Artificial intelligence originally aspired to replace doctors. Researchers imagined robots that could ask you questions, run the answers through an algorithm that would learn with experience and tell whether you had the flu or a cold. However, those promises largely failed, as artificial intelligent algorithms were too rudimentary to perform those functions.
IBM’s Watson has done everything from winning at Jeopardy to cooking exotic meals, but it appears to have accomplished its greatest feat yet: saving a life. University of Tokyo doctors report that the artificial intelligence diagnosed a 60-year-old woman’s rare form of leukemia that had been incorrectly identified months earlier. The analytical machine took just 10 minutes to compare the patient’s genetic changes with a database of 20 million cancer research papers, delivering an accurate diagnosis and leading to proper treatment that had proven elusive. Watson has also identified another rare form of leukemia in another patient, the university says.
In an episode of the British dystopian sci-fi show Black Mirror, titled “Be Right Back,” a man who dies in a car crash leaves behind enough social media and other data traces to be digitally recreated, first online and then as a creepily life-like robot. Turns out, that scenario is not so far-fetched.
Last May, researchers at ICD Stuttgart revealed the Elytra Filament Pavilion—a vast, carbon fiber structure woven with the industrial arm of a modified Kuka robot. Now, in a thesis project led by Maria Yablonina, the same lab has managed to shrink the scale, from massive industrial-line robots, to a pair of drones that can crawl up your wall to weave smaller structures like tag-teaming spiders spinning silk.
At a competition in China to see who is better at recognizing faces, man or machine, Wang Yuheng, representing the humans, emerged victorious.
Wang is famous in China for his photographic memory. He successfully identified a specific glass of water out of 520 seemingly identical ones in a Chinese reality TV show. He also reportedly helped police crack a case by extracting “hidden clues” from surveillance camera footage, thanks to his exceptional observational skills.
Artificial intelligence has evolved enough that it can now take care of daily chores, drive a car, function as a trusty shopping buddy, and… write a screenplay?
Impossible Things, an independent horror film project from Greenlight Essentials’ Jack Zhang, was reportedly produced (in part) by an augmented intelligence software tool which analyzes audience response data to help writers craft plot points that connect with viewer demand. The result is Impossible Things, a project billed by its creators as “the scariest and creepiest horror film out there.” The software co-wrote the film’s script.
62% of enterprises will use AI technologies by 2018
Artificial intelligence has replaced big data this year as the most talked about new set of technologies. As with big data five years ago—behind the hype, the confusion generated by an ill-defined term, and the record funding by VC—we are starting to see emerging investments and practical applications where it matters most—in enterprises.
A new report from Narrative Science, based on a survey of 235 business executives conducted by the National Business Research Institute (NBRI), sheds light on the state-of-AI in enterprises today and in the future: 38% of enterprises are already using AI technologies and 62% will use AI technologies by 2018. Keep in mind that “AI technologies” is a broad term that includes machine and deep learning, recommendation engines, predictive and prescriptive analytics, automated written reporting and communications, and voice recognition and response.
“My name is Yoshiyuki Kawazoe. This is my hotel.” The University of Tokyo’s associate professor of architecture gestures behind himself to a flat, two-story building that doesn’t really look like a hotel. “Two-hundred people were involved in making this happen,” he says. “Experts in environmental design, engineering, architecture, robotics and construction … it’s their hotel.” The “Hen-na Hotel” will go down in tourist guides as the robot hotel, but there’s more being invested in here than just talking robots: The minds behind it hope the facility will change the world of low-cost hotels — and save the world. (Well, at least a little.)
Uber drivers at the company’s inspection lot near Mission Bay in San Francisco will be met with a rather strange sight: a five-foot-tall, white, egg-shaped robot wheeling around the lot, on the look-out for trouble. This robot will be putting a few people out of a job soon.
Three years ago, Neil Harbisson, who is completely color-blind, had an antenna implanted in his skull that enables the artist and entrepreneur to sense color via audio vibrations. The long, metallic device, dubbed the ‘eyeborg,’ curves over the top of his head and hovers just above his eye line. It effectively made Harbisson into one of the world’s first cyborgs.
Creator of the world’s first 3D-printed cars, Local Motors, has developed the first self-driving “cognitive” vehicle, using IBM Watson Internet of Things (IoT) for Automotive. It’s set to debut later this year in Washington DC.