside leading researchers from National Taiwan University, MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, Johns Hopkins University, and Facebook AI. Its stated goal is tofuel research in representation learning and general speech processing. Learn more here.

"SUPERB is a unique effort to create a benchmark for models across a wide variety of tasks and will benefit the broader speech industry by enabling the detection of emotion, intent, content and other semantic information," commented Hung-yi Lee, an associate professor of the Department of Computer Science & Information Engineering at National Taiwan University. "High-quality data is key to the success of this effort, and LXT was chosen as the exclusive partner based on its flexibility, reliability, and collaborative culture."

LXT data services are delivered through its crowdsourced workforce in more than 80 countries around the world, its own secure facilities or onsite client deployment. To meet the most stringent security requirements, LXT facilities are ISO 27001 certified and PCI DSS compliant, and offer supervised annotation to safeguard customer data.

About LXTLXT is an emerging leader in AI training data to power intelligent technology for global organizations, including the largest technology companies in the world. In partnership with an international network of contributors, LXT collects and annotates data across multiple modalities with the speed, scale and agility required by the enterprise. Our global expertise spans 80countries and over 200 languages. Founded in 2014, LXT is headquartered in Toronto, Canada with presence in the United States, Australia, India, Turkey and Egypt. The company serves customers in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East. Learn more at lxt.ai.

SOURCE LXT

http://www.lxt.ai

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LXT to Capitalize on Massive Opportunity in AI Training Data with Agile and Customized Solutions, Expanded Management Team and Exclusive Partnership -...

Humans are active listeners; we create meaning where there is none, or none intended. It is not that the octopuss utterances make sense, but rather that the islander can make sense of them, Bender says.

For all their sophistication, todays AIs are intelligent in the same way a calculator might be said to be intelligent: they are both machines designed to convert input into output in ways that humanswho have mindschoose to interpret as meaningful. While neural networks may be loosely modeled on brains, the very best of them are vastly less complex than a mouses brain.

And yet, we know that brains can produce what we understand to be consciousness. If we can eventually figure out how brains do it, and reproduce that mechanism in an artificial device, then surely a conscious machine might be possible?

When I was trying to imagine Roberts world in the opening to this essay, I found myself drawn to the question of what consciousness means to me. My conception of a conscious machine was undeniablyperhaps unavoidablyhuman-like. It is the only form of consciousness I can imagine, as it is the only one I have experienced. But is that really what it would be like to be a conscious AI?

Its probably hubristic to think so. The project of building intelligent machines is biased toward human intelligence. But the animal world is filled with a vast range of possible alternatives, from birds to bees to cephalopods.

A few hundred years ago the accepted view, pushed by Ren Descartes, was that only humans were conscious. Animals, lacking souls, were seen as mindless robots. Few think that today: if we are conscious, then there is little reason not to believe that mammals, with their similar brains, are conscious too. And why draw the line around mammals? Birds appear to reflect when they solve puzzles. Most animals, even invertebrates like shrimp and lobsters, show signs of feeling pain, which would suggest they have some degree of subjective consciousness.

But how can we truly picture what that must feel like? As the philosopher Thomas Nagel noted, it must be like something to be a bat, but what that is we cannot even imaginebecause we cannot imagine what it would be like to observe the world through a kind of sonar. We can imagine what it might be like for us to do this (perhaps by closing our eyes and picturing a sort of echolocation point cloud of our surroundings), but thats still not what it must be like for a bat, with its bat mind.

Excerpt from:

What would it be like to be a conscious AI? We might never know. - MIT Technology Review