Technology analyst Rob Enderle believes ownership of digital twins will become a defining question of the impending metaverse era. Artificial intelligence combined with the Internet of Things allows the digital construction of things that are constantly learning from and helping improve the real counterpart. French software company Dassault Systemes says thousands of firms are showing interest in its digital twin technology, which includes projects like Living Heart, a digital model of the human heart for mapping heart conditions, and trying out surgical procedures and devices. Meanwhile, U.S. software firm Nvidia's Earth-2 project is creating a digital twin of the Earth's surface, using deep learning models and neural networks. Technology analyst Rob Enderle anticipates that the first iterations of thinking human digital twins--virtual replicas of ourselves--will debut before the end of the decade.

As more companies use conversational AI bots as a front line of customer service for consumers, the experience can typically be either helpful or maddening. Ganesh Gopalan, the CEO and co-founder of conversational AI vendor Gnani.ai, Early conversational AI systems were built around keywords, which when mentioned by a consumer caller, would then invoke a related response, said Gopalan. The problem was that this process often lacked context and did not adjust for regional dialects or casual wordings. For users, that could be frustrating because when the bot did not understand them, they were transferred to a live agent and had to repeat all they had already shared with the bot.

When OpenAI first debuted its powerful GPT-3 natural language model in June of 2020, it debuted in a limited beta capacity and featured a waiting list where developers could sign up to use its infrastructure and capabilities. Now, the waiting list has been dropped and GPT-3's capabilities are immediately available to developers and enterprises to work on their most challenging language problems, according to a Nov. 18 (Thursday) announcement by OpenAI, an independent AI research and deployment company. But there are some caveats – the general release adds conditions to prevent GPT-3 from being used to harm people, as well as conditions that only allow its use in certain nations around the world. That means that developers in some nations, including Cuba, Iran and Russia, cannot currently access it. "OpenAI is committed to the safe deployment of AI," the organization said in a statement.

There is nothing remotely artificial about the "Special Relationship" that exists between the United States and the United Kingdom. The shared history, common language, and close relations have resulted in a partnership that has existed for more than a century. Now the two nations could be working together in the fields of autonomy and artificial intelligence, and how it can be best utilized by their respective militaries. The United States Air Force Research Laboratory, in partnership with the United Kingdom's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), recently demonstrated for the first time the ability for the two nations to jointly develop, select, train, and deploy state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms in support of the armed forces of each of the two nations. According to the United States Research Laboratory, this research was developed and devised to support adjacent, collaborating U.S. and U.K. brigades with enduring wide-area situational awareness, which aims to improve decision-making, increase operational tempo, reduce risk to life and reduce manpower burden.

This isn't the first time that we must question whether "seeing" is in fact "believing" Earlier this week the YouTube channel Shamook highlighted the latest Deepfake technology in which scenes involving two notable characters in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story were greatly enhanced. This was the latest such use of Deepfakes in pop culture. What was impressive about this most recent use of the technology is that it made the character of Governor Tarkin seem more lifelike and more closely resembled Peter Cushing, the late actor who played the role originally in the 1977 film Star Wars. The same technology was previously employed earlier this year on the YouTube channel to "de-age" Robert De Niro and the results were far than what was actually seen in the Netflix original film The Irishman. Both of the "original" versions seem far more cartoony and fall into that "uncanny valley" of not being quite real.

A group of data, technology, digital services and other organizations on Tuesday launched the AI Global Marketplace. The marketplace is, in essence, an artificial intelligence app store. It will host more than 2,000 high-value AI assets focused on customer engagement and process intelligence problems for the banking, insurance, healthcare and digital commerce markets. The launch group includes CognitiveScale, HyperGiant, the IEEE, USAA, the Saxena Foundation, the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, and the University of Texas at Austin. Software assets in the AI Global Marketplace will be based on the beta version of an open interface: the Cognitive Agent Modeling and Execution Language, or CAMEL.

Google this week debuted a slew of new capabilities for its artificial intelligence software, Google Assistant, at CES in Las Vegas. One of the headliners was a preview of Google Assistant Connect. The new platform lets device manufacturers incorporate Google Assistant into their products easily and cost-effectively. Connect uses Google's existing smart home platform to expand to new device types, while making device setup and discovery easy for consumers. A manufacturer could create a continuous e-ink display projecting weather or calendar information, for example, while using Connect to drive content from a linked smart speaker.

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--Fast-growing chipmaker Nvidia demonstrated its new Xavier Module to media members and others here at company headquarters on Dec. 12. The event also featured dozens of developers already building systems using Nvidia's Jetson AGX Xavier developer kit. The Xavier Module is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, yet it delivers what Nvidia calls "workstation performance" with very low-energy consumption (as little as 10 watts) in the range of what a clock radio requires. Developers can use the module to power a new generation of intelligent robots and other autonomous devices. "It's built to be an AI [artificial intelligence] server in a small form factor," Deepu Talla, vice president and general manager of Autonomous Machines at Nvidia, said at the demonstration.

Personal computers, conservation, pro football, rock n' roll and rocket ships: Paul G. Allen couldn't have asked for a better way to spend, invest and donate the billions he reaped from co-founding Microsoft with childhood friend Bill Gates. Allen used the fortune he made from Microsoft -- whose Windows operating system is found on most of the world's desktop computers -- to invest in other ambitions, from tackling climate change and advancing brain research to finding innovative solutions to solve some of the world's biggest challenges. "If it has the potential to do good, then we should do it," Gates quoted his friend as saying. Allen died Monday in Seattle from complications of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, according to his company Vulcan Inc. Just two weeks ago, Allen, who owned the NFL's Seattle Seahawks and the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers, had announced that the same cancer he had in 2009 had returned.

Facebook CEO says the social network didn't take a broad enough view of its responsibility. Social media can be an unforgiving place. When country star Carrie Underwood, for example, posted on Instagram about her recent injury that required 40-50 stitches to her face, some followers accused her of over-exaggeration and using the incident as a publicity stunt. With trolls everywhere, what if there was a way for users to block harmful attacks? At a recent Congressional hearing, Mark Zuckerberg noted how AI could possibly help eradicate hate speech and online abuse, but it was still 5-10 years away and in development.