- We’re introducing data2vec, the first high-performance self-supervised algorithm that learns in the same way for speech, vision and text.
- With data2vec, we’re closer to building machines that learn about different aspects of the world around them without having to rely on labeled data. Read More
Tag Archives: Big7
Meta has built an AI supercomputer it says will be world’s fastest by end of 2022
Social media conglomerate Meta is the latest tech company to build an “AI supercomputer” — a high-speed computer designed specifically to train machine learning systems. The company says its new AI Research SuperCluster, or RSC, is already among the fastest machines of its type and, when complete in mid-2022, will be the world’s fastest.
… The news demonstrates the absolute centrality of AI research to companies like Meta. Rivals like Microsoft and Nvidia have already announced their own “AI supercomputers,” which are slightly different from what we think of as regular supercomputers. RSC will be used to train a range of systems across Meta’s businesses: from content moderation algorithms used to detect hate speech on Facebook and Instagram to augmented reality features that will one day be available in the company’s future AR hardware. And, yes, Meta says RSC will be used to design experiences for the metaverse — the company’s insistent branding for an interconnected series of virtual spaces, from offices to online arenas. Read More
Meta’s new learning algorithm can teach AI to multi-task
If you can recognize a dog by sight, then you can probably recognize a dog when it is described to you in words. Not so for today’s artificial intelligence. Deep neural networks have become very good at identifying objects in photos and conversing in natural language, but not at the same time: there are AI models that excel at one or the other, but not both.
Part of the problem is that these models learn different skills using different techniques. This is a major obstacle for the development of more general-purpose AI, machines that can multi-task and adapt. It also means that advances in deep learning for one skill often do not transfer to others.
A team at Meta AI (previously Facebook AI Research) wants to change that. The researchers have developed a single algorithm that can be used to train a neural network to recognize images, text, or speech. The algorithm, called Data2vec, not only unifies the learning process but performs at least as well as existing techniques in all three skills. “We hope it will change the way people think about doing this type of work,” says Michael Auli, a researcher at Meta AI. Read More
Microsoft forms new coalition for AI in healthcare
Microsoft has created the Artificial Intelligence Industry Innovation Coalition (AI3C) to drive the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare by providing recommendations, tools and best practices.
Member organisations include The Brookings Institution, Cleveland Clinic, Duke Health, Intermountain Healthcare, Novant Health, Plug and Play, Providence, UC San Diego, and University of Virginia.
“The goal of the newly created AI3C is to establish a pragmatic coalition with public and private organisations to advance health by identifying and addressing significant societal and industry barriers,” said Patty Obermaier, vice president of US health and life sciences at Microsoft. “I am excited about the launch of AI3C and working with its distinguished board as we continue the momentum towards serving the needs of patients and communities through AI innovation.” Read More
AI that understands speech by looking as well as hearing
People use AI for a wide range of speech recognition and understanding tasks, from enabling smart speakers to developing tools for people who are hard of hearing or who have speech impairments. But oftentimes these speech understanding systems don’t work well in the everyday situations when we need them most: Where multiple people are speaking simultaneously or when there’s lots of background noise. Even sophisticated noise-suppression techniques are often no match for, say, the sound of the ocean during a family beach trip or the background chatter of a bustling street market.
One reason why people can understand speech better than AI in these instances is that we use not just our ears but also our eyes. We might see someone’s mouth moving and intuitively know the voice we’re hearing must be coming from her, for example. That’s why Meta AI is working on new conversational AI systems that can recognize the nuanced correlations between what they see and what they hear in conversation, like we do.
To help us build these more versatile and robust speech recognition tools, we are announcing Audio-Visual Hidden Unit BERT (AV-HuBERT), a state-of-the-art self-supervised framework for understanding speech that learns by both seeing and hearing people speak. It is the first system to jointly model speech and lip movements from unlabeled data — raw video that has not already been transcribed. Read More
AWS makes AI and machine learning tangible with first major art debut at Smithsonian
Amazon Web Services Inc. has commissioned its first-ever major art piece, a site-specific sculpture powered by artificial intelligence and designed by artist and architect Suchi Reddy that will be the centerpiece of the Smithsonian’s “Futures” exhibit.
The artwork, called “me + you,” was unveiled today in the 90-foot-tall central rotunda of the Smithsonian’s historic Arts and Industries Building in Washinton, D.C. It’s an important locale as America’s first national museum and because the interactive sculpture itself is nearly two stories tall. Read More
Microsoft Metaverse vs Facebook Metaverse
Google Wants to Work With the Pentagon Again, Despite Employee Concerns
Three years ago, the company walked away from a Defense Department project after employees objected to it. Now the company is working on a new proposal for the Pentagon.
Three years after an employee revolt forced Google to abandon work on a Pentagon program that used artificial intelligence, the company is aggressively pursuing a major contract to provide its technology to the military.
The company’s plan to land the potentially lucrative contract, known as the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability, could raise a furor among its outspoken work force and test the resolve of management to resist employee demands.
In 2018, thousands of Google employees signed a letter protesting the company’s involvement in Project Maven, a military program that uses artificial intelligence to interpret video images and could be used to refine the targeting of drone strikes. Google management caved and agreed to not renew the contract once it expired. Read More
Microsoft Editor receives new Context IQ to improve your workflow
Microsoft has this week announced it has implemented Context IQ into the popular Microsoft Editor to help improve your workflow, “whether you’re a seasoned author or drafting your second blog post ever.” Context IQ has been created to provide intelligent suggestions informed by your own writing taking the Microsoft Editor application to a new level by providing users automatic assistance :
– When you need to attach, insert, or share a file with colleagues, Editor suggests a relevant file or document based on similar subjects or because you have created or worked on them before.
– When tagging colleagues in a file using the @ symbol in a comment or email, Editor recommends potential people to tag based on colleagues you currently work with or stakeholders you have previously tagged for document reviews.
– When you may be collaborating on a sales opportunity, and need to pull in Dynamics data, Editor will suggest related Dynamics 365 information as a Loop component allowing you to update and take an action on it in the flow of your work.
– When entering data or objects as you write, Editor suggests information such as a frequent flyer number when booking a flight online or a sales message when collaborating in Teams. Read More
New Azure OpenAI Service combines access to powerful GPT-3 language models with Azure’s enterprise capabilities
Since OpenAI, an AI research and deployment company, introduced its groundbreaking GPT-3 natural language model platform last year, users have discovered countless things that these AI models can do with their powerful and comprehensive understanding of language.
For instance, a sports franchise that’s developing a new app to engage with fans during games could use the models’ ability to quickly and abstractly summarize information to convert transcripts of live television commentary into game highlights that someone could choose to include within the app.
The marketing team could use GPT-3’s capability to generate original content and its understanding of what’s happening in the game to help the team brainstorm ideas for social media or blog posts and engage with fans more quickly.
At its Ignite conference today, Microsoft announced it will help its customers uncover these kinds of experiences with the new Azure OpenAI Service, which allows access to OpenAI’s API through the Azure platform and will initially be available by invite only. The new Azure Cognitive Service will give customers access to OpenAI’s powerful GPT-3 models, along with security, reliability, compliance, data privacy and other enterprise-grade capabilities that are built into Microsoft Azure. Read More
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