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DeepMind AI can predict kidney illness 48 hours before it occurs
Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) kills 500,000 people in the US and 100,000 in the UK annually, often because it's not detected soon enough. Researchers want to use AI to change that. DeepMind, the Alphabet-owned AI company, partnered with the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to develop an AKI prediction algorithm. In a paper published in Nature today, the partners share their findings that the algorithm can predict the presence of AKI up to 48 hours before it happens. The model correctly identified 9 out of 10 patients whose condition worsened to the point that they needed dialysis.
Waymo uses evolutionary competition to improve its self-driving cars
The process of training self-driving car AI is seldom efficient when you need to either use a massive amount of computing power to train systems in parallel or else have researchers spend ages manually weeding out bad systems. Waymo might have a smarter approach: use the same principles that guide evolution. The company has partnered with DeepMind on a "Population Based Training" method for pedestrian detection that has the best neural networks advance much like lifeforms do in natural selection, saving time and effort.
DeepMind's ‘Starcraft II’ AI will play public matches
Players will soon get a chance to battle it out with DeepMind's Starcraft II AI. Alphabet and Blizzard will test AlphaStar in a small number of public matches. It'll be a Herculean task for the human players, to put it lightly. The AI has the accumulated knowledge of 200 years of playing Starcraft II, and earlier this year beat a team of professional players 10-1. So, for the average gamer, the odds of beating AlphaStar are laughably impossible -- but it'll be fun to watch.
DeepMind AI uses teamwork to defeat human 'Quake III' players
After developing an AI system that can beat Go and chess, Google-owned DeepMind started tackling a different class of games: multiplayer ones, which usually require teamwork. In a paper published by Science, a group of DeepMind researchers have detailed how they designed an AI system that was able to master capture the flag mode in Quake III. The system uses "AI agents" to represent its players in the game, which can play with or against human opponents. DeepMind trained those agents with 450,000 rounds of capture the flag, which total four years of gameplay completed over the span of a few weeks.
Google reportedly disbands review panel monitoring DeepMind Health AI
Google is reportedly dissolving yet another AI review board. Earlier this month, the company canceled plans for its Advanced Technology External Advisory Council when it came under fire for selecting a few particularly controversial board members. Now, Google is disbanding a UK-based panel that's been reviewing some of its AI work in healthcare, reports The Wall Street Journal.
AIs are better gamers than us, but that’s OK
We're only just beginning to scratch the surface of what artificial intelligence is capable of, from medical advancements to movie recommendations. Despite AI being a potential goldmine of help to humanity, even the greatest minds are partial to the odd spout of fear-mongering. The robots are coming to take our jobs, overthrow humanity, enslave us and the like. Skynet is but a dystopian dream at this point in time, but in some ways, AI is already winning. It's beating us at some of our favorite games, from Go to StarCraft II. Machine has begun to best man, but that's a good thing.
Recommended Reading: Beto O'Rourke and Cult of the Dead Cow
Beto O'Rourke's secret membership in America's oldest hacking group Joseph Menn, Reuters Beto O'Rourke: Democratic presidential candidate and... member of a hacking group? Reuters reports the former Texas congressman once belonged to Cult of the Dead Cow, an influential group "jokingly named after an abandoned Texas slaughterhouse." While there's no evidence that O'Rourke really got his hands dirty with what we'd consider nefarious "hacking," he was a member, which might help explain some of the policies he could champion during a presidential run.
Google’s DeepMind can predict wind patterns a day in advance
Wind power has become increasingly popular, but its success is limited by the fact that wind comes and goes as it pleases, making it hard for power grids to count on the renewable energy and less likely to fully embrace it. While we can't control the wind, Google has an idea for the next best thing: using machine learning to predict it.
DeepMind AI AlphaStar goes 10-1 against top 'StarCraft II' pros
After laying waste to the best Go players in the world, DeepMind has moved on to computer games. The Google-owned artificial intelligence company has been fine-tuning its AI to take on StarCraft II and today showed off its first head-to-head matches against professional gamers. The AI agent, named AlphaStar, managed to pick up 10 wins against StarCraft II pros TLO and MaNa in two separate five-game series that originally took place back in December. After racking up 10 straight losses, the pros finally scored a win against the AI when MaNa took on AlphaStar in a live match streamed by Blizzard and DeepMind.
AI is better at bluffing than professional gamblers
The act of gambling on games of chance has been around for as long as the games themselves. For as long as there's been money to be made wagering on the uncertain outcomes of these events, bettors have been leveraging mathematics to give them an edge on the house. As gaming has moved from bookies and casinos into the digital realm, gamblers are beginning to use modern computing techniques, especially AI and machine learning (ML), to increase their odds of winning. But that betting blade cuts both ways, as researchers work to design artificial intelligences capable of beating professional players at their own game -- and even out-wagering sportsbooks.
Google Assistant can now speak with an Australian or English accent
Google Assistant hasn't been traveling, but it has picked up some new accents. The voice assistant now has the ability to speak in an Australian or English accent (though Google calls it British). The feature is available across all devices including Android phones and Google Home speakers, but only for English speakers in the US for the time being.
Google will take over part of DeepMind’s health business
Alphabet is shuffling some of its companies around as it works to better organize the health projects that are currently spread across its subsidiaries. So going forward, DeepMind's health unit will instead exist under the Google umbrella and it will be part of the company's recently formed Google Health initiative. Specifically, DeepMind's Streams app, which physicians in the UK have used to help treat their patients, will be moving over to Google, and the Google Health team will be working on expanding the app to more regions.
DeepMind and Unity will work together on AI research
Alphabet's DeepMind division is partnering with Unity to accelerate machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) research. The new collaboration will focus on "virtual environments" that DeepMind can use to test and visualize experimental algorithms. Otherwise, little is known about the partnership. Today's announcement is basically a broad agreement, or statement of intent, between the two companies. "I couldn't be more excited to be collaborating with Unity, creating virtual environments for developing and testing the kind of smart, flexible algorithms we need to tackle real-world problems," Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of DeepMind said in a press release light on detail.
Google is using AI to run its data center cooling systems
Google's data centers hold thousands of servers and they power everything from Google Search to Gmail to YouTube. But those data centers need to be kept cool in order for those servers to run reliably. A couple of years ago, Google began applying AI to its data center cooling systems and it offered system controllers recommendations about how to boost energy efficiency while maintaining optimal temperatures. Now, Google says its AI is running the show.
DeepMind AI matches health experts at spotting eye diseases
DeepMind has successfully developed a system that can analyze retinal scans and spot symptoms of sight-threatening eye diseases. Today, the AI division -- owned by Google's parent company Alphabet -- published "early results" of a research project with the UK's Moorfields Eye Hospital. They show that the company's algorithms can quickly examine optical coherence tomography (OCT) scans and make diagnoses with the same accuracy as human clinicians. In addition, the system can show its workings, allowing eye care professionals to scrutinize the final assessment.
DeepMind AI’s new trick is playing ‘Quake III Arena’ like a human
Research in AI continues to make video games better. The technology informs NPCs that can move and fight more convincingly, orcs with personalities and ever-more realistic visuals. Now researchers at DeepMind have taught an AI to play a customized version of Quake III Arena like a human.
UK's NHS will anonymize data to enable AI doctors
If you were miffed about Britain's National Health Service (NHS) giving your sensitive data away to Google's DeepMind, how you respond to today's news is probably a crapshoot. The NHS has announced that it will begin anonymizing said data that's been used to analyze blood test results and to detect risk of acute kidney injuries and other ailments. To be clear, these are separate events (the data use and today's announcement), but one led to the other. In 2016, the NHS and DeepMind caught their fair share of criticism over how data was shared with implied -- not explicit -- consent from 1.6 million patients.
Google DeepMind AI can imagine a 3D model from a 2D image
One of the difficulties when it comes to creating visual recognition systems for an AI is to program what the human brain does effortlessly. Specifically, when a person enters an unfamiliar area, it's easy to recognize and categorize what's there. Our brains are designed to automatically take it in at a glance, make inferences based on prior knowledge and see it from a different angle or recreate it in our heads. The team at Google's DeepMind are working on a neural network that can do similar things.
Google's new text-to-speech service has more realistic voices
Google will now let developers use the text-to-speech synthesis that powers the voices in Google Assistant and Maps. Cloud Text-to-Speech is available now through the Google Cloud Platform and the company says it can be used to power voice response systems in call centers, enable IoT device speech and convert media like news articles and books into a spoken format. There are 32 different voice options in 12 languages and users can customize pitch, speaking rate and volume gain.
Google is building an AI research team in France
Google announced today that it's expanding its AI research efforts, setting up a new research team in France that will work with the country's AI research community on issues ranging from health to the environment. Google says the team's work will be published and any code it produces will be open source.
