Artificial Intelligence could double the annual economic growth rate in Finalnd and Sweden by 2035, according to a study made by Accenture. By changing the nature of people's work as well as changing the relationship between humans and machines, the labor productivity in Finland and Sweden could increase by 36% and 37% respectively, in Accenture's estimation. The use of Artificial Intelligence would unlock time for workers to focus on other tasks. "Artificial Intelligence Applications can revolutionize the business in ways not seen since the information technology breakthrough. Even now artificial intelligence, cloud computing, advanced analytics, and other technologies impact on the work of people and machines," Tomas Nyström, Accenture's Chief Technology Officer, says in a statement, reports Talous Sanomat.

Google's slew of big announcements in recent weeks -- unveiling Google Translate's neat new machine learning tricks, its voice-controlled speaker system Home, and its new smartphone line Pixel (itself equipped with the futuristic-feeling virtual Assistant) -- are evidence enough that the tech giant is investing heavily in artificial intelligence. But this Fortune story suggests that's just the tip of the iceberg: Google has dramatically ramped up its investments in what's known as "deep learning" in the last four years. In 2012, Google had two deep-learning projects underway. Today, Google has more than 1,000 deep-learning projects in every major product category, including search, maps, translation, and self-driving cars. Deep learning refers to a kind of AI that enables software to train itself to perform tasks, like speech and image recognition.

Blighty's Science and Technology Committee released Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, while the White House delivered Preparing for the Future of Artificial Intelligence and National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan. Limitations to AI research were also recognised in the separate report, The National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan. The US plans to develop shared public data sets for AI training and testing. Bryson makes a good point as the White House report was timed just before Obama was due to host the White House's Frontiers Conference.

In a major breakthrough in the field of speech recognition, Microsoft researchers have created a technology that accurately recognises the words in a conversation like humans do. The team from Microsoft Artificial Intelligence and Research reported a speech recognition system that makes the same or fewer errors than professional transcriptionists. The researchers reported a word error rate (WER) of 5.9 per cent, down from the 6.3 per cent WER the team reported just last month. The 5.9 per cent error rate is about equal to that of people who were asked to transcribe the same conversation, and it's the lowest ever recorded against the industry standard "Switchboard" speech recognition task. This is an historic achievement," said Xuedong Huang, the company's chief speech scientist in a Microsoft blog post. The milestone means that, for the first time, a computer can recognise the words in a conversation as well as a person would. In doing so, the team has beat a goal they set less than a year ago -- and greatly exceeded everyone else's expectations as well. "Even five years ago, I wouldn't have thought we could have achieved this.

When it comes to benchmarking the White House's vision for artificial intelligence, even the administration isn't quite sure how to quantify it. "I don't know the answer to that," said Terah Lyons, policy adviser for the Office of Science and Technology Policy. "It depends on what direction the technology goes." But there are some clues to follow the progress, Lyons added. Register now: Join Tonya Ugoretz, director of Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center for a free online chat on Tuesday, October 25 at 1 p.m. "Improved service delivery, advancing our mission, lowering costs to tax payers," she told Federal News Radio during the Center for Data Innovation's Data Innovation Day 2016: Algorithms, Automation, and Public Policy, held Oct. 19 in Washington.

About Us Faceware Tech develops innovative facial motion capture products for the professional animation and videogame industries. We make the tools used by your favorite videogame developers (EA, Bungie, Rockstar, 2K, WB, Sony, Capcom, and more) and VFX studios (Dneg, Atomic Fiction, Oats, CamD) to create high-end facial animation. At Siggraph 2016, we announced FTI Interactive-- a new division within the company focused on real-time content creation. The world's demands for content are even higher than ever before-- with needs in interactive, realtime content creation on the cusp of a revolutionary breakthrough. This position will be part of the team leading the cutting edge of entertainment by innovating new techniques for the exciting up and coming industries of VR, MR, and AR.

Gartner is giving organizations insight into what they can expect next year with its annual Top 10 strategic technology trends of 2017. The predictions are designed to provide organizations with an understanding of the technologies that are emerging and having an impact to society. According to the organization, the trends can be split into three groups: intelligent, digital and mesh. "Technology will be embedded in everything in the digital business of the future. Rich digital services will be delivered to everything, and intelligence will be embedded in everything behind the scenes. We call this mesh of people, devices, content and services the intelligent digital mesh. It's enabled by digital models, business platforms and a rich intelligent set of services to support digital business. As an enterprise architecture or technology innovation leader seeking to exploit the intelligent digital mesh, you must respond to the disruptive technology trends enabling this future," according to the Gartner report.

Self-driving vehicles will play a crucial role in improving transportation safety and accelerating the world's transition to a sustainable future. Full autonomy will enable a Tesla to be substantially safer than a human driver, lower the financial cost of transportation for those who own a car and provide low-cost on-demand mobility for those who do not. We are excited to announce that, as of today, all Tesla vehicles produced in our factory – including Model 3 – will have the hardware needed for full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver. Eight surround cameras provide 360 degree visibility around the car at up to 250 meters of range. Twelve updated ultrasonic sensors complement this vision, allowing for detection of both hard and soft objects at nearly twice the distance of the prior system.

Professor Stephen Hawking on Wednesday opened a new artificial intelligence research centre at Britain's Cambridge University. "Alongside the benefits, AI will also bring dangers, like powerful autonomous weapons, or new ways for the few to oppress the many. But catastrophic scenarios aside, the development of AI, which allows robots to execute almost all human tasks, directly threatens millions of jobs. "It's about how to ensure intelligent artificial systems have goals aligned with human values" and ensure computers don't evolve spontaneously in "new, unwelcome directions", Cave said.