How fast is artificial intelligence growing? Look at the key bellwethers

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AI & Big Data

One can intuitively surmise artificial intelligence (AI) is today’s hot commodity, gaining traction in businesses, academia and government in recent years. Now, there is data — all in one place — that documents growth across many indicators, including startups, venture capital, job openings and academic programs. These bellwethers were captured in the AI Index, produced under the auspices of was conceived within Stanford University’s Human-Centered AI Institute and the One Hundred Year Study on AI (AI100).

One key measure of AI development is startups and venture capital funding. From January 2015 to January 2018, active AI startups increased 2.1x, while all active startups increased 1.3x, the report states. “For the most part, growth in all active startups has remained relatively steady, while the number of AI startups has seen exponential growth,” the report’s authors add. The trickle of venture capital into AI startups, another bellwether, also turned into a torrent. VC funding for AI startups in the US increased 4.5x from 2013 to 2017. Meanwhile, VC funding for all active startups increased 2.08x.

Another key measure, job openings, accelerated in AI. While machine learning is the largest skill cited as a requirement, deep learning is growing at the fastest rate — from 2015 to 2017 the number of job openings requiring deep learning increased 35x, the report’s authors state.

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AI can generate interactive virtual worlds based on simple videos

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Nvidia’s new AI represents a major leap forward in graphics generation based on neural networks.

Crafting an interactive virtual world of the kind found in many modern video games is a labor-intensive process that can require years of work, hundreds of people, and millions of dollars. Soon, some of that work may be done by machines.

Computer hardware company Nvidia, which specializes in graphics cards, announced on Monday that it developed a new AI model that can take video of the real world and use it to generate a realistic and interactive virtual world. According to Nvidia, its new AI could be used to drastically lower the cost of generating virtual environments, which will be particularly useful in the video game and film industries.

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Chinese ‘Gait Recognition’ tech ID’s people by how they walk

CHINESE ‘GAIT RECOGNITION’ TECH IDS PEOPLE BY HOW THEY WALK

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In this Oct. 31, 2018, photo, Huang Yongzhen, CEO of Watrix, demonstrates the use of his firm’s gait recognition software at his company’s offices in Beijing. A Chinese technology startup hopes to begin selling software that recognizes people by their body shape and how they walk, enabling identification when faces are hidden from cameras. Already used by police on the streets of Beijing and Shanghai, “gait recognition” is part of a major push to develop artificial-intelligence and data-driven surveillance across China, raising concern about how far the technology will go. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

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Billboards — yes, billboards — are having a heyday in a digital world

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It’s the era of internet advertising. The era of targeting that tracks you across browsers, platforms and across the city. The era of apps that know what you want before you do.

But surprisingly, a seemingly retro ad format — outdoor advertising — is also having its heyday.

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No cash needed at this cafe. Students pay the tab with their personal data

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At Shiru Cafe in Providence, R.I., students “pay” for coffee, but not with money.

Shiru Cafe looks like a regular coffee shop. Inside, machines whir, baristas dispense caffeine and customers hammer away on laptops. But all of the customers are students, and there’s a reason for that. At Shiru Cafe, no college ID means no caffeine.

“We definitely have some people that walk in off the street that are a little confused and a little taken aback when we can’t sell them any coffee,” said Sarah Ferris, assistant manager at the Shiru Cafe branch in Providence, R.I., located near Brown University.

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Umbra Composit could scan the world in 3D to the detail of a single grain of sand

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Umbra shows a scan of Helsinki.

Last year, Umbra unveiled a tool called The Composit that will let you upload a complex 3D model to the cloud and then view it on any device. Now, the Helsinki, Finland-based company is showing how it can create a huge web-based virtual model of a city that can put something like Google Maps to shame.

Umbra claims its tech could scan the whole world down to the detail of a single grain of sand. It could be done via a kind of crowdsourcing, using only people with smartphones who use their devices as scanners. That might sound outlandish, but the company is already well under way with that mission in its native Finland.

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Move over, China: U.S. is again home to the world’s speediest supercomputer

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Summit, the world’s fastest supercomputer, is made up of rows of black refrigerator-size units that weigh a total of 340 tons.

The United States just won bragging rights in the race to build the world’s speediest supercomputer.

For five years, China had the world’s fastest computer, a symbolic achievement for a country trying to show that it is a tech powerhouse. But the United States retook the lead thanks to a machine, called Summit, built for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

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This is America’s hottest job

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Uber, Airbnb managers say ‘I’m hiring’ on LinkedIn profiles.

Job postings up 75 percent in past three years on Indeed.com.

Murray Webb had been a lackluster student more interested in sports than schoolwork while attending a small Virginia college. Then he transferred to Kennesaw State University in suburban Atlanta to pursue a master’s degree in applied statistics and landed four job offers upon graduation. Webb, 33, now earns $160,000 a year targeting health-care customers for hospitals and says he is approached weekly by companies and recruiters seeking data scientists.

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China’s “social credit system” will rate how valuable you are as a human

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A Citizen Score in China

In a contentious world first, China plans to implement a social credit system (officially referred to as a Social Credit Score or SCS) by 2020. The idea first appeared in a document from the State Council of China published in June 2014. It is a technological advancement so shocking to modern-minded paradigms that many can do little but sit back in defeatist chagrin as science fiction shows us its darker side.

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AI adoption is limited by incurred risk, not potential benefit

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It’s tempting to think that adoption of AI is limited by the technology itself. Headlines declaring the rise of robot doctors and approaching technological singularity, contrasted with humorous memes of robots falling over, make us alternately fear and doubt AI’s capabilities. In practice, however, decades-old AI technologies could unlock significant value, although many companies still have yet to adopt them. This is because adoption of AI is determined by both trust and risk. Thinking about AI adoption in this way enables us to more accurately anticipate opportunities for AI startups.

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Why the promise of big data hasn’t delivered yet

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The ubiquity of big data is such that Gartner dropped it from their Hype Cycle of Emergent Technologies back in 2015. Across sectors, businesses are scrambling to make every function “data driven,” and there’s no shortage of firms lining up to help them. The big data analytics industry, dedicated to helping big businesses leverage the petabytes of information they now generate and store, is worth $122 billion — and growing.

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