Lots of news this week on privacy in the world of AI. China is drafting up a bill to regulate the collection of biometric data, while in the U.S. citizens of Oakland and Brooklyn are fighting the use of facial recognition technology. The precedent set by these ongoing legal matters will have a big impact on how other cities/countries approach privacy regulations going forward. More weekly news can be found below.
Big news this week for Apple, who poached one of Google’s top AI minds. Dr. Ian Goodfellow decided to leave his role as “Senior Staff Research Scientist” with Google to join Apple as a “Director of Machine Learning” in the company’s Special Projects Group. Dr. Goodfellow is best known as being the “father” of GANs. Given Apple’s AR focus this hire makes a lot of sense. As for Google, in addition to losing Dr. Goodfellow, they decided to shut down their AI ethics committee after only a week. That was quick… Other weekly news can be found below.
Highlights this week include two big autonomous vehicle partnerships and some heavy fundraising rounds. Honda and GM, in addition to Toyota and Softbank, launched autonomous vehicle partnerships with major commitments. The space continues to build and scale based on who partners with who. On the fundraising side, ZipRecruiter and Hopper both had over $100mm fundraising… Read More »
Busy week leading into Labor Day weekend. Highlights are centered around the autonomous vehicle world with one of Apple’s self-driving cars getting rear-ended, and Toyota investing $500mm into Uber. Very interesting move by Toyota given their own autonomous vehicle program and Uber’s have struggled compared to peers. Maybe this partnership provides synergies that aren’t immediately… Read More »
One industry that AI is already having an enormous impact on is the logistics industry. As such, I’ve decided to pursue a series of posts relating to four main areas of logistics being impacted by AI. These areas are 1. Truckload shipping 2. Air / drone shipping 3. Maritime shipping and 4. Rail freight shipping. This first article will focus on truckload shipping. I’ll provide a quick overview of the trucking industry, my thoughts on the top use cases of AI in the industry, and highlight AI startups tackling these use cases.
This week featured a number of AI developments from Facebook, who had their annual F8 developer conference on May 1st and 2nd.
Meanwhile, across the pond in South Wales (U.K), the local police force is having issues with their facial recognition software. At an 8% accuracy rate for its recent use during the UEFA Champions League matches, “having issues” might be an understatement.
Fundraising / investment Woebot Secures $8 Million in Funding to Increase Access to Mental Health Care Worldwide – Mar. 1, 2018 (Nasdaq Global Newswire) Woebot Labs, Inc. announced an $8 million Series A funding round from leading venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA) with participation from Andrew Ng’s newly launched AI Fund The announcement… Read More »