Company developments:
David Cameron takes job with US artificial intelligence firm – May. 31, 2019 (The Guardian)
- Cameron said on Friday: “The government I led took a wide range of steps to ensure the UK was successful in the new tech industries … As part of this work, I was excited to see the rapid development in artificial intelligence and the huge potential AI has to address some of the challenges that societies face today … I am therefore delighted to have been asked to chair Afiniti’s advisory board, helping support their work to transform the future of customer service and interpersonal communications.”
DeepMind’s AI has used teamwork to beat humans at a first-person shooter – May. 31, 2019 (MIT Technology Review)
- In a paper published in Science yesterday, DeepMind showed how it had let AI programs loose in a modified version of the 3D first-person video game Quake III Arena. The team used an algorithm called “For the Win,” which trains a host of agents in parallel using reinforcement learning, the technique that lets AI learn which tactics work and which do not (and that famously enabled DeepMind’s AI to win at Go)
Lyft autonomous vehicles surpass 50K rides in Las Vegas – May. 31, 2019 (Las Vegas Review Journal)
- Aptiv, the automotive technology company that outfits the 30 BMW 5 Series vehicles used in the Lyft program with various sensors, cameras and computers, announced the milestone was reached one-year into the project
- Calling it the largest robotaxi service in the world, Aptiv said the autonomous vehicles serve customers at over 2,100 locations in the Las Vegas Valley, including hotels, entertainment venues, restaurants, and popular destinations throughout the Las Vegas Strip and downtown area, including City Hall and the Las Vegas Convention Center
Grid4C Awarded Prestigious Grant by the Israel Innovation Authority to Embed its AI-Powered Energy Analytics inside Smart Meters at the Grid Edge – May. 28, 2019 (Yahoo Finance)
- AI-powered energy analytics firm Grid4C will accelerate development and delivery of predictive insights at the edge of the electric grid with real-time decisions within smart meters to meet industry’s next generation use cases
- The funds will accelerate the continued development and delivery of Grid4C’s AI-powered algorithms to be embedded inside smart meters and make real-time decisions at the grid edge to meet the industry’s next generation use cases
M&A:
Schneider Electric Acquires Stake in AutoGrid to Accelerate AI Adoption in the Power Sector – May. 31, 2019 (PR Newswire)
- Most immediately, Schneider Electric will leverage AutoGrid’s Energy Internet and Flex platforms to add artificial intelligence-driven solutions for customers’ distributed energy projects. This will accelerate new capabilities for Schneider Electric’s leading microgrid and behind the meter solutions, as well as advance its ability to better serve the utility segment as the grid becomes more distributed and prosumers demand greater participation and control over their energy usage
Fundraising / investment:
Houston AI startup focused on oil & gas to grow with $15M in funding – May. 31, 2019 (Chron)
- Tachyus, which was founded in Silicon Valley but has since relocated most of its just 18-person team to Houston, closed the Series B round of funding last week, led by Cottonwood Venture Partners, a growth equity firm that partners with technology companies providing digital solutions for the energy industry
- Founded in 2014 by a former Microsoft developer Paul Orland, Tachyus has offices in the Galleria area and maintains some presence in Silicon Valley. It serves customers in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Argentina, Norway and Thailand
Roger, the accounting automation tool, raises $7.35M Series A – May. 29, 2019 (TechCrunch)
- Leading the round is QED Investors, with participation from 9Yards, Silicon Valley Bank, Financial Venture Studio and BootstrapLabs. A number of individual investors, including Dan Wernikoff, the former GM of QuickBooks and TurboTax, have also backed the Series A
- Claiming to cut the time businesses spend on day-to-day financial processes by as much as 80%, Roger works on top of existing accounting software to automate financial processes, such as paying bills, approvals, receipt scanning, compliance and bookkeeping. This is achieved via “simple workflows” that the Denmark and U.S.-based company says anyone can set up and manage
Machine learning startup Weights & Biases raises $15M – May. 30, 2019 (TechCrunch)
- The company was started by CrowdFlower founders Lukas Biewald and Chris van Pelt, along with former Google engineer Shawn Lewis. (Under its new name Figure Eight, CrowdFlower was acquired by Appen for up to $300 million in March.)
- Customers include OpenAI, GitHub, Qualcomm and Toyota Research Institute, as well as research institutions like Stanford and Columbia. The new round — led by Coatue Management, with participation from angels including GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and Salesforce Chief Scientist Richard Socher — brings Weights & Biases’ total funding to $20 million
Partnerships:
Audi works with Fleetonomy to monitor and manage fleet utilization for its on-demand program – May. 30, 2019 (TechCrunch)
- Audi just completed a trial with Israeli company Fleetonomy as part of a potential wider rollout of the Israeli company’s fleet monitoring and management services designed to improve utilization
- Using Fleetonomy’s tools that provide predictive analytics of fleet utilization, Audi was able to improve the overall efficiency and utilization of its on-demand services
Research / studies:
Empowering African farmers with data – May. 31, 2019 (Phys.org)
- With a couple billion more people estimated to join the global population in the next few decades, world food production could use an upgrade. Africa has a key role to play: Agriculture is Africa’s biggest industry, but much of Africa’s agricultural land is currently underutilized. Crop yields could be increased with more efficient farming techniques and new equipment—but that would require investment capital, which is often an obstacle for farmers.
- A new research collaboration at the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS) aims to address this challenge with data. The group plans to use data from technologically advanced farms to better predict the value of intervention in underperforming farms. Ultimately, the goal is to create a platform for sharing data and risk among invested parties, from farmers and lenders to insurers and equipment manufacturers
Colorado college students were secretly used to train facial recognition – May. 28, 2019 (Engadget)
- Researchers used over 1,700 photos of students and others without their permission for a facial recognition study sponsored by US military and intelligence services, according to the Colorado Springs Independent and Financial Times. While technically legal, it has raised questions about privacy around facial recognition tech, especially considering how the photos might end up being used
- The study, carried out in 2012 and 2013, was made to determine, in part, if algorithms could identify facial features from a long distance away, through obstacles and in poor light. A telephoto camera was set up at a distance of about 150 meters away from a public area with a lot of foot traffic. Most of the subjects were looking away from the camera, with many looking a their phones
Government / policy:
China’s national supercomputing center launches AI testbed – Jun. 1, 2019 (Global Times)
- The AI testbed, named Tai, provides the basic environment of AI chips and systems for the research, development and application tests of AI inventions
- Tai is capable of dealing with large-scale and complex scenarios. Scientists have built an EB-level intelligent data management and analysis system for high-energy physics, as well as simulation of AI scenarios in real business situations and an AI-powered weather forecast platform
New York City Schools May Introduce Facial Recognition – May. 31, 2019 (Geek)
- Eight schools in western New York are slated to be the nation’s first to pilot facial recognition on students and faculty. The Lockport City School District is scheduled to activate its Aegis system, approved in late 2017 by the New York State Education Department, on Monday
- Two days after Superintendent Michelle Bradley announced the “initial implementation phase,” the Education Department reportedly asked Lockport to delay its plans. “The Department has not come to the conclusion that the District has demonstrated the necessary framework is in place to protect the privacy of data subjects and properly secure the data,” a spokesperson told BuzzFeed via email. “As such, it is the Department’s continued recommendation that the District delay its use of facial recognition technology.”
Artificial intelligence panel proposed to oversee NY’s high-tech future – May. 30, 2019 (Newsday)
- The commission would include experts in the field. It would evaluate the impact of artificial intelligence in eliminating jobs statewide and the need to protect confidential information, as well as considering “potential restrictions … [and] criminal and civil liability regarding violations of law caused by entities with artificial intelligence, robotics and automation,” according to the bill
World Economic Forum launches Global AI Council to address governance gaps – May. 29, 2019 (VentureBeat)
- The World Economic Forum’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution today created six councils to provide policy guidance and address governance gaps in areas like autonomous driving, precision medicine, blockchain, and AI
- The Global AI Council will be cochaired by Microsoft president Brad Smith and Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, CEO of Sinovation Ventures and former president of Google China. Other members of the Global AI Council include Element AI, IEEE, IBM, Future of Life Institute, and government ministers from the United Kingdom, Colombia, and the United Arab Emirates, a WEF spokesperson told VentureBeat in an email
Events:
Israel’s AI boom takes the stage at Beijing tech conference – May. 29, 2019 (Times of Israel)
- Members of Israel’s business community in China took part in a large conference heralding advances in artificial intelligence near Beijing last week, underlining Israel’s growing strength as a hub for the field
- The opening of the Zhongguancun AI Industry Application and Development Forum, backed by Beijing’s local government, featured everything from dancing robots grooving to Chinese pop music to representatives of firms on the bleeding edge of advances in machine learning that critics say could raise serious privacy concerns