Government
Biden names John Kerry climate czar, in a recommitment to global cooperation
President-elect Joe Biden named John Kerry to the newly created role of climate czar, a move that underscores the incoming administration's commitment to an international-focused approach to the issue and recognition of its strategic importance. Kerry, the former secretary of state, is a diplomatic heavyweight who helped piece together the landmark Paris climate agreement during the Obama administration and pushed hard for domestic climate policies as a US senator. "I've asked him to return to government to get America back on track to address one of the most urgent national security threats we face--the climate crisis," Biden said in a statement released on Monday. "This role is the first of its kind: the first cabinet-level climate position, and the first time climate change has had a seat at the table on the National Security Council." Kerry's appointment as "special presidential envoy for climate" is among the first of six cabinet-level nominations that the Biden team announced on Monday, as it works to form a government in spite of President Donald Trump's refusal to accept the results of the election.
Humanizing AI: How to Close the Trust Gap in Healthcare - InformationWeek
Physician turnover in the United States, due to burnout and related factors, was conservatively estimated to cost the US healthcare system some $4.6 billion annually, according to a 2019 Annals of Internal Medicine study. The results reflect a familiar dynamic, where too many doctors are crushed in paperwork, which takes time away from being with patients. Just five months after this study was publicized, Harvard Business Review published "How AI in the Exam Room Could Reduce Physician Burnout," examining multiple artificial intelligence initiatives that may streamline providers' administrative tasks, thus reducing burnout. Still, barriers to trust in AI solutions remain, highlighted by 2020 KPMG International survey findings that note only 35% of leaders have a high degree of trust in data analytics powered by AI within their own organizations. This lack of confidence even in their own AI-driven solutions underscores the significant trust gap that exists between decision-makers and technology in the current digital era.
Global Big Data Conference
As the 21st century rages on, success and failure of nations depends not only on their citizenry and governmental leadership, but heavily on the technological visions that countries embrace. If a nation takes the approach of sitting back or standing still as automation and Artificial Intelligence advance at ever increasing rates, that nation is destined to be left behind. However, if a country embraces AI and dedicates significant resources and top minds to ethical implementation, that country is destined to be a leader for decades to come. Recently Steve Mills, Chief AI Ethics Officer & Leader for Artificial Intelligence in the Public Sector, and Partner at Boston Consulting Group said quite eloquently "AI has become table stages for global national economic and technological competitiveness. This goes beyond nations capturing a piece of the large and rapidly growing AI market. AI is poised to transform nearly every industry. There is an imperative for nations to position themselves to integrate AI into these sectors. Particularly those sectors that are economically important to them. Failing to do so could erode their competitive position, creating opportunities for other, more technologically advanced nations to fill the void. This is not just a matter of missed upside potential from the new AI market. It's also about downside risk for every other sector that is economically important to a nation."
Lincoln Laboratory establishes Biotechnology and Human Systems Division
MIT Lincoln Laboratory has established a new research and development division, the Biotechnology and Human Systems Division. The division will address emerging threats to both national security and humanity. Research and development will encompass advanced technologies and systems for improving chemical and biological defense, human health and performance, and global resilience to climate change, conflict, and disasters. "We strongly believe that research and development in biology, biomedical systems, biological defense, and human systems is a critically important part of national and global security. The new division will focus on improving human conditions on many fronts," says Eric Evans, Lincoln Laboratory director.
The 7 Most Promising Government Led AI Solutions
As the 21st century rages on, success and failure of nations depends not only on their citizenry and governmental leadership, but heavily on the technological visions that countries embrace. If a nation takes the approach of sitting back or standing still as automation and Artificial Intelligence advance at ever increasing rates, that nation is destined to be left behind. However, if a country embraces AI and dedicates significant resources and top minds to ethical implementation, that country is destined to be a leader for decades to come. Recently Steve Mills, Chief AI Ethics Officer & Leader for Artificial Intelligence in the Public Sector, and Partner at Boston Consulting Group said quite eloquently "AI has become table stages for global national economic and technological competitiveness. This goes beyond nations capturing a piece of the large and rapidly growing AI market. AI is poised to transform nearly every industry. There is an imperative for nations to position themselves to integrate AI into these sectors. Particularly those sectors that are economically important to them. Failing to do so could erode their competitive position, creating opportunities for other, more technologically advanced nations to fill the void. This is not just a matter of missed upside potential from the new AI market. It's also about downside risk for every other sector that is economically important to a nation."
Watch: Facial recognition at Dubai Metro stations to identify wanted criminals
He said the technology will be rolled out in the coming months across all Metro stations in the emirate. Dubai Police's smart glasses called Rokid T1, and the smart helmets that were used during the COVID-19 pandemic to scan commuters' temperatures, will have more advanced technology in the future like facial recognition to identify wanted people. "Usually, it takes at least five hours to identify a suspect, but with facial recognition technology, it takes less than a minute."
Congress Is Eyeing Face Recognition, and Companies Want a Say
Microsoft and IBM sent congratulatory public messages to president-elect Joe Biden this month. Both expressed hope that his administration would ease the nation's political divisions, and suggested it consider crafting the first federal rules governing face recognition. "When it comes to issues such as safeguards for facial recognition, we have no national law at all," Microsoft president Brad Smith wrote. "We need new laws fit for the future." IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told Biden his company was "ready to work with you" on prohibiting use of the technology for "mass surveillance, racial profiling, or violations of basic human rights and freedoms."
Gatik raises $22.5 million for autonomous short-haul delivery trucks
Gatik, a startup developing an autonomous vehicle stack for B2B short-haul logistics, today closed a $22.5 million series A financing round. The company also announced it will bring a fleet of self-driving vans to Canada as part of a deal with Loblaw, the country's largest retailer with over 200,000 employees. Some experts predict the pandemic will hasten the adoption of autonomous vehicles for delivery. Self-driving cars, vans, and trucks promise to minimize the risk of spreading disease because they inherently limit driver contact. This is particularly true with regard to short-haul freight, which is experiencing a spike in volume during the outbreak.
Rise in Technological Advancements to Drive Military Robot Market - Fatpos Global
The market size of the military robot market will rise considerably in the coming years owing to improving border surveillance and patrolling. The growth of inefficient border research and growing ISR functions has led to military robot industry propulsion. The robots are for defensive drive purposes and are remotely controlled which can perform dangerous activities making them more efficient than the other tools. The wider market will be influenced by a growing need for advanced monitoring, targeting and information-gathering systems in the military due to the presence of challenging and life-risking activities. Furthermore, the rising need for isolated processes for a long period and technological developments in unused systems worldwide is another factor that significantly increases the growth of the market.
Pyramid Point: A Multi-Level Focusing Network for Revisiting Feature Layers
Varney, Nina, Asari, Vijayan K., Graehling, Quinn
We present a method to learn a diverse group of object categories from an unordered point set. We propose our Pyramid Point network, which uses a dense pyramid structure instead of the traditional'U' shape, typically seen in semantic segmentation networks. This pyramid structure gives a second look, allowing the network to revisit different layers simultaneously, increasing the contextual information by creating additional layers with less noise. We introduce a Focused Kernel Point convolution (FKP Conv), which expands on the traditional point convolutions by adding an attention mechanism to the kernel outputs. This FKP Conv increases our feature quality and allows us to weigh the kernel outputs dynamically. These FKP Convs are the central part of our Recurrent FKP Bottleneck block, which makes up the backbone of our encoder. With this distinct Figure 1: Example of the fundamental concept of our Pyramid network, we demonstrate competitive performance on Point network. The final output is based not only on an three benchmark data sets. We also perform an ablation upsampling from the previous layers; but also on features study to show the positive effects of each element in our from all network layers.