AI & Robotics

Early this year, Google brought its real-time translation feature, interpreter mode, to Assistant-enabled smart displays and speakers. Now, the feature is rolling out to Assistant-enabled Android and iOS phones worldwide. To use interpreter mode, you’ll say something like “Hey Google, be my German translator,” or “Hey Google, help me speak Thai.” Assistant will…

Long wait times for patients can be the undoing of a large clinic or a hospital system. According to a recent survey, 84% of patients consider a reasonable wait somewhat or very important to a quality experience, and 30% say they’ve left a medical appointment because of an inordinately long wait. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there’s a strong correlation between offices with longer average wait…

Zillow, an online marketplace that facilitates the buying, selling, renting, financing, and remodeling of homes, employs lots of AI technologies to do things like estimate home prices. But the output of AI systems like these can be opaque, creating a “black box” problem where practitioners and customers can’t audit the systems properly. Without transparency, serious problems like algorithmic…

Leaders in the AI community came together to release the 2019 AI Index report today, an annual attempt to examine the biggest trends shaping the AI industry, breakthrough research, and AI’s impact to society. It also examine trends like AI hiring practices, private investment, AI research contributions by nation, researchers leaving academia for industry, and how much AI plays a role in specific…