Getting Started with Artificial Intelligence

Start collecting data.  If you want to be part of the AI revolution sweeping the business world, you’ll have to have data.  If you’ve already got the data, drop it into something like BigML and start asking questions.  Those insights today in a session put on by the Transatlantic AI eXchange hosted by Thomas Neubert.

“Demystifying AI - How any Business Can get Started with Machine Learning / AI” brought together Greg LaBlac at the University of California’s Haas School of Business and David Carmona, a General Manager at Microsoft.  It was a powerful discussion with important insights that the TAIX will share in a recording.  But I will share with you some key points I picked up in the session.

For one, Artificial Intelligence is already here and is being used in everyday business.  It’s not a “shiny black box” that people go to for answers. It’s NOT the evil robot that is romanticized in the media, including movies.  AI is here now in Internet search, recommendations you get on shopping sites, the cars we drive and the responses when we ask Siri or Alexa a question.  The message in the session today is that AI is available now and it can help you. So, jump in.

What can AI do?

Next, what’s something AI can do?  Well, the biggest failure business people make is understanding the granularity of their decisions.  LaBlanc shared this insight.  He talked about how business managers may look at their decisions as being good ones or bad ones; decisions that work and those that don’t.  But the reality is that the decisions one makes set in motion a whole series of events. Understanding this and then analyzing how those events play out can provide data which then can be used in Machine Learning to show what worked or how things went wrong.

This is where the picture I show here comes in.  LaBlanc shared this slide and talked about how a business unexpectedly found which job applicants were most likely to stick with the company.  You see it here.  Those using Chrome or Firefox web browsers turned out to be the better employee.  This sounds rather random, but it’s a great example of what having data and then using AI to analyze it can find, things that can escape an analysis done by using only the human mind.

There’s much, much more in this session, a recording of which will be made available on TAIX, but other takeaways include:  There’s a revolution in no-code or low-code AI in which you can drop your data into new Machine Learning platforms like BigML and start asking questions of your data without needing to know how to program in Python or R.  Also, if you’re looking to transform your business, make sure everybody is participating, not just those in the technology or IT department.  Start thinking of yourself as an AI company.

More than a moon shot!  

NASA's launch of Artimus marks a milestone in space exploration. This is simply because the initial mission, just to put people in a capsule around the moon, may end up making history. That's due to the fact they might end up the farthest from earth than man has ever been. This will depend on the position of the moon on that initial shot. But there's much more to understand than just flying astronauts around Earth's closest neighbor.

You see, the moon will be a launching pad for a manned mission to Mars. This is possible because of water. Yes, you probably know that we've already discovered water on the moon. Water contains both oxygen and hydrogen. Oxygen obviously can be used for us to breethe while hydrogen can be used for fuel. And keep in mind that just the water itself is important for life, human and otherwise. If you think this is all out of reach given the complexity of carrying out such an endeavor, read on.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning have already led to great advances in autonomous vehicles and robotics. Don't think for a moment these won't be applied to our latest mission to the moon. In fact, we stand to be able to do things we could have only dreamed of back in the Apollo era in the late 1960s and early 70s. Manufacturing with the use of robotics is old hat nowadays, and now we have machines that can pretty much think for themselves. Don't be afraid to dream a bit more, because advances of mythic proportions are now about to become reality.

AI and ML in Space

In discussing AI and ML with the first person to get a computer to recognize human speech, the conversation drifted to the concept of machines being able to reach the level of consciousness. The subject came up in earnest a few years ago and the prediction was this would happen by sometime in the late 2020s. Yes, we are still on track for that phenomenal advancement in science. This makes the moon shot so much more exciting.

Don't get lost in the fact exploration of space and planetary objects can be done just with robotics. Think personal assistants. They are on the immediate horizon for us here on Earth. It's not a very far leap from there to using them in space. As difficult as space exploration now is for humans, it's going to get easier. With machines doing most of the heavy lifting, we'll be in a much better position to do the real exploring. It's time to think big, think beyond a moon shot.

(Picture Credit: Andrew McCarthy and Connor Matherne collaborated last November to push their photography skills to the limit. Their finished product was posted online Saturday, and is currently gaining lots of attention on Reddit. See link in "moon shot.")

 Venture Capital - What's in Store

By Henry Mulak

If you are a venture capitalist you are not going stop investing, even in what appears to be a pending economic slowdown.  At least that’s according to the four investors who took part in a panel discussion put on by the German American Business Association.  The message could be taken as good news for startups looking for funding.  Suggestions for what’s hot included fintech, cybersecurity, anything involving Artificial Intelligence that helps with things like human resources and inventory as well ideas that will save on labor costs.

GABA invited the four VC leaders to its annual VC Capital Investment Thesis, offering participants a chance to hear “what’s hot and what’s not.”  Ankita Vashistha, a partner at StrongHer Ventures who helped lead the Saha Fund and Thorns Capital offered cybersecurity as one of her top interests for 2022.  “We can work from anywhere.  Talent can work from anywhere.”  So, tools and infrastructure are hot right now and so startups offering help with security stand a good chance of attracting new funding.

Cybersecurity is also one of Steve Goldberg’s top pics for funding.  The partner at Finistere Ventures told the group anything cybersecurity related is a good bet for funding.  “Things are tough right now,” he says, but VCs are ready to invest because “businesses still need to run” even in an economic downturn.  He points to AI enhancements to standard enterprise software involving human resources or inventory are a good bet for his company.

Point72 Ventures Operating Partner Eva-Maria Olbers says 2021 was a very unusual year, pointing to VC funding that was off the charts.  She sees “a more natural and more sustainable trend” emerging in 2022.  What’s more, investing will continue.  “VCs will always be looking for avenues and for investments,” she said.  With the world opening up as the pandemic wanes, she is optimistic, in part because “we are getting to meet our founders in person.”

The economy is definitely slowing according to Martin Tantow, a partner at the behemoth VC firm Pegasus Tech Ventures.  He brought a “high-level view” to the panel, saying there was a significant downturn in evaluations in the first quarter of the year after the highest valuations ever at the end of 2021.  He’s seeing continued downward pressure in the second quarter, but “the best startups get started in downturns.  This coming downturn is not a negative thing.”

“If you have a good idea, go for it” says Goldberg.  The other panelists seemed to all agree, including Olbers who says, “Overall, an optimistic lens going forward.”  Part of the issue here is that venture funds are typically 10-years long and longer.  A downturn lasts only so long, Goldberg says, and with investment periods lasting three years “there’s no way to stop investments and wait for things to change.”  

The author:  Henry Mulak is a journalist and teacher working out of Silicon Valley.  A member of GABA since 2018, he has worked from both Germany and California over a career spanning four decades.  He moved from Berlin back to his home state in 2013 and now focuses on the tech sector, including AI and Machine Learning.

 The Night of the Blood Red Moon

A recurring nightmare.  I wish it was a dream.  It’s not.  It’s as real as the moon you see here.  The total lunar eclipse shown over the United States on Sunday night.  The total lunar eclipse shown just after midnight back east, but for the rest of us it was still Sunday.  I went out from the newsroom into our parking lot here in Silicon Valley to take the picture just after 9 p.m.  Was it serendipity?  Was it lost on everyone else on this night of the blood-red moon.

Mass Shootings & Mass Murder

We struggled to cover them all, struggle as we do to cover the news.  I don’t know that we explain to our audience, to our readers, to the public what it’s like to cover the news.  I know.  I see it.  I see it not only from the inside but from outside as well.  I work to monitor other media every working day.  I was surprised on this particular night.  The coverage seemed so incomplete.  What a disappointment knowing we just can’t keep up with them all.

Saturday’s massacre in Buffalo, New York is a case when a story transcends all the filters we place on our coverage at my local station.  Working locally, we focus on what’s going on in our immediate market.  But this one ranks as an international story, not just national.  The question is one of what we have become as a nation.  But the story was incomplete.  We needed a thread and needle to link them all.  Buffalo was but one.  By Sunday night the story had also become one of a church in Southern California, the violence in Wisconsin after a Bucks playoff game, and whatever happened in Houston.  All deadly.  All mass shootings.

There may have been more than four mass shootings on this particular weekend, the weekend with the night of the blood-red moon.  I feel pretty confident I was on top of what was going on.  I do that as part of my job and I think I do it well.  My frustration boiled over into anger when I saw the late night news on so many outlets, the coverage I monitor so closely to make sure my news department misses nothing.  Why didn’t everyone mention all the killing, all the shooting, all the death?  Was it just too much; too much to keep track of; too much to consider; too overwhelming for those “covering” the news?

One of my friends, a fellow journalist I’ve known for decades, suffers from PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome suffered in a mass shooting in Los Angeles many years back.  I see how it affected him.  I think of all the bodies I’ve seen over my long and illustrious career, but nothing like what he saw that day when robbers came ready to do their deadly deed, armed to the teeth with automatic weapons.  I wonder what my life would be like if I had been so unfortunate, unlucky enough in one of my many assignments to cover such a crime.

By now, you must be expecting some sort of conclusion here to this story.  I’m afraid I don’t see any conclusion to this.  There’s nothing on the horizon that shows anything I might consider as an end, a solution, an outcome.  One thing I do know, one thing I am aware of, is that I’ll be covering at least two elections before the year is over.  Therein lies something I can never know what to expect.  I think back to November of 2016 and the shock everyone seemed to feel at the outcome.  Maybe after November we’ll know, I’ll know, what we have become.

IoT Security - 90-Percent of Devices are NOT Secure

The explosion in the number of devices connected to the cloud come with a price.  That price is security.  Armando Lucrecio, a Senior Technical Program Manager with Amazon Connected Products addresses the issue in the Business School of AI’s WeeklyWed, talking about how some 90% of products in IoT are not secure.  Lucrecio outlines the myriad of reasons for this.  He makes it clear: Understanding and addressing the security issues will help a technology with great promise.

“Connected product” is probably a better term to use than the Internet of Things, or IoT.  Lucrecio likes the label because it better helps us understand how we are talking about  networking:  Security cameras; Alexa, Google Home and Apple’s Siri; Nest thermostats; home appliances, and a seemingly endless number of other possibilities.  There’s even word now that Amazon has a robotic dog that patrols your home and communicates with you on “the network.”

“It’s all about the network,” Lucrecio says. This connectivity allows for communication to occur, and with it, the extraction of data that enables us to make the decisions that benefit everyone involved.  If you control the network, you can can extract all the data and analyze it, providing the answers you need to better serve your customers.

The security issues crop up because of all the players involved.  Since there is no way that one company can build its own network, players rely on telecommunications companies.  Then there’s the product itself.  If you buy the hardware, those that made it can build in a back door for someone else’s access, or they can insert a trojan horse to later take control.  Then there are hackers who work to take control of either the product or device and the network for whatever reason, most likely for monetary gain.

For more on this important topic, watch this video of Armando Lucrecio's talk;

IoT Security - The Internet of Things

Evolution of a Robot

 Evolution of a Robot 

Autonomous Delivery Service Online

A “cute little robot” has graduated from college dorm burrito deliveries to providing security to women walking across campus in the dark.  Kiwibot is now “a robot that people can accept,” says David Rodriguez, the company’s Director of Strategy and Business Operations.  Mr. Rodriguez made the comments in a guest appearance online on WeekleyWed, a feature of the Business School of AI.

The surprising revelations come in an hour-long discussion that covered everything from how Kiwibot went from an incubator to a company expected to attract “billions of dollars” in funding.  Part of the reason for the company’s success, Rodriguez says, is that “small vehicles delivering burritos make a lot more sense than three-ton cars getting in the right-of-way.”  In other words, Kiwibot is not “threatening.”  

Sustainable Technology

“Technology is not sustainable unless it’s solving a real world problem,” Rodriguez says.  Here he addresses how Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are used to enable these autonomous vehicles to do what they do.  “It’s not an ‘over-techy’ product,” paving the way for “robot solutions that go beyond delivery.”  The robots are now getting requests to accompany women who want them for security reasons.

As exciting as it may sound, developing a self-driving robot that people “fall in love with,” Rodriguez says everyone in the company needs to be focused on solving a problem.  In this case, the focus is on reducing the cost of making deliveries.  In the discussion, Rodriguez talks about taking delivery costs from $10 down to three.  Now the business world is starting to take note, attracting interest from companies like Shopify, Ordermark, Chick-fil-A and others.  Kiwibot deployment stretches from Stanford to Berkley, Los Angeles to Miami, Detroit to Pittsburg and beyond.

The Actual Robot:

 

“We thought we were done.”  Rodriguez talks about surviving a disaster on the U.C. Berkeley campus.  One of the Kiwibots exploded, overheating because of a problem involving the use of four different lightbulbs in the small, autonomous vehicles.  To the shock of the company’s founders, distressed students held a candle light vigil on campus for the robot. People are falling in love with the little guy.  After four years of development and then deployment, Kiwibots now have enough momentum that the company believes they are on the way to overcoming some major hurdles.

While competition to be at the forefront of the multi-billion-dollar delivery business is fierce, Kiwibot’s founders maintain focus on solutions.  This has ranged from overcoming things like surviving cold weather to building a navigation system that avoids dangerous streets.  “If we find a neighborhood where people have a really bad attitude, we don’t go there.”  Kiwibots may face hurdles and even some roadblocks, but they look to be heading down the road of widespread acceptance.

First-ever Mobile Broadband Coverage Map

Finally! Now we can compare! Cellular providers' coverage map laid bare. The nation's first-ever mobile broadband coverage map is put out by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC used information from AT&T, Verizon, and the others, along with information from their customers, to make the map.

The map is a tool, allowing you to compare coverage of both data and voice plans of the four largest carriers in the United States.  This is a dramatic improvement over maps offered by the carriers:  AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Verizon and US Cellular.

A huge step forward

Consumers have long complained about not being able to make calls or access their mobile carrier's network in remote areas like that pictured here, Stafford, Humboldt Redwoods State Park, California.

The tool includes options to track wireless download and upload speeds of at least 5 Mbps and 1 Mbps for each of the largest carriers.  This all was set in place by a law passed in 2020 which requires the FCC to collect and release data comparing different wired, fixed-wireless, satellite and mobile broadband service providers.