MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and the Singapore Defense Science and Technology Agency award funding to 13 AI-focused projects.
As part of a new collaboration to advance and support AI research, the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing and the Defense Science and Technology Agency in Singapore are awarding funding to 13 projects led by researchers within the college that target one or more of the following themes: trustworthy AI, enhancing human cognition in complex environments, and AI for everyone. The 13 research projects selected are highlighted below.
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“Computationally-Supported Role-playing for Social Perspective Taking” by D. Fox Harrell, professor of digital media and artificial intelligences. Drawing on computer science and social science approaches, this project aims to create tools, techniques, and methods to model social phenomena for users of computer-supported role-playing systems — online gaming, augmented reality, and virtual reality — to better understand the perspectives of others with different social identities.
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“Audio Forensics” by James Glass, senior research scientist. The ongoing improvements in capabilities that manipulate or generate multi-media content such as speech, images, and video are resulting in ever-more natural and realistic “deepfake” content that is increasingly difficult to discern from the real thing. In a project led by Glass, researchers are developing a set of deep learning models that can be used to identify manipulated or synthetic speech content, as well as detect the nature of deepfakes to help analysts better understand the underlying objective of the manipulation and how much effort is required to create the fake content.
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“Analytics-Guided Communication to Counteract Filter Bubbles and Echo Chambers” by Deb Roy, professor of media arts and sciences. Social media technologies that promised to open up our worlds have instead driven us algorithmically into cocoons of homogeneity. Roy and his team are developing language models and methods to counteract the effects of these technologies that has exacerbated socioeconomic divides and limited exposure to different perspectives, curbing opportunities for users to learn from others who may not necessarily look, think, or live like them.
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See the full story here: https://news.mit.edu/2020/advancing-artificial-intelligence-research-1118
“Wolves In The Walls” Launches On Oculus Quest
Fable’s forty minute VR experience, Wolves in the Walls, based on the graphic novel by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Dave McKean, launches on Oculus Quest today. It’s free for Rift and Quest users. The company also announced today that the star of Wolves, an AI-driven character named Lucy (voiced by Cadence Goblirsch), is going to be extending her presence to the real world via social media platforms, emails, texts, voice and Zoom calls. Users can sign up to be her friend. A real world friend. “It’s not like virtual Instagram star Lil Miquela, who pushes content at you. And not like a voice assistant. It’s like a real friend,” Cofounder and Executive Producer Edward Saachi told us in an interview on Tuesday.
“This is friendship as an infinite game, like Roblox or Minecraft,” says Wolvesdirector and Fable Cofounder Pete Billington. “You can talk with Lucy. You can even play games with her.” At first, only a few hundred people will be able to connect and form a relationship with Lucy. Users interested in experiencing this new form of social entertainment can apply on the Fable blog here.
See the full story here http://wolves-in-the-walls-launches-on-oculus-quest/?sh=49c610744c3d&fbclid=IwAR39YrlhJ7WWgLPCihtFrYDIsM2xN3uaJhtrWomoa-I_BoWQy_2T8gBYyYk
European Union Plans to Announce Regulations for Big Tech
On December 2, European Commission EVP and commissioner for competition Margrethe Vestager and European commissioner for internal market Thierry Breton plan to announce the new rules governing powerful online companies. Among the draft rules of the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, Big Tech companies will have to share data with rivals and regulators. Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai also apologized to Breton over a leaked document revealing his company’s proposed tactics against the European Union’s new, tougher rules.
Reuters reports that, “the new draft rules would allow the EU to ban companies or part of their services from the 27-country bloc as an extreme option,” an action currently not available. “Strict rules must be enforceable,” said Breton. “For this we need the appropriate arsenal of possible measures: Impose fines, exclude companies or parts of their services from the Single Market, insist that they split up if they want to keep access to the Single Market. Or a combination of all of these.”
But Breton also warned Pichai that, “the Internet cannot remain a ‘Wild West’: we need clear and transparent rules, a predictable environment and balanced rights and obligations.”
See the full story here: https://www.etcentric.org/european-union-plans-to-announce-regulations-for-big-tech/
Xavier Rubio Was Not a Good Student. Now He Has a Successful Virtual Reality Educational Startup.
Xavier Rubio learned to do virtual reality in a self-taught way. Your background is not technology. He studied international business and marketing, a master's in finance, and an MBA.
For this entrepreneur there is no total success, rather it is a path full of small achievements.
“You have to fail a lot and have skin of steel or dragon scales so that the fire does not affect you. In failure is learning and the tusk of an entrepreneur. Don't be afraid to fail or be wrong; because failing is part of the road to success. "
What is the business model?
Pixdea generates income through an annual membership of $ 60 (approximately 1,200 pesos) paid by the school for each student. In this way, students have unlimited access to all content. Pixdea also creates tailored training modules for different businesses. They also conduct free educational tours in cooperation with private companies.
To date, more than 8,000 students have tried Pixdea technology. Its market is large: 163 million students in Latin America. By the end of this year Pixdea expects to add 10,000 public school users in partnership with Racsa, the Costa Rican state Internet provider.
With the virtual reality produced by Pixdea they can take students to any place and time in history. The first educational experience that Xavier and his team created was a trip to the solar system where students sit in a spaceship and get to know each planet.
“We tested this first project in private schools in Costa Rica and it was very well received. The feedback from the children was very good. They told us that they really liked learning this way. Other content we have is the cellular world, the Mayan world and putting together the world map ”, he explains.
What excites Xavier Rubio most about entrepreneurship is that despite so many needs and uncertainties it is possible to exploit creativity to solve many problems with the least amount of resources available.
As a founder, you believe that it is not necessary to borrow for your business. What is required is to have a lot of creativity and that the same sales are the ones that finance your entire project. However, although he had never thought of raising capital, he is now in the process of doing so. "This education got so out of hand that we do need to get investors to increase production exponentially", concludes the founder of Pixdea.
See the full story here: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/359842
Best AI ETFs for Q1 2021
Artificial intelligence (AI) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) seek to provide exposure to a fast-growing segment of the technology industry. AI aims to simulate human intelligence, leveraging powerful algorithms to make machines think and act like human beings. While the automation of repetitive tasks and substitution of human labor by machines is nothing new, AI is accelerating this trend, resulting in giant leaps in productivity.
Key Takeaways
- The AI sector outperformed the broader market over the past year.
- The ETFs with the best 1-year trailing total return are ARKQ, BOTZ, and IRBO.
- The top holdings of these ETFs are Tesla Inc., NVIDIA Corp., and class A shares of Pinterest Inc., respectively.
There are 5 distinct AI ETFs that trade in the U.S., excluding leveraged funds and those with less than $50 million in assets under management (AUM). The AI sector does not have its own benchmark, but its performance is best reflected in the index for the technology sector, the Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK). The XLK has outperformed the broader market with a total return of 41.8% over the past 12 months, more than double the S&P 500’s total return of 18.1%, as of November 13, 2020. The best-performing AI ETF, based on performance over the past year, is the ARK Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF (ARKQ). We examine the 3 best AI ETFs below. All numbers below are as of November 16, 2020.
- Performance over 1-Year: 83.3%
- Expense Ratio: 0.75%
- Annual Dividend Yield: N/A
- 3-Month Average Daily Volume: 267,655
- Assets Under Management: $861.2 million
- Inception Date: September 30, 2014
- Issuer: ARK Investment Management
ARKQ holds a basket of multi-cap equities focused on autonomous vehicles, robotics and automation, 3D printing, and space exploration. Until November of 2019, the fund was called the ARK Industrial Innovation ETF. ARKQ is an actively managed ETF that employs a growth strategy and is geographically diversified across developed markets throughout the world. The fund’s top three holdings include Tesla Inc. (TSLA), an electric vehicle and clean energy company; sponsored ADRs of Materialise NV (MTLS), a Belgium-based provider of additive manufacturing software and 3D printing services; and class C shares of Alphabet Inc. (GOOG), a multinational technology conglomerate and parent of Google.
- Performance over 1-Year: 43.2%
- Expense Ratio: 0.68%
- Annual Dividend Yield: 0.32%
- 3-Month Average Daily Volume: 1,134,233
- Assets Under Management: $2.0 billion
- Inception Date: September 12, 2016
- Issuer: Global X
BOTZ seeks to track the Indxx Global Robotics & Artificial Intelligence Thematic Index, comprised of companies operating in the global automation and robotics industries. The ETF is focused on companies poised to benefit from increased adoption and use of robotics and AI, including ones focused on industrial robotics and automation, non-industrial robots, and autonomous vehicles. The fund is composed of multi-cap equities and follows a blended strategy, investing in a mix of growth and value stocks across developed markets. The fund’s top three holdings include NVIDIA Corp. (NVDA), a semiconductor company; FANUC Corp. (6954:TKS), a Japan-based manufacturer of factory automation systems, equipments, and robots; and Intuitive Surgical Inc. (ISRG), a maker of robotic products used in minimally invasive surgery.
- Performance over 1-Year: 40.8%
- Expense Ratio: 0.47%
- Annual Dividend Yield: 0.30%
- 3-Month Average Daily Volume: 55,545
- Assets Under Management: $219.7 million
- Inception Date: June 26, 2018
- Issuer: iShares
IRBO seeks to track the NYSE FactSet Global Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Index, an index composed of companies engaged in robotics and AI across a broad range of developed and emerging market economies. The ETF invests in a range of multi-cap equities and follows a blended strategy of investing in both growth and value stocks. The fund’s top three holdings include class A shares of Pinterest Inc. (PINS), a social media company providing a pinboard-style photo-sharing website; class A shares of Snap Inc. (SNAP), a social media company that develops mobile camera application products and services; and Nidec Corp. (6594:TKS), a Japan-based manufacturer of small precision motors mainly used in HDD and optical disk drives.
See the full story here; https://sportsgrindentertainment.com/best-ai-etfs-for-q1-2021/
Cambridge Public Library Launches Augmented Reality Exhibition
The City of Cambridge installed a student-designed augmented reality exhibit exploring systemic racism in front of the Cambridge Public Library at Joan Lorentz Park earlier this month.
Students at the Cambridge Public Library STEAM Academy — a collaboration between the library and Innovators for Purpose, a local non-profit that gives young students experience working on real-world projects — created the exhibit, titled “This Should Not Be.”
The exhibit consists of several physical posts spread around the library that can each be converted to augmented reality with a cellphone, according to Reinhard Engels, manager of innovation and technology at the Cambridge Public Library.
See the full story here: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/11/16/cambridge-public-library-augmented-reality-exhibit/
Pandorabots’ Bot Battle highlights lack of industrywide metrics for open domain AI
Emerging technology fields need industrywide metrics to measure progress. So a pun-loving chatbot startup called Pandorabots decided to put on a flashy Bot Battle. The Bot Battle consisted of two virtual beings chatting 24 hours a day, seven days a week for two weeks (unlike humans, AIs never tire). Viewers were invited to vote on the better chatbot.
The first contestant, “Mark Zuckerb0rg,” is based on Facebook’s Blenderbot. He’s a terse figure who wears a “Make Facebook Great Again” hat and doesn’t shy away from intolerant opinions like “I don’t like feminists.” The Pandorabots chatbot Kuki is arguably more eloquent. But she’s a politician, often taking the conversation back to her comfort zone and delivering the same quips again and again. The winner? Kuki, with 79% of the votes and 40,000 views. But Pandorabots says the real aim of the Bot Battle is to spark an industrywide conversation about the need to agree on a chatbot evaluation framework.
See the full story here: https://venturebeat.com/2020/11/13/pandorabots-bot-battle-highlights-lack-of-industrywide-metrics-for-open-domain-ai/