by BGF | Nov 4, 2018 | News
Google is giving the prize of $25 million to the group with the best AI solution for the world’s issues.
The contest, the AI Impact Challenge was announced on October 29 at AI for Social Good event held at the company’s Sunnyvale, California office. Whereby the competition will be held and supervised by the company’s Google.org charitable arm. Google aims to integrate nonprofits, universities, and other organizations not within the corporate and profit-driven world of Silicon Valley into future developments of AI.
The award will value up to $25 million to an appropriate number to “help transform the best ideas into action.” In addition to the sponsorship, Google also offer resources for the projects.
Google’s experts started the initiative with the hope to make use of AI to address environmental problems, health care, and wildlife conservation. One example is using AI to pin down the location of whales by collecting data on whale sounds or predict floods and wildfires. Another field which Google is looking forward to solving is the biases in AI software as a result of diversity in cultures and prejudice.
There are many other organizations share the vision of making AI beneficial to the society. The Michael Dukakis Institute (MDI) with the AIWS Initiative is a prime example. Recently, MDI has established the AIWS Standards and Practice Committee with over 20 members who are leading experts and leaders in the field of AI and technology.
by BGF | Nov 4, 2018 | News
A manufacturing trick with magnetic fields produces a battery that may discharge fast enough to get an aircraft off the ground.
Yet-Ming Chiang, a materials science professor at MIT, and his colleague Viswanathan, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon, started the project teaming up with 24M, the lithium-ion battery manufacturer which Chiang co-founded in 2010, and an aircraft Start-up in Washington, to create a new powerful battery. Recently, they have achieved a remarkable progress: the prototype batteries are strong enough to provide the energy for an advanced hybrid plane.
Reducing emissions from aircraft is one of the most challenging dilemmas, hence, Chiang and Viswanathan’s goal is to create a battery that could power an airplane with 12 people capacity and 400 miles of range—about the distance from San Francisco to Los Angeles, or New York to Washington—and increase the capacity of the plane even more in the future. This development is currently encountering the issue of duration as the energy pack was not dense enough, and it dropped dramatically to take off and reach cruising altitude. The battery will need to be as light as possible and capable of charging or replacing during the flight in order to deal with this problem.
By facilitate ions and electrons flow through the battery, particularly the electrodes it can get lithium-ion batteries to discharge at a rate fast enough for airplanes. In 2016, Chiang and his team succeeded by mixing magnetic nanoparticles into the electrode materials, and applying a light magnetic field, helped to create aligned pathways through the electrodes. The result of subsequent test shows that the rate of flowing electrodes was more than double than that of the conventional batteries.
Until the batteries are successfully power the whole flight, we can tell how effective this approach is. For now, it is just a start; however, following the first layer (Charter and Principles) of AIWS 7-layer Model, it is necessary to ensure test protocol for this battery so that it won’t have casualty, prioritize the safety of people.
by BGF | Nov 4, 2018 | News
With no emotions, machines could make fair, rational decision with concrete evidence; in addition there will not be corruption as well as unethical behavior. So can we entrust robots making decision for us? Can robot leaders do better than our politicians?
The possibility has been questioned and analyzed by many experts with different origins such as UK, India, New Zealand and Japan. It is without a doubt that there will be much more evidence-based decision and less irrational call. A robotic government would be capable of higher and wider reach compared to any human leader with unlimited stamina and data analytic capability.
However, it also poses grand challenges for human beings to cope.
The first dilemma in giving the authority to robots is going to be its imperfection despite its abilities of deep learning: there will be hidden context that it has not been taught, complicated situation which requires diplomats making major decisions. Under this circumstance, robots are messy and incompetence.
The second one is the limited capabilities of education and infrastructure as technology has been developing at an incredible speed. However, not everywhere is the same. There is a great gap between areas, culture, nation in how developed AI is. It will result in programmer’s bias anyhow.
And finally, by giving robots administrative power and independence of making decision, we will be facing security risks such as cyberattacks, information leaks, error which might lead to dangerous outcome we cannot foresee.
In conclusion, the key is to use AI to form a safer, prosperous society. At the same time human right and data privacy should not be ignored. This fact is also included in the Layer 1 of the AIWS 7-layer Model. It is expected that we will be able to see online governance in the near future.
by BGF | Nov 4, 2018 | News
Last week, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid a visit to Japan and met the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the India-Japan Annual Summit. The meeting brought about the collaboration in the effort of the technology’s innovation between the two countries.
Realizing the great potential of cooperation between the two nations, with Japan’s strength in hardware and India’s prowess in software, the two ministers shared a same goal for the future. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was honored as the World Leader in Cybersecurity in 2015 by Boston Global Forum, signed the agreement with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This agreement established a Japanese-Indian Digital Partnership with the aim to utilize the Start-up Hub in Bengaluru and IT Corridor Project in Hiroshima Prefecture. It might be the first step in the development of Internet of Things and AI solutions promoting the society.
The agreement included of these following terms:
- Implementing arrangement for deeper cooperation between Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force and Indian Navy;
- MoC between Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on Japan-India Digital Partnership;
- Statement of Intent between NITI Aayog and Ministry of Economy, Trade & Industry (METI), Japan on AI to encourage and develop cooperation on AI-based technologies;
- Memorandum of Understanding on further cooperation toward Indo-Japan Global Startup between Nagasaki University and IIITDM Kancheepuram;
- MoU on the academic and educational exchange between Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad and Hiroshima University.
by BGF | Nov 4, 2018 | News
On October 17, President Vaira Vike-Freiberga – President of the World Leadership Alliance–Club de Madrid (WLA-CdM), Former President of Latvia – was awarded the “Luise 2018” at Friedenstein Castle, Germany. This is the most valuable prize in the field of national culture in Gotland, Germany.
Due to the Latvia’s relation with Germany, the Former President of Latvia holds a great respect and honor to Germany’s traditions. In October 2018, President Vike-Freiberga was awarded the “Luise 2018”. The announcement ceremony had the attendance of Igna Skujina, the Lavitan Ambassador in Germany and Gotas, the Mayor of the City. Mayor Gotas was the one to grant her this Prize.
One of many projects which President Vike-Freiberga is working on is the building of the Next Generation Democracy with Michael Dukakis Institute (MDI), a partner of WLA-CdM. They are together developing the AIWS 7-Layer Model in the upcoming age of AI.
