Artificial intelligence (AI) has already had a profound impact on business and society. Applied AI and machine learning (ML) are creating safer workplaces, more accurate health diagnoses and better access to information for global citizens. The Fourth Industrial Revolution will represent a new era of partnership between humans and AI, with potentially positive global impact. AI advancements can help society solve problems of income inequality and food insecurity to create a more "inclusive, human-centred future" according to the World Economic Forum (WEF). There is nearly limitless potential to AI innovation, which is both positive and frightening.

Google has augmented and widened access to some of YouTube's audio AI-based features. The update includes extending auto-captioning to any YouTube channel and automatic caption translation to mobile devices and lays out plans for even more inclusion of the platform's speech recognition and translation technology. The most notable immediate change is that YouTube has ended the 1,000 subscriber minimum to enable live auto captions. The limit on auto captioning may have been a way to encourage the promotion of YouTube channels or out of concern for limited computing resources, but that no longer matters. The auto captions will also be available in more languages soon, upping the accessibility of non-English content on YouTube.

Deque Systems, a leading software company specializing in digital accessibility, continues to redefine automated accessibility testing by leveraging Machine Learning technology in its axe Pro beta. In an industry first, Deque has successfully integrated Machine Learning technology to perform powerful visual analyses within axe Pro's automated and intelligent guided testing, which significantly reduces the amount of manual work required to identify and fix accessibility issues. Catching these issues quickly and easily is a crucial step to ensure that websites and apps are accessible to all people, including those with disabilities. "Much of accessibility testing involves determining whether digital content is accurately conveyed to assistive technologies and the users who rely on them to access that content," comments Preety Kumar, CEO, Deque Systems. "By leveraging Machine Learning technology, we've continued to automate many legacy manual testing efforts, drastically reducing testing costs and making better use of a developer's time."

Artificial intelligence (AI) has already had a profound impact on business and society. Applied AI and machine learning (ML) are creating safer workplaces, more accurate health diagnoses and better access to information for global citizens. The Fourth Industrial Revolution will represent a new era of partnership between humans and AI, with potentially positive global impact. AI advancements can help society solve problems of income inequality and food insecurity to create a more "inclusive, human-centred future" according to the World Economic Forum (WEF). There is nearly limitless potential to AI innovation, which is both positive and frightening.

In a bid to create a more inclusive world using artificial intelligence (AI), an American multinational technology company has hosted its first-ever AI for Accessibility hackathon in Malaysia. The hackathon saw teams of IT professionals, university students and young developers working side-by-side with universities, international organisations, start-ups and non-profit organisations to tackle more than 23 different problem statements, identifying opportunities to use AI to build a more inclusive and accessible world. The hackathon was held concurrently across the Asia Pacific and saw over 400 participants in eight countries being brought together to conceptualise and prototype AI solutions that can transform the daily lives of people with disabilities. In Malaysia, the teams worked on problem statements provided by the Malaysian Federation for the Deaf. Technology solutions were developed to address challenges relating to daily life, communication and employment challenges for the deaf community and people with hearing disabilities.

Huawei's Honor subsidiary today launched a new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered app called PocketVision, which is designed to help those with visual impairments read documents, menus, and text using their smartphone camera. The PocketVision app, which was unveiled today at the annual IFA conference in Berlin, was developed in conjunction with Eyecoming, a Chinese social technology company specializing in visual impairments. According to Census Bureau data, roughly 20% of people in the U.S alone have a disability, more than half of whom report a "severe" disability. This figure is roughly consistent with other countries around the world, too. And it's against that backdrop that Huawei's Honor offshoot is launching the PocketVision app.

SK Telecom has completed the development of the smart braille educating system running on its Nugu voice-activated artificial intelligence (AI) speaker to help the visually impaired learn braille much more easily, the company said Monday. The nation's top mobile carrier has cooperated with Ohfa Tech, a developer of the braille teaching device, Taptilo. The telecom company will offer 110 devices to schools for the blind and households within the month and verify the effectiveness of the system in cooperation with Kangnam University. The number of people who are visually impaired is estimated at about 300,000 in Korea, and 95 percent of these people are not able to read braille due to the shortage of specialist teachers, according to SK Telecom. The development of the braille educating system utilizing the AI speaker is expected to lower barriers to education for the visually impaired through innovative technology, it said.

On Sep. 25 at the United Nations General Assembly, the United Nations (UN) Secretary General António Guterres spotlighted, "Rapidly developing fields such as artificial intelligence, blockchain and biotechnology have the potential to turbocharge progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Artificial Intelligence is connecting people across languages, and supporting doctors in making better diagnoses. Driverless vehicles will revolutionize transportation. But there are also risks and serious dangers." Let's explore them in more detail.

A newly launched AI Global Governance commission (AIGG), tasked with forming links with politicians and governments around the world to help develop and harmonise rules on the use of AI, has suggested that at least one key regulation should be that any decisions made by an AI system'must be tracked back to a person or an organisation'. Although the view was only the early product of meetings yesterday ahead of the AIGG launch event, which is backed by the UK Parliament's APPG AI group and the Big Innovation Centre, it could become something of a standard ethical line for the many legal projects now developing in this area. Earlier this month the Law Society launched its own Public Policy Commission on Algorithms and Justice, for example, one of several AI ethics initiatives around the world. Ensuring that any algorithmic decision is traceable and can be tracked back to a person or organisation could provide society with a greater sense that at least someone is responsible for the actions of an automated system, and that important decisions were not being made in a regulatory vacuum and without any recourse for legal action against a party that caused harm to another. In fact, one could argue that not being able to assign responsibility to the actions of an algorithm would in effect undermine the justice system and put AI's outputs on a par with'an act of nature', i.e. beyond the ability of society to apply rules. The AIGG meeting also stressed that regulators needed to move a lot faster than they are, nationally and globally, because AI technology and its use was now moving a lot faster in terms of its development and actual use in society.

The possibility of creating sentient machines that can think and act like humans raises many ethical issues. We're already encountering reinforced human bias in AI algorithms and with autonomous "killer" robots looming on the horizon, an open discussion on the perils of unchecked AI is even more imperative. In celebration of Women's History Month, we've highlighted 12 brilliant women leading this much-needed discussion on AI & ethics and development of responsible AI solutions that will benefit everyone. Let me know of any others we should highlight in the comments below or tweet @MiaD #TiEInflect. First person on our list is Joy Buolamwini, founder of Algorithmic Justice League to fight bias in Machine Learning.