Ai-Da, a novel robot developed by English gallerist Aidan Meller and Cornish robotic business Engineered Arts, has painted a picture of Queen Elizabeth to celebrate her Platinum Jubilee.
Algorithmic Queen, the artificial intelligence-powered robot’s picture, was created to depict the various facets of technological advancement that have occurred over Queen Elizabeth’s 70-year reign.
In the words of the developer of Ai-Da, the portrait provides a marker for “how far things have come” in the monarch’s life. The painting was layered and scaled to produce the final multidimensional portrait of Queen Elizabeth.
Ai-Da is the world’s first artificial intelligence-powered robot that can paint just like an artist. The robot, named after Ada Lovelace, the first female computer programmer, uses face recognition technology to scan photographs and feed them into an algorithm that controls her robotic arm’s movement.
The developers of this robot claim it to be “the first ultra-realistic humanoid artist.” Ai-Da was first introduced back in 2019 at Oxford University, after which it has traveled across the world to showcase its capabilities. Ai-Da is updated regularly, allowing it to extend and refine its abilities as technology is continuously evolving.
Apart from painting capabilities, Ai-Da can also effectively converse with others.
Ai-Da said, “I’d like to thank Her Majesty the Queen for her dedication and for the service she gives to so many people. She is an outstanding, courageous woman who is utterly committed to public service.” The robot further added that it thinks she’s a wonderful person, and it wishes Her Majesty the Queen a very happy Platinum Jubilee.
Global semiconductor manufacturing giant Intel announces that it has selected a diverse Ohio-based team led by Gilbane Building Company to manage the early excavation work for its two new leading-edge chip factories in Ohio.
Intel has also partnered with McDaniel’s Construction Corp., Northstar Contracting Inc., and GTSA Construction Consulting to executive the operation.
According to the company, this new development is a part of Intel’s IDM 2.0 plan. In this initiative, Intel will accelerate chip production to satisfy the increasing demand for sophisticated semiconductors, powering a new generation of innovative products from Intel and servicing the needs of foundry customers.
Gilbane will oversee the team’s efforts to prepare the site for the development of Intel’s planned facilities and to promote economic inclusion to ensure that various businesses have long-term prospects. D
an Moncrief III, chairman, and CEO, of McDaniel’s Construction, said, “Since our inception over 37 years ago, we have strived to be a leader in our market sector. We believe that the past hard work and sacrifices have put us in a position to be an integral team members for this project.”
He further added that this opportunity should offer them enough exposure to allow them to continue growing in the near future.
Earlier this year, Intel announced its plans to build a $20 billion microchip manufacturing facility in Ohio. Intel speculates that the massive industrial plant will be erected on almost 1,000 acres and will initially employ over 3,000 people.
Another interesting event happened recently when Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Intel, said that a shortage of advanced equipment to make semiconductors could hold up global expansion plans. According to him, supply timeframes for chipmaking equipment for the company’s further chip facilities in the United States and Europe have been greatly prolonged.
Technology giant Meta, formerly known as Facebook, selects Microsoft Azure as its preferred cloud provider to advance artificial intelligence (AI) innovation and deepen PyTorch collaboration.
Meta will employ Azure’s supercomputing capability to boost AI research and development for its Meta AI group as part of this partnership.
According to Microsoft, Meta will use a specialized Azure cluster of 5400 GPUs running on the newest virtual machine (VM) series in Azure (NDM A100 v4 series, using NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core 80GB GPUs).
Both companies also plan to work together to increase PyTorch usage on Azure and help developers go from experimental to production faster.
“With Azure’s compute power and 1.6 TB/s of interconnect bandwidth per VM, we are able to accelerate our ever-growing training demands to better accommodate larger and more innovative AI models,” said Jerome Pesenti, Vice President of AI, Meta.
He further added that they are also excited to collaborate with Microsoft to expand their experience to their clients who are utilizing PyTorch in their research and production process.
According to the plan, Microsoft will release new PyTorch development accelerators in the coming months to help developers quickly deploy PyTorch-based solutions on Azure. Moreover, Microsoft will provide PyTorch with enterprise-grade support, allowing customers and partners to use PyTorch models in production on both the cloud and the edge.
Recently, the open-source machine learning platform Hugging Face also partnered with Microsoft to launch its new Hugging Face Endpoints on Azure. Hugging Face Endpoints, available through Azure Machine Learning Services, allows clients to leverage Hugging Face models with a few clicks of Microsoft Azure SDK code, drastically increasing its usability.
Global technology giant NVIDIA announces its researchers have curated a database of over 100 thousand artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC)-enabled brain images.
Ian Buck, general manager and vice president of NVIDIA’s Accelerated Computing, revealed this information at a recently held event.
According to him, using NVIDIA’s Cambridge-1 supercomputer and artificial intelligence, researchers at King’s College in London have compiled the world’s largest archive of synthetic brain images.
The database, which comprises 100,000 brain pictures, is being made publicly available to healthcare experts to promote the study of cognitive diseases. Jorge Cardoso, a researcher at King’s College and a founding member of MONAI, curated and provided the photographs.
Cardoso said, “In the past, many researchers didn’t want to work in healthcare because they couldn’t get good data, but now they can.”
He further added that they realized the models had learned the distribution of brain types, so they did not need the dataset anymore, it was part of the model.
The realistic 3D brain images, which can be male or female, young or elderly, can be customized to meet specific study requirements. NVIDIA’s Cambridge-1 supercomputer processes each image’s 16 million 3D pixels with considerable computational power.
According to NVIDIA, the Cambridge-1 system comprises 80 DGX A100 systems, Bluefield-2 DPUs, 640 NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPUs, and NVIDIA HDR InfiniBand networking.
The 100,000 photos will be stored in a national archive, Health Data Research UK, and the models will be shared for future use. Cardoso passionately praised the work as pointing in various directions, as if discharging the contents of several minds.
Technology startup One AI raises $8 million in its recently held funding round. Many investors, including Ariel Maislos, Tech Aviv and SentinelOne Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tomer Wiengarten, and numerous others, participated in the One AI’s funding round.
According to the company, it plans to use the freshly raised funds to offer better and enhanced natural language processing features in its platform.
One AI provides a set of natural language processing models that have been pre-packaged for corporate use cases. Developers can seamlessly integrate One AI’s technology with their software using an application programming interface.
Co-founder of One AI, Yochai Levi, told TechCrunch, “We believe that the technology is nearing its maturity point, and after building NLP from scratch several times in the past, we decided it was time to productize it and make it available for every developer.”
He further added that despite the market’s rapid growth, advanced NLP is still mostly employed by experts, Big Tech, and governments. Levi feels the solution is One AI’s platform, which is a collection of NLP models that have been trained for specific business use cases.
Pre-built neural networks from One AI can organize documents by subject, extract customer sentiment from help desk tickets, and generate text summaries. One AI’s pre-packaged neural networks can be used alone or in combination by developers.
One AI currently employs 22 people, including ten natural language processing researchers, and as per reports, the company plans to hire new employees after this funding round.
Former Twitter India head, Manish Maheshwari, quits his latest metaverse EdTech venture Invact Metaversity. The EdTech startup is an educational company that has been set in the metaverse.
Over the last few days, we have been in the news, more than we have ever been! So here is the official update. Manish Maheshwari has stepped down from his position as Chief Executive Officer and Director of Invact, Inc. as of May 27, 2022.
This new development was revealed by Maheshwari last Friday through a Tweet on the microblogging platform. After this episode, Tanay Pratap, Invact Metaversity’s co-founder and chief technology officer, will take over as the company’s new CEO.
In his tweet, he mentioned he is leaving the firm to take a break for a few months before looking for other chances. “It is heartbreaking for a founder to leave the startup, like a mother leaving her baby. I am going through the same emotion,” he added in his tweet.
In December 2021, Maheshwari and former Microsoft executive Pratap founded Invact Metaversity.
To date, the company has raised $5 million from 70 prominent global executives and entrepreneurs, including Kishore Biyani of Future Group and Mohandas Pai of Infosys.
On Twitter, Maheshwari’s angel investor Gergely Orosz alleged Maheshwari is keeping the firm “hostage” and that he misled the company’s investors. However, this was deleted soon after it was posted.
According to some, the cause of this development is that one founder wanted the firm to be an edtech company, while the other wanted it to be a metaverse enterprise. Maheshwari had said earlier, “At Invact Metaversity, we do not want to be another online school. We started with a vision to deliver a significantly differentiated learning experience for students, leveraging the metaverse’s potential.”
He also added that they have arrived at a fork in the road and are considering their options. Moreover, he also revealed his disagreements with Pratap about the company’s goal.
The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi, in collaboration with Nurithm Lab, has released DermaAid, a smartphone app that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to diagnose skin diseases.
The primary goal of this artificial intelligence-enabled application is to address access and accuracy issues in the clinical diagnosis of dermatological illnesses, such as skin and oral cancers.
Dr. Somesh Gupta, a Professor in the Department of Dermatology and Venereology at AIIMS, revealed this development to PTI.
According to him, DermaAId is a mobile app that utilizes a machine learning AI-driven algorithm to make a simple smartphone with a 1 MP camera into a skincare tool. Moreover, the newly launched AI app will perform as a clinical decision support tool for general practitioners to enhance their capacity and awareness of skin problems.
Dr. Gupta said, “The technology behind the app is deceptively simple. A doctor takes a photo of lesions on a patient’s body and uploads them to the cloud server. Within 15-30 seconds, the app provides possible disease conditions based on machine analysis of images.”
He further added that the actual diagnosis happens in the backend as the dermatologist-level categorization of skin problems and treatment choices are provided by the AI machine learning algorithms located on the secure server. Acne, psoriasis, eczema, vitiligo, tinea, male alopecia, basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and melanoma are among skin diseases that the app can detect.
Interestingly, the application has a commendable accuracy of nearly 80%, mentioned officials. The application has the potential to revolutionize the country’s healthcare system as there will be more healthcare data available and faster development of smart analytics. Dr. Gupta claims that India has 12.5 lakh, allopathic practitioners, with only 3.71 lakh having specialized or post-graduate credentials, according to estimates from the Union Health Ministry.
“The app can be handy, especially in rural India where general practitioners are not readily available, and healthcare workers can address the immediate needs. It can also be deployed to screen oral cancer,” he added.
Global audit, tax, and advisory services providing company KPMG partners with American software company Blue J to develop tax analysis tools for the UK market that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to support decision-making on complex tax issues.
With its cooperation with Blue J, KPMG UK hopes to harness Blue J’s expertise in predictive analytics tools for tax attorneys and accountants to develop a new tool that would reduce the time consumed in complicated tax filings for its employees in the United Kingdom.
Chief Expertise Officer – Tax & Authorized at KPMG, Stuart Tait, said, “The Blue J know-how helps us to navigate sophisticated laws and case legislation, which dramatically reduces the time it takes to analyze technical positions and can assist with the large caseload.”
He further added that they expect that by freeing up our employees’ time, they will be able to devote more resources to collaborating with their clients on their most pressing business issues. They will be able to estimate tax scenario outcomes with greater than 90% accuracy and four times the speed of typical research approaches like keyword and Boolean searches, thanks to AI.
Blue J’s tool is now available to all 2,500 of KPMG’s tax and legal experts, and Tait says it will speed up the firm’s technical analysis and increase the timeliness and accuracy of advice provided to customers.
“This decade will see unimaginable progress within the sophistication of study instruments that use AI to allow professionals to ship superior outcomes for his or her purchasers, in a much more environment-friendly method than beforehand attainable,” said CEO of Blue J, Benjamin Alarie. Benjamin also mentioned that KPMG is at the forefront of this trend, and they are thrilled to be working with them on this solution.
The Delhi Traffic Police plans to soon deploy an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Integrated Traffic Management System (ITMS) in the streets of the national capital.
This new development is a step by the authorities to reduce congestion and facilitate faster vehicular movement in Delhi, which to date has been a huge concern.
According to officials, the new system, which is based on machine learning and artificial intelligence, would be critical in permitting speedy access to emergency vehicles such as ambulances and fire trucks.
The AI-powered traffic management system will be able to synchronize all the traffic signals and make decisions regarding traffic lights.
“We have been given eight months for the project, and the first detailed project report must be prepared after surveying the traffic at 42 junctions to cover 1,200 signals and 600 blinkers. It has to be submitted by November this year,” said Delhi Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic Headquarters-II) SK Singh.
He further added that The department had signed an agreement with the Center for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) for an integrated traffic management system, and the assignment has been allocated to a consulting firm.
Moreover, a green channel will be included in the new AI-enabled traffic management system to make it easier for emergency vehicles to move about.
Earlier, Chandigarh also announced its plans to adopt a similar AI-powered system to smoothen the traffic conditions in the region.
Delhi’s traffic management system will also be connected with all municipally controlled parking lots to notify vehicles of available parking spaces before arriving at the event.
“They can look for updates on the Municipality Corporation of Delhi’s mobile application, which will generate a pop-up message. It will also be linked with Google maps,” SK Singh.
Last December, Metaverse grabbed headlines across the world for unfortunate reasons. In the metaverse VR platform Horizon Worlds from Meta, a beta tester reported she was virtually “groped.” The incident which took place on November 26, was officially reported by Meta on Dec 1. The incident sparked debate on the definition and jurisdiction of ‘crimes’ that could possibly take place in the metaverse. Most recently, the UAE’s artificial intelligence minister, Omar Sultan Al Olama, told the gathering at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday that he believes persons who commit “serious crimes” in the metaverse should face real-world criminal consequences.
From a technical perspective, the metaverse is just the internet’s successor. The metaverse is commonly thought of as an embodied internet. This means you may engage and have tactile sensations in a setting that is almost genuine but not quite. Everything is a virtual replica!
Although it does not yet exist, tech behemoths are already pouring billions of dollars into its development. However, there are a number of safety issues surrounding its development.
Omar Sultan Al Olama stated that the realistic nature of any metaverse that emerges might allow individuals to be terrified in ways that aren’t now feasible. He explained that if he sends you a text on WhatsApp, it may terrify you, but it will not trigger the memories that will cause you to develop PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). However, in the metaverse, if he murders someone, it will be an aggressive and undesirable act that qualifies as a crime, he continued.
It is crucial to note that PTSD is not necessarily trigged in the manner Omar explained. Because PTSD can be triggered by a variety of circumstances, there is no physiological benchmark by which it appears. Clinical diagnosis is accomplished via observation and conversations with medical professionals.
Al Olama encouraged the International Telecommunication Union, the United Nations’ specialized organization for information and communication technologies, to hold a discussion about establishing international metaverse safety rules that individuals must follow regardless of where they reside. On the internet, for example, there are agreed rules to prohibit drug trafficking and child pornography.
Furthermore, Al Olama noted that migration from one metaverse platform to another must be feasible, implying the development of interoperability across different metaverse platforms created by different firms. Chris Cox, the chief product officer at Meta agreed with the minister and remarked that the world should be led by international rules when it comes to the metaverse.
However, developing laws and regulations around crimes in the metaverse won’t be easy. For instance, will these laws be written to protect people or protect virtual avatars and people who write codes that populate the metaverse? What about ‘violence’ that already happens in the virtual worlds of gaming including gaming in the metaverse?
As the metaverse promises to merge both the real and virtual world, there are key ethical questions that arise. What should users do? What exactly is the distinction between right and wrong? Is it possible to commit homicide in the metaverse? What does justice entail?
While it may seem reasonable to prohibit exceptionally unpleasant content, like images of child sexual assault, things become murkier in the virtual world while understanding what constitutes to be labeled as virtual “murder.” This is an argument that surely exceeds the definition of the term in the real world, as metaverse exists ‘virtually’; thus wrestling the minds of lawmakers.
Not only murder, anything that is considered illegal in the real world, will require a new definition in the metaverse. Let us say, someone, shoplifts or steals some inventory (no we are not trying to make a Les Miserable version in metaverse), the first concern is what’s the worth of the item that was stolen? Is the worth something that can be measured in virtual currency or does it have any real-world value? Or is it an NFT? If it is an NFT, the avatar who stole it is a hacker who has now transferred to it an untraceable wallet address?
This emphasizes how difficult it is to describe even virtual stealing when virtual objects are fictitious. You can’t “steal” something that doesn’t exist. This is also one of the reasons why there have not been any convictions regarding the theft of virtual assets. To make things worse, metaverse users may also have a hard time clarifying the difference between virtual and digital objects to law enforcers, due to a lack of guidelines.
In addition, there’s the conundrum of who gets to decide what should be considered illegal in the metaverse. Furthermore, legislators will need to be proactive in ensuring that Metaverse technology is compliant with data protection standards.
At the same time, while user-on-user crimes such as cyber trespassing, deceit, assault, obscenity, and harassment already occur on the internet, there’s no reason they won’t exist in the metaverse as well. So, if things go unchecked owing to law loopholes on the metaverse, expect to be targeted and harassed for your race, gender, political inclination, and just about any opinion or belief you express in the metaverse.
There is, however, a silver lining: earlier this year, the South Korean Communications Commission convened a meeting to examine user protection on the metaverse, particularly the issue of sexual harassment targeting children. The council, which is part of the Korea Communications Commission, is made up of 30 media, legal, technology, and industrial management specialists who will debate metaverse concerns including violence, sexual crime, and inclusion. The measure requires the platforms to disclose any sexual offenses to law enforcement officials immediately.
There have been several instances in the metaverse when youngsters have been harassed or have been sexually exploited. A 14-year-old girl was forced into taking off her avatar’s clothes in a metaverse and then told to make her avatar engage in sexual activities, according to South Korea’s Ministry of Gender Equality and Family in September 2021.
South Korea has been strongly open to the notion of metaverse for months now. Earlier this year, the Korean government made news when it revealed intentions to invest 224 billion Korean won (almost $200 million) in its local “metaverse ecosystem.”
Even UAE is not lagging behind to ensure its stance in the metaverse industry. In order to capitalize on prospects in the metaverse, the Dubai government has announced the formation of a dedicated task force to follow the latest advancements in the digital economy.
Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of The Executive Council of Dubai, and Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister of Finance, issued the directives to establish the task force at a meeting of the Dubai Council on May 19. The strategy intends to boost the metaverse sector’s contribution to Dubai’s economy to $4 billion by 2030 and to enhance its GDP contribution to 1%.
