Google launched a "sensitive topics" review of its research papers this year, which led to at least three examples of it asking authors not to portray its technologies in a negative way. The Reuters findings come several weeks after former AI ethics co-lead Timnit Gebru was dismissed after managers asked her to retract an AI research paper or take her name off it. The investigation highlights ongoing concerns about corporate control and its influence on academic research, including in the AI field.
A New Jersey man who was falsely arrested due to facial recognition has sued local police and the city of Woodbridge. Nijeer Parks is the third person to be wrongfully accused of a crime based on a faulty match from the AI software. All three victims were Black men.
Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn listed AI as among the top threats to humanity this century. The Estonian computer programmer told CNBC that he's invested in safety initiatives at universities and AI labs such as Deepmind to make sure the technology is developed ethically and responsibly.
Forrester predicts the AI software market will be lower than analysts' forecasts over the next five years as AI becomes more mainstream. The market research firm believes more AI technologies will be embedded as a standard feature in software for free, rather than growing as a separate category.
A Boston Dynamics video featuring its lineup of robots dancing has gone viral. The robotics company's humanoid Atlas, dog-like Spot, and box-moving Handle robots participated in a coordinated dance routine set to The Contours’ song "Do You Love Me."
A newly discovered patent describes how Microsoft wants to use a person's digital offerings to create a chatbot in their image. Social media profiles, emails, images, and more would be fed into a machine learning system, which would train the bot in order to mimic how that person sounds.
OpenAI announced two neural networks that can make images out of text, as well as caption images. The ML company introduced the models—respectively named DALL-E and CLIP—in a blog post today. They strive to do for images what OpenAI's GPT-3 has done for text generation, bringing AI closer to better understanding language by "seeing" what words mean.
A $741 billion defense policy bill passed by Congress greenlights $6.4B worth of federal funding toward AI research and initiatives. Both the Senate and House overrode former President Trump's veto of the legislation, which effectively sets the stage for a U.S. national strategy on AI.
A New York City councilwoman introduced a proposal that would force companies to disclose their AI-based hiring practices. These range from automated resume screenings to algorithms that analyze job candidates' facial movements and responses in video interviews.
The White House launched its national AI office, which will oversee the country's AI strategy and coordinate R&D and policies for the federal government. The recently passed National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act called for the creation of the office, which will also work with the private sector and academia on AI initiatives.
Stanford researchers claim to have developed an AI algorithm that can predict a person's political orientation based solely on a photo . The algorithm achieved just over 70% accuracy in tests, better than chance (50%) or human accuracy (55%), according to their paper published in Scientific Reports. As The Next Web's Tristan Greene points out, such a study is highly suspicious at the very least, and in his words, "demonstrably false."
Amazon is opening up its Alexa AI technologies to third-party companies so they can build their own virtual assistants. Through Alexa Custom Assistant, companies like auto manufacturers can customize the voice, features, and wake word of their branded assistants, which will “co-exist” with Alexa, the company said.
U.S. aviation regulators granted permission to American Robotics to operate fully autonomous drone vehicles for the first time. The approval means the robotics company can fly its smart drones without a human piloting and/or observing them.
In a first for the AI/ML industry, the parent company of a controversial cloud storage app was forced to delete its algorithms, not just data, OneZero reports. The Federal Trade Commission ordered Paravision, the company behind the Ever cloud storage app, to delete all of its photos taken from customers, as well as algorithms trained on that data.
Several U.S. lawmakers plan to reintroduce a bill this year that would ban the FBI and other federal agencies from using facial recognition technologies, Reuters reports. The Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act failed to gain traction last year after it was proposed by four Democratic Congress members in June.
European Parliament members adopted a new AI report yesterday that calls for a ban on lethal autonomous weapons, as well as "highly intrusive" AI-based social scoring applications. AI programs can't replace human contact or decision-making, according to the report, which provides guidelines for both military and non-military AI uses.
Google's parent company Alphabet is shutting down Loon, which used a fleet of AI-powered balloons to provide wireless internet connectivity to remote parts of the world. Loon's internet balloons, which began as an Alphabet X moonshot project, have been piloted by a novel, machine-designed deep reinforcement learning system.
The U.S. maintains a "substantial lead" in artificial intelligence worldwide, though China is closing the gap in some areas, according to a new report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. The researchers predict that China will eventually catch up to the U.S. in its development and use of AI technologies. The European Union, meanwhile, will continue to lag, they predict.
The World Economic Forum (WEF)launched a global AI alliance that it says is meant to "accelerate the adoption of inclusive, trusted and transparent AI." The alliance already counts more than 100 companies, governments, non-profits, and other organizations as among its ranks.
Hanson Robotics says it will start mass-producing four robots, including its well-known humanoid bot Sophia, during the first half of 2021. The Hong Kong-based company says more automation is needed during the pandemic to "keep people safe" and provide companionship to ward off loneliness.
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. The algorithm achieved just over 70% accuracy in tests, better than chance (50%) or human accuracy (55%), according to their paper published in Scientific Reports. As The Next Web's Tristan Greene points out, such a study is highly suspicious at the very least, and in his words, "demonstrably false."
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