Mediaboss Marketing

The first phase of the UNOSAT Challenge has just ended. The UNOSAT Challenge is the important Phi-Unet (ESA) contest for UNOSAT (United Nations) in partnership with ESA, RUS COPERNICUS, UNOSAT and with the technical support of CERN openlab.

The aim of the contest is to put artificial intelligence and Earth Observation data at the service of a humanitarian cause: support the Iraqi government in planning reconstruction activities.

71 teams of candidates (companies/startups and students) joined the competition.

In the first phase, candidates were asked to create an artificial intelligence model to identify urban areas in some Iraqi territories, working on data provided by ESA and the German Space Agency (DLR).

At the end of this phase, 5 teams were selected. These teams will enter Phase 2 and will continue in the competition.

The selection was made through an innovative artificial intelligence system for an automatic evaluation (quantitative criterion) of the projects together with the technical opinion of a jury of 21 experts coming from the prestigious partner organizations (qualitative criterion).

The AI evaluation system was developed by the Phi-Unet Team.

In addition to the 5 winners, the best student of the first phase was given the possibility of a traineeship in UNOSAT in Geneva.

The five winning teams of the first phase will have the opportunity not only to win a monetary prize but also to work on VHR (Very High Resolution) material provided directly by UNOSAT with the technical support of CERN openlab to build an artificial intelligence model that can extract automatically the building footprints in Iraq.

This request comes from a United Nations fund that supports the Iraqi government in the 2020 census, a precious source of information for planning reconstruction and development activities in the territory.

Related LinksUNOSAT ChallengeEarth Observation News - Suppiliers, Technology and Application

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.

Original post:
Artificial intelligence to rebuild Iraq via second phase of the UNOSAT challenge - Space Daily

Super Predictor

You can probably walk up to any football fan right now and get their opinion on which team will win Sundays Super Bowl LIV.

But if youre looking for a really educated guess on the games outcome, youll want to ask Stanford computer scientist Louis Rosenberg, thefounder of Unanimous A.I., a startup that combines the opinions of a lot of humans with artificial intelligence to make remarkably accurate predictions.

In nature, many species exhibit something called swarm intelligence, meaning that they make smarter decisions as groups than as individuals in other words, a flock of birds or a school of fish is smarter than a single bird or fish.

The idea behind Unanimous A.I.is to let well-informed humans create their own swarm intelligence. As a group, they can then answer questions, reach decisions, or make predictions with a greater accuracy than any one knowledgable person alone.

In laymans terms, we build super-intelligent hive minds by connecting groups of people over the internet, Rosenberg told Digital Trends, enabling them to think together as real-time systems moderated by A.I. algorithms.

In studies, Unanimous A.I.s system was more accurate than individual experts at making medical diagnoses, forecasting financial trends, and even predicting Oscar winners.

Its Sportspicker A.I. managed to beat the spread in seven of the 10 playoff games this season. As for Super Bowl Sunday, the hive mind says the smart money is on the Kansas City Chiefs to beat the San Francisco 49ers.

READ MORE: According to advanced swarm A.I., this is who will win Super Bowl LIV [Digital Trends]

More on hive minds: A Swarm Intelligence Correctly Predicted TIMEs Person of the Year

See the original post:
Hyper-Intelligent AI Hive Mind Claims to Predict Super Bowl Winner - Futurism

WINNIPEG -- The lead singer of the Canadian rock group Moist and four-time Juno winner David Usher was a in Winnipeg Thursday, but not for his music.

The rocker is also a tech entrepreneur in the area of artificial intelligence and he was showing off his new artificial being.

"I was born six months ago. I'm a child really," said Ophelia, an artificial intelligence created by Usher.

Ophelia isn't much different from other artificial intelligence systems like Siri or Alexa, but her purpose is.

Usher said while other AI is used to collect data, Ophelia is used to have a conversation. Every time she talks with someone, she learns more about how to communicate.

"We're really concerned about the conversation cloud that really is much more about human emotions and human contact. Those kind of things, life and death and love and feeling and birth," said Usher, who is the founder of Reimagine AI.

Usher said this sort of tech can be used for thing such as greeting guests at hotels, acting as a host at museums or helping people in hospitals.

In collaboration with Sheldon Memory Lab at McGill University, Usher is helping develop a companion bot for Alzheimer patients.

"Our AIs can come on and recognize them by name and initiate engagement to do some of those things that they've forgotten that they like to do."

Kathy Knight, CEO of Tech Manitoba, said the use of AI is growing in Manitoba and with it, so is automation.

That's a one of the topics of conversation going on at a tech conference at the RBC Convention Centre Thursday and Friday, which is entitled, Disrupted.

"To actually get people to think about the human side of tech and think about how all of this change is affecting the people we live with and work with everyday, and how do we bring them along," said Knight.

While Usher said there are concerns about what people will do with AI in the future, he chooses to look at the good instead.

"You don't have to build the smartest AI, you just have to build something that can help," said Usher.

See the rest here:
Lead singer of Moist has created an artificial intelligence named Ophelia - CTV News

To print this article, all you need is to be registered or login on Mondaq.com.

The idea of a litigator brings to mind images of Daniel Kaffeeand Atticus Finch (or maybe even Elle Woods) dexterously defendingthe interests of their clients.

While some litigation may still reflect such nostalgia, theintroduction of online courts has largely substituted collegialargument before the Honourable court with a series of drop downmenus and 2.00pm cut off times.

Litigants may feel separated from their opponents and decisionmakers, but the OLC (online court) has by no means supplanted thedispute resolution process. In this article, we consider how therise of ODR (online dispute resolution) has affected otherjurisdictions and how it will likely affect practice at home.

ODR has been present on a completely automated level for sometime.

Various online merchants, including eBay and Alibaba, have AI(artificial intelligence) keeping the wheels of justice turning inrelation to minor customer disputes.

As early as March 2015, in Zhejiang, China, the highest localcourt piloted an online court designed to resolve disputes ine-commerce, with a view to facilitating resolutions "asconvenient as online shopping". China is widely implementingdigitalisation to increase case-handling efficacy within itsexpansive court system using both AI and technological outfits,including blockchain and the backing of cloud computing. Thisincludes a mobile based court, housed on prolific social mediaplatform WeChat. The platform has already handled more than threemillion proceedings since its introduction in March 2019.

While technically the alternative dispute resolution system ononline merchant platforms is a modified form of arbitral processagreed by a clickwrap contract entered into on signing up as amember, such systems appear to have been relatively effective atdealing with low level online disputes (much like the medieval lawmerchant developed to resolve disputes quickly and practicallybetween people attending at markets and fairs from different landsspeaking different languages, similar to the informal"legal" systems developed by pirates in the 17th centuryto divide captured loot).

In British Columbia, the CRT (Civil Resolutions Tribunal) hasbeen introduced in an effort to relieve pressure on the highercourts by filtering out a significant volume of the smallerdisputes.

The CRT represents a free dispute resolution tool which requiresthe parties to engage in mediation at first instance, prior toprogressing to commence proceedings. Mediation fails in only areported two percent of cases. Litigated claims are almost entirelydealt with on the papers through the CRT, though the parties mayrequest an oral hearing via telephone or video link.

Other jurisdictions, including the UK, have been encouraged bythe success of the CRT and have pledged resources to developingapplicable ODR platforms to facilitate a much needed alleviation onthe stressed court system.

UK policy advocates have foreshadowed online dispute resolutionclauses in smart contracts, particularly in financial services.

Smart contracts are designed to enable transactions andagreements to be effected between disparate, often anonymousentities, without needing a central authority, or, presently; anexternal enforcement mechanism.

At the other end of the spectrum, a team of academics havedeveloped a bot fluent in AI that is apparently capable ofpredicting judgments made in the European Court of Human Rightswith a (fairly respectable) 79% accuracy rate.

Quite what the utility of this bot in the real world might beremains to be seen, but the benefit of any advanced form of AI isthat it intuits both its successes and failures and adaptsaccordingly via an algorithmic iterative learning process.

Legal AI, the Voldemort for some in the legal world, is likely away off from being implemented in Australian ODR.

However, there are promising applications of AI in certain areasof law, particularly those that involve a tangible prediction taskfor which there is a large volume of data available.

An example of this is the algorithm developed by Kleinberg etal, which was able to predict which bail applicants were likely tocommit a crime upon release. When the AI based application was setto the same release rate as the judges, the algorithm's choicesof applicants to release on bail committed 24.7% fewer crimes thanthose selected by the judges. The computer program only relied onthe defendants' age and charges in making its judgment, whilethe judges engaged with the defendants in open court.

It should be noted that AI based criminal sentencing is thesubject of significant human rights concerns in the UK and the USand it is unlikely that the Australian legal system will adopt it(especially in light of the political issues relating to apparentmistakes in the Australian government's AI based collection ofalleged overpaid welfare), but in commercial law things are likelyto be quite different.

The Federal Court of Australia has produced a machine learningconcept, reliant on AI, designed to aid parties to divide assetsand liabilities following a separation.

Such a division is usually debated at length (and cost) byfamily lawyers, however, the Federal Court is testing with what ithas named the "FCA Consent Order AI Application" toassist parties to determine a more accurate split likely to obtainthe Court's approval. The costs reductions inherent will likelymake this attractive to parties.

The current developments in AI are aimed at removing task-basedfunctions of the court and the judiciary, rather than replacing thejudicial function.

While we do not anticipate that we will be beholden to JudgeDredd any time in the immediate future, the digitisation of thelegal function has started to infiltrate our systems and the way inwhich we conduct dispute resolution. Litigants are not merelyobliged, but incentivised to adapt and engage with the newstructure.

Toby Blyth

Maddison Ives

Alternative dispute resolution

Colin Biggers & Paisley

The content of this article is intended to provide a generalguide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be soughtabout your specific circumstances.

Here is the original post:
Artificial intelligence and the rise of online dispute resolution - Mondaq News Alerts

Commentary

Photo by Michael Langan

ByOren Etzioni & Carissa Schoenick

Editors Note: This Commentary is part of a special report exploring game-changing trends and innovations that have the potential to shake up the schoolhouse.Read the full report: 10 Big Ideas in Education.

Artificial intelligence is a rapidly emerging technology that has the potential to change our everyday lives with a scope and speed that humankind has never experienced before. Some well-known technology leaders such as Tesla architect Elon Musk consider AI a potential threat to humanity and have pushed for its regulation "before it's too late"an alarmist statement that confuses AI science with science fiction. What is the reality behind these concerns, and how can educators best prepare for a future with artificial intelligence as an inevitable part of our lives?

General, widespread legislative regulation of AI is not going to be the right way to prepare our society for these changes. The AI field is already humming with a wide variety of new research at an international scale, such that blindly constraining AI research in its early days in the United States would only serve to put us behind the global curve in developing the most important technology of the future. It is also worth noting that there are many applications of AI currently under development that have huge potential benefits for humanity in the fields of medicine, security, finance, and personal services; we would risk a high human and economic cost by slowing or stopping research in those areas if we hastily impose premature, overbearing, and poorly understood constraints.

Oren Etzioni & Carissa Schoenick are CEO and senior program manager at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, respectively.

Based in Seattle, Etzioni is a professor of computer science at the University of Washington; Schoenick was previously a program manager for Amazon Web Services and for the computational knowledge project WolframAlpha.

The most impactful way to shape the future of AI is not going to be through the regulation of research, but rather through understanding and correctly controlling the tangible impacts of AI on our lives. For example, it is our belief that AI should not be weaponized, and that humans should always have the ultimate "off switch." Beyond these obvious limitations, there are three rules we propose for AI that can be meaningfully applied now to mitigate possible future harm.

An AI system:

1) Must always respect the same laws that apply to its creators and operators;

2) Must always disclose that it is not human whenever it interacts with another entity;

3) Should never retain or share confidential information without explicit approval from the source.

These rules are a strong practical starting point, but to successfully navigate the new world AI will bring about in the coming decades, we're going to need to ensure that our children are learning the skills required both to make sense of this new human-machine dynamic and to control it in the right ways. All students today should be taught basic computer literacy and the fundamentals behind how an AI works, as they will need to be comfortable with learning and incorporating rapidly emerging new technologies into their lives and occupations as they are developed.

We will need our future scientists and engineers to be keenly aware that an AI system can only be as good as the data it is given to work with, and that to avoid dangerous bias or incorrect actions, we need to cultivate the right inputs to these systems that fairly cover all possible perspectives and variables. We will need policymakers who can successfully apply the rules suggested above as well as define the new ones we will need as AI continues to proliferate into the various aspects of our lives.

New and different opportunities and values will likely emerge for humans in the economy that AI creates. As AI makes more resources more widely available, we will find less meaning in material wealth and more value in the activities that are uniquely human. This means that occupations with creative and expressive qualities, such as chefs, tailors, organic farmers, musicians, and artists of all types will become more important in an age in which a real human connection is increasingly precious. Roles that directly affect human development and well-being, such as teaching, nursing, and caregiving, will be especially crucial and should be uplifted as excellent options for people whose vocations are otherwise replaced by AI systems. No AI can hope to match a human for true compassion and empathy, qualities that we should be taking extra care to cultivate in our children to prepare them to inherit a world where these characteristics will be more important than ever.

Background

By Benjamin Herold

What will the rise of artificial intelligence mean for K-12 education?

First, AI and related technologies are reshaping the economy. Some jobs are being eliminated, many others are being changed, and entirely new fields of work are opening up. Those changes are likely to have big implications for the job market in 2030, when today's 6th graders are set to hit their prime working years. But the nation's top economists and technologists are sharply divided about whether AI will be a job killer or creator, presenting a big challenge for the educators and policymakers who must prepare today's students to thrive in a very uncertain tomorrow.

Second, artificial intelligence is changing what it means to be an engaged citizen. K-12 education has never been just about preparing young people for jobs; it's also about making sure they're able to weigh arguments and evidence, synthesize information, and take part in the civic lives of their communities and country. But as algorithms, artificial intelligence, and automated decisionmaking systems are being woven into nearly every aspect of our lives, from loan applications to dating to criminal sentencing, new questions and policy debates and ethical quandaries are emerging. Schools are now faced with having to figure out how to teach students to think critically about the role these technologies are playing in our society and how to use them in smart, ethical ways. Plus, in the age of AI, students will likely have to develop a new communication skill: the ability to talk effectively to intelligent machines. Some economists say that skill could be the difference between success and failure in the workplace of the future.

And third, artificial intelligence could play a powerful role in the push to provide more personalized instruction for all studentsand in the process change the teaching profession itself. Intelligent tutoring systems are making inroads in the classroom. New educational software and technology platforms use algorithms to recommend content and lessons for individual students, sometimes pushing teachers away from the front of the classroom and into the role of "coach" or "facilitator." And schools are being flooded with data about their students, information that educators and administrators alike are increasingly expected to use to make real-time decisions and adjustments in the course of their day-to-day work.

Some educators see the rising role of AI as a threat to their existence and a danger to student-data privacy. Others take a more positive view, seeing it as having the potential to free them from mundane tasks like lecturing and grading, creating rich opportunities for continuous improvement, and opening the doors for more meaningful trial-and-error learning by students.

Whatever the perspective, there is one thing most everyone seems to agree on: Now is the time for the K-12 field to start wrestling with the promises and perils of AI.

Vol. 37, Issue 16, Pages 28-29

Back to Top

View original post here:
Artificial Intelligence: What Educators Need to Know ...