LinkedIn released its list of the top emerging jobs for 2020. These jobs have grown substantially in the last five years, and LinkedIn predicts they will continue to increase demand in the new year. Demand for artificial intelligence specialists grew 74% over the last five years. The job requires fluency in deep learning and machine learning. Cities hiring the most for artificial intelligence specialists include Boston and San Francisco.

A summary/gallery of some of the awesome student projects students in this class worked on. Without exception, we had amazing project presentations this semester.

While there has been controversy over when and how often women should be screened for breast cancer using mammograms, studies consistently show that screening can lead to earlier detection of the disease, when it's more treatable. So improving how effectively mammograms can detect abnormal growths that could be cancerous is a priority in the field. AI could play a role in accomplishing that--computer-based machine learning might help doctors to read mammograms more accurately. In a study published Jan. 1 in Nature, researchers from Google Health, and from universities in the U.S. and U.K., report on an AI model that reads mammograms with fewer false positives and false negatives than human experts. The algorithm, based on mammograms taken from more than 76,000 women in the U.K. and more than 15,000 in the U.S., reduced false positive rates by nearly 6% in the U.S., where women are screened every one to two years, and by 1.2% in the U.K., where women are screened every three years.

If the hallmark of intelligence is problem solving, then it should be no surprise that artificial intelligence is being called on to solve complex problems that human intelligence alone cannot. Intellectual property laws exist to reward intelligence, creativity and problem solving; yet, as society adapts to a world immersed in artificial intelligence, the nation's intellectual property laws have yet to do the same. The Constitution seems to only contemplate human inventors when it says, in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, "The Congress shall have Power … To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." The Patent Act similarly seems to limit patents to humans when it says, at 35 U.S.C. § 100(f), "The term'inventor' means the individual or, if a joint invention, the individuals collectively who invented or discovered the subject matter of the invention." Recognizing the need to adapt, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) recently issued notices seeking public comments on intellectual property protection related to artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence is a powerful tool, but it's not a magic wand. Applying the technology requires thought and dedication, especially with legacy industries like law and insurance, which are being taken on in this way by Luminance and Omnius respectively. The companies' founders, Emily Foges and Sofie Quidenus-Wahlforss, spoke with great insight on this on stage at Disrupt Berlin. Luminance uses AI and natural language processing to help law firms process documents more quickly, not replacing the lawyer but providing additional intelligence and analysis of what may be hundreds or thousands of pages and saving time and money. Omnius applies AI not just to the text of insurance claims, but to the process of handling them, ensuring rapidity not only in documentation but in results like payouts.

The method uses psychological valence norms--values of happiness that can be derived from text--for thousands of words in different languages to compute the relative proportion of positive and negative language for four different nations (the USA, UK, Germany, and Italy). The research team also controlled for the evolution of language, to take into account the fact that some words change their meaning over time.

The method uses psychological valence norms--values of happiness that can be derived from text--for thousands of words in different languages to compute the relative proportion of positive and negative language for four different nations (the USA, UK, Germany, and Italy). The research team also controlled for the evolution of language, to take into account the fact that some words change their meaning over time.

As you've seen, artificial intelligence holds great promise for change in the health care field. In many ways it already is creating that change. Here are some examples of AI's impact today. An Israeli company called Zebra Medical Vision uses AI to identify women who have tell-tale signs of the bone disease osteoporosis but don't know it. Zebra's computer algorithm crawls through X-rays in electronic medical records looking for small fractures in the spine's vertebrae that may have gone unnoticed but are characteristic of the disease.

"I was so embarrassed," said the home owner who called the police on his Roomba. "They asked how long we had it, I said two days and they all started laughing." A couple watching a movie in their bedroom in North Carolina heard a sound downstairs and thought someone had broken into their home. Husband and father Thomas Milam called the police. The operator asked if he was armed and Milam said he was.