Automation is evolution, not a class war January 26, 2018 I suffer the great misfortune of living near a busy Tesco Express store, which, absent of self-service checkouts, often makes the innocuous task of buying eggs feel like a test of one’s self-restraint. While waiting for the two portraits of human inefficiency behind the till to serve 20 shoppers, glancing at my phone, I read [...]
Facebook hires Jerome Pesenti, an expert from UK startup BenevolentAI, to lead its artificial intelligence efforts January 24, 2018 Facebook has poached a top scientist from a UK tech startup to lead its artificial intelligence efforts. Jerome Pesenti is leaving BenevolentAI – a startup using machine learning technology to discover new drug treatments for diseases like motor neuron disease – to take on Facebook’s top job in artificial intelligence research. Read more: Facebook’s promising [...]
Facebook’s promising to help Europe learn digital skills and invest more in Paris artificial intelligence research centre January 22, 2018 Facebook is the latest US tech giant to jump on the digital skills bandwagon, promising to train one million people across Europe by 2020. And it’s also putting more cash behind its artificial intelligence efforts, investing €10m more in its Paris-based AI research lab. Read more: Facebook to expand probe into possible Russian influence on [...]
Google and Tencent announce tie-up to cross-license patents January 19, 2018 Google has signed a tie-up with Tencent in a bid to enhance its presence in China. The patent cross-licensing agreement will be “long-term” and covers a range of technologies, according to Google. Further terms of the deal were not disclosed but the company said it could open the door to closer collaboration in the future. [...]
The best running tech and gadgets of 2017 review: From wearables to fitness trackers and sports earphones January 18, 2018 Are you marathon ready? How are your glutes? Firm and rippling? Should they be rippling? Oh my god somebody Google “rippling glutes” right now and tell me what it says. In the meantime, it’s time to peruse City AM’s exhaustive list of the absolute best running tech of 2017, from things that go around your [...]
Robot bookworms? Artificial intelligence (AI) can now read as well as humans after Microsoft and Alibaba made research breakthroughs January 16, 2018 The march of artificial intelligence continues… Researchers at Microsoft have hailed a “major milestone” for the technology after they managed to create a system using the technology that can read just about as well as a human. They used what’s known as the Stanford Questions Answering Dataset (SQuAD), a tool commonly employed in scientific research [...]
Banks face a seismic technological upheaval – PSD2 is only the start January 16, 2018 The Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2) came into force across the EU last Saturday, opening access to consumers’ financial data to thousands of companies that aren’t banks. The UK went a step further with Open Banking, enabling fintech players and retailers to take over the ownership of customer relationships from major banks. In the Open [...]
Female-focused machine learning could change how financial advisers serve women January 10, 2018 Many companies already know that women are becoming more prominent as wealth holders, are directing more wealth investing than before, and are often their largest consumers. However, while women are the target customers, they are still underserved by financial advisers. Most financial services firms have optimised themselves to communicate with and serve male as opposed [...]
Machine learning could change the game for female investors in 2018 January 10, 2018 Many companies already know that women are becoming more prominent as wealth holders, are directing more wealth investing than before, and are often their largest consumers. However, while women are the target customers, they are still underserved by financial advisers. Most financial services firms have optimised themselves to communicate with and serve male as opposed [...]
A robot tax is a tempting but misguided response to our public funding crisis January 10, 2018 The threats posed by automation are now a common topic for futurologists. The reality is that automation has been quietly progressing for some time, and while we are a long way off a Skynet-style singularity, the development of artificial intelligence means robots are not only taking our current jobs, they are going to take more. [...]