Monthly Archives: November 2018

What’s happened in AI: November 19th-25th

By | November 27, 2018
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There were a few interesting developments this week in various areas of AI. On the autonomous vehicle front, GM’s Cruise is now expanding to Seattle. Ultimately they’re aiming to hire up to 200 engineers for the office there. Seems like GM is really making a big push this year to expand across the U.S. with their autonomous vehicle program.

Meanwhile, one of the most high profile AI events will be moving to Africa in 2020 due to visa issues for many of the attendees. Yoshua Bengio (founder of Element AI) made the call this past Saturday for the International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR). He noted that many researchers from the Black in AI group where particularly facing visa difficulties. This is a real positive step for fostering an inclusive and diverse environment for AI research.

What’s happened in AI: November 12th-18th

By | November 20, 2018
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Major highlight this week was Blackberry’s acquisition of cybersecurity AI startup Cylance for $1.4bn. Stuart McCulre, CEO of Cylance, has struck gold again having previously sold a cybersecurity startup to McAfee for $86mm. This is another example of how important major tech companies value cybersecurity. In addition, this also demonstrates that applying AI to the field adds tremendous value when done properly.

What’s happened in AI: November 5th-11th

By | November 12, 2018
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The creep factor from China was pretty high this week. To start, ~30 of the brightest young minds in China have been recruited to develop AI weapons for the government. These kids aren’t even in college yet, and are already doing this kind of work. Meanwhile surveillance in the country has reached a new level as the government is now able to identify people based on the way they walk. Looks like hiding your face won’t work anymore. Finally, China revealed an AI news anchor for its state run media. It’s pretty weird and I don’t really know how to interpret this. Other than the awkward lip movements the AI is pretty solid. I see potential for this to become a common fixture for pushing propaganda 24/7 (since AI doesn’t need a break like us obviously), but hopefully I’m proven wrong.

What’s happened in AI: October 29th-November 4th

By | November 5, 2018
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Highlights this week are dominated by new developments in the autonomous vehicle world. Baidu continues to add new partners with the separate additions of Ford and Volvo this week. Waymo also had a big win this week becoming the first company to receive a permit from the California DMV that allows for fully autonomous vehicle testing without a safety driver.