Latam-GPT is new large language model being developed in and for Latin America. The project, led by the nonprofit Chilean National Center for Artificial Intelligence (CENIA), aims to help the region achieve technological independence by developing an open source AI model trained on Latin American languages and contexts. "This work cannot be undertaken by just one group or one country in Latin America: It is a challenge that requires everyone's participation," says Álvaro Soto, director of CENIA, in an interview with WIRED en Español. "Latam-GPT is a project that seeks to create an open, free, and, above all, collaborative AI model. We've been working for two years with a very bottom-up process, bringing together citizens from different countries who want to collaborate. Recently, it has also seen some more top-down initiatives, with governments taking an interest and beginning to participate in the project."

Inspection of cracks is an important process for properly monitoring and maintaining a building. However, manual crack inspection is time-consuming, inconsistent, and dangerous (e.g., in tall buildings). Due to the development of open-source AI technologies, the increase in available Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and the availability of smartphone cameras, it has become possible to automate the building crack inspection process. This study presents the development of an easy-to-use, free and open-source Automated Building Exterior Crack Inspection Software (ABECIS) for construction and facility managers, using state-of-the-art segmentation algorithms to identify concrete cracks and generate a quantitative and qualitative report. ABECIS was tested using images collected from a UAV and smartphone cameras in real-world conditions and a controlled laboratory environment. From the raw output of the algorithm, the median Intersection over Unions for the test experiments is (1) 0.686 for indoor crack detection experiment in a controlled lab environment using a commercial drone, (2) 0.186 for indoor crack detection at a construction site using a smartphone and (3) 0.958 for outdoor crack detection on university campus using a commercial drone. These IoU results can be improved significantly to over 0.8 when a human operator selectively removes the false positives. In general, ABECIS performs best for outdoor drone images, and combining the algorithm predictions with human verification/intervention offers very accurate crack detection results.

Alexa is getting some company. Amazon and Disney have unveiled an "entirely new persona" called "Hey, Disney!" "It marks the first time that we're making another voice assistant available alongside Alexa on Echo devices," Aaron Rubenson, Amazon's vice president of Alexa Voice Service & Alexa Skills told USA TODAY ahead of Tuesday's announcement. "Hey, Disney!" will be available both in-room at Disney Resort hotels and on supported Amazon Echo devices at home. "It's going to give guests the ability to sort of interact with our beloved characters in entirely new ways" said Dan Soto, vice president of Technology and Digital for Disney Parks, Experiences and Products. 'Alexa' tips and tricks:How to make the most of your Amazon Echo "Hey, Disney!" was designed to make the Alexa experience even more magical with things like jokes, interactive trivia with your family, personal greetings from our characters, soundscapes and more," Soto told USA TODAY. "It will absolutely include authentic character voices, original recordings, unique audio environments inspired by our films and our destinations around the world and over 1,000 magical interactions for our guests to discover." "Hey, Disney!" is expected to roll out next year. "Hey, Disney!" will be free for guests to access on Amazon Echo devices in Disney Resort hotel rooms. It's not yet clear how much it will cost to buy on the Alexa Skills Store for use at home. Details will be released on amazon.com/heydisney. Like Alexa, the voice assistant has its own unique wake words: "Hey, Disney!" While the bulk of "Hey, Disney!" features will be available both at home and at Disney Resort hotels, hotel guests will have additional offering through Alexa for Hospitality. "You can ask'Hey, Disney!' things like, 'What time is the park open?

We consider the problem of learning fair policies in (deep) cooperative multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL). We formalize it in a principled way as the problem of optimizing a welfare function that explicitly encodes two important aspects of fairness: efficiency and equity. As a solution method, we propose a novel neural network architecture, which is composed of two sub-networks specifically designed for taking into account the two aspects of fairness. In experiments, we demonstrate the importance of the two sub-networks for fair optimization. Our overall approach is general as it can accommodate any (sub)differentiable welfare function. Therefore, it is compatible with various notions of fairness that have been proposed in the literature (e.g., lexicographic maximin, generalized Gini social welfare function, proportional fairness). Our solution method is generic and can be implemented in various MARL settings: centralized training and decentralized execution, or fully decentralized. Finally, we experimentally validate our approach in various domains and show that it can perform much better than previous methods.

Students and parents across the state said they struggled with remote learning, but are fearful to return to school buildings amid the coronavirus pandemic, placing the stress of uncertainty upon families as fall approaches. "I think it is cruel and mean to think that students should be in a room at their seat without any physical touch for hours," said Jay'dha Rackard, 12, who attends Helen Davis Leadership Academy. Her mother, Janina Rackard, said she decided to keep her daughter home for remote learning this school year, "I feel like our children are being treated like Petri dishes." School shutdowns and remote learning models from the spring took a toll on students and parents, families said during a Thursday virtual press conference hosted by the Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance. "Remote learning probably came at the worst possible time in my life," said Chelsea High School senior Victoria Stutto. She said her father died shortly after school was shut down.

For Thursday, December 20, on Digital Trends Live, our host Greg Nibler sat down with the Director of Emerging Tech for USA Today, Ray Soto, to talk about how the news organization is using virtual reality and augmented reality to create compelling interactive stories. Soto started his career as a video game developer, never imaging he would enter the world of VR. "I did not expect to get into creative storytelling within USA Today and news, but when I think about, it's a perfect fit, virtual reality and augmented reality the tools are very similar to what you find in the video game industry. When you consider my background -- video game developer -- we are passionate about telling stories. It was definitely a transition, it was a challenge, because when you consider video games being highly creative, in the news space you can't make stuff up, so there was quite a bit of a learning curve but something that I very much appreciate having the opportunity to make that transition from video games into creative storytelling. The conversation about integrating VR started five years ago and the initial challenge was finding how it would fit in the world of USA Today. "The conversations really started off with what do we do with this platform, that provides a unique perspective for the audience.

Law firms tasked with analyzing mounds of data and interpreting dense legal texts can vastly improve their efficiency by training artificial intelligence (AI) tools to complete this processing for them. While AI is making headlines in a wide range of industries, legal AI may not come to mind for many. But the technology, which is already prevalent in the manufacturing, cybersecurity, retail and healthcare sectors, is quickly becoming a must-have tool in the legal industry. Due to the sheer volume of sensitive data belonging to both clients and firms themselves, legal organizations are in a prickly position when it comes to their responsibility to uphold data privacy. Legal professionals are still learning what the privacy threats are and how they intersect with data security regulations.

Immigration officials have deported Jose Vega-Zuniga four times, but he's always returned, and usually landed behind bars. But a recent DUI arrest culminated in a federal conviction this summer that carried up to 20 years in prison. So, prosecutors allege, he left of his own accord. Days after a federal judge issued a warrant for his arrest, Vega-Zuniga, 38, crossed the border near San Diego, sitting in the front passenger seat as his wife drove her pickup into Mexico, prosecutors said. On Wednesday, nearly a month after the brazen escape, federal authorities arrested his wife, Elba Soto, at her Moreno Valley home, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles.

Though research is a slow moving and rigid process, one study shows that the rate of scientific study has exploded in the last 50 years. According to the paper, humanity's scientific output now doubles every nine years. In specific areas like healthcare, the doubling rate is even faster -- as much as every 3 years currently with an expected increase to every 73 days by the early 2020s. For overwhelmed researchers navigating the growing stack of science literature -- the value isn't in having so much new information, but finding relevant insights when they need them. According to Jacobo Elosua, a co-founder of Iris AI -- a Singularity University portfolio company -- the research process is very often tedious and unfruitful.

Though research is a slow moving and rigid process, one study shows that the rate of scientific study has exploded in the last 50 years. According to the paper, humanity's scientific output now doubles every nine years. In specific areas like healthcare, the doubling rate is even faster -- as much as every 3 years currently with an expected increase to every 73 days by the early 2020s. For overwhelmed researchers navigating the growing stack of science literature -- the value isn't in having so much new information, but finding relevant insights when they need them. According to Jacobo Elosua, a co-founder of Iris AI -- a Singularity University portfolio company -- the research process is very often tedious and unfruitful.