Google DeepMind’s weather AI can forecast extreme weather faster and more accurately
This year the Earth has been hit by a record number of unpredictable extreme weather events made worse by climate change. Predicting them faster and with greater accuracy could enable us to prepare better for natural disasters and help save lives. A new AI model from Google DeepMind could make that easier. In research published…
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AI is at an inflection point, Fei-Fei Li says
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. “This moment in AI is an inflection moment,” Fei-Fei Li told me recently. Li is co-director of Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Institute and one of the most prominent computer science researchers of…
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How Facebook went all in on AI
The following is excerpted from BROKEN CODE: Inside Facebook and the Fight to Expose Its Harmful Secrets by Jeff Horwitz. Reprinted by permission of Doubleday, an imprint of The Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2023 by Jeff Horwitz. In 2006, the U.S. patent office received a filing…
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Noise-canceling headphones could let you pick and choose the sounds you want to hear
Future noise-canceling headphones could let users opt back in to certain sounds they’d like to hear, such as babies crying, birds tweeting, or alarms ringing. The technology that makes it possible, called semantic hearing, could pave the way for smarter hearing aids and earphones, allowing the wearer to filter out some sounds while boosting others. …
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Bridging the expectation-reality gap in machine learning
Machine learning (ML) is now mission critical in every industry. Business leaders are urging their technical teams to accelerate ML adoption across the enterprise to fuel innovation and long-term growth. But there is a disconnect between business leaders’ expectations for wide-scale ML deployment and the reality of what engineers and data scientists can actually build…
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AI gains momentum in core manufacturing services functions
When considering the potential for AI systems to change manufacturing, Ritu Jyoti, global AI research lead at market-intelligence firm IDC, points to windmill manufacturers. To improve windmills before AI, she says, the company analyzed data from observing a functioning prototype, a process that took weeks. Now, the manufacturer has dramatically shortened the process using a…
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People shouldn’t pay such a high price for calling out AI harms
This week everyone is talking about AI. The White House just unveiled a new executive order that aims to promote safe, secure, and trustworthy AI systems. It’s the most far-reaching bit of AI regulation the US has produced yet, and my colleague Tate Ryan-Mosley and I have highlighted three things you need to know about…
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Unlocking supply chain resiliency
Tracking a Big Mac hamburger’s journey from ranch to fast-food restaurant isn’t easy. Today’s highly segmented beef supply chain consists of a wide array of ranches, feedlots, packers, processors, distribution centers, and restaurants, each with its own set of carefully collected data. Yet in today’s complex digital world, organizations need more visibility than ever to…
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We need to focus on the AI harms that already exist
This is an excerpt from Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines by Joy Buolamwini, published on October 31 by Random House. It has been lightly edited. The term “x-risk” is used as a shorthand for the hypothetical existential risk posed by AI. While my research supports the…
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Joy Buolamwini: “We’re giving AI companies a free pass”
Joy Buolamwini, the renowned AI researcher and activist, appears on the Zoom screen from home in Boston, wearing her signature thick-rimmed glasses. As an MIT grad, she seems genuinely interested in seeing old covers of MIT Technology Review that hang in our London office. An edition of the magazine from 1961 asks: “Will your son…
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