Behavioral biometrics that uses machine learning is behind new features being added to IBM's Trusteer Pinpoint Detect platform, which financial institutions use to head off crooks who may have stolen the username and password of legitimate account holders. The new feature looks for anomalies between legitimate users' normal mouse gestures and those of the current user, and over time refines the accuracy of its analysis, says Brooke Satti Charles, Financial Crime Prevention Strategist for IBM Security. That analysis creates a risk score that banks can use to decide whether an ongoing transaction is fraudulent and trigger an alert. The institutions have to decide what to do about the alerts, but they could cut off the transaction or require further ID before the customer is allowed to continue, she says. The platform already checks the geolocation and IP address of customers as they login in order to detect fraudulent use, and behavior biometrics is an enhancement.

Why was I programmed to feel pain?" The question is played for laughs, but like so many memorable scenes from this most beloved of shows, it also taps into some of the deeper, overarching themes that define our modern civilization. Pain is a fundamental fact of life for many organisms on our planet; a crucial mechanism for identifying what kinds of actions pose serious threats to our physical and mental health. As robots become more sophisticated and interactive, should they also be programmed to experience pain to prevent injuries to themselves or others, and if so, to what extent? "Pain in the Machine," a 12-minute documentary released by the University of Cambridge on Monday, tackles this multifaceted and controversial issue. The film offers insights from artificial intelligence thought leaders, practicing physicians, and other interdisciplinary experts, and contrasts them with iconic popular culture moments that point to the larger philosophical questions inherent to artificially programming pain responses--including a nod to burning robot bit in The Simpsons. Like so many AI research fields, evaluating the utility and benefits of pain in robots inevitably flips the mirror back on our understanding of how those experiences function and protect us in our own lives. "Pain has fascinated philosophers for centuries," Ben Seymour, a Cambridge-based expert on the computational and systems neuroscience of pain, comments in the documentary. "Indeed, some people consider pain to be the pinnacle of consciousness.

Since winning Jeopardy! in 2011, IBM's Watson has apparently found employment as a dress designer, a chef, and a movie director. The latest news is that IBM is doing deals with GM, Slack, and Pearson that will see Watson helping, respectively, with roadside assistance, business messaging, and education. Even if you follow developments in AI closely, though, it can be hard to keep track of all the things Watson can do. It raises a question: what is it, exactly? TV ads that portray Watson as some sort of super-smart Siri don't exactly help.

To most computers, that word printed on an otherwise blank screen is simply a string of characters. You see a word associated with a big cat, a large mammal. Given the context of valet parking, it might also bring to mind a luxury brand that is similar to Mercedes and BMW. Put another way, you have a collection of ideas, or concepts, of what "Jaguar" means and the mental agility to use context to infer which concept the writer of the word intended to convey. On Tuesday, a team of scientists from Microsoft Research Asia, Microsoft's research lab in Beijing, China, announced the public release of technology designed to help computers conceptualize in a humanlike fashion.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics are no longer distant concepts but are fast becoming a reality. These new technologies will present a range of benefits for a number of industries, including those beyond the manufacturing sector where these are already being used. Forward thinking companies are embracing the new technological revolution – Industry 4.0 – by adopting AI and robotics. Take the example of chatbots. Businesses are increasingly using AI to allow computers to understand and respond to queries from customers.

Batch jobs are the lifeblood for thousands of businesses--many of which run millions of batch jobs every year. Unfortunately, managing these high volumes of batch jobs has become a huge nightmare: numerous errors require a large amount of resources to validate and isolate the problems. Even then, batch jobs still run into unexpected outages, while Service Level Agreement (SLA) violations threaten the proper operation of the business. This webinar demonstrates how ignio, the world's leading cognitive system, has been helping customers tackle this complex problem. We share real world examples on how ignio is implemented and highlight the lessons learned from these implementations.

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Many people are stuck with their eyes fixed on the AI horizon and the believed-to-be-inevitable singularity when humans transcend their physical form into a world of digital bliss. Regardless of which side of the singularity debate you fall on, there are many stepping-stones ahead of this extreme that warrant recognition and discussion not in five or ten years, but today. Though we haven't cracked the general AI case, our soft efforts have already accomplished a lot: we've technically passed the Turing test, we carry on lengthy conversations with support-service chatbots with our banks, telcos, and others, and we allow recommendation engines to influence our food, movie, music, and dating habits. Like it or not, AI is not simply an emerging movement; it is already here in a big way and is infiltrating the most private parts of our lives and even deaths. The often-speculated sci-fi scenario of a former friend being recreated in part or whole due to personality or biologic information left behind has recently evolved past fiction and become a reality thanks to Eugenia Kuyda's AI startup, Luka.

As computational technology advances, leveraging trends in data and meta-data will help organizations understand both their customers and other businesses more extensively. AI and ML are going to affect all realms of society, and payments are not immune to this trend. Democratization of tools for analytics in the field will help open up doors for an expanded crowd. As tools and APIs for developers looking towards AI or ML expand, developers will be able to access these complex tools more easily. Speaking to this, Dr. Arif Ahmed of U.S. Bank remarked how, "With deep learning, you have better ways to conceptualize problems. You see how voice recognition, fraud recognition, and more are improving. You start with the technology, and then you host concepts. . Pattern recognition from AI and ML advancements will have a strong impact as it relates to Anti-Money-Laundering (AML) and Know-Your-Customer (KYC) practices. Particularly in the litigation response matters, Husayn Kassai of Onfido explained how often times remediation work today is outdated. "The current way that it is carried out isn't necessarily fit for a digital age," said Kassai. "It doesn't make sense to have fully human authentication systems at a bank." Ensuring a proper intake of data will be key here, the panel said, as financial services players transition to updated or increasingly distributed backend platforms. In the future, many consumer-facing products, including chatbots, will make their way into digital services. For lots of financial players, the ability of machines to understand human slander falls short, as placing consumer-facing concerns in context is a major challenge. People can build chatbots with specific purposes, such as manuals to build a plane or figure out the nature of a mortgage contracts. To minimize errors, look for chatbots in financial services to be developed with specific purposes, such as mortgage loan contracts or ATM interfacing. David Gilvin of IBM remarked how "AI is always on, 365, 24/7. .

A viral Facebook post has been shared by more than a million people – but there's one very important catch. The "Standing Rock check-in post claims that police monitoring protests over the North Dakota Access Pipeline will be obstructed if people check in to the area on Facebook. The local sheriffs have been using Facebook "to find out who is at Standing Rock in order to target them in attempts to disrupt the prayer camps", the message reads, and so falsely checking in can stop them from doing so. But both local sheriffs and the Sacred Stone Camp that is the centre of the protests have said that the message doesn't actually interrupt any ongoing surveillance or monitoring operations, and isn't likely to make any immediate difference to the protests. Connected company president Shigeki Tomoyama addresses a press briefing as he elaborates on Toyota's "connected strategy" in Tokyo. A Toyota Motors employee demonstrates a smartphone app with the company's pocket plug-in hybrid (PHV) ...