This week in AI #42

With this post, we want to start sharing some of the interesting news regarding the topic of AI. Regarding the fact that we are a research group based in Germany, we will also post articles and references in German – feel free to use deepl.com for translation…

And starting with some news in German and from Germany:

• Wenn der Roboter Wünsche von den Augen abliest
  heise.de
  
  Die International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction (HAI 2017) findet in Bielefeld statt und beschäftigt sich mit der Kommunikation zwischen Mensch und Maschine und der Erkenntnis, dass Kommunikation nicht nur auf Worte beschränkt ist.
• Emirate richten Ministerium für Künstliche Intelligenz ein
  heise.de
  
  “Die nächste globale Welle ist die künstliche Intelligenz. Wir wollen das Land sein, das darauf am besten vorbereitet ist”, schrieb Ministerpräsident Mohammed bin Raschid Al Maktum am Donnerstag auf Twitter. Dazu nur der Hinweis auf den Zeit Artikel vom 28.09.2017 – Diese Überschrift muss leider noch laden ….
• A brief guide to mobile AI chips
  theverge.com
  
  A reminder that the current AI (re)evolution is not only about the algorithms but also about the hardware. And while the author is making some good points for specialized hardware, the conclusion “SO DO I NEED AN AI CHIP IN MY PHONE? – No, not really. So much work is being done on making AI services run better on the hardware currently available, that unless you’re a real power user, you don’t need to worry about it.” is the wrong one. We instead need more efforts to bring specialized hardware (and software) to products to improve the usefulness of AI services. Everybody who has tried using Siri or any other smart assistant without a stable internet connection will probably agree. The current detour over the cloud is because we lack proper hardware on the mobile devices.
• The BBC is turning to AI to improve its programming
  engadget.com
  
  Kudos to the BBC for constantly exploring new paths. I remember that BBC was also the first TV station I heard of trying out Semantic Web standards. One idea BBC is researching as “a concept called object-based broadcasting…that could be assembled in different ways depending on the user or end-hardware” – the dream of truly personalized TV broadcasting.

Till Plumbaum