Gary Marcus’ Deep Learning Critique Triggers Backlash
It took a mere 72 hours for deep learning researchers to ignite the first AI Twitter debate of 2018.
Category: AI
Global machine intelligence updates.
Woobo Makes AI Cuddly
Although most adults are now accustomed to smart devices, children aged 4–9 have thus far had less cause to communicate with virtual assistants or operate other AI-powered products. A Boston-based company is changing that with its new intelligent plush toy.
Tech Giants Are Gobbling Up AI Startups
It’s no surprise that tech companies are eager to stay abreast of AI developments. When they’re not luring AI talents with huge compensation packages, they’re on the lookout for AI startups suitable for acquisition.
2017 in Review: 10 AI Failures
At Synced we are naturally fans of machine intelligence, but we also realize some new techniques struggle to perform their tasks effectively, often blundering in ways that humans would not.
Hosting Robot Brains on the Cloud
The anticipated 2020 deployment of 5G networks will effect a tenfold speed increase compared to 4G LTE, creating an environment favourable for the mass integration of various robots into an AI-powered cloud. Beijing-based CloudMinds wants to create such a cloud.
A Statistical Tour of NIPS 2017
According to official statistics, NIPS 2017 in Long Beach, California was the most popular yet, attracting over 8,000 registered attendees, up 2,000 from last year.
Embodying Robots With Intelligence
Engineers have long struggled to teach robots how to perform actions that appear simple by human standards. Former OpenAI research scientist Peter Chen believes the solution is transforming such robots into teachable apprentices.
2017 in Review: 10 Leading AI Hubs
According to a study by Wuzhen Institute, there are 2,905 artificial intelligence companies in the United States, 709 in China, 366 in Britain, 233 in India, 228 in Canada, 173 in Israel, and 160 in Germany.
Andrew Ng Announces Landing.ai – Bringing AI to Manufacturing
One of the top minds in artificial intelligence, Andrew Ng believes “AI is the new electricity.” However few industries canContinue Reading
Google Opens China AI Center
Google is opening an artificial intelligence research lab in Beijing, Chief Scientist of AI/ML at Google Cloud Fei-fei Li announced today at the Google Developer Conference in Shanghai.
LeCun vs Rahimi: Has Machine Learning Become Alchemy?
Google’s Ali Rahimi put it bluntly in his NIPS presentation: “Machine learning has become alchemy.” The words triggered Facebook’s Yann LeCun to fight back.
NIPS: 2017 Day 1 & 2 Highlights
NIPS has become the world’s leading conference on machine learning and computational neuroscience, with 8,000 attendees flocking to Long Beach, California this week for NIPS 2017, the most popular yet.
From Zero to Master in Hours: AlphaZero Accelerates Reinforcement Learning
Google’s DeepMind has once again surprised the machine learning community, this time with the introduction of AlphaZero — a new algorithm that can quickly surpass human board game performance through reinforcement learning self-play.
Shanghai’s Subway Smartens Up With AI
On December 5th Alibaba, Ant Financial, and Shanghai Shentong Metro Group jointly launched a new voice interaction system for purchasing subway tickets. Riders can now tell a machine their destination — for example, Zhongshan Park — and the system will use the AutoNavi cloud map to issue a ticket for the nearest station.
What You Need to Know About NIPS 2017
The Conference on Neural Information Processing (NIPS) kicks off today in Long Beach, California and runs to December 9.
Zhou Yu is Teaching Robots How Not to Be Ignored
Zhou Yu, the 29-year-old assistant professor at UC Davis is teaching robots to understand the nuances of non-verbal communication and use them to their advantage.
Using AI to Secure Ride-Sharing Platforms
Fallout from the Uber data breach scandal is being felt across the industry. In an effort to beef up cybersecurity, researchers are exploring AI solutions.
China’s Smart Speaker Market Heats Up
The lack of Mandarin interface in Echo and Google Home has prompted a number of Chinese companies to get in the game with their own smart speakers.
Bringing Robotics from the Lab to the Real World
At last week’s Collaborative Robotics and Advanced Vision Conference in San Jose, John Petry from Cognex stressed the need for robotic technology companies to provide maintainable deep learning-based solutions for their manufacturing customers.
Nature’s Machine Intelligence Journal to Launch in Jan 2019
Nature will publish the first issue of Machine Intelligence in January 2019. The new journal will cover the “best research from across the field of artificial intelligence,” ranging from machine learning, robotics and human-machine interactions to ethical, legal and societal dimensions of AI.
Makers Put Their Specialized AI Chips on the Table
To boost CNN performance, industry leaders and startups alike are now racing to develop specialized AI chips.
Computer Vision Startup CloudWalk Collects US$375 Million
Heavy investments in computer vision will energize the IoT revolution that is rapidly building smart city infrastructures all across Asia.
Vinci Sets the Tone for Smart Headphones
This week, Synced sat down with Wu, who is now Inspero’s CTO, and tried out the Vinci, the standalone intelligent headphones.
Rolling Out the Tesla Semi
Electric, automated, and stormtrooper-shiny: the Tesla Semi debuted yesterday in Hawthorne, California.
iPhone X Mask Dupe Raises AI Security Concerns
Machines have already beaten humans in image recognition accuracy, but they are also susceptible to errors. Last Friday, Vietnamese company Bkav announced they had outsmarted the AI-powered image recognition machine that unlocks the new iPhone X.
11.11: Alibaba’s AI-Powered Shopping Extravaganza
With so many sales in so little time, it’s no surprise that artificial intelligence is playing a growing role in the largest online shopping event in human history.
Vicarious.ai is Teaching Robots to See The World Like Humans
Dileep George and D. Scott Phoenix are confident they’re on the right path to achieve AGI with unique solutions combining machine learning and the human brain itself.
DuerOS Project Prometheus & Baidu’s Big Data Pledge to Conversational AI
Datasets such as ImageNet have proved essential for image recognition. Chinese search giant Baidu now wants to bring the same power to conversational AI, the tech behind our rapidly-expanding voice-based human-machine interfaces.
Andrew Ng Says Enough Papers, Let’s Build AI Now!
Andrew Ng gave a keynote speech at the AI Frontiers Conference, encouraging AI talents to start making a difference whether with major industry players or through their own startups
Canada’s Big Push on AI
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently joined the Canadian machine learning community to celebrate the country’s burgeoning AI ecosystem at the University of Toronto Rotman School of Management’s Creative Destruction Lab (CDL).
Inside the Voice Inside Your Smart Speaker
Google and Amazon unveiled mini-sized smart speakers Google Home Mini Chalk and Amazon Echo Dot 2, both priced at less than US$50. Virtual assistants can plug into your environment with a natural human-machine voice interface that used to exist only science fiction.
Hinton Proposes CapsNet
Today, the “Godfather of Deep Learning” Dr. Geoffrey Hinton published the paper Dynamic Routing Between Capsules on Arxiv. This is being hailed as a revolutionary work that could totally revamp computer vision research.
Baidu’s Apollo Seeks to Democratize US Autonomous Driving
Synced recently attended a Baidu meet-up at the company’s newly-opened Silicon Valley offices, where details were released on the latest iteration of the Apollo platform, Apollo 1.5.
AlphaGo Zero: Approaching Perfection
Facebook AI Researcher Yuandong Tian says new AlphaGo Zero paper is destined to be a classic.
Meet Voice Pioneer Dr. Mei-Yuh Hwang
Mobvoi hired Dr. Mei-Yuh Hwang as its Vice President of Engineering in 2016. A respected speech recognition researcher and former Principle NLP Scientist Manager at Microsoft, Dr. Hwang is a pioneer in voice recognition and machine translation.
AI Phone Duel: $825 Mate 10 vs $999 iPhone X
This Monday in Munich, China’s largest domestic mobile phone maker Huawei unveiled Mate 10 — billed as the most powerful AI phone in the world.
Six Disruptive AI Platforms for Law
An intelligent revolution of the legal industry has begun.
AI Abuzz over CycleGan Face Swapping Video
YouTuber “TJWei” recently uploaded a “Face-off” video on YouTube. The four-minute split-screen clip sees two figures speaking and emoting simultaneously. Both look human, but one is an entity generated in real-time by an AI algorithm.
Good AI Lab Energizes Biotech With AI
Silicon Valley-based Good AI lab aims to crowdsource the world’s unused FLOPS in order to provide medical researchers with the computing power they need.
Google AI Assistant Smartest in Human IQ Tests
Clearly, digital voice assistants are wising up — how long until they catch up?