Held between 15-18 August, the four-day event served as a dynamic platform to spotlight the country’s AI prowess and strengthen the growing partnership between the UK and Thailand.

The week kicked off with a high-level policy roundtable on 15th August at the Eastin Grand Hotel Phayathai, where esteemed experts and policymakers from both nations gathered. 

Distinguished representatives included experts from the Alan Turing Institute, Institute of Analytics, Surrey Institute for People-Centred Artificial Intelligence, and the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office.

Roundtable discussions delved into critical topics such as AI regulation and governance, investment strategies, the potential impact of AI across various sectors, and its role as a force for positive change.

Following the policy roundtable, an AI Week reception was held at the Ambassador’s Residence. The event, attended by UK experts, Thai government officials, and multilateral organisations like UNESCO, provided an opportunity to unveil the UK’s AI strategy and facilitate the establishment of new relationships between stakeholders.

A highlight of the week was the participation of nine British AI and data businesses in the GREAT Pavilion at the TechSauce Global Summit, held at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre from August 16 to 17.

The summit drew over 15,000 tech experts, investors, and businesses, and showcased the diverse commercial capabilities of UK enterprises in sectors spanning agriculture, finance, climate, design, and cybersecurity.

Attendees had the chance to engage in workshops led by UK experts, covering AI applications in health, public services, and national AI strategy development. British businesses and experts also contributed to discussions on topics like climate tech, femtech, and air quality, and presented their innovations to local venture capitalists.

Natalie Black, His Majesty’s Trade Commissioner for Asia Pacific, expressed enthusiasm about the event, saying, “With over 160 unicorns and a tech sector worth $1 trillion, the UK looks forward to offering our expertise and partnership in developing AI for good. I am excited to see deepening tech collaborations between our two countries.”

The week’s activities concluded with the ‘Turing Night’ event on 18th August at Icon Siam. The event, attended by over 150 government officials, tech businesses, and investors, featured an exhibition, networking reception, panel discussion on AI, and a screening of the film ‘The Imitation Game’.

David Thomas, British Charge d’Affaires to Thailand, remarked, “UK AI Week epitomises the modern spirit of collaboration between the UK and Thailand, fostering innovation and advancing free and ethical AI development.”

The success of the UK AI Week in Bangkok underscores the UK’s dedication to technological advancement and international collaboration in shaping the future of AI for the betterment of society.

Solidifying its global AI leadership, the UK will hold a ‘Safety Summit’ in November. The event will be held at Bletchley Park, home to the infamous codebreakers of World War Two —including, of course, Alan Turing.

The UK Government also announced a £100 million fund last week that will be used to bolster the production of homegrown AI chips.

The UK is home to a handful of relevant established companies like Arm – in addition to promising startups like Graphcore – but most firms operating in the country are US-based. The government hopes the fund will help to boost the UK’s position in AI hardware production although experts have expressed concern the pot is far too low in comparison to peers.

(Photo by Braden Jarvis on Unsplash)

See also: UK Deputy PM: AI is the most ‘extensive’ industrial revolution yet

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is co-located with Digital Transformation Week.

Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

The post ‘UK AI Week in Bangkok’ showcases innovation and collaboration appeared first on AI News.

In a fireside chat at the ASU+GSV Summit in San Diego, Gates explained that the “AIs will get to that ability, to be as good a tutor as any human ever could.”

AI chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard have developed rapidly in recent months and can now compete with human-level intelligence on some standardised tests.

Teaching writing skills has traditionally been difficult for computers, as they lack the cognitive ability to replicate human thought processes, Gates said. However, AI chatbots are able to recognise and recreate human-like language.

New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose has already used ChatGPT to improve his writing, using the AI’s ability to quickly search through online style guides. Some academics have also been impressed by chatbots’ ability to summarise and offer feedback on text or even to write full essays.

The technology must improve before it can become a viable tutor, and Gates said that AI must get better at reading and recreating human language to better motivate students.

While it may be surprising that chatbots are expected to excel at reading and writing before maths, the latter is often used to develop AI technology and chatbots have difficulties with mathematical calculations.

If a solved math equation already exists within the datasets that the chatbot is trained on, it can provide the answer. However, calculating its own solution is more complex and requires improved reasoning abilities, Gates explained.

Gates is confident that the technology will improve within the next two years and he believes that it could help make private tutoring available to a wide range of students who may not otherwise be able to afford it.

While some free versions of chatbots already exist, Gates expects that more advanced versions will be available for a fee, although he believes that they will be more affordable and accessible than one-on-one tutoring with a human instructor.

You can watch the full talk with Bill Gates below:

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The event is co-located with Digital Transformation Week.

Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

The post Bill Gates: AI will be teaching kids literacy within 18 months appeared first on AI News.

Microsoft, Google, Baidu, and others have all raced to make very public AI announcements over the past month. Apple held its own AI event earlier this month but it was a staff-only affair.

Apple’s low-key AI event was notable as being the first to be held in-person at the Steve Jobs Theatre since the pandemic began. Other than that, it wasn’t particularly newsworthy—which is somewhat newsworthy in itself.

Most AI solutions rely on the cloud for processing. Google is moving an increasing amount to on-device but Apple, for better or worse, has made a big deal about its on-device AI strategy.

One of the ways that Apple markets itself as differing from rivals is its privacy-first approach. The firm collects minimal data and processes it on-device. That approach has worked great for Apple but the company may begin to struggle as it requires more data and processing power—something we may already be seeing.

Siri is widely perceived to be the third most capable virtual assistant behind Google and Alexa. Apple currently has no answer to the ChatGPT and Bard chatbots unveiled by Microsoft and Google respectively.

One of the primary uses for machine learning over the years has been web search. The threat that a ChatGPT-integrated Bing poses to Google reportedly set off the alarm bells over at Mountain View and led to the frantic (and “botched”) announcement of Bard.

Apple has reportedly been working on its own search engine but the company’s ethos against data collection could be holding it back from launching a product that can go toe-to-toe against Google and Bing.

At its AI event this month, Apple appeared set on rallying employees and convincing them it isn’t falling behind. Apple’s AI chief told attendees that “machine learning is moving faster than ever” and that Apple has talent that is “truly at the forefront.”

That doesn’t sound like a company that is particularly confident.

“While that may be Apple’s belief, I haven’t heard of anything — for consumers — that is a game changer coming out of the summit,” wrote Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in the latest edition of his Power On newsletter.

“For those wondering, I don’t believe Apple previewed a ChatGPT/New Bing competitor or anything of the sort.”

Apple isn’t known to rush products to market and it’s not surprising that we’re not getting any major announcements ahead of WWDC. However, this staff-only event – and Gurman’s report – certainly gives the impression that Apple knows it’s not as well-positioned as its rivals when it comes to AI.

For now, Apple looks quite happy to sit out of the spotlight when it comes to AI. This year, all the attention will be firmly on its mixed-reality headset. However, questions will certainly be raised in the coming years about whether Apple is an AI leader unless it can silence the critics.

(Photo by Oscar Keys on Unsplash)

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London.

Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

The post Apple shies from the spotlight with staff-only AI summit appeared first on AI News.

Johnson opened his speech going over some of the usual things he says would be expected of a British PM: advancing democratic values, rules of a peaceful world, protecting freedom of navigation at sea, and finding a “two-state” solution to the conflict in the Middle-East.

“Of course, I’m proud to do all these things,” says Johnson. “But, no-one can ignore a gathering force that is reshaping the future of every member of this assembly. There has been nothing like it.”

Examples are given of past technological achievements such as the steam engine, aviation, and nuclear. Ultimately, all of these technologies were controlled by humans – for better or worse.

Automation, by its very nature, is increasingly taking away human control. Just earlier this week, AI News reported on comments by Microsoft chief Brad Smith who warned that killer robots are ‘unstoppable’ and a new digital Geneva Convention is needed.

Before sharing his personal concerns about emerging technologies like AI and the IoT, Johnson acknowledges their huge potential benefits.

“Smart cities will pullulate with sensors, all joined together by the Internet of Things,” says Johnson. “So no bin goes unemptied, no street unswept, and the urban environment is as antiseptic as a Zurich pharmacy.”

“Voice-connected connectivity will be in every room and almost every object. Your mattress will monitor your nightmares, your fridge will beep for more cheese, your front door will sweep wide open the moment you approach like some silent butler, your smart meter will go hustling on its own accord for the cheapest electricity.”

Of course, Johnson isn’t here to advertise the benefits of emerging technologies but to warn of the challenges they will present to nations around the world.

“They could also be used to keep every citizen under round-the-clock surveillance,” explains Johnson. “Every one of them will be minutely transcribing your every habit in tiny electronic shorthand – stored not in their chips where you can find it – but in some great cloud of data that hangs ever more oppressively over the human race.”

Johnson expresses the concern that, with each click or tap, we are ourselves becoming a resource.

Mass amounts of data about people is indisputably becoming ever more valuable. This could be for purposes such as targeting and influencing public opinion, as we saw with the Cambridge Analytica scandal, or for things such as training AI models.

“Data is the crude oil of the modern economy and we’re now in an environment where we don’t know who should own these new oil fields, who should have the rights or the title to these gushes of cash, and we don’t know who decides how to use that data.”

Johnson presents the audience with a series of rhetorical questions about the future of AI and the societal impacts it could have:

“Can these algorithms be trusted with our lives and our hopes? Should the machines decide whether or not we are eligible for a mortgage or insurance? What surgery or medicines we should receive? Are we doomed to a cold and heartless future in which a computer says yes or no with the grim finality of an emperor in the arena? How do you plead with an algorithm? How do you get it to see extenuating circumstances? How do we know that the machines have not been insidiously-programmed to fool us?”

Providing an example of how AI is being used today for malicious purposes, Johnson highlights that algorithms are enabling real-time censorship on messaging platforms in some countries.

“The digital authoritarianism is not alas the stuff of dystopian fantasy, but an emerging reality. The reason I’m giving this speech today with this gloomy proem is that the UK is one of the world’s tech leaders, and I believe governments have been simply caught unawares by the unintended consequences of the internet.”

Despite his warnings, Johnson says he’s optimistic about the ability of new technologies to “serve as a liberator and remake the world wondrously”.

Johnson points towards breakthroughs in nanotechnology allowing the development of robots a fraction the size of red blood cells that can swim through our bodies releasing medicine and attacking malignant cells. He also highlights neural interface technology which is enabling new cochlear implants and giving hearing to those without; allowing them to hear loved ones and sounds once again, or, perhaps, even for the first time.

“How we design the emerging technologies behind these breakthroughs and what values inform their design will shape the future of humanity,” says Johnson. “At stake is whether we bequeath an Orwellian world designed for censorship, oppression, and control; or a world of emancipation, debate, and learning. Where technology threatens famine and disease, but not our freedoms.”

Johnson acknowledges the work going on around the world to come up with rules around the development of groundbreaking technologies such as AI which will have a major effect on the very fabric of our societies:

“Month-by-month, vital decisions are being taken in academic committees, company boardrooms, and industry standards groups, they are writing the rulebooks of the future – making ethical judgments, choosing what will or will not be rendered possible. Together, we need to ensure that new advances reflect our values by design.

There is excellent work being done in the EU, the Commonwealth, and, of course, the UN, which has a vital role in ensuring that no country is excluded from the wonderful benefits of this technology and the industrial revolution it is bringing about.

But we must be still more ambitious. We need to find the right balance between freedom and control, between innovation and regulation, between private enterprise and government oversight. We must insist that the ethical judgments inherent in the design of new technology are transparent to all and we must make our voices heard more loudly in the standards bodies that write the rules. Above all, we need to agree a common set of global principles to shape the norms and standards that will guide the development of emerging technology.”

There are few better places to make the case for a new digital Geneva Convention as envisioned by Brad Smith than at the UN. Johnson used his speech to advocate for a new universal declaration and invited world leaders to a summit in the UK:

“Seven decades ago, this general assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with no dissenting voices, uniting humanity for the first time behind one set of principles. Our joint declaration upholds freedom of opinion and expression, the privacy of home and correspondence, and the right to seek and impart information and ideas. Unless we ensure that new technology reflects this spirit, I fear that declaration will mean nothing and no longer hold. So, the mission of the United Kingdom – and all who share our values – must be to ensure that emerging technologies are designed from the outset for freedom, openness, and pluralism; with the right safeguards in place to protect our peoples.

I invite you next year to a summit in London. We have, in the UK, by far, the biggest tech sector – fintech, biotech, edtech, medtech, nanotech, greentech, every kind of tech – in Europe.

We will seek to assemble the broadest possible coalition to take forward this vital task, building on all the UK contributes to this mission as a global leader in ethical and responsible technology. If we master this challenge, and I have no doubt that we can, then we will not only safeguard our ideals, we will surmount the limits that once constrained humanity and conquer the perils that once ended so many lives.”

Johnson ends on a positive note, with a rallying call to world leaders that it is possible to unlock the huge benefits of emerging technologies – while minimising their downsides – with a united approach.

“Together, we will vanquish killer diseases, eliminate famine, protect the environment, and transform our cities. Success will depend now, as ever, on freedom, openness, and pluralism; the formula that not only emancipates the human spirit, but releases the boundless ingenuity and inventiveness of mankind. And which, above all, the United Kingdom will strive to preserve.”

Interested in hearing industry leaders discuss subjects like this? Attend the co-located 5G Expo, IoT Tech Expo, Blockchain Expo, AI & Big Data Expo, and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo World Series with upcoming events in Silicon Valley, London, and Amsterdam.

The post British PM Johnson warns of AI’s dangers in UN speech and invites leaders to summit appeared first on AI News.