Archive for the ‘Artificial Intelligence’ Category

Did you know these 10 everyday services rely on AI? – World Economic Forum

Artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed many aspects of our lives for the better. It even played a role in developing vaccines against COVID-19. But you may be surprised just how many things we take for granted that rely on AI.

As IBM explain, "at its simplest form, artificial intelligence is a field, which combines computer science and robust datasets to enable problem-solving." It includes the sub-fields of machine learning and deep learning. These two fields use algorithms that are designed to make predictions or classifications based on input data.

This is how AI is used in our everyday lives.

Image: European Parliament

Of course, as technology becomes more sophisticated, literally millions of decisions need to be made every day and AI speeds things up and takes the burden off humans. The World Economic Forum describes AI as a key driver of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Forecasted shipments of edge artificial intelligence (AI) chips worldwide in 2020 and 2024, by device.

Image: Statista

The Forums platform, Shaping the Future of Technology Governance: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, is bringing together key stakeholders to design and test policy frameworks that accelerate the benefits and mitigate the risks of AI and machine learning.

Here are 10 examples of AI we encounter every day.

Your email provider almost certainly uses AI algorithms to filter mail into your spam folder. Quite helpful when you consider that 77% of global email traffic is spam. Google says less than 0.1% of spam makes it past its AI-powered filters.

But there are concerns that algorithms that read content to target advertising are invading our privacy.

AI automates a host of functions on your smartphone, from predictive text that learns the words you commonly use to voice-activated personal assistants which listen to the world around them and try to learn your keywords.

The way your phone screen adjusts to ambient light or the battery life is optimized is also down to AI. But if the personal assistant absorbs everything you say, whether youre on the phone or not, some critics say it creates opportunities for surveillance, however benign the intention.

In many parts of the world, online and app-based banking are the norm. From onboarding new customers and checking their identity to countering fraud and money laundering, AI is in charge. Want a loan? An AI-powered system will assess your creditworthiness and decide.

This is how AI is used in banking.

Image: Business Insider

AI also monitors transactions and AI chatbots can answer questions about your account. More than two-thirds of banks in a recent survey by SAS Institute say they use AI chatbots and almost 63% said they used AI for fraud detection.

Going for an x-ray? Forget the idea of a clinician in a white coat studying the results. The initial analysis is most likely to be done by an AI algorithm. In fact they turn out to be rather good at diagnosing problems.

In a trial, an AI algorithm called DLAD beat 17 out of a panel of 18 doctors in detecting potential cancers in chest x-rays.

However, critics say AI diagnosis must not become an impenetrable black box. Doctors need to know how they work in order to trust them. Issues around privacy, data protection and fairness have also been raised.

As in banking, chatbots are also being deployed in healthcare to engage with patients - for example, to book an appointment - or even as virtual assistants to physicians. This presents numerous issues though, from miscommunication to wrong diagnoses.

The World Economic Forum's Chatbots RESET programme brings together stakeholders from multiple areas to explore these opportunities and challenges to govern the use of chatbots.

AI is at the heart of the drive towards autonomous vehicles, adoption of which has accelerated due to the pandemic. Delivery services are one area being targeted, while China now has a robotaxi fleet operating in Shanghai.

There are still safety issues to be ironed out, however. There have been accidents involving self-driving cars, some of them fatal.

The Netherlands is the best prepared for autonomous cars.

Image: Statista

Conventional trackside railway signals are being replaced by AI-powered in-cab signalling systems which automatically control trains. The European Train Control System allows more trains to use the same stretch of track while maintaining safe distances between them.

To date, the use of AI in controlling aircraft has been limited to drones, although flying taxis that use AI to navigate have already been flight-tested. Experts say a human is still better at flying an airliner but AI is widely used in route planning, optimizing schedules and managing bookings.

7. Ride sharing and travel apps

Ride sharing apps use AI to resolve the conflicting needs of drivers and passengers. The latter want a ride immediately, while drivers value their freedom to start and stop working when they choose. Learning how these patterns interact, AI can send you a ride when you ask for it.

Travel apps use AI to personalize what they offer users as algorithms learn our preferences. Hotel search engine Trivago even bought an AI platform that customizes search results based on the users social media likes.

Uncanny how social media seems to know what you like, isnt it? Of course, its all down to AI. Facebooks machine learning can recognize your face in pictures posted on the platform, as well as everyday objects to target content and advertising that interests and engages you.

Job seekers using LinkedIn benefit from AI which analyzes their profile and engagement with other users to offer job recommendations. The platform says AI is woven into the fabric of everything that we do.

Unexpected breakdowns are every factory managers nightmare. So AI is playing a key role in monitoring machine performance, enabling maintenance to be planned rather than reactive. Experts say its cutting the time machines are offline by 75% and repair costs by almost a third.

AI can also predict changes in demand for products, optimizing production capacity. AI is currently used in about 9% of factories worldwide but Deloitte says 93% of companies believe AI will be a pivotal technology to drive growth and innovation in the sector.

Google says AI can enhance the value of wind power by 20%.

Image: Pixabay/enriquelopezgarre

10. Regulating power supply

Wind and solar power may be green but what happens when the wind doesnt blow and the sky is cloudy? AI-powered smart technology can balance supply and demand, controlling devices like water heaters to ensure they only draw power when demand is low and supply plentiful.

Googles DeepMind created an AI neural network trained using weather forecasts and turbine data to predict the output from a wind farm 36 hours ahead. By making output to the power grid more predictable, Google says it increased the value of its wind energy by 20%.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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Did you know these 10 everyday services rely on AI? - World Economic Forum

Why Artificial Intelligence is the Magic Tool in Fertility Treatment? – Analytics Insight

The worlds firstin-vitro fertilization(IVF) baby was born in the United Kingdom in 1978. The success of the artificially made baby gave hopes to the human community on their fertilization and parenthood. After four decades of intense research and trials into the field, doctors now useartificial intelligenceto help parents get babies successfully. Scientists are working onembryoanalysis with computeralgorithmsto help build families.

More than 80 million couples are affected by infertility across the globe. Around one in seven couples have trouble conceiving, which means there is a high demand for solutions such asin-vitro fertilization. Creating anembryois a process where the ovum from the female ovary and sperm from the male are fused outside the body in a laboratory. Theembryois then placed in the females ovary for the development ofin-vitro fertilization. It has been reported that more than 5 million babies have been born from thein-vitro fertilizationmethod. Unfortunately, not all IVF treatments turn out to be successful. Couples who need IVF to conceive a child are well aware that even the most advanced assisted reproductive technology doesnt always guarantee a baby. Therefore, doctors are seeking the help ofartificial intelligenceto pick theembryothat is most likely to succeed. In a normal in-vitro cycle, around 70% of the embryos are abnormal, resulting in a miscarriage or a baby with a lifelong genetic disorder. Butartificial intelligencecan change the routine by detecting theembryothat is more likely to grow without any problem.

Selecting the successful embryo is the toughest process inin-vitro fertilization. Currently, the tools available for making this decision are limited, highly subjective, time-consuming, and often extremely expensive. Therefore,embryologists use their experience, observation skills, and gut feeling to choose theembryothat is most likely to be successful. To change the routine and makein-vitro fertilizationprocess more accurate, scientists are seeking help fromartificial intelligence. The technology assists embryologists to make a consistent choice.Artificial intelligencesystem could learn how embryos develop over time and then uses the information to select the best embryos. The trained AIalgorithmcan find the successfulembryojust by looking at its image.

As more and more companies and medical institutions are coming forward to try their hand on thisartificial intelligenceespoused in IVF, we take you through some of the recent significant developments in the field.

Embryonics use AI to identify the most successful embryo: Embryonics, an Israeli AI fertility company has usedartificial intelligenceto increase the fertility rate and avoid the odds of successful implantation of theembryo. At the company, a group ofalgorithmspecialists, data scientists, and embryologists are developing analgorithmthat could predict theembryoimplanting probability. They have trained thealgorithmto analyze IVF time-lapsing imaging of developing embryos. The team is using medical imaging withdeep learningto curate datasets from tens of thousands of IVF cycles, including time-lapse videos of embryos. Embryonics is planning to streamline this fertility process by conducting clinical trials at several sites in the United States after obtaining the US Food and Drug Administrations approval.

Austin Fertility Center seeks AIs help for embryo analysis: Austin Fertility Center in the United States is also usingartificial intelligenceto non-invasively analyze embryos and determine whether they are euploid or aneuploid. The center has successfully applied AI inembryoselection with the help ofdeep learningthrough computer vision. They use 2D statistic images of embryos created through past IVF cycles at Ovation Fertility IVF laboratories to train thealgorithm. Austin Fertility Center also said that the method has shown 32% improvement in the prediction of successful implantation.

VIOLET, a tool that beats human analysis in embryo selection: Scientists from CARE Fertility, one of the leading independent providers of fertility treatment in the United Kingdom has joined hands with Canadian med-tech partner Future Fertility onembryoanalysis. The duo has researched to know howartificial intelligencecan be used as a more accurate tool to predict human egg fertilization andembryodevelopment. Recently, they also launched VIOLET, an AIalgorithmthat has outperformed human analysis, predicting human egg fertilization and blastocyst embryo development with 77% and 62% accuracy respectively.

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Why Artificial Intelligence is the Magic Tool in Fertility Treatment? - Analytics Insight

Idaho National Lab’s digital engineering team relies on algorithms and auditable data – Federal News Network

Artificial intelligence and machine learning have emerged as important tools for modernizing systems and simplifying federal processes. Nevertheless, they require the right data for training the algorithms.

Humans train algorithms by using them and over time, algorithms learn via a deep neural network.

Chris Ritter, leader of the Digital and Software Engineering group at the Idaho National Laboratory, said that while the ultimate goal of artificial intelligence is to get a computer to think like humans or surpass humans in terms of predicting functionality, machine learning is about having pre-programmed devices, which can conduct analysis on their own. Scaling up general artificial intelligence, from something like a simple Google CAPTCHA form to operating a nuclear reactor, is what his office looks into.

Where a lot of the existing research is, is in getting the data curated, and getting the data in a format thats possible to get those scale-up advantages, and to apply machine learning to some of our complex problems in the energy domain, Ritter said on Federal Monthly Insights Artificial Intelligence and Data.

Aside from deep neural networks, which are a kind of black box not easily audited, Ritter said another kind of algorithm is called explainable or transparent artificial intelligence.

What that means is, its mathematical. Right? So its completely auditable. And we can apply some penalize regression techniques to those areas, and you can make that a more novel technique, he said on Federal Drive with Tom Temin. And what a lot of people dont think about is, if you have a ton of data image recognition is a great example, right? Then DNN these deep neural networks are a great approach. But if you have less data, sometimes its better to apply a common statistical approach.

In use cases such as life safety and critical safety systems, its important to be able to audit what the algorithm will do and why that is.

At the Idaho National Laboratory, Ritter engages in digital engineering which uses key tenets of modeling, building from a source of truth, and innovation to name a few. The group has tried to change the way people work and have them produce data into buckets that engineers can already mine. Ritter said theyre trying this approach rather than seeing how they can make an algorithm smarter. Lets make the humans change their pattern a little bit.

On the innovation front, he cited the Versatile Test Reactor project as an example. The reactor is being built to performing irradiation testing at higher neutron energy fluxes than what is currently available, and as a result could help accelerate testing of advanced nuclear fuels, materials, instrumentation, and sensors, according to the Energy Department. Ritter said a lot of university researchers were incorporated into the project, who bring novel AI techniques to the table.

To ensure digital engineering of these massive projects at the laboratory produce usable, real-world results, engineers build ontologies, or blueprints, for the data to curate it. Examples of data could be equipment lists, computer-aided design files, costs, schedule information, risks and data from plant operators, Ritter said. When these subsystems are generating so much more data than anyone can possibly look at in an hour, predictive maintenance can spot anomalies and raise a red flag.

And so in other applications and other industries were seeing predictive maintenance applied. And so we know that that technique is certainly possible, in the design side being able to apply artificial intelligence during the design of an asset, he said. I think we are still in the early stages of that idea.

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Idaho National Lab's digital engineering team relies on algorithms and auditable data - Federal News Network

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Pharma and Identifying Value-Driven Use Cases for Smart Manufacturing Initiatives, Upcoming Webinar Hosted by Xtalks -…

TORONTO, May 5, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Smart manufacturing the use of advanced automation and big data technologies to detect and predict anomalies and optimize yield and other outcomes is a business imperative in today's highly-competitive, highly-regulated pharmaceutical industry. But how can established pharma and biotech companies intelligently implement smart manufacturing strategies that leverage artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, cloud infrastructure and rich big data analytics tools into their commercial manufacturing processes without disrupting existing workflows? Validated SOPs, GxP compliance, friction with existing tools and workflows, and organizational inertia make change disruptive for the organization and ripe for risk.

Join expert speakers from Aizon, Lawrence Baisch, Chief Customer Success Officer and Kevin Baughman, Data Science Practice Lead, in a live webinar on Tuesday, May 25, 2021 at 1pm EDT to hear about how to keep ROI in focus and identify value-based use cases for smart manufacturing initiatives for pharma and biotech, as well as how to avoid prevalent pitfalls when implementing smart manufacturing strategies and technologies in your commercial manufacturing processes.

For more information, or to register for this event, visit Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Pharma and Identifying Value-Driven Use Cases for Smart Manufacturing Initiatives.

ABOUT XTALKS

Xtalks, powered by Honeycomb Worldwide Inc., is a leading provider of educational webinars to the global life science, food and medical device community. Every year, thousands of industry practitioners (from life science, food and medical device companies, private & academic research institutions, healthcare centers, etc.) turn to Xtalks for access to quality content. Xtalks helps Life Science professionals stay current with industry developments, trends and regulations. Xtalks webinars also provide perspectives on key issues from top industry thought leaders and service providers.

To learn more about Xtalks visit http://xtalks.com

For information about hosting a webinar visit http://xtalks.com/why-host-a-webinar/

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Italian Priest: Artificial Intelligence Prompts Us to Think About What It Means to Be Truly Human – National Catholic Register

On April 21, the European Commission unveiled its proposals for a legal framework on Artificial Intelligence (AI) with the aim of regulating its use to protect the privacy of European citizens and their fundamental rights.

AI, as defined by the European Parliament, is the ability of a machine to display human-like capabilities such as reasoning, learning, planning and creativity. Contrary to automation or programming, such a machine can take a decision without human intervention. AI includes various technologies and covers many areas of everyday life, from the health sector to services, transportations and customer relations.

The new European AI legal project, which will be debated and potentially adopted by various European states in the coming years, is considered the largest ever undertaken in the west. As new technologies are developing faster and faster and play an increasingly important role in citizens life amidst the ongoing pandemic health restrictions the European Commission is seeking to limit potential abuses connected to their use, notably by banning high risk systems like biometric recognition in public spaces (with a few exceptions) and social credit systems, and the use of AI to manipulate human behavior or to exploit the vulnerabilities of individuals or groups.

With the commissions almost 100-page document already arousing debate and criticism for not being sufficiently protective, or conversely for braking innovation, the Register sought the views of Father Luca Peyron, priest of the archdiocese of Turin (northern Italy) and founder of the Digital Apostolate Service, one of the first services worldwide to address the connection between the digital world and faith.

The author of several publications about AI from an ethical and theological perspective, Father Peyron has stood out as an authority in this field over the past years.

Commenting about the subject with the Register, he explained that while AI necessarily carries risks, it could never compete with human intelligence, whose dimensions are only just beginning to be explored. He also believes that the Church represents a much-needed voice in this public debate, and should address these issues in a more direct and audacious way.

The European Commission has just taken on a very ambitious legal project to address the potential risk connected to AI. Is this legislation moving in the right direction according to you?

It seems to me that it is along the right lines for a number of reasons and I would say that it shows an interesting display of courage on the part of these European authorities as it implies the creation of a legal and economic space that in some way claims its own independence, without losing the founding values of the European Union. This perhaps also derives from the fact of having understood that 650 million European citizens are also an economic pool of consumers that can be significant.

What is new and important is first of all the idea that a legislation must be placed before the creation of an artificial intelligence service or product, in such a way that they are designed from this value framework. This aspect seems prophetic to me because legislation that tends to chase technological innovations always risks being late, because innovation always goes much faster than the ability of nation or states to legislate, not to mention international consensus.

The other aspect that seems important to me is that it reveals a true anthropocentrism. Everything is perfectible, but the human being seems to me to be the ultimate goal of this process. That is, it is not only artificial intelligence that must not damage the human being. It seems to me that the direction of thought here is to help the human being to be himself. And this is a valuable orientation.

Yet, several associations for the protection of individual rights and European deputies have denounced the fact that the use of facial recognition technology in public places could be allowed in some contexts, notably within the framework of crime investigations. These critics say it paves the way for mass surveillance. What do you think about it?

We can never completely avoid risks. When we build a prison, there is always the risk that a dictator will fill it, and following that logic, we should no longer build prisons. The moment there are judges who can decide on the freedom of a fellow citizen, there can be a corrupt judge who acts in bad faith. It is clear that since there are instruments that affect personal freedom, there is a risk that these instruments will be used badly.

It is evident that from the moment that some processes are automated, it is likely to generate new injustices. But I don't think there is any legislation or tool in the history of mankind that has not been potentially harmful. I believe that the denialist approach to technology risks suspending in limbo the application of norms with respect to certain real issues. We practically worry about what is happening in an airport, when in fact it is happening inside our homes with our smartphones.

The facial recognition tools are potentially dangerous, indeed. But this issue implies that we take responsibility and identify who is accountable in a timely and precise fashion. It is also true that a European legislation can never replace a digital culture able to deal with these issues.

How do you explain the lack of a proper digital culture in the West?

The truth is that most of Western people even the most cultured circles still dont know what AI is. It is a technology that is still, and too much, in the hands of too few people who understand its scope and who, in fact, risk taking advantage of the ignorance of the public in the use of these technologies. What needs to be more and more widespread is a culture of debate on this issue and a real knowledge of what we are talking about.

AI seems almost something esoteric or magical to most people nowadays. In this sense, the word artificial counts more than intelligence in peoples imagination. We must bear in mind that artificial intelligence is not that intelligent. We today look at machines as if they could do much more than what they are capable of doing in reality. We should perhaps get used to focusing on humans again and be concerned about the fact that there isnt a proper and widely spread virtue ethic, rather than being afraid that there isnt a substantial enough ethic of AI.

Youve just said that this new legislation could be perfectible. What would you improve?

I think that the relationship between human and technology is still not that clear. In the sense that the definition of what is actually human is still too weak. The definition of what is actually technological is still too general. One big advantage that AI can give us is a real reflection on what is truly human and what is not. We have defined as intelligent what is not intelligent. And weve called human things that are not really human. I think we still have so much to discover about what human is and can become. The greatest gift that technology can give us today is to bring us a new reflection on what the human actually is. This is one of the greatest challenges that this time poses us.

How should the Catholic Church position itself with respect to these issues?

In its dialogue with the world, the Church enjoys a very large attention on these very issues nowadays. I believe that this is an extraordinary opportunity for a re-evaluation of human rights and their effective implementation. We realize that these are global phenomena, to which we need to respond on a global level, as much as possible. We do not have a globally shared ethic. Human rights are the only shared ethic. In order to get a shared horizon, we should go back to human rights and ensure that they have also thanks to technology, paradoxically a new season of vitality. On this matter, the Church certainly has something to say.

Another very important aspect for the Church is the possibilities of inclusion and exclusion that some technologies imply. AI is a very powerful technique. This means that it can greatly widen the gap between rich and poor or it can be a tool that narrows that gap. Technology can trivially use statistics to keep excluding the excluded or to identify them and then put them back in the game. But this stems from a political choice.

In the relationship of dialogue between the Church and the world and in educating the various generations to a synergistic coexistence with this kind of energy, surely the Church has something significant to teach. Because we remain one of the very few institutions that has an absolutely precise mission and vision. We have an anthropology, a metaphysics, an anthology, a philosophy, a moral doctrine that are organic, logical, that hold together and are not ideological.

In the twilight of the great ideologies, and in the great darkness that these ideologies have generated, we have a lumen fidei, a light that comes from faith, but that does not exclude rationality and logicality. We can give this reasonableness to the world and I believe that the world is willing to listen.

Is it something youve been witnessing, as a priest and expert in AI?

Over the past two years, I have been asked to give lectures and classes mostly in non-ecclesiastical contexts. It looks like there is a greater focus on what the Church has to say on these issues ... outside the Church.

I think that, inside the Church, we should also realize that dealing with these issues is dealing with the Gospel. Digital transformation is a sign of the times and as such, we need to listen to the Holy Spirit and have him and Christ reach out to us for guidance. Perhaps we struggle to see this as a fruitful field because it is totally new. But all things considered, the issues that AI touches are those that the Church has always addressed, because they concern the human dimension, its relationship with limits, with God. We must have the courage to go beyond the fear we have of all this because we do not understand it well, to discover that it is perfectly comprehensible and that we are already equipped to deal with it and give answers.

Is homo sapiens only a transition toward machina sapiens, as some experts have been wondering during a conference promoted by the Vatican in 2017?

We have a very limited knowledge of human intelligence. Do we actually believe we can create an artificial intelligence that would be better than a human intelligence that we dont even know properly?

Today, a 4-year-old child is able to move through a reality in a way that is infinitely better than any autonomous artificial intelligence system. Artificial intelligence requires a huge effort to work, and loads of energy and data. Any human being with an infinitesimal amount of data and energy is capable of doing better.

The human being that technology is able to replace is a being that is simply able to function. It is not a human being in all the beauty of his being.

Yes, technology is able to replace the human, it was created for this, and to solve problems. But the human being was not born to solve problems. He was born to enter into relationship with others, with himself and with God. These are two very different things. If we look at the human being as the one who does things, then yes, technology can imitate him because it does things. But if we look at the human being as the one who is the image and likeness of his Creator, then technology will never imitate him.

Many historians of ideas see the Renaissance as a turning point in the history of humanity, as human beings stopped seeing themselves as the summit of Creation to become the center of the universe. Does this AI advent represent the emergence of a new paradigm according to you? If so, what could it look like?

With the modern era, everything was reduced to power and mightiness. I think we need to take a leap back, and not see technology as a mere instrument of power, to turn it into a service. After the balance of terror of the 80s, during the Cold War, we rediscovered nuclear power as it was originally meant, that is, an energy for the good of humanity. This also applies to technology. As long as technology is an instrument of power, it will always be a dangerous instrument. When it becomes a tool geared towards the common good, it becomes something that makes us less afraid and that can perhaps help us coexist on this planet.

The coronavirus crisis has taught us clearly that we cannot live as individuals but that we must live as one body, as St. Paul once wrote. Salvation comes from Christ, and AI can also remind us that it is not technology that saves us, but the Savior.

What can be the possible bulwarks of ethics and humanity in the face of the risks that AI also represents?

Children. We must take the child as our boundary. Human rights must be defined with respect to children. Artificial intelligence has to guard the life of a child, to adapt to his capabilities, etc. Then, we would have the guarantee of a boundary. Because preserving children means generating life, helping life to grow. If the most fragile are the standard of measurement for everything, then we will have the guarantee that none of us, even the most fragile, can be crushed by AI.

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Italian Priest: Artificial Intelligence Prompts Us to Think About What It Means to Be Truly Human - National Catholic Register