AI Business Podcast

Ebru Binboga, director of data AI and automation for United Kingdom and Ireland at IBM technology sales, joins the AI Business Podcast to discuss Watson X, IBM's groundbreaking generative AI enterprise platform.

Philippe Rambach joins AI Business Editor Deborah Yao to discuss how Schneider Electric uses AI to meet its sustainability goals and also helps its customers meet theirs. He shares his views on generative AI as well and explains why he believes it is a niche capability for companies, at least for now.

Customer experience (CX) has emerged as one of the early beneficiaries of the AI boom. From real-time agent guidance to chatbots that can resolve customer needs through human-like conversation, the benefits of AI for CX done right are not just theoretical, they’re happening right now. Join Catherine Forino (Sr. Product Marketing Manager, NICE) and Sean Rothwell (Director, Marketing, Digital Solutions CX, NICE) as they answer questions about AI’s role in reshaping customer experiences. 

Tim Russell, the chief technologist of CDW U.K., speaks with AI Business contributor Tom Taulli to discuss customer concerns around generative AI, including security, FOMO, and confusion about its use.

Seth Dobrin, founder and CEO of Qantm AI and former chief AI officer of IBM, joins Ben Wodecki to discuss how organizations can set themselves up for success when deploying AI, the true cost of open source and risk of technological colonialism.

Beena Ammanath, global head of the Deloitte AI Institute, joins AI Business Editor Deborah Yao to discuss five key steps organizations can take to ensure that their board members and business leaders are prepared to face a future shaped by AI.

Heather Lane, senior architect of data science at athenahealth, talks to Omdia analyst Andrew Brosnan about AI’s potential to alleviate administrative burdens and prevent burnout in health care.

Elliott Young, CTO of Dell Technologies EMEA, talks to Ben Wodecki about AI and multicloud, including how businesses can run generative AI across multiple environments effectively.

Rahul Auradkar, executive vice president and general manager of unified data services and Einstein at Salesforce, joins AI Business Editor Deborah Yao to discuss the Einstein platform and other key AI initiatives.

Stephanie Covert, executive vice president of software at FICO, joins AI Business Editor Deborah Yao to discuss the credit-scoring giant's transition to an AI-enabled platform in a highly regulated industry.

Kunal Purohit joins AI Business Editor Deborah Yao to talk about scaling AI for the enterprise. He cited the four stages of digital transformation and what factors, both technical and cultural, are hindrances to faster deployment. He also names the most common mistakes enterprises make in adopting AI.

Leslie Shannon, head of Trend Scouting at Nokia, talks to Ben Wodecki about AI, the metaverse, and the future of VR.

Anoop Cherian, senior principal research scientist at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, tested the reasoning skills of large language models in a set of logic puzzles to see if they are smarter than young kids.

Peter Weckesser, chief digital officer of Schneider Electric, speaks to AI Business Editor Deborah Yao about his company's hub-and-spoke AI configuration and shares their generative AI ROI. He also offers advice for other executives looking to deploy AI in the enterprise.

Traci Gusher, EY Americas data and AI leader, and David Guarrera, its generative AI leader, spoke to AI Business Editor Deborah Yao about best practices for assembling an AI workforce. They say it is not as expensive or difficult as one might think since for most companies there is no need to hire elite engineers. Also, they believe prompt engineering will not last as a solo career in the future.

Arthur Hu, Lenovo's global chief information officer and chief technology and delivery officer of its services and solutions group, cuts through the hype of generative AI deployment in the enterprise and observes that running inference on trained models might be more expensive than expected.

In this Experts in AI podcast, we delve deep into the world of artificial intelligence and its transformative impact on organizations. Join AWS and IBM to explore how organizations can embrace generative AI to drive cost, efficiency and growth. Whether you’re a decision-maker, developer or practitioner, this podcast provides you with a perspective on generative AI’s potential, tools and applications across enterprise functions. Get ready to stay ahead of the curve and lead your organization in the generative AI era.

Denis Batalov - linkedin.com/in/denis-v-batalov-59a3111

Manish Goyal - linkedin.com/in/goyalm

Laura Plunkett and Luke Butler, executive directors of Startup Engagement at Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs, joins Deborah Yao to talk about the AI startup landscape and what makes their accelerator unique in the enterprise space.

Wipro's Global Chief Privacy Officer Ivana Bartoletti spoke with AI Business Editor Deborah Yao about what makes the EU AI Act different from AI regulations elsewhere − and why the changing nature of AI makes it more complex to regulate than nuclear energy.

Luka Crnkovic-Friis, head of AI at King, the makers of Candy Crush and other popular mobile games, talks to Ben Wodecki about how AI can accelerate gaming development. Luka outlines King's data-focused approach to development and explains how the gaming industry has shifted in the last 12 months amidst the AI wave.

Johnathan Menard, vice president of product, analytics at Experian Health, talks to Omdia analyst Andrew Brosnan about using AI to reduce health care costs by automating administrative tasks, which will also improve staff burnout rates. Deploying AI to bring out deeper insights from aggregated data will also lead to better decision-making among providers. But the cost of AI deployment and lack of workforce with relevant skills are hampering adoption.

Stitch Fix CTO Sachin Dhawan joins AI Business Editor Deborah Yao to discuss how the e-commerce company is using AI/ML to hyper-personalize fashion recommendations for customers and even create a 'personal store' for each individual -- all while keeping a human stylist in the loop.

Samantha Tucker-Samaras, Unilever's global vice president for science and technology, beauty and personal care R&D joins Omdia analyst Mark Beccue to discuss how one of the world's largest consumer goods companies applies AI across a host of products and research.

BCG’s chief AI ethics officer, Steve Mills, joins AI Business Editor Deborah Yao to talk in detail about how enterprises can implement responsible AI to help avoid existing and emergent risks. Generative AI poses a particularly tricky problem in what's called a 'massive capability overhang.'

Aflac CIO Shelia Anderson joins AI Business Editor Deborah Yao to talk about the insurer’s AI journey from idea to deployment and what the company learned along the way. She said AI models are not a ‘set it and forget it’ endeavor and explains Aflac’s thinking on generative AI.

Shutterstock's Chief Product Officer Meghan Schoen talks to Ben Wodecki about the company's generative AI strategy, why partnerships are critical at this stage of innovation and also shares what's to come.

John Humphrey, head of data platform product at Mailchimp, talks to AI Business Editor Deborah Yao about how marketers can use AI to improve their email marketing. He also discusses skills modern marketers need to have in the AI age.

David Joosten, president and CEO of Vodafone US, joins AI Business Editor Deborah Yao to talk about how AI is enhancing processes externally with customer relations and also internally, by improving the workflow for employees.

Peter Shen, head of digital health - North America for Siemens Healthineers, talks to Omdia analyst Andrew Brosnan about the impact of AI on the health care sector, including digital twins, regulation, clinician concerns, and more.

Luc Julia, Renault’s chief scientific officer and co-creator of Siri, speaks to AI Business Editor Deborah Yao to rectify misconceptions about AI. He explains why ChatGPT should not be used in search, debunks Elon Musk’s claims that fully autonomous driving is achievable and expounds why even quantum computing cannot usher in artificial general intelligence − because humanity just has a certain je ne sais quoithat machines cannot duplicate.

In this episode, Mounia Lalmas-Roelleke, Spotify's senior director of research, speaks to AI Business Assistant Editor Ben Wodecki about how reinforcement learning powers user personalization experiences. She also explored the streaming platform's approach to generative AI, teasing what's to come, and offered advice on dealing with research setbacks.

Chintan Mehta, EVP and group CIO of digital innovation and strategy at Wells Fargo, joins AI Business Editor Deborah Yao to discuss successful use cases of AI in finance, as well as lessons learned from a failed AI project. Mehta shared why Wells Fargo chose Google's LaMDA over OpenAI's GPT and explains how large language models will transform the customer experience.

Laurence Lee, second permanent secretary of the U.K. Ministry of Defence, talks to AI Business Assistant Editor Ben Wodecki about the future of AI in warfare. Lee explains why warfighting without AI means risking the U.K.'s military edge and ability to keep its citizens safe. He also describes what it's like to work with allies and what the U.K. is doing to develop its AI workforce.

In this episode, Omdia analyst Mark Beccue speaks with AI Business Assistant Editor Ben Wodecki to unearth the rapid rise of generative AI. The pair talk about text-to-image use cases, the issues around copyright and if an AI could generate good disco music. 

Danny Lange, senior vice president of AI at Unity, tells AI Business Assistant Editor Ben Wodecki why Meta's view of the metaverse is not broad enough and how gaming can play several roles in virtual and immersive worlds. He also recounts his time at Uber and believes generative AI is crossing a chasm.

Petrina Kamya, head of AI platforms at Insilico Medicine, talks to Andrew Brosnan, principal analyst in AI and Applied Intelligence at Omdia, to take a deep dive into the intricacies of AI-powered drug discovery.

In this episode, Dave Kang, Capital One's senior vice president and head of data insights, speaks to AI Business Assistant Editor Ben Wodecki about responsible machine learning and data governance in the financial services industry.

Jasmeet Singh, global head of manufacturing at Infosys, speaks to AI Business Editor Deborah Yao about getting businesses prepared to enter the metaverse. His company has launched a metaverse foundry that will pull together the technology and skillsets to enable enterprises to capitalize on this new way of working.

Robert Nestor, U.S. CEO of SoftBank-backed Qraft, joins AI Business Editor Deborah Yao to talk about how AI is changing the wealth management industry. A former executive from Vanguard and BlackRock, he discusses how AI can substantially change the industry -- and help advisors especially during volatile markets.

AT&T's chief data officer Andy Markus joins AI Business Editor Deborah Yao to discuss how the telecom giant uses AI to manage petabytes of data across its global network and deliver key insights for business managers. He also talks about the rise of AT&T’s citizen data scientists as enabling the democratization of AI across the company, which can boost business value by 5x or more – and reveals whether he thinks AI can ever be sentient.

In this episode, Ondrej Burkacky, global co-lead of McKinsey's semiconductors practice, joins AI Business Assistant Editor Ben Wodecki to discuss the ongoing chip shortage. Two years on is the end in sight? Is the crisis over? Will we ever be able to purchase a PlayStation 5?

In this episode, Peter Stone, executive director of Sony AI, joins AI Business Assistant Editor Ben Wodecki to discuss this year's RoboCup and the AI that can beat you at Gran Turismo. 

Dell UK CTO Elliott Young talks to AI Business Editor Deborah Yao about keeping AI models accurate by avoiding AI drift, what measures to put in place for proactive prevention and why avoiding it is key to AI performance. Also, he reveals what keeps him up at night.

The AI Business Podcast returns - with a new lineup!

AIB stalwart Ben Wodecki gets a new title and some new friends - visionary business and tech journalists Deborah Yao and Mukul Pandya join the pod's roster to bring you some insightful and engaging conversations about AI, machine learning, data, business intelligence and much, more more — new episodes coming every other week!

This week, the editorial team shares the most profound things we have learned about AI over the past 37 episodes.

The reason is simple: Tien is departing for pastures new, Max is making a lateral move to Data Center Knowledge, and Sebastian…  Is doing Sebastian things. Which means this will be the last time the podcast will feature the current cast.

Ben is not going anywhere, by the way; the podcast is in his hands, and you can look forward to many more episodes following a short break!

In this episode, we try to share the most important things we have learned: Max will scream that AI is just software, and software is still eating the world; Sebastian will bemoan the fact that despite all the potential for innovation, the entire AI market ended up being dominated by the same three or four familiar names that already control most of the world’s IT infrastructure.

Ben will highlight the importance of training, and the fact that for all the assumed intelligence, AI systems can only do the things they are painstakingly taught to do – but he’s hopeful about some of the applications.

And Tien will wonder about the sheer variety of things people call AI – how do you make sense of something that applies in both pharmacological research and sewer management?

We also cover: Body odour! Kwisatz haderach! Reporting on weird stuff! Potential future collaboration!

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This week, we couldn’t resist talking about Meta Platforms Inc. – and all the dumb things Facebook has done before.

We also look into carbon-neutral AI: Northern Europe might be a cold, dark and unforgiving place to live, but it’s a perfect location for hot and power-hungry data centers that run AI training workloads.

We start with Meta – a new name for a holding company that owns Facebook, along with Instagram, WhatsApp, and a bunch of other tech subsidiaries.

With its flagship platform facing a string of PR disasters, the people in charge have decided that it was the right time to deliver on the outlandish ideas promoted by The Zuck over the past six months.

Meta’s big bet is virtual reality – something that countless other businesses have tried, but invariably failed, to take mainstream. Is it any wonder we have decided to drink this week?

It is true, following its acquisition of Oculus, and with video game legend John Carmack on board, Facebook Meta has some of the best chances of actually delivering on the promise of VR. At the same time, the company’s 3D wizardry clearly needs more work – who renders fire like this in 2021? There is nothing impressive or ‘life-like’ about the tech demonstrated by The Zuck.

Next, with the COP26 summit in Glasgow in full swing, we look at how AI builders can make their models more sustainable. We discuss the specific example of Neu.ro, a company that created a zero-emissions AI cloud in partnership with atNorth (erroneously referred in the podcast as NordDC), operating from Iceland, where servers are powered with geothermal energy.

atNorth is not the only company doing this: in one of our previous podcasts, we looked at the example of Verne Global, another data center operator to feed AI models with renewables.

Sweden, Norway and Finland are all making similar data center pitches – and it makes good commercial sense, with the Nordics enjoying some of the cheapest electricity in the world.

We also cover: Second Life! PlayStation Home! The eventual death of the planet!

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We delve into the irrational world of WorldCoin – the unlikely enterprise backed by child prodigy Sam Altman that wants your eyeballs. To scan them. Using a shiny metal orb. In exchange for some virtual currency.

This is not an elaborate joke – investors have reportedly valued WorldCoin at $1 billion, and the eyeball harvesting operation is in full swing. There are 30 prototype orbs in the field, according to TechCrunch, scanning up to 700 eyeballs per week. They want thousands of orbs, and eventually – a billion eyeballs, each representing a singular and unique cryptocurrency user.

But before we get to the orb, we discuss the US military, and its plans for a robotic tank unit. For now, the US Army Futures Command’s Next Generation Combat Cross-Functional Team is putting together a bunch old M113 armored personnel carriers, and is making them shoot each other.

The likes of BAE Systems, General Dynamics, and Oshkosh Defense have all been tasked with designing prototype unmanned combat vehicles for the US Army – the only question is how quickly these will appear on the battlefield.

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This week, the editorial team at AI Business is looking at Facebook, suffering the fallout from both its massive service outage and the testimony of Frances Haugen before the US Congress, which gave us a glimpse of the dark science taking place inside the company’s software development labs.

And it sure ain’t pretty.

There’s a stunning lack of morals at the core of Facebook – these guys can be linked to destructive social trends just as surely as tobacco companies can be linked to lung cancer. There’s almost no chance of meaningful regulation – but forcing senators to say ‘algorithm’ is a step in the right direction. Haugen is testifying before the UK Parliament later this month.

We also delve into the tyranny of feeds – which can’t seem to adapt to our preferences. The promise of personalization that accompanied countless data collection efforts was a lie.

Next, we delve into the world of pharma: where virtual dogs will hopefully replace live animals for drug testing. Meanwhile, AI for drug design is raising tons of cash, with British startup Exscientia netting $305m in its IPO in New york, along with $160m in private placements. This follows a$400m funding roundfor XtalPi, a similar company primarily based in China.

We also cover: Lawyers! Newcastle United! DeepMind!

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This week, the editorial team at AI Business looks at the latest developments in video games – which are making more money than movies and music combined, but remain something of a second-class citizen of the entertainment industry.

Machine learning is coming to video games, and while this brings plenty of positive developments, we are going to discuss something unpleasant: the treat it poses to competitive online multiplayer.

With computer vision tools now easily accessible, a new generation of cheating techniques is ruining games while remaining virtually undetectable by common anti-cheat software, because computer vision doesn’t need to need mess with game files – all you need is the video output.

This is especially damaging for popular games like Call of Duty: Warzone or Fortnite, where aiming skills and fast reflexes often mean the difference between victory and defeat.

Look out for Ben’s feature on the topic later this week!

We also cover: Battlefield 2042! Unintended consequences of progress! Teenage angst!

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This week, the editorial team at AI Business looks at the most important stories of the summer – and attempts to predict which will make the biggest impact on the AI landscape.

We start with the idea of a metaverse/omniverse that is gaining serious traction, with Nvidia now offering businesses tools to create detailed 3D copies of their real-world assets that operate based on real-world data. Virtualize all the things!

Next on the agenda are Facebook’s smart glasses – produced in collaboration with Ray-Ban, and ostensibly designed to film everything in sight, much like Snap’s Spectacles. Are we finally OK with the idea of being surveilled all the time, or are these liable to get the wearer punched in the face?

The third trend of note is automated code generation with AI. The latest and most notable effort in this space involves Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI – exactly the names you would expect to make code auto-completion practical and easy to use. What will this mean for today’s software developers?

And finally, we take a look at what’s happening with our favourite tech billionaires. They are all going to space – but unfortunately keep coming back. AI has a role to play here, too – helping us manage thousands of objects in orbit and clean up space rubbish.

We also cover: Digital Twins! Second Life! Moon colonies! Svalbard!

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This week, we look at the technological race between the US and China, and its implications.

The latest development in what is shaping up to be a proper, old-fashioned cold war is the US Innovation and Competition Act, which was passed by the senate earlier this month. The set of legal measures is clearly designed to combat China’s growing technological might, as well as addressing the ongoing global chip shortage.

It includes increased funding for AI research, and a further $50 billion to subsidize semiconductor manufacturing – intended to help build 7-10 new American fabs.

However, the wording of the document has already drawn criticism from the highest levels of the Chinese government. “The world is entering a period of turbulence and transformation, and against this backdrop, the practice of continuously targeting China as a hypothetical enemy goes against the world trend, is unpopular, and is doomed to fail,” theForeign Affairs Committee of the National People's Congress said.

Why can’t we all get along?

We also cover: House fires! Bail-outs! Intel! Subsidies!

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This week, we discuss ethics, government regulation, and similarities between AI and cars in the 1910s with Natalia Modjeska, research director for AI and intelligent automation at analyst firm Omdia.

Natalia joined Omdia just a few months ago, having spent years implementing and benchmarking AI and analytics projects across organizations like PwC and Info-Tech Research Group – you can find some of her observations on Towards Data Science.

We start with ethics in AI – which is shaping up as one of the hottest topics of 2021, often discussed in mainstream media. But why the sudden interest? And does the responsibility for preventing any potential harms created by AI-based systems sit with the executives and boards of directors, or with governments and regulatory agencies?

According to Natalia, the situation around AI resembles the appearance of first mass-produced cars; these machines were clearly useful, but they were also very dangerous since they had to drive across roads designed for pedestrians and horse-drawn carriages, with no street signs, traffic lights, or highway codes.

This lack of safeguards can be addressed – let’s just hope it doesn’t take 70 years to create an equivalent of a frontal airbag for AI.

We also cover: The Draft EU Regulation on AI! The first traffic light! Cloning! Lawyers! China!

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This week, we cover the chaotic developments around synthetic voices, their generation, and ownership.

We start with the news about Marvel.ai, the new service from American AI vendor Veritone that promises to enable celebrities to monetize their voices. The company calls this Voice-as-a-Service, or VAAS.

The main problem with synthetic voices is it’s currently challenging  (well, pretty much impossible) to enforce copyright for an AI model based on voice recordings of a real person.

Cue countless examples  of Internet denizens misusing voices with no apparent retribution –  from the mixes produced by British experimental musician and campaigner casseteboy,  who makes Boris Johnson say things like “you can tell our technology’s  going well, we’re running this whole thing in Excel,” to more recent  examples of sound clips created using Uberduck.ai,  and a variety of quickly, cheaply synthesized celebrity voices. These  include the version of Sir Patrick Stewart you’ve heard opening the  show.

In other news, our own Ben Wodecki is now 25! Treasure your youth, Ben.

We also cover: Hatsune Miku! Impersonators! TikTok! Cameo! Stephen Hawking! Auto-Tune!

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We talk about the rapid uptake of self-driving vehicles in China, the climate impact of video streaming, and the English town of Milton Keynes, which has emerged as one of the primary hubs for autonomous vehicle tech in the UK.

All of this, and more, is discussed in What’s the News With Wodecki, a segment in which Ben takes us through the stories of the week, with the podcast team deciding whether – in hindsight – they were worthy of coverage. This is an editorial bootcamp, and there’s a timer on comments to stop Sebastian.

The stories on offer include:

We also cover: Star Trek TNG! Urban planning! Mango and passion fruit coolers!

Check out Part One of the podcast that aired earlier this week, where we share some thoughts on the ransomware attack against the Colonial Pipeline.

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This week, we share some thoughts on the ransomware attack against the Colonial Pipeline – which will be discussed for years to come as one of the first notable examples of a successful cyber attack against physical infrastructure. This is nightmare fuel for the CISO.

This is not a story about AI – but it goes to show the dangers of indiscriminate data collection, and once again highlights the pitfalls of putting every device on the Internet.

Digital transformation cannot be stopped! So the only option left is to think much more thoroughly about cyber security.

Fortunately, so far nation states have not shown much willingness to attack critical infrastructure – it’s the squirrels you need to be worried about.

The content of this podcast should not be taken as actual cyber security advice. Pay the professionals to give you advice, and run some penetration testing. One place where you can find them is at Black Hat USA, which starts on August 4 as a hybrid event, with physical presence in Las Vegas.

We also cover: Y2K! SCADA systems! Stockpiling zero-days!

Look out for Part Two of the podcast later this week, in which we will look at an assortment of stories in our regular segment, What’s The News With Wodecki.

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This week, we mourn the death of the Digidog and descend into the greasy, fragrant world of robot-powered kitchens.

Miso Robotics, the company responsible for Flippy, the burger-flipping robot, has launched a commercial service for restaurants that uses computer vision and AI to automatically identify and track ingredients, dishes and tasks. But would you pay more for robot-made food, or would you pay less?

We start with the untimely demise of the Digidog, a version of the Boston Dynamics’ four-legged Spot robot that was employed by the New York Police Department. The vehicle was “put down,” in the words of mayor De Blasio, after it turned out the NYPD couldn’t actually use it because it failed to declare it as a surveillance device.

The public opinion on the matter could have also played a part – it turned out the residents of New York weren’t all that exited about the noisy, confusing machine participating in run-of-the-mill arrests.

Another robot, Flippy – previously discussed in Episode 6 – is now part of an expanded service from Miso, called CookRight – enabling restaurants to “apply precision cooking to a variety of grilled food items on their menus.”

The software comes with a self-installation kit that includes a user interface tablet, cameras, and a small computer. Miso president, Buck Jordan, says automation will keep the industry alive and stimulate growth – but we are not entirely convinced.

We also cover: John Cheese! Working at Maccy D’s! The return of Retiarii! Truckers (again)!

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This week, we observe how lofty ambitions are crushed against the jagged rocks of reality: Lyft is selling Level 5, its self-driving car business, to Toyota, just a few months after Uber announced it would offload its autonomous vehicle lab to Aurora.

Where does this leave the autonomous car dream?

According to Sebastian, the reasons are likely financial, rather than technological: you can only be involved one loss-making, hyped-up enterprise at a time, and ride-hailing is yet to make any money. Uber lost $6.77 billion in 2020, while Lyft was in the red to the tune of $1.8 billion.

So, what happened at Lyft? The company is selling its self-driving business to Toyota, where it will become part of 'Woven Planet Holdings' – a new division dedicated to autonomous vehicles and smart city tech. In exchange, Toyota is set to pay $550m, which could offset Lyft’s losses for a quarter or two.

The best thing about Woven Planet Holdings is the Woven City – a miniature smart city built up with the latest technologies in mind, a polygon for innovation in urban planning that will start with 360 residents, and gradually expand to 2,000.

Such innovation includesthree types of roads “interwoven with each other on the ground level, one dedicated to automated driving, one to pedestrians, and one to pedestrians with personal mobility vehicles.”

Besides Toyota, the big players to watch in the autonomous driving space – the ones currently acquiring smaller competitors – are GM-backed Cruise, proudly independent Aurora, Google’s Waymo, Amazon's Zoox, and potentially, Apple. But Apple moves in mysterious ways.

In related news, the UK is expected to permit a limited type of autonomy on the country’s roads, looking specifically at Automated Lane Keeping Systems (ALKS) – which have been available in production vehicles for years.

This goes to show that even if car manufacturers are willing and able, it is ultimately up to the state to decide just when autonomous cars will appear on a road near you.

We also cover: Hangovers! HTC! Bioshocking it!

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This week on the AI Business podcast, we look at the draft European Regulation on artificial intelligence, a.k.a. the Artificial Intelligence Act.

This long-expected piece of legislation will be the first attempt to regulate AI on a super-national level – but does it go far enough to meet the aim of stopping AI systems that pose a ‘clear threat’ to citizens’ rights and livelihoods?

Is not just a draft, but a declaration of intent – the proposed policy offers a vision that’s very different from both the relaxed regulatory approach seen in the US, and the embrace of AI for the purposes of the state that is practiced in China.

The EU framework Proposes to categorize AI systems in terms of their impact, and the risk they pose. ‘Unacceptable risk' would cover systems that are deemed to be a "clear threat to the safety, livelihoods, and rights of people” – like systems designed to manipulate human behavior, or those used for ‘social scoring.’

The ‘High-risk’ category would cover systems for critical infrastructure, and some systems for law enforcement. ‘Limited risk’ and ‘Minimal risk’ categories would cover products like chatbots, AI-enabled video games, and spam filters.

The draft seems to take a strong position on biometric surveillance systems in public spaces. At first sight, these appear to be banned, but the document lists a large number of potential exceptions. We’re not the only ones confused by this; the EU's chief data protection supervisor is confused too.

We also cover: Gonzo the Cat! Bernie memorabilia! Reasons to distrust the intelligence services! Apple VS Facebook!

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We discuss the announcements from last week’s GPU Technology Conference, along with AI hardware news from elsewhere, and look at Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of language AI specialist Nuance for$16 billion – actually closer to $20bn once you account for debt.

We start with our regular segment chronicling the revolution in hardware for AI – it’s Chip Wars! When Joe Biden is waving around silicon wafers, you know interesting things are going to happen.

Nvidia is busy building its first ever CPU to support machine learning workloads, codenamed Grace – after the absolute legend that was rear admiral Grace Hopper.

Plus, Nvidia’s DGX family of ‘building blocks’ for supercomputers will now feature Data Processing Units (DPUs) by default, running a wide variety of networking tasks. DPUs weren’t originally developed at Nvidia – these came out of the Mellanox acquisition, which equipped the company with clever networking silicon.

Intel’s Habana – which has designed its own family of chips for AI – has landed a contract with the San Diego Supercomputer Center, and will build a supercomputer called Voyage. But is it the kind of customer that Intel needs at this point?

Meanwhile, SambaNova – which has designed its own family of chips for AI – has announced a massive $676 million funding round, just a few mounts after emerging from stealth. Its CEO Rodrigo Liang appeared on this podcast just a few short weeks ago – making participation a sure indicator of future success.

Next, we talk about Nuance, the AI company built from countless acquisitions, now being acquired by Microsoft. The speech recognition and language specialist has helped shape the emerging virtual assistant market – can it give Cortana a shot in the arm?

We also cover: Shopping for prying mantises! The importance of haircuts! Chaos at Arm China! And there’s even a rendition of the national anthem of the USSR.

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This week, we welcome our new reporter Ben Wodecki – and make him defend his favorite news stories of the week in a public forum. Because we’re nice like that.

We also discuss Microsoft, after the company’s early bet on augmented reality finally paid off in a military hardware contract with the US Army worth up to $22 billion. A lot to unpack here.

We start with the epic story of super-helmets for American super-soldiers. The US Army is going to have 120,000 of these, courtesy of Microsoft and its HoloLens project – long considered by many industry observers, including yours truly, to be nothing but an expensive gimmick. We were wrong.

Defense is the quintessential early adopter – and any technology developed for the army will later filter down to the rest of the market. This was true for digital photography (originally for spy satellites), GPS (originally for nukes) and microwave ovens (originally for air defense), and it will be true for AR. If you listen carefully, you can hear thousands of venture capitalists invested in AR startups cry out in ecstasy.

Next, it’s time for What’s The News With Wodecki (WTNWW), a segment in which we make our new reporter Ben run a journalistic gauntlet: he talks us through his favorite stories of the week, and we (me) pronounce our editorial judgment on whether a story will develop further and is worth following. And there’s a five-minute timer on any debate, so we don’t get sidetracked.

We also mention: Butterflies on Amazon! Yu-Gi-Oh! Exoskeletons! Ben’s cooking! Traffic in Vietnam!

As always, you can find the people responsible for the circus podcast online:

This week, we look at Boston Dynamics as it faces the dreary task of commercializing its incredible robot tech, and the amazing career of Eric Emerson Schmidt – who has just donated $150 million to fund a center dedicated to AI for biological research.

We begin by the latest from Boston Dynamics: having recently charged ownership, the robotics wunderkinder have launched what could be considered their first true commercial product – Stretch the warehouse robot.

Next we talk about a brand new research center that will study the intersection of machine learning and biology. Set up by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Center was funded with a $150m endowment from its namesakes, as well as a matching $150m from The Broad Foundation.

Who is Eric Schmidt? How did he make his money, and what is he doing at the moment? All these questions (and many more) are answered by our dedicated billionaire-watcher Sebastian Moss.

This week, we talk massive shifts at at Intel, poke gentle fun at Peloton, and explore the not-so-wonderful world of robot poetry.

Peloton has purchased three AI-powered startups, namely voice assistant developer Aiqudo, smartwatch company Atlas Wearables, and interactive workout mat startup Otari. But will it be enough to keep the company competitive? Can Peloton hang on to the market niche it created? Dramatic stuff.

Welcome to yet another episode of the AI Business podcast in which we discuss the chip shortage and new AI hardware with special  guest Rodrigo Liang, co-founder and CEO of silicon design startup  SambaNova.

We start by talking about the ongoing chip supply crisis  which has sent server component prices skyrocketing, and saw American  auto-makers having to idle plants as tech-heavy cars have been stuck on production lines.

Scaling chip production is an extremely  capital-intensive process and the trade war between the US and China is  certainly not making silicon vendors any favors.

SambaNova itself recently emerged from stealth with a  new chip designed specifically for AI, called Cardinal, and a brand new  server architecture called DataFlow. The company was lucky enough to  purchase its materials in advance, so its wares are available for  testing.

We return after a short break, to talk about empathy, advertising, and Palantir, an AI company that built a business worth $15 billion with 30 salespeople – now featuring in its very own drinking game!

We begin by talking about Moods, a service from Vevo, the company that owns and manages most music videos on the Internet. Moods now uses AI to identify the tone and emotion of music in order to help advertisers more effectively target their campaigns – initial options include ‘fun,’ ‘heartfelt,’ ‘impassioned,’ and ‘empowering.’

Now, the obvious problem with this service is it ignores the less positive emotions that are integral to art, like sadness, despair, and perhaps even hatred. How can we teach computers to understand human emotion? And if the advertisers, in their infinite wisdom, choose to focus exclusively on positive emotions, who’s going to bankroll the next Nine Inch Nails?

In the second part of the podcast, we continue talking about one of our favorite subjects – AI, analytics, and surveillance wunder-venture Palantir. But there’s a plot twist: every time we mention the name of its founder, libertarian saint Peter Thiel, Max drinks. You can hear the podcast descending into chaos and almost feel the anguish of our publisher.

What happened with Palantir? Well, the company is actually going from the strength to strength, and has secured a major distribution deal leveraging IBM’s considerable sales muscle. This means a lot more Palantir software, used by many more government agencies and corporations – joining the ranks of the CIA, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, LAPD and the Space Force.

We also cover: Gym music! Shoes! Doomscrolling! Things wrong with IBM!

As always, you can find the people responsible for the circus podcast online:

This week, we ask whether automated moderation tools can help recover the toxic wastelands of the Internet, and debut a new segment called ‘Fast & Autonomous.’

We look into the origins of Google’s Jigsaw, analyze some of the social implications of moderation tech, and remember how an AI-based system once tried its best to prevent Sebastian from joining ISIS.

We also cover: The Iraq war! Virtual driving! Jared Cohen! Corporate culture!

As always, you can find more stories about AI and business on AI Business.

We talk Jeff Bezos and the Breakfast Octopus philosophy

We talk about Jeffrey Preston Bezos – the man who has reshaped the world to an extent preciously reserved for empires and great military leaders.

Bezos is leaving the CEO post at Amazon, the company he founded, and will instead become executive chairman.

What better time to look back at his career, the importance of Amazon Web Services, and the potential impact of the new CEO, Andy Jassy, formerly in charge of AWS?

We start with the origin story, and the role of AWS in keeping Amazon the store online (and solvent). This is where meet Jassy: the man tasked with keeping the servers running, who managed to transform spare IT capacity into the world’s largest cloud company.

Next, we look at machine learning in the cloud, and the services AWS provides; just like Google, the company decided to design its own chips for AI workloads, called Trainium, which it now rents out alongside more traditional CPUs and GPUs.

And finally, we look at all the things Amazon does, or is alleged to be doing, with data. The company dominates the retail market through the power of information, rather than any manufacturing capacity, and we can look forward to even more aggressive efforts to harvest customer information. Sounds great.

We also cover: Rockets for billionaires! Bezos Earth! McKenzie Scott! Lab monkeys!

As always, you can find the people responsible for the circus podcast on AI Business:

This week, we talk about Google: one of the world’s largest IT companies is frequently in the news, and not always for the right reasons.

We find out what happens behind the scenes from our guest Roland Szabo, a software engineer who started his career by developing machine learning services at Google, before striking out on his own as an ML consultant.

Also in this episode: Reasons to like Google+! Unexpected benefits of GitHub! The horrors of Terms of Service!

Machine learning has its sinners, and its saints...This week, we look at surprising crimes of machine learning experts, investigate the role of AI in manufacturing, and ask whether Pat Gelsinger can save Intel (from itself).

We also mention: Inauguration! The new administration! Taiwan! Regulation!

A failed coup is a godsend to journalists: this week we discuss civil liberties, digital dissent, online publishing, and the surprising artificial intelligence legacy of Donald Trump.

We also mention all the good stuff: Gab! Hate Mail! Deplatforming! Censorship! Alex Jones! Vint Cerf! (Even job openings at AI Business).

This week, we will look at the potential of artificial intelligence to revolutionize financial planning and analysis (FP&A) - the budgeting, forecasting and analytical processes that support an organization's financial health and business strategy.

Guiding us on this journey is Amaresh Tripathy – senior vice president and Analytics Business Leader at Genpact, and expert on data science for enterprise applications.

This week we look at the major scientific breakthrough achieved by DeepMind’s AlphaFold, consider some of the some of the first commercial use cases for neuromorphic computing, and learn the secrets of dataset creation with Aristotelis Kostopoulos, VP for AI product solutions at Lionbridge.

Also in this episode: Zombies! Queen’s Gambit! Detecting COVID-19 by smell!

Welcome to another episode of the AI Business podcast, in which we anxiously await the news of a vaccine, and continue to slander robots in the workplace.

We are cranky, but maybe that’s because the pubs in the UK are closed. And a robot once broke Sebastian’s arm, but that’s a story for another time...

We also cover: Lockdown! Nice drugs! Retail therapy! Minimum wage! The gig economy!

Welcome to another episode of the AI Business podcast, in which we are not going to talk about the US election.

But we are going to discuss the accuracy of the polls, the power of advertising, and QAnon.

Meanwhile, in our ongoing Chip Wars segment, we talk about the recently announced mega-deal in which AMD is buying FPGA chip designer Xilinx, bringing its decades-old rivalry with Intel to a brand new arena – since Intel owns Altera, the only other major FPGA vendor.

Welcome to another episode of the AI Business podcast, with your (almost) weekly dose of AI news and editorial chaos.

This time, we discuss defense contractors, cyber security of chastity belts, and the challenge of keeping up with the robots in the workplace.

And finally, we reveal our favorite depictions of AI in movies – the line-up includes War Games, Alien, and… Terminator: Salvation?

Some AI models are trained on great works of art. Others are trained on images of violence. If they were people, which one would you like to meet?

Today we're talking about the different kinds of data that can be used to train an AI model. Covering the story of Facebook’s Red Team, tasked with hacking the company’s AI systems in order to make them more resilient, why we hope AI will take the jobs of content mods, and a positive story about Saint George on a Bike!

PS: You might have noticed that the latest episode doesn’t seem to include any of the latest news – the reason being it was recorded in early September. We promise we will return to our regular schedule next week.

After a brief hiatus caused by a certain baby, Max, Tien and Sebastian are once again ready to share their cynical take on the lastest AI news.

Including an essay by a robot, Cavanue – an ambitious organization hoping to build intelligent, connected roads for autonomous cars and two stories AI Summit London: Rolls-Royce (the engine people) giving away their ethics framework for AI; and GSK predicting a major genomic breakthrough within two years, driven by AI, and opening a new AI research hub in London.

We also cover: Baby stories! Public transport! Short shorts! Missing Steve Ballmer!

This week we're taking pleasure in misfortunes of others; discussing Intel’s technical difficulties, Elon Musk encroaching on our turf, and robot poetry.

We start with Intel, which is having problems with the 7nm process that are causing delays across its lineup and could put an end to a long tradition of self-reliance in silicon printing.

Then Elon Musk we don’t like, for a whole assortment of business-related reasons. Last week, the living legend made some dubious claims about AI – likely intended to drum up interest in his equally dubious startup Neuralink, a developer of brain-machine interfaces which has raised $158 million to date with nothing but a launch video and a white paper to show the public.

Plus, we talk about the story Tesla apparently doesn’t want you to see.

This week's episode looks at robot workers, the reasons why Nvidia is worth the big bucks, and virtual personalities in China.

Helping us on this mission is special guest Tate Cantrell, CTO at Verne Global, an expert on data centers, HPC, renewable energy, and all matters related to Iceland.

This week we discuss AI in space, spacesuits, Amazon ASS, and space as a billionaire hobby. It used to be the US versus USSR, now it’s Musk versus Bezos - we know who’s got the most phallic rockets.

And for the first time ever, the podcast features “A machine says whaaaat?!” - our very own game show where Max and Seb go head-to-head, trying to guess whether a quote belongs to a human, or an AI system. Find out whether we can tell the difference between InspoiroBot and Adolph Hitler.

We also discuss a story from The Reg on a racist, sexist image dataset that has been doing the rounds for years, without anyone checking whether it labeled people with the C-word and the N-word. Turns out it did – the offending resources have now been pulled by the MIT, and the organization has apologized.

In the second part of this episode, the AI Business editorial team talks to Katie King, CEO of AI in Business; founder and MD of Zoodikers Consulting; and member of the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group Taskforce on AI.

We chat about educating the next generation of AI professionals, artificial intelligence through the eyes of politicians, the impact of Brexit, and the importance of international partnerships on AI.

We also find out what the House of Lords, the second chamber of UK Parliament, thinks about artificial intelligence...

This week, we focus on facial recognition.

The AI Business team takes a look at the embodiment of futuristic evil that is Clearview AI, and the efforts by companies like Microsoft, Amazon and IBM to limit the sales of facial recognition to police – at least for a while.

Remember Enemy of the State, the 1998 film with Will Smith? They built that space camera. They named it Gorgon Stare, and it’s out there, somewhere, hovering above our heads. With a 40 gigapixel camera. And it’s now starting to use artificial intelligence.

We also ask two important transport questions: what’s wrong with trucking? And who is the self-driving car really for?

'The world seems crazy right now, but don’t worry, it’s always been crazy'. This week, Max Smolaks and Tien Fu take look at the ongoing tech war between the US and China.

Having run out of Chinese goods to tax, the Trump administration is going after individual AI companies, while increasing domestic funding for scientific research. Meanwhile, Chinese cloud juggernauts are investing billions in new infrastructure projects, with full support of the state.

We also discuss MSN replacing humans with algorithms, problems with online advertising, mountains of money being spent on self-driving cars, the misadventures of Pepper the robot, and of course, the current situation in the US.

It also transpires that none of us like working in a WeWork – the main points of contention are dogs and beer.

In this episode, the editorial team talks automated warehouses, the enduring problem of picking stuff up, and pandemic essentials.

We discuss Microsoft’s Project Bonsai, best described as a virtual labor camp for machines, delve into Nvidia’s chonky chips, and OpenAI’s shiny new supercomputer, which, in the absence of a memorable name, was christened the Shrugging Atlas.

Plus, weird stuff you find on government procurement websites, the sins of Elon Musk, the timeline for mapping the brain, and, once again, killer robots. It’s probably safe to assume killer robots will remain a theme for months to come....

Plus this week's episode of The AI In Business podcast features roving reporter and ICBM enthusiast Sebastian Moss!

In the AI Business Podcast our aim is to present an intriguing section industry news from the past two weeks, discuss the stories we are working on, while always looking out for the strangest, most cutting-edge applications of artificial intelligence out there.

In the first episode, we talk about two use cases for AI in fighting COVID-19 – in drug development and medical image processing (and there are more).

We delve into the project Gamebreaker – DARPA’s initiative which will use AI models trained on open world video games to devise winning war strategies.

We also discuss the the size and processing requirements of machine learning models – a problem which is being attacked from several angles by both software and hardware designers. Smaller size is useful if we really want a gazillion AI-enabled devices promised to us by the Internet of Things crowd.

And finally, we look at AI-generated Coronavirus memes – a harmless machine learning exercise that could open the floodgates for a new breed of marketing content.