Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and Robotics

Stanford University Junior Joshua Browder's AI Legal chatbot DoNotPay has purportedly helped defeat 375,000 parking tickets over the last two years and is now available nationwide, according to The Verge . TechCrunch reports that IBM's Watson technology has been offered to DoNotPay for free to enable users to express questions using natural language. Should attorneys worry that AI will replace them? Not according to the ABA's Litigation News . Indeed, although large firms are retaining various AI systems for tasks such as due diligence, lease abstraction, and contract analysis, at least one firm characterizes those systems as supplemental tools to help attorneys produce results faster, learn more quickly, and improve - not to replace them. Which raises the question - is the potential to generate more legal work truly limitless? At least from an output perspective , DoNotPay  would seem to suggest it might be. Below is a hastily-generated sample. Interestingly, the ...

From Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook, during a visit to Iowa 80, The World's Largest Truck Stop: "I asked a number of truckers what they think about self-driving cars and trucks and what they think about the future. Everyone I met was skeptical self-driving trucks would replace jobs for different reasons. Some thought it would be impossible to pack all the sensors you need to deal with things like weather into trucks. Others thought computers could handle the interstate but not the last mile to the store. And some truckers think we'll end up with something like autopilot on planes -- with trucks driving themselves with people in the cab. From all the research I've seen, I'm confident we'll solve these problems. But it's interesting that people in the industry don't believe this will happen soon." Link to full post and comments  here .

What: Large-Scale Data Analytics Workshop: Where: Nichols Hall, Room 317 When: June 16th, 2017 at 9:00 a.m. RSVP requested: Sohaib Kiani (sohaib.kiani at ku.edu) Event Flyer: Below

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...

When technology develops to the point where real-world applications start to have an impact, it usually ends up in front of Congress for a hearing. This shows everyone that Congress is paying attention to cutting-edge issues and it plays an important role in helping to define Federal interests and necessary action. The first ever Congressional hearing on artificial intelligence was held  November 30, 2016 by the Commerce, Science, and Transportation subcommittee. AI Hearing The Federal government has some key objectives relative to AI: 1) Make sure that the U.S. is able to take competitive advantage of the technology. We hate to get behind in anything since 1957. 2) Related to #1--remove any unintentional barriers that hinder the new technology from being implemented. 3) Opposite to #2--make sure we properly limit/regulate/address negative consequences of the new technology through the establishment of new policy Alice Bean should weigh in on how the Federal government i...

A lot of recent media reports have been highlighting negative impacts of artificial intelligence systems on society (loss of jobs, super AI, killer robots). Those things certainly get your attention. However a new report (March 2017) by the Computing Community Consortium describes the potential benefits of AI. " Artificial Intelligence for Social Good " is a summary of a workshop that was held last year with examples of the promise of AI in urban computing, sustainability, health care, and public welfare. The report describes current case study examples and offers tantalizing glimpses of a rosy future--"The easier it becomes for people to move about, the more vibrant our urban areas will be; likewise, the more fruitful the social and economic interactions that take place inside them will be." Really? Sorry, I am a skeptic. How do I get from self-driving Uber to more equitable access to transportation in urban areas? How does easier access to transportation lead ...