President Joe Biden signed into law a bill that creates a training program for federal employees buying and managing AI technology. Introduced by Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Gary Peters, D-Mich., and ranking member Rob Portman, R-Ohio, the Artificial Intelligence Training for the Acquisition Workforce Act (S-2551) is supposed to help federal employees better understand ethical and national security risks associated with AI. The new program will “train our procurement professionals about the ins and outs of AI so they can discern which AI systems are useful to the government and which are not,” said Portman.
The National AI Advisory Committee of the National Institute of Standards and Technology plans an open hybrid meeting Oct. 12-13, beginning each day at 9 a.m. PDT. Members “will discuss how to direct their input into actionable recommendations” to the president and the National AI Initiative Office, said a notice in Monday’s Federal Register. Registration is required for those planning to attend in person at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, but not for watching the meeting online, it said. A final agenda will be posted at the committee’s website, it said. Oct. 5 is the deadline for comments to be considered at the meeting, it said.
Global AI market revenue, including software, hardware and services, totaled $383.3 billion in 2021, a 20.7% increase from 2020, reported IDC Monday. IDC expects the AI market value will reach nearly $450 billion in 2022 and maintain a year-over-year growth rate in the high teens throughout the five-year forecast period ending in 2026, it said. "Across all industries and functions, end-user organizations are discovering the benefits of AI technologies, as increasingly powerful AI solutions are enabling better decision-making and higher productivity," said IDC analyst Rasmus Andsbjerg. “AI can be a source for fast-tracking digital transformation journeys, enable cost savings in times of staggering inflation rates and support automation efforts in times of labor shortages."
Comments are due Sept. 29 for the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s second draft of its AI risk management framework (see 2201270058), NIST announced Thursday. The framework provides voluntary guidance for addressing “risks in the design, development, use, and evaluation of AI products, services, and systems,” the agency said.
IKEA launched an AI-based digital design tool to help customers visualize furnishings in their own homes. IKEA Kreativ, developed by Geomagical Labs, Mountain View, California, uses spatial computing, machine learning and 3D mixed reality technologies, allowing customers to envision IKEA products in their home using a smartphone or computer. Shoppers take a photo of their room with their phones, and the design software automatically processes and assembles the photo into a wide-angle, interactive replica of the space, with accurate dimensions and perspective, the company said Wednesday. Customers can “erase” existing furniture from the scene, position new IKEA furnishings and swap through alternatives. After creating an IKEA account, users can add products to their virtual shopping cart, save design ideas for later and share ideas with others. The virtual rooms are stored in the cloud and can be “designed from anywhere,” IKEA said.
AI is coming to consumer devices at scale, said ABI Research Wednesday, predicting that over 2 billion devices with machine learning and inference will ship by 2027. Currently, the processes of inference and learning that form the backbone of AI typically take place on servers, “far removed from consumers,” said ABI. Recent frameworks of federated, distributed and few-shot learning can be deployed on consumers’ devices that have lower compute and power requirements, it said. With few-shot learning, an individual smartphone “would be able to learn from the data that it is itself collecting,” said analyst David Lobina. That would eliminate the need for uploading data to a cloud server, “making for more secure and private data,” he said. Devices can also be highly personalized and localized since they possess “high situational awareness and better understanding of the local environments," he said.
AMD is using Elliptic Labs' AI Virtual Smart Sensor Platform in select PCs and laptops with its Ryzen Pro 5000 Series processors. The smart sensor platform will enable presence detection, 3D touchless gesture recognition, and heartbeat and respiratory monitoring on PCs with AMD platforms, said the companies Monday. The AI Virtual Smart Sensor Platform uses algorithms, machine learning and sensor fusion to create the virtual sensors, which are less expensive to produce and less reliant on precious metals for manufacturing, they said.
Europe's AI policy should be clearer on what uses are barred, said the Computer & Communications Industry Association Tuesday. The European Commission's proposed Artificial Intelligence Act (see 2108070001) is a "good starting point," but several provisions need tweaking, a CCIA position paper said. Among other concerns is that the definition of AI system is too broad and could encompass almost all modern software systems: "This broad definition, in conjunction with the vague categorization of 'high risk' AI, will overburden companies with compliance measures." Other criticisms included: AI use case prohibitions must be "very targeted" to ensure they don't inadvertently sweep in other uses; and the ban on remote biometric identification systems must clarify that it doesn't cover identity verification technology (facial recognition) used for such things as verifying customers when processing mobile payments. CCIA also criticized the way the draft law predetermines "high-risk" AI uses, saying that could hamper innovation and create a burdensome preapproval process for already heavily regulated systems or processes. Whether an AI use qualifies as high risk should be "based on its foreseeable impact" on people, and its capacity to make final decisions that materially risk their fundamental rights or health and safety, the paper said. It urged the EC to avoid imposing too many mandatory requirements for trustworthy AI on companies seeking to place systems on the European market.
Camect optimized its video surveillance analytics software on 11th-generation Intel Core processors to enable simultaneous AI processing on more cameras, said the company Monday. Camect smart camera hubs with the optimized chips can process analytics for up to a dozen 4K cameras or 48 HD cameras, the company said. Its AI detects events of interest observed by video cameras and provides accurate and informative alerts, it said. The company’s hubs analyze all video data locally at the edge of the network vs. sending data to the cloud, which helps preserve privacy, Camect said.
Cosmetics tech company Perfect is working with Smashbox Cosmetics on AI-powered face analyzer technology that automatically detects the shape of a user’s eyes, using a live camera feed, then recommends palettes and eye looks created by makeup professionals, they said Tuesday. The companies called the partnership a “step forward in the evolution of retail technology, solving the challenge of bringing traditional off-line experiences online through the implementation of experiential [augmented reality] and AI.”