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Is AI taking over traditional procurement practices?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere. It’s taking questions from clients, running assembly lines and is now pretty much part of every appliance in every house and is also an integral part of industry. In fact, in the attached article, Joe McNamara, global director of IT for food giant Kraft-Heinz details how he has implemented AI as a vital source for manufacturing and procurement across his company. Recently, Ruomeng Cui an Assistant Professor in the Department of Information System and Operations Management at the Goizueta Business School, Emory University along with colleagues from Rutgers University and Tianjin University, authored a paper regarding how Artificial Intelligence will be playing an expanded role in areas like procurement and how it will increase accuracy and efficiency for businesses on a global scale. If you’re looking to learn more about this topic – then let us help with your questions or coverage. Ruomeng Cui investigates how operations strategies create value in digital retail and platform markets. Professor Cui is available to speak with media regarding this topic – simply click on her icon to arrange an interview.
Artificial Intelligence Playing a Powerful Role in Understanding and Fighting COVID-19
Artificial intelligence is emerging as a powerful new ally in tracking COVID-19, modeling the virus at the molecular level, and analyzing the myriad research results being published daily. James Hendler, the Tetherless World Professor of Computer, Web, and Cognitive Sciences at Rensselaer, and director of the Rensselaer Institute of Data Exploration and Applications, is leading campus efforts to marshal AI resources for the purpose of battling the virus. “The bottom line is that, at heart, dealing with COVID-19 is a ‘big data’ problem, and AI is a crucial tool in the big data toolkit,” Hendler said. For example, IDEA and the Rensselaer Libraries have collaborated to maintain lists of COVID-19-related data sources and scholarly research publications. AI is being used to translate literally thousands of scientific insights from text-based research products into forms that can more easily be analyzed. Hendler and other Rensselaer AI experts are also involved in studying the spread of the virus under different policy measures at the local, then state and national, and ultimately global scale. Additionally, Rensselaer is part of the national COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium, which is offering researchers access to supercomputers for COVID-19 research. In addition to AiMOS, the most powerful supercomputer housed at a private university, Rensselaer is offering access to the expertise of world-class faculty, including in artificial intelligence. Hendler said AiMOS is one of the few facilities that can truly offer a platform optimized for artificial intelligence computing. “AI has helped us achieve an excellent understanding of the coronavirus and its interactions at the molecular level. That’s going to make it possible not only to model the virus, but also how it will interact with potential drug targets and vaccines,” said Hendler. “A platform like AiMOS is invaluable for molecular modeling in drug discovery, helping scientists cope with a huge and rapidly changing literature, and exploring means to model, and then mitigate, the spread of the disease. These are the kinds of things that modern AI can do.” Hendler has authored over 400 books, technical papers and articles in the areas of Semantic Web, artificial intelligence, agent-based computing and high performance processing. One of the originators of the “Semantic Web,” Hendler is the former Chief Scientist of the Information Systems Office at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and was awarded a US Air Force Exceptional Civilian Service Medal. Among other organizations, he is a member of the National Academies Board on Research Data and Information, a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, and he serves as chair of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) U.S. technology policy committee.
Introducing AiMOS, The Most Powerful Supercomputer at a Private University
The most powerful supercomputer to debut on the November 2019 Top500 ranking of supercomputers, also the most powerful supercomputer in New York State, was recently unveiled at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Center for Computational Innovations (CCI). Part of a collaboration between IBM, Empire State Development (ESD), and NY CREATES, the eight petaflop IBM POWER9-equipped AI supercomputer is configured to help enable users to explore new AI applications and accelerate economic development from New York’s smallest startups to its largest enterprises. AiMOS is: The most powerful supercomputer housed at a private university. The 24th most powerful supercomputer in the world. The third-most energy efficient supercomputer in the world. Named AiMOS (short for Artificial Intelligence Multiprocessing Optimized System) in honor of Rensselaer co-founder Amos Eaton, the machine will serve as a test bed for the New York State-IBM Research AI Hardware Center, which opened on the SUNY Polytechnic Institute (SUNY Poly) campus in Albany earlier this year. The AI Hardware Center aims to advance the development of computing chips and systems that are designed and optimized for AI workloads to push the boundaries of AI performance. AiMOS will provide the modeling, simulation, and computation necessary to support the development of this hardware. “The established expertise in computation and data analytics at Rensselaer, when combined with AiMOS, will enable many of our research projects to make significant strides that simply were not possible on our previous platform,” said Christopher Carothers, director of the CCI and professor of computer science at Rensselaer. “Our message to the campus and beyond is that, if you are doing work on large-scale data analytics, machine learning, AI, and scientific computing, then it should be running at the CCI.” Built using the same IBM Power Systems technology as the world’s smartest supercomputers, the US Dept. of Energy’s Summit and Sierra supercomputers, AiMOS uses a heterogeneous system architecture that includes IBM POWER9 CPUs and NVIDIA GPUs. This enables AiMOS with a capacity of eight quadrillion calculations per second. You can watch Rensselaer President Shirley Ann Jackson talk about AiMOS here: Chris Carothers is the director of the Center for Computational Innovations (CCI) at Rensselaer. He is available to speak with media about AiMOS and what it can enable – simply click on his icon to arrange an interview.
It's time to face the reality about the future of artificial intelligence
According to research from International Data Corporation, revenues for big data and business analytics solutions are forecasted to reach $260 billion in 2022. An increase in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) will result in $2.9 trillion of business value by 2030, according to a study by Gartner. “Progressive thinking businesses and organizations cannot afford to ignore the growing applications of artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics,” says Michael Ratajczyk, the program director for B.A. and M.S. Business Intelligence and Data Analytics programs at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota. “Sometimes machines can do it better than humans. As people say, machines don’t sleep, they don’t take vacation, they don’t get sick, and they don’t go on camping trips. They do what they’re told and a machine can do the work with far more precision — and without 20 years of training.” AI is here to stay, and it will be up to businesses and humans to adapt, adopt, and adjust to the future — especially in the areas of agriculture, transportation, and health care, where there is great potential for growth. “Businesses can’t afford to ignore AI to remain competitive, and students can’t afford to not keep up with AI trends either,” according to Ratajczyk. “Soon AI will be addressed in all business classes. It’s true that sometimes people can be replaced by machines, and that can be good for businesses and bad for employees. There will always be a need for those who can program AI software, and to prepare, analyze, interpret the data and, importantly, there needs to be a balance between technology and the human touch.” There’s a lot to learn about AI and how it will play a role in very near future. So, if you are a reporter covering this topic — then let our experts help. Michael Ratajczyk works with both undergraduate and graduate business intelligence and data analytics students at Saint Mary’s University. He’s an expert in the field and is available to help with any of your coverage or questions. To book an interview with Michael, simply click on his icon to arrange a time.
What Are IDC's Top 10 Canadian ICT Predictions for 2020? Attend our Webinar to Find Out
Watch a sneak preview video for our upcoming Canadian ICT Predictions 2020 Complimentary Webinar Wednesday Dec 4, 2019 12PM - 1PM EST The countdown leading up to our Canadian ICT Predictions 2020 is on. We're less than a week away from unveiling top 10 predictions that will impact the ability of Canadian organizations to compete and grow in 2020. We're excited to present what's next for Canadian technology to help you strategize for next three years and beyond. We'll cover fact-based predictions for AI, edge solutions and what technologies will be considered the norm for digital businesses. We'll also explore how automation will reshape the Canadian workforce, what's likely to happen with 5G, and much more. We'd love for you to join us live. Don't Miss Out! Register Today If Wednesday, December 4, 2019 doesn't work with your calendar, register now and we'll send you a link to watch the webinar replay.
This past October, the FCC began to explore opening up 1,200 megahertz of spectrum in the 6 GHz band for different types of unlicensed uses. This band is currently populated by microwave services that are used to support utilities, public safety, and wireless backhaul. Studies show that sharing this band with unlicensed operations is feasible—and can put massive amounts of new spectrum into the hands of consumers. Unlicensed innovator Claus Hetting of WI-FI NOW said, “This is without a doubt the single biggest opportunity in Wi-Fi—and probably in wireless—in a generation.” He added, “This 6 GHz spectrum boost will launch the Wi-Fi industry into a new growth trajectory.” Circuit Seed is aiming to have the best of both worlds: protect today’s incumbent users of the band while turbocharging the Wi-Fi networks and applications of the future. While this is good news for Wi-Fi, it will not work without adequate filtering to split this super wide frequency allocation into sub-bands. Ceramic filters will be able to do that, but it will be static. If an enterprise or a home wants smart frequency allocation with some ‘AI’ behind it, dynamic low loss filtering is a must. Circuit Seed’s 100% digital process for analog signal processing is an ideal solution for high performance filtering with low noise and low signal loss.
How are Governments Using Artficial Intelligence? How are They Misusing AI?
There has been a lot of talk about artificial intelligence – who is using it, how it works, and what it will lead to. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute professor James Hendler – who was recently named to the newly formed Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Technology Policy Council – penned a piece for The Conversation outlining the danger A.I. could pose to American society if there is not enough oversight. Here are some excerpts: “Artificial intelligence systems can – if properly used – help make government more effective and responsive, improving the lives of citizens. Improperly used, however, the dystopian visions of George Orwell’s “1984” become more realistic. On their own and urged by a new presidential executive order, governments across the U.S., including state and federal agencies, are exploring ways to use AI technologies. As an AI researcher for more than 40 years, who has been a consultant or participant in many government projects, I believe it’s worth noting that sometimes they’ve done it well – and other times not quite so well. The potential harms and benefits are significant...” “...Other government uses of AI are being questioned, too – such as attempts at 'predictive policing,' setting bail amounts and criminal sentences and hiring government workers. All of these have been shown to be susceptible to technical issues and data limitations that can bias their decisions based on race, gender or cultural background. Other AI technologies such as facial recognition, automated surveillance and mass data collection are raising real concerns about security, privacy, fairness and accuracy in a democratic society....” “...As the use of AI technologies grows, whether originally well-meant or deliberately authoritarian, the potential for abuse increases as well. With no currently existing government-wide oversight in place in the U.S., the best way to avoid these abuses is teaching the public about the appropriate uses of AI by way of conversation between scientists, concerned citizens and public administrators to help determine when and where it is inappropriate to deploy these powerful new tools.” Are you a reporter covering AI? Then let us help with your stories and ongoing coverage. Professor James Hendler is the Director of the Institute for Data Exploration and Applications at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is available to speak with media – simply click on his icon to arrange an interview.
Responding to increased pressure, Facebook has "doubled down" on identifying and removing posts by online extremists and the groups they use to share content. As noted in a recent NBC News article, these increased efforts include using artificial intelligence and machine learning to proactively identify and remove posts and groups that break the rules, and promoting tools that would hold group administrators more accountable for posted content." Megan Squire is a professor of computer science who has conducted extensive research tracking connections between online hate groups and how they leverage social media platforms to recruit new members and spread propaganda. Squire told NBC News that she's skeptical that even these more high-tech efforts will meaningfully curtail the activity of online extremists. “Same stuff, different day,” Squire told NBC News. “Just in the past month, I reported groups calling for a global purge of Islam, extermination of people based on religion, and calling for violence through a race war, and Facebook’s response was that none of these groups was a violation of community standards.” If Dr. Squire can assist with your reporting about social media and online extremism, please reach out to Owen Covington, director of the Elon University News Bureau, at ocovington@elon.edu or (336) 278-7413. Dr. Squire is available for phone, email and broadcast interviews.
Meet Your Newest Job Recruiter, the Algorithm – let our experts explain
Equal employment opportunities may not be part of a computer’s calculations, but one engineer from is trying to change that. When you apply for a job, chances are your resume has been through numerous automated screening processes powered by hiring algorithms before it lands in a recruiter’s hands. These algorithms look at things like work history, job title progression and education to weed out resumes. There are pros and cons to this – employers are eager to harness the artificial intelligence (AI) and big data captured by the algorithms to speed up the hiring process. But depending on the data used, automated hiring decisions can be very biased. “Algorithms learn based on data sets, but the data is generated by humans who often exhibit implicit bias,” explains Swati Gupta, an industrial engineering researcher at Georgia Tech who’s work focuses on algorithmic fairness. “Our hope is that we can use machine learning with rigorous mathematical analysis to fix the bias in areas like hiring, lending and school admissions.” But as algorithms harness speed and efficiency – how can they be adjusted to include and consider race, gender and other human factors? It’s an area Dr. Gupta has been researching and refining. If you are a reporter or journalist looking to cover this topic – that’s where our experts can help. Dr. Swati Gupta is an Assistant Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. Dr. Gupta is an expert in the areas of optimization, machine learning, and bias and fairness within the AI sphere. She is available to speak with media regarding this topic - simply click on her icon to arrange an interview.
The Gun Control Debate is at a Stalemate. Can Smarter Weapons Help to Solve it?
The gun control debate is at a stalemate. America seems incapable of finding common ground on background checks, waiting periods, weapons registries and restrictions or bans on select weapons. Shooting after shooting has resulted in decades of debate but little substantive change. But Professor Selmer Bringsjord from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, who recently weighed in on the issue, presented a concept that could turn the entire topic on its head by using artificial intelligence. Bringsjord accepts that America won’t get rid of its guns – so why not just make our guns smarter? Ethically AI-enabled weapons can put American politicians back to work by shifting the debate from the weapons we should ban, to the targets we will accept. Do we allow guns to kill school children, shoppers, concert-goers? The technology of ethical AI changes the conversation. His idea was just recently published in the Times Union: “Yet there is a solution, a technological alternative to the fruitless shouting match between politicians: namely, AI — of an ethical sort. Guns that are at once intelligent and ethically correct can put an end to the mass-shooting carnage. Consider the rifle apparently used by the human killer in the El Paso Walmart shooting. But now suppose that time is turned back to before his shots were fired on Aug. 3, and that his rifle, radically unlike the stupid one that killed, is both intelligent and ethical. This alternate-future rifle would know that it's approaching the Walmart by car and would accordingly know that it has no business being used anytime soon. Move forward in time a bit; the rifle is now in the hands of the aspiring, ear-muffed killer outside his car; but his weapon has fully disengaged itself and is locked into a mode of utter uselessness with the finality of a sealed bank vault. On the other hand, the guns in the hands of law enforcement officers who have dashed on scene know in whose hands they rest, and accordingly know that if they are trained on the would-be killer, they have every right to work well, if this criminal reveals some new threat. Notice: If people who don't actually pose a threat sufficient to warrant being shot by police can't be shot by smart, ethical guns, a fact that could lead to the welcome evaporation of a different but also vitriolic political shouting match.” -Times Union, August 16, 2019 Could AI be the answer to America’s gun problem? It’s truly a new perspective on an old issue. If you are a reporter covering this topic, let our experts help with your story. Dr. Selmer Bringsjord is the Chair of the Department of Cognitive Science expert in logic and philosophy, specializing in AI and reasoning. Dr. Bringsjord regularly speaks with media about AI and is available to speak about the concept of intelligent, ethical guns. Simply click on his icon to arrange an interview.
