Old Names and New A. I...deas
Google – Alphabet
You may have heard that Alphabet is Googles parent company. Alphabet is responsible for the ‘google car’. Alphabet has its own autonomous car department which started life as a project by Google. This department is called Waymo. Currently, although not charging any fees, Waymo is moving riders around California. They want to bring autonomous driving tech to every-day life so that the likes of both you and I, can soon be scoffing a big mac with our feet on the dashboard. Don’t get too excited just yet, there is still the essential requirement for a human to be sat in the driver’s seat whilst it is in the testing phase. Self-driving cars like we once saw in the movies will soon be here……. But with many tech and automobile companies investing heavily in this field, who will be the first?
Amazon Go
No one ever thought they’d be screaming orders at a machine called ‘Alexxxaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa’ at any point in their lives. Still, here we are telling her to turn the music down or to turn up the heat when we are feeling a bit chilly this festive season. The bold folks at Amazon now have another innovative idea….wait for it………….. They are using artificial intelligence to ship things to you before you have even thought about buying it. I’m going to let that sink in for a while – please continue when you are ready.
Using the concept of ‘big data’ to record and measure every users shopping habits. Such data is now so reliable that they can now use analytics it to recommend items to their customers and even to predict what they need even before they know that they need it. Imagine getting that pair of shoes before you even knew that you wanted them!!! The world’s most advanced shopping technology has already rolled in the United States. It can’t be long before you get that pair of shoes before you even know you wanted them 😉
Apple
Tech wouldn’t be tech without our trusty friends at Apple. Apple has been incorporating the use of AI for some time in products such as the iPhone. Here it uses the FaceID feature, which even recognizes me on my ‘bad days’. Apple is also working on Apple Music, using it to recommend the most relevant songs and on the iCloud, which could navigate you to your next meeting using maps.
IBM – Project Debater
All this recent hype about artificial intelligence is old news to IBM. It has been over 20 years since the Deep Blue computer beat a human chess champion. Their latest achievement is ‘Project Debater’, which is a cognitive engine that has taken on two professional human debaters and been able to produce and develop human-like arguments. Machines could soon be arguing back.
The wonderful and talented peeps from the book of the face are using AI to give structure to its data. They are working with a search engine called DeepText which actually understands the text (in numerous languages) and interprets content and emotional sentiments. We’ve all had those creepy moments where yourself or people you know are identified in a photo before you have even got round to tagging the events at the weekend but DeepText is so advanced it is even better at facial recognition than you or I. This technology is now being used to catch and remove inappropriate images used on their site or other sites.