Over the past couple of years, the field of AI has been awash in concerns over ethics and fairness in AI. At the same time, the world has awakened to the deep-seated, structural problems of racial injustice.
The two are inextricably linked. AI is one of the most powerful technological transformations we’ve seen — part of a thread that begins with the rise of the personal computer and runs…
The 2010s were huge for artificial intelligence, thanks to advances in deep learning, a branch of AI that has become feasible because of the growing capacity to collect, store, and process large amounts of data. Today, deep learning is not just a topic of scientific research…
The immense potential and challenges of multimodal AI
December 30, 2020
Unlike most AI systems, humans understand the meaning of text, videos, audio, and images together in context. For example, given text and an image that seem innocuous when considered apart (e.g., “Look how many people love you” and a picture of a barren desert), people…
With a namesake like Atlas, you wouldn’t think Boston Dynamics’ bipedal robot would be the most lithe specimen on the planet. But then we’ve already seen it has a knack for parkouring, and now you can add dancing to its list of talents. In its latest sure-to-be viral video, we see Atlas and the entire Boston Dynamics family, including the dog-like Spot and box-stacking Handle, dance to “Do…
Graphcore raises $222 million to scale up AI chip production
December 30, 2020
Graphcore, a Bristol, U.K.-based startup developing chips and systems to accelerate AI workloads, today announced it has raised $222 million in a series E funding round led by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board. The investment, which values the company at $2.77…
AI jobs in 2021: here are some key trends
December 29, 2020
There’s no doubt about it – Artificial Intelligence has been a bit of a buzzword this year. Artificial intelligence has been established as the main driver of emerging technologies such as big data, robotics, and the IoT. So, what do the next 12 months look like for…
AI Weekly: The trends that shaped 2020
December 29, 2020
A few days ago, I published a story about books that I read throughout the year to improve and inform my job covering artificial intelligence and adjacent industries. In all, the multi-part review contains nine books published in 2020 that explore subjects like business strategy, policy, and geopolitics, as well as the human rights consequences associated with AI deployments.
Too Smart, for…
Researchers find evidence of bias in art-generating AI systems
December 28, 2020
As research pushes the boundaries of what’s possible with AI, the popularity of art created by algorithms — generative art — continues to grow. From creating paintings to inventing new art styles, AI-based generative art has been showcased in a range of applications.
DeepMind’s big losses, and the questions around running an AI lab
December 28, 2020
Last week, on the heels of DeepMind’s breakthrough in using AI to predict protein-folding came the news that the UK-based AI company is still costing its parent company Alphabet Inc hundreds of millions of dollars in losses each year.
A tech company losing money is nothing…
AI research survey finds machine learning needs a culture change
December 26, 2020
The machine learning community, particularly in the fields of computer vision and language processing, has a data culture problem. That’s according to a survey of research into the community’s dataset collection and use practices published earlier this month.
What’s needed is a shift away from reliance on the large, poorly curated datasets used to train machine learning models. Instead, the…
