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Hitting the Books: How biased AI can hurt users or boost a business's bottom line
In 'A Citizen's Guide to Artificial Intelligence,' John Zerilli presents readers with an approachable, holistic examination of both the history and current state of the art, the potential benefits of and challenges facing ever-improving AI technology, and how this rapidly advancing field could influence society for decades to come.
IBM’s first ‘retail’ quantum computer is headed to the Cleveland Clinic
The Cleveland Clinic has announced a 10-year partnership with IBM that will see it become the world's first private sector company with an on-premises IBM quantum computer.
IBM plans to produce net-zero greenhouse emissions by 2030
Under its new climate pledge, IBM says its operations won’t produce greenhouse emissions by the end of the decade.
IBM quantum computers now finish some tasks in hours, not months
IBM has found a way to speed up some quantum computing tasks by 100 times, finishing them in hours rather than months.
Hackers are trying to disrupt the COVID-19 vaccine supply chain
IBM says it recently uncovered a highly coordinated global phishing campaign focused on the companies and organizations involved with the upcoming “cold chain” distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.
Code compiler pioneer Frances Allen dies at 88
Frances Allen, who helped invent the code compiler and parallel computing, has died at the age of 88.
IBM stops work on facial recognition over human rights concerns
IBM is exiting its facial recognition business over concerns of possible human rights violations and racial biases.
IBM toolkit keeps data encrypted in iPhone and Mac apps while in use
IBM has released a toolkit that lets iOS and macOS apps use data while keeping it encrypted, offering a big boost to security.
IBM shares AI tools to better understand and treat COVID-19
It has released a series of new tools to aggregate data, help researchers explore potential therapies, advance the study of newly sequenced SARS-CoV-2 genomes and make the latest info available to healthcare professionals. Its AI deep search tool is ingesting data from the White House, a coalition of research groups and licensed databases from the DrugBank, Clinicaltrials.gov and GenBank. The cloud-based research tool is a repository of genes, proteins and other molecules from sequenced viral and bacterial organisms, and it’s meant to help researchers identify molecular targets necessary for drug design, test development and treatment.
The Weather Channel brings localized COVID-19 updates to your phone
The Weather Channel and its parent company IBM (yep, who knew?) have teamed up to bring coronavirus data, maps and charts to your phone. They're importing data from sources like the World Health Organization (WHO), and including info from reliable local and state sources, so you can get a picture of how the virus is spreading near you, across the country and around the globe.
Researchers highlight racial bias in speech recognition systems
Researchers have identified significant racial disparities in speech recognition systems from five of the world's biggest tech companies. According to a study from Stanford University, systems from Amazon, Apple, Google, IBM and Microsoft make far more errors with users who are black than those who are white.
IBM and Microsoft support the Vatican’s guidelines for ethical AI
IBM and Microsoft have signed the Vatican's "Rome Call for AI Ethics," a pledge to develop artificial intelligence in a way that protects all people and the planet, Financial Times reports. Microsoft President Brad Smith and John Kelly, IBM's executive vice-president, are among the first global tech leaders to sign the document.
Coronavirus bursts Big Tech’s bubble
Virus enthusiasts from all over the world converged in San Francisco this week for America's largest security event: RSA Conference 2020. Before it began, fourteen companies withdrew from RSAC over concerns about the impending Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. On opening day, organizers sent a message through the conference app asking attendees to stop greeting each other with handshakes.
IBM CEO Virginia Rometty is retiring
IBM CEO Virginia Rometty, one of the most prominent female leaders in tech, is stepping down on April 6th, 2020. She will still serve as Executive Chairman of the Board through the end of the year, but she's retiring completely after that. Rometty will be replaced as CEO by Arvind Krishna, who currently runs the company's cloud business and who was a key figure in IBM's Red Hat acquisition. She called Krishna "the right CEO for the next era at IBM."
IBM uses AI to predict progress of Huntington's disease symptoms
IBM is using its AI-based health prediction skills to help tackle the challenge of Huntington's disease. The tech firm has teamed up with CHDI Foundation on an artificial intelligence model that can predict when patients will experience Huntington's symptoms and, crucially, determine how rapidly those symptoms will progress. The team used MRI brain scans to train the AI, using signals from white matter (relatively untapped in brain studies) to help the system gauge how cognitive and motor performance will change over time.
IBM’s cobalt-free EV battery uses materials extracted from seawater
Electric vehicles will play an important role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but they are not yet a perfect solution. Today, most EVs run on lithium-ion batteries made with heavy metals like cobalt, of which there is a limited supply and less than ideal mining conditions. The IBM Research Battery Lab may have a solution: a new battery built without heavy metals. It's made, instead, with materials that can be extracted from seawater.
Hitting the Books: How police tech reinforces America's racial segregation
Welcome to Hitting the Books. With less than one in five Americans reading just for fun these days, we've done the hard work for you by scouring the internet for the most interesting, thought provoking books on science and technology we can find and delivering an easily digestible nugget of their stories.
Weather Channel app uses Watson to tell you when flu season is coming
Are you the sort who grows wary around other people when flu season hits? You now have another tool in your (slightly anti-social) arsenal. The latest version of the Weather Channel app for Android and iOS now includes a Flu Insights feature that uses IBM's Watson to warn you when influenza is likely to be on the warpath. The team-up wields machine learning to provide a 15-day flu forecast as well notifications that pop up at key moments, such as the start of flu season or confirmed outbreaks. Ideally, this will keep you from going to a house party full of soon-to-be-sick virus carriers.
MIT-IBM developed a faster way to train video recognition AI
Machine learning has given computers the ability to do things like identify faces and read medical scans. But when it's tasked with interpreting videos and real-world events, the models that make machine learning possible become large and cumbersome. A team from the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab believe they have a solution. They've come up with a method that reduces the size of video-recognition models, speeds up training and could improve performance on mobile devices.
Google may have taken a step towards quantum computing 'supremacy' (updated)
Google may have made a breakthrough on the path toward creating a viable quantum computer -- or maybe not. In a draft of a research paper that was available on a NASA website and seen by the Financial Times, the company reportedly claimed to have achieved a feat known as "quantum supremacy," aka the potential ability of quantum computers to solve problems current technology can't even attempt.
