Chinese technology giant Baidu has overtaken Google and Microsoft in an artificial intelligence competition designed to test how well a machine can understand human language. Baidu, which is often referred to as China's Google, achieved the highest ever score in the General Language Understanding Evaluation (Glue) – widely considered to be the benchmark for AI language understanding. The firm's Ernie (Enhanced Representation through kNowledge IntEgration) model became the first to score above 90 on the test, topping a leaderboard dominated by US tech firms and universities. The feat also makes it one of only 10 AI systems to surpass the average human score of 87.1 on the GLUE benchmark. Ernie used a similar method to Google's Bert (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) model, which transformed natural-language understanding for AI when it was created last year.

Tesla's Neural Net continues to improve and become more advanced on a daily basis, but it appears that the electric car maker is making sure that it will evolve at an even faster rate in the future. A recent patent, for example, would allow Tesla's autonomous driving systems to work more efficiently, thanks to a new data pipeline focused on optimized image processing. Tesla's patent for "Data Pipeline and Deep Learning System for Autonomous Driving" was published on December 26. The idea behind the patent is to revolutionize and improve upon past deep learning systems that have been used for autonomous driving vehicles. In the past, these systems have used "captured sensor data" to retrieve information.

Chatbots have emerged as the preferred interface as more and more searches are shifting from text to voice. While globally, banking bots have moved beyond answering transactional queries to full-service mode, the Indian BFSI sector bound by regulatory norms is still in an evolving stage. They are now moving to full-fledged virtual assistant mode, thanks to artificial intelligence and machine learning. The year 2019 saw many new innovations in this sector. This year's Turing Award went to Yann LeCun, Geoffrey Hinton & Yoshua Bengio who have been referred to as the Godfathers of AI for having developed some remarkable innovations in the field of artificial intelligence.

The concerted drive for autonomous cars goes back decades. You'll probably be surprised to learn that the first self-driving car was showcased in the 1920s. Since then, significant strides have been made thanks to advances in automotive, mechanical, electrical and electronic technology. Nevertheless, for something that saw its first prototypes a century ago, autonomous cars have struggled to really catch on. The coming of the Computer Age has however breathed new life into autonomous cars.

Its popularity shows the Echo is staying ahead of smart speaker competitors like Google Home. On the list of top downloads, Google Home placed seventh on Google Play and ninth in the iPhone App Store. Last year, it looked like Google Home might prove a serious challenge to Amazon, but for now the device is lagging. In the U.S., Amazon Echo holds 70% of the smart speaker market, while Google Home has 25%, according to the Consumer Research Intelligence Partners. Globally, the Echo has 36.6% of the market in the third quarter, putting it significantly ahead of Google Home (12.3%) and a pack of competitors, according to analysis firm Canalys.

Microsoft is devising a new roadmap for Cortana by integrating it with various applications. Earlier in 2019, Satya Nadela, CEO of Microsoft, said that the firm no longer sees Cortana as a competitor to other prominent virtual assistants Alexa and Google Now. The company is rather working towards revamping the way Cortana is being leveraged across the world. In an announcement on Friday, Microsoft notified users of several countries that they are pulling out Cortana support from Android and iOS platforms. Come 31 January 2020, Cortana will disappear from India, UK, Australia, Mexico, Spain, Canada, Germany, and China.

NEW DELHI: From diagnosing diseases to categorising huskies, Artificial Intelligence has countless uses but mistrust in the technology and its solutions will persist until people, the "end users", can fully understand all its processes, says a US-based Indian scientist. Overcoming the "lack of transparency" in the way AI processes information - popularly called the "black box problem" - is crucial for people to develop trust in the technology, said Sambit Bhattacharya who teaches Computer Science at the Fayetteville State University "Trust is a major issue with Artificial Intelligence because people are the end-users, and they can never have full trust in it if they do not know how AI processes information," Bhattacharya told . The computer scientist, whose work includes using machine learning (ML) and AI to process images, was a keynote speaker at the recent 4th International and 19th National Conference on Machines and Mechanisms (iNaCoMM 2019) at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mandi. To buttress his point that users don't always trust solutions provided by AI, Bhattacharya cited the instance of researchers at Mount Sinai Hospital in the US who applied ML to a large database of patient records containing information such as test results and doctor visits. The'Deep Patient' software they used had exceptional accuracy in predicting disease, discovering patterns hidden in the hospital data indicating when patients were on the way to different ailments, including cancer, according to a 2016 study published in the journal Nature.

In a computer science lab in Dublin City University (DCU) students are busy at work. Take a closer look and you will realise they are creating deepfakes. This is not a secret project and they're not afraid of getting caught by their lecturer because it is, in fact, a course assignment. Deepfakes of comedian Bill Hader morphing into Tom Cruise and Al Pacino or'Mark Zuckerberg' boasting about how Facebook owns its users, demonstrate how easy it is to use machine learning techniques to create realistic fake footage of people doing and saying things they never have. The technology is getting better and telling deepfakes from genuine footage is becoming increasingly difficult.

Machine learning is everywhere, but is it actual intelligence? A computer scientist wrestles with the ethical questions demanded by the rise of AI. Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux October 15th 2019. The idea is that unchecked robots will rise up and kill us all. But such martial bodings overlook a perhaps more threatening model: Aladdin.

An expert on artificial intelligence has called for all algorithms that make life-changing decisions – in areas from job applications to immigration into the UK – to be halted immediately. Prof Noel Sharkey, who is also a leading figure in a global campaign against "killer robots", said algorithms were so "infected with biases" that their decision-making processes could not be fair or trusted. A moratorium must be imposed on all "life-changing decision-making algorithms" in Britain, he said. Sharkey has suggested testing AI decision-making machines in the same way as new pharmaceutical drugs are vigorously checked before they are allowed on to the market. In an interview with the Guardian, the Sheffield University robotics/AI pioneer said he was deeply concerned over a series of examples of machine-learning systems being loaded with bias.