Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and Robotics

In  the NY Times Magazine article The Great A.I. Awakening , Gideon Lewis-Kraus relates the tale of the development of the AI implementation of Google Translate. The previous version of Translate, which had been running for 10 years, was based on a symbolic A.I. model. That platform required exhaustive human-managed data sets and rules. By contrast, the new version was built on a machine-learning neural-network platform. Time taken to complete the new system--nine months. Here's a Japanese translation of Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro translated back to English as compared with the original: NO. 1: Kilimanjaro is a snow-covered mountain 19,710 feet high, and is said to be the highest mountain in Africa. Its western summit is called the Masai “Ngaje Ngai,” the House of God. Close to the western summit there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude.   NO. 2: Kilimanjaro is a mountain of 19,710 ...

"Is that SAE 30 weight?" I spent a lot of time working on industry standards for heavy equipment. At times it seemed kind of silly--"What should we call this thing that attaches to a loader?" or "What is the definition of bucket capacity?" But in the big scheme of things standards make the world go round. If you didn't have standard times, or standard bolt sizes, or a common definition of a meter, all industry would be stymied. International standards for equipment safety (like rollover protection or seat belts) define a consensus view of minimum acceptable design practices. If you take it a step further--standards define some level of due diligence from a product liability perspective. Building a product that doesn't meet standard is generally considered negligent. Well, the AI industry is starting to work on AI standards and best practices. The "Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society" is a group that...