Lack of good Cyber Security across the net, will continue to be a key reason why AI in general will not deliver the return on new AI tech products and robots / devices. $3+ million in ranson may not be that large to mid size and large tech companies; however, it is everything to small businesses and small businesses and consumers is what keeps tech in business.
Hospital staff severely impeded in their day-to-day work.
In professional cycling, it’s well known that a pack of 40 or 50 riders can ride faster and more efficiently than a single rider or small group. As such, you’ll often see cycling teams with different goals in a race work together to chase down a breakaway before the finish line.
This analogy is one way to think about collaborative multi-agent intelligent systems, which are poised to change the technology landscape for individuals, businesses, and governments, says Dr. Mehdi Dastani, a computer scientist at Utrecht University. The proliferation of these multi-agent systems could lead to significant systemic changes across society in the next decade.
“Multi-agent systems are basically a kind of distributed system with sets of software. A set can be very large. They are autonomous, they make their own decisions, they can perceive their environment, “Dastani said. “They can perceive other agents and they can communicate, collaborate or compete to get certain resources. A multi-agent system can be conceived as a set of individual softwares that interact.”
As a simple example of multi-agent systems, Dastani cited Internet mail servers, which connect with each other and exchange messages and packets of information. On a larger scale, he noted eBay’s online auctions, which use multi-agent systems to allow one to find an item they want to buy, enter their maximum price and then, if needed, up the bid on the buyer’s behalf as the auction closes. Driverless cars are another great example of a multi-agent system, where many softwares must communicate to make complicated decisions.
Dastani noted that multi-agent systems dovetail nicely with today’s artificial intelligence. In the early days of AI, intelligence was a property of one single entity of software that could, for example, understand human language or perceive visual inputs to make its decisions, interact, or perform an action. As multi-agent systems have been developed, those single agents interact and receive information from other agents that they may lack, which allows them to collectively create greater functionality and more intelligent behavior.
“When we consider (global) trade, we basically define a kind of interaction in terms of action. This way of interacting among individuals might make their market more efficient. Their products might get to market for a better price, as the amount of time (to produce them) might be reduced,” Dastani said. “When we get into multi-agent systems, we consider intelligence as sort of an emergent phenomena that can be very functional and have properties like optimal global decision or situations of state.”
Other potential applications of multi-agent systems include designs for energy-efficient appliances, such as a washing machine that can contact an energy provider so that it operates during off-peak hours or a factory that wants to flatten out its peak energy use, he said. Municipal entities can also use multi-agent systems for planning, such as simulating traffic patterns to improve traffic efficiency.
Looking to the future, Dastani notes the parallels between multi-agent systems and Software as a Service (SaaS) computing, which could shed light on how multi-agent systems might evolve. Just as SaaS combines various applications for on-demand use, multi-agent systems can combine functionalities of various software to provide more complex solutions. The key to those more complex interactions, he added, is to develop a system that will govern the interactions of multi-agent systems and overcome the inefficiencies that can be created on the path toward functionality.
“The idea is the optimal interaction that we can design or we can have. Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean that multi-agent systems are by definition, efficient,” Dastani said. “We can have many processes that communicate, make an enormous number of messages and use a huge amount of resources and they still can not have a sort of interesting functionality. The whole idea is, how can we understand and analyze the interactions? How can we decide which interaction is better than the other interactions or more efficient or more productive?”
Qubits in solid state devices for transmission across an Quantum Internet is a given in order to have great performance on a Quantum Network as well as help ensuring secured transmission of information across the net — this is a given and why Quantum is a must for supporting and securing things like AI, IoT, and other emerging technologies such as Brain Interface devices.
Without this technology; it will be very hard for industries, governments, and especially consumers to embrace and adopt full automated AI, brain interface devices, etc.
A research team from the Joint Quantum Institute have developed a way for qubits to interact with photons, which could ultimately lead to futuristic quantum networks. Theorists explained that such a solid state device could give birth to compact chip-integrated quantum circuits enabling gigahertz range bandwidths.
Qubits or quantum bits which are the quantum analogue of the classical bit allows superposition of states in between horizontally polarized and vertically polarized states. Contemporary optical networks use electronic circuits to store information and an optical fibre to carry it. However, scientists sketched a quantum network system in which highly secured qubits will be transmitted using an optical fibre. However, in order to realise this in practice will require a feasible interaction between an electron and a photon.
Frankly brainwashing tactics never worked with me. I am not sure what the media is up to; but this is truly become a bit ridiculous. Up until last week; the media and dooms day believers where telling everyone in the next 10 years; most of the jobs would no longer be held by humans. Until me and a few other folks on the web started sharing the facts on why that was not a reality. So, recently, the journalists new story is in 30 years most of the jobs will be taken by robots.
Again, we will settle down from the hype and learn that the reality is people will have jobs because new careers will be created plus some of the corporate and special skilled jobs that we have today have too much access to IP and other private information. And, this type of information most companies will want some level of human oversight managing the information and operations around it. Also, we will see that in order to keep creativity and real innovation moving forward that we will always need humans involved.
Besides, in the 1950’s robots and computers was suppose to have taken over by 1970; and in 1970 the humanoids (like in the movie WestWorld) was suppose to exist and we were to colonized the moon by 1999; and the same stories continue today.
A life of leisure could be the norm for a majority of people in decades to come, according to Moshe Vardi from Rice University in Houston, Texas, who spoke at the annual AAAS meeting.
I believe it is wonderful to think about cognitive computing. However, as a fellow CIO & CTO, I would suggest a key priority has to be focused on Cyber Security until it is resolved; or in a better position to proactively blocker would be intruders. Without a solid Cyber Security plan and model in place and operational; your cognitive computing capabilities will be worth nothing in the end once hackers are helping themselves to your IP and other information as well as your AI machines.
The news comes from the recent IBM Institute for Business Value study, “Redefining Competition: Insights from the Global C-suite Study — The CEO perspective.” Researchers interviewed more than 5,000 C-level executives worldwide about their perspectives on a variety of technology issues, including the importance of mobile solutions, cloud 
computing, and the Internet of Things.
Torchbearers and Market Followers.
Cognitive computing, which involves developing computing resources that are capable of mimicking the way human brains work to tackle increasingly complex problems, emerged as one of the most important issues likely to confront business executives in the near future.
I agree; still a lot of work to be done in order for AI to have a huge impact around taking most of the jobs away. Besides, with new technology comes new careers.
India’s finance minister isn’t worried about jobs being lost in the country’s manufacturing sector despite warnings that industrial robots will dramatically reduce the need for factory workers in coming decades.
“I still have faith in human ingenuity, that even when jobs are lost in certain sectors … more jobs will be created because of that increased economic activity in other sectors,” Arun Jaitley told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday at the CNN Asia Business Forum in Mumbai.
Economists are increasingly concerned that developments in artificial intelligence and robotics will disrupt the business world in a similar way to previous industrial revolutions, leading to job losses.
I find this a bit of a stretch. Maybe some jobs; however, not all and there will be (like any new technology, etc.) new career fields created.
“Can the global economy adapt to greater than 50 per cent unemployment? Will those out of work be content to live a life of leisure?” Vardi noted.
“I believe that society needs to confront this question before it is upon us: If machines are capable of doing almost any work humans can do, what will humans do?” he said.
“The question I want to put forward is, ‘Does the technology we are developing ultimately benefit mankind?’” said Vardi, a member of both the US National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Science.
Very good read; and hints at something that I have been highlighting for a while around AI, NextGen transformation and adoption, etc. One very large brick wall that I highlighted in my latest posts around 5 areas that need to be address for AI to be adopted more broadly is Cyber Security.
If we do not get Cyber Security address soon around hackers, cloud, etc. AI (including robotics), brain interfaces, etc. will be either rejected or very limited in its adoption. It is just that simple.
What are CISO’s (Chief Information Security Officers) worrying about in 2016?
According to the recent 2016 Security Pressures report from Trustwave, theft of information from a successful breach or cyber-attack ranks as the top worrying outcome for nearly two-thirds of respondents.
The pace at which robots and intelligent machines are able to take over the jobs traditionally performed by humans will result in more than half the population being unemployed within 30 years, an expert in computing has predicted.
While some may look forward to a life of leisure, many others face the dismal prospect of long-term unemployment as a result of the rise of smart machines, from self-driving cars and intelligent drones to smart financial-trading machines, said Moshe Vardi, professor of computational engineering at Rice University in Houston, Texas.
Posted in robotics/AI
Women will want to design their own robots especially those that would provide any companionship to them or even as a caregiver. Granted we’re still 30+ years off for that level of sophistication. And, the 1st woman owned and ran robot company with women engineers; will make billions because this is a huge void currently.
Whether robots could one day think for themselves and the how this would affect humans’ relationships with them is a common subject in science fiction. However, novelists are increasingly investigating another burning issue: could robots love a human?
Imagine a Venn Diagram with one circle representing the dark steeliness of humanoid robots and the other the flowery soft-focus pink of a Mills & Boon romance.
What would happen where the circles cross?
