The latest news on Artificial Intelligence
Hey guys! Hope that you are all doing well! :)
Today I wanted to talk about some important stuffs that are going on in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) world! AI is rapidly reshaping our world, so I wanted to keep you guys up to date with the latest trends, news, innovations and applications. So let’s go ahead guys shall we?
1- DeepMind AlphaGo Team has received the Inaugural IJCAI Marvin Minsky Medal
DeepMind is a British AI company that was created in September 2010 in London. The aim of the company was to create AI algorithms that would defeat humans at games. The company was later bought by Google in 2014 [1]. They made an AI algorithm called AlphaGo which was able to beat the legendary Go player Lee Sedol in 2016. This was definitely a breakthrough in the AI community, as Go is considered to be one of the toughest game ever, much more complicated than chess for instance. It is estimated that there are about 2 * 10^170 possible actions in the game [2]. Just to give you a perspective, there are between 10^78 to 10^82 atoms in the observable universe [3]. So every new AI book definitely talks about Deepmind AlphaGo algorithm as a major breakthrough in the history of AI.
Lee Sedol, legendary Go player
My opinion on this: The Marvin Minsky medal is a very prestigious title that can be given to an AI developer/scientist [4]. I think that this is well deserved for the AlphaGo team and I really look forward to see what major breakthrough they will achieve next.
DeepMind
2- The two AI superpowers are and will be USA and China
I think that we all know that the US is an AI superpower. You just have to look at the amount of research, project and results that are done by the giant tech companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft etc … But there is another country that is catching up very quickly with the US, and it is China. According to the legendary AI expert Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, China is currently deploying a huge amount of resources into AI research and development. One of their advantages is that they have more data available compared with the US (China has 1.379 billion population size). You can see it in the link here [5] . Also, the Chinese government is implementing a new school policy to democratize the AI learning, all the way down to rural classrooms [6]. According to Dr. Lee, in 5 years from now China will beat the US in the internet AI and Perception AI. All of this is well explained in Dr. Lee’s new book, “AI super-powers China, Silicon Valley and the new world order”.
Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, legendary AI expert
My opinion on this: Dr. Lee is a very respectable and accountable person in the AI world. He has worked at very prestigious US tech companies such as Google or Apple. Since I have not read his new book yet, I am not sure whether he is a little bias when he is talking about China’s latest advancements in AI. However, there is one thing for sure, China is definitely improving very fast. China now publishes more scientific papers than the US, and Chinese tech companies such as WeiChat or Alibaba make huge amount of money in China. I think that the upcoming years will rapidly tell, but there is no doubt that China is very rapidly improving its AI superpowers.
3- Chinese firefighters use a drone to dispense fire retardant on a high rise building fire
No, I am not making this up, you can actually read it on the link here [7].
My opinion on this: Drone technology is definitely an application of AI. This will definitely be the trend in the future. This shows the potential of China in terms of AI and technology. It can also be a way to gather more data. Also, it shows that very soon, AI robots will be working in many industries. This is really catching up. I think that people need to be aware of this and that new policies need to be implemented so that everybody is able to sustain and thrive in this new upcoming era.
4- Amazon’s face recognition falsely matched 28 members of Congress with Mugshots
You can see the link here [8]. The Amazon face recognition software has been widely criticized recently. The latest controversial issue associated with it is that it incorrectly matched 28 members of congress with people who have been arrested for crime. The error was even more emphasized with people of color.
My opinion on this: I think that AI face recognition system should be used in systems such as criminal justice only when they are proven to have at least 99% accuracy. Many AI researchers/scientists have raised their concern on some facial recognition system that were biased towards people of color. I think that more data need to be used and the algorithms better implemented to avoid biases.
5- Python is now the most popular Introductory teaching Language at US universities
You can see the link here [9]. Python is a higher level computer language that is very popular among developers. It is considered to be a “slow” language in terms of speed, however it contains so many libraries that can make it run much faster. Also, Python is one of the easiest language to read and adapt to, due to its syntax.
My opinion on this: Although this news is older, it is important to remind this. Python is the most popular language to write AI algorithms. The Most famous Python libraries such as Tensorflow, Pytorch or Keras, were all first written in Python.
6- CloudWalk Technology has a signed deal with the Zimbabwean government to provide a mass facial recognition program.
You can see the link here [10]. CloudWalk Techonology is a Chinese tech company that was based in Guangzhou. They focus on facial recognition AI system.
My opinion on this: This further emphasizes the trend that I described earlier, that is China now has access to a massive amount of data, not just in China but in Africa. This helps Chinese tech companies significantly improve their AI algorithms as well as the biases in AI algorithms. This is really bad for Zimbabwe, as the Zimbabwean government probably sold those facial data for a cheap price. Not to mention that ethically there is no law that restricts the Zimbabwean government from exploiting or selling its own people’s data. The Zimbabwean government might probably use that AI technology to further restrict its citizen’s freedom. I think that this is a really bad deal. The only winner in this deal is obviously China, that has a strategy that is definitely paying off, and I can see their AI rapidly improve in the upcoming months/years.
Allright that was it for today folks! Hope that you guys enjoyed reading this post! As somebody who is doing research in AI, I really feel that it is my duty to keep the Steemit community up to date with the latest trends in AI as things are really changing very fast.
Have a good rest of the day! :)
References:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeepMind
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(game)
[3] https://www.universetoday.com/36302/atoms-in-the-universe/
[4] http://www.ijcai.org/awards/minsky_medal
[5] https://twitter.com/chr1sa/status/1013927736497197056
[7] https://www.instagram.com/p/BlqT_0InwHE/?utm_source=ig_twitter_share&igshid=1lyq3xg8argr4
[10] https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/24/beijings-big-brother-tech-needs-african-faces/
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