Legislation introduced Monday would direct the Consumer Product Safety Commission to run a pilot using artificial intelligence to protect consumers from unsafe products. Introduced by Reps. Jerry McNerney, D-Calif., and Michael Burgess, R-Texas, the AI for Consumer Product Safety Act would allow four options for the program: track consumer product injury trends, identify consumer product hazards, monitor recalled products or examine products not admitted into customs territory.
IBM is working with the U.S. Tennis Association on new artificial intelligence-based viewer experiences using its hybrid cloud technologies that are designed to engage fans during the U.S. Open Monday through Sept. 13 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, New York. It's the first U.S. Open to be held without fans on-site. The IBM technologies, available on the U.S. Open app for Android and iOS devices, will enable fans to engage in debate and get player insights “in narrative form” about matchups during the Grand Slam tournament, said the company. Open Questions with Watson Discovery uses natural language processing to gather relevant information for fans before each match, IBM said. The company also tapped its AI Highlights technology to recreate crowd sounds gleaned from hundreds of hours of video footage captured during last years' tournament. In past years, AI Highlights used Watson to analyze video footage and rank the excitement level of each clip to compile a highlight reel in near-real time and classify specific crowd reactions, including crowd roar, to give each clip a crowd reaction score. The insight will be used this year to dynamically serve sounds based on similar play from last year, IBM said. Its AI Sounds tools will be available to the production teams in the stadium and at ESPN. A hybrid IBM cloud architecture will enable remote operations to function seamlessly: USTA statisticians who would normally be courtside, providing stats for each point live, will now be offsite watching each match on low-latency feeds, delivering game stats "as if they were onsite."
The U.S. will spend more than $1 billion to establish 12 artificial intelligence and quantum information science (QIS) research institutes, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced Wednesday (see 1911200040). The investment will create seven National Science Foundation AI Research Institutes and five Energy Department QIS Research Centers over five years. The University of Oklahoma; University of Texas at Austin; University of Colorado Boulder; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; University of California, Davis and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will host the AI Research Institutes. DOE’s Argonne, Brookhaven, Fermi, Oak Ridge and Lawrence Berkeley National laboratories will help establish the QIS Research Centers. “Emerging technologies like AI and QIS will lead to transformative benefits for the American people in healthcare, communications, manufacturing, agriculture, transportation, security, and beyond,” said U.S. Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Chris Liddell in a joint statement.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology on Tuesday requested comment for developing principles for explainable artificial intelligence. NIST is accepting public comment on its draft document, Four Principles of Explainable Artificial Intelligence, until Oct. 15. The principles are: AI systems should include evidence or reasons for outputs; include meaningful explanations; explanations should correctly reflect system process for generating output; and systems should only operate “under conditions for which it was designed or when the system reaches a sufficient confidence in its output.”
The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence scheduled its first public meeting July 20. The meeting will be via webcast, the commission said. It’s anticipated to begin at 1:30 p.m. EDT. Further details are expected Wednesday. The group sought comment in late May on its final report on ensuring U.S. competitiveness in AI, machine learning and other emerging technologies (see 2005280054).
The federal government should create national artificial intelligence “testbeds” to secure industry investment and expand research, members of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology recommended, per an Office of Science and Technology Policy announcement Wednesday. A PCAST industries of the future subcommittee submitted recommendations Tuesday to be approved by the full council. It recommended federal partnerships with industry to “deploy AI applications at scale, novel academia-industry AI partnership models, and ‘AI Fellow-in-Residence’ positions in Federal agencies.”
A bipartisan, bicameral group introduced Thursday legislation to establish “a task force to develop a roadmap for a national artificial intelligence research resource.” The National AI Research Resource Task Force Act was introduced by Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif.; Anthony Gonzalez, R-Ohio; and Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J.; and Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Martin Heinrich, D-N.M. The bill would convene technical experts to “develop a detailed plan for how the U.S. can build, deploy, govern, and sustain a national research cloud,” Eshoo’s office said.
Sensory developed a face and voice biometric platform to recognize users wearing masks, it said Tuesday: With the “new normal” requiring people to wear masks to avoid spreading the coronavirus, many smartphones’ facial recognition systems can’t detect a user’s face. Sensory’s solution adds a voice backup: when faces are partially obstructed, the voice biometric gives the “extra confidence” needed for secure access, it said. Users enroll the face and voice, for use with a mask on or off; the software applies the appropriate template to ensure accurate recognition in all conditions, it said. A SoundID component recognize noises such as coughs and sneezes that can notify users they are around people who are sick, it said.
Congress should direct the National Institute for Standards and Technology to develop an artificial intelligence risk management framework, tech groups wrote Monday. BSA|The Software Alliance, the Computing Technology Industry Association, CTA, Information Technology Information Council and U.S. Chamber Technology Engagement Center urged Congress to include such language in the FY 2021 Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. Such a framework would reaffirm U.S. AI leadership, the groups wrote to House Science Subcommittee Chairman Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., and ranking member Robert Aderholt, R-Ala. The U.S. “must stake out a leadership position in ensuring that the technology is being developed in a trustworthy and accountable manner,” the groups wrote.
The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence seeks comment by Sept. 30 for its final report on ensuring U.S. competitiveness in AI, machine learning and other emerging technologies. The FY 2019 National Defense Authorization Act tasked the group with assessing ways to ensure U.S. competitiveness in those technologies, ways to increase investment, workforce training and national security risks. The report is due March, said Thursday's Federal Register.