I recently was a guest speaker at the Stanford AI Salon on the topic of accessiblity in AI, which included a free-ranging discussion among assembled members of the Stanford AI Lab. There were a number of interesting questions and topics, so I thought I would share a few of my answers here. Q: What 3 things would you most like the general public to know about AI? AI is easier to use than the hype would lead you to believe. In my recent talk at the MIT Technology Review conference, I debunked several common myths that you must have a PhD, a giant data set, or expensive computational power to use AI. Most AI researchers are not working on getting computers to achieve human consciousness.

Science is facing a major generational issue in the coming years, and it's all our fault. For decades it's been the case that there are way more people interested in careers in science than there are permanent positions for them. There are a lot of undergrads, with some of them moving on to grad school. And some of those grad students will go on to take postdoctoral research positions, and some of the best and brightest postdocs will end up as distinguished members of faculty at respectable institutions. It's set up almost like a competition.

Decades after Isaac Asimov first wrote his laws for robots, their ever-expanding role in our lives requires a radical new set of rules, legal and AI expert Frank Pasquale warned on Thursday. The world has changed since sci-fi author Asimov in 1942 wrote his three rules for robots, including that they should never harm humans, and today's omnipresent computers and algorithms demand up-to-date measures. According to Pasquale, author of "The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms Behind Money and Information", four new legally-inspired rules should be applied to robots and AI in our daily lives. "The first is that robots should complement rather than substitute for professionals" Pasquale told AFP on the sidelines of a robotics conference at the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences. "Rather than having a robot doctor, you should hope that you have a doctor who really understands how AI works and gets really good advice from AI, but ultimately it's a doctor's decision to decide what to do and what not to do." "The second is that we need to stop robotic arms races. There's a lot of people right now who are investing in war robots, military robots, policing robots."

Deep learning computer vision startup allegro.ai is set to showcase its latest product offering, hosted at the Intel partner booth (booth #307), during the Embedded Vision Summit which will take place in Santa Clara, California on May 20-May 23, 2019. The company's platform and product suite simplify the process of developing and managing deep learning-powered perception solutions - such as for autonomous vehicles, medical imaging, drones, security, logistics and other use cases. The platform enables engineering and product managers to get the visibility and control they need, while research scientists focus their time on research and creative output. The result is meaningfully higher quality products, faster time-to-market, increased returns to scale, and materially lower costs. The company's investors include Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH, Samsung Catalyst Fund, Hyundai Motor Company, and other venture funds.

NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) is working on an artificial intelligence-based mechanism to ease the process for companies seeking to register their names, an official said. The government recently liberalised norms for registration, allowing entities to choose names that may form part of an existing trademark as long as the businesses operate in different sectors. The new rules were notified in the gazette on May 11. "Earlier, if the name was a part of a trademark, it could be stopped," said the official. "We have made it clear that (this applies) only if the name includes a trademark registered in the same class of goods." The aim is to reduce the level of discretion in deciding on the names that can be accepted, he said.

Recently San Francisco passed – in an 8-to-1 vote -- a ban on local agencies to use facial recognition technologies. The move is likely not to be a one-off either. Other local governments are exploring similar prohibitions, so as to deal with the potential Orwellian risks that the technology may harm people's privacy. "In the mad dash towards AI and analytics, we often turn a blind eye to their long-range societal implications which can lead to startling conclusions," said Kon Leong, who is the CEO of ZL Technologies. Yet some tech companies are getting proactive.

In recent years, the technology field has been abuzz with the advent of ever-improving AI-based technology. Whilst much of that tech is in its formative stages, there are real tangible signs of its application emerging. In Estonia, it seems that the technology is destined to be used in what traditionally would be the least innovative of areas – the country's courts system.

Over the next year, the recipients will work on things like a nerve-sensing wearable wristband. Another project seeks to develop a wearable cap that reads a person's EEG data and communicates it to the cloud to provide seizure warnings and alerts. Other tools will rely on speech recognition, AI-powered chatbots and apps for people with vision impairment. This year's grantees include the University of California, Berkeley; Massachusetts Eye and Ear, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School; Voiceitt in Israel; Birmingham City University in the United Kingdom; University of Sydney in Australia; Pison Technology of Boston; and Our Ability, of Glenmont, New York. "What stands out the most about this round of grantees is how so many of them are taking standard AI capabilities, like a chatbot or data collection, and truly revolutionizing the value of technology," Microsoft's Senior Accessibility Architect Mary Bellard said in a blog post.

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visited Silicon Valley Thursday to ask for ethical guidance on how the military should develop or acquire autonomous systems. The public comment meeting was held as part of a Defense Innovation Board effort to create AI ethics guidelines and recommendations for the DoD. A draft copy of the report is due out this summer. Microsoft director of ethics and society Mira Lane posed a series of questions at the event, which was held at Stanford University. She argued that AI doesn't need to be implemented the way Hollywood has envisioned it and said it is imperative to consider the impact of AI on soldiers' lives, responsible use of the technology, and the consequences of an international AI arms race.

An artificial intelligence (AI) trained on the photos of a dog, crab, and duck (top) would be vulnerable to deception because these photos contain subtle features that could be manipulated. The images on the bottom row don't contain these subtle features, and are thus better for training secure AI. NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA--A hacked message in a streamed song makes Alexa send money to a foreign entity. A self-driving car crashes after a prankster strategically places stickers on a stop sign so the car misinterprets it as a speed limit sign. Fortunately these haven't happened yet, but hacks like this, sometimes called adversarial attacks, could become commonplace--unless artificial intelligence (AI) finds a way to outsmart them. Now, researchers have found a new way to give AI a defensive edge, they reported here last week at the International Conference on Learning Representations.