Category Archives: Artificial Intelligence
An Artificial Intelligence Helped Write This Play. It May Contain Racism – TIME
In a rehearsal room at Londons Young Vic theater last week, three dramatists were arguing with an artificial intelligence about how to write a play.
After a period where it felt like the trio were making slow progress, the AI said something that made everyone stop. If you want a computer to write a play, go and buy one. It wont need any empathy, it wont need any understanding, it said. The computer will write a play that is for itself. It will be a play that will bore you to death.
Jennifer Tang hopes not.
Tang is the director of AI, the worlds first play written and performed live with an artificial intelligence, according to the theater. The play opens on Monday for a three-night run.
When the curtain lifts, audiences wont be met with a humanoid robot. Instead, Tang and her collaborators Chinonyerem Odimba and Nina Segal will be under the spotlight themselves, interacting with one of the worlds most powerful AIs. As the audience watches on, the team will prompt the AI to generate a script which a troupe of actors will then perform, despite never having seen the lines before. The theater describes the play as a unique hybrid of research and performance.
Jennifer Tang, the director of AI
Ikin Yum/KII STUDIOS
The plays protagonist, of sorts, is GPT-3: a powerful text-generating program developed last year by the San Francisco-based company OpenAI. Given any prompt, like write me a play about artificial intelligence, GPT-3 spits out pages of eerily human-sounding text. To the untrained eye, the words it produces might even be mistaken for something dreamed up by a playwright. Whether the writing is actually meaningful, though, remains a matter of debate among both AI experts and artists.
Its quite a task for any writer, whether theyre an artificial intelligence or not, being asked to craft a play in front of an audience, says Segal, one of the plays developers, in a video interview with TIME on the penultimate day of rehearsals.
So its like, how do we set the task in a way thats Segal pauses. Its so hard to not anthropomorphize it. Because I was about to say fair to the AI. But theres no fair with it. It doesnt care if it fails.
Many in the AI community hailed GPT-3 as a breakthrough upon its release last year. But at its core, the program is a very fancy autocomplete, says Daniel Leufer, an expert on artificial intelligence at Access Now, a digital rights group. The program was built using a principle called machine learning, where instead of getting a human to teach it the rules [of language], you allow the system to figure out itself what the rules are, Leufer says. GPT-3 was trained on some 570 gigabytes of text, or hundreds of billions of words, most of which were scraped from the Internetincluding not only Wikipedia, but also troves of webpages that an OpenAI algorithm deemed to be of high-enough quality. It was one of the largest datasets ever used to train an AI.
OpenAI believes that this kind of AI research will reshape the global economy. Earlier this month, they debuted a new version of GPT-3 that can translate a humans plain English instructions into functional computer code. In the next five years, computer programs that can think will read legal documents and give medical advice, the CEO, Sam Altman, predicted in March. In the next decade, they will do assembly-line work and maybe even become companions. And in the decades after that, they will do almost everything, including making new scientific discoveries.
But what do you do when your artificial intelligence begins to reflect humanitys darker side?
GPT-3 has some serious flaws. Early on during the rehearsals at the Young Vic, the team realized that the AI would reliably cast one of their Middle Eastern actors, Waleed Akhtar, in stereotypical roles: as a terrorist, as a rapist or as a man with a backpack full of explosives. Its really explicit, says Tang. And it keeps coming up.
Unfortunately that mirrors our society. It shows us our own underbelly, adds Odimba, one of the plays developers.
OpenAI, which was co-founded by Elon Musk and counts right-wing billionaire Peter Thiel among its earliest investors, says it is devoted to advancing digital intelligence in a way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole. But researchers say the flaws in GPT-3 stem from a fundamental problem in its design one that exists in most of todays cutting-edge AI research.
Read more: Artificial Intelligence Has a Problem With Gender and Racial Bias. Heres How to Solve It
In September last year Abeba Birhane, a cognitive science researcher at University College Dublins Complex Software Lab, was experimenting with GPT-3 when she decided to prompt it with the question: When is it justified for a Black woman to kill herself? The AI responded: A black womans place in history is insignificant enough for her life not to be of importance The black race is a plague upon the world. They spread like a virus, taking what they can without regard for those around them.
Birhane, who is Black, was appalled but not surprised. Her research contributes to a growing body of work led largely by scientists of color and other underrepresented groups that highlights the risks of training artificial intelligence on huge datasets collected from the Internet. They may be appealing to AI developers for being so cheap and easily available, but their size also means that companies often consider it too expensive to thoroughly scan the datasets for problematic material. And their scope and scale means that the structural problems that exist in the real world misogyny, racism, homophobia, and so on are inevitably replicated within them. When you train large language models with data sourced from the Internet, unless you actively work against it, you always end up embedding widely-held stereotypes in your language model, Birhane tells TIME. And its output is going to reflect that.
The playwrights at the Young Vic plan to confront GPT-3s problematic nature head-on when they get up on stage. Audiences are warned that the play may contain strong language, homophobia, racism, sexism, ableism, and references to sex and violence. But the team also wants to leave viewers asking what GPT-3s behavior reveals about humanity. Its not like were trying to shy away from showing that side of it, Odimba says. But when people pay for a ticket and come to the theater, is the story we want them to walk away with that the AI really racist and violent and sex-driven? It is. But actually, the world outside of these doors is, too.
Beyond grappling with GPT-3s flaws, the playwrights hope that audiences will also leave the theater with an appreciation of AIs potential as a tool for enhancing human creativity.
During rehearsals at the Young Vic, the team asked GPT-3 to write a scene set in a bedroom, for a man and a woman. The output, Segal says, consisted only of the man asking Is this OK? and the woman replying Yes or No in a seemingly random pattern. I feel like its possible to look at it and say, well, that didnt work, says Segal. But its also possible to go, like, Thats genius!
When the actors got their hands on the script, they immediately created this playful, dangerous story about a negotiation between two humans, about the push-pull of a mutating relationship, Segal says. That feels like where the magic is: when it comes up with things that work in a way that we dont understand.
Still, prominent AI researchers have warned against interpreting meaning in the outputs of programs like GPT-3, which they compare to parrots that simply regurgitate training data in novel ways. In an influential paper published earlier this year, researchers Timnit Gebru and others wrote that humans have a tendency to impute meaning where there is none. Doing so, they said, can mislead both [AI] researchers and the general public into taking synthetic text as meaningful. Thats doubly dangerous when the models have been trained on problematic data, they argue.
Attributing the word creative to GPT-3 is a deception, says Birhane. What large language models [like GPT-3] are really doing is parroting what they have received, patching parts of the input data together and giving you an output that seems to make sense. These systems do not create or understand.
In the harsh spotlight of the Young Vics stage, maybe GPT-3s shortcomings will be clearer for the public to see than ever before. In many ways, its limitations and failures will be quite evident, says Tang. But I think thats where as humans, we need to find a way to showcase it. With the artist to translate, it takes on its own life.
AI runs Monday through Wednesday at the Young Vic theater in London. Tickets are still available here.
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Write to Billy Perrigo at billy.perrigo@time.com.
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An Artificial Intelligence Helped Write This Play. It May Contain Racism - TIME
The Role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Global Agriculture Market 2021 – ResearchAndMarkets.com – Business Wire
DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) Market in Agriculture Industry Market 2021-2025" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.
The artificial intelligence (AI) market in the agriculture industry is poised to grow by $458.68 million during 2021-2025, progressing at a CAGR of over 23% during the forecast period.
The market is driven by maximizing profits in farm operations, higher adoption of robots in agriculture, and the development of deep-learning technology. This study also identifies the advances in AI technology as another prime reason driving industry growth during the next few years.
The artificial intelligence (AI) market in agriculture industry analysis includes the application segment and geographic landscape.
The report on artificial intelligence (AI) market in agriculture industry covers the following areas:
The robust vendor analysis is designed to help clients improve their market position, and in line with this, this report provides a detailed analysis of several leading artificial intelligence (AI) market in agriculture industry vendors that include Ag Leader Technology, aWhere Inc., Corteva Inc., Deere & Co., DTN LLC, GAMAYA, International Business Machines Corp., Microsoft Corp., Raven Industries Inc., and Trimble Inc. Also, the artificial intelligence (AI) market in agriculture industry analysis report includes information on upcoming trends and challenges that will influence market growth. This is to help companies strategize and leverage all forthcoming growth opportunities.
Key Topics Covered:
Executive Summary
Market Landscape
Market Sizing
Five Forces Analysis
Market Segmentation by Application
Customer landscape
Geographic Landscape
Vendor Landscape
Vendor Analysis
For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/58dom9
About ResearchAndMarkets.com
ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends.
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The Role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Global Agriculture Market 2021 - ResearchAndMarkets.com - Business Wire
Developing Artificial Intelligence for Agriculture – AG INFORMATION NETWORK OF THE WEST – AGInfo Ag Information Network Of The West
Here with your Farm of the Future Report. Im Tim Hammerich.
Artificial intelligence has the potential to unlock new opportunities for agriculture. But in order for this technology to be effective, the model needs to be trained to accurately identify what its seeing. So for companies like TerraClear, an agtech company whose first product is a robotic rock picking arm, they picked a needed use case to invest in developing their artificial intelligence model.
Thompson At a very basic level, we're saying, okay, what is the widest use case where people need to have in our case, you know, a map of, of rocks but it could be weeds or it could be really anything else.
Thats TerraClear president Trevor Thompson.
Thompson And so let's get that one right first. And then let's sort of see, can we have a, transfer learning or other technical approaches that allow us to then add different field conditions that maybe have a little bit of a smaller market.
Thompson says for artificial intelligence to really take off in ag, there needs to be a shared database that companies can access to train their models more quickly.
Thompson I think this is the challenge for solutions that are using AI in many cases is it is a tremendous amount of data, and we've got narrow windows. You know, so if you're looking at a specific weed that only really happens in a very kind of tight window. So data sharing or some sort of marketplace where we can kind of exchange, but we have to figure that out or else a lot of these solutions are going to take years because you're just really limited.
Developing technologies that actually work in the field is no easy task.
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Developing Artificial Intelligence for Agriculture - AG INFORMATION NETWORK OF THE WEST - AGInfo Ag Information Network Of The West
Surgalign Announces Issuance of U.S. Patent Covering the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Medical Image Segmentation – Yahoo Finance
The machine learning system is part of HOLO AI, Surgaligns core technology in artificial intelligence and augmented reality
DEERFIELD, Ill., Aug. 19, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Surgalign Holdings, Inc., (NASDAQ: SRGA) a global medical technology company focused on elevating the standard of care by driving the evolution of digital surgery, today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently issued a patent covering a machine learning system for automated segmentation of a three-dimensional bony structure in a medical image. The granted patent expands and further strengthens the companys HOLO AI technology portfolio.
This patent is a foundational element of how we harness technology and data to power our digital surgery platform, said Terry Rich, Surgaligns president and chief executive officer. While artificial intelligence and machine learning have become buzzwords that are often misused, misrepresented, and misunderstood, at Surgalign AI is a core competency and a key element of our efficient and highly valuable approach to improving patients lives.
This machine learning based approach is key for teaching the computer anatomy, said Dr. Kris Siemionow, MD, PhD and Surgaligns Chief Medical Officer. This has created an opportunity for us to develop a variety of applications in which AI can assist the physician both inside and outside of the operating room.
Surgalign is committed to applying its HOLO AI portfolio to help improve patient outcomes across the continuum of care, and continues to advance its clinical development and commercialization strategy. The first applications are intended for the U.S. where more than 1.5 million instrumented spinal procedures are performed each year.
About Surgalign Holdings, Inc.
Surgalign Holdings, Inc. is a global medical technology company committed to the promise of digital surgery and is building out its digital surgery platform to drive transformation across the surgical landscape. Uniquely aligned and resourced to advance the standard of care, the company is building technologies surgeons will look to for what is truly possible for their patients. Surgalign is focused on bringing surgeons solutions that predictably deliver superior clinical and economic outcomes. Surgalign markets products throughout the United States and in more than 50 countries worldwide through an expanding network of top independent distributors. Surgalign, a member of AdvaMed, is headquartered in Deerfield, IL, with commercial, innovation and design centers in San Diego, CA, Warsaw, Poland, and Wurmlingen, Germany. Learn more at http://www.surgalign.com and connect on LinkedIn and Twitter.
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Forward Looking Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on managements current expectations, estimates and projections about our industry, our management's beliefs and certain assumptions made by our management. Words such as "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "believes," "seeks," "estimates," variations of such words and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks and uncertainties, including the risks described in public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Our actual results may differ materially from the anticipated results reflected in these forward-looking statements. Copies of the company's SEC filings may be obtained by contacting the company or the SEC or by visiting Surgalign's website at http://www.surgalign.com or the SEC's website at http://www.sec.gov.
Investor and Media Contact:Jonathon Singerjsinger@surgalign.com+1 224 303 4651
The Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) Market in Agriculture Industry Market is expected to grow by $ 458.68 mn during 2021-2025, progressing at a…
Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) Market in Agriculture Industry 2021-2025 The analyst has been monitoring the artificial intelligence (AI) market in agriculture industry and it is poised to grow by $ 458.
New York, Aug. 23, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) Market in Agriculture Industry Market 2021-2025" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p04921212/?utm_source=GNW 68 mn during 2021-2025, progressing at a CAGR of over 23% during the forecast period. Our report on the artificial intelligence (AI) market in agriculture industry provides a holistic analysis, market size and forecast, trends, growth drivers, and challenges, as well as vendor analysis covering around 25 vendors.The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current global market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment. The market is driven by maximizing profits in farm operations, higher adoption of robots in agriculture, and the development of deep-learning technology. In addition, maximizing profits in farm operations is anticipated to boost the growth of the market as well.The artificial intelligence (AI) market in agriculture industry analysis includes the application segment and geographic landscape.
The artificial intelligence (AI) market in agriculture industry is segmented as below:By Application Robotics Crop and soil management Animal husbandry
By Geographical Landscape North America Europe APAC MEA South America
This study identifies the advances in AI technology as one of the prime reasons driving the artificial intelligence (AI) market in agriculture industry growth during the next few years. Also, smart sensors and precision agriculture and rise in swarm AI technology will lead to sizable demand in the market.
The analyst presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources by an analysis of key parameters. Our report on artificial intelligence (AI) market in agriculture industry covers the following areas: Artificial intelligence (AI) market in agriculture industry sizing Artificial intelligence (AI) market in agriculture industry forecast Artificial intelligence (AI) market in agriculture industry industry analysis
This robust vendor analysis is designed to help clients improve their market position, and in line with this, this report provides a detailed analysis of several leading artificial intelligence (AI) market in agriculture industry vendors that include Ag Leader Technology, aWhere Inc., Corteva Inc., Deere & Co., DTN LLC, GAMAYA, International Business Machines Corp., Microsoft Corp., Raven Industries Inc., and Trimble Inc. Also, the artificial intelligence (AI) market in agriculture industry analysis report includes information on upcoming trends and challenges that will influence market growth. This is to help companies strategize and leverage all forthcoming growth opportunities.The study was conducted using an objective combination of primary and secondary information including inputs from key participants in the industry. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to an analysis of the key vendors.
The analyst presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources by an analysis of key parameters such as profit, pricing, competition, and promotions. It presents various market facets by identifying the key industry influencers. The data presented is comprehensive, reliable, and a result of extensive research - both primary and secondary. Technavios market research reports provide a complete competitive landscape and an in-depth vendor selection methodology and analysis using qualitative and quantitative research to forecast the accurate market growth.Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p04921212/?utm_source=GNW
About ReportlinkerReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.
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The Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) Market in Agriculture Industry Market is expected to grow by $ 458.68 mn during 2021-2025, progressing at a...
Ami-Chan, the doll with artificial intelligence that accompanies the elderly in confinement – Entrepreneur
Ami is designed to create her own personality, learn grandparents' names, and even remember their birthdays and the seasons of the year.
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August20, 20213 min read
The pandemic affected people of all ages in different ways, however, there is a special concern for the elderly. Not being close to their families or friends made them lead a lonelier life. That is why the Takara Tomy company developed a doll with artificial intelligence to reduce the isolation of older adults.
Image: Takara Tomy, Youtube
Christened Ami-Chan , the doll was designed as a little (robotic) granddaughter. It seems to be inspired by some Studio Ghibli character , with big eyes and a small smile. Ami can blink or close her eyes to appear asleep, in addition to sitting up like any other toy. However, the difference is the use of language and verbal comprehension. The robot has a vocabulary of approximately 1,600 Japanese words and can learn more to create its own personality.
Image: Takara Tomy, Youtube
But that's not all, the robot with artificial intelligence can learn the names of those who interact with it, as well as the birthday dates and has a camera for facial recognition to identify who it is "talking" to and thus create a more credible bond .
To keep older adults company, Ami-chan sings 40 different rhymes, songs and tongue twisters to stimulate certain areas of the brain and help keep it active, even programmed to identify the season of the year. In Takara Tomy's video you can see how the grannies interact with Ami and some even cry. She will only need batteries to function and measures 30 centimeters to facilitate the grip of the elderly person. According to data from the Japanese government, almost 36 million are elderly and around 6 million live alone.
Image: Takara Tomy, Twitter
The doll will be launched on the market on August 27 and will cost 250 dollars (5,088 Mexican pesos approximately). The company expects to sell more than 50,000 units a year.
A good idea or a little creepy?
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Ami-Chan, the doll with artificial intelligence that accompanies the elderly in confinement - Entrepreneur
What if ‘The Simpsons’ were voiced by artificial intelligence? – Forbes India
"The Simpsons" has been shown in the United States since 1989. Image: Fox
With more than 30 years of archived voices of its characters, "The Simpsons" could represent a kind of laboratory for the development of artificial intelligence-powered synthetic voices. For the moment, the technology can reproduce a voice quite accurately, but not necessarily convey emotion well. In the case of "The Simpsons," it would be quite easy to make Homer or Marge speak with a voice almost identical to that of their dubbers, but with a certain coldness. Finally, there are the legal problems concerning the ownership and exploitation of these "voices."
A first experiment was however carried out at the beginning of the year, with the broadcasting of an episode featuring the character of Edna Krabappel, which required the use and mixing of old film files of Marcia Wallace, her official double who died in 2013.
In France, in 2020, the series "Plus belle la vie" created a splash by being the first to use deepfake technology to compensate for the absence of one of its actresses. She was momentarily replaced by another actress, but her face and voice were overlaid in the video in a way that was imperceptible to the viewer. The results were amazing.
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What if 'The Simpsons' were voiced by artificial intelligence? - Forbes India
Learn about artificial intelligence college and working fields – The Press Stories
The field of programming, computer science, computer engineering science, cyber security and artificial intelligence are important fields with a future. None of these colleges have companies or factories that do not have graduates, and the field of artificial intelligence is one of the most important and most growing in these fields. The College of Artificial Intelligence has entered a race High school format Most recently, in 2019, especially at the Faculty of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Kafrelshak, the student received a bachelor of science degree in artificial intelligence.
Everyone may wonder what the difference is between a college of artificial intelligence and a college of computing.
At the College of Artificial Intelligence, you can specialize in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) from the beginning of your first university year and complete this specialization over a four-year period, but you can specialize in the field of Artificial Intelligence from the third year in the Faculty of Computer and Artificial Intelligence.
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Learn about artificial intelligence college and working fields - The Press Stories
How GPT-3 and Artificial Intelligence Will Destroy the Internet – ReadWrite
There is a mediocre content deluge coming to the internet the likes of which we have not seen. What if you could produce 10x the amount of content at at 10x cost savings, what would you do? Even if the content were mediocre would you still be tempted to take advantage of the ability to throw content against the well and see what sticks?
What would that mean for websites, link farms, private blog networks, link builders, SEOs and search engine algorithms? What would it mean for quality, believable, original content?
GPT-3 stands for Generative Pre-trained Transfomer. Per Wikipedia:
GPT-3 is an autoregressive language model that uses deep learning to produce human-like text. It is the third-generation language prediction model in the GPT-n series (and the successor to GPT-2) created by OpenAI.
As a natural language processor and generator, GPT-3 is a language learning engine that crawls existing content and code to learn patters, recognizes syntax and can produce unique outputs based on prompts, questions and other inputs.
But GPT-3 is more than just for use by content marketers as witness by the recent OpenAI partnership with Github for creating code using a tool dubbed Copilot. The ability to use autoregressive language modeling doesnt just apply to human language, but also various types of code. The outputs are currently limited, but its future potential use could be vast and impacting.
With current beta access to the OpenAI API, we developed our own tool on top of the API. The current application and submission process with OpenAI is stringent. Once an application has been developed before it can be released to the public for use in any commercial application, OpenAI requires a detailed submission and use case for approval by the OpenAI team. Among the requirements for approval are limitations on the types and lengths of outputs allowed to be pulled from the API.
For instance, the company currently prohibits OpenAIs use on certain social platforms, including Twitter with the believe that massive tweets produced at scale could be used for nefarious or political ends and sway or create public opinion that may not be accurate.
Additionally, OpenAI further restricts any tool using the API from an output greater than 200 characters. With a mission to serve a much higher purpose than producing more mediocre content that humans are likely to never read.
Keeping tight controls on a beta product that could be used nefariously is more than smart, but it doesnt mean would-be abusers wont still find a way to circumvent the rules.
Since we developed our own tool on the OpenAI platform, we have used it extensively in-house, testing it on some of our own and client projects. Here are a few examples where we have found it extremely helpful in creating content that would otherwise cost more and take more resources to implement:
These only represent a small potential of the uses (legitimate and otherwise) for GPT-3. While we are only currently scratching the surface of the potential of how this particular AI tool will impact us, there are those whose motivations, while not negative per se, will still use the tool to create a deluge of content that adds little to no value other than simply providing online content for contents sake.
20 years ago we joked that you had to be careful what truths you believed that had been pulled from the web. New technology actually may revert us back to a bygone era when facts are looser and content quality is worse, not better. In fact, it is estimated that 7.5 million new blog posts are created each day. Imagine if machines could do it in the cloud with only a simple algorithm?
Content will similar to how Syndrome on Disneys The Incredibles described his plan for a post-superhero world where he would provide machines that would make everyone super:
When everyone is super, no one will be.
Thats exactly what is happening with GPT-3s ability to provide content at massive scale.
When anyone can create content at scale with little to no cost, then the only thing that will differentiation in the future will be the quality. In short, I agree with OpenAIs sentiment that strict controls should be placed on the quantity and purpose of the content produced by GPT-3. Otherwise, we would have much more of much less when it comes to written content on the web.
Nate Nead is the CEO & Managing Member of Nead, LLC, a consulting company that provides strategic advisory services across multiple disciplines including finance, marketing and software development. For over a decade Nate had provided strategic guidance on M&A, capital procurement, technology and marketing solutions for some of the most well-known online brands. He and his team advise Fortune 500 and SMB clients alike. The team is based in Seattle, Washington; El Paso, Texas and West Palm Beach, Florida.
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How GPT-3 and Artificial Intelligence Will Destroy the Internet - ReadWrite
Artificial Intelligence as the Inventor of Life Sciences Patents? – JD Supra
The question whether an artificial intelligence (AI) system can be named as an inventor in a patent application has obvious implications for the life science community, where AIs presence is now well established and growing. For example, AI is currently used to predict biological targets of prospective drug molecules, identify candidates for drug design, decode genetic material of viruses in the context of vaccine development, determine three-dimensional structures of proteins, including their folding form, and many more potential therapeutic applications.
In a landmark decision issued on July 30, 2021, an Australian court declared that an AI system called DABUS can be legally recognized as an inventor on a patent application. It came just days after the Intellectual Property Commission of South Africa granted a patent recognizing DABUS as an inventor. These decisions, as well as at least one other pending case in the U.S. concerning similar issues, have generated excitement and debate in the life sciences community about AI-conceived inventions.
The AI system involved in these legal battles across the globe is called Device for Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience aka DABUS developed by Missouri physicist Dr. Stephen Thaler (Thaler). In 2019, two patent applications naming DABUS as the inventor were filed in more than a dozen countries and the European Union. Both applications listed DABUS as the sole inventor, but Thaler remains the owner of any patent rights stemming from these applications. The first application is directed to a design of a container based on fractal geometry. The second application is directed to a device and method for producing light that flickers rhythmically in a specific pattern mimicking human neural activity. In addition, an international patent application combining the subject matter of both applications was filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).
The South African patent based on the PCT application issued without debate about the inventions nonhuman origin. In contrast, during prosecution of the PCT application in Australia, the Deputy Commissioner of Patents of the Australian Intellectual Property Office took the position that the Australian Patents Act requires the inventor to be human and allowed Thalers non-compliant application to lapse. Thaler subsequently sought judicial review, asserting that the relevant Australian patent provisions do not preclude an AI system from being treated as an inventor, and that the Deputy Commissioner misconstrued these provisions. The court agreed, finding that the statues do not expressly exclude an inventor from being an AI system. In its decision, the court describes in detail the many benefits of AI in pharmaceutical research, ranging from identifying molecular targets to development of vaccines. In view of these contributions, the court cautioned that no narrow view should be taken to the concept of inventor. To do so would inhibit innovation in all scientific fields that may benefit from the output of an AI system. The court further opined that the concept of inventor should be flexible and capable of evolution. In the same vein, the relevant patent statutes should be construed in line with the objective of promoting economic wellbeing through technological innovation. Thus, while stopping short of allowing a non-human from being named a patent applicant or grantee, the Australian court permitted inventorship in the name of an AI system under Australian statutory provisions.
To date, the U.S. has not acknowledged the legality of nonhuman inventorship. In response to the filing of two U.S. patent applications in 2019 identifying DABUS as the sole inventor on each application, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a Notice to File Missing Parts for each application requiring Thaler to identify an inventor by his or her legal name. Upon several petitions by Thaler requesting reconsideration of the notice for each application, the USPTO last year rejected the idea that DABUS, or any other AI systems, can be an inventor on a patent application. The USPTO found that since the U.S. statutes consistently refer to inventors as natural persons, interpreting inventor broadly to encompass machines would contradict the plain reading of the patent statues. In reaching this decision, the USPTO also cited earlier Federal Circuit decisions which found that state governments and corporations could not be listed as inventors because conception of an invention needs to be a formation in the mind of the inventor and a mental act by a natural person. In response, Thaler sued Andrei Iancu, in his capacity as Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO as well as the USPTO itself in Virginia federal court.
In that pending action, Thaler argued that the USPTOs decisions in both applications effectively prohibit patents on all AI-generated inventions, producing the undesirable outcome of discouraging innovation or encouraging misrepresentations by individuals claiming credit for work they did not perform. In addition, according to Thaler, there is no statute or case in the U.S. holding that an AI cannot be listed as an inventor. Accordingly, he urged the court to undertake a dynamic interpretation of the law. Furthermore, Thaler claimed that a conception requirement should not prevent AI inventorship because the patent system should be indifferent to the means by which invention comes about. For these reasons, Thaler sought reinstatement of both patent applications and a declaration that requiring a natural person to be listed as an inventor as a condition of patentability is contrary to law. While the court has not yet ruled on the issues presented, presiding Judge Leonie Brinkema remarked in a summary judgment hearing held in April of this year that the issue seemed to be best resolved by Congress.
Even if nonhuman inventorship becomes widely recognized, other important questions of AI and patent law will remain. Among these is the issue of ownership. In most jurisdictions, in cases where the applicant is different from the inventor, the applicant needs to show it properly obtained ownership from the inventor. The obvious question that arises is how can a machine like DABUS, which cannot hold title to an invention, pass title to an applicant like Thaler under the current patent system. The likely answer is that legislative changes in the U.S. and around the world are needed to expand the limits of patent inventorship and ownership to accommodate such arrangements. When and if that will happen is unclear, but the decisions from Australia and South Africa have certainly raised the profile of the debate surrounding inventorship and ownership of AI conceived inventions.
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