A senior scientist involved with the program told the South China Morning Post that China is working on updating old computer systems on nuclear submarines with an AI decision support system. The new system will relieve some of the load and mental burden from commanding officers. China believes its AI assistant could help commanders by assessing battlefield environments and recognizing threats more accurately than a human operator. China is working to update the rugged old computer systems on nuclear submarines with artificial intelligence to enhance the potential thinking skills of commanding officers, a senior scientist involved with the programme told the South China Morning Post. A submarine with AI-augmented brainpower not only would give China's large navy an upper hand in battle under the world's oceans but would push applications of AI technology to a new level, according to the researcher, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the project's sensitivity.

The Google of China, Baidu, has just released a white paper showing its latest development in artificial intelligence (AI): a program that can clone voices after analyzing even a seconds-long clip, using a neural network. Not only can the software mimic an input voice, but it can also change it to reflect another gender or even a different accent. You can listen to some of the generated examples here, hosted on GitHub. Previous iterations of this technology have allowed voice cloning after systems analyzed longer voice samples. In 2017, the Baidu Deep Voice research team introduced technology that could clone voices with 30 minutes of training material.

"Whatever your job is the chances are that one of these machines can do it faster or better than you can." No, this is not a 2018 headline about self-driving cars or one of IBM's new supercomputers. Instead, it was published by the Daily Mirror in 1955, when a computer took as much space as a large kitchen and had less power than a pocket calculator. They were called "electronic brains" back then, and evoked both hope and fear. And more than 20 years later, little had changed: In a 1978 BBC documentary about silicon chips, one commentator argued that "They are the reason why Japan is abandoning its shipbuilding and why our children will grow up without jobs to go to". If one types "artificial intelligence" (AI) on Google Books' Ngram Viewer – a tool that allows us to check how often a term was printed in a book between 1800 and 2008 – we can clearly see that our modern-day hype, optimism and deep concern about AI are by no means a novelty.

KUALA LUMPUR – Japan has granted a Malaysian school $68,985 in financial aid for teacher training to ease a shortage of Japanese-language instructors in the nation. The funding via the Embassy of Japan in Malaysia will be used to upgrade laboratories and training rooms as well as to purchase new computers and books at the International Languages Teacher Training Institute in Kuala Lumpur, according to Hiroyuki Orikasa, deputy chief of mission at the embassy. "Many high schools and universities in Malaysia provide Japanese-language classes, but they are facing a shortage of instructors," he said last week at a handover ceremony for the grant. In the predominantly Muslim country where Malay, Chinese and English are spoken, the number of Japanese-language learners totaled 33,234 in 2015, up from 22,858 in 2009, according to an embassy survey. "We see no sign of slowing down," Orikasa said.

There's a dirty little secret about artificial intelligence: It's powered by hundreds of thousands of real people. From makeup artists in Venezuela to women in conservative parts of India, people around the world are doing the digital equivalent of needlework -- drawing boxes around cars in street photos, tagging images, and transcribing snatches of speech that computers can't quite make out. Such data feeds directly into "machine learning" algorithms that help self-driving cars wind through traffic and let Alexa figure out that you want the lights on. These repetitive tasks pay pennies apiece. But in bulk, this work can offer a decent wage in many parts of the world -- even in the US.

Google's "Learn with Google AI" is a new course introduced by the company, which will bring machine learning skills and concepts to all users who sign up. The course is free and available to all who are interested. Google says the set of educational resources in this course have been developed by machine learning experts at the company. Google says the idea with this machine learning course is to encourage people to learn about machine learning concepts, develop skills in the area, and apply artificial intelligence to real-world problems. The new Machine Learning Crash Course will give a quick introduction to practical ML concepts using high-level TensorFlow (TF) APIs.

Machine learning technology will lead to one of the marketing industry's next biggest transformations – but brands and agencies should not over-value its potential, a new report has cautioned. According to a global study by iProspect, predictive algorithms have become a high priority for marketers, with less than two per cent surveyed claiming it will have minimal or no impact on their business this year. However, while more than half of marketers agreed the technology would help them decipher bigger data sets and deliver personalised content at scale, iProspect's report cautioned them against using machine learning as a "silver bullet" for other industry problems. For example, if the data submitted is bad or of poor quality, it is effectively useless, the study claimed. "Two aspects are fundamental for an effective learning process, whether the student is a human or a machine: valid initial input and time," it said. "Algorithms require valid input and are not yet capable of evaluating the intrinsic quality of an informational entry.

Tel Aviv-based Nucleai Ltd. announced on Monday it completed a $5 million Seed Round led by Vertex Ventures Israel and Grove Ventures Capital (GP) Ltd. Nucleai develops software that uses computer vision and machine learning algorithms to detect signs of cancer and gastrointestinal diseases. For daily updates, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here. Today, most disease diagnoses are performed by pathologists by examining tissues and cells taken from the body during a biopsy to detect abnormalities. Nucleai's technology is designed to improve the efficiency of pathologists, reduce errors, and shorten patients' wait time for a diagnosis, the company said in a statement.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are currently some of the trending topics in the tech industry. Google wants to make AI and ML more accessible to more people by providing lessons, tutorials and hands-on exercises at all experience levels. Therefore, Google India on Thursday (March 1) introduced a new website called "Learn with Google AI" that encourages everyone to understand how AI works, learn about core ML concepts, develop skills and apply AI to solve real-world challenging problems. These educational resources are developed by ML experts at the company and caters to everyone, from beginners to researchers looking for advanced tutorials. "We believe it's important that the development of AI reflects as diverse a range of human perspectives and needs as possible. So, Google AI is making it easier for everyone to learn ML by providing a huge range of free, in-depth educational content," Zuri Kemp, Programme Manager for Google's machine learning education, said in a statement.

MIT and SenseTime today announced that SenseTime, a leading artificial intelligence (AI) company, is joining MIT's efforts to define the next frontier of human and machine intelligence. SenseTime was founded by MIT alumnus Xiao'ou Tang PhD '96 and specializes in computer vision and deep learning technologies. The MIT-SenseTime Alliance on Artificial Intelligence aims to open up new avenues of discovery across MIT in areas such as computer vision, human-intelligence-inspired algorithms, medical imaging, and robotics; drive technological breakthroughs in AI that have the potential to confront some of the world's greatest challenges; and empower MIT faculty and students to pursue interdisciplinary projects at the vanguard of intelligence research. SenseTime is the first company to join a new Institute-wide initiative, the MIT Intelligence Quest, since its launch earlier this month. The MIT Intelligence Quest seeks to leverage the Institute's strengths in brain and cognitive science and computer science to advance research into human and machine intelligence in service to all humanity.