Ignore The AI Utopists And Doomers: The Need For Louder AI Pragmatists
What is an AI Pragmatist?
AI Pragmatists believe more strongly in embracing the ‘genius of the AND’, instead of succumbing to the ‘tyranny of the OR’. An AI Pragmatist understands that adoption of AI across all aspects of their life is inevitable, yet they want regulation and market pressures to ensure those systems are developed safely and responsibly. They believe that some uses of AI should be outright banned, most fully disclosed, and others can simply replace existing software experiences. They are excited by potential AI innovations to provide benefits in healthcare and education, but also want to ensure those advancements don’t leave people behind. Similarly, they know that biases exist in every dataset and model because of pre-existing human biases, yet they want to find ways to reduce the impact of those biases on AI outcomes. ...
See the full story here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeseq/2023/06/27/ignore-the-ai-utopists-and-doomers-the-need-for-louder-ai-pragmatists/?sh=6023306141e1
New senior living partnerships expand virtual reality use for home, daily life integration
RiverSpring Living, a services provider for more than 18,000 New Yorkers, is collaborating with VR company Rendever to help people who are being discharged from hospital or rehab to be reacquainted with their living spaces, the company announced Tuesday.
The VR platform allows older adults to explore their home and possibly review new additions such as hand railings before actually returning.
The tech could help prevent falls — an issue that affects 40% of older adults after being discharged — and reduce readmission rates, Rendever said. ...
The platform relies on synthesizing videos and pictures that are taken of the patients’ home. ...
See the full story here: https://www.mcknightsseniorliving.com/home/news/tech-daily-news/new-senior-living-partnerships-expand-virtual-reality-use-for-home-daily-life-integration/
and here: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/rendever-virtual-reality-platform-improves-142400096.html
Meta launches new VR subscription ‘Meta Quest+’ for $7.99
Meta Quest users can subscribe to a new service that gives them access to the top two titles every month. Dubbed Meta Quest+, the virtual reality subscription costs $7.99 per month or $59.99 annually. ...
The first games being offered are the action-rhythm game FPS Pistol Whip and the arcade adventure game Pixel Ripped 1995. In August, players will get to experience the games Walkabout Mini Golf and Mothergunship: Forge.
Users keep all the titles as long as they remain subscribed to Meta Quest+. ...
Chuck Schumer Wants AI to Be Explainable. It’s Harder Than It Sounds
... Unfortunately, these tools often contradict each other. One tool might say that the loan was rejected because the person’s credit rating was too low while another might emphasize the person’s income.
Another challenge is that explainability can be in tension with other goals policymakers might set for AI systems, such as protecting people’s privacy and giving them a right to have information about them removed from the internet. ...
“One of the things that has happened in the last five or six years is a mushrooming of ideas of how to produce interpretations, or some clarity on what an AI system is doing,” says Suresh Venkatasubramanian, a computer scientist at Brown University who teaches a course on AI explainability and co-authored the White House Blueprint for an AI BIll of Rights. ...
But for the most complex systems, including large language models (LLMs) such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the explainability tools developed for simpler models break down. ...
But when a team of researchers from NYU, AI startup Cohere, and AI lab Anthropic tried this on two different LLMs developed by OpenAI and Anthropic, they found that these models tended to give answers that were in line with common stereotypes and failed to mention the influence of the social biases that resulted in those answers. ...
“These techniques do not show rigorous replication at scale,” says Sara Hooker, a director at Cohere and head of its nonprofit research lab Cohere For AI. Hooker believes that attempting to explain neural network-based systems using these tools “becomes like tea leaf reading. It is often no better than random.” ...
“I would not expect Congress to micromanage the explainability tools used. Congress should demand that these systems be explainable. How that plays out will be a matter for innovation,” says Venkatasubramanian. ...
If legislation was passed that required all AI systems to be explainable regardless of their architecture, it could spell disaster for companies developing these more complex systems. Hooker believes one of two things would happen: “it could stifle innovation, or it could become like GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation, the European data privacy law], where it’s stated but in practice it isn’t enforced.” ...
But a third scenario exists. Schumer called for a concerted effort to find a technical solution on Wednesday, harnessing the “ingenuity of the experts and companies to come up with a fair solution that Congress can use to break open AI’s black box.” ...
See the full story here: https://time.com/6289953/schumer-ai-regulation-explainability/
Could Origami Be The Future Of VR Haptics?
... Hanqing Jiang, who was a part of the research team, learned about a form of origami called curved origami (or curved crease origami) while at Arizona State University in 2020 and used it to create stiffness with paper-made sculptures. It was this work that helped Jiang and the team to create haptic feedback with objects that they would pick up in virtual environments. ...
“The key component of our system is a curved origami panel,” said Jaing, adding, “To change the stiffness simultaneously with the sense in the VR/AR environments, motors are used to change the angles between the origami panels.” ...
Normally, technology uses vibration to replicate a tactile sensation, like your VR controllers vibrating during a specific in-game event or your smartphone buzzing during a call.
However, with the development of their curved origami-inspired device, they were able to create a system that can reflect the active nature of the interaction with the environment. The device is designed to be synchronized with the virtual world by changing its configuration in order to adapt to its environment. This allows it to create and deliver various sensations, such as weightlessness and hardness, based on its interaction with the objects. ...
Watch a long video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrpwaNZWep0&t=3s
See the full story here: https://vrscout.com/news/could-origami-be-the-future-of-vr-haptics/?utm_source=VRScout+Scouting+Report&utm_campaign=8c4c1aa44c-VRScoutReport_062323&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f3642cd298-8c4c1aa44c-162003161
How virtual reality is helping hospitals deal with soaring rates of violence
... Across Australia and the world, there has been an explosion of violence reported against healthcare workers during the pandemic fuelled by elevated drug and alcohol use and an escalating number of patients and their carers, frustrated by record-long waiting times in hospital emergency departments, who are lashing out. ...
The program, ‘Predict, Prevent, Priority: Safety’ was first introduced to emergency departments in 2019, sparking a notable drop in code grey alerts – a hospital response to violent, aggressive, abusive or threatening behaviour from patients or visitors. ...
See the full story here: https://www.smh.com.au/national/how-virtual-reality-is-helping-hospitals-deal-with-soaring-rates-of-violence-20230622-p5dipz.html
Former BPI boss Geoff Taylor to head up AI business opportunities at Sony Music Entertainment
In his exit interview for Music Week, longtime BPI CEO Geoff Taylor spoke about his plans to move to a commercial role that covered business expansion in a landscape disrupted by technology. Now his new job has been revealed.
Taylor has been appointed as executive vice president, artificial intelligence at Sony Music Entertainment. He will be based in London and report to Kevin Kelleher, chief operating officer.
Given the impact and opportunities involving AI – an issue recently addressed by Sony Music Group chairman Rob Stringer – it’s potentially a key role at the major. ...
See the full story here: https://www.musicweek.com/labels/read/former-bpi-boss-geoff-taylor-to-head-up-ai-business-opportunities-at-sony-music-entertainment/088111
As Gen Z enters the workforce alongside AI, staying nimble is key to building a career
... But as digital natives, Gen Zers have natural advantages to survive and thrive in this new AI-driven economy. They've grown up with tech. And the capabilities of expanding technologies such as AI will allow Gen Zers and other employees to hand over some of their mundane tasks to digital coworkers. That can give the people adept at using AI more time and energy for the creative, innovative, and thought-provoking work they're looking for. ...
"If you are brand-new into the workforce, the key thing to realize is that every single job is being redefined right now," said Alexander Kvamme, the CEO of Pathlight, a software company using AI to improve customer service and team performance through data. "You need to think creatively and thoughtfully about what the outcome is that the organization wants and how you achieve that outcome using the new tools available." ...
One example: Understanding AI models will become an increasingly popular job. ...
"It's very hard to train a model," Reilly said.
"Knowing how to have those conversations and train a model are new skills," she said, adding that prompt engineers were becoming sought-after professionals....
See the full story here: https://www.businessinsider.in/careers/news/as-gen-z-enters-the-workforce-alongside-ai-staying-nimble-is-key-to-building-a-career/articleshow/101257360.cms
“Forest bathing” might work in virtual reality too
The Japanese concept of “forest bathing,” or shinrin-yoku (森林浴), has long been acclaimed for its supposed health benefits. Hundreds of scientific studies suggest that it can improve mental health and cognitive performance, reduce blood pressure, and even treat depression and anxiety. ...
A group of scientists at the Czech University of Life Sciences—a psychologist in collaboration with researchers in the forestry department—has tested the hypothesis by taking a group of 15 people into the Roztocký háj nature reserve near Prague for 30-minute bathing sessions. They then used laser scanners to develop a virtual twin of the same area of forest, enhanced with audio recordings. Twenty participants, including 10 who visited the real forest, spent 30 minutes in the virtual forest. Questionnaires assessing the participants’ emotional states revealed no significant difference between the two experiences, according to the results, published in November in Frontiers in Virtual Reality. As Martin Hůla, the forestry researcher leading the project, explained, “I was aware that the forest was not real. However, the experience was immersive, and it was easy for me to forget that I was in an experimental room.” ...
Another group of scientists investigated virtual forest bathing in a recent paper published in the journal Forests. This time, the scientists developed a game for the participants to play, based on real methods of guided outdoor forest therapy. The tasks included taking photos with a virtual camera, collecting various items, and taking part in a simple fitness program designed to give the players a sense of adventure. The eight people involved in the study found that their overall depression, anger, and fatigue decreased after they played the game. ...
See the full story here: https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/06/26/1074325/forest-bathing-virtual-reality/
The art of leading in the AI age
... According to Saari, companies cannot build and deliver groundbreaking products unless they bring different people together to learn from one another. Basic human attributes such as curiosity, reflection, and a desire for learning should never be left to one single person, let alone a machine. Like Saari, leaders who play the role of an organizational midwife in their organization trust neither themselves nor minimum viable truths to single-handedly deal with the consequences of technological development. Instead, they trust everyone to put their experience, knowledge, and skills to use when determining ifand, if so, how it makes sense to use a certain technology. ...
See the full article here: https://www.strategy-business.com/blog/The-art-of-leading-in-the-AI-age?utm_source=MESA+Newsletters&utm_campaign=6ff7df2b81-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_06_20_08_53&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5534b41342-6ff7df2b81-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D
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