Announcements

• Pentagon’s artificial intelligence programs get huge boost in defense budget

  2018-09-11

  This story was produced by Sludge, an investigative journalism website covering money in politics.

  On Monday, President Trump signed the the $717 billion annual National Defense Authorization Act, which was easily passed by Congress in weeks prior. Much attention has understandably been placed on big-ticket items like $7.6 billion for acquiring 77 F-35 fighters, $21.9 billion for the nuclear weapons program, and $1.56 billion for three littoral combat ships—despite the fact that the Navy requested only one in the budget.

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• Facebook, NYU team up to make MRI scans faster through AI

  2018-09-11

  Facebook is working with the NYU School of Medicine to shorten the length of time patients must spend in MRI scanners.

  Facebook's Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR) group and the medical school's radiology department are investigating whether artificial intelligence can make magnetic resonance imaging scans up to 10 times faster.

  Such a development would not only reduce patient discomfort – scans can last 15 minutes to an hour – but also free up MRIs for more patients. "If this effort is successful, it will make MRI technology available to more people, expanding access to this key diagnostic tool," the research team says in a blog post on the Facebook website.

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• This AI-Powered Robot Can Find Waldo Instantly

  2018-09-11

  Creative agency redpepper made a AI-powered robot that can pinpoint Waldo in 4.45 seconds (“better than most five year olds,” according to redpepper). The robot is complete with a rubber hand that points to Waldo on the page.

  The agency used Google’s AutoML Vision service to train AI on photos of Waldo. The drag-and-drop tool allows users to train AI tools without previous coding knowledge, and has been used to categorize anything from ramen based on the shops they came from to the types of attire carried in an online retailer.

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