Amazon has patented technology that could let Alexa analyze your voice to determine whether you are sick or depressed and sell you products based on your physical or emotional condition. The patent, titled "Voice-based determination of physical and emotional characteristics of users," was issued on Tuesday this week; Amazon filed the patent application in March 2017. The patent describes a voice assistant that can detect "abnormal" physical or emotional conditions. "For example, physical conditions such as sore throats and coughs may be determined based at least in part on a voice input from the user, and emotional conditions such as an excited emotional state or a sad emotional state may be determined based at least in part on voice input from a user," the patent says. "A cough or sniffle, or crying, may indicate that the user has a specific physical or emotional abnormality." It's not clear what ads would be sent based on a user's emotional state, but someone who is sick might be asked if they want to buy cold medicine.

Machine learning tools are designed to detect patterns, and they often reflect back the same biases we already know exist in our culture. Algorithms can be sexist, racist, and perpetuate other structural inequalities found in society. But unlike humans, algorithms aren't under any obligation to explain themselves. In fact, even the people who build them aren't always capable of describing how they work. That means people are sometimes left unable to grasp why they lost their health care benefits, were declined a loan, rejected from a job, or denied bail--all decisions increasingly made in part by automated systems.

Amazon has scrapped a "sexist" tool that used artificial intelligence to decide the best candidates to hire for jobs. Members of the team working on the system said it effectively taught itself that male candidates were preferable. The artificial intelligence software was created by a team at Amazon's Edinburgh office in 2014 as a way to automatically sort through CVs and select the most talented applicants. But the algorithm rapidly taught itself to favour male candidates over female ones, according to members of the team who spoke to Reuters. Amazon wage increase could result in lower pay for some employees Black Friday 2018: The best Amazon deals Will Amazon's deliver-on-demand smart homes be the future of housing? Will Amazon's deliver-on-demand smart homes be the future of housing?

Amazon's machine-learning specialists uncovered a big problem: their new recruiting engine did not like women. The team had been building computer programs since 2014 to review job applicants' resumes with the aim of mechanizing the search for top talent, five people familiar with the effort told Reuters. Automation has been key to Amazon's dominance, be it inside warehouses or driving pricing decisions. The company's experimental hiring tool used artificial intelligence to give job candidates scores ranging from one to five stars -- much like shoppers rate products on Amazon, some of the people said. "Everyone wanted this holy grail," one of the people said.

Digital technologies and AI offer a new wave of opportunities to turn data into actionable insights – creating a balance between social, environmental, and economic opportunities. In 2018, it's safe to say that the Internet, the World Wide Web, and the myriad of technologies derived from their development are all here to stay. With the ceaseless amalgamation of these various innovations, engineers are creating a cyber-physical world where pervasively interconnected objects, things, and processes can potentially unlock a breadth of unprecedented opportunities. However, I should point out that encapsulating the entire medley of possibilities afforded by these technologies is a considerable endeavour requiring a far longer and more comprehensive overview – perhaps in the form of a book, or three – than this article can offer in isolation. As such, I'll concentrate on something closer to my own work: smart cities.

Sunnyvale, CA and Newbury, UK (October 11, 2018): eGain (NASDAQ: EGAN), the AI-powered customer engagement platform provider, today announced that Altitude Software will embed eGain AI and Knowledge Management into its Xperience Suite. According to a survey conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of eGain, poor access to relevant knowledge among contact center agents is the #1 driver of bad customer service. Altitude Software, a pioneering provider of customer interaction solutions, will deliver deep, seamless integration with eGain AI and Knowledge to offer process guidance and personalized answers for agents on their omnichannel platform. "Guiding customer interactions with AI and knowledge transforms agent experience and boosts operational productivity," said Alfredo Redondo, CEO of Altitude Software. "eGain best-in-class capabilities complement our modular platform to deliver easy-to-consume innovation."

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path? It's been a rather circuitous route to get to where I am today, but in some ways moving to Asia in 2012 was a sort of homecoming for me because I had spent much of my youth in Singapore. I was asked to head up a small operation in Macau because my former company had closed a limited training deal with the Venetian Macao. I arrived here, oversaw that project and then teamed up with SAS, our main software partner at the time, and helped close deals with other casinos in Macau, a cruise line in Hong Kong, the Resorts World group in the US, as well as a sports book in Australia. After about 18 months, I had overseen work in Macau, the Philippines, Australia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and the US.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is finding its way into more and more aspects of our daily lives. It is in the algorithms designed to improve our health diagnostics. And it is used in the predictive policing tools used by the police to fight crime. Each of these examples throws up potential problems when it comes to the protection of our human rights. Predictive policing, if not correctly designed, can lead to discrimination based on race, gender or ethnicity.

Inc.'s machine-learning specialists uncovered a big problem: their new recruiting engine did not like women. The team had been building computer programs since 2014 to review job applicants' resumes with the aim of mechanizing the search for top talent, five people familiar with the effort told Reuters. Automation has been key to Amazon's e-commerce dominance, be it inside warehouses or driving pricing decisions. The company's experimental hiring tool used artificial intelligence to give job candidates scores ranging from one to five stars -- much like shoppers rate products on Amazon, some of the people said. "Everyone wanted this holy grail," one of the people said.

Mo Zhang is revolutionizing the path from seeing a product to buying it. Say you're watching a program on a smart TV or another device, and you like an outfit being worn by a particular model on screen. Her software can identify the items and send you to a site where you can purchase the goods. Of course, there are more unsettling uses. The types of technology being developed by Yi have been the focus of much controversy in China in recent months thanks to their increased use in public security and policing.