Credit: N. Hanacek/NIST

August 6, 2020 | AI Kickoff WebinarThis webinar kicks off a NIST initiative involving private and public sector organizations and individuals in discussions about building blocks for trustworthy AI systems and the associated measurements, methods, standards, and tools to implement those building blocks when developing, using, and overseeing AI systems. NISTs effort will be informed by a series of workshops that will follow this initial session.August 18, 2020 | Bias in AI WorkshopThis workshop focuses on collectively facilitating the development of a shared understanding of bias in AI, what it is, and how to measure it. This online event will consist of collaborative panels and breakout sessions and will bring together experts from the public and private sectors to engage in important discussions about bias in AI.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming our world. Remarkable surges in AI capabilities have led to a number of innovations including autonomous vehicles and connected Internet of Things devices in our homes. AI is even contributing to the development of a brain-controlled robotic arm that can help a paralyzed person feel again through complex direct human-brain interfaces. These new AI-enabled systems are revolutionizing everything from commerce and healthcare to transportation and cybersecurity.

AI has the potential to impact nearly all aspects of our society, including our economy, but the development and use of the new technologies it brings are not without technical challenges and risks. AI must be developed in a trustworthy manner to ensure reliability, safety and accuracy.

NIST has a long-standing reputation for cultivating trust in technology by participating in the development of standards and metrics that strengthen measurement science and make technology more secure, usable, interoperable and reliable. This work is critical in the AI space to ensure public trust of rapidly evolving technologies, so that we can benefit from all that this field has to promise.

AI systems typically make decisions based on data-driven models created by machine learning, or the systems ability to detect and derive patterns. As the technology advances, we will need to develop rigorous scientific testing that ensures secure, trustworthy and safe AI. We also need to develop a broad spectrum of standards for AI data, performance, interoperability, usability, security and privacy.

NIST participates in interagency efforts to further innovation in AI. NIST Director and Undersecretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology Walter Copan serves on the White House Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence. Charles Romine, Director of NISTs Information Technology Laboratory, serves on the Machine Learning and AI Subcommittee.

A February 11, 2019,Executive Order on Maintaining American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence tasks NIST with developing a plan for Federal engagement in the development of technical standards and related tools in support of reliable, robust, and trustworthy systems that use AI technologies. For more information, see: https://www.nist.gov/topics/artificial-intelligence/ai-standards.

NIST research in AI is focused on how to measure and enhance the security and trustworthiness of AI systems. This includes participation in the development of international standards that ensure innovation, public trust and confidence in systems that use AI technologies. In addition, NIST is applying AI to measurement problems to gain deeper insight into the research itself as well as to better understand AIs capabilities and limitations.

The NIST AI program has two major goals:

The recently launched AI Visiting Fellowprogram brings nationally recognized leaders in AI and machine learning to NIST to share their knowledge and experience and to provide technical support.

Originally posted here:
Artificial intelligence | NIST

NEW YORK, July 06, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As companies transform digitally and infrastructure becomes more agile, the prospect of leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) has never been more promising. Questex today announces it has entered the AI marketplace, which is expected to reach $390.9 billion by 2025 (Grand View Research, Inc.).

Fierce AI will follow the established and successful Fierce content model and the first initiative will be a week-long virtual event focused exclusively on the application of AI to drive business, customer and process value for emerging and large enterprises. The event will offer a discuss, debate and define format of keynote presentations, vertical industry sessions and an AI Pitch Tank where start-up companies pitch new ideas, followed by a Fierce AI content site, newsletter and live events over time.

Scheduled to take place August 10-12, Fierce AI Week will deliver three days of presentations as well as tracks focused on electronics/manufacturing, healthcare, telecom/technology and biotech/pharma. Fierce AI Week will host dozens of speakers including thought leaders from a myriad of industries that will share real-world approaches to applying AI including machine learning, drug discovery and medical research. Fierce AI Week will gather C-level, technology, automation, marketing and AI specific professionals as well as investors and channel partners.

Fierce AI isthe first new market to launch through the new Fierce model.

We decided to enter this vertical due to market demand. Not only do we have a robust audience database in this area but we also have deep expertise in this topic through our other Fierce market brands, said Paul Miller, CEO, Questex. Our proprietary framework of deliveringworld-class content, strong audience interactionand identifying and launching events allows us to replicate and scale quickly into new verticals organically.

To register for Fierce AI Week, click here. For sponsorship and speaking opportunities, contact Rhiannon Jamesatrjames@questex.com.

About QuestexQuestex helps people live better and longer. Questexbrings people together in the markets that help peoplelive better:travel, hospitalityandwellness; the industries that help peoplelive longer:life scienceandhealthcare;and thetechnologiesthat enable and fuel thesenew experiences. We live in theexperience economy connectingourecosystem throughlive events, surrounded by data insights and digital communities. We deliver experience and real results.It happens here.

Media ContactKate SpellmanChief Marketing OfficerQuestexkspellman@questex.com212 895 8488

Read more here:
Questex Enters the Artificial Intelligence Information Market, the First Market to Launch through New Fierce Model - GlobeNewswire

Artificial intelligence (AI) is often at the heart of big blockbusters, as evidenced by the popularity of The Matrix and Terminator franchises. The Hollywood films typically envision scenarios in which sentient machines rise against their human masters. And though scientists are yet to develop machines that can truly think for themselves, many fear science-fiction could one day become science-reality.

Paul Begley, a Christian evangelist from West Lafayette in Indiana, US, believes fears of artificial intelligence can be addressed by reading the Bible.

Pastor Begley is the host of The Coming Apocalypse, a programme linking modern-day events to biblical scripture that is broadcast on some US TV channels.

During his latest broadcast, the preacher has bizarrely claimed AI technology is linked to biblical prophecies of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

He said: "Today we're going to be looking at AI technology; how it's becoming part of the biblical narrative; how that in the last days AI technology will be used to judge and convinct, and maybe even execute the human race.

READ MORE:Bubonic Plague: How infection 'was prophesied inBible'

"Given the power to the computer, to the electronics, to the all-seeing eye, are you serious?"

Although the Bible was penned long before the advent of electricity, pastor Begley is certain clues about the rise of AI are found in scripture.

He said humans are placing their confidence in machines rather than God, arguing the world has drastically changed.

Pastor Begley then read from the Bible, quoting a prophetic dream by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar.

The prophetic passage in question can be found in Daniel 2:31.

In the last days AI technology will be used to judge and convinct

Paul Begley, The Coming Apocalypse

Daniel 2 reads: "Your Majesty looked, and there before you stood a large statuean enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance.

"The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay.

"While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them

"Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were all broken to pieces and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer.

DON'T MISS...What does the Bible say about lunar eclipses? [INSIGHT]Did Sylvia Browne predict the coronavirus? [ANALYSIS]What does the Bible say about coronavirus? [INSIGHT]

"The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth."

In pastor Begley's opinion, the dream is a prophecy of changing technology and a blending of human and machine.

The evangelist then linked the prophecy to the Book of Revelation - the final chapters of the Bible that describe the end of the world.

Pastor Begley said: "We notice in the Book of Revelation it talks about an image, just like Nebuchadnezzar saw an image of the coming empires that would eventually fall - it was an image - so does John see an image of the beast of the Antichrist, and the Beast Kingdom that will also fall."

Revelation 13 reads: "Because of the signs it was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth.

"It ordered them to set up an image in honour of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived."

Pastor Begley said: "I don't need to be counterbalanced by technology when we've got what's called the Holy Spirit.

"We have the Word of God, we have the truth, we're told the things we should do, and the things we shouldn't do - it's pretty easy.

"And if you listen to your conscience, and you understand the Word, and you're being led by the Holy Ghost, you don't need to be monitored."

Most experts, however, will agree the Bible does not reference the rise of artificial intelligence in scripture.

Engineering student Bruce Gutman wrote on Quora: "If you twist interpretation to suit the propoganda then you can find everything in it."

Read more from the original source:
Artificial Intelligence: Has the Bible warned us against the rise of AI? - Express.co.uk

Researchers use the infamous Pizzagate story and Bridgegate controversy to investigate a made-up conspiracy compared to a real one.

LOS ANGELES From elaborate scientific hoaxes to clandestine government plots, conspiracy theories abound in this age of social media and internet forums. The speed at which these false narratives proliferate, and the profound effects they can have on real-world decision-making, have led professors at UCLA to further explore what differentiates a conspiracy theory from an actual conspiracy. By combining sophisticated artificial intelligence with insights about the way stories are structured, the study demonstrates how fragile the narrative framework of a conspiracy theory really is. Moreover, the research shows how easily the theory unravels when relatively few of its elements are removed.

The work is based on two clear target narratives. The first, known asPizzagate,is a debunked conspiracy theory that went viral in 2016. As a result, several high-ranking Democratic officials, including Hillary Clinton, were accused of running a human trafficking and child sex ring out of a Washington D.C. pizza restaurant. The second narrative, dubbed Bridgegate, is an actual conspiracy that took place in 2013. Thats when associates of then-governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, colluded to create massive traffic jams by closing access lanes to the George Washington Bridge in an attempt to punish one of his political opponents.

For the study, published in PLOS One, researchers turned to a form of artificial intelligence, called machine learning, in which computer algorithms improve automatically through experience. Using this tool, the group created an automated graphical model that analyzed three main structural components of the narratives: the actants (people, places, things), the relationships between actants, and the sequence of events involving the actants.

Data for the research comes from two online repositories at the UCLA library. For Bridgegate, the researchers drew from an archive of nearly 400 news reports. Locating solid source data for Pizzagate proved to be more challenging, however, due to the fragmentary nature in which conspiracy theories are often discussed. Overall, the team analyzed approximately 17,500 posts related to Pizzagate that had been archived from the discussion boards of social news aggregate websites, Reddit and Voat.

Finding narratives hidden in social media forums is like solving a huge jigsaw puzzle, with the added complication of noise, where many of the pieces are just irrelevant, says Vwani Roychowdhury, one of the papers lead authors, in a media release.

The AI allowed the researchers to sift through the massive amount of data generated by these posts in order to fit the pieces of the puzzle together and make a meaningful narrative. The resulting visual representation (right) illustrates clearly how each element of the narrative is connected. Nodes are created for each actant, lines depicting relationships between actants, and layers for each major subplot of the story.

Based on this graphical presentation, researchers were able to tease out differences between the conspiracy theory and the true conspiracy. The authors suggest that an actual conspiracy consists of a large number of densely interconnected actants that are confined to a single domain of human interaction, such as New Jersey politics in the case of Bridgegate. Even if an element of the story is removed from the framework, the narrative holds up because of their multiple points of connection.

By contrast, conspiracy theories have a more tenuous structure. They consist of a smaller number of essentially constant actants that have fewer connections across multiple domains. As a result, the deletion of any component of the framework leads to total collapse of the narrative.

One of the characteristics of a conspiracy theory narrative framework is that it is easily disconnected. If you take out one of the characters or story elements of a conspiracy theory, the connections between the other elements of the story fall apart, explains Timothy Tangherlini, a lead author.

Another difference the researchers uncovered between conspiracies and conspiracy theories was how quickly the narrative emerged and became stable. In the case of Pizzagate, the complete network of actants and relationships emerged within the first month and remained largely the same during the entire three-year data collection period. On the other hand, the entire cast of actants associated with Bridgegate took nearly six years to be fully described.

An important takeaway from this study is that its methods do not require comprehensive collections of pre-existing data. In fact, any number of internet resources can be mined for relevant information to a specific story. Thats because people interested in a particular topic tend to seek out similar forums and form tight-knit communities. This means that the approach could be used to identify conspiracy theories in near real-time, a potentially useful application for monitoring breaking news stories that might be particularly vulnerable to reinterpretation by conspiracy theorists.

One current news story the group has examined is COVID-19. In another recently published paper, they applied their methods to track the evolution of several coronavirus-related conspiracy theories. They demonstrate how the narrative frameworks of four main conspiracy theories have begun connecting to each other. Moreover, the researchers suggest the possibility that these theories could eventually merge to form a single conspiracy theory. They were also able to identify hints of brand-new conspiracy theories as they were emerging.

The authors highlight the importance of their research in the realm of public security. Conspiracy theories touch on the deep-seated insecurities and fears of many people, and in some cases, they have even incited violence. In the case of Pizzagate, an armed man was arrested after firing an assault rifle inside the pizza restaurant, acting on the mistaken belief that he was saving trapped children.

Given the challenges that conspiracy theories present to democracy and a free and open society, we believe that the ability to automatically discover the underlying narrative frameworks for these accounts is of paramount importance, the authors write in the study.

Like studies? Follow us on Facebook!

See the article here:
Reality checker: Artificial intelligence as a tool for unravelling the threads of a conspiracy theory - Study Finds

VeChain will be opening the first blockchain technology session in this conference, with our session titled "blockchainize the future, power the economy".

The blockchain forum will be co-hosted by the Shanghai Municipal Commission Of Economy And Informatization, Shanghai Finance Information Association and several other large enterprises and organizations. VeChain will be sharing our experience in the blockchain deployment, integration and usage for various business scenarios and current successful users.

VeChain Attending WAIC Alongside Tech Giants and Juggernauts

Since the first WAIC in 2018, the event has become a grand meeting and festival, accumulating international influences across various industries. In line with the growing trend of the online new economy and digital transformation, this year's conference will be inviting top-of-line tech enterprises, including Microsoft, Amazon, Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei and more.

This event will be the perfect avenue for VeChain to showcase our industry-leading blockchain infrastructure and technology. As the company responsible for opening the blockchain session of the WAIC conference, we have no doubt that our keynote will be closely listened to by other attendees and VIPs invited to the event.

Blockchain: Trillion Yuan Focal Point Of The Chinese Government and Economy

On 20 April 2020, China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the cabinet-level department that draws up policies and strategies for the direction of the Chinese economy, has expanded its definition of "new infrastructure" to include blockchain technology.

Investment in new infrastructure is expected to comprise 7%-12% of all infrastructure spending, with China International Capital Corporation (CICC) seeing new infrastructure investment of between 1-1.8 trillion yuan. As blockchain technology is becoming one of the major technical forces to boost the post-COVID economy, WAIC intends to open more discussions around its development.

With the theme of "Intelligent Connectivity Indivisible Community", this Conference will be a high level platform attracting the most influential scientists and entrepreneurs around the world as well as government leaders to converse and talk about the technological frontiers, industry trends and provoking issues in forms of speeches and high-level forums.

VeChain will capitalize on this massive opportunity to pitch and share our experience and solutions to all stakeholders attending the conference. We are confident that our reputation and experience in solving pain points in the business world will convince even more partners to come onboard and expand our networking opportunities.

About WAICArtificial intelligence has become a core driving force for the new round of industrial transformation and is exerting an extremely profound impact on the world's economy, social progress and human life. In order to deepen the integration of the Internet, big data, artificial intelligence and the real economy as required by the Party's 19th National Congress, better serve the national innovation-driven development strategy, follow the international trend of new round of technology revolution and industrial reform and to develop Shanghai into a globally known center of science and innovation, Shanghai is set to build the world's top platform for AI cooperation and exchange via series of global conferences so as to promote and lead the integration of AI industry and technological innovation amid the global trend of new scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation.Website: http://www.worldaic.com.cn/portal/en/aboutus.html

About VeChainLaunched in 2015, VeChain connects blockchain technology to the real world by providing a comprehensive governance structure, a robust economic model, and IoT integration. VeChain is the pioneer of real-world applications using public blockchain technology, with international operations in Singapore, Luxembourg, Tokyo, Shanghai, Paris, Hong Kong, and San Francisco. Together with our strategic partners PwC and DNV GL, we have established cooperative relations with many leading enterprises in different industries, including Walmart China, Bayer China, BMW, BYD Auto, Haier, H&M, LVMH, D.I.G, ENN, Shanghai Gas, AWS, PICC, ASI etc.Website: http://www.vechain.com

SOURCE VeChain

http://www.vechain.com

Read the original:
VeChain Is Attending the World Artificial Intelligence Conference 2020 Hosted By Shanghai Municipal People's Government - PRNewswire