Scientists have developed a new artificial intelligence system that can track a person's eye movements to identify their personality type. Researchers, including those from the University of Stuttgart in Germany and Flinders University in Australia used state-of-the-art machine-learning algorithms to demonstrate a link between personality and eye movements. Their findings show that people's eye movements reveal whether they are sociable, conscientious or curious, with the algorithm software reliably recognising four of the Big Five personality traits: neuroticism, extroversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Researchers tracked the eye movements of 42 participants as they undertook everyday tasks around a university campus, and subsequently assessed their personality traits using well-established questionnaires. The study provides new links between previously under-investigated eye movements and personality traits and delivers important insights for emerging fields of social signal processing and social robotics.

The Queensland Artificial Intelligence Centre will be a centre to promote AI skill development and innovation in Queensland. Our aim is not only to assist newcomers and partners to easily learn and engage with the field of AI but to enable our unique AI community in Queensland to develop world class expertise in AI.

HEX-programs are an extension of answer set programs (ASP) with external sources. To this end, external atoms provide a bidirectional interface between the program and an external source. The traditional evaluation algorithm for HEX-programs is based on guessing truth values of external atoms and verifying them by explicit calls of the external source. The approach was optimized by techniques that reduce the number of necessary verification calls or speed them up, but the remaining external calls are still expensive. In this paper we present an alternative evaluation approach based on inlining of external atoms, motivated by existing but less general approaches for specialized formalisms such as DL-programs. External atoms are then compiled away such that no verification calls are necessary. The approach is implemented in the dlvhex reasoner. Experiments show a significant performance gain. Besides performance improvements, we further exploit inlining for extending previous (semantic) characterizations of program equivalence from ASP to HEX-programs, including those of strong equivalence, uniform equivalence and H, B -equivalence. Finally, based on these equivalence criteria, we characterize also inconsistency of programs wrt. extensions. Since well-known ASP extensions (such as constraint ASP) are special cases of HEX, the results are interesting beyond the particular formalism. Under consideration in Theory and Practice of Logic Programming (TPLP).

A New Zealand artificial intelligence company has become a world leader, and is about to list on the NZX. Arria NLG works in natural language generation and has been identified as one of two companies with artificial intelligence products ready for commercialisation. NLG chief executive Sharon Daniels told Mike Hosking the technology will increase the productivity of businesses. "Instead of having a fear around the technology taking over, it's mainly there to increase people's capabilities."

The deal is with Paltac Corporation, the biggest supplier to drugstore-style shops in Japan. It begins modestly, with a single pilot store in the city of Sendai, about four hours north of Tokyo, set to open in early 2019. Then it ramps up fast: The plan is to outfit over 3,000 stores in time for the Tokyo Olympics in July 2020. "The government is pushing its stores and its companies to put their best digital foot forward for the Olympics," says Michael Suswal, Standard Cognition's COO and one of the Bay Area startup's seven cofounders. Partnering with Paltac, which supplies most of Japan's small retail industry, allows Standard Cognition to reach a diverse market.

Google's high quality Home Max speaker is coming to Australia. The company's most expensive audio product, which boasts sound 20 times more powerful than the standard Google Home, will be available in the country from August 9. The Australian release supports Assistant's latest features, such as Multiple Commands, as well as Home Max's biggest draw, Smart Sound, which automatically adapts to the environment of a room. Home Max launched in the US in December 2017, and Canada earlier this year -- international availability of Google's products is notoriously slow, although the regular Google Home and Home Mini are already available in the Australian Google Store. The Home Max will also be available from JB Hi-Fi, Harvey norman, David Jones, The Good Guys and Officeworks, and will cost $550.

Why are so many AI researchers so worried about lethal autonomous weapons? What makes autonomous weapons so much worse than any other weapons we have today? And why is it so hard for countries to come to a consensus about autonomous weapons? Not surprisingly, the short answer is: it's complicated. In this month's podcast, Ariel spoke with experts from a variety of perspectives on the current status of LAWS, where we are headed, and the feasibility of banning these weapons. Guests include ex-Pentagon advisor Paul Scharre (3:40), artificial intelligence professor Toby Walsh (40:51), Article 36 founder Richard Moyes (53:30), Campaign to Stop Killer Robots founders Mary Wareham and Bonnie Docherty (1:03:38), and ethicist and co-founder of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control, Peter Asaro (1:32:39). You can listen to the podcast above, and read the full transcript below. You can check out previous podcasts on SoundCloud, iTunes, GooglePlay, and Stitcher. If you work with ...

Kiwi companies should be upfront with customers about what their data-harvesting artificial intelligence programmes do, a new report finds. The review, just published by Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CAANZ), said these guidelines should be shared with consumers so they could better decide which businesses they chose to deal with. The report also suggested data-trawling AI algorithms should be designed so they could be reviewed by a third party. From smart phones to smart cars, AI has invaded every aspect of our lives, but the hottest field of AI right now was machine learning – the notion of using statistical techniques to help systems learn from data. There was now heightening concern around how own personal information was being collected and used, and not just by global giants like Google and Facebook, but also Government ministries and agencies.

The Director-General of the Australian Signals Directorate, Mike Burgess, has unloaded on technology hype mongers, warning IT security practitioners and businesses they need to think in one and five year cycles rather than "just the next product or service you will buy". In a frank and direct speech delivered to the SINET61 conference in Melbourne, Australia's chief cyber spook bluntly cautioned those charged with upholding cybersecurity should not be dazzled by shiny new concepts. Instead they should maintain a relentless focus on hygiene and knowing "what is important to your business and your customers." "Don't get caught up in the hype and excitement in this technology-enabled world. AI is a great example of this – peak hype comes to mind," Burgess said.

AI and automation can be useful for data analysis and efficiency but not every part of the world is as ready as others for it. Where should you be looking to do your AI business? The Economist and ABB Group recently put together an Automation Readiness Index. Estonia barely misses the top 5 followed by France, the UK, the US and Australia. And the ABB Group notes that even the top countries aren't fully prepared.