Tag: AI Summit

“Some technology solutions may not only erase physical or mental deficits but leave patients better off than ‘able-bodied’ folks. The person who has a dis-ability today may have a super-ability tomorrow.”

Stephen Hawking

What are the “assistive technologies”?

check the upcoming 👉 Webit.Festival 2018

  Simply put, this is a technology that is used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of people with disabilities. To give you a quick glimpse into understanding, the name Stephen Hawking would help. Hawking has experimented with numerous technologies of this kind. He has communicated using a spelling card, indicating letters and forming words with a lift of his eyebrows. Then, with the help of a computer program allowing him to select words and commands using a hand clicker linked to a speech synthesizer, he has obtained a voice. By moving a single muscle on his cheek and selecting characters from a software screen keyboard, he is able to deliver his thoughts. Normally, one would say that such technology is good for people with disabilities. That way they can:

• continue learning or
• be able to maintain a profession.

But what is more important is the chance to communicate so they can be in touch with their surroundings or to be informed about their options, make decisions and express their opinion.

Technology has played an immense role in helping scientists invent different devices in order to help people with disabilities.

There are hearing devices already put in use, eye tracking and brain controlled interfaces that help to communicate with a computer. Developments towards making artificial retinal implant that can restore lost vision, cars for blind people, exoskeletons assisting people with movement difficulties, enhanced learning for people with learning disabilities that measures and stimulates the brain’s activity. And the big top: brain computer interfaces - a direct communication pathway between an enhanced or wired brain and an external device. The use and progress of Artificial Intelligence is a big stake in improving people’s lives but the thing is that these technologies are being constantly developed and people have benefited from this but these same people are not so many at all 60% of the people are afraid of the progress in AI and robotics. How much will they develop? Will the scenarios from almost all Hollywood movies on the theme shift to reality?  We will just have to wait till 2045 and see if Ray Kurzweil’s prediction about the Singularity Point will turn up to be true and whether AI will be developed to such an extent that we’ll be able to merge with it. Watch the full keynote of Maurice Grinberg, Director of HiLab for getting a wider perspective on what AI is here: [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYPrwZqE9vo[/embed]      

Microsoft has created Seeing AI - an intelligent app which thanks to the power of the cloud and AI working together is able to narrate the surrounding world to visually impaired people. The scale of the impact  Artificial Intelligence will have on the global labor force in the case of its mass implementation is the main topic when this technology is discussed. Nevertheless, the role AI plays in improving the quality of life of individuals is quite important and has a very positive impact on society. Advanced AI technology used in automated vehicles can be adapted to applications which aim to help visually impaired people to navigate much better in their environment. Thanks to its ability to accurately sense the surroundings and to make quick decisions, AI can improve the life of people with vision loss by enabling them to participate more actively in the society. Imagine the scale of the impact this technology could have considering that according to the World Health Organisation, there are 285 million people in the world who are visually impaired. 39 million of them are blind and the rest 246 million have vision loss. Microsoft’s intelligent camera app is very easy to use - you just need to point the phone’s camera at the object or the person you want to see and then you hear information about them. By recognizing friends, their facial expressions and emotions, Seeing AI enables visually impaired people to receive information about the body language of the people in front of them, which results in a more efficient communication. The app can be also used to read documents and to identify products by scanning the barcode. Furthermore, it can describe the environment which is surrounding the user to help them navigate better in the space. Identifying currency in the case of cash payment is a feature that Microsoft is still working on. The company defines the mission of the app as:

“Turning the visual world into an audible experience.”

In order to recognize the world around it, the app uses neural networks which learn how to execute a task based on an existing example. This same technology powers self-driving cars and drones. Since the basic functions of Seeing AI are carried on the device, they can be accessed more quickly and even when the Internet connection is not very good. Only experimental features such as describing the surroundings require a connection to the cloud. The app directs the user to move the camera to the left or to the right to get the person or the object in shot. According to the tech lead on Seeing AI Saqib Shaikh, Seeing AI stands out because of the neural networks’ speed. Microsoft wanted the face recognition on a device to happen as fast as possible and they succeeded. Within milliseconds, the result is ready and the user can hear it.

“It’s all about the speed and we try to do as much as we can on the device.”, Shaikh said.

Currently the app is available in US, Canada, India, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Singapore only for iOS devices. If you are interested in the latest trends in Artificial Intelligence, then Webit.Festival Europe is the right place for you. During the AI Summit, you can listen to top level speakers such as the following who have attended Webit before: the President and Global Brand Director at Havas Worldwide Jason Jercinovic, the Partner at IBM Ventures Christoph Auer-Welsbach and the CEO at CUBED Attribution Russell McAthy. Here you can get more information about Webit.Festival, while here you can get all the information you need about the tickets for the event.

When we are looking towards the future, we usually think about Artificial Intelligence as something that will bring us autonomous vehicles, clean and safe environment and healthy and extended life. Everything we have envisioned is connected to the AI. But most of us still don’t realize how this amazing technology will be able to change our lives for the better and connect us in a way we didn’t think was possible. During Webit.Festival Europe the Partner at IBM Ventures Christoph Auer-Welsbach shared his experience in this emerging field and explained why AI in its essence is a converging technology and enabler of the full human potential.

“We now use AI in situations where we didn’t have any solution yet - where technology is not capable of achieving specific results. We are putting a lot of efforts, time and resources to get there. What we have proved already is that we can solve complex, but narrow problems”, he said.

The first demonstration of a machine that was capable of solving a complex problem was in 1997 when IBM’s Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov in chess. Roughly 15 years later a team in IBM Research had the goal to understand natural human language. The public demonstration was to defeat a human at the show Jeopardy and this was accomplished. Another thing that happened last year was Alpha Go from Google DeepMind defeating Lee Sedol in the boardgame Go and also succeeding to solve a very complex problem in a very narrow domain. And just recently a team from Carnegie Mellon University succeeded in developing a smart machine that has defeated world class poker players in Texas Hold ‘Em because it can already understand and deal with incomplete information. This all means that the future goes into the direction where AI will be used for negotiation processes, strategy development and even high level policy analytics.

“When you go to your car dealer in the future you may have a small application on your device that helps you negotiate the best possible deal”, Auer-Welsbach said.

The biggest issue before the AI today is understanding humans and language. The machines understand natural text as data, not as text. This is a problem, because they are missing the context, which is necessary in order to really make use of all the data. In a recent attempt IBM broke industry record in conversation speech recognition by getting it down to 5.5%. This is important because the human error is at 5.1% which means that we are very close to understanding the natural human language from a machine perspective. This new ability can be used to build transformative relationships between humans and machines. [caption id="attachment_5072" align="aligncenter" width="640"] The Partner at IBM Ventures Christoph Auer-Welsbach.[/caption] Christoph Auer-Welsbach predicts that there are 3 paradigms that are going to shape our communication with AI enabled computers in the near future. The first is that enterprise applications and all the major IT organizations in the world will make use of any kind of conversation methodology, bot or automating systems, in the next couple of years. So our whole way of interacting with machines is going to change from input-driven to engagement and conversation-driven. The second paradigm AI is pushing is mass individualization. Now we are living in a world where applications and solutions are built to satisfy the most common and homogenous group of people and reach them. The mass standardization we can see now is changing to mass personalization in a way that not only from a customer service view, but also from a product development and engagement point of view machines will be very much personalized on a person’s behavior, demand and attitude. The third is that we are moving to the world of AI-enabled Convergence. It enables other technologies to flourish and get into the system contextual information and act proactively and not from a passive response point of view. Artificial Intelligence is still in its infancy. That is why we need to be active and have the curiosity to understand what it is. It is important for every person on Earth to check the latest trends in this technology and understand how it could impact our personal and business life.

“The symbiosis between humans and machines is the most capable way of making use of technology and moving forward into the future. Because we can enhance each other’s capabilities. On the one hand we have human’s capabilities like compassion, intuition and value judgement and on the other we have the learning, discovery and fact checking that machines excel at”, the expert said.

You may watch Christoph Auer-Welsbach’s full lecture here: If you want to keep up with the latest trend in the world of digital economy and technology, then Webit.Festival is the right place for you. Visit our website and book 2 of our Super Earlybird tickets for Webit.Festival Europe 2018 for just €100. Feel the Webit vibe with some of the best photos from this year’s event! [easingslider id="4954"]