Drones to help in finding marine renewable energy sites

The University of the Highlands and Islands is looking to deploy drones to locate suitable sites for future marine renewable energy sites. The unmanned aerial vehicles will be used to film ocean movements to determine where it would be most suitable to build an energy plant.

Is facial recognition technology inherently biased?

In “Facial recognition faces a reckoning,” BBC’s Tech Tent wonders whether it is enough for tech giants to simply stop selling their AI systems to law enforcement. Following the death of George Floyd, IBM decided to stop selling its facial technology due to “inherent bias”. Both Amazon and Microsoft have halted the sale of their respective products to law enforcement. The two tech giants have called for Congress to pass legislation governing the use of facial recognition software.

Facial Recognition Built on Bias?

Amazon’s Facial Rekognition has been under scrutiny since it came out. Tech Tent notes how a former Amazon employee, Anima Anandkumar, stated that Facial Rekognition was launched before it was ready. “Researchers like me wanted to take a slower approach,” Anandkumar, who is now a professor of computing at California Institute of Technology said.

Facial recognition technology uses datasets to train artificial intelligence and machine learning systems to be able to take decisions on their own. Anima argues that facial recognition tech relies heavily on imbalanced datasets where black bodies – men and women – are unfairly represented.

Facial Technology is Big Business

For analyst Stephanie Hare, the problem goes beyond police departments around the world. She notes that facial technology software is big business for both private and public sectors. For her, governments would have to address other ethical issues such as the accessibility of facial technology as well as options to opt out.

Jon Oliver on LastWeek Tonight

Should facial recognition technology be banned?

How to create Pac-Man from scratch: NVIDIA

GameGAN has created the legendary Pac-Man game from scratch, according to reports. GameGAN is an artificial intelligence system created by NVIDIA Corporation.

How GameGAN created Pac-Man

  • GameGAN was able to recreate Pac-Man by playing the game 50,000 times. The new Pac-Man respects the same rules and mechanics of the original version.

What is GameGAN?

  • GAN refers to Generative Adversarial Networks. GameGAN learned how to create Pac-Man from scratch by observing it over a prolonged period. Eventually, it was able to recreate an exact copy of the original content.
  • GameGAN’s version of Pac-Man will be available on NVIDIA AI Playground site.
  • The original Pac-Man was published in 1980 by Bandai Namco. Bandai Namco is a Japanese game developer and has created games like Tekken, Ace Combat, among others.

Will you play the new Pac-Man?