Omdia: The chatbot market will remain healthily diverse

Omdia analysts have assessed that the chatbot market will remain “served by a robust, diverse ecosystem of vendors”.

The report highlights that it’s contrary to the assessment of vendor assessments and traditional technology market trends.

Mark Beccue, Principal Analyst at Omdia, commented:

“There are several reasons for a robust chatbot solutions market.

One, there is persistent market demand for solutions which address a broad spectrum of...

12 October 2022 | Artificial Intelligence

Inworld closes $50M Series A for its realistic NPC generator

Inworld, a Disney-backed startup using AI to create realistic non-playable virtual characters (NPCs), has closed a $50 million Series A funding round.

The startup has attracted interest for its ability to design and deploy interactive characters with more realistic interactions across the metaverse and other virtual words like video games.

In current video games, NPCs have pre-scripted responses. AI-powered virtual characters like those Inworld are developing can offer...

24 August 2022 | Applications

Meta’s chatbot hates Facebook and loves right-wing conspiracies

A chatbot called BlenderBot was launched by Meta on Friday and it’s already been corrupted by the darker parts of the web.

To ease us in with the odd but harmless, BlenderBot thinks it’s a plumber:

https://t.co/KWEHxoXpqg also has thoughts on the Deep State and thinks it’s a plumber. I did not suggest this. pic.twitter.com/SbOj7hziSg

— Jeff Horwitz (@JeffHorwitz) August 7, 2022

Like many of us, BlenderBot criticises how Facebook...

10 August 2022 | Artificial Intelligence

The NHS hopes an AI chatbot will help tackle patient wait times

An NHS trust in Liverpool is partnering with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to develop an AI chatbot to help tackle patient wait times.

Brits have become used to long NHS wait times for many years. However, the post-covid backlog has sent the number of patients on waiting lists rocketing:

There are many strong views on what NHS reforms are needed, but one thing everyone can agree on is that the current trajectory is unsustainable. Modern technologies will be vital...

29 July 2022 | Artificial Intelligence

OpenAI’s GPT-3 is a convincing philosopher

A study has found that OpenAI’s GPT-3 is capable of being indistinguishable from a human philosopher.

The now infamous GPT-3 is a powerful autoregressive language model that uses deep learning to produce human-like text.

Eric Schwitzgebel, Anna Strasser, and Matthew Crosby set out to find out whether GPT-3 can replicate a human philosopher.

The team “fine-tuned” GPT-3 based on philosopher Daniel Dennet’s corpus. Ten philosophical questions were then...

27 July 2022 | Applications

Google places engineer on leave after claim LaMDA is ‘sentient’

Google has placed one of its engineers on leave after claiming the company’s LaMDA chatbot is “sentient”.

The engineer in question, Blake Lemoine, is part of Google’s Responsible AI division. In a Washington Post article posted over the weekend, Lemoine said that he believes LaMDA has achieved sentience.

Here’s an excerpt from one conversation between Lemoine and LaMDA:

Lemoine: So let's start with the basics. Do you...

13 June 2022 | Artificial Intelligence

Babylon Health taps Google Cloud to boost scalability and innovation

AI-powered healthcare service Babylon Health has announced a partnership with Google Cloud to boost scalability and innovation.

London-based Babylon Health is a digital-first health service provider that uses AI and machine learning technology to provide access to health information to people whenever and wherever they need it.

The company has partnered with private and public across the UK, North America, South-East Asia, and Rwanda with the aim of making healthcare...

28 March 2022 | Applications

The EU’s AI rules will likely take over a year to be agreed

Rules governing the use of artificial intelligence across the EU will likely take over a year to be agreed upon.

Last year, the European Commission drafted AI laws. While the US and China are set to dominate AI development with their vast resources, economic might, and light-touch regulation, European rivals – including the UK and EU members – believe they can lead in ethical standards.

In the draft of the EU regulations, companies that are found guilty of AI misuse...

17 February 2022 | Applications

Why AI needs human intervention

In today’s tight labour market and hybrid work environment, organizations are increasingly turning to AI to support various functions within their business, from delivering more personalized experiences to improving operations and productivity to helping organizations make better and faster decisions. That is why the worldwide market for AI software, hardware, and services is expected to surpass $500 billion by 2024, according to IDC.

Yet, many enterprises aren’t ready to have...

19 January 2022 | Applications

Editorial: Our predictions for the AI industry in 2022

The AI industry continued to thrive this year as companies sought ways to support business continuity through rapidly-changing situations. For those already invested, many are now doubling-down after reaping the benefits.

As we wrap up the year, it’s time to look ahead at what to expect from the AI industry in 2022.

Tackling bias

Our ‘Ethics & Society’ category got more use than most others this year, and with good reason. AI cannot thrive when it’s...

23 December 2021 | Applications