'This is the last opportunity for us to wake up': A leading economist warns we're headed for an AI-driven cataclysm

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/587905c4f10a9a29768b52ad-975" alt="maluuba Sam Pasupalak Kaheer Suleman" data-mce-source="Maluuba" data-mce-caption="Maluuba CTO Kaheer Suleman (left) and CEO Sam Pasupalak (right)" /><p class="source"><span>Maluuba</span></p><p class="caption">Maluuba CTO Kaheer Suleman (left) and CEO Sam Pasupalak (right)</p></div><p></p></div></div>Microsoft has purchased <a href="http://www.maluuba.com">Maluuba</a>, a Samsung-backed artificial intelligence startup based in Montreal, in its quest to build better, smarter artificial intelligence that can be used in the workplace, the <a href="https://blogs.microsoft.com/?p=26738576">company says in a blog post</a>.</p><p>And as part of the deal, Maluuba advisor Yoshua Bengio - a University of Montreal professor who also happens to be a leading authority on artificial intelligence - will be signing on with Microsoft in an advisory role, working directly with Microsoft Research boss Harry Shum.</p><p><span>This acquisition reflects a big strategic imperative for Microsoft, as it banks that its combination of artificial intelligence expertise, plus its deep hooks into the business software that people use every day, will give it a big leg up as <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-amazon-is-so-hard-to-topple-in-the-cloud-and-where-everybody-else-falls-2015-10">Amazon and Google make increasing inroads into the enterprise IT market</a>. </span></p><p>As for what Maluuba actually does: "<span>Maluuba's vision is to advance toward a more general artificial intelligence by creating literate machines that can think, reason and communicate like humans - a vision exactly in line with ours," Shum writes in that blog entry.</span></p><p><span></span><span>In a more material sense, Shum lays out a scenario where a Maluuba-powered bot could help you sift through piles of emails, documents, and directories to find the best tax experts in your company, delivering an instant answer, rather than just a dumb search bar that returns every single file that mentions "tax law."</span></p><p><span>That's helpful for Microsoft, as it builds out the capabilities of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-cortana-vs-amazon-echo-2017-1">Windows 10's Cortana virtual assistant to fill more roles and answer more questions in the workplace</a>, as a counterpoint to the more consumer-focused Amazon Alexa.</span></p><p><span>Maluuba had raised a relatively modest $11 million in venture capital funding since it was founded in 2011, including seed funding from Samsung Ventures.</span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/funny-questions-to-ask-microsoft-cortana-2015-11">20 Easter egg questions you can ask Cortana to get a hilarious response</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="ptN2hveDqChq8i8yIRQHAKJKabK42hnz" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'ptN2hveDqChq8i8yIRQHAKJKabK42hnz',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

Microsoft bought a Samsung-backed startup and signed a top expert in its quest to build better robots

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5876b2a7ee14b651008b7d47-1067/residentialsmall.jpg" alt="waymo google self-driving car" data-mce-source="Waymo"><p class="source"><span>Waymo</span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div>The self-driving car space is getting increasingly more cutthroat.</p><p>The sheer number of lawsuits filed recently are a testament to that.</p><p>Tesla, for example, is suing its former Autopilot director Sterling Anderson. The <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-sues-sterling-anderson-chris-urmson-data-breach-recruiting-violations-2017-1" target="_blank">lawsuit</a> claims Anderson stole data for a competing venture, Aurora Innovations, that hasn't even come out of stealth mode yet. Aurora denies the claims.</p><p>Buried in that lawsuit, though, was some <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-says-uber-otto-purchase-demoware-2017-1" target="_blank">interesting commentary</a> on the competitive nature of the industry and the kind of culture it has bred:</p><p>"In their zeal to play catch-up, traditional automakers have created a get-rich-quick environment. Small teams of programmers with little more than demoware have been bought for as much as a billion dollars. Cruise Automation, a 40-person firm, was purchased by General Motors in July 2016 for nearly $1 billion. In August 2016, Uber acquired Otto, another self-driving startup that had been founded only seven months earlier, in a deal worth more than $680 million."</p><p>(Otto is currently at the heart of a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/alphabet-injunction-uber-self-driving-cars-2017-3" target="_blank">lawsuit filed by Waymo</a>, Alphabet's self-driving-car company, alleging Uber stole intellectual property.)</p><p>So why is it that tiny startups with little to no brand recognition are getting acquired for millions? <strong>AI specialists told Business Insider it has little to do with acquiring the startup's tech and everything to do with nabbing talent.</strong></p><p>That's because there's a serious lack of experts in the field of deep learning, a branch of artificial intelligence where computers learn on their own. Deep learning is key to advancing self-driving tech as it allows cars to learn safe driving at a much faster rate than traditional programming.</p><p>"The growth of demand is much faster than the rate of which we can produce people with PhDs or even master's in this area," Yoshua Bengio, head of the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms, told Business Insider. "There's just an explosion of interest from the industry... and it's like a fire growing on the prairie."</p><h2>Growth in demand</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/58bd9a7ebe967324008b512a-1432/undefined" alt="alphaGo match" data-mce-source="Lee Jin-man/AP"><p class="source"><span>Lee Jin-man/AP</span></p><p class="caption">AlphaGo plays Lee Sedol in the game of Go.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div>Machine learning has advanced rapidly in the last five years.</p><p>In March of last year, a program developed by Google DeepMind, a London-based AI lab, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/watch-google-ai-world-champion-go-tournament-2016-3" target="_blank">beat a world champion</a> at the highly complex game of Go - a game that has more moves than there are atoms in the universe.</p><p>That's not even the latest feat in artificial intelligence. In January, a bot developed by Carnegie Mellon University <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/four-poker-pros-lost-18-million-ai-libratus-2017-2" target="_blank">beat four of the world's best poker players</a> at Texas Hold 'Em, sweeping them of $1.8 million.</p><p>Companies are only expanding their AI teams as the field rapidly develops.</p><p>"Because machine learning and artificial intelligence is growing, companies are poaching professors all the time," Geoff Gordon, an associate research professor of machine learning at CMU, told Business Insider.</p><p>But automakers, in particular, are making massive investments in experts because they've begun their AI efforts late compared to traditional tech companies.</p><p>Because deep learning has applications far beyond just self-driving cars, manufacturers are having to compete with each other and traditional tech companies.</p><p>Only 28 companies have more than 10 deep learning specialists on staff, accounting firm KPMG wrote in a <a href="https://home.kpmg.com/tr/en/home/insights/2016/12/i-see-i-think-i-drive-i-learn.html" target="_blank">2016 report</a>. What's more, only six technology companies employ 54% of all deep learning specialists: Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA, IBM, Intel, and Samsung.</p><p>"The traditional power and talent of the auto industry was based in their product development group," Gary Silberg, the head of KPMG's automotive unit, told Business Insider. "So they would hire these amazing mechanical and electrical engineers at the top schools of engineering and they would be part of product development."</p><p>"You can't just turn on a dime and say, 'ok, now we are going to go recruit AI geniuses and computer scientists and expect them to come to work with us,'" Silberg continued.</p><h2>The bottleneck effect</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/57d88a30077dccda0b8b5981-1920/uberassembly5 copy 0300000602still002.jpg" alt="uber driverless car" data-mce-source="Business Insider/Corey Protin"><p class="source"><span>Business Insider/Corey Protin</span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Companies pursuing self-driving cars have turned to the universities with the brightest minds in the space to acquire talent.</p><p>In March 2015, Uber gutted Carnegie Mellon University's AI and robotics center. The ride-hailing service <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-poached-a-load-of-staff-from-carnegie-mellon-to-help-it-make-self-driving-cars-2015-5" target="_blank">poached over 50 experts</a>, including Anthony Stentz, who had served as the director for the last four-and-a-half years.</p><p>A few months later, Uber announced a strategic partnership with the university to create the Uber Advanced Technologies Center for self-driving cars.</p><p>Andrew Ng, a renowned deep learning expert, left Stanford to become Baidu's chief scientist in 2014. Baidu has a permit to test its self-driving vehicles in California and has tested its cars in China.</p><p>Universities are struggling to fill the void left by these poachings.</p><p>Companies have created a bottleneck where they are looking for talent at a rate that's impossible to produce, said Bengio, the University of Montreal professor who is considered a pioneer in deep learning. It takes about five years for the average doctoral candidate to get his or her PhD.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/57c6dd8c09d29324008b5567-2048/carnegie mellon university.jpg" alt="Carnegie Mellon University" data-mce-source="Carnegie Mellon University/Facebook" data-link="https://www.facebook.com/carnegiemellonu/photos/a.82054156387.103037.7133766387/10153058164256388/?type=3&amp;theater"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/carnegiemellonu/photos/a.82054156387.103037.7133766387/10153058164256388/?type=3&amp;theater">Carnegie Mellon University/Facebook</a></span></p><p class="caption">Carnegie Mellon University</p></img></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The problem is amplified by the fact that professors are leaving universities to work at tech and auto companies.</p><p>"The demand for people who want to work in this area is growing but the bottleneck is that there are not enough academic labs, not enough professors to supervise all these students who want to get into this field," Bengio said.</p><p>Gordon said CMU is definitely seeing an increase in the number of people who want to specialize in deep learning. For the upcoming academic year, CMU's machine learning doctorate program received 800 applications. It had received 300 applications just two years prior.</p><p>Bengio said he gets 600 applications every year for students who want to study machine learning at the University of Montreal. He can only teach around 20 students.</p><p>That growing interest in machine learning is encouraging, but classroom sizes can only expand so much with a limited pool of professors.</p><p>"There are very few experts in this area until quite recently and many of them are being snapped up by industries because they are in so much of a need for that expertise," Bengio said. "So now you have even less professors than you did just a couple of years ago."</p><h2>A $1 billion going rate</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/57aa3717db5ce91d008b5ac1-959/cover-photo.jpg" alt="ford driverless car" data-mce-source="Ford"><p class="source"><span>Ford</span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div>The shortage of AI talent means the going rate for specialists is high, especially for startups, which allow companies to acquire talent in bulk.</p><p>GM bought San Francisco-based startup Cruise Automation for <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/gm-cruise-automation-price-2016-7" target="_blank">$581 million</a> in March 2016. Uber bought self-driving-truck startup Otto in a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/otto-self-driving-truck-uber-purchased" target="_blank">deal worth $680 million</a> last August.</p><p>More recently, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ford-invests-1-billion-argo-ai-for-self-driving-cars-2017-2" target="_blank">Ford invested $1 billion</a> in Pittsburgh-based startup Argo AI. That investment will be spread out over 5 years.</p><p>Julie Lodge-Jarrett, Ford's human resources director, said the Argo AI investment is indicative of how Ford has changed its strategy to recruit and retain talent as demand for artificial intelligence experts rises.</p><p>"As we've shifted from being an automotive company to being automotive and mobility we've seen an increase need for tech talent," Lodge-Jarrett told Business Insider. "So in places like machine learning or AI or robotics… we see a greater need for ourselves at Ford and also a more competitive market for that particular talent."</p><p>Lodge-Jarret said Ford is looking to buy more talent in bulk because it also helps them recruit in the future.</p><p>Argo AI is co-founded by Bryan Salesky, the former director of hardware for Google's self-driving-car efforts, and Peter Rander, Uber's engineering lead at its autonomous cars center.</p><p>Those kinds of connections make it easier for Ford to acquire the kind of talent that has traditionally worked for major tech companies.</p><p>Bengio said the Argo AI investment is indicative of how "the game has been in the last couple of years."</p><p>"The sad thing is most of these are just for recruiting," he said. "It's kind of a loss for the economy because most often the projects these small companies had don't continue once they've been integrated into the company…. It's kind of a waste of resources and investment in some sense."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/rolls-royce-driverless-concept-car-2016-6">Rolls-Royce made a stunning driverless concept car</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="pocDE3NDE6o_qABXShKJNo2v7jaiBq15" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'pocDE3NDE6o_qABXShKJNo2v7jaiBq15',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

There's a raging talent war for AI experts and its costing automakers millions

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/55a02c94371d2279018b64a7-801-601/rtxy8ce.jpg" alt="Mark Zuckerberg" data-mce-source="Robert Galbraith/Reuters" /><p class="source"><span>Robert Galbraith/Reuters</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>From telepathy to total immunity from disease, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn't shy away from bold predictions about the future during a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10102213601037571?pnref=story">Q&amp;A on his Facebook profile on June 30</a>.</p><p>But one of Zuckerberg's technology dreams is on the verge of coming true: a computer that can describe images in plain English to users.</p><p>Zuckerberg thinks this machine could have profound changes on <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-mark-zuckerberg-predictions-about-the-future-2015-7">how people, especially the vision-impaired, interact with their computers.</a></p><p>"If we could build computers that could understand what's in an image and could tell a blind person who otherwise couldn't see that image, that would be pretty amazing as well," Zuckerberg <a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10102213601037571?pnref=story">wrote</a>. "This is all within our reach and I hope we can deliver it in the next 10 years."</p><p>In the past year, teams from the <a href="http://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.03044v2.pdf">University of Toronto and Universite de Montreal</a>, <a href="http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/november/computer-vision-algorithm-111814.html">Stanford University</a>, and <a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/news/532666/googles-brain-inspired-software-describes-what-it-sees-in-complex-images/">Google</a> have been making headway in creating artificial intelligence programs that can look at an image, decide what's important, and accurately, clearly describe it.</p><p>This development builds on image recognition algorithms that are already widely available, like Google Images and other facial recognition software. It's just taking it one step further. Not only does it recognize objects, it can put that object into the context of its surroundings.</p><p>"The most impressive thing I've seen recently is the ability of these deep learning systems to understand an image and produce a sentence that describes it in natural language," said Yoshua Bengio, an artificial intelligence (AI) researcher from the Universite de Montreal. Bengio and his colleagues, recently developed a machine that could observe and describe images. They presented their findings last week at the <a href="http://icml.cc/2015/">International Conference on Machine Learning.</a></p><p>"This is something that has been done in parallel in a bunch of labs in the last less than a year," Bengio told Business Insider. "It started last Fall and we've seen papers coming out, probably more than 10 papers, since then from all the major deep learning labs, including mine. It's really impressive."</p><p>Bengio's program could describe images in fairly accurate detail, generating a sentence by looking at the most relevant areas in the image.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/55a0163b2acae7f4028b6810-1334-505/computer image description.png" alt="computer image description" data-mce-source="Universite de Monreal/University of Toronto" data-link="http://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.03044v2.pdf" /><p class="source"><span><a href="http://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.03044v2.pdf">Universite de Monreal/University of Toronto</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div>It might not sound like a revolutionary undertaking. A young child can describe the pictures above easily enough.</p><p>But doing this actually involves several cognitive skills that the child has learned: seeing an object, recognizing what it is, realizing how it's interacting with other objects in its surroundings, and coherently describing what she's seeing.</p><p>That's a tough ask for AI because it combines vision and natural language, different specializations within AI research.</p><p>It also involves knowing what to focus on. Babies begin to <a href="http://www.aoa.org/patients-and-public/good-vision-throughout-life/childrens-vision/infant-vision-birth-to-24-months-of-age?sso=y">recognize colors and focus on small objects</a> by the time they are five months old, according to the American Optometric Association. Looking at the image above, young children know to focus on the little girl, the main character of that image. But AI doesn't necessarily come with this prior knowledge, especially when it comes to flat, 2D images. The main character could be anywhere within the frame.</p><p>In order for the machines to identify the main character, researchers train them with thousands of images. Bengio and his colleagues trained their program with 120,000 images. Their AI could recognize the object in the image, while simultaneously focusing on relevant sections of the image while in the process of describing it.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/55a0181a2acae72c008b6847-1276-345/computer describes image.png" alt="computer describes image" data-mce-source="Universite de Montreal/University of Toronto" data-link="http://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.03044v2.pdf" /><p class="source"><span><a href="http://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.03044v2.pdf">Universite de Montreal/University of Toronto</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div>"As the machine develops one word after another in the English sentence, for each word, it chooses to look in different places of the image that it finds to be most relevant in deciding what the next word should be," Bengio said. "We can visualize that. We can see for each word in the sentence where it's looking in the image. It's looking where you would imagine ... just like a human would."</p><p>According to Scientific American, the system's responses "<a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/see-and-tell-ai-machine-can-describe-objects-it-observes/">could be mistaken for that of a human</a>" about 70% of the time.</p><p>However, it seemed to falter when the program focused on the wrong thing, when the images had multiple figures or if the images were more visually complicated. In the batch of images below, the program describes the top middle image, for example, as "a woman holding a clock in her hand" because it mistook the logo on her shirt for a clock.</p><p>The program also misclassified objects it got right in other images. For example, the giraffes in the upper right picture were mistaken for "a large white bird standing in a forest."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/55a0268a371d2277018b64a2-1320-624/computer description errors.png" alt="Computer description errors" data-mce-source="Universite de Montreal/University of Toronto" data-link="http://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.03044v2.pdf" /><p class="source"><span><a href="http://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.03044v2.pdf">Universite de Montreal/University of Toronto</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div>It did however, correctly predict what every man and woman wants: to sit at a table with a large pizza.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cryotherapy-treatment-kryolife-lebron-james-cristiano-ronaldo-2015-5">We tried cryotherapy - the super-cold treatment LeBron James swears by </a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="8xNDkzdTrPhZVTXsVcbxX5djyJzBD3lz" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', '8xNDkzdTrPhZVTXsVcbxX5djyJzBD3lz',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

One of Mark Zuckerberg's mind-blowing predictions about the future already exists

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/563343c5dd089538758b456d-3300-2475/rtx13g1t.jpg" alt="Tim Cook looking worried or sad" data-mce-source="Reuters/Stephen Lam " /><p class="source"><span>Reuters/Stephen Lam </span></p><p class="caption">Apple CEO Tim Cook looks worried.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Apple's culture of secrecy is hurting its efforts to hire artificial intelligence experts, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-29/apple-s-secrecy-hurts-its-ai-software-development">according to a report by Bloomberg</a>. While other companies, such as Google, Microsoft, and IBM, allow researchers to publish research papers, Apple requires that its employees do not.</p><p>Artificial Intelligence (AI) is arguably the next frontier of computing and losing out on key talent could hurt Apple's chances of success. "Apple is off the scale in terms of secrecy," Richard Zemel, a computer science professor at the University of Toronto told Bloomberg. "They're completely out of the loop."</p><p>All of the big technology companies, from Google to IBM, are working on AI software. For example, Facebook can tell blind users who is in certain photos, Google can create GIFs and collages out of photos, and Microsoft is working to bolster Cortana, its virtual assistant.</p><p>By preventing its researchers from publicly talking about their work, Apple is potentially damaging its chances of competing. According to Bloomberg, new hires are prevented from even announcing the job on LinkedIn or Twitter. "The really strong people don't want to go into a closed environment where it's all secret," Yoshua Bengio, a professor of computer science at the University of Montreal, told Bloomberg.</p><p>Apple <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-acquired-two-artificial-intelligence-companies-2015-10">recently acquired two AI startups</a>, Perceptio and VocalIQ, to help its efforts. The company also hired away influential researchers from Microsoft and is <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/job/apple/artificial-intelligence-jobs/">advertising hundreds of AI-related jobs</a>, focusing on all aspects of the company, from Siri to machine learning.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/turn-off-iphone-wifi-assist-apple-lawsuit-2015-10">This iPhone feature is draining so much data that Apple is getting sued - here's how to turn it off</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="10N2Rzdzoi0CDoxcb4FKGZHa4FRl40Sm" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', '10N2Rzdzoi0CDoxcb4FKGZHa4FRl40Sm',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

Apple's culture of secrecy is reportedly hurting its artificial intelligence efforts

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/57ec2f56dd0895d82c8b4884-827/_dsc3761.jpg" alt="Partnership on AI" data-mce-source="Partnership on AI" /><p class="source"><span>Partnership on AI</span></p><p class="caption">Founding members (L-R): Eric Horvitz, managing director of Microsoft Research; Francesca Rossi, AI ethics researcher at IBM; Yann LeCun, Facebook AI Research director; and Mustafa Suleyman, cofounder of Google DeepMind.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Google, Facebook, Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft have come together to form a new organisation in a bid to ensure that artificial intelligence (AI) is developed safely, ethically, and transparently.</p><p>The organisation - announced on Wednesday and known as the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society, or simply Partnership on AI - will aim to address some of the challenges that AI presents to people and society, while also figuring out how humanity can best take advantage of new technologies in the field, which has advanced rapidly in the last few years.</p><p>The Partnership, unveiled by AI executives from the founding companies during a telephone briefing with journalists on Wednesday, said it will carry out research and recommend how others in the field of AI should go about developing their systems.</p><p>During the call, the consortium dismissed concerns that this was effectively an attempt by the tech industry to self-regulate AI without government involvement.</p><p>AI has been tipped to improve many aspects of life, ranging from healthcare, education, and manufacturing to home automation and transportation. But it's also been described by the likes of <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30290540" target="_blank">renowned scientist Stephen Hawking</a> and tech billionaire Elon Musk as something that could wipe out humans altogether.</p><h2>Ensuring AI's positive impact</h2><p>Programming a machine to learn from its environment in a particular way is now the job of many software developers around the world. But some people are concerned that these self-aware machines could be programmed in a way that allows them to develop intelligence that could be used to cause harm, while others, such as Oxford University professor Nick Bostrom, think superintelligent machines will outsmart humans within a matter of decades.</p><p>Mustafa Suleyman, cofounder and head of applied AI at Google-owned research lab, DeepMind said it's "critical" for technology companies to start engaging with the public on how they're developing AI. "The positive impact of AI will depend on the level of public engagement," he said, adding that the new organisation will compliment Google's own AI ethics board, which was created after the search giant acquired DeepMind for a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/27/google-acquires-uk-artificial-intelligence-startup-deepmind" target="_blank">reported £400 million in 2014</a>, but has been <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-ai-ethics-board-remains-a-mystery-2016-3" target="_blank">kept under wraps</a> ever since.</p><p dir="ltr">Yann LeCun, director of AI research at Facebook, and Ralf Herbrich, director of machine learning science and core machine learning at Amazon, said AI has the potential to improve the lives of millions of people, while also stating how crucial the technology is to the future of their platforms.</p><p dir="ltr"><span>"As researchers in industry, we take very seriously the trust people have in us to ensure advances are made with the utmost consideration for human values," said LeCun. "By openly collaborating with our peers and sharing findings, we aim to push new boundaries every day, not only within Facebook, but across the entire research community. To do so in partnership with these companies who share our vision will help propel the entire field forward in a thoughtful responsible way."</span></p><p>The Partnership will be funded and supported by the founding companies, who actually compete with one another across many other parts of their businesses. The location of the organisation's headquarters are yet to be decided, as are job roles and staff numbers, although decisions on these matters are expected to be made in the coming weeks.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/57ec2f56dd0895d82c8b4885-2000/withcomp.jpg" alt="Her" data-mce-source="Warner Bros." /><p class="source"><span>Warner Bros.</span></p><p class="caption">A man falls in love with an AI in the sci-fi movie "Her."</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Through the Partnership on AI consortium, the US tech giants will carry out AI research into areas like:</p><ul><li>ethics, fairness and inclusivity</li><li>transparency, privacy, and interoperability</li><li>collaboration between people and AI systems</li><li>and the trustworthiness, reliability and robustness of the technology.</li></ul><p>There will be equal representation of corporate and non-corporate members on the Partnership's board, which will meet on a yet-to-be determined basis. Academics and non-profits will also be invited to join, as will other organisations looking to monitor the development of AI, such as Elon Musk's OpenAI. The Partnership said it is already in membership discussions with the likes of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2).</p><p>"In the coming weeks and months we'll be announcing non-corporate members of our Partnership and their roles," said Suleyman.</p><h2>8-point plan</h2><p>Murray Shanahan, professor of cognitive robotics at Imperial College London, endorsed the formation of the Partnership, saying: "A small number of large corporations are today the powerhouses behind the development of sophisticated artificial intelligence. The inauguration of the Partnership on AI is a very welcome step towards ensuring this technology is used wisely."</p><p dir="ltr">Yoshua Bengio, a professor at the University of Montreal and scientific director at IVADO, an organisation that aims to partner industry professionals and academic researchers, added: "Bringing together the major players in the field is the best way to ensure we all share the same values and overall objectives to serve the common good."</p><p>The Partnership on AI shares the following tenets:</p><ol><li>We will seek to ensure that AI technologies benefit and empower as many people as possible.</li><li>We will educate and listen to the public and actively engage stakeholders to seek their feedback on our focus, inform them of our work, and address their questions.</li><li>We are committed to open research and dialog on the ethical, social, economic, and legal implications of AI.</li><li>We believe that AI research and development efforts need to be actively engaged with and accountable to a broad range of stakeholders.</li><li>We will engage with and have representation from stakeholders in the business community to help ensure that domain-specific concerns and opportunities are understood and addressed.</li><li>We will work to maximise the benefits and address the potential challenges of AI technologies, by:</li><ol><li>Working to protect the privacy and security of individuals.</li><li>Striving to understand and respect the interests of all parties that may be impacted by AI advances.</li><li>Working to ensure that AI research and engineering communities remain socially responsible, sensitive and engaged directly with the potential influences of AI technologies on wider society.</li><li>Ensuring that AI research and technology is robust, reliable, trustworthy, and operates within secure constraints.</li><li>Opposing development and use of AI technologies that would violate international conventions or human rights, and promoting safeguards and technologies that do no harm.</li></ol><li>We believe that it is important for the operation of AI systems to be understandable and interpretable by people, for purposes of explaining the technology.</li><li>We strive to create a culture of cooperation, trust, and openness among AI scientists and engineers to help us all better achieve these goals.</li></ol>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/regular-guy-tests-apple-wireless-airpod-headphones-iphone-2016-9">A regular guy tests out Apple's wireless AirPod headphones - here's what he thought</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="x4M2Z1NTE6gz21yaveZbCGTZOkYj8N7C" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'x4M2Z1NTE6gz21yaveZbCGTZOkYj8N7C',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

US tech giants have formed a group to promote the safe development of AI

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5595a353371d2211008b5884-3776-2832/zuck-18.jpg" border="0" alt="mark zuckerberg" data-mce-source="David Ramos/Getty"><p class="source"><span>David Ramos/Getty</span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div>Mark Zuckerberg made some mind-bending predictions about the future at a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10102213601037571?pnref=story">Q&amp;A he hosted on his Facebook page on Tuesday.</a><p>They may seem far-fetched now but some of the Facebook CEO's deas are shared by futurists and scientists alike.</p><p>Scientists at Facebook and elsewhere are working toward a future where artificial intelligence (AI), telepathy, and virtual reality are commonplace. In fact, some of that technology is already here.</p><p>In the future, Zuckerberg hopes we'll be able to:</p><h2>Send your thoughts to another person</h2><p>Almost all the technology being built today focuses on creating rich communication experiences, Zuckerberg said. As that technology improves, he foresees us bypassing smartphones and computers altogether, and <strong>speaking to each other using the power of our minds</strong></p><p>"One day, I believe we'll be able to send full rich thoughts to each other directly using technology," he said. "You'll just be able to think of something and your friends will immediately be able to experience it too if you'd like. This would be the ultimate communication technology."</p><p>Zuckerberg isn't alone in asserting that telepathy will soon be commonplace. Ray Kurzweil, computer scientist and futurist who's made some outrageous predictions of his own, believes that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ray-kurzweil-thinks-well-all-be-cyborgs-by-2030-2015-6">we'll soon be able to connect our minds to the cloud</a>, and communicate with the internet and others through the use of tiny DNA robots.</p><p>Today, scientists are working on technology that sends simple yes and no messages using skull caps that have <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/brain-to-brain-communication-is-possible-2015-5">external sensors and receivers</a>. A person wearing one cap can nod their head or blink, which would be translated to a yes or no question, and sent via a magnetic coil affixed to the second person's head.</p><h2>Have a computer describe images to you.</h2><p>Zuckerberg posted a video of Yann LeCunn, director of Facebook's AI research, two weeks ago that revealed some of Zuckerberg's ideas about AI. LeCunn expounds on his work in computer vision, a subfield of AI that focuses on improving how computers perceive visual data like images and videos.</p><div><div><div id="fb-root"></div><script>(function(d, s, id) {  var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];  if (d.getElementById(id)) return;  js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;  js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&amp;version=v2.3";  fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));</script><div class="fb-video" data-allowfullscreen="1" data-href="/zuck/videos/vb.4/10102182256322631/?type=1"><div class="fb-xfbml-parse-ignore"><blockquote cite="/zuck/videos/10102182256322631/"><a href="/zuck/videos/10102182256322631/"></a> on Monday, June 15, 2015</blockquote></div></div></div></div><p>This AI tech already exists, LeCunn said, in ATM machines to the facial recognition systems that allows Facebook users to tag friends in photos. Zuckerberg believes this work will eventually culminate into a computer that can view an image or a video and describe it in plain English.</p><p>He believes it's a technology that will be widely available in the near future, but the beginnings of it are available right now <a href="http://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.03044v2.pdf">in computer science labs across the world</a>.</p><p>"We're building systems that can recognize everything that's in an image or a video," Zuckerberg said. "This includes people, objects, scenes, etc. These systems need to understand the context of the images and videos as well as whatever is in them."</p><h2>Use lasers to beam the internet from the sky</h2><p>Making the internet, and more specifically Facebook, accessible to as many people on the globe remains one of Zuckerberg's primary concerns. Facebook has developed laser communications system that are attached to drones and essentially beam the internet down from the sky.</p><p>"As part of our <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Internetdotorg">Internet.org</a> efforts, we're working on ways to use drones and satellites to connect the billion people who don't live in range of existing wireless networks," he said. "Our Connectivity Lab is developing a laser communications system that can beam data from the sky into communities. This will dramatically increase the speed of sending data over long distances."</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5595aa5a371d2223518b500c-853-640/facebook%20lasers.jpg" border="0" alt="Facebook lasers" data-mce-source="Facebook"><p class="source"><span>Facebook</span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div><p>According to Popular <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">Science</keyword>, Facebook has already rounded up test flights of the drone, which "reportedly have a <a href="http://www.popsci.com/facebook-will-use-these-lasers-beam-internet-sky">larger wingspan than a Boeing 737 - 102 or 138 feet</a>."</p><h2>Be immune to diseases</h2><p>In a rare encounter between a social media mogul and a physicist, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10102213601037571?comment_id=10102213911001401&amp;offset=0&amp;total_comments=49588&amp;comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R9%22%7D">Stephen Hawking asked Zuckerberg</a>, "I would like to know a unified theory of gravity and the other forces. Which of the big questions in science would you like to know the answer to and why?"</p><p>Zuckerberg's response centered on his fascination with people and his hopes for medical advances that will essentially turn us all into Supermen.</p><p>"I'm most interested in questions about people," he said. "What will enable us to live forever? How do we cure all diseases? How does the brain work? How does learning work and how we can empower humans to learn a million times more?"</p><p>Once again, AI comes into the fray. Watson, the IBM machine that famously defeated world chess champion Garry Kasporov in 1996 and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/06/27/watsons-next-feat-taking-on-cancer/">world Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings in 2011</a> is back - better than ever and this time in hospitals. Watson is assisting doctors at MD Anderson hospital with developing <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-ibm-watson-is-transforming-healthcare-2015-7">treatment plans for leukemia patients</a>.</p><p>It's an industry that many AI scientists believe is ripe for change, and one where AI can make a real difference.</p><p>"I'm convinced that machine learning and deep learning are going to have a profound impact on how medical science is going to be in the future," Yoshua Bengio, AI scientist at the Universite de Montreal told Business Insider. "The natural machine learning thing to do is to consider millions and millions of people, and measure their symptoms and...connect the dots. Then be able to say 'given all the information we have for that particular person, their medical history, that's the best treatment.' That's called personalized treatment."</p><h2>Live in a virtual reality world.</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5595afe82acae7f4028b599d-853-640/11232118_10102175618819241_7572979522374295442_n.jpg" border="0" alt="mark zuckerberg oculus" data-mce-source="Facebook"><p class="source"><span>Facebook</span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div> asked about how the world will look from a technology and social media perspective, Zuckerberg answered, "We're working on VR because I think it's the next major computing and communication platform after phones...I think we'll also have glasses on our faces that can help us out throughout the day and give us the ability to share our experiences with those we love in completely immersive and new ways that aren't possible today."<p>Zuckerberg has a stake in making virtual reality a feasible device for every day users. Facebook <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/oculus-is-going-to-change-everything-2014-12">purchased Oculus in 2014 for $2 billion</a>, and it'll soon be available for consumers next year.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/waterfall-climbing-fish-goby-evolution-hawaii-2015-5">Scientists are astonished by these Goby fish that can climb 300-foot waterfalls</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="djMXJkdTpXxb0FwhBHlUoNNT3m6RuJH9" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'djMXJkdTpXxb0FwhBHlUoNNT3m6RuJH9',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

You Searched For "Yoshua Bengio" and got 7 results

'This is the last opportunity for us to wake up': A leading economist warns we're headed for an AI-driven cataclysm

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Microsoft bought a Samsung-backed startup and signed a top expert in its quest to build better robots

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There's a raging talent war for AI experts and its costing automakers millions

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One of Mark Zuckerberg's mind-blowing predictions about the future already exists

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Apple's culture of secrecy is reportedly hurting its artificial intelligence efforts

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US tech giants have formed a group to promote the safe development of AI

Sam Shead

Mark Zuckerberg's vision of the future is full of artificial intelligence, telepathy, and virtual reality

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