Thứ Hai, 24 tháng 10, 2016
In a move that's guaranteed to inspire awe but is really just laying the foundation for the robot takeover Elon Musk has been warning us about, IBM's artificial intelligence program Watson has helped write some music. Alex Da Kid, a Grammy-winning producer, got all sorts of data from Watson that helped him craft the song "Not Easy," a collaboration with X Ambassadors, Elle King, and Wiz Khalifa. So how did Watson help? Well, according to IBM: Watson AlchemyLanguage API helped by analyzing five years of natural language texts including New York Times front pages, Supreme Court rulings, Getty Museum statements, the most edited Wikipedia articles, popular movie synopses and more. Once Watson had learned the most significant cultural themes, Watson Tone Analyzer read news articles, blogs and tweets to find out what people felt about them. In addition to all of this fun stuff, Watson also analyzed lyrics from thousands of popular songs and the keys and chord progressions of those songs to create "an emotional fingerprint of music by year." Watson also ingested album art and used a "cognitive cloud-based app" called Watson Beat that, with artist input, helps put together a musical composition. Speaking to radio host Elvis Duran, Alex said of the song created with Watson, "My creative process starts with a conversation. And when I kind of understood what Watson could do, it could kind of take that conversation and that understanding of how people talk to each other and do that on a massive scale." While Watson has been working on something like this for a while, there's no word on whether or not we'll see another matching of the platform and Nobel Prize-winning poet Bob Dylan, who appeared alongside Watson in an IBM commercial before apparently disappearing into the ether.
Thứ Năm, 29 tháng 9, 2016
Artificial Intelligence is now a part of our daily lives. It's on our wrists in the form of Apple's SIRI and in our kitchens thanks to Amazon's Alexa. We use it, but do not always understand or trust it. Now, a collection of tech industry giants has joined together to close the knowledge and trust gap. The vehicle for this new level of understanding and, maybe, acceptance, will be a brand new mouthful of an organization: the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society. In conversation it will actually go by the more manageable "Partnership on AI." Member companies of the new alliance are all knee-deep in artificial intelligence and Machine Learning. They include Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Google's DeepMind and IBM. Notably absent, for now, is Apple. The objective, according to Thursday's announcement, is "to address opportunities and challenges with AI technologies to benefit people and society." Partnership AI will actually conduct open-source research, investigating AI areas such as ethics and human and AI system collaboration. One thing it will not do is lobby governments on behalf of AI initiatives by member companies. "“The possibilities for positively impacting a global society with advances in AI are numerous, ranging from connectivity, healthcare, and transportation. As researchers in industry, we take very seriously the trust people have in us to ensure advances are made with the utmost consideration for human values," said Yann LeCun, the director of Facebook AI Research, in a release. The partnership does plan to work with other third party AI organizations, including the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2). “We’re excited about this historic collaboration on AI and its influences on people and society. We see great value ahead with harnessing AI advances in numerous areas, including health, education, transportation, public welfare, and personal empowerment," said Eric Horvitz, technical fellow a managing director at Microsoft Research, in a release. IBM, which has aggressively spread the reach and influence of its own AI engine, Watson, gave Mashable exclusive access to an internal memo to global employees from CEO Ginni Rometty on the formation of the alliance and IBM's participation: Team: For more than a century, IBM has stood apart not only for creating world-changing innovations, but also for guiding their responsible adoption. This is foundational to why our company is respected both as an innovator and a trusted brand everywhere in the world. As you know, the most important innovation of our time – cognitive computing, led by Watson — is rapidly maturing and entering the mainstream of business and society. It is essential that this technology’s growth and development be robust, visionary and enduring. That is why I am excited to tell you about an important new non-profit organization that IBM is forming with Deep Mind/Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft. As the founding members of the Partnership for AI, we will work together to ensure the responsible development and deployment of cognitive and AI technologies. As with every world-changing innovation, cognitive raises new questions, new issues and new challenges, for both business and society. These range from ethics and transparency to control and jobs. In addressing these questions, we expect to be joined by many leading universities, foundations and other organizations as we conduct research, make its results available to the world and share best practices. Together, we will develop principles on collaboration between people and AI systems, and work to advance the trustworthiness and reliability of the technology. A world with Watson will be healthier, safer, more productive, more convenient and more personal – in ways that we are only glimpsing today. As we deliver on this profound potential, we are committed to doing so in a way that benefits not only business, but the individual and society. We make that commitment because we're IBMers.
Thứ Tư, 4 tháng 5, 2016
Soon Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won’t be the only semi-average person who can talk a good quantum computing game. On Wednesday, IBM unveiled the world’s first cloud-based quantum computing experience. Starting today, regular humans will be able to access real quantum computing hardware based in IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY, which means virtually anyone can run quantum computing experiments from the comfort of their lab, office or living room couch. An IBM Quantum Computing Lab scientist checks out the Quantum Cloud interface. Behind him is an enlarged image of the 5 quibit quantum processor. Image: Jon Simon/Feature Photo Service for IBM Quantum computing is like regular computing in that it can use computational power to help figure things out, but is also completely unlike it. Traditional computers rely on information in bits represented as 1’s and 0’s; things are one or the other, or on or off. In quantum computing, there are quantum bits or qubits that can actually have two states at once (a supposition). It’s a kind of computing that actually better correlates to nature and allows scientists to work on problems at both an exponential and molecular level. “It gives you access to a much broader and larger space of computations,” said Jerry M. Chow, IBM’s Manager of Experimental Quantum Computing Group. Chow is part of the team bringing Quantum computing to the cloud. “It’s a web-based platform for public to access to run quantum algorithm and quantum circuits on a real quantum processor in our labs,” said Chow. “We want people to program their own algorithms and learn what it means to do quantum computing.” Feynman would love this They will be learning though, on a somewhat reduced scale. First of all, it’s not a true, universal quantum computer that is both exponentially faster than traditional computers and can be programmed to work on virtually any task. And while such a computer might offer up to 100 quantum bits of performance, IBM’s cloud-based quantum computer will have just 5. It’s also just one quantum processor — as opposed to an array. IBM plans to add qubits and even change processor configurations over time. According to Chow, IBM’s custom-built quantum processor is a silicon wafer etched with super-conducting metal (niobium and aluminum). In order to function as a quantum computer, it has to be super-cooled at all times. The system sits at the bottom of refrigeration system where the temperature is roughly 0.015 degrees above absolute zero. Since it’s just one processor and the cloud-based quantum computing environment will be open to virtually anyone, Chow’s team has set up a queuing system and even a sort of virtual currency, called Q-Coins. Everyone who registers gets coins and can earn more by completing tutorials. The coins are used to run the tests against the Quantum silicon and get replenished when the experiment is done. The IBM Quantum Computing Cloud interface includes tabs for a underguide and a place to keep track of your results. Image: IBM ReseARCH Access to the real quantum computer will also reveal errors or “noise in the system,” which can help programmers refine their quantum algorithms. The environment will also include a simulator that will let you compare your results to those from the hardware or simply practice running error-free quantum algorithms. The IBM Quantum Computing Experience includes user guides, tutorials and examples. However, it’s not simply designed to educate the world on the possibilities of quantum computing. “For casual, new person to quantum computing, this is where you can learn through examples. For research community and people who know a bit about this, this is a really high-functioning, high-quality system to test out new ideas, write papers and perform research on,” said Chow. Put simply, real breakthroughs could happen on this quantum platform and in the cloud. Process that for minute. Aspiring quantum computer scientists can access IBM’s Quantum computer here. Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
