Robots take root on smaller dairy farms, upping production

robot cow milker

  • The technology creates time for other farm duties
  • Collects vital data about the animals
  • Boosts the number of gallons of milk being produced because cows get milked when and as often as they want, though it doesn’t affect consumer milk prices.

The reason robots might make sense for many small- and medium-sized farms in the Northeast is because of the challenge of finding reliable workers and outdated infrastructure that makes the operations inefficient, said Richard Kersbergen with the University of Maine Extension.

Jennifer and Jesse Lambert took out seven-year loans for about $380,000 last year to install two robots and retrofit a barn at their organic dairy farm in Graniteville. They were looking for a more consistent way to milk their cows, more time to spend with their newborn son and more money in their pockets. They’re saving $60,000 a year that used to go to paying one full-time and one part-time employee and their cows are producing 20 percent more milk.

“No one wants to milk cows,” Jennifer Lambert said. “Even when we had employees the last thing they wanted to do was milk cows, you know, and they especially didn’t want to do it on the weekend.”

Ron Lawfer’s cows also have produced about 20 percent more milk since two robots were installed in December 2014.

Source: (Kentucky.com)
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IBM Watson Health: New digs for 700 staff

Watson Health OfficesLast April it launched IBM Watson Health. Since that time the company has been busy buying companies including Merge Healthcare, forging partnerships with the likes of Apple, CVS and Johnson and Johnson, hiring a new General Manager and purchasing the unit’s new headquarters in Cambridge, MA.

That’s quite a bit of action in five months, but Steve Gold, CMO for Watson at IBM says the hope is to build a community around attacking the big problems in healthcare in the U.S. and around the world.

“It’s about how do we build a community among the various stakeholders in which all of them stand to gain by coming together and sharing information,” he said.

IBM is throwing a lot of resources at Watson Health and it hopes to use its technology to drive change across the healthcare industry. The Watson Health headquarters will be the center of that, Gold said.

“It’s so much broader than healthcare It’s, about education, prevention and wellness. All of these touchpoint are correlated,” he said.

The new facility will be home to some 700 people initially, but heading to 1,000 in a few years, according to Mike Rhodin, senior vice president of the IBM Watson Group.

PL – This is great. But, Dear Watson, what are you doing to address HUMAN BEHAVIOR since it’s A KEY FACTOR in all health issues? 

Sources: Techcunch – Ron Miller, Fortune – Barb Darrow

 

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Hitachi is looking to promote artificial intelligence to management

Robots to deliver instructions to employees based on analyses of big data and the workers’ routines

Hitachi’s double-arm robot during a demonstration at a warehouse in Chiba prefecture, Japan.—Bloomberg News

Hitachi’s double-arm robot during a demonstration at a warehouse in Chiba prefecture, Japan.—Bloomberg News

“Work efficiency improved by 8% in warehouses with the new artificial intelligence program, compared to those without them,” a Hitachi spokeswoman said. “The program can examine an extremely large amount of data to provide the most efficient instruction, which is impossible for human managers to handle.”

Hitachi last month unveiled a fast-moving two-armed robot which it says may replace humans in performing basic functions like retrieving items in warehouses.

Its new artificial intelligence can also analyze how an employee, judging from past experience, tries new approaches to work in an effort to improve efficiency, and can choose the best course of action, the company said. “The AI automatically analyzes the outcome of these new approaches, and selects processes which produce better results and applies it to the next work order,” Hitachi said in a statement.

Tests showed that artificial intelligence could accurately issue work orders for employees at a warehouse, instructing them on the most efficient route to pick up a product on a shelf and complete their duties.

Source: Wall Street Journal

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Apple to Increase Artificial Intelligence Staff in Challenge to Google

The company is currently trying to hire at least 86 more employees with expertise in the branch of artificial intelligence

Some experts say the iPhone maker’s strict stance on privacy is likely to undermine its ability to compete in the rapidly progressing field.

Machine learning, which helps devices infer from experience what users are likely to want next, relies on crunching vast troves of data to provide unprompted services, such as the scores for a favorite sports team or reminders of when to leave for an appointment based on traffic.

The larger the universe of users providing data about their habits, the better predictions can be about what an individual might want. But Apple analyzes its users’ behavior under self-imposed constraints to better protect their data from outsiders.

That means Apple largely relies on analyzing the data on each user’s iPhone rather than sending it to the cloud, where it can be studied alongside information from millions of others.

“They want to make a phone that responds to you very quickly without knowledge of the rest of the world,” said Joseph Gonzalez, co-founder of Dato, a machine learning startup. “It’s harder to do that.”

Craig Federighi, senior vice president of Software Engineering, who described the release at a developers’ conference in June as “adding intelligence throughout the user experience in a way that enhances how you use your device but without compromising your privacy, things like improving the apps that you use most.”

And some machine learning experts might be enticed by the challenge of matching Google’s smarts amid privacy constraints, suggested John Duchi, an assistant professor at Stanford University.

“New flavors of problems are exciting,” he said.

If Apple succeeds without compromising privacy, its Mountain View rival may face questions about its approach to analyzing users’ data.

“People might start to ask Google for more privacy”

Source: Newsweek

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Facebook Launches M, Its Bold Answer to Siri and Cortana

facebook_m_logoIt won’t take long for Messenger’s users to realize M can accomplish much more than your standard digital helper, suspects David Marcus, vice president of messaging products at Facebook. “It can perform tasks that none of the others can,” Marcus says. That’s because, in addition to using artificial intelligence to complete its tasks, M is powered by actual people.

Companies from Google to Taskrabbit are engineering products to act as superpowered personal assistants. Some, like Apple’s Siri, Google Now, or Microsoft’s Cortana, rely entirely on technology, and though they can be used by a lot of people, their range of tasks remains limited.

Others, like startups Magic and Operator or gig-economy companies like TaskRabbit, employ people to respond to text-based requests. These services can get nearly anything done—for a much smaller number of folks.

M is a hybrid. It’s a virtual assistant powered by artificial intelligence as well as a band of Facebook employees, dubbed M trainers, who will make sure that every request is answered.

We start capturing all of your intent for the things you want to do. David Marcus

Facebook’s goal is to make Messenger the first stop for mobile discovery. 

Source: Wired

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‘Weird Hotel’ In Japan Has Workforce Of Robots That Can Speak Different Languages

henn-naOPEN FOR BUSINESS:

Japan’s Henn-na Hotel (which means “weird hotel”) has a workforce almost entirely made up of robots. Hotel staff are mostly female-shaped humanoid robots that blink, speak Japanese and even know English. There is also a dinosaur-shaped robot with a bow tie that helps customers at the reception desk.

The robot workforce is not a gimmick to entertain a public with future-like amenities, but a true effort to move hotel services into the future. 

hotel robots 2The hotel will have three robots that will act as receptionists apart from four service and porter robots, and others engaged in menial tasks such as cleaning.

“We’ll make the most efficient hotel in the world,” boasts Huis Ten Bosch president Hideo Sawada. Sawada says he hopes robots will eventually run 90 per cent of the property.

“In the future, we’re hoping to build 1,000 similar hotels around the world,” says Sawada. “I also wanted to do something about hotel prices going up.”

Another futuristic element of the hotel is that there are no room keys. When a guest registers — through an automated service — a picture is taken of their face, and when the guest wishes to enter their room, the door will unlock as soon as the system recognizes their face.

A high-tech system also senses how cold or hot a guest feels and will change the room temperature accordingly. You can also tell the room to turn the lights on or off. Some robots can even initiate simple forms of room service, like delivering snacks and beverages.

Source: Design&Trend, Indian Express

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Cute Nao robot exhibits a moment of self-awareness

nao-self-aware02

See that Nao robot waving its hand up there? It’s not starting a dance routine: it just had a light-bulb moment, so it’s trying to catch a human’s attention. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute professor Selmer Bringsjord programmed the three robots to think that two of them were given a “dumbing pill.” In reality, that pill’s a button on top of their heads that can be pressed by the tester. When the tester asked the robots which pill they received, their processors crunched data in order to provide the right answer. Since two of them were unable to talk, only one answered out loud. “I don’t know,” the third robot replied, realizing the truth a short while later.

“Sorry, I know now,” the third Nao waved at the tester. “I was able to prove that I was not given a dumbing pill.” After all, it could speak! That means the machine was able to recognize and differentiate itself from the other two — it was self-aware at that particular point in time.

Source: Engadget

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AI could solve all the world’s problems – seriously?

Richard-Terrile 2

NASA scientist Richard Terrile, who was coincidentally a technical adviser on “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” and spends his days trying to develop artificial intelligence, thinks that AI could eventually fix everything from ending world hunger to curing cancer.

“The benefits of AI are that it could solve all the world’s problems. All of them. Seriously. Technology could probably solve all of them in one form or another.”

“I believe it can,” he says. “These very, very advanced information systems, which go way beyond the capabilities of a human, I think are the way to go in actually solving these [problems].”

Source: Huffington Post
NASA Scientist: Artificial Intelligence ‘Could Solve All The World’s Problems’ (If It Doesn’t Terminate Us)


 

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‘Pepper’ robots sell out in one minute

pepper sells outTaipei, June 21, 2015 (CNA) The initial batch of Pepper robots, developed by Japanese mobile carrier SoftBank Corp. and manufactured by Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group (富士康), sold out in one minute on the first day of sales in Japan.

The 1,000 units of Pepper available for purchase in June sold out in 60 seconds when online orders started at 10 a.m. on Saturday, according to a statement from SoftBank Robotics Corp., a robotics venture by SoftBank, Foxconn and Chinese e-commerce leader Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

Orders are no longer being taken and additional sales of Pepper, which sells for 198,000 Japanese yen (US$1,624), are scheduled to be announced on SoftBank’s website in July.

In addition to Pepper’s emotion recognition functions, the robot generates emotions autonomously by processing information from its cameras, touch sensors, accelerometer and other sensors within its “endocrine-type multi-layer neural network,” SoftBank said.

Source: Focus Taiwan

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What IBM Watson must never become

Below is excerpted dialog between an AI powered robot “synth,” called Vera, and her human patient, Dr. Millican, who also happens to be one of the original developers of snyths, from the hit British-American TV drama Humans.

Synth caregiver Vera – Please stick out your tongue.Humans 1

Dr. Millican – Your kidding me

Synth caregiver Vera – Any non- compliance or variation in your medication intake must be reported to your GP

Dr. Millican – You’re not a carer, you’re a jailer. Elster would be sick to his stomach if he saw what you have become. I’m fine now get lost.

Synth caregiver Vera – You should sleep now Dr Millican, your pulse is slightly elevated.

Dr. Millican – Slightly?

Synth caregiver Vera – Your GP will be notified of any refusal to follow recommendations made in your best interests.

Humans poster

From the TV series Humans, episode #2

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Ray Kurzweil on “Don’t Fear Artificial Intelligence”

AI Quotes

Ray Kurzweil, Director of Engineering at Google
Ray Kurzweil

Ray Kurzweil

“We have the opportunity in the decades ahead to make major strides in addressing the grand challenges of humanity. AI will be the pivotal technology in achieving this progress. We have a moral imperative to realize this promise while controlling the peril.”

Source: Time
Don’t Fear Artificial Intelligence
by Ray Kurzweil
Dec. 19, 2014

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IBM’s Dr Watson will see you … someday

“It’s not just a technology problem. It’s a social, clinical, policy, ethical, and institutional problem.” 

06Watson-Opener-1431628027778

Illustration: Tavis Coburn

Robert Wachter*

Watson, whatever its theoretical potential, is deployed in the all-too-human—and often all-too-inhuman—reality of modern health care. Watson can’t make up for the shortage in primary-care physicians or restore the crucial doctor-patient bond lost in an era of 5-minute office visits.

Most fundamentally, Watson alone can’t change the fee-for-service reimbursement structure, common in the United States, which makes the quantity of care—the number of tests, treatments, and specialist visits—more profitable than bottom-line quality.

* Robert Wachter is a specialist in hospital medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and author of The Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype, and Harm at the Dawn of Medicine’s Computer Age)

Source: IEEE Spectrum

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The Future Is Arriving Far Faster Than Expected

The Acceleration of Accelerationkotler

You really have to stop and think about this for a moment. For the first time in history, the world’s leading experts on accelerating technology are consistently finding themselves too conservative in their predictions about the future of that technology.

This is more than a little peculiar. It tells us that the accelerating change we’re seeing in the world is itself accelerating. And this tells us something deep and wild and important about the future that’s coming for us.

Source: Steven Kotler, and co-writer Ken Goffman
The Future Is Arriving Far Faster Than Expected

 

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Barbie doll to “chat” with kids

hello barbie“The number one request we hear from girls around the world is that they want to have a conversation with Barbie. Now, for the first time ever, Barbie can have a two-way conversation.”
[- unnamed spokeswoman for Mattel]

The Hello Barbie will be able to play interactive games and tell stories and jokes.
It will also listen to the child’s conversation and adapt to it over time – so, for instance, if a child mentions that they like to dance, the doll may refer to this in a future chat.

Source: BBC News
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WHO weighs in on ‘essential role of mental health’ in achieving health for all

WHO action_plan_publicationAI could help WHO

The 66th World Health Assembly, consisting of Ministers of Health of 194 Member States, adopted the WHO’s Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan 2013-2020 in May 2013.

The action plan recognizes the essential role of mental health in achieving health for all people. It is based on a life-course approach, aims to achieve equity through universal health coverage and stresses the importance of prevention.

Four major objectives are set forth: more effective leadership and governance for mental health; the provision of comprehensive, integrated mental health and social care services in community-based settings; implementation of strategies for promotion and prevention; and strengthened information systems, evidence and research.

PL – I know what you’re thinking … what does this post have to do with Artificial Intelligence? Well, if we are to avoid the risks of AI, we have to direct AI to benefit humans. In this case, benefit human mental health. And human mental growth. The fact is, there aren’t nearly enough human counselors, advisers and therapists working today to meet this challenge on their own. Hence, socialized AI, designed to learn a person, knowledgeably interact with him/her, and guide them to resources tailored to their specific needs, isn’t far-fetched. Its essential to support the work of human health care workers in clinical applications. And, its essential for non-clinical and pre-clinical applications to empower humans to help themselves. [FYI: I’ve done my part. I’ve invented protocols, subroutines, algorithms and scripts that will help “socialize” artificial intelligent agents for machine to human interaction. This IP can be licensed or sold to be used by virtually any artificial intelligence developer. Any takers? Learn more here.

Source: WHO
http://www.who.int/mental_health/publications/action_plan/en/

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World’s first robot-staffed hotel

japanhotelrobotsHuis Ten Bosch, a theme park in typical Dutch style in terms of its architecture in Nagasaki Prefecture has unveiled plans to open the modern hotel with robot staff and other advanced technologies to significantly reduce operating costs.

The hotel will be called Henn-na Hotel, which translates as Strange Hotel. The hotel will be partially staffed by what are termed ‘actroid’ androids – remarkably human-like robots who will be able to greet, carry luggage to rooms, make cups of coffee – and even smile.

The hotel will have three robots that will act as receptionists apart from four service and porter robots, and others engaged in menial tasks such as cleaning.

“We’ll make the most efficient hotel in the world,” boasts Huis Ten Bosch president Hideo Sawada. Sawada says he hopes robots will eventually run 90 per cent of the property.

“In the future, we’re hoping to build 1,000 similar hotels around the world,” says Sawada, CNN quoted Japan’s Nikkei News as saying. Other features will help make Henn-na the most futuristic low-cost hotel in the industry, according to the company.

Guestroom doors will be accessed by facial-recognition technology. Amenities provided in rooms will be kept minimal. Guests can request items through a tablet when needed.

Instead of air-conditioning, a radiation panel will detect body heat in rooms and adjust the temperature. Solar power and other energy-saving features will be used to reduce operating costs.

Source: The Indian Express

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Dr. Lynne Parker on “AI has to be holistic”

AI Quotes
 Lynne Parker, a professor at the University of Tennessee 
Lynne-Parker-300x225

Dr Lynn Parker, University of Tennessee

“We’ve made a lot of deep advances in many focused areas, but we need one big system to pull a lot of these systems together into one machine,” [Lynne] Parker said. “To have a household robot that can obey your commands, we’re still pretty far from that. I would say 10 to 20 years. It’s not about the glue. When you build one subsystem, it affects how another subsystem should be designed. You can’t build them in isolation and just glue them together. It has to be holistic.”

Lynne Parker, a professor at the University of Tennessee and a division director in Information and Intelligent Systems with the National Science Foundation

Source: Computer World

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A nation filled with robot pastors and AI spiritual gurus?

Christian evangelists said this week that artificially intelligent (AI) computer brains should be converted from atheism to Christianity.

In an article published on Wednesday, Gizmodo’s Zoltan Istvan pointed out that the world was nearing a point where “autonomous, self-aware super intelligences” created by humans would be part of our culture.

And several pastors and theologians told Istvan that there was no reason that a computer could not be saved by Jesus.

“I don’t see Christ’s redemption limited to human beings,” Providence Presbyterian Church Associate Pastor Dr. Christopher Benek insisted. “If AI is autonomous, then we should encourage it to participate in Christ’s redemptive purposes in the world.”

Benek was already thinking ahead to a future with what Istvan called “a nation filled with robot pastors and AI spiritual gurus.”

“The Holy Spirit can work though AI; it can work through anything,” he said. “There may be churches set up to deal and promote religious AI in the future. AI can help spread the word of God. In fact, AI might help us understand God better.”

Giulio Prisco of the “virtual” Turing Church explained to Gizmodo that if humans had a soul then artificial intelligence would too.

“[I]f so, then there is no reason why thinking and feeling AIs shouldn’t be able to be saved,” Prisco wrote in an email. “Once human-like AI exist, they will be persons just like us.”

But Prisco speculated that AI might reject human religions altogether.

“It’s only fair to let AI have access to the teachings of all the world’s religions,” he noted. “Then they can choose what they want to believe.”

“But I think it’s highly unlikely that superhuman AI would choose to believe in the petty, provincial aspects of traditional religions. At the same time, I think they would be interested in enlightened spirituality and religious cosmology, or eschatology, and develop their own versions.”

Source: Alternet

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Sonia Chernova on “Reasoning is just really hard”

AI Quotes

Sonia Chernova, Assistant Professor, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
SoniaChernova

Sonia Chernova, Assistant Professor. Computer Science Department Robotics Engineering Program, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

“I think repeatedly we’ve not met the estimates that we keep making about where we’d be in the future,” said Sonia Chernova, an assistant professor of computer science and the director of the Robot Autonomy and Interactive Learning lab at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Mass. “Reasoning is just really hard, and dealing with the real world is very hard.… But we’ve made amazing gains.”

Computer World: AI is Getting Smarter

Sonia Chernova, an assistant professor of computer science and the director of the Robot Autonomy and Interactive Learning lab at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Mass.

 

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How Watson is different than Siri, Cortana and Google Now

Watson is designed to enhance the expertise of human beings, as noted by Dario Gil, director of symbiotic cognitive systems at IBM:

Dario Gil, photo by Jon Simon/Feature Photo Service

Dario Gil, photo by Jon Simon/Feature Photo Service

“Watson is explicitly designed around scaling and enhancing the expertise of human beings. It’s a cognitive system designed around us.

What he means is that Watson isn’t an example of “artificial intelligence” in that it doesn’t make decisions on its own.

 
“It’s more like a tool,” Gil continues, “in the same way any machine is a tool that helps us to work better. That’s the unique thing about cognitive computing.”

Rob Merkel

Rob Merkel

Rob Merkel, the healthcare and life-sciences leader at the IBM Watson Group, says, “Imagine Watson reading through an entire patient history, all of the information, all of the notes, and then being able to help determine what’s clinically relevant for that particular patient. It doesn’t just summarize or regurgitate information that already exists. It actually provides insights. In a way, Merkel notes, it’s like “CliffsNotes for a physician.”


Source: The Business Insider
The computing system that won ‘Jeopardy!’ is helping doctors fight cancer

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Cortana seems extraneous for all but a few users, unless …

cortanaThe vision of Cortana is clear. Microsoft wants to create an AI OS with much more personality than Apple’s Siri, eventually leading to the point where A) she’s a literal hologram that sits on your desk like in Halo someday (soon, judging by the announced “HoloLens” or B) you end up falling in love with her like in “Her.” Or both.

Cortana’s advice and guidance seems like it will likely be extraneous for all but a few users, unless she’s able to do some really, really complex things. So far, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Forbes: Windows 10’s Cortana: A Solution Without A Problem?
January, 21, 2015, Paul Tassi, Contributor
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Machines will kill our jobs long before they kill us

Now, Even Artificial Intelligence Gurus Fret That AI Will Steal Our Jobs

[Andrew Ng, Chief Scientist at Baibu]andrew ng

At two conferences this week, the Deep Learning Summit in San Francisco and the Big Talk Summit in Mountain View, the former Stanford University computer science professor [Andrew Ng] took the opportunity to sketch out AI’s challenges to society as it replaces more and more jobs.

“Historically technology has created challenges for labor,” {he noted. But while previous technological revolutions also eliminating many types of jobs and created some displacement, the shift happened slowly enough to provide new opportunities to successive generations of workers. “The U.S. took 200 years to get from 98% to 2% farming employment,” he said. “Over that span of 200 years we could retrain the descendants of farmers.”

But he says the rapid pace of technological change today has changed everything. “With this technology today, that transformation might happen much faster,” he said. Self-driving cars, he suggested could quickly put 5 million truck drivers out of work.

Retraining is a solution often suggested by the technology optimists. But Ng, who knows a little about education thanks to his cofounding of Coursera, doesn’t believe retraining can be done quickly enough. “What our educational system has never done is train many people who are alive today. Things like Coursera are our best shot, but I don’t think they’re sufficient. People in the government and academia should have serious discussions about this.”

“Superintelligence is a distraction,” said Ng, unlikely because we are so far from any possibility of machines that will truly think and possess self-motivation.

It’s time quit worrying about Terminators and Transformers, he said, and focus on the more likely possibility: that machines will kill our jobs long before they kill us.

Source: Forbes, Robert Hof, Contributor
January, 31, 2015
Now, Even Artificial Intelligence Gurus Fret That AI Will Steal Our Jobs

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“I have no time for that” says human doctor about emotions

Despite his concerns about Artificial Intelligence, Dr. Eric Horvitz (Head of Microsoft Research) says he is hopeful that artificial intelligence research will benefit humans, and perhaps even compensate for human failings.

As an example, he demonstrated a voice-based system that he designed to ask patients about their symptoms and to respond with empathy. When a mother said her child was having diarrhea, the face on the screen said, “Oh no, sorry to hear that.”

A physician told him afterward that it was wonderful that the system responded to human emotion. “That’s a great idea,” Dr. Horvitz said he was told. “I have no time for that.”

Source: NYT
Read full article by John Markoff (first published in 2009)
Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man

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Competition is heating up research and investment in AI

In this in-depth video interview [Published Jan 27, 2015] with Eric Horvitz, head of Microsoft Research, he makes the company’s commitment to AI clear by saying, “Over a quarter of all attention and resources at Microsoft Research is focused on machine intelligence/AI.

Meet Monica

Listen as Eric affectionately describes his own private virtual assistant, Monica. “She is a very brilliant, close personal assistant that knows how to work with people and knows how to make sure my life is better and I coordinate well with my colleagues.”

Cortana? Siri? Google Now?

According to Horvitz, now that we have Cortana, Siri and Google Now setting up a competitive tournament ‘for where’s the best intelligent assistant going to come from, who has the best services, [and] the most human orientated approach to complementing people out,’ that kind of competition is going to heat up the research and investment and bring it more into the spotlight, he said.

The next, if not the last, enduring competitive battlefield among major IT companies will be artificial intelligence, Horvitz said. 

Watch this enjoyable video and learn about “situated interaction” and the “symphony of many instruments.” 

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The intelligence is strong enough to be a concern

Bill Gates is another smart guy who is terrified of artificial intelligence

Bill Gates“I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence,” Gates wrote. “First, the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though, the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don’t understand why some people are not concerned.”

Source: Mashable

 

 

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Where doctors fear to go: AI to the rescue?

Maybe there’s a role for AI in the death and dying conversation

“It’s the rare physician who prepares patients to die well, or who will even acknowledge that death is possible, much less imminent. This is a major issue in how doctors interact with their patients — and although I’ve been an ER physician for more than 25 years, it was my father’s illness that made me realize the enormity of the problem.” Brian Goldman, ER physician*
— the falacy of giving up
In his new  book Being Mortal, Harvard professor and surgeon Atul Gawande’s ultimate message is that “death in America is not often enough discussed, and that patients suffer at the hands of well-meaning doctors because of it.”

Harvard physician, Angelo Volandes a hospital-medicine specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital “notes that while medical students and resident physicians today are being trained in end-of-life counseling, most doctors currently in practice graduated medical school before palliative care was ubiquitous, and before The Conversation” [the title of his new book about the importance of talking about death and making this a part of medical curricula.]

“We think our job is to ensure health and survival. But really, it is larger than that.”

“Practicing doctors are a tough group to try and train. That’s what we’ve been trying to do for the past 10 years, and we’ve barely moved the needle. I have much more faith in patients bringing this conversation to doctors than waiting for doctors.”

 

Is The Conversation dangerous for the patient

In one large study Dr Gawande cites, patients even ended up living just as long when they went into hospice care as did their aggressively medicalized counterparts. Of 4,493 people studied, the researchers concluded, mean survival after three years was actually 29 days longer for hospice patients than for non-hospice patients.”

Source: The Atlantic article: The Fallacy of ‘Giving Up’
James Hamblin

*Brian Goldman quote source: chatelaine.com : An ER doctor sees the health care system through a patient’s eyes

PL – Here’s an idea: Create an intelligent agent capable of starting The Conversation between patient and family. An intelligent agent socialized for human interaction that could learn the patient: his/her views, wants, desires, as it relates to the reality of the person’s health. Socialized AI would not make recommendations or direct a course of action, but rather, interact with the patient to inform/guide the patient in meaningful conversations with family and doctors. 

If doctors and nurses are focused on saving lives, and this kind of conversation is difficult for them to initiate, perhaps this is an example of what socialized AI can do to serve doctors and nurses. 

 

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Bill Gates: AI definitely important to worry about

From a Backchannel interview with Bill Gates

Steven Levy: Let me ask an unrelated question about the raging debate over whether artificial intelligence poses a threat to society, or even the survival of humanity. Where do you stand?

bill and melinda gatesBill Gates: I think it’s definitely important to worry about. There are two AI threats that are worth distinguishing. One is that AI does enough labor substitution fast enough to change work policies, or [affect] the creation of new jobs that humans are uniquely adapted to — the jobs that give you a sense of purpose and worth. We haven’t run into that yet. I don’t think it’s a dramatic problem in the next ten years but if you take the next 20 to 30 it could be. Then there’s the longer-term problem of so-called strong AI, where it controls resources, so its goals are somehow conflicting with the goals of human systems. Both of those things are very worthy of study and time. I am certainly not in the camp that believes we ought to stop things or slow things down because of that. But you can definitely put me more in the Elon Musk, Bill Joy camp than, let’s say, the Google camp on that one.

Source: Backchannel
Steven Levy

View at Medium.com

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Elon Musk, Stephen Hawkings sign “Open Letter”

There is now a broad consensus that AI research is progressing steadily, and that its impact on society is likely to increase. The potential benefits are huge, since everything that civilization has to offer is a product of human intelligence; we cannot predict what we might achieve when this intelligence is magnified by the tools AI may provide, but the eradication of disease and poverty are not unfathomable. Because of the great potential of AI, it is important to research how to reap its benefits while avoiding potential pitfalls. 

The progress in AI research makes it timely to focus research not only on making AI more capable, but also on maximizing the societal benefit of AI …

Source: Future of Life Institute, Jan. 11, 2015
Title: Research Priorities for Robust and Beneficial Artificial Intelligence: an Open Letter
Read the full Open Letter here

P. Lawson – How timely. Elon Musk and Steven Hawkings and others have already signed this open letter.

As this article points out, the focus now should be on delivering AI that is beneficial to society and robust in the sense that human benefits are guaranteed. ‘Our AI systems must do what we want them to do.’ 

This is why we began this blog. To explore ways that maximize benefits while avoiding potentially dangerous pitfalls. See point of this blog here. 

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Up to 66% of U.S. workforce has medium to high risk of being displaced by AI in next 10-20 years

Businesses of the future will look a lot different than the businesses of today. Most will be staffed by some combination of smart robots, smart machines and people. Technology will likely displace many human workers. In the best research published to date, authors Frey & Osborne of the University of Oxford opine that up to 66% of the U.S. workforce has a medium to high risk of being displaced by technology in the next 10-20 years. What jobs will require humans?

Read the rest of the article here …

Source: Forbes, Jan. 12, 2015
Article: The AI Revolution Will Humanize Businesses

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Culture & Leadership models of Industrial Revolution won’t work in the AI Revolution

The culture and leadership model needed to create an emotionally positive work environment are very different than the prevalent cultures and models resulting from the Industrial Revolution. Command and control leadership, Theory X leadership beliefs as defined by Douglas McGregor and cultures of fear will not enable the work environment needed in the AI Revolution. The attitudes and behaviors of arrogant, elitist, all-knowing hierarchical leaders will not optimize higher-order human thinking, creativity or emotional engagement. The AI Revolution will require many businesses to confront this reality …

… From a human resource perspective, the mission will change from managing resources to developing people. The human capabilities needed to complement technology in the AI Revolution do not come naturally to us. It is hard to think critically and innovatively. It is hard to manage our emotions and engage non-defensively in frank collaborations. All employees will need individualized, personal developmental coaching (not training) to help them become better thinkers, listeners, collaborators and learners.* In most cases, such coaching will focus on developing emotional and social intelligence, mindfulness, authenticity, humility, empathy, and the managing of one’s fears, ego and emotional defensiveness. For many of us, that is a daily journey not a one-time training intervention.

Read more of this article here
Source: Forbes, Jan. 12, 2015
Article: The AI Revolution will Humanize Businesses
by Professor Ed Hess, author of Learn or Die: Using Science to Build a Leading-Edge Learning Organization (2014)

P.L. – Oh, the irony. As the AI Revolution displaces many human workers, it will force humanistic changes upon most businesses. We’ve needed to do that for a long time. (I wrote a book about it a decade ago.) Whatever it takes to let go of machine thinking. This will be strategically necessary for humans to thrive. (*I should mention here that I have already designed a technology that provides “individualized, personal development coaching.” Tested, validated, deployed, since 2005. Just saying …)

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Open letter warning: Greater focus is needed on safety and social benefits of AI

Dozens of scientists, entrepreneurs and investors involved in the field of artificial intelligence, including Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk, have signed an open letter warning that greater focus is needed on its safety and social benefits.

The letter and an accompanying paper from the Future of Life Institute, which suggests research priorities for “robust and beneficial” artificial intelligence, come amid growing nervousness about the impact on jobs or even humanity’s long-term survival from machines whose intelligence and capabilities could exceed those of the people who created them.

“Because of the great potential of AI, it is important to research how to reap its benefits while avoiding potential pitfalls,” the FLI’s letter says. “Our AI systems must do what we want them to do.”

The FLI was founded last year by volunteers including Jaan Tallinn, a co-founder of Skype, to stimulate research into “optimistic visions of the future” and to “mitigate existential risks facing humanity,” with a focus on those arising from the development of human-level artificial intelligence…

Source: Financial Times, Jan. 12, 2015
Article: Scientists and Investors Warn on AI

Open Letter Source: Research Priorities for Robust and Beneficial Artificial Intelligence: an Open Letter

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Top 10 jobs that are likely to be replaced by robots

Top 10 jobs that are likely to be replaced by robots

A hospital in Sichuan province uses an imported robotic surgical system to remove a patient’s gallbladder for the first time. Photo provided to China Daily

Since the notion of artificial intelligence became a hot topic around the world, experts started to list the jobs that are most likely to be replaced by robots.

It is no surprise to find that highly repetitive jobs are on the list, but some are beyond imagination to most of us-at the moment.

[PL – You might suspect that factory workers are on the list at number 1, which they are, but check out others on this list that are surprising]:

5. Lawyers

There is already a robot that can replace part of a lawyer’s job. In 2011, Blackstone Discovery from the United States started to provide a document analysis service to its clients. The artificial intelligence is capable of analyzing 1.5 million documents within several days. The cost of using such AI is less than one tenth of hiring a real lawyer. And lawyers make mistakes, robots don’t.

7. Journalists

Associated Press started to use artificial intelligence software to write financial statement reports in July. The software can save 90 percent of writing time so AP can guarantee an immediate release of these reports. AP also uses software to analyze sports rankings and game results.

8. Surgeons

Robots first carried out surgery in 1993. In 2010, China approved the use of the da Vinci surgical system for operating theatres.

By the end of last year, a total of 3,079 da Vinci robots were operating around the world. China has 28 of them.

On Dec 8, Zhejiang People’s Hospital used the da Vinci robot to remove a tumor from a patient from Mali. The robot has four arms andone endoscope system that can move 360 degrees inside a patient’s body.

The robot was able to remove all of the malignant tissue around the tumor without destroying healthy tissue.

9. Disaster Relief Workers

China has already developed a type of robot that can work in fire, water or even after a nuclear explosion. The robot, developed by Shanghai Jiaotong University, is set to be widely used in rescue work.

10. Nurses

Siasun Robot & Automation Co in Shenyang, Liaoning province, has developed a nursing machine that can tell jokes, play music, canbe depended on to deliver food to a patient punctually, and will do all that is required if there is an emergency.

In the United States, experts are developing a robot that can replace humans to attend Ebola patients so that humans can avoid beinginfected by the virus.

Source: ChinaDaily

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2014: The Year the Smart People Freaked Out About AI

In the event that robots one day attempt to destroy humanity, 2014 will be remembered as the year that two of technology’s great geek heroes, Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking, predicted it would happen. And if that never comes to pass, 2014 will go down as the year two of the world’s smartest people had a media panic attack about robots for no reason.

In August, Musk tweeted that artificial intelligence could be more dangerous than nuclear weapons and in October, likened it to “summoning a demon.” Hawking, meanwhile, told the BBC in December that humanistic artificial intelligence could “spell the end of the human race.” The context for the claim was a discussion of the AI aide that helps Hawking to speak despite the theoretical physicist’s crippling ALS.

Read more here, Source: Defense One

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Should we be afraid of AI? The military wants a real answer by the end of 2015

The Military’s New Year’s Resolution for Artificial Intelligence

In November, Undersecretary of Defense Frank Kendall quietly issued a memo to the Defense Science Board that could go on to play a role in history.

defense-large for blog on socializing AIThe calls for a new study that  would “identify the science, engineering, and policy problems that must be solved to permit greater operational use of autonomy across all war-fighting domains…Emphasis will be given to exploration of the bounds-both technological and social-that limit the use of autonomy across a wide range of military operations. The study will ask questions such as: What activities cannot today be performed autonomously? When is human intervention required? What limits the use of autonomy? How might we overcome those limits and expand the use of autonomy in the near term as well as over the next 2 decades?”

A Defense Department official very close to the effort framed the request more simply. “We want a real roadmap for autonomy” he told Defense One. What does that mean, and how would a “real roadmap” influence decision-making in the years ahead? One outcome of the Defense Science Board 2015 Summer Study on Autonomy, assuming the results are eventually made public, is that the report’s findings could refute or confirm some of our worst fears about the future of artificial intelligence.

Source: Defense One

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Amazon has 15,000 robots

amazon-robots

Amazon has a vast battalion of robots to help ensure your new television arrives on time this holiday season.

The ecommerce giant revealed that it now has more than 15,000 robots in action at its fulfillment centers around the country, as well as Robo-Stow, a large robotic arm. The robots move shelves of products around the vast facilities to make employees and the company more efficient.

The robots are developed by Kiva Systems, a robotics firm that Amazon acquired for $775 million in 2012.

Source: Mashable

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Can AI replicate the human brain?

Phil Lawson: On nearly a daily basis we read statements from “experts” in artificial intelligence predicting timeframes for when machines will think …

These predictions are typically followed by proclamations of how this will lead to the salvation or destruction of humanity.

To my knowledge, there is no common definition for “think” as it relates to machines and humans. So let’s recognize how little we know about “intellect” in this space. In fact, brain experts are only beginning “to pinpoint” what 86 billion neurons in the human brain do. Note the following from science writer Stephen S. Hall in Technologyreview.com:

“In January 2013, the European Commission invested a billion euros in the launch of its Human Brain Project, a 10-year initiative to map out all the connections in the brain. Several months later, in April 2013, the Obama administration announced an initiative called Brain Research through Advanced Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN), which is expected to pour as much as $1 billion into the field, with much of the early funding earmarked for technology development.” 

“Optogenetics and other new techniques mean scientists can begin to pinpoint the function of the thousands of different types of neurons among the roughly 86 billion in the human brain.”neuroscience brain

Only now, in the past year or two have governments stepped up with billions to “map out all the connections in the human brain.” And yet, AI coders are busy right now trying to lay down the algorithms for deep learning without the conclusions of this research.

This begs the question, then: If the ultimate goal of the humans who are designing Artificial Intelligence is to advance the human experience, then specialists in diverse fields related to our humanity must be invited to the discussion while the cultural blueprint is being written for AI. If, however, the motivations of these creators involves compartmentalized thinking — ‘first to the market’ rationale, or purely name recognition, or a 30-pieces-of-silver scenario, then patching up and fixing up the remains of an incomplete invention, Frankensteinian-style, might very well be the scary outcome.

Meanwhile, AI enthusiasts are telling us that AI can be created by a group of kids after an all-night Red Bull session.”  Let’s grow up this view. Our excessive veneration for smart “kids” may do us in. See my blog about it here.

 

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Begin planning now: Era of low-cost Watsons and higher-priced humans?

“At information-intensive companies, the culture and structure of the organization could change if machines start occupying positions along the knowledge-work value chain. Now is the time to begin planning for an era when the employee base might consist both of low-cost Watsons and of higher-priced workers with the judgment and technical skills to manage the new knowledge “workforce.” At the same time, business and government leaders will be jointly responsible for mitigating the destabilization caused by the displacement of knowledge workers and their reallocation to new roles. Retraining workers, redesigning education, and redefining the nature of work will all be important elements of this effort.

Source: McKinsey Quarterly: Ten IT-enabled business trends for the decade ahead 

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Larry Page on “it seems like a crime to me”

AI Quotes

LARRY PAGE, GOOGLE CO-FOUNDER AND CEO 
“It’s unsatisfying to have all these people, and we have all these billions we should be investing to make people’s lives better. If we just do the same things we did before and don’t do something new, it seems like a crime to me.”
 LarryPage
Source: ft.com
FT interview with Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page
by Richard Waters
October 31, 2014

 

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Robots changing society, humans need not apply

Sobering overview of the real impact robots are having on society and jobs right now. As the narrator says, You may think we have been here before, but we haven’t, this time is different. Not just automation of manual jobs, but lawyers, doctors and white collar workers also. What does it mean? Check it out. This video was posted August 13 and seven days later has 1,805,673 views.

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USC Study: Virtual assistants “way better” than talking to a person?

A new USC study suggests that patients are more willing to disclose personal information to virtual humans than actual ones, in large part because computers lack the proclivity to look down on people the way another human might.

“We know that developing a rapport and feeling free of judgment are two important factors that affect a person’s willingness to disclose personal information,” said co-author Jonathan Gratch, director of virtual humans research at ICT and a professor in USC’s Department of Computer Science. “The virtual character delivered on both these fronts and that is what makes this a particularly valuable tool for obtaining information people might feel sensitive about sharing.”

“The research, which was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the U.S. Army, is promising for people suffering from post-traumatic stress and other mental anguish, said Gale Lucas, a social psychologist at USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies, who led the study. In intake interviews, people were more honest about their symptoms, no matter how potentially embarrassing, when they believed that a human observer wasn’t in on the conversation. “In any given topic, there’s a difference between what a person is willing to admit in person versus anonymously,” Lucas said. The study, which will be published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior, provides the first empirical evidence that virtual humans can increase a patient’s willingness to disclose personal information in a clinical setting, researchers said. It also presents compelling reasons for doctors to start using virtual humans as medical screeners. The honest answers acquired by a virtual human could help doctors diagnose and treat their patients more appropriately …”

Source: NeuroscienceNews.com

Source Tanya Abrams – USC
Contact: USC press release
Original Research Abstract for for “It’s only a computer: Virtual humans increase willingness to disclose” by Gale M. Lucas, Jonathan Gratch, Aisha King, and Louis-Philippe Morency in Computers in Human Behavior. Published online July 9 2014 doi:10.1016/j.chb.2014.04.043

PL – Now, read my post HERE as I “connect the dots” between this topic (above) to the shortage of real professionals in behavioral health services. Kudos to those creating AI applications to advance our machines. But the time has come to use AI to advance our humanity.

 

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What could Artificial Intelligence do for 89.3 million Americans?

According to the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), 89.3 million Americans live in federally-designated Mental Health Professional Shortage Areas, compared to 55.3 million Americans living in primary-care shortage areas and 44.6 million in dental health shortage areas. A Kaiser Family Foundation analysis found that the current mental health workforce is only able to meet about half of the nation’s demand for behavioral health services.

PL – Now let’s “connect the dots” between this topic (above) to a USC study that suggests that patients are more willing to disclose personal information to virtual humans than actual humans. HERE’s my post about it. Kudos to those creating AI applications to advance our machines. But the time has come to use AI to advance our humanity.

Source: Kaiser Health News, Michael Ollove
August 20, 2014
“Pastoral Counselors’ Help Fill Mental Health Gap In Rural States

 

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David Brooks on “two divergent A.I. futures”

AI Quotes

DAVID BROOKS, NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED COLUMNIST

“Two big implications flow from this. The first is sociological. If knowledge is power, we’re about to see an even greater concentration of power …

“To put it more menacingly, engineers at a few gigantic companies will have vast-though-hidden power to shape how data are collected and framed, to harvest huge amounts of information, to build the frameworks through which the rest of us make decisions and to steer our choices …

“The second implication is philosophical. A.I. will redefine what it means to be human

I could paint two divergent A.I. futures, one deeply humanistic, and one soullessly utilitarian …”  DavidBrooks

 

Read the complete OP-ED piece here:
Source: Our Machine Masters
October 30, 2014

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Google on search in 2002: “Oh, we’re really making an AI”

Excerpt from the article, The Three Breakthroughs That Have Finally Unleashed AI on the World:

kevin kelly for socializing ai blogAround 2002 I attended a small party for Google—before its IPO, when it only focused on search. I struck up a conversation with Larry Page, Google’s brilliant cofounder, who became the company’s CEO in 2011. “Larry, I still don’t get it. There are so many search companies. Web search, for free? Where does that get you?” My unimaginative blindness is solid evidence that predicting is hard, especially about the future, but in my defense this was before Google had ramped up its ad-auction scheme to generate real income, long before YouTube or any other major acquisitions. I was not the only avid user of its search site who thought it would not last long. But Page’s reply has always stuck with me: “Oh, we’re really making an AI.”

I’ve thought a lot about that conversation over the past few years as Google has bought 14 AI and robotics companies. At first glance, you might think that Google is beefing up its AI portfolio to improve its search capabilities, since search contributes 80 percent of its revenue. But I think that’s backward. Rather than use AI to make its search better, Google is using search to make its AI better.  – Kevin Kelly 

Source: Wired

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