AI & Robotics

In self-supervised learning — an AI technique where the training data is automatically labeled by a feature extractor — the extractor can exploit low-level features (known as “shortcuts”) that cause it to ignore useful representations. In search of a technique that might help remove these shortcuts autonomously, researchers at Google Brain developed a framework — a “lens” — that…

The infrastructure required to handle AI workloads is often as complex as it is sprawling, but a cottage industry of startups has emerged whose focus is developing solutions for end customers. SambaNova Systems is one such startup — the Palo Alto, California-based firm, which was founded in 2017 by Rodrigo Liang and Stanford Professors Kunle Olukotun and Chris Ré, provides systems that run AI…

Creating even a basic video can be time-consuming and costly, with costs ranging from $75 to $150 per hour. This situation spurred Bruce Pla, Eric Sanchez, and Nelson Vazquez to found Revl, which creates videos and photos optimized for popular social networks and automatically sends branded emails with links to web pages where customers can download and watch them. To lay the groundwork for…

Staff at a California school district reportedly spent 20% of their time searching for lost documents until they retained the services of a records management company. It’s not a unique problem — the average manager spends four weeks out of the year looking for records, by some estimates. In search of a solution five years ago, three entrepreneurs — NASA veteran Kim Lembo, former Apple…