Who needs AI IEC e-tech Issue' 01/2019

It is difficult not to smile when reading the Wall Street Journal report about a guest in a robot-staffed hotel in Japan who was woken every few hours by the in-room assistant asking him to repeat his command. The hotel manager finally realized that heavy snoring by the guest had triggered the robot's voice recognition system. For every clanger, though, there is also a success story. For example, DeepMind's AI programme AlphaStar has for the first time beaten human video game players at StarCraft II, winning 10 games in a row. AlphaStar's success demonstrated the ability of AI programmes, in this case based on a reinforcement learning algorithm, to make quick decisions without any errors while operating in a complex environment.