tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45954225252374657062024-02-07T21:22:46.111-08:00The Context of Nowbrought to you by ContextantContextanthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02794857932198362105noreply@blogger.comBlogger56125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-51155080236465065642017-07-31T15:36:00.001-07:002017-07-31T15:36:30.309-07:00Is AI more Artificial than Intelligent?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_ag0KYI3WYeeG17DxZNAnnQy9w4eq2WovOFcVYl1AmHqYHVpdicxD7vfLO-lSOxdI3wJJWq9571I3KqyVI04HdLkEqbH94KSeZe5_zl1XyUoQQuKYWzZ-tXSA8-_UiGy1uFKTiEXjE94/s1600/tink.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="260" data-original-width="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_ag0KYI3WYeeG17DxZNAnnQy9w4eq2WovOFcVYl1AmHqYHVpdicxD7vfLO-lSOxdI3wJJWq9571I3KqyVI04HdLkEqbH94KSeZe5_zl1XyUoQQuKYWzZ-tXSA8-_UiGy1uFKTiEXjE94/s1600/tink.jpg" /></a></div>
Machine learning and Artificial Intelligence seem to dominate the tech media nowadays. Lots of startups in the analytics field are being bought up by the tech giants.<br />
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There also is a lot of fear of AI taking over more and more types of jobs such as:<br />
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<li>Automated Investment companies like <a href="http://wealthfront.com/" target="_blank">Wealthfront</a> or <a href="http://betterment.com/" target="_blank">Betterment</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/29/7939067/ap-journalism-automation-robots-financial-reporting" target="_blank">Robo-reporters</a> covering some sports or stock-market news.</li>
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<a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/artificial-intelligence-vs-humans-ai-more-likely-enhance-life-rather-harm-it-2452476" target="_blank">IBT</a> recently had an article discussing a report put out by Stanford title <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://ai100.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/ai_100_report_0831fnl.pdf" target="_blank">Artificial Intelligence and Life in 2030</a> (it's a PDF). </em><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none outside none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;">The report breaks out various trends related to AI such as:</span></div>
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<li>Large-scale machine learning</li>
<li>Deep learning - (defined as convolutional neural network machine learning)</li>
<li>Reinforcement learning - a field of machine learning where the machine "learns" from it's mistakes.</li>
<li>Computer vision - a big user of deep learning</li>
<li>Natural Language Processing - Siri, Alexa, Hey Google, etc.</li>
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The report then goes into some of the great strides in AI that have taken place over the last few years. For those interested in self-driving cars it had this summary:</div>
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During the first Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) “grand challenge” on autonomous driving in 2004, research teams failed to complete the challenge in a limited desert setting. But in eight short years, from 2004-2012, speedy and surprising progress occurred in both academia and industry. Advances in sensing technology and machine learning for perception tasks has sped progress and, as a result, Google’s autonomous vehicles and Tesla’s semi-autonomous cars are driving on city streets today. Google’s self-driving cars, which have logged more than 1,500,000 miles (300,000 miles without an accident), are completely autonomous—no human input needed. Tesla has widely released self-driving capability to existing cars with a software update.34 Their cars are semi-autonomous, with human drivers expected to stay engaged and take over if they detect a potential problem. It is not yet clear whether this semi-autonomous approach is sustainable, since as people become more confident in the cars’ capabilities, they are likely to pay less attention to the road, and become less reliable when they are most needed. The first traffic fatality involving an autonomous car, which occurred in June of 2016, brought this question into sharper focus.</blockquote>
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It also talks about home-service robots such as vacuum cleaners and then gets into a current hotbed of machine learning - Health Care. Could AI do some of things that doctors do now?<br />
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Looking ahead to the next fifteen years, AI advances, if coupled with sufficient data and well-targeted systems, promise to change the cognitive tasks assigned to human clinicians. Physicians now routinely solicit verbal descriptions of symptoms from presenting patients and, in their heads, correlate patterns against the clinical presentation of known diseases. With automated assistance, the physician could instead supervise this process, applying her or his experience and intuition to guide the input process and to evaluate the output of the machine intelligence. The literal “hands-on” experience of the physician will remain critical. A significant challenge is to optimally integrate the human dimensions of care with automated reasoning processes. </blockquote>
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So all of this is both fascinating and scary. I don't think anyone can completely understand the long-term impact of AI technologies. They types of tasks that we've been able to turn over to computers and other machines is, of course, staggering. Who knows what they will think up next. But, as anyone who has worked with computers knows, they don't think. Machine learning is incredible, but machines don't think or learn like humans do. They perform tasks, they mine data, they identify patterns, they monitor innumerable sensors and correlate data from them. But they're not intelligent.<br />
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The Stanford report takes an optimistic view of the future of AI. We're going to continue to try and find new uses of computers in our lives, it's happening whether we want it to or not. But I think we'll find there are many things, that they just can't do.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-9287359878187051132017-07-28T10:03:00.004-07:002017-07-28T10:16:23.130-07:00Cameras and Computer VisionLate last year, Intel bought the company Movidius and is betting big on <a href="http://seekingalpha.com/article/4014443-intel-branches-smart-security-cameras">Smart Cameras</a>. Here's something I found on seekingalpha about Intel's future plans:<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Myriad 2 and Movidius are Intel's frontline assets to gain early lead in the <a href="https://www.tractica.com/newsroom/press-releases/computer-vision-hardware-and-software-market-to-reach-48-6-billion-by-2022/" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #024999; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">fast-growing</a> market for Computer Vision technology. Hikvision smart cameras are just among the many applications where Intel's Computer Vision processors/cameras could have long-term benefits.</span></div>
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<span itemprop="image" itemscope="" itemtype="https://schema.org/ImageObject" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img alt="CV-16 chart" data-height="414" data-og-image-facebook="false" data-og-image-google_news="true" data-og-image-google_plus="true" data-og-image-linkdin="true" data-og-image-msn="true" data-og-image-twitter_image_post="true" data-og-image-twitter_large_card="true" data-og-image-twitter_small_card="true" data-width="559" src="https://staticseekingalpha.a.ssl.fastly.net/uploads/2016/10/25/saupload_CV-16-chart.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 10px; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle;" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">I do not know how much Intel paid but buying Movidius Technology complemented Intel's <a href="https://www.wired.com/2015/08/intel-giving-devices-senses/" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #024999; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">RealSense 3D</a> camera technology. A RealSense camera still needs the energy- efficient Myriad 2 to empower smart gadgets with Artificial Intelligence compute processing. Owning cutting-edge cameras and visual processors are important in Intel's overall Internet of Things strategy.</span></div>
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Our <a href="http://www.vizntrac.com/">ViznTrac</a> product is still in it's fledgling state, but we believe this industry is going to skyrocket. ViznTrac's premise is basically to provide smart camera and IoT analytics to ordinary IP cameras. I was asked recently how smart-cameras affect our vision. I think it validates it and provides even more opportunity. Currently, we're experimenting with Edge devices to enhance the security and usability of common IP cameras. But, since we're coming at this from the analytics angle (correlate events from multiple devices both cameras and possibly other types), smart cameras are an asset to what we're trying to do. Smart Cameras may eliminate the need for an edge device, but the intelligence and analysis that comes from managing and correlating input from multiple devices is still there.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-59613878568419468032017-07-28T10:00:00.005-07:002017-07-31T15:14:27.704-07:00Image Analytics will be Mainstream<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #777777; font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-stretch: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.32px; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 2em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-size: 21.3333px;"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhob-qbkQRgNiABIUu7jf-YTAs1H9ZgHMs_I3BVVdgZzvuT01IRpOhxDkN4o84iqOHNyAVvetufilgPf0192OfBdogJxbG2oHtblT6R2bqcScyhxJBm83eVWMLajxcWEud-zPEkHFP0HqI/s1600/Ryan-mobile.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhob-qbkQRgNiABIUu7jf-YTAs1H9ZgHMs_I3BVVdgZzvuT01IRpOhxDkN4o84iqOHNyAVvetufilgPf0192OfBdogJxbG2oHtblT6R2bqcScyhxJBm83eVWMLajxcWEud-zPEkHFP0HqI/s320/Ryan-mobile.png" width="169" /></a>I</span>mage analytics has exploded over the course of the past couple of years. The "Big Idea" that is grabbing all the headlines is self-driving cars. You've probably seen articles about Google's self-driving cars or Tesla's "auto-pilot" feature (if not, check out <a href="https://youtu.be/4E4qbeFb12k" style="border-bottom-style: dotted; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #e89980; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: 0.2s ease-in-out, 0.2s ease-in-out; vertical-align: baseline;">this video</a>). As fascinating and futuristic as self-driving cars sound, the intelligent application of computer vision technology is taking off in kinds of fields and making its way into all kinds of practical business use-cases. Here are a few notable ones that have been mentioned in the tech media over the past year:</div>
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<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://snip.ly/rousu" style="border-bottom-style: dotted; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #e89980; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: 0.2s ease-in-out, 0.2s ease-in-out; vertical-align: baseline;">Artificial Intelligence will help you get snacks faster</a></li>
<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://snip.ly/23xqk" style="border-bottom-style: dotted; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #e89980; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: 0.2s ease-in-out, 0.2s ease-in-out; vertical-align: baseline;">Security camera uses AI to tell humans from animals or cars</a></li>
<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://snip.ly/5j4zi" style="border-bottom-style: dotted; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #e89980; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: 0.2s ease-in-out, 0.2s ease-in-out; vertical-align: baseline;">Intel Branches Out To Smart Security Cameras</a></li>
<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://snip.ly/5alfy" style="border-bottom-style: dotted; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #e89980; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: 0.2s ease-in-out, 0.2s ease-in-out; vertical-align: baseline;">A Look At How Intel Is About To Dominate The Drone Market</a></li>
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<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #777777; font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-stretch: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.32px; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 2em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="image right" style="border-radius: 6px; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; float: right; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1em 1.5em; position: relative; top: 0.25em; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>The use of IoT devices is continuing to grow, and camera-based devices are a huge part of that. <a href="http://www.contextant.com/" style="border-bottom-style: dotted; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #e89980; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: 0.2s ease-in-out, 0.2s ease-in-out; vertical-align: baseline;">Contextant's</a> goal is to make this technology accessible and assist companies in providing pragmatic application of these technologies. This is what we mean by Applied Image Analytics. The idea behind Contextant's <a href="http://www.vizntrac.com/" target="_blank">ViznTrac</a> <a href="http://www.vizntrac.com/" style="border-bottom-style: dotted; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #e89980; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: 0.2s ease-in-out, 0.2s ease-in-out; vertical-align: baseline;"></a>is make this exciting technology easily accessible to anyone. With use-cases ranging from home-security using standard IP cameras to a broad range of industrial uses cases such as:</div>
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<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">Warehouse Floor Layout Optimization</li>
<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">Counting people in a checkout line at a store</li>
<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">Count people entering and exiting a location</li>
<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">Use facial recognition to implement better security or kick off automation tasks</li>
<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">Use either bar-code or OCR to read labels on packages moving in a warehouse.</li>
<li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">Home security and smart-home automation</li>
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It can be bewildering trying to keep up with all the advancements that have taken place recently in this area. What we are seeing is the result of the maturing of image processing technologies and robust machine learning platforms such as Google's TensorFlow coming together to make these technologies easier to use and more accessible to individuals and companies than ever before. The result is the explosion of use-cases across industrial verticals for companies of all sizes.</div>
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Our <a href="http://www.vizntrac.com/" target="_blank">ViznTrac</a> platform is currently in beta, with a planned Kickstarter coming in September. With everything that has happened in this space just over the course of 2016 and thus far in 2017, it's exciting to think of everything that will happen over the next year. We believe that <a href="http://www.vizntrac.com/" target="_blank">ViznTrac</a> will allow both individuals and companies to more easily take advantage of this technology using hardware (such as IP cameras) that they already have.</div>
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If you're intrigued about applied image analytics and are curious about how <a href="http://www.vizntrac.com/" target="_blank">ViznTrac</a> could help you or your business, please drop <a href="http://vizntrac.com/#footer" target="_blank">us a line</a> and somebody will contact you and answer any questions you have.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-81464044888979419312017-07-27T11:28:00.002-07:002017-07-27T11:38:26.154-07:00How Machine Learning enables alternative User Interfaces<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjir_3ToG0rVGAxyImw5hqmYDc5b5p85Gte3_LUSj6a_N-iwHu8Y6GTNcamBBFq3-filgnb_knEibnAwafsottYzj5AVE6D4ueP5093UAotrke1U68UqpITbLN0Xoz4MevzXdAQWombKt8/s1600/UX1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="632" data-original-width="840" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjir_3ToG0rVGAxyImw5hqmYDc5b5p85Gte3_LUSj6a_N-iwHu8Y6GTNcamBBFq3-filgnb_knEibnAwafsottYzj5AVE6D4ueP5093UAotrke1U68UqpITbLN0Xoz4MevzXdAQWombKt8/s320/UX1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The way we interact with computers and computer-connected devices has come a long way. In the beginning, computers were number crunching devices and people used punch-cards to load the data into them to crunch those numbers. Then the command-line interface was introduced and it became a dominant (and still highly useful) interface. Via the keyboard, you instructed the computer to do exactly what you wanted.<br />
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Then, in the late 80s we had the graphical user-interface revolution. This is where the mouse, a movable pointing device, became a key part of the user interface. A command-line interface is focused on precision. You must spell out the instructions that you want the computer to perform in fine detail. Overtime, macros and other short-cuts were introduced to make it easier to type out frequently performed items, but the instructions were always very precise. A mouse and GUI are very different. You are now interacting in a three-dimensional space (even if it was only rendered in 2D with overlapping windows). Distance became important as we would physically move items around on the screen in order to interact with them. A mouse, although not as precise as the command-line, is still a very precise device for interacting with the computer. We just had to rely on the OS to keep up with which XY position the pointer was at, which screen element was directly underneath it, which elements were overlapping each other, etc.<br />
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In the mid-2000s, touch interfaces became more relevant, with the 2007 iPhone being the break-away hit to popularize the touch interface. The touch interface is a fairly mature interface now, although it is still not 100% complete. It is something that is still being experimented with, such as utilizing pressure to enable new interactions with a device or computer. A touch interface, although still precise, is not quite as precise as a mouse is.<br />
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Finally, over the last few years machine learning technologies have evolved to the point where they are becoming part of most software systems. In business, we mostly think of ML as performing sophisticated analytics and predictions on data from our operational systems or IoT devices. But it is also enabling the development and use of other types of input devices to directly interact with our software applications. The key inputs that are becoming more dominant as alternative user experiences are based on sight and sound.<br />
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Voice has currently taken the lime-light as a key user-interface technology, with Apple (Siri), Google (Google Home) and Amazon (Alexa) fighting to become a dominant voice-based technology. <i>Wired </i>recently had an article : <a href="https://www.wired.com/2016/12/voice-is-the-next-big-platform-and-alexa-will-own-it/" target="_blank">VOICE IS THE NEXT BIG PLATFORM, AND ALEXA WILL OWN IT </a>. In it they declared:<br />
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<span style="font-family: "exchange ssm" , , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">In the coming year, the tech that powers Amazon’s assistant will become even more robust. “We’ve made huge progress in teaching Alexa to better understand you,” Amazon’s head scientist and vice president of Alexa Rohit Prasad told Backchannel earlier this month. Amazon is making more tools available to developers. In November, the company announced an improved version of its developer tools, the Amazon Skills Kit. The company also announced improvements to the Alexa Voice Kit, the set of tools that allow manufacturers to incorporate Alexa into third-party devices like cars or refrigerators.</span></span></blockquote>
<br />
Machine Learning is the key technology backing voice-systems since they must learn and improve over time to recognize different accents, different word orders, etc. Although Apple, Google and Amazon get the majority of the press attention, they are not the ones provided voice interfaces and voice can be used in surprising ways. My company, <a href="http://www.contextant.com/" target="_blank">Contextant</a>, specializes in using machine-learning technologies to help companies improve their business processes. Currently, we're in the process of integrating voice-recognition technology with one our client's warehouse management system (WMS) to enable people in the warehouse to perform picking, inventory movement, receiving and packing operations via voice. This frees their hands from having to worry about a keyboard or mouse. Voice isn't perfect, but it can complement a standard GUI to help workers see what to do next, where to go inside a warehouse, etc.<br />
<br />
Computer Vision is also an exploding machine-learning based technology that allows for alternative user experiences. It has a come a long way in just the past couple of years, but is still not as mature or precise as the other technologies I've mentioned. But the future is very bright for Computer Vision. Our own <a href="http://www.vizntrac.com/" target="_blank">ViznTrac</a> service was developed out of an indoor-location tracking system to allow large facilities to keep track of where people are. It is also a big-part of home-security systems (a market area that we hope to push <a href="http://www.vizntrac.com/" target="_blank">ViznTrac</a> into shortly) and with the development of facial-recognition, package detection and more sophisticated movement detection algorithms it will only improve.<br />
<br />
These alternative UX features are still evolving, and they not as precise as traditional methods. Voice systems can misunderstand what you say and computer-vision systems misinterpret what they are "seeing". They won't replace the other forms of input (I'm using a keyboard now!) but they will continue to become more effective and complementary technologies.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-27222924685108670902017-06-26T19:50:00.002-07:002017-11-13T16:12:42.865-08:00Jobs of the Future<a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/passle-net/56ed6e183d947406ccb576a2/575fac43b00e7e043422ec4c/2017-01-06-10-21-09-210-_93280463_ai_5000x500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a>
<h3>
The Impact of AI and Machine Learning on our Jobs</h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Over the past year there have been an increasing number of articles written about jobs that can be done by a machine versus a </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">person. I tend to be pretty optimistic about the future, but I don't believe anyone can know how the nature of jobs will be transformed as automation is introduced into various aspects of life.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Here's an <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/3014448/the-four-things-people-can-still-do-better-than-computers" target="_blank">article</a> from <i>Fast Company </i>that appeared 3 1/2 years ago about the changes coming from machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies. I don't think it's aged well. Here are three things it listed:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">1) Unstructured problem-solving: solving for problems in which the rules do not currently exist. Examples: a doctor diagnosing a disease, a lawyer writing a persuasive argument, a designer creating a new web application</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When looking at the examples given, I think diagnosing a disease is probably the first one to be taken over by a machine. But, depending on how you frame the problem, an AI could be written to determine which styles of argument may be most likely to succeed in certain scenarios. Neither eliminates the need for a doctor or lawyer, but they are definitely tools that could reduce the time spent by the primary doctor or lawyer. This could have significant downstream effects on the number of doctors, lawyers, research aids, paralegals, etc. AI and machine learning are tools. By themselves they don't do what a person can do, but they change the nature of the work, and the downstream effects of that are unknown.</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">2) Acquiring and processing new information, deciding what is relevant in a flood of undefined phenomena. Examples: a scientist discovering the properties of a medicine, an underwater explorer, or a journalist reporting on a story.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Here is an example of where some forms of <a href="https://www.blogger.com/2)%20Acquiring%20and%20processing%20new%20information,%20deciding%20what%20is%20relevant%20in%20a%20flood%20of%20undefined%20phenomena.%20Examples:%20a%20scientist%20discovering%20the%20properties%20of%20a%20medicine,%20an%20underwater%20explorer,%20or%20a%20journalist%20reporting%20on%20a%20story." target="_blank">journalism</a> aren't safe from automation. </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">3) Nonroutine physical work. Performing complex tasks in 3-D space, from cleaning to driving to cooking to giving manicures, which is thought of as relatively low-skilled work for humans, but actually requires a combination of skill #1 and skill #2 that is still very difficult for computers to master.</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is true, because we constantly break tasks down to their simplest essentials and teach machines to do that one task. Then we start layering automated processes on top of each other. </span>Machine learning is all about determining what data is relevant. A person sets the parameters of what kind of data is relevant, but machines are best at determining the specific data that will be treated relevant. <span style="font-family: inherit;">I think the rise of self-driving cars is a great illustration of this. It's been true for a while that machines are better at routine driving than people would are (machines don't daydream or get distracted), but people are better at the unexpected (icy patch on a road).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">
Machines and the Future of Work</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">AI will change the face of the workplace. The problems that you'll find with articles that try to predict what jobs will be safe, is that they think of the jobs as they currently exist for humans. But, AI won't do the exact same jobs as people do, they'll do different jobs that will in turn change the nature of the jobs that people will be needed for.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://techinsights.lawrenceharvey.com/post/102dwyj/only-two-things-are-infinite-automation-and-false-assumptions-and-im-not-sure?ref=quuu&utm_content=buffer895a8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer" target="_blank">Josh Wood</a> (a tech recruiter), makes similar points that I was trying to make <a href="http://blog.contextant.com/2017/01/machine-vs-man-what-cant-machine-do.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://blog.contextant.com/2017/01/automation-will-create-jobs-not-destroy.html" target="_blank">here</a>. Namely, that we can't really predict what jobs are safe nor that all the jobs will be automated. It is the downstream effects of machine learning and AI on the economy that are utterly unknown.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He makes a statement that automation may be overblown:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">After all, had the Blacksmiths Unions of the early 20th century been given the power to do so they would have outlawed the motorcar. My point here is that for every piece of ‘job-destroying technology’ there is a new job-creating industry being born which can never be properly foreseen. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics Milton Friedman accurately pointed out that most economic fallacies derive from the ‘zero-sum fallacy’ – the idea that if one party gains another party must always lose, when in fact provided all parties consent to a change all must be gaining (Otherwise, said party would not consent). The entire IT industry as we know it today would have been unthinkable to even the most prophetic sci-fi writers fifty years ago (We don’t all seem to wear identical silver clothing, either…), just as the number of Application Developers working today would have been unfathomable to leading technology economists writing in 2006.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The tech industry is huge part of the economy, and it is an industry where jobs are constantly being created that didn't exist before.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Things are going to change as AI and other ML techniques make their way through various forms of business and the truly beneficial uses of these technologies are found. Change is constant, and the creation and destruction of the types of jobs that need to be done will continue. At <a href="http://www.contextant.com/" target="_blank">Contextant</a>, a lot of our current work is focused on improving physical processes at warehouses. The goal is to simplify the management of the work and try to make the work being done more efficient. But what are the long-term down stream effects of these changes? That is what is unknown. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If something is completely unexpected or has never been considered before, then a machine won't make the same kind of value judgements that a person will. Technology has always allowed us to build machines and devices that replace tasks or jobs that used to be done by hand. AI and Machine Learning are no different. They are tools that will transform what needs to be done. But they are still just tools. Machines will never be human.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-9212841898487456742017-06-23T13:51:00.002-07:002017-07-26T15:33:37.316-07:00When AI Can Transcribe Everything <span style="background-color: #f5f8fa; color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">We've done a little work with a transcriptionist client. Here is an oddly relevant article in the <i><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/06/automated-transcription/530973/?utm_campaign=crowdfire&utm_content=crowdfire&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter#3404532293-tw#1498215465853" target="_blank">Atlantic</a></i> concerning the promise of rapidly improving automated transcription technologies.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #f5f8fa; color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
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<span style="background-color: #f5f8fa; color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/mt/2017/06/RTX2PGOB/lead_960.jpg?1497979923" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="213" src="https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/mt/2017/06/RTX2PGOB/lead_960.jpg?1497979923" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: #f5f8fa; color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #f5f8fa; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #14171a; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">Across professional fields, a whole multitude of conversations—meetings, interviews, and conference calls—need to be transcribed and recorded for future reference. This can be a daily, onerous task, but for those willing to pay, the job can be outsourced to a professional transcription service. The service, in turn, will employ staff to transcribe audio files remotely or, as in my own couple of months in the profession, attend meetings to type out what is said in real time.</span></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
... the promise of ASR [Automatic speech recognition] programs capable of accurately transcribing interviews or meetings as they happen no longer seems so outlandish. At Microsoft’s Build conference last month, the company’s vice-president, Harry Shum, demonstrated a PowerPoint transcription service that would allow the spoken words of the presentation to be tied to individual slides. </blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It’s difficult to predict precisely what this new order could look like, although casualties are expected. The stenographer would likely join the ranks of the costermonger and the iceman in the list of forgotten professions. Journalists could spend more time reporting and writing, aided by a plethora of assistive writing tools, while detectives could analyze the contradictions in suspect testimony earlier. Captioning on YouTube videos could be standard, while radio shows and podcasts could become accessible to the hard of hearing on a mass scale. Calls to acquaintances, friends, and old flames could be archived and searched in the same way that social-media messages and emails are, or intercepted and hoarded by law-enforcement agencies.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-19300088563136367562017-01-16T07:47:00.004-08:002017-01-16T07:47:58.982-08:00AI is a tool to be used. Continuing with the theme "<a href="http://blog.contextant.com/2017/01/machine-vs-man-what-cant-machine-do.html" target="_blank">Jobs of the Future</a> <a href="http://blog.contextant.com/2017/01/more-jobs-of-future-dont-exist-yet.html" target="_blank">Don't Exist Yet</a>" is this article about statements from Microsoft CEO <span style="color: #3c3c3c; font-size: 18px;"><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-16/microsoft-s-nadella-calls-for-tech-industry-to-open-up-ai" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Satya Nadella</span></a></span><span style="color: #3c3c3c; font-family: TiemposTextWeb-Regular, Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"> :</span><br />
<span style="color: #3c3c3c; font-family: TiemposTextWeb-Regular, Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><br /></span>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #3c3c3c;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">"The fundamental need of every person is to be able to use their time more effectively, not to say, ‘let us replace you’," Nadella said in an interview at the DLD conference in Munich. "This year and the next will be the key to democratizing AI. The most exciting thing to me is not just our own promise of AI as exhibited by these products, but to take that capability and put it in the hands of every developer and every organization."</span></span><span style="color: #3c3c3c;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #3c3c3c;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">Nadella is pushing Microsoft into consumer and industrial applications of software that can make inferences about its environment. He cautioned his own company and competitors about "parlor tricks" that show AI’s power without preserving workers’ dignity.</span></span></span></blockquote>
<br />
Thing are going to change as AI and other ML techniques make their way through businesses and truly beneficial uses of these technologies are found. But it's going to change and create the types of jobs that need to be done. A lot of our current work is focusing on improving processes at warehouses. It simplifies the management of the work rather than the work itself. Down stream effects, that is what is unknown.<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-36264201858854842522017-01-12T10:01:00.004-08:002017-11-13T16:14:20.615-08:00More Jobs of the Future Don't exist Yet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<br />
In this post, <a href="http://techinsights.lawrenceharvey.com/post/102dwyj/only-two-things-are-infinite-automation-and-false-assumptions-and-im-not-sure?ref=quuu&utm_content=buffer895a8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer" target="_blank">Josh Wood</a> (a tech recruiter), makes similar points that I was trying to make <a href="http://blog.contextant.com/2017/01/machine-vs-man-what-cant-machine-do.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://blog.contextant.com/2017/01/automation-will-create-jobs-not-destroy.html" target="_blank">here</a>. Namely, that we can't really predict what jobs are safe nor that all the jobs will be automated. It is the downstream effects of machine learning and AI on the economy that are utterly unknown.<br />
<br />
He makes a statement that automation may be overblown:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
After all, had the Blacksmiths Unions of the early 20th century been given the power to do so they would have outlawed the motorcar. My point here is that for every piece of ‘job-destroying technology’ there is a new job-creating industry being born which can never be properly foreseen. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics Milton Friedman accurately pointed out that most economic fallacies derive from the ‘zero-sum fallacy’ – the idea that if one party gains another party must always lose, when in fact provided all parties consent to a change all must be gaining (Otherwise, said party would not consent). The entire IT industry as we know it today would have been unthinkable to even the most prophetic sci-fi writers fifty years ago (We don’t all seem to wear identical silver clothing, either…), just as the number of Application Developers working today would have been unfathomable to leading technology economists writing in 2006.</blockquote>
<br />
The tech industry is huge part of the economy. Jobs are constantly being created that didn't exist before. <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px;">Automation is going to change the world as we know it, of that there can be no doubt. But change has been a factor of human life for as long as human life itself has existed. Employment and recruitment will change in line to reflect this, but the very fact that we, humans (Consumers) don’t want human jobs to disappear is the very reason that suppliers will continue to employ humans to serve their customers – it just might be in roles or sectors which don’t exist yet. As a headhunter my focus isn’t on the five million jobs about to be lost, it’s on the six, seven, or more million jobs that are going to spring up from who-knows-where.</span></span></blockquote>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-10883580950852859402017-01-10T12:20:00.002-08:002017-01-10T12:20:38.449-08:004 things before hitting reset on your career:By <a href="http://www.inc.com/quora/4-things-you-need-to-know-before-you-hit-the-reset-button-on-your-career.html" target="_blank">John L Miller</a> in <i>Inc:</i><div>
<i><br /></i></div>
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<ol>
<li><i><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: RobotoBold; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">Don't look back - </span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: RobotoBold; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">I agree. Most important</span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: RobotoBold; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">Pick achievable goals - </span><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">I think</span><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"> c</span><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">ultivate good habits and routines</span></span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: RobotoBold; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">Be frugal - </span><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">Definitely</span></span></span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: RobotoBold; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">Track your progress - </span><span style="border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: 100%; vertical-align: baseline;">Change your routines if they aren't working</span></span></span></span></i></li>
</ol>
<div>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: RobotoBold;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-29466756884208535412017-01-08T17:45:00.003-08:002017-01-09T07:49:14.994-08:00Maybe the Jobs of the Future don't exist yetYou can find lots of articles on the web written about jobs that can be done by a machine versus a person. As I've written in the past, I tend to be pretty optimistic about the future, but I don't believe anyone can know how the nature of jobs will transform over the years as people determine how automation can be introduced into various aspects of life.<br />
<br />
Here's an <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/3014448/the-four-things-people-can-still-do-better-than-computers" target="_blank">article</a> from <i>Fast Company </i>that appeared 3 1/2 years ago. I don't think it's aged well. Here are four things it listed:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: 17px;">1) Unstructured problem-solving: solving for problems in which the rules do not currently exist. Examples: a doctor diagnosing a disease, a lawyer writing a persuasive argument, a designer creating a new web application</span></span></blockquote>
When looking at the examples given, I think diagnosing a disease is probably the first one to be taken over by a machine. But, depending on how you frame the problem, an AI could be written to determine which styles of argument may be most likely to succeed in certain scenarios. Neither, eliminates the need for a doctor or lawyer, but they are definitely tools that reduce time spent by the primary doctor or lawyer, which could have significant downstream effects on the number of doctors, lawyers, research aids, paralegals, etc. Really, AI and machine learning are tools. By themselves they don't do what a person can do, but they change the nature of the work, and the downstream effects of that are what is really unknown.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
2) Acquiring and processing new information, deciding what is relevant in a flood of undefined phenomena. Examples: a scientist discovering the properties of a medicine, an underwater explorer, or a journalist reporting on a story.</blockquote>
Machine learning is all about determining what data is relevant. A person sets the parameters of what kind of data is relevant, but machines are best determining the specific data that is relevant. As I've noted before, even some forms of <a href="https://www.blogger.com/2)%20Acquiring%20and%20processing%20new%20information,%20deciding%20what%20is%20relevant%20in%20a%20flood%20of%20undefined%20phenomena.%20Examples:%20a%20scientist%20discovering%20the%20properties%20of%20a%20medicine,%20an%20underwater%20explorer,%20or%20a%20journalist%20reporting%20on%20a%20story." target="_blank">journalism</a> aren't safe.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 17px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">3) Nonroutine physical work. Performing complex tasks in 3-D space, from cleaning to driving to cooking to giving manicures, which is thought of as relatively low-skilled work for humans, but actually requires a combination of skill #1 and skill #2 that is still very difficult for computers to master.</span></span></blockquote>
This is true, be we constantly break tasks down to their simplest essentials and teach machines to do that one task. Then we start layering the automated processes on top of each other. I think, the rise of self-driving cars, is a great illustration of this. It's been true for a while that machines are better at routine driving than people would are (machines don't daydream or get distracted), but people are better at the unexpected (icy patch on a road). But, at a far greater rate than most people thought even a couple years ago, these problems are being solved. When a car hits an icy patch, it will be able to determine, based on various sensors and algorithms, what options are best when encountering something unexpected. Now, it's true, that if something is completely unexpected or has never been considered before, a machine won't make the same kind of value judgements that a person would. But, once self-driving cars become common place, they will continue to learn.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
4) Being human: Expressing empathy, making people feel good, taking care of others, being artistic and creative for the sake of creativity, expressing emotions and vulnerability in a relatable way, making people laugh.</blockquote>
True. Machines will never be human.<br />
<br />
<br />
AI will change the face of the workplace. The problems that you'll find with articles that try to predict what jobs will be safe, is that they think of the jobs as they exist for humans. But, AI won't do the exact same jobs as people do, they'll do different jobs that will in turn change the jobs that people will be needed for.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<b>UPDATE:</b><br />
I changed the title based on an experiment I'm noticing with retweet bots. More later.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-51672465126660961452017-01-05T10:38:00.000-08:002017-01-05T10:38:05.851-08:00Automation will CREATE JOBS, not DESTROY them !<div class="tr_bq">
From <span itemprop="name" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); cursor: pointer; display: inline !important; font-family: inherit; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; opacity: 1; outline: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-overflow: ellipsis; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/automation-create-jobs-destroy-them-amazing-tech-oleg-vishnepolsky?trk=v-feed&trk=v-feed&lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_feed%3BQNVOHUlVnABlAooofudU0Q%3D%3D&trk=v-feed&lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_feed%3BuxSgWklouEIkcEyy9qfrkw%3D%3D" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-style: initial; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; outline-color: initial; outline-width: initial; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis;">Oleg Vishnepolsky</span></span> </a>on LinkedIn:</span></div>
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The auto industry displaced people who tended to horses but instead created auto-mechanics, engineers, drivers, auto part plants, etc etc.<br />Dr. Bessen says that ATMs were supposed to reduce the number of bank tellers. ATM actually increased number of bank tellers by 100%. The more effective operation led to creation of more bank branches.<br />He says the problem that automation creates is not of unemployment, but of moving masses of people from one profession to another.<br />Bessen further says that automation will increase income inequality: <a href="http://hbr.org/2016/03/computers-dont-kill-jobs-but-do-increase-inequality" rel="nofollow noopener" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #8c68cb; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">HBR:Computers Don’t Kill Jobs but Do Increase Inequality</a>.</blockquote>
<span itemprop="name" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); cursor: pointer; display: inline !important; font-family: inherit; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; opacity: 1; outline: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; text-overflow: ellipsis; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: nowrap;"></span><br />
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If you work in the technology field, you always have to be learning. Learning new skills and even new categories of skills will be required. Plan ahead, learn new things. Learn how to learn. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-38772910960935336112017-01-04T17:55:00.002-08:002017-01-04T17:55:25.702-08:00The Calm CompanyWhat are the odds that on the day that I blog about Jason Fried's book <i>Rework </i>from 2010, he announces a <a href="https://m.signalvnoise.com/the-calm-company-our-next-book-d0ed917cc457#.llbaudxwa" target="_blank">new book</a> coming in 2017?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-54739749789543876222017-01-04T16:55:00.000-08:002017-01-04T16:55:17.336-08:00"Build half a product, not a half-assed product" - Which half is which?<div class="tr_bq">
This quote is from the great book <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rework-Jason-Fried/dp/0307463745/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483576698&sr=8-1&keywords=Rework" target="_blank">Rework</a> </i>by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson.</div>
<br />
I ran across that quote again while reading <a href="https://medium.com/@jermwatt/how-rework-helped-us-write-a-textbook-on-machine-learning-f50464fc5624#.9icslnd26" target="_blank">this post</a> by Jeremy Watt. It goes into how less can be more. When developing a product (any product, in Watt's case it was his textbook), you want to make sure that what you do deliver is great, even if it means leaving a lot of stuff out. <br />
<br />
This is something that I think every business (both big and small) run into on any significant endeavor. You can never fit everything you want to into a product. You have to be willing to cut and, at least at first, deliver what you think is truly essential. In many cases, after a product goes out the door, the things that you were planning to include in "phase 2" may turn out to not be that important. They may even detract from the core features of your product. <br />
<br />
At Contextant, we're working on a product that we hope to release soon. As we brainstorm, there a lot of features that we think will be cool. But, we've decided to wait and see what the market tells us before putting much effort into them. <br />
<br />
This lesson is true not just when determining what features should make it into a shipping product, but in many other items that businesses do, such as planning! Here is an excerpt from a chapter in <i>Rework </i>called "Planning is Guessing":<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Unless you're a fortune-teller, long-term business planning is a fantasy. There are just too many factors that are out of your hands: market conditions, competitors, customers, the economy, etc. Writing a plan makes you feel in control of things you can’t actually control. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Why don't we just call plans what they really are: guesses. Start referring to your business plans as business guesses, your financial plans as financial guesses, andy our strategic plans as strategic guesses. Now you can stop worrying about them as much. They just aren’t worth the stress.</blockquote>
<br />
That's about exactly right.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-63534648899241208522016-12-23T08:23:00.002-08:002016-12-23T08:23:42.963-08:00Will AI make things better...or worse?<div class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #f5f8fa; color: #292f33; letter-spacing: 0.26px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://snip.ly/ceml7" target="_blank">Great interview with the CEO of Skymind</a>, </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: "ARS Maquette", "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Chris Nicholson. He talks about his perspective on AI and machine learning and how it will impact society in the future. He comes across as fairly optimistic about it (<a href="http://blog.contextant.com/2016/12/when-is-skynet-launching-again.html" target="_blank">like I am</a>). Here is on his responses on the impact of AI on jobs of the future:</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-family: "ARS Maquette", "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #555555; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sure. Technology helps to automate existing professions, while creating new ones. So yes, some white-collar jobs that exist now will be automated by AI. But technology always adds complexity to life and society, and it’s usually up to humans to manage that complexity, so new jobs are created. AI performs a particular task for companies: It lowers the cost of thinking. It performs pattern recognition very well. So there are some pattern recognition tasks where AI will replace humans, and others where it will augment their abilities, and still others where it may not apply at all.</span></span></blockquote>
He mentions the reality that machine learning and AI are applied to specific tasks, the generally make people more efficient. Over time, people move on to different types of jobs that may not have even existed before.<br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">AI research is moving at a breakneck pace. It’s really hard to keep up with, even when you’re deep in the field. We’re gathering more data to train algorithms on, so that’s making them smarter. And we have more powerful chips to process that data, so that’s making new applications possible. We’re getting better at computational creativity: the combination of elements to create art in various media like graphics and music. We’re getting better at perception: figuring out what’s going on in front of the machine. We’re getting better about using AI to make decisions.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This will have a big impact on healthcare, finance, manufacturing, e-commerce, you name it. Accurately classifying raw data and using that to make better decisions can apply to almost every industry. And with deep learning, the improvements in accuracy are a quantum leap beyond what used to be possible. That kind of improvement can save companies millions.</span></blockquote>
Putting some technologies together will make drastic changes in some industries, of course. The impact of the self-driving car will be enormous. That doesn't make it bad. As we've seen with technology over the last decade, changes in some areas of life are dramatic. In others, not so much.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-4493795459052911232016-12-16T12:23:00.002-08:002016-12-16T12:23:47.381-08:00"The 'No Passwords' revolution has begun."We can only hope. <br />
<br />
From <a href="http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/security/a24256/what-hackers-want-with-hello-kitty-accounts/" target="_blank">Popular Mechanics</a> article about hackers collecting kids data:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The more secure alternative is dynamic log-in authentication, which syncs the user's device with the website. The website's log-in process randomly generates a sequence of bytes every few moments and sends it over as a "question," and the device, which had previously been given the formula to figure it out, sends back the correct "answer." Because they're both in sync, the correct answers are always in time with the questions. Log-in credentials are used once and immediately become stale, unlike a user name/password. It's more complicated to design, but Eisen says it's overdue to become the new standard.</blockquote>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-40133182925504364442016-12-16T10:23:00.002-08:002016-12-16T10:23:53.152-08:00The Trade Off between Privacy and Personalization<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There’s almost always some trade-off between privacy and personalization; this has been true for every generation of technology. Retailers need to move forward with transparency, respect, and security as their priorities. They also need to show value. Google has done this well, not just with personalized search results but also with services such as Google Now, which integrates with your calendar and Google Maps to alert you that traffic to your meeting is heavier than usual and tells you when you should leave the office to arrive on time.</blockquote>
<br />
From an HBR article <a href="https://hbr.org/2016/11/how-predictive-ai-will-change-shopping" target="_blank">How Predictive AI Will Change Shopping</a>. It makes lo.ts of good points about the use of predictive analytics to enhance the shopping experience (which will certainly continue to grow), but it's also very tied to the amount of information that you're willing to share (perhaps unknowingly).Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-33079443643391260032016-12-14T13:11:00.003-08:002016-12-14T13:12:17.062-08:00Has Deep Learning Made Traditional Machine Learning Irrelevant?Here is a great article in <a href="http://www.datasciencecentral.com/profiles/blogs/has-deep-learning-made-traditional-machine-learning-irrelevant" target="_blank">DataScienceCentral</a> by William Vorhies, about neural networks vs traditional machine learning techniques (kNN, random forest, naive bayes, boosting techniques, etc.).<br />
<br />
It answers the simple question: is deep learning the future. His answer, of course, is no. Regardless of what is seen in tech media articles and Kaggle competitions, a lot of problems, especially with structured and understood data, can be solved more simply using normal machine-learning algorithms.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #454545; font-family: Arial, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; min-height: 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
We mentioned earlier that there are at least 28 unique architectures for ANNs, many of which are quite specialized like the many-hidden layers necessary in CNNs and RNNs. If your business has image or NLP unstructured data that needs to be analyzed then using CNNs and RNNs is the way to go.<br />
But keep in mind:<br />
<ul style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #454545; font-family: Arial, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 1em; list-style: square; margin: 0px 0px 3px 2.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">CNNs and RNNs are very difficult to train and sometimes fail to train at all.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #454545; font-family: Arial, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 1em; list-style: square; margin: 0px 0px 3px 2.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">If you are building a CNN or RNN from scratch you are talking weeks or even months of development time.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #454545; font-family: Arial, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.6px; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 1em; list-style: square; margin: 0px 0px 3px 2.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">CNNs and RNNs require extremely large amounts of labeled data on which to train which many companies find difficult or too costly to acquire.</li>
</ul>
In fact the barriers to de novo CNN and RNN creation are so steep that the market is rapidly evolving toward <a href="http://www.datasciencecentral.com/profiles/blogs/deep-learning-for-everyone-and-almost-free" style="background: transparent; border-bottom: none; border-image: initial; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; color: #3c78a7; font-size: 15.6px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 15.6px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">prebuilt models available via API</i></a> from companies like Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Google, and others.</blockquote>
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I <i>predict (</i>no pun intended) that the webservice offerings by Amazon and Google will continue to evolve and become a bigger deal in the near future (like 2017!).Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-14489599859527741102016-12-13T10:25:00.000-08:002016-12-13T10:25:40.415-08:00Google's Android Internet of Things - Does it bring security?Google announces "<a href="https://developers.googleblog.com/2016/12/announcing-googles-new-internet-of-things-platform-with-weave-and-android-things.html" target="_blank">Android Things</a>" today along with some changes to their "<a href="https://developers.google.com/weave/?utm_campaign=android_launch_iotweave_121316&utm_source=gdev&utm_medium=blog" target="_blank">Weave</a>" IoT communication platform.<br />
<br />
The big perceived benefit from Android Things is going to be security as they promise an infrastructure for IoT manufacturers to regularly push OS patches and security fixes.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.870588);">We're releasing a Developer Preview of Android Things, a comprehensive way to build IoT products with the power of Android, one of the world's most supported operating systems. Now any Android developer can quickly build a smart device using Android APIs and Google services, while staying highly secure with updates direct from Google. We incorporated the feedback from Project Brillo to include familiar tools such as Android Studio, the Android Software Development Kit (SDK), Google Play Services, and Google Cloud Platform. And in the coming months, we will provide Developer Preview updates to bring you the infrastructure for securely pushing regular OS patches, security fixes, and your own updates, as well as built-in Weave connectivity and more.</span></blockquote>
It's in developer preview, and I would guess it may be kind of rough going at the beginning. Google's been known to release developer tools that aren't super polished to see what works. They indicate that they have a "turn-key" solution for Raspberry Pi and Intel Edison. Anything that enhances IoT security is a good thing, but we'll have to see if it plays well with non-Google Cloud services.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-8205318218893099182016-12-09T11:20:00.002-08:002016-12-09T11:20:20.962-08:00When is Skynet Launching Again?So this interests me. I blogged <a href="http://blog.contextant.com/2016/12/is-ai-more-artificial-or-more.html" target="_blank">earlier</a> about what effect AI and machine learning will have long term on the economy.<br />
<br />
In an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/07/science/artificial-intelligence-when-is-the-singularity.html?_r=2" target="_blank">article</a> from April, John Markoff in the <i>New York Times</i> references these warnings from some tech luminaries mentioned in an earlier <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/26/science/darpa-robotics-challenge-terminator.html" target="_blank">article</a>:<br />
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<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="103" data-total-count="489" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; line-height: 1.625rem; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 75px; max-width: none; width: 570px;">
“I don’t understand why some people are not concerned,” Mr. [Bill] Gates said in <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2tzjp7/hi_reddit_im_bill_gates_and_im_back_for_my_third" style="color: #326891;">an interview on Reddit</a>.<br /><br />“I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence,” Mr. [Elon] Musk said during <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2014/10/24/elon-musk-with-artificial-intelligence-we-are-summoning-the-demon/" style="color: #326891;" title="Washington Post article.">an interview at M.I.T.</a> “If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that,” he added. He has also said that artificial intelligence would “summon the demon.”<br /><br />And Mr. [Stephen] Hawking <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30290540" style="color: #326891;" title="BBC article.">told the BBC that</a> “the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”</div>
<br />
The overall article is more positive about the future of humanity:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">What has not been shown, however, is scientific evidence for such an event. Indeed, the idea has been treated more skeptically by neuroscientists and a vast majority of artificial intelligence researchers.</span> </blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">For starters, biologists acknowledge that the basic mechanisms for biological intelligence are still not completely understood, and as a result there is not a good model of human intelligence for computers to simulate.</span></blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">Indeed, the field of artificial intelligence has a long history of over-promising and under-delivering. John McCarthy, the mathematician and computer scientist who coined the term artificial intelligence, told his Pentagon funders in the early 1960s that building a machine with human levels of intelligence would take just a decade. Even earlier,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"> </span><a href="http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1958/07/08/83417341.html?pageNumber=25" style="color: #326891; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, serif;">in 1958 </a><a href="http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1958/07/08/83417341.html?pageNumber=25" style="color: #326891; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, serif;">T</a><a href="http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1958/07/08/83417341.html?pageNumber=25" style="color: #326891; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", times, serif;">he New York Times</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">reported that the Navy was planning to build a “thinking machine” based on the neural network research of the psychologist Frank Rosenblatt. The article forecast that it would take about a year to build the machine and cost about $100,000.</span> </blockquote>
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I'm going to be an optimist and go with Mr. Markoff's view of things.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-40491537474857078502016-12-07T08:47:00.002-08:002016-12-07T08:47:16.478-08:00A new Screensaver<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwoPUAz0AVJ33IEjwBFfcKDG0m_rN_32Rw0RgmOFkqRJQxAlY9NoWdB88ankk2_seq-_izxMZmqUjaDvRV197Oleh5ijSwNAjt34X6bFTeM6bjPuqE9yE6YdaD2TQSHv1UtALki8gkHdA/s1600/bayes.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwoPUAz0AVJ33IEjwBFfcKDG0m_rN_32Rw0RgmOFkqRJQxAlY9NoWdB88ankk2_seq-_izxMZmqUjaDvRV197Oleh5ijSwNAjt34X6bFTeM6bjPuqE9yE6YdaD2TQSHv1UtALki8gkHdA/s320/bayes.gif" width="320" /></a></div>
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(h/t) <a href="http://www.datasciencecentral.com/profiles/blogs/how-bayesian-inference-works" target="_blank">datasciencecentral</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-24759095027859922102016-12-01T08:29:00.001-08:002016-12-01T08:29:23.390-08:00Augmented Reality in the WarehouseThis <a href="http://www.supplychain247.com/article/vision_picking_in_the_warehouse_augmented_reality_in_logistics" target="_blank">article</a> is from last year, but I just found it. It describes a great POC about using computer vision to produce augmented reality in a warehouse for pickers who are picking inventory.<br />
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Most of my client work over the past few years has been clients in warehousing and logistics, I found this extremely fascinating. Ususally, The goals for a Picker (the person picking inventory from storage for an order) are:<br />
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<li>Be told which location in the warehouse has the inventory that needs to be picked</li>
<li>Have the picks presented in a logical order to minimize the distance the the picker needs to travel to gather the items for orders they are picking</li>
<li>Group the items being picked for different orders (usually JIT barcode that they can attach to the inventory).</li>
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The POC was done by DHL for their customer Ricoh in the Netherlands.</div>
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Here are some great pictures of what the picking looked like:</div>
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<a href="http://www.supplychain247.com/images/slides/vision_picking_in_the_warehouse_slide4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.supplychain247.com/images/slides/vision_picking_in_the_warehouse_slide4.jpg" height="225" width="320" /></a></div>
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The visuals were displayed using Google's (now discontinued?) Glass wearable.</div>
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Here is a visual displaying the quantity to be picked, the aisle and location of the current pick as well as an indicator of where the next pick will be:</div>
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<a href="http://www.supplychain247.com/images/slides/vision_picking_in_the_warehouse_slide5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.supplychain247.com/images/slides/vision_picking_in_the_warehouse_slide5.jpg" height="225" width="320" /></a></div>
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DHL research released a whitepaper just this past August. This interests me so I've reached out to DHL to get more details about it (such as whether it ever went to production).</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-2957174967715998712016-11-07T15:24:00.003-08:002016-11-07T15:24:55.205-08:00Qualcomm launches edge-analytics IoT cameraFrom the research site <a href="http://rethink-wireless.com/2016/10/20/qualcomm-launches-edge-analytics-iot-camera-aims-for-lte-expansion/" target="_blank">Rethink Wireless</a>:<br />
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<span lang="en-US">The most interesting new product was the camera design, which has dropped the branding used in the briefing materials, for some reason. The camera system aims to bring network-edge analytics to video processing, as well as acting as a sensor hub for IoT applications.</span></blockquote>
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<span lang="en-US">In terms of spec, the camera is capable of HEVC encoding at 4K resolutions at 30fps, powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 625 SoC. With LTE, WiFi and Bluetooth, as well as I/O pin-outs on the back for those additional IoT sensors, Qualcomm is providing a platform reference design for developers to take and turn into products – driving Qualcomm sales and orders.</span></blockquote>
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<span lang="en-US">The 8-core CPU on the Snapdragon 625 is going to be providing the processing power needed for running video analytics on the device, with will allow developers to reduce the network bandwidth used in backhauling video for analysis in a central cloud deployment.</span></blockquote>
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This article focuses on single definition of Edge Analytics. The type of analysis done by these edge-analytics cameras is Much like Intel, I think the emergence of Smart Cameras will be a huge boon to performing analytics against image data, as it alleviates bandwidth concerns (and possibly improves security as they will probably be more easily updated).<br />
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There is a huge opportunity for edge analytics when using cameras, as you still need to manage the cameras, correlate events from multiple cameras and use that as input to a cloud service.<br />
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Our goal with our <a href="http://www.contextant.com/vizntrac/industry/index.html" target="_blank">ViznTrac Edge</a> concept is to provide a simple way of detecting and managing inputs from IP cameras on a local network and have that send the relevant data to our <a href="http://vizntrac.com/" target="_blank">ViznTrac</a> service. I find articles such as the one above to be very optimistic about the opportunities available in image analytics.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-84634157265715437432016-11-02T08:42:00.005-07:002016-11-02T08:42:52.122-07:00Netamo Smart Camera<span style="background-color: #f5f8fa; color: #292f33; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> A true smart-camera, </span><a class="twitter-timeline-link" data-expanded-url="https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/02/netatmo-presence-ai-security-camera/" dir="ltr" href="https://t.co/G3TZ5xe8AE" rel="nofollow" style="background: rgb(245, 248, 250); color: #0084b4; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank" title="https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/02/netatmo-presence-ai-security-camera/">The Netamo Presence</a><br />
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The camera has 1080p resolution, a 100-degree field of view and a weatherproof design for outdoor use. Other features include a time-lapse feature that shows the previous 24 hours in just one minute, a DIY installation process that lets you replace an outdoor light, a live video display, and a timeline showing past events.The app works on a iOS or Android devices, and on a PC or Mac via the web, and is now available in the US at Home Depot, Apple or Amazon.com for $300.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #f5f8fa;">Our goal with <a href="http://www.vizntrac.com/" target="_blank">ViznTrac</a> is to add this type of functionality to normal IP Cameras, plus manage them and allow integration with sensors and devices.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-66390387747751990142016-11-02T07:52:00.001-07:002016-11-02T07:52:42.765-07:00Microsoft Flow vs IFTTTMicrosoft announced that their IFTTT-like <i>Flow </i>service is now out of beta. They're targeting it more at the enterprise. From the <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/1/13491500/microsoft-flow-ifttt-available-now">The Verge</a>:<br />
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A Flow is an action that takes place after something else happens — like having a photo uploaded to Dropbox after emailing it to yourself. Unlike IFTTT, which lets you link two single actions with each other, Microsoft’s version can perform multiple actions in a single Flow. For example, you can choose to have a tweet containing a certain keyword trigger both a push notification and an email simultaneously instead of creating two separate recipes.</div>
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Compared to IFTTT, Flow is compatible with fewer third-party apps (58 supported apps to IFTTT’s 366). This makes sense, though, given that Flow is designed to be used at an enterprise level while IFTTT targets Internet of Things users.</div>
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IFTTT uses the idea of "recipes" where you link actions from different accounts so that an action can trigger something else. IFTTT greatest feature has been it's "Do" mobile app which allows you build recipes based on your location. Microsoft's <i>Flow </i>has a similar app. I'll have to review it (first 750 actions are Free!) and see which works better.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4595422525237465706.post-22249617205540659992016-10-28T10:41:00.001-07:002016-10-28T10:41:54.748-07:00New ViznTrac Home PageWe've updated the <a href="http://www.vizntrac.com/">ViznTrac</a> website. We're on-track to begin our closed-beta with camera management, smart-motion detection, face detection and grid analysis features ready. Our plan is to open up the beta to interested parties by January 2017. If all goes well, we should have basic functionality ready for the public before end of Q1.<br />
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We also setup a page listing industrial use cases <a href="http://www.contextant.com/vizntrac/industry/">here</a>.<br />
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I'm planning on putting up a post about ViznTrac's architecture within the next couple of days.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569057080308698655noreply@blogger.com