IOI
The crowds at this year’s Web Summit were no exception to tech evangelists’ enthusiasm for artificial intelligence’s potential to transform our lives.
Here are five AI applications highlighted at one of the world’s largest technology conferences, which returned to Lisbon this week after the pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020 event.
Healthcare
Iker Casillas jumped at the chance to invest in a start-up that utilises artificial intelligence to better identify abnormal cardiac beats.
In 2019, the Spanish football icon died after a heart attack, thereby ending his career.
Idoven, a Madrid-based firm, analyses data from home heart monitoring kits to follow people’s cardiac health and, more importantly, to identify potential issues.
Its CEO Manuel Marina-Breysse told AFP, “We are the first company in the world capable of doing it.”
A rising number of mental health firms are employing AI.
Woebot, a chatbot that individuals may use to relieve anxiety, changes its replies depending on an AI-based evaluation of the person’s emotional state.
“If someone is distressed or not feeling well, Woebot will urge them to work on it or simply get it off their chest,” said Woebot’s inventor, clinical research psychologist Alison Darcy.
Some individuals may be uncomfortable with the thought of confiding in a chatbot, but the Silicon Valley firm refers to research that show consumers prefer confiding in a nonjudgmental computer.
Getting rid of garbage
AI isn’t a sure thing when it comes to saving the environment.
According to University of Massachusetts researchers, training a single algorithm system may utilise approximately five times the emissions created by a car during its lifetime.
However, AI is improving a wide range of industrial operations, from cement manufacturing to data centre cooling.
It might also be used to cut down on how much rubbish we send to landfills.
Greyparrot, a British firm, utilises artificial intelligence to recognise different forms of garbage travelling down a conveyor belt, selecting out recyclables from plastic to glass better than current equipment.
Roads that are safer
Could artificial intelligence help to prevent car accidents? Provizio, an Irish firm, is creating technology that analyses data from automotive sensors using machine learning.
Its creator, Barry Lunn, thinks that in the future, emergency braking systems will be able to engage 10 times faster than before.
Creating code
The day when AI rejects all human assistance in favour of generating its own computer code is closer than you would believe.
Copilot, a collaborative effort between software development site GitHub and research centre OpenAI, was one of the hot topics in Lisbon this week.
The programme understands the intentions of the human software engineer and can auto-complete sections of code.
However, according to New York University experts, machines still require our assistance: roughly 40% of the time, the programming has errors.
Deepfakes
Deepfake technology, in which amazingly lifelike likenesses of live people can be made to respond how the developer wishes, has sparked increased concern in recent years.
Deepfakes purporting to represent star Tom Cruise went popular this year, raising new concerns about the technology’s potential for fraud and even political influence.
Reface, a Ukrainian-founded firm in the United States, seeks to harness deepfake AI for more amusing purposes, allowing users to exchange Justin Bieber’s or the Mona Lisa’s heads for their own.
Co-founder Ivan Altsybieiev, on the other hand, envisions a future in which people can create entire remakes of their favourite TV shows starring themselves.
He described a “future in which every material may be personalised” to AFP.
