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Skin in the game. How a start-up is cracking one of the biggest challenges in robotics

November 8, 2022 Comments Off mambjo read

Imagine a robot working in a field delicately picking strawberries, with the dexterity and soft touch of a human. Or a robot carefully handling nuclear waste materials with no damage from high radiation levels. Or a robot that has such a sensitive sense of touch that it can be used to tend vulnerable, post-operation hospital patients. For Dr Zaki Hussein, CEO and founder of Touchlab, these are all within the realms of possibility, thanks to the development of an e-skin that can replicate human touch.

Touchlab, which has just received a £3.5m injection of cash from early-stage investor Octopus Ventures, has created an e-skin that is thinner than human skin and yet, according to Hussein, can already withstand extreme environments, such as acid and high and low temperatures. Although robot skins are not new, one of the biggest remaining challenges for robot makers was the ability to create a human-like sensitive skin that, for one, would enable a more measured grip of objects.

According to Hussein, Touchlab’s e-skin uses just four wires (each the size of a human hair) to create a customisable material capable of measuring touch, force and position. It can be wrapped around new or existing robots and even works in conjunction with human tele-operated avatars.

The idea was borne out of Hussein’s initial PhD research into electronic skin, developing deformable patches to deliver drugs or get diagnostics on patients. This led to the creation of Touchlab. Currently based at the Higgs Centre for Innovation at The Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, the company plans to move to The National Robotarium, a centre for leading research and development in AI and robotics. It’s a clear indication of its future intentions, to collaborate and grow within an ecosystem of robotics start-ups and leading researchers.

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IDG Connect

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Feature

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Why the fake news problem needs an AI and a blockchain solution

November 8, 2022 Comments Off mambjo read

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has given new impetus to online fake news to the extent that anti-misinformation firm NewsGuard is currently tracking 201 sites that it claims are spreading myths about the war. It’s not a new problem. War, of course, only accelerates it and the tactic is as old as the hills – the British famously set-up a transmitter called Aspidistra in 1942 to transmit programmes that would try to convince the German people that the war was going badly for their country.

The problem is that misinformation appears to be growing and it’s not all about Russia and Ukraine. There was a spike during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as recent elections and referendums in the US and Europe. Where there’s an opportunity to polarise opinion, or to steal data, it seems fake news will increasingly emerge.

The worrying development though is that AI is now being used to disseminate fake news. Julia Ebner, senior research fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue recently detailed how Russian AI was used to identify, amplify and exploit grievances online, in order to undermine peace in Western nations. Speaking at a recent Cityforum webinar, she said that in effect, Russian was using AI to weaponise extremist ideologies and conspiracies.

AI, though, has huge potential in fighting it too. We need it, because we have to remember; we are all prone to being duped. As the World Economic Forum warned in its recent report ‘The Ability to ‘Distil the Truth’, it’s not just those with “with poor science knowledge, low cognitive abilities and a tendency to be accepting of weak claims,” that believe false stories. No one is immune, which is why a technology solution it the best way to go.

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IDG Connect

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Feature

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Why automating finance is just an integration game

November 7, 2022 Comments Off mambjo read

“For the next several years, leading technology providers must play a leading role in helping enterprises navigate the current storms of disruption,” says analyst firm IDC, promoting its forthcoming round of crystal ball predictions for 2023. No pressure then.

Of course, we’ve known for some time now that technology can be a differentiator. As Deloitte suggests in its report Automation with intelligence, “Organisations that are not afraid to embrace digital disruption are more likely to survive and thrive in the world of perpetual technological change”. Throw economic change, political instability and skilled worker shortages into the mix and we might be onto something.

It all centres around building organisational resilience, through improved decision-making and business process agility capable of reacting quickly to changing needs. McKinsey puts the onus for this on chief financial officers (CFOs), claiming “finance leaders are deeply involved in determining how businesses adapt to significant changes in how work gets done – particularly in places where digital and finance intersect”.

In truth, it’s difficult for CFOs and technology leaders to know where to prioritise investments that will have the biggest impact. The reality is that improving processes and integrating financial data into tools that enable improved planning and decision-making are increasingly key to business success. Given the current economic pressures and unprecedented skills shortages, this is clearly not an easy task. It demands investment and almost certainly calls for increased automation.

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Computer Weekly

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Feature

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Retail reborn: How tech change has become a source of High Street hope

March 8, 2021 Comments Off mambjo read

Technology can help reinvent the high street and deliver a new era of lean and mean retailers capable of capturing the imagination of a digital native generation. Given the carnage of the last 12 months, it would be easy to dismiss retail, especially on the high street, as a spent force. The demise of Debenhams and Arcadia has understandably rocked the retail world but in fairness, this has been on the cards for some time. The COVID-19 pandemic has just accelerated what was already in motion, a retail market at a tipping point between the large, traditional stores of the past and the modern, digitally-driven stores of the future. The emergence of online-only retailers Asos and Boohoo as buyers of the Debenhams and Arcadia brands just confirms the changing of the retail guard. This is now a digital retail age and everything from supply chain management through to customer engagement is being data-driven. The challenge for the larger, traditional high street stores is how to adapt and adapt quickly. Some, such as Next, have already been better at it than others but as history has taught us, technology change can be a great leveller.

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ERP Today

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Feature

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Why self-regulation and government intervention are at a crossroads

March 23, 2020 Comments Off mambjo read

For some politicians and business leaders, regulation is a dirty word. The arguments generally go that regulation is bad for economies as it stifles innovation and growth. Too much red tape and bureaucracy, too much government intervention. Triumphalist, propaganda-like statements from the White House in the US last October, and a bizarre Economic Report of the President 2020 have done little to clarify the argument, either for or against. Claims that the Trump administration’s repeal of the net neutrality rules will increase real incomes by more than $50 billion per year and consumer welfare by almost $40 billion per year seem ridiculous. There is no evidence that de-regulation in the US has or will improve broadband prices or services, either now or in the future.

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IDG Connect

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Opinion

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We’re only human: AI ethics and the business of trust

November 15, 2019 Comments Off mambjo read

According to figures released earlier this month from the Capgemini Research Institute, ethical AI is not just a major concern for consumers (74 percent), it could also impact customer loyalty. If a business can show ethical AI use, 62 percent of consumers would place higher trust in that company. By contrast, 41 percent said they would complain over misuse of AI and 34 percent would stop interacting with a company if its AI use was unethical.

It’s not wholly unsurprising research but it does raise the whole issue of trust. It also raises the point of what is deemed ethical, when it comes to AI use. Who decides? Businesses, consumers, governments, academics or a mash-up of all of them?

Interestingly, the Capgemini research also revealed that 74 percent of consumers want more transparency when a service is powered by AI, and over three quarters think there should be further regulation on how companies use AI.

Title

IDG Connect

Section

Artificial Intelligence

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AI is starting to drive survival of the fastest in race for enterprise edge

November 15, 2019 Comments Off mambjo read

“We are living in a digital Darwinist era,” says Chetan Dube, founder and CEO of IPSoft, speaking at the company’s Amelia City Lab on State Street, New York. With a view of the Statue of Liberty over his left shoulder and the iconic Staten Island ferry chugging over his right, Dube talked about the company’s latest iteration of Amelia, a digital agent he has dubbed ‘the most human AI’.

While the blonde white avatar is hardly representative of today’s diversity requirements (that’s perhaps a little unfair as Amelia is completely customisable), it is nevertheless pioneering the embryonic market of cognitive agents. It’s important to make a distinction. Amelia is much more than a chat agent. In fact, the term chatbot seems a little demeaning, especially when you get to see the depth of intelligence that Amelia can bring to call conversations.

Chatbots typically manage calls through a structured, scripted framework called a decision tree. Amelia, with the considerable help of Professor Christopher Manning, a leading machine learning, computer science and linguistics expert at Stanford University, is managing complex, contextual conversations, information requests and user verifications. More fluid, less woody.

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IDG Connect

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Artificial Intelligence

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Are a skills gap and delusional thinking losing the AI race for Europe?

March 11, 2019 Comments Off mambjo read

Job killer or job creator? The debate over whether or not AI will decimate or create jobs in the future has been raging for a few years now and while 2018 was a massive year for AI hype, it was also significant for its development.

There are, according to a Harvey Nash Tech Survey, four in ten organisations now using AI in a commercial way, moving beyond experimentation. A recent report from Dun and Bradstreet claims 40 percent of respondents from a survey of 100 execs from Forbes Global 2000 businesses are adding more jobs as a result of AI deployment, with only eight per cent saying they were axing jobs because of AI implementation. In January this year, research firm Gartner revealed that despite talent shortages, the percentage of enterprises employing AI grew 270 per cent in four years.

While most of this is, in all likelihood, machine learning, the intention is clear. Businesses increasingly want to use data science, analytics and automation in their products and infrastructures and are prepared to invest.

Title

IDG Connect

Section

Artificial Intelligence

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