NSF Collaborates With Amazon For Its Program Of Fairness In Artificial Intelligence

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July 23, 2021

NSF Collaborated With Amazon For Its Program Of Fairness In Artificial IntelligenceNSF Collaborated With Amazon For Its Program Of Fairness In Artificial Intelligence

The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently collaborated with tech giant Amazon for its new ‘program of fairness in artificial intelligence.’ NSF announced that it would provide a fund of $20 million to researchers working towards developing solutions for the ethical use of artificial intelligence.

Thirty-five independent researchers have already benefited from this joint initiative of Amazon and NSF. The National Science Foundation has now opened the submission of fresh applications for 2021.

Amazon will provide a part of these funds but will not actively participate in the screening and selection process. This program would help freelance researchers display their work on a global platform and will help the United States government to adopt those solutions to unleash the full potential of artificial intelligence.

Researchers were given the funds who addressed research areas like the use of artificial intelligence to promote equality in society, developing solutions to ensure everyone benefits from it, accountability and transparency in artificial intelligence algorithms, and ensuring fairness in AI technology.

Vice President of Alexa natural understanding at Amazon, Prem Natarajan, said, “As artificial intelligence technologies become more prevalent in our daily lives, AI fairness is an increasingly important area of scientific endeavor. And we are delighted to partner with NSF to accelerate progress in this area by supporting the work of the top research teams in the world.”

He further added that they are very excited to see this year’s selected researchers whose efforts are informed by a diversity of perspectives. More details of the NSF-Amazon program can be found on the official website of the National Science Foundation.

Information and intelligent systems division’s director at NFS, Henry Kautz, said, “Understanding how artificial intelligence systems can be designed on principles of fairness, transparency and trustworthiness will advance the boundaries of AI applications.”

Deloitte Launched New Artificial Intelligence Research Center In Australia

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Dipayan Mitra

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July 23, 2021

Deloitte Launched New Artificial Intelligence Research Center In Australia

Deloitte had recently announced that it had a new artificial intelligence and machine learning research center in Melbourne, Australia. With this new center, the company plans to develop artificial intelligence solutions for the public and private sector industries.

Consulting partner at Deloitte, Dr. Kellie Nuttall, will lead the research institute team as the national Analytics and artificial intelligence leader. She said, “The CSIRO estimates that digital technologies, including artificial intelligence, are potentially worth $315 billion to the Australian economy by 2028.”

She also mentioned that the company’s institute would help Australian enterprises and the government adopt artificial intelligence systems by bringing many innovations to the country’s artificial intelligence ecosystem.

The researchers intend to collaborate with data scientists, futurists, corporate leaders, and budding STEM talents to conduct research to address vital challenges faced by businesses and propose amicable solutions. Deloitte Australia was recently awarded the SAP Partner of the year title for its efforts to digitize government operations and the healthcare industry.

CEO of Deloitte Australia, Adam Powick, said, “Artificial intelligence has always held much promise for improving business and society, and this promise is now being realized, with the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence and machine learning technology over the past few years.”

He further added that their vision is to help their customers connect with the global artificial intelligence ecosystem in order to deliver the best outcomes, along with upgrading their technology to implement artificial intelligence systems for the public good.

Deloitte wants to make artificial intelligence accessible so that everyone gets an opportunity to benefit from its new technologies. Australia’s Minister of industry, science and technology, Christian Porter, said, “This plan will ensure artificial intelligence is used and developed to practically improve our lives, guided by appropriate security and ethical considerations.”

The company had earlier opened numerous artificial intelligence research centers in countries such as Canada, Germany, China, and the United Kingdom.

NPTEL Launched Free Courses On Electric Vehicles, IoT, & More

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Dipayan Mitra

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July 22, 2021

NPTEL Launched New Courses On Various Subjects

The National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) recently announced that it had launched many new courses on electric vehicles, the internet of things, renewable energy, design of IoT, and business & sustainable development.

This initiative has more than 500 courses available to everyone for free. Indian Institute of Technology and Indian Institute of Science and collaborated to design these free courses. People can view the courses on the Swayam platform.

Veteran faculty members from IITs and IISc will be teaching in the courses. Interested candidates can apply through the official website Swayam. No application will be collected after 2nd August 2021.

This initiative will enable learners from all over the country to develop new skills that the market is currently looking for. An NPTEL learner from Karnataka, Ms. Singam Nirmala Devi, said, “The knowledge I gained through the NPTEL course, ‘The joy of computing using python,’ was very much helpful in getting a job as a software engineer in an MNC. Through the NPTEL courses, I was able to understand concepts of python easily and was able to answer questions asked in the interview.”

The coordinator of NPTEL at IIT Madras, Prof. Vignesh Muthuvijayan, said that they are working with more than 4000 educational institutions of various fields like engineering, commerce, arts, and many more at present.

He also mentioned, “Some of the popular courses on NPTEL platform include Data Science for Engineers, courses on programming in Python, C, C++, Introduction to Machine Learning, Soft skills, Project Planning and Control, among others.”

The applicants will have to watch online learning videos and appear for online exams on a weekly basis to complete the course. A certificate will be provided to the learners on completion of the course. Students will also have an option to choose to appear for a proctored final examination, which would cost a small amount of money.

Microsoft Launched An Autonomous Beach Cleaning Robot BeachBot

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Dipayan Mitra

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July 22, 2021

Microsoft Launched An Autonomous Beach Cleaning Robot BeachBot

Microsoft, in a recent blog, announced that it had launched a new artificial intelligence-powered autonomous beach cleaning robot BeachBot.

The smart robot has been developed by a Dutch startup named TechTics and uses Microsoft’s artificial intelligence platform to carry out its operations. The robot is currently deployed at Scheveningen beach in Denmark, where it operates over a stretch of 4.5 kilometers.

The robot collects different kinds of wastes like cigarette buds that have harmful effects on the beach animals. Two highly skilled engineers of TechTics, Martijn Lukaart and Edwin Bos, built the robot.

Bos said, “We believe that our robotic solution, in the end, may not be the final solution for this problem because the bigger problem with littering is still human behavior.” TechTics has asked people to send them photos of cigarette buds, which they would convert into data to train the artificial intelligence algorithm of the robot.

BeachBot has been fed with more than 2,000 images of cigarette buds to train it to collect them. The robot is equipped with two dash cameras to identify waste and a robotic arm capable of picking up the waste. It uses Microsoft’s Trove artificial intelligence system to recognize waste and dispose of it. The company has also released a video of the robot while performing its tasks.

Lead principal program manager of Trove at Microsoft, Chris Lineberger, said, “The system learns how to see pictures like a child recognizing an object for the first time.”

The company is now developing two new robots to aid BeachBot in cleaning the beach. The upcoming robots would scout the area and detect cigarette buds and then would ask the BeachBot to arrive at the location and collect the debris.

Ford And Agro AI Announce The Launch Of Self-Driving Cars By The End Of 2021

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Dipayan Mitra

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July 22, 2021

Ford And Agro AI will Launch Self-Driving Cars By The End Of This Year

Car manufacturing giant Ford recently announced that it would launch self-driving cars by the end of this year in association with Agro AI. The company initially plans to launch its self-driving cars with safety drivers in Miami and would steadily expand to other regions of the United States like Texas in 2022.

More than a thousand autonomous cars will be released by Ford over a period of five years. Ford has collaborated with Agro AI and Lyft to develop its self-driving vehicles. The cars will be powered by Lyft’s vehicle handling network solution.

Co-founder and CEO of Lyft, Logan Green, said, “This collaboration marks the first time all the pieces of the autonomous vehicle puzzle have come together in this way.”

He also added that each of the three collaborating companies would bring the scale, knowledge, and capabilities in their area of expertise that is important to build a full-fledged autonomous car. Earlier Lyft had announced its plans of selling its autonomous driving division to Toyota for $550 million.

Lyft users will be able to enjoy Ford’s autonomous driving taxi service in Miami by the end of 2021. Founder and CEO of Agro AI, Bryan Salesky, said, “This collaboration is special as we are executing on a shared vision for improving the safety, access to, and affordability of transportation in our cities.”

He further said that the companies would be able to work together to define where an autonomous service would benefit communities the most and ensure the safe deployment of their technology.

Ford has already started to establish its presence in Miami, Washington DC, and Austin in order to run its self-driving vehicle operations smoothly. The vehicles will have fixed pick and drop points for the customers, according to company officials.

CEO of Ford said, “Agro and Ford are currently piloting, mapping, and preparing for commercialization of the vehicle. This new agreement (with Lyft) is a crucial step towards this.”

Artificial Intelligence Predicts Mortality Rate Using Socioeconomic And Clinical Data

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Dipayan Mitra

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July 22, 2021

Artificial Intelligence Predicts Mortality Rate Using Socioeconomic And Clinical Data

Scientists have developed a new artificial intelligence platform capable of predicting the mortality rate of cancer patients using socioeconomic and clinical data. According to a government report, more than 600,000 people die every year due to cancer.

This new artificial intelligence-powered technology will help doctors to identify cancer patients at an early stage and will also predict an individual’s chances of dying because of cancer.

The platform is also capable of recognizing patients approaching the end of life (EOL) and recommend them for hospital supervision. The artificial intelligence algorithm was tested using electronic medical records of cancer patients in the United States.

Researchers said, “In contrast, aggressive, life-sustaining EoL care can conflict with patient preference and result in lower quality of life, family perceptions of poorer quality of care, and greater regret about treatment decisions. The earlier referral also represents an opportunity to transform cancer care by reducing the potential for unnecessary, toxic, and expensive treatments at EoL”

The new platform has a much higher accuracy rate of predicting 30-day mortality rate in cancer patients than standard methodologies used by doctors. The researchers conducted this on more than 3000 cancer patients whose data were collected using EMR, billing data, and socioeconomic determinants of care, which includes demographic details and cancer information. Scientists also considered the lifestyle choices of cancer patients while conducting the research.

“Artificial intelligence applications will utilize clinical, sociodemographic, environmental, pathologic, radiological, genetic, genomic and pharmacoepidemiological data for recommending, the treatment with the greatest efficacy and least risk of toxicity, for a patient with cancer as well as offer direction for the best available clinical trial, stratify risk of recurrence and implement prognostic models for a given patient as well as identify the risk of disease within family members.” the researchers said.

Microsoft Acquired A Security Startup CloudKnox

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Dipayan Mitra

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July 22, 2021

Microsoft Acquired A Security Startup CloudKnox

Microsoft, in a recent blog, announced that it had acquired a security startup named CloudKnox. No information has been provided regarding the valuation of the acquisition deal.

The tech giant plans to provide companies top-notch multi-cloud security services along with improving its operating system’s security with this acquisition.

Microsoft will now offer automated remediation of hybrid permissions and granular visibility to its Azure Active Directory customers. Vice President of Microsoft Identity, Joy Chik, said, “As the corporate network perimeter disappears, it’s crucial to establish a strong cloud identity foundation, so you can enforce least privileged access to protect business-critical systems while improving business agility.”

He further mentioned that the company is determined to provide easier access to the least privileged services for all users across the globe. CloudKnox is a California-based startup founded by Balaji Parimi and Rao Cherukuri in the year 2016.

The company specializes in developing multi-could permissions management platforms using activity-based authorization technology. The company has received a total funding of $22.8 million from investors like Wipro Ventures, Dell Technologies Capital, Clearsky, and Telstra Ventures.

The acquisition raised Microsoft’s shares by 0.28% in midday trading. CEO and co-founder of CloudKnox, Balaji Parimi, said, “We saw opportunities to provide even greater value and seamless experience across hybrid and multi-clouds with deeper integrations within the Microsoft ecosystem.”

He also added that this acquisition would allow the company to build better solutions to enable the customers to protect their cloud data and improve their security posture.

Microsoft had earlier acquired similar security firms like RiskQ and ReFirm Labs to enhance its Azure security services. The company currently processes more than eight trillion security signals in a single day with the help of 3500 security-defending employees.

Research Of IIT Kanpur Shows Artificial Intelligence Can Be Used To Predict Outcome Of Court Cases

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Dipayan Mitra

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July 22, 2021

Research Of IIT Kanpur Shows Artificial Intelligence Can Be Used To Predict Outcome Of Court Cases

A recent research conducted by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur shows the possibility of the usage of artificial intelligence to predict the outcome of court cases.

The autonomous artificial intelligence system would be able to assist judges in coming to a conclusion of a case quickly. The research team was led by Ayush Modi and Arnab Bhattacharya of the institute’s computer science department.

The team has developed an artificial intelligence platform that not only predicts the outcome of cases but also the reason behind judges coming to that conclusion. The artificial intelligence-powered platform was fed more than 35,000 legal documents to train it to generate accurate results.

The research team spokesperson said, “The corpus is created from publicly available data on the proceedings of the Supreme Court. The artificial intelligence-enabled system only intends to assist legal professionals in their research and decision-making and not replace them.”

Researchers claim that this new technology will aid the country’s judiciary to carry out its operations smoothly. Arnab Bhattacharya said that this is India’s first legal corpus for supreme court cases developed for the prediction of court cases.

He added, “The goal of this model is to assist the legal community and not replace judges. He also mentioned that the artificial intelligence model could aid the judicial process and enable judges to make faster decisions that would enable the courts to reduce the burden on the judges.

The county currently has more than 5.75 million pending cases and has only 1.4 judges per 100,000 citizens.

NVIDIA Launched TensorRT8 For Faster Artificial Intelligence Inference

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Dipayan Mitra

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July 21, 2021

NVIDIA Launched TensorRT8 For Faster Artificial Intelligence Inference

NVIDIA has recently announced that it has launched its new TensorRT8 that will enable faster artificial intelligence inference.

The new platform will allow enterprises to build artificial intelligence-powered interactive language applications like search engines and chatbots on cloud. The eighth generation of NIVIDIA’s artificial intelligence software TensorRT8 will be available to all the NVIDIA developers at no extra cost. The new updated software has the capability to reduce latency to 1.2 ms and will also deliver two times more accuracy for INT8 precision with Quantization Aware Training.

NVIDIA’s vice president of developer programs, Greg Estes, said, “Artificial intelligence models are growing exponentially more complex, and worldwide demand is surging for real-time applications that use AI. That makes it imperative for enterprises to deploy state-of-the-art inferencing solutions.”

He further added that the latest version of the software would enable enterprises to develop highly responsive conversational artificial intelligence programs for their customers. NVIDIA’s software is being used by enterprises of various industries like manufacturing, automobile, healthcare, finance, and communication.

NVIDIA has optimized its transformers to enable TensorRT 8.0 to attain best-in-class speed. The company has also introduced a new Graphic Processing Unit architecture called Sparsity that reduces computational operation to increase the speed of neural networks.

Jeff Boudier, product director of Hugging Face, said, “We’re closely collaborating with NVIDIA to deliver the best possible performance for state-of-the-art models on NVIDIA GPUs.” he also mentioned that the company’s accelerated API delivers hundred times speedup for transformer models that use NVIDIA GPUs.
WeChat, one of China’s largest messaging platforms, used NVIDIA’s Tensor platform to develop its search engine that has a user base of more than 500 million users. WeChat officials said that they were able to achieve a reduction of 70% in computational resources using NVIDIA’s artificial intelligence-powered platform.

WeRide Acquired Self-Driving Autonomous Trucking Company MoonX.AI

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Dipayan Mitra

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July 21, 2021

Chinese startup WeRide recently announced that it had acquired an autonomous trucking company named MoonX.AI. With this acquisition, the self-driving vehicle manufacturing company WeRide plans to speed up its research and development process in order to commercialize its product quickly.

The company also wants to expand its presence to different regions of China. There is intense competition in the Chinese autonomous vehicle market as many companies like Pony.ai and AutoX have started testing prototypes on the streets of China.

No official information has been provided regarding the valuation of the acquisition deal. A statement mentioned that the founder and CEO of MoonX.AI, Qingxiong Yang, will be joining WeRide as the Vice President. The Guangzhou-based startup MoonX.AI will bring fifty highly skilled engineers to the WeRides team in order to work on autonomous driving technology.

WeRide is a Guangzhou-based self-driving vehicle developing company founded by Qing Lu, Tony Han, and Yan Li in 2017. It has received total funding of $620 million from investors like Renault, Mitsubishi, Nissan, and Yutong Group.

Two years earlier, the company launched its fully autonomous robot taxi service in China. The taxi service operates within a range of 144 square kilometers in Guangzhou city. Till date, the taxis have served more than 60000 customers and have completed 147,128 trips.

CEO of WeRide, Tony Han, said, “MoonX has a team of talented engineers with substantial experience in autonomous driving technology development and commercialization. The acquisition of MoonX enables us to build an even stronger team and attract the best talents in the industry.”

He further added that MoonX.AI’s expertise would help them develop new autonomous driving products. After the acquisition, the market value of WeRide has increased to $3.3 billion.