Last Week in AI

Our 99th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Sponsor: This episode is sponsored by Zencastr, our go-to tool for recording the podcast. It is super easy to use, and there is nothing to download. Go to http://zen.ai/lastweekinai and get 30% off your first three months with a PRO account!
Outline:
(00:00) Intro(1:50) Royal Mail is Doing the Right Thing with Drone Delivery(6:10) Google uses AI to digitise maps in the utilities industry 
(8:57) AI on the Ball: Startup Shoots Computer Vision to the Soccer Pitch 
(9:26) Google Adds Machine Learning-Powered Studio Lighting To Video Calls 
(11:33) Dyson launches a hiring spree for hundreds of engineers to build robots capable of doing household chores 
(12:20) Pony.ai loses permit to test autonomous vehicles with driver in California 
(12:52) Researchers develop algorithm to divvy up tasks for human-robot teams
(19:42) Microsoft AI Researchers Introduces (De)ToxiGen: A Large-Scale Machine-Generated Dataset for Adversarial and Implicit Hate Speech Detection
(24:32) Researchers Use Machine Learning to Identify Thousands of New Marine RNA Viruses in Study of Interest to Microbiologists and Clinical Laboratory Scientists 
(25:17) Tiny robotic crab is smallest-ever remote-controlled walking robot 
(26:12) TartanDrive dataset likely largest for off-road environments 
(26:48) AI Framework Cuts Time, Effort Needed to Predict Critical Care Outcomes 
(27:13) Ad break
(28:25) China and Europe are leading the push to regulate A.I. — one of them could set the global playbook
(33:30) New York State Office for the Aging deploys AI robots as companions for older adults 
(37:25) Oxford High School tests AI gun detection system in wake of shooting 
(38:38) An Autonomous Car Blocked a Fire Truck Responding to an Emergency 
(40:12) U.S. firm Clearview A.I. fined for illegally collecting images of Brits' faces 
(41:19) Pentagon names new chief of responsible artificial intelligence 
(42:05) The Day I Became Friends with a Robot 
(44:26) I Used AI To See What These 23 Popular Cartoon Characters Would Look Like In Real Life
(46:14) Outro

Our 98th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Sponsor: This episode is sponsored by Zencastr, our go-to tool for recording the podcast. It is super easy to use, and there is nothing to download. Go to http://zen.ai/lastweekinai and get 30% off your first three months with a PRO account!
Outline:
(00:00) Intro(2:22) Autonomous cargo ship completes 500 mile voyage, avoiding hundreds of collisions(6:47) Investors pull back on artificial intelligence (9:49) Clearbot Neo autonomously clears plastic from harbors - "Open Ocean Engineering’s Clearbot Neo is a robotic boat that autonomously navigates harbors, canals and rivers to collect trash that would otherwise wash into the ocean."(10:30) You can practice for a job interview with Google AI - "Never mind reading generic guides or practicing with friends — Google is betting that algorithms can get you ready for a job interview. The company has launched an Interview Warmup tool that uses AI to help you prepare for interviews across various roles."(11:02) Uber Eats Dabbles With Delivering Food Via Robots - "Uber Eats is now testing autonomous food delivery in the Los Angeles area."(12:12) Ford-backed robotaxi startup Argo AI is ditching its human safety drivers in Miami and Austin - "Robotaxi startup Argo AI said Tuesday it has begun operating its autonomous test vehicles without human safety drivers in two U.S. cities — Miami and Austin — a major milestone for the Ford- and Volkswagen-backed company. For now, those driverless vehicles won't be carrying paying customers."
(13:17) DeepMind’s new AI can perform over 600 tasks, from playing games to controlling robots(20:10) Google claims its text-to-image AI delivers 'unprecedented photorealism'(25:30) Simultaneous emulation of neuronal and synaptic properties promotes the development of brain-like artificial intelligence - "Researchers have reported a nano-sized neuromorphic memory device that emulates neurons and synapses simultaneously in a unit cell, another step toward completing the goal of neuromorphic computing designed to rigorously mimic the human brain with semiconductor devices."(26:27) Face-to-face screening combined with machine learning model performs best at suicide risk prediction - "According to a study published in JAMA Network Open, a combination of in-person screenings and machine learning worked better than either method alone when it came to predicting suicide attempts and suicidal ideation in adults."(27:11) Google’s Universal Pretraining Framework Unifies Language Learning Paradigms - "Their 20B parameter model surpasses the state-of-the-art 175B GPT-3 on the zero-shot SuperGLUE benchmark and triples the performance of T5-XXL on one-shot summarization tasks."(27:49) Robotic surgery is safer and improves patient recovery time - "Robot-assisted surgery used to perform bladder cancer removal and reconstruction enables patients to recover far more quickly and spend significantly (20 per cent) less time in hospital, concludes a first-of-its kind clinical trial led by scientists at UCL and the University of Sheffield."(28:20) Ad break
(29:48) AI may be searching you for guns the next time you go out in public
(35:09) Israeli firm hopes AI can curb drownings
(38:12) Fatal Tesla Model S Crash in California Prompts Federal Probe - "The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating a fatal crash involving a 2022 Tesla Model S that may have had its automated driving system activated."
(39:10) Facebook issues $397 checks to Illinois residents as part of class-action - "More than a million Illinois residents will receive a $397 settlement payment from Facebook this week, thanks to a legal battle over the platform’s since-retired photo-tagging system that used facial recognition."
(39:50) Clearview AI's Facial Recognition Tool Coming to Apps, Schools - “Clearview AI is expanding sales of its facial recognition software to companies from mainly serving the police, it told Reuters, inviting scrutiny on how the startup capitalizes on billions of photos it scrapes from social media profiles. Instead of online photo comparisons, the new private-sector offering matches people to ID photos and other data that clients collect with subjects' permission. It is meant to verify identities for access to physical or digital spaces.”
(41:00) A Novelist and an AI Cowrote Your Next Cringe-Read
(44:03) AI Made This Thumbnail!
(45:46) Outro

Our 97th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Sponsor: This episode is sponsored by Zencastr, our go-to tool for recording the podcast. It is super easy to use, and there is nothing to download. Go to http://zen.ai/lastweekinai and get 30% off your first three months with a PRO account!
Outline:
(00:00) Intro
(01:25) Hugging Face reaches $2 billion valuation to build the GitHub of machine learning
(4:30) Google ups the AI ante with new features for Voice, Assistant, Maps and more
(09:33) How machine learning is speeding up Formula 1 
(10:02) China to build AI-powered 3D printed hydroelectric dam in Tibet 
(11:00) Intel debuts new chips for AI workloads, data center acceleration and laptops
(11:30) $62.5M Fundraise Values Self-Checkout System Mashgin at $1.5B - 
(12:20) Scientists Discover Method to Break Down Plastic in Days, Not Centuries
(16:25) This deep learning technique solves one of the tough challenges of robotics
(21:33) Researchers now able to predict battery lifetimes with machine learning 
(22:34) How Do Patients Feel About AI in Health Care? It Depends 
(23:22) Meta AI Introduces ‘Make-A-Scene’: A Deep Generative Technique Based On An Autoregressive Transformer For Text-To-Image Synthesis With Human Priors
(24:32) Ad break
(25:50) A quick guide to the most important AI law you’ve never heard of
(30:40) Clearview AI banned from selling its facial recognition software to most US companies 
(34:20) Justice Department and EEOC Warn Against Disability Discrimination 
(35:23) U.S. civil rights enforcers warn employers against biased AI 
(36:12) Kendrick Lamar uses deepfakes in latest music video 
(38:23) Humans vs. DALL·E 
(41:52) Outro

Our 96th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Sponsor: This episode is sponsored by Zencastr, our go-to tool for recording the podcast. It is super easy to use, and there is nothing to download. Go to http://zen.ai/lastweekinai and get 30% off your first three months with a PRO account!
Outline:
(00:00) Intro
(01:36) Wearable, AI-powered whole-breast ultrasound system cleared by the FDA + FDA plays tooth fairy, awards clearance to VideaHealth's cavity-spotting AI 
(06:40) Another Firing Among Google’s A.I. Brain Trust, and More Discord 
(12:30) AI Model Can Accurately Detect Multiple Retinal Diseases in Real Time
(12:50) Intel wins DARPA RACER-Sim program
(14:00) Mayo researchers use AI to detect weak heart pump via patients' Apple Watch ECGs
(17:50) Tsinghua U & BAAI’s CogView2 Achieves SOTA Competitive Text-to-Image Generation With 10x Speedups 
(23:13) In The Latest Research From The University Of Toronto, Machine learning-Based Approach Speeds Up The Counting Of Microplastics - 
(23:52) Northeastern U & Microsoft Expand StyleGAN’s Latent Space to Surpass the SOTA on Real Face Semantic Editing 
(24:55) Microsoft AI Researchers Develop MoLeR: A Deep Learning-Based Generative Model That Enables Efficient Drug Design 
(26:50) Ad break
(28:40) UK Regulators' Path for AI Starts with Auditing Algorithms 
(32:16) A unique machine-learning model predicts homelessness among US soldiers before their transition to civilian life
(35:45) Researchers Taught A.I. to Write Wine and Beer Reviews and They're Pretty Convincing
(39:33) T-SNE to view and order your Spotify tracks
(42:40) What’s New in Spot | Boston Dynamics
(44:17) Outro

Our 95th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Sponsor: This episode is sponsored by Zencastr, our go-to tool for recording the podcast. It is super easy to use, and there is nothing to download. Go to http://zen.ai/lastweekinai and get 30% off your first three months with a PRO account!
Outline:
(00:00) Intro
Applications & Business
(01:27) Meta Using AI to Create Greener Concrete for its Data Centers
(07:00) AI can now kill those annoying cookie pop-ups
(10:15) Lighting Round
AI can predict missed appointments. How can hospitals use that data for better care?
Start-up Pony.ai says it's the first self-driving company to get a taxi license in China
VisionNav Robotics closes $80M for AGVs
Armed with new $150 million raise, Oregon robotics startup sets its sights on Pittsburgh
Research & Advancements
(13:00) Machine Learning Helps See into a Volcano’s Depths
(17:30) Jurassic-X: Crossing the Neuro-Symbolic Chasm with the MRKL System
Lighting Round
Engineers use artificial intelligence to capture the complexity of breaking waves -
Which Animal Viruses Could Infect People? Computers Are Racing to Find Out. -
From blurry to bright: AI tech helps researchers peer into the brains of mice
AI predicts lung cancer tumor growth after radiation : NHS study "
(24:15) Ad break
Society & Ethics
(25:30) An algorithm that screens for child neglect raises concerns
(30:30) IBM research details AI skills gap across Europe
(33:20) Lighting Round
U.S. Senate Democrats urge Buttigieg to develop autonomous vehicle rules
Tough questions, few answers: The FDA wrestles with its approach to AI in medicine
Lyft exec Craig Martell tapped as Pentagon’s AI chief
The risks of attacks that involve poisoning training data for machine learning models
Fun & Neat
(35:45) Q&A: Inside DARPA’s Subterranean Challenge - "What SubT means for the future of autonomous robots"
(39:15) This Woman Used AI To Show What "Harry Potter" Characters Would Look Like In Real Life Based On Their Book Descriptions, And My Jaw Is On The Floor - "This AI version of Draco gives me full-body chills."
(41:56) Outro

Our 94th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Sponsor: This episode is sponsored by Zencastr, our go-to tool for recording the podcast. It is super easy to use, and there is nothing to download. Go to http://zen.ai/lastweekinai and get 30% off your first three months with a PRO account!
Warning: some curse words are used in this episode towards the end
Outline:
(00:00) Intro
(2:10) GM Patents Autonomous Tech to Train New Drivers Sans Instructor
(6:22) Startups Join AI Acquisition Rush
(13:20) UC Berkeley & Intel’s Photorealistic Denoising Method Boosts Video Quality on Moonless Nights
(17:00) Amazon opens MASSIVE AI speech dataset so Alexa can speak your language
(21:40) Ad break
(23:20) South Africa’s private surveillance machine is fueling a digital apartheid
(29:15) Actors launch campaign against AI 'show stealers'
(37:13) This AI clone of Reddit’s Am I The Asshole forum will give you the best bad advice 
(40:26) A Tesla vehicle using ‘Smart Summon’ appears to crash into a $3.5 million private jet 
(45:00) Outro

Our 93nd episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Outline:
Intro
Applications & Business
(01:10) Venture funding for chip startups has doubled in the last five years thanks to AI
(4:00) Google's multisearch feature lets you search with text and images at the same time 
(6:10) Lighting Round
Nurse-assisting robotics firm Diligent raises $30M - "We’ve seen robotics applied to just about every other field of late, so why not nursing — a field that will require one million new faces to keep up with demand in the U.S. alone?
Sorry, developers: Microsoft's new tool fixes the bugs in software code written by AI - "Microsoft's Jigsaw can automate the process of checking and editing code outputted by a machine."
Research & Advancements(7:50) Deep Learning Poised to ‘Blow Up’ Famed Fluid Equations - "For centuries, mathematicians have tried to prove that Euler’s fluid equations can produce nonsensical answers. A new approach to machine learning has researchers betting that “blowup” is near."
(11:20) Analog A.I.? It sounds crazy, but it might be the future - "Forget digital. The future of A.I. is … analog? At least, that’s the assertion of Mythic, an A.I. chip company that’s, its own words, taking “a leap forward in performance in power” by going back in time. Sort of."
(13:55) Lighting Round
AI and infrared spectroscopy identify the age and species of mosquitoes – Physics World
Deep Science: Combining vision and language could be the key to more capable AI
Society & Ethics
(15:45) The Miserable Lives of Cyborg Truck Drivers - "How AI and automation can make a job worse than before"
(18:45) House lawmakers launch investigation of face-scan contractor ID.me - "The House probe marks an escalation of years of controversy over the government’s growing reliance on facial recognition, which boiled over earlier this year after the IRS said it would require Americans to scan their faces in order to access their IRS tax accounts."
(22:10) Lighting Round
Biden administration takes step forward on AI policy
FDA Issues Advisory on Use of AI and Machine Learning for Large Vessel Occlusion in the Brain
Fun & Neat
(23:40) GM Cruise autonomous taxi pulled over by police in San Francisco without humans, ‘bolts’ off (U: Cruise responds) - "Last week, a GM Cruise-converted Chevy Bolt without a driver was pulled over by San Francisco Police. In an unexpected turn, the car “bolted” …to a safe spot. Cruise responded below."
(26:43) How artificial intelligence helps students learn
Outro

Our 92nd episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Outline:
(0:00) Intro
Research & Advancements
(01:15) OpenAI's new DALL.E model turns your words into pieces of art
(5:45) Pathways Language Model (PaLM): Scaling to 540 Billion Parameters for Breakthrough Performance
(10:00) Lighting Round
Stanford Researchers Have Developed a Machine Learning-Based Algorithm To Detect Autism in Brain “Fingerprints” - "Patients with autism who are diagnosed early and definitively may benefit from earlier therapies and better results. Stanford researchers have created an algorithm that can tell if someone has autism by analyzing brain images."
Johns Hopkins’ heart-scanning AI predicts cardiac arrests up to 10 years ahead - "Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have developed an artificial intelligence approach they say can help predict if and when a person could die of cardiac arrest based on imaging scans of the heart."
AI Betting Agents Weigh In On Reproducibility Of Research Findings - "Penn State researchers have created synthetic “prediction markets” for speculating on the replicability of published studies with unparalleled accuracy."
AI turns infrared images taken in total darkness into full colour - "The black-and-white images provided by night-vision cameras can be colourised using AI, but it must always be trained on similar images and is unlikely to ever work on unfamiliar general scenes"
Applications & Business
(12:15) First autonomous X-ray-analyzing AI is cleared in the EU - "An artificial intelligence tool that reads chest X-rays without oversight from a radiologist got regulatory clearance in the European Union last week — a first for a fully autonomous medical imaging AI, the company, called Oxipit, said in a statement."
(14:45) Werner to use self-driving trucks on 600 mile lane deemed ‘unappealing’ for human truck drivers - "Werner Enterprises in partnership with autonomous vehicle tech company Aurora Innovation, Inc. launched a commercial pilot program in Texas."
(17:00) Lighting Round
Elon Musk says production of Tesla's robot could start next year, but A.I. experts have their doubts - "Tesla has yet to reveal a working prototype of the robot, however, and it’s unclear how sophisticated Optimus is at this stage."
This California-based HealthTech Startup is Using Artificial Intelligence To Modernize and Personalize Fertility Care - "Alife Health, a San Francisco-based startup is using artificial intelligence to improve IVF fertility outcomes."
Using machine learning to improve student success in higher education - "[overview of topic Deploying machine learning and advanced analytics thoughtfully and to their full potential may support improvements in student access, success, and the overall student experience."
Microsoft and HPE put AI to the test on International Space Station … with gloves - "An image of a spacewalker’s gloves is analyzed for signs of wear using AI"
Society & Ethics
(20:45) California suggests taking aim at AI-powered hiring software - "A newly proposed amendment to California's hiring discrimination laws would make AI-powered employment decision-making software a source of legal liability."
(23:03) As Russia Plots Its Next Move, an AI Listens to the Chatter - "With vast amounts of data becoming available to intelligence analysts, new tools will help them sift and interpret it all—but they will introduce new risks, too."
(25:22) Lightning
Face scanner Clearview AI aims to branch out beyond police - “The new "consent-based" product, with aspirations of competing with Amazon and Microsoft, would use Clearview's algorithms to verify a person's face for bank transactions or commercial purposes.”
Google Says AI Generated Content Is Against Guidelines - "Google’s Search Advocate John Mueller says content automatically generated with AI writing tools is considered spam, according to the search engine’s webmaster guidelines."
California suggests taking aim at AI-powered hiring software - "A newly proposed amendment to California's hiring discrimination laws would make AI-powered employment decision-making software a source of legal liability."
What AI Can Do for Climate Change, and What Climate Change Can Do for AI - "[overview of topics] To tackle the climate crisis, artificial intelligence is becoming more open and democratic"
Fun & Neat
(27:42) The 11 Commandments of Hugging Robots - "How to build a humanoid that gives perfect hugs"
(33:00) Adding AI to Museum Exhibits Increases Learning, Keeps Kids Engaged Longer - "They used artificial intelligence (AI) to create a new genre of interactive, hands-on exhibits that includes a virtual assistant to interact with visitors."
Outro

Our 91st episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Outline:
Applications & Business
Meet the DeepMind mafia: These 18 alumni from Google's AI research lab are raising millions for their own startups, from climate to crypto
Nvidia unveils new technology to speed up AI, launches new supercomputer
Kroger and Nvidia partner to ‘reinvent the shopping experience’ with AI and digital twin simulations
Top AI execs, including Richard Socher, launch AIX Ventures
Research & Advancements
Researchers From Cortical Labs Develop DishBrain: A Neural Network With Biological Neurons
Google AI and UC Berkely Researchers Introduce A Deep Learning Approach Called 'PRIME' That Generates AI Chip Architectures By Drawing From Existing Blueprints And Performance Figures
Seeing an elusive magnetic effect through the lens of machine learning
AI confirms the obvious: The pandemic bummed people out
Society & Ethics
US-China collaboration in AI papers drops amid ongoing tech war, Stanford report shows
Banks Using AI Are Ripe for Russian Sabotage
Automation will erase 'knowledge jobs' before most blue collar jobs: Future Today Institute CEO
Ukraine uses facial recognition to identify dead Russian soldiers, minister says
Software vendors are pushing "explainable A.I." that often isn't
Fun & Neat
Ubisoft shows off machine learning tool for modelling animals
Nvidia shows off AI model that turns a few dozen snapshots into a 3D-rendered scene

Our 90th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!
Outline:
(00:00) Intro
Applications & Business
(1:10) Machine Learning Reimagines the Building Blocks of Computing 
(5:50) Meet ElliQ, the robot who wants to keep Grandma company
(10:52) Lightning Round 
Research & Advancements
(12:24) AI suggested 40,000 new possible chemical weapons in just six hours
(14:15) Meta AI’s Sparse All-MLP Model Doubles Training Efficiency Compared to Transformers
(16:15) Lightning Round
Society & Ethics
(17:33) AI and disinformation in the Russia-Ukraine war  + Deepfake Zelenskyy surrender video is the 'first intentionally used' in Ukraine war
(19:28) Powered by artificial intelligence, ‘autonomous’ border towers test Democrats’ support for surveillance technology
(23:15) Lightning round
Fun & Neat
(25:05) AI-generated utopias 
(26:51) Building games and apps entirely through natural language using OpenAI’s code-davinci model
(29:15) Outro