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Cosmos: Obama boffin in Sydney talk

Scientists gather to explore the implications of the quantum revolution.President Barack Obama’s chief nuclear advisor will speak at a public forum at the University of Sydney on Thursday, February 15.Allison McFarlane from George Washington University was appointed by Obama as chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2012 and remained in the position for two years.At an event called the Q Forum she will join Australian and US cyber-experts to explore the ramifications of the rise of quantum computing. Other speakers include fellow George Washington academic Hugh Gusterson and University of New South Wales robotics researcher Toby Walsh.Topics covered will include the effects of quantum cryptography on privacy, the geo-political implications of quantum computing, and why tech giants such as Google and IBM are predicting that 2018 will be a watershed year for the technology.The forum will take place at the university’s Quadrangle Lecture Theatre, kicking off at 6pm. More details here.

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Book Review:Toby Walsh – Machines That Think: The Future of A.I.

Scientist Toby Walsh uses his career spent developing Artificial Intelligence in a realistic look at its technological challenges and the likely effect of AI on the future in his forthcoming book, Machines that Think: The Future of Artificial Intelligence (OSD 2/20/2018). Popular science readers with an interest in artificial intelligence and technology’s impact on society, as well as anyone interested in the future of business and economics will not want to miss this survey of AI today and where it will take us.Walsh takes a realistic look at the technological challenges and assesses the likely effect of AI on the future to ask “How will Artificial Intelligence impact our lives?”Will automation take away most of our jobs?Is a “technological singularity” near?What is the chance that robots will take over?How do we best prepare for this future?“AI researcher Toby Walsh’s Machines That Think is for anyone who has heard the hype and is seeking a critical assessment of what the technology can do — and what it might do in the future. Walsh’s conversational style is welcoming to nonexperts while his endnotes point readers to opportunities for deeper dives into specific aspects of AI.”Read more here.

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ABC Radio Perth: Breakfast with Peter Bell and Paula Kruger

Hollywood has long explored the idea of robots and computers rising up and taking over humanity.Films like Terminator, 2001 a Space Odyssey and Ex Machina show artificial intelligence turning on humans, but it's a concept that's largely seemed like an idea of fiction rather than something that might actually happen.A viral video from US robot and AI company Boston Systems has shown that the robot future is possibly closer than we think.... and it's a bit unnerving.The video shows one robot open a door, hold the door with its foot, let another robot through the door to then close it behind both of them.It sounds like a fairly simple idea but it seems to have really unsettled people.Toby Walsh is a Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of New South Wales and the author of 'It's Alive' a book exploring our robotic future.He started explaining why many people find the video so creepy.Duration: 4min 26sec Broadcast: Tue 13 Feb 2018, 4:00pm

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Yourstory: How artificial intelligence can benefit India

During the 2018 Budget presentation, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley informed that Niti Aayog will initiate national programmes on artificial intelligence (AI).  China has already been heavily investing in AI in the past few years.  According to Andrew Ng, Professor at Stanford University, AI is the next electricity; it will be the main force behind development like how electricity played a major role in world development during the early 20th century. ...However, as in the case of any technology, AI can be misused.  In December 2017, many resellers created AI-based bots to purchase popular Christmas gifts at a lower price from Amazon and Walmart and sold at much higher price using other portals.  For example, one of the popular toys, ‘fingerlings’ was purchased at $15 and sold at $60. Customers had to pay $60 since it was not available at the original sellers anymore after the bots had purchased all of them.Toby Walsh, in his latest book titled, Machines That Think, claims that AI can take many paths, many good and some bad.  It is up to the society to decide which path to take.Read full story here.

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The Australian Women’s Weekly

The Robots are ComingThe Australian Women’s Weekly spoke to a host of experts about what we can expect in the years to come. Things are changing so quickly, they said, that even they couldn't say how far we'll advance in the next three decades. Or, as Professor Walsh puts it, "We tend to over-predict what we can do in the short term, but under-predict what we'll do in the long term".  Read more here.  

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Finfeed: Your financial newsfeed

Artificial Intelligence – human friend or foe?AI integration into everyday life has been repeatedly spoken of as an inevitability, with many armchair experts predicting potentially disastrous consequences for humankind. But are the ‘doomsday’ fears of AI just fantasy?There are psychological reasons for popular notions of AI doom as depicted in Hollywood blockbusters, however today our focus is on asking whether these fears really have a solid basis....The experts looking firmly on the bright sideA professor of artificial intelligence at the University of NSW, Toby Walsh, conducted a survey involving 300 AI researchers to discuss the pace at which the tech may overtake human intelligence. Most of the respondents stated a belief that it would take around 50 years before that might happen.Given what human beings have been capable of in, for example, the 50 years to now, there is a strong belief among experts that we will be properly prepared for any potential major adverse developments of intelligent machines, as far as the threat of ‘the singularity’ (the time when AI superintelligence outstrips anything humans can do alone)....Read full article here.

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Foreign editions of

Russia, to be published in 2018 by AST who are one of the largest book publishers in the country (around 30% of books). Poland,  to be published in 2018 by PWN (Polskie Wydawnicto Naukowe, or Polish Scientific Publishers), who are the leading Polish provider of scientific, educational and professional literature.Germany, to be published in 2018 by Edition Koerber.Korea, to be published March 2018 by Preview Press.China, published by Beijing Mediatime Books. UK, published Sept 2017 by Hurst under title "Android Dreams: The Past, Present and Future of Artificial Intelligence".USA, published Feb 2018 by Prometheus under title "Machines that Think: The Future of Artificial Intelligence".

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Parliament of Australia: Select Committee on the Future of Work and Workers

This has just been made public.  Artificial Intelligence and the Future of WorkProfessor Toby Walsh, UNSW SydneySubmission to the Senate Select Committee on the “Future of Work and Workers”. Executive summaryPredictions that around half of all jobs at risk of automation in next couple of decades need to be treated with caution.Nevertheless, technologies like AI and Robotics will create significant disruption to the nature of work.We can identify many skills and jobs that will likely be safe for automation that can help direct policy.AI will impact not just work but every sector of the economy (private, public and voluntary). Many of the leading nations around the world have drawn up national AI plans. Australia needs one urgently otherwise it risks falling behind.  Jobs at Risk:Many fears about job displacement can be traced to a 2013 study from the University of Oxford by Frey and Osborne on the impact of automation. This made a much quoted prediction that 47% of jobs in the US were under threat of automation in the next two decades. Other more recent and, in some cases, more detailed studies have made similar dramatic predictions for the US as well as other economies including that of Australia. However, the conclusions of even the most careful of these studies need to be treated with caution.  There are many factors typically not considered by such studies (e.g. new jobs created by technology, new jobs created via economic growth brought about by technological change, jobs that we can be automated that we choose not to automate, the impact of changing demographics, reduction in the length of the working week). In addition, if one looks closely at the data, clear errors are visible. For instance, Frey & Osborne predict with high probability that bicycle repairperson, model and pilot will all be automated in the next two decade. The first prediction is technical very unlikely (repairing bicycles would be a difficult and demanding job for a robot), the second misses the point (we don’t care what robots look like in clothes), and the third ignores society’s acceptance of change (we could automate flying a plane but we will probably prefer to have a human pilot even if much of their job is automated).  Nevertheless, technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Robotics with create a large disruption in work. There are many parts of jobs that will be automated in the near future for the first time, and it won’t just be blue collar jobs that are at risk. Even high skilled jobs like radiologist will be impacted. It is already clear that there are some jobs like taxi and truck driver where it will be far safer and far cheaper for machines to do them. A few edge cases (e.g. negotiating road works) will not keep humans employed as drivers. Only a small percentage of drivers currently employed today will be needed to drive remotely when an autonomous vehicle cannot proceed safely on its own. Any taxi or truck driver should be asking themselves the question: “What other skill besides driving do I have that people will be willing to pay for?” Jobs of the Future:We can already identify many skills and jobs that will likely be safe from automation, an important step in creating policy that prepares for this future of work. A “triangle of opportunity” emerges from this analysis. At the top apex are technology jobs, inventing the future. There is a future in inventing the future. However, not everyone needs to be a coder. Indeed, there will be limited opportunities for coders when computers can, as they will be able to, code themselves.  There are, however, quite different opportunities at the other corners of the triangle. At one of the bottom corners are jobs requiring people skills. Computers have limited emotional and social intelligence, and are likely to have so for a long time. And even when they do, we will simply prefer interacting with people compared to machines. Teachers, nurses, general practitioners, and salespeople are, for example, all likely to be relatively safe from the tide of automation. The third and final corner of the triangle represents artists and artisans. Computers have limited creativity, and are likely to have so for a long time. And again, even when we have figured out how to make computers to be creative, we will prefer things made by humans, that speak to the human experience, that can’t be mass produced. Ironically, one of the safer jobs on the planet is one of the oldest, carpenter.  Policy implications:These changes suggest a number of policy responses. First, it is clear that the jobs of the future will require different skills to many of the jobs being done today. And many of the skills for the jobs of the future will involve technologies yet to be invented. Therefore these are not skills that can be taught directly at school or university now. An appropriate policy response then might be to support lifelong learning (e.g. incentives to the individual and to industry to re-skill), as well as to adapt the curriculum to support this (e.g. learning to learn, teaching robustness & adaptability). Second, we need to re-consider the safety net provided to those put under pressure by technological change. This happened with the Industrial Revolution when we invented trade unions, labour laws, and the welfare state. We may need to consider potentially radical changes like universal basic income, or negative tax rates to provide that support. Third, we need to ensure that the productivity benefits provided by automation are shared. At present, gains are being concentrated into the hands of a few rich individuals and corporations. Australia’s “Google Tax” is an example of the new sort of policy needed to ensure that inequality does not increase, and the benefits of technological change are shared across society. Fourth, there are a number of groups within society at especial risk. Indeed, if we are not careful, technology may increase racial, gender, age and others forms of discrimination in the workplace. This requires significant policy response. Finally, the threat posed by countries like China cannot be ignored. China has a clear intention to lead the world in AI by 2030. It is betting its economic (and military) future on this. Digital marketplaces often lead to natural monopolies. Without suitable response and coordinated policy, the benefits of AI will flow out of Australia into those countries winning this race.  Conclusions:The impact of AI will be felt not just within the world of work. It will touch almost every aspect of society: defence, education, taxation, trade, transport, health, and leisure, to name just a few. Almost everything that government does will need to adjust. This needs a coordinated response. A number of leading nations already have an AI plan in place (e.g. US, China, UK, South Korea, Canada). Australia will fall behind if it doesn’t make such a plan and start acting on it. Carpe Diem! Biography: Toby Walsh is Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of New South Wales. He has been elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. He has won the NSW Premier’s Prize for Excellence in Engineering and ICT. His new book, “It’s Alive!: Artificial Intelligence from the Logic Piano to Killer Robots” covers many of these issues in greater depth. 

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Fairfax: The Military are Waking up!

t's dawning on the military ... autonomous weapons are a game changer and it might be bad news for them! 

Killer robots used by unethical enemies will threaten Australia, army chief warns

Artificially intelligent drones that can kill on their own will increasingly pose a challenge to Australia's values as they potentially give a military edge to foreign enemies who have no ethical qualms about using them, the Chief of the Australian Army has warned.Lieutenant-General Angus Campbell told Fairfax Media there would be countries and groups such as terrorist organisations that would have lower ethical standards than Australia about using such robots. Australia's military and its broader society would have to think about how it deals with these adversaries, he said.....

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ABC News: Artificial intelligence: China catching up to US in race for technological supremacy

Artificial intelligence from a Chinese tech giant has defeated the country's best player of the board game Go, despite giving the grandmaster an advantage — matching and perhaps surpassing Google's efforts last year. ...

AI development a national policy in China

"China has a declared ambition to equal the US in its AI capability by 2020 and to be number one in the world by 2030," said Professor Toby Walsh, a leading AI expert from the University of New South Wales.Tencent's victory came shortly after fellow Chinese tech company Alibaba announced its team had developed an AI that it said, " humans in reading comprehension".

What is artificial intelligence?

Find out what AI is, how it works, and what the benefits and concerns are.Professor Walsh, who is also the author of the book 'It's Alive: Artificial Intelligence from the Logic Piano to Killer Robots', said it was significant the first two breakthroughs in the field this year have come from Chinese companies."China seems to be catching up, if not already leading the game," Professor Walsh said.The Chinese Government's Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan, announced last year, aims to create a massive US$150 billion AI industry in China by 2030.The country sees AI technology as crucial to its development agenda, and as a way of improving the lives of its people.Relaxed attitudes to privacy in China and its enormous smartphone market — which generates a huge amount of data that can be used in AI research — also give the country a natural advantage in the sector.China's ambitious strategy is just one of several across the world. The US, UK, France, UAE, Canada, South Korea and Japan also have their own plans.Australia however does not have one yet. "I think we need some action here, really. I think the Government really needs a national plan," Professor Walsh said."And we do actually have a remarkably good research community. We have some of the most automated ports, some of the most automated mines in the world."We are actually already punching well above our weight in this field, and so we should take advantage of that."

China already leading in some areas

Professor Walsh said according to some measures, Chinese companies were already outperforming their rivals — but there was still room for improvement."In terms of the pure output, the number of papers and patents and so on, China is now actually ahead of the US," he said.

Could a robot do your job?

Search our database of every Australian occupation to find out how difficult it will be for artificial intelligence to do your job."If you look more closely at the data, look at the quality of the work, look at things like the citations, you can still see that the US is still ahead of China."The quality of the work is perhaps a bit higher in the US."However while China is interested in how the technology can be used to improve living standards, it remains clear-eyed about the potential military applications of AI.The Government's strategy makes it clear information on technological developments is to be shared between civilian and military researchers.Professor Walsh, who has been involved in efforts calling for a worldwide ban on so-called "killer robots", said global efforts to regulate AI would be necessary."We're not going to be able to stop the technology being developed, because actually it has very potentially good uses — the same technology that goes into your autonomous car will go into your autonomous drone," he said."We're not going to stop the development of the technology, but we can make sure it's used for good."

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Sydney Writer's Festival: It's Alive!

From Google to smartphones to driverless cars, artificial intelligence is already reshaping our daily lives. But where will AI take us in the future? In conversation with Rae Johnston, leading AI researcher Toby Walsh talks about It’s Alive!, his fascinating journey through the world of AI that makes a series of predictions about how it will transform our world by 2050 – from its use in the workplace, to its economic impacts, to what happens when its intelligence surpasses our own. 4th May. Carriageworks. Sydney.Toby Walsh (Australian)Toby Walsh is one of the world’s leading researchers in Artificial Intelligence. He is a Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of New South Wales. He has been elected a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and the Association for the Advancement of AI. His latest book, It's Alive! Artificial Intelligence from the Logic Piano to Killer Robots, was published in 2017.Rae Johnston (Australian)Rae Johnston is the Editor of Gizmodo Australia, focusing on science, consumer technology, video games and “geek” entertainment. On television she hosts NITV’s The Point, as well as SBS’ The Feed and Small Business Secrets. You can also catch Rae on ABC RN’s Drive program regularly chatting about technology. Rae is a proud Wiradjuri woman.

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PWN: It's Alive! AI from the Logic Piano to Killer Robots

Każdy z nas zadaje sobie pytania o przyszłość sztucznej inteligencji. Niektórzy obawiają się, że jej rozwój może przyczynić się do likwidacji wielu miejsc pracy, inni patrzą z niepokojem, czy SI (polski odpowiednik AI) zacznie podejmować za nas decyzje, co zagraża ludzkiej egzystencji. Faktem jest, że od sztucznej inteligencji nie ma odwrotu. Już teraz zmieniła nasz sposób poznawania świata, gospodarkę, społeczeństwo i nas samych. Dzięki myślącym maszynom możemy niemal natychmiast za pomocą Google’a uzyskać odpowiedź na zadane pytanie, jeździmy elektronicznymi samochodami (lub będziemy nimi jeździć w niedalekiej przyszłości), korzystamy ze smartfonów.Jaka była historia sztucznej inteligencji? Co zyskujemy dzięki SI obecnie i do czego może ona nas doprowadzić?Odpowiedzi na te pytania (oraz na wiele innych kwestii) udziela profesor Toby Walsh, jeden z czołowych światowych uczonych zajmujących się sztuczną inteligencją, w swojej książce „To żyje! Sztuczna inteligencja. Od logicznego fortepianu po zabójcze roboty”. Autor zabiera nas w niezwykłą podróż – od powstania sztucznej inteligencji, przez jej rozwój i zagrożenia, aż po dziesięć przepowiedni dotyczących osiągnięć, ale i niebezpieczeństw SI w 2050 r.Książka nakładem Wydawnictwa Naukowego PWN SA ukaże się na rynku już 20 marca br.Magazyn „Computerworld” jest patronem medialnym wydarzenia.

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Sydney Morning Herald: How artificial intelligence is driving sales

Every time Amazon recommends a purchase to a customer, that's artificial intelligence at work.But AI, the ability of computers or robots to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings, is not just limited to huge multinationals.Increasing numbers of Australian businesses are using AI in their sales processes.Sales platform Salesforce estimates it is handling a billion queries every day using its AI system, dubbed Einstein, which is used across small and large businesses....Interwoven in the fabric of our livesToby Walsh, Scienta professor of artificial intelligence at the University of New South Wales, says the continued rise of AI is inevitable. "Eventually it is going to be like electricity, it is going to be interwoven into the fabric of our lives and almost everything will use AI," he says. Walsh says AI offers huge opportunities for businesses. "The opportunity is to make it much more personalised, to try and offer customers the thing they are much more likely to want," he says. "There are also opportunities that the consumer may be a little less pleased with, increasingly we will move to dynamic pricing where the price you get offered will be different."Walsh says at the moment dynamic pricing operates at a crude level where Mac users are sometimes offered more expensive prices than PC users on the basis that they can afford a more expensive computer so may be able to afford to spend more."It is going to become much more personalised because you are being tracked all the time," he says. "Google, for example, tracks a billion shop visits every year and has access to 75 per cent of all credit card activity in the US, it's not just your online activity that is being tracked but it is also related to your offline activity."Walsh says the rise of AI presents a challenge to small business."Small business may have a superior product but they won't have the data Amazon or Google have and there is no way they will ever have that data to have a laser focus on the consumer," he says. "Every technology has winners and losers."Read full article here.

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IBM Watson CTO: The 3 ethical principles AI needs to embrace

For instance, he said "Of course, privacy comes down to recognizing that your data is our data". No! Your data is your data. It is not IBM's data. Where's the privacy in that? And nowhere, not once does he mention fairness, surely one of the major ethical concerns about AI. Oh dear, IBM!

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10 Commandments of AI

AI should be designed for all, and benefit humanity.AI should operate on principles of transparency and fairness, and be well signposted.AI should not be used to transgress the data rights and privacy of individuals, families, or communities.The application of AI should be to reduce inequality of wealth, health, and opportunity.AI should not be used for criminal intent, nor to subvert the values of our democracy, nor truth, nor courtesy in public discourse.The primary purpose of AI should be to enhance and augment, rather than replace, human labour and creativity.All citizens have the right to be adequately educated to flourish mentally, emotionally, and economically in a digital and artificially intelligent world.AI should never be developed or deployed separately from consideration of the ethical consequences of its applications.The autonomous power to hurt or destroy should never be vested in artificial intelligence.Governments should ensure that the best research and application of AI is directed toward the most urgent problems facing humanity.Proposed by the Rt Rev the Lord Bishop of Oxford.

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Australian Computer Society: InformationAge

Goodbye lawyers, accountants and radiologists.By Edward Pollitt on Feb 28 2018 04:21 PMIn 2013, the University of Oxford published a report predicting 47% of jobs in the U.S could be at risk of automation in the next 15 years.According to leading AI scientist and member of ACS’ Artificial Intelligence Committee, Professor Toby Walsh, this report became the “granddaddy” of the automation concerns that have become so rife in the past five years.From the Committee for Economic Development of Australia saying in 2015 that 40% of local jobs could be automated by 2030 to McKinsey’s 2018 report which predicted up to 800 million global jobs could soon be gone, automation predictions paint a bleak picture for the future of human work.“One thing I think is clear,” Walsh told the Senate Select Committee on the Future of Work and Workers in Sydney. “We don't know how many jobs will be created by new technologies and how many jobs will be created by the increasing prosperity that new technologies bring.“Maybe there will be fewer jobs. Maybe there will be more jobs. We do not know.”What we do we know is that certain types of work are more susceptible to automation than others.Repetitive, systematic and predictable job areas, such as manufacturing, transport and manual labour are at risk.While less frequent, there is also discussion on the possibility of automation within services such as law and accountancy.However, Walsh warned of the long-term risks that automation could have on these particular sectors.“With respect to accountants and lawyers, a lot that they do is actually quite systematic and regular; it's not actually that out of the ordinary,” he said.“Are the law firms going to continue to hire lots of clerks at the bottom?“How are people going to get into the bottom rung of the profession if those jobs are the ones that are most easily automated?”But even within the human facing industries that are seen as ‘safe’, such as healthcare, certain professions remain exposed.“I wouldn't encourage any of my children to spend lots of time becoming a radiologist,” Walsh told the committee.“That's a task where we're going to get a machine to work out how to read X-rays much more quickly, much more cheaply, much better and much more accurately than a human can do, so that very skilled job is probably going to disappear.”Walsh explained that the entire healthcare system will begin to transition away from treatment towards preventative care, meaning general practitioners remain in strong demand.“At the end of the day, I think we want to have a human doctor tell us the bad news and help us interpret the results of all those machines and algorithms, so I don't think doctors have to worry, but I think probably we'll end up with many more GPs.”...Professor Walsh also showed his support for a “cooperative model”, that protects the entire workforce.“We should think about how we can encourage it, because certainly one of the trends that we see is that inequality is increasing within our society, and technology, if left to its own course, will amplify that further, so we do have to think of ways that the prosperity needs to be shared more greatly; otherwise we will see increasing societal disquiet.”

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YourStory: How artificial intelligence can benefit India

During the 2018 Budget presentation, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley informed that Niti Aayog will initiate national programmes on artificial intelligence (AI).  China has already been heavily investing in AI in the past few years.  According to Andrew Ng, Professor at Stanford University, AI is the next electricity; it will be the main force behind development like how electricity played a major role in world development during the early 20th century. ... However, as in the case of any technology, AI can be misused.  In December 2017, many resellers created AI-based bots to purchase popular Christmas gifts at a lower price from Amazon and Walmart and sold at much higher price using other portals.  For example, one of the popular toys, ‘fingerlings’ was purchased at $15 and sold at $60. Customers had to pay $60 since it was not available at the original sellers anymore after the bots had purchased all of them.Toby Walsh, in his latest book titled, Machines That Think, claims that AI can take many paths, many good and some bad.  It is up to the society to decide which path to take.