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check out this post on Chatbots – A Blast From The AI Past With An Uncertain Future

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The idea that we could hold meaningful conversations with computers creates a strong and diverse set of reactions. For some, being able to talk with a chat bot is an exciting idea, opening up a whole range of business and personal opportunities from customer service and tech support to fashion, healthcare and legal advice.

For others, particularly parts of the mainstream media, a computer that can chat is a portent of a Terminator-style AI armageddon of the human race. When Facebook discussed some of its recent chat bot developments, where the bots apparently developed their own language, it was described by one national newspaper as ‘controversial’ and ‘unsupervised’. A side bar in The Mail’s coverage of the story offered a frightening picture of ‘The AI Warnings’ that come with such developments.

Many more outlets incorrectly reported that the experiment was shut down because Facebook ‘were afraid of the results’, when in fact the bots were just not working as intended. This fearful perspective will no doubt return whenever the next big chat bot story emerges, but it takes the emphasis away from much more useful discussion on where chat bots might be of greatest benefit in the future – or even if they have a future at all.

The view of many is perhaps summed up by a recent piece in leading tech website The Register who argue that, “the jury is still out” on chat bots. Yet, the idea that we can hold meaningful and useful conversations with a computer has been fascinating AI experts for decades.

The following is part of a ‘conversation’ between two bots – one called ELIZA, created to assume the role of a psychotherapist and one called PARRY, who was programmed at act paranoid.

ELIZA: Good Evening. Tell me your problems. Please terminate input with a period or a question mark.

PARRY: People get on my nerves sometimes.

ELIZA: I am not sure I understand you fully.

PARRY: You should pay more attention.

ELIZA: Suppose you should pay more attention.

PARRY: You’re entitled to your own opinion.

ELIZA: What makes you think I am entitled to my own opinion?

PARRY: It bothers me just to be around people in general.

ELIZA: Please go on.

PARRY: I went to the track at Bay Meadows a while back.

ELIZA: What does that suggest to you?

PARRY: I went to the races.

The conversation went on for some time, with PARRY becoming increasingly ‘frustrated’ with ELIZA’s seemingly unhelpful responses.

It’s quite different and much more meaningful in human terms to the language ‘invented’ by the two Facebook bots. It’s also interesting to consider when you put it into a historical context – that AI conversation took place in 1972.

Originally, ELIZA (created in 1964) and Parry (created in 1972) were intended to act as Turing Test candidates to see whether a computer could convince a human it was real on the basis of a conversation between the two. Given the ‘personas’ created for ELIZA and PARRY, someone came up with the idea of hooking them up and that friendly chat was the result.

Passing a Turing Test is supposed to show that a machine is displaying human levels of intelligence. Whether it does or not has been debated since Alan Turing created the test back in 1950, and for the past ten years has been the objective for an annual chat bot competition, The Loebner Prize.

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check out this post on Apple And Fitbit Show That Smartwatches Are Still Very Much Alive And Kicking

Credit: Wareable

For the past few weeks I’ve been wearing the new Apple Watch Series 3 on my left wrist and the Fitbit Ionic, the company’s first ever smartwatch, on my right.

The experience of using both at the same time has been interesting to say the least. On the one hand (well, wrist), there’s Apple’s third generation Watch, which has come on leaps and bounds since the first one and is finally starting to provide a more compelling argument that iPhone owners need one in their lives.

Notifications have been a smartphone staple for what seems like forever and above anything else, this is what I’ve found myself tapping into most on the Watch Series 3. A glance at my wrist on a packed tube carriage or running on a treadmill in the gym. I don’t tend to deal or respond to these notifications a lot of the time, but it’s nice just to be aware of what’s happening at work or knowing there’s a WhatsApp group conversation I need to be part of. I know, a smartphone does this already, but normally when I grab my phone it means spending time checking in on Twitter, Instagram and a bunch of other apps. Basically, more screen time.

Apple’s third smartwatch does a pretty credible impression of a sports watch too. It’ll track my swims and runs and not leaving me waiting achingly long for a GPS signal to lock on. There’s also something quite addictive about closing those Activity rings before my other Apple Watch owning friends. Until battery life gets significantly better though, I’m not sure it’ll ever replace a dedicated sports watch, but for most, it does tick the boxes.

The big new addition of course is LTE, which has been available on smartwatches before, but means I can leave my iPhone behind and get a smartphone-like experience on my watch. Taking and making calls from my wrist or asking Siri about appointments in my calendar in public is just something I’m never going to get used to. But the notification support or the ability to stream music (which isn’t available just yet) without having to remember to transfer new music over to the watch iTunes could persuade me to spend a little more for the luxury. Ultimately, though I still want my smartphone by my side. What happens when you want to grab a quick snap of something? A smartwatch just isn’t cut out for that.

Then there’s the Ionic, the only other smartwatch that has been talked about as much as Apple’s. Fitbit has taken its fitness tracker DNA and put it inside of a design that is best described as Marmite. Some will love it, some will hate it. Unsurprisingly, fitness tracking is where the Ionic impresses most, but it does a decent job as a smartwatch too. Notification support is more basic than Apple’s approach, but features like Fitbit Pay contactless payments work effortlessly and while there aren’t too many standalone apps right now, the few that are there, work well.

Fitbit’s CEO James Park gave his reasons why the company didn’t include LTE in its first smartwatch, and I’m inclined to agree with what he had to say on the feature for now. But there’s a sense of inevitability that it will be on the Fitbit agenda further down the line. One of those reasons will no doubt have been battery life, one of the biggest differentiators between Apple and Fitbit’s smartwatches and the reason the Ionic spends more time on my wrist. It just lasts longer (four days to Apple’s day and a half) even with a super bright display and that’s something Apple is going to have to seek to improve. Because if it does, then Fitbit will seriously have to raise its game.

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check out this post on Breaking Down The New Red Dead Redemption 2 Trailer

Rockstar dropped the second trailer to its keenly-anticipated Red Dead Redemption 2 on Thursday. Fans will now commence poring over the footage to pick apart all the details to the sequel to one of the most universally acclaimed games of all time. Well, we say sequel, but more on that in a minute…

You can watch the full trailer here but below are just some of our key takeaways, which might have to keep us going until the game’s teasingly unspecific ‘Spring 2018’ release date.

The real star character of the original Red Dead Redemption was its rich and beautiful world, and RDR2 appears to be no different. In fact, with this game coming out on a generation of even more power consoles, photorealistic visuals should be expected. But still, look how pretty!

Here’s our first glance at, we guess, our main character. Rockstar name him as Arthur Morgan, and he seems like a really swell guy. Here he is trying to collect some cash from this down-on-his-luck sap. Protection money? Debt? Or just a kind reminder of a loan between friends? It’s probably not that one.

While the original game spent a lot of time in bizarro Texas and Mexico, we did get a little mountain gameplay. Rockstar seem to have doubled down on that here, with plenty of Rockies-like scenery, complete with deep snow you can see below. They might just be showing off, or this might tell us we’re in for more diverse world this time round.

More on that – we see here some poor hog being gobbled up by a gator. So we’ve got snow, we’ve got desert plains, and we get Bayou territory too? It feels like this game world is going to be vast and, therefore, full of predatory terrors.

Actual proper heists were weirdly lacking in Red Dead Redemption but it looks like there’ll be ripe opportunity to do some actually villainous hijacking now. Also, if we could get one half as comedic as this legendary Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid scene, that’d be terrific.

Bonnie MacFarlane – a rancher ally of John’s in the first game – was a brilliant character, a woman trying to do the right thing to keep her family’s livelihood going against the odds. Rockstar doesn’t have a good track record of creating deep and complex women but given that Grand Theft Auto V had exactly zero positively-framed female characters, that we appear to have one in RDR2 is, we suppose, progress?

This line from our presumed protagonist is, really, the big reveal of the trailer. Players of the first game will remember Dutch van der Linde as the former mentor of John Marston, and the ultimate baddy of the story. The presence of a (much younger) Dutch in Red Dead Redemption 2 tells us this is essentially a prequel to Red Dead Redemption, and might even include some story of how John Marston came to be the outlaw we knew in the original.

Whereas John was quite a morally grey character, Arthur pledging allegiance to Dutch shows that we might be firmly on the bad side in this one. Or maybe the game’s retained the ‘Redemption’ as a hint towards a conversion for Morgan?

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check out this post on New Amazon Echo Speaker Unveiled With Late October UK Release Date

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check out this post on New Amazon Echo Speaker Unveiled With Late October UK Release Date

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check out this post on New Amazon Echo Speaker Unveiled With Late October UK Release Date

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check out this post on Science Should Never Become Boring… Here’s Why

As you might expect, ‘athlete’ and ‘firefighter’ are two of the most sought after jobs for children. But it wasn’t a surprise to me to find ‘astronaut’ and ‘scientist’ holding their own in the top ten as well. Why not? Defying gravity, even zero gravity, must be one of the most exciting scientific developments of our time, and children everywhere want to be a part of it.

So, why is it that that in recent years 47% of young people think that science subjects are for those who are ‘boring’, with a further 55% of online conversation describing STEM as ‘too difficult’? What about the role physics has played in making space travel real? Or the scientific research which has allowed pilots to fly across the world at up to 39,000 feet? Science certainly isn’t boring and I’m fascinated to know why one in two schoolchildren think it is.

Answering a question like this is not straightforward, and no one answer can solve it. But I think one way to address the issue is by encouraging schoolchildren to understand science away from their textbooks. I was lucky – Mr Davies, my primary school teacher, was nothing short of legendary in the classroom. He loved doing the sort of exploding volcano experiments that left red stains on the ceilings, and got us jumping out of our seats from the start of the lesson.

Photo Credit: Jonathan Birch/Statoil

It was these kinds of lessons that put me on the path to where I am today: presenting science live at events, on the TV, and on the radio. Doing what I do gives me the chance to convey to the next generation that science is not only important, but fun.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves – not all science is volcano-exploding-awe-inspiring amusement. Some elements of STEM subjects can be tremendously pure, complex and difficult to convey. But, even these subjects can be explained to children in interesting ways. I’m not expecting every lab technician in Britain to charge towards their nearest school test-tube in hand; but when scientists can explain things in a way that we can all relate to, it’s great to try and make the link.

One way, for example, of presenting science to young people is as an explainer of everything we see. Science can answer a simple question, like why on earth your voice sounds different on video, or a more exciting one, like exploring how fireworks explode. Beyond this, science is about answering the most complex questions young people will face, so let’s do everything we can to make it engaging.

Explaining real-world phenomena, big or small, in terms of science is what I love, and that’s why I am working with Statoil and the Science Museum on this year’s Young Imagineers competition. Steph McGovern, Jill Tully, Lopa Patel and I are inviting 7-14 year olds to design the future, under the title ‘what invention would you create to make tomorrow’s world a better place’. We’re looking for a huge mix: everything from teleporters to biscuit dunkers welcome! Entries can be submitted here.

The ten most creative entries will be shortlisted and the entrants will get a chance to develop their invention with a top developer. Then, they’ll be invited to showcase their entry to us with a live audience in an exclusive day of events at the Science Museum, on the 18th of November. The winner will get an even bigger prize – their invention will be created and displayed inside the Science Museum for everyone to see.

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check out this post on The Rise Of Robots Won’t Mean The End Of Professions

The Royal Society of Arts survey last week warned that increasing automation and artificial intelligence (AI) could see 4 million UK private sector jobs replaced within a generation. They are not the only ones to make pessimistic estimates on the ‘rise of the robots’.

Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, made global headlines at the start of December when he warned we’re “in the midst of a technological revolution that is once again changing the nature of work”. A Deloitte and University of Oxford study also warned that 95% of finance professionals were at risk of losing their jobs over the next 20 years.

Whilst some elements of manufacturing and services have faced continual disruption from technological advancement, the advent of AI and smart robotics threatens professional level jobs as never before. Yet driverless cars or Amazon’s experiments with drone deliveries may be just the beginning of what computing power might replace. Many technologists and policy-makers have dubbed this period ‘IR4’ or ‘Industry 4.0′ – the Fourth Industrial Revolution.’

When ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) conducted the global ‘Generation Next’ survey of 19,000 students and qualified accountants under the age of 36 – the generation most vulnerable to the impacts of innovation – 84% welcomed the advent of new technologies. This was not because today’s aspiring accountants underestimate the threat posed to their career paths: two thirds expected automation to replace a large number of entry-level jobs in the near future.

What those surveyed did recognise, however, was that the technology offered opportunities for new, more productive forms of work. Young professionals in shared services in particular see technology as an unprecedented opportunity to focus on much higher value-added activity (90% of respondents in the UK compared to 84% of respondents globally).

What they and other finance professionals are able to recognise (perhaps more acutely than others outside the profession) is that straightforward number-crunching has always played a low-level role in the professional accountant’s skill-set.

While automation of this basic data analysis is almost inevitable even at current levels of technology, there is no obvious reason to believe that the digital revolution will be able to substitute for the strategic vision and forward-thinking counsel that accountants can bring to a business.

Even as computers and the internet have transformed the workplace in recent decades, accountants have grown increasingly important to the effective running of organisations. One reason for this is that businesses are navigating a globalised landscape where technology can destroy traditional industries and build entirely new ones in the space of only a few years, just as digital photography disrupted the growth of famous brands like Kodak and Polaroid.

In this ever-changing world, businesses appreciate the value of highly skilled accountants capable of thinking ahead and providing insightful guidance on investment, innovation and strategy, enabling firms to grow, adapt and build resilience. This is why qualified professional accountants are highly sought after for CFO positions and increasingly taking the step up to CEO. And that in turn is why so many younger accountants look towards the new machine age with ambition and optimism.

Yet the growing role of ‘smart’ tech means that all of us will face ever greater challenges to stay smarter than the robots. As part of ACCA’s ongoing research into the future of the profession, we predict that developing digital skills will play an essential role in the future relevance of finance professionals: there is a lively discussion already underway about whether or not today’s accountants should be learning to code.

Crucially, and perhaps unsurprisingly, given that business is, after all, about people, is that the professional accountant of tomorrow will need to work just as hard at honing their interpersonal skills.

These range from the emotional intelligence to manage teams and communicate better with clients, through to developing the creativity and vision needed to exploit new commercial opportunities as they arise.

While we may muse on the day when robots become indistinguishable from humans, in reality robotics is a still some distance from being able to replicate processes which require complex and independent judgements. There is little purpose in competing with computers and AI when it comes to the speed of calculations or ability to process vast quantities of information.

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check out this post on Can Robots Do A Better Job Of Building Peace?

Every day it seems I read an article about the march of robots into our jobs and our lives. They can drive cars, milk cows and make burgers, apparently. And often, enthusiasts claim, they will do these jobs better than us flawed human beings. Logically then, let’s turn to robots to solve our most intractable problems. Human beings seem unable to kick the habit of fighting and killing one another. Enter the peacebot.

In our increasingly uncertain world, more than one in five people’s lives are affected by the rising conflicts, over 40 wars are being fought and we face the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time. Those who believe in division and foster hatred have grabbed the microphone and are dominating the airwaves. It is time that all those who work quietly for peace raise their voices more loudly too if we are to be heard over the cacophony of hatred. So to celebrate UN International Day of Peace on 21 September, at International Alert we will be creating and letting loose a flock of peacebots who have been programmed to tweet away their messages of compassion supporting #peaceday.

It’s a fun action, and one that reminds us how our everyday actions can contribute to peace. As Martin Luther King said: ‘We can very well set a mood for peace out of which a system for peace can be built’.

Both the mood and the system for peace are badly needed urgently, with recent figures showing the amounts invested in proactive measures to prevent violent conflict, to bring people together and to rebuild after war are absolutely dwarfed by the towering expenditure on the military. The Global Peace Index estimates total expenditure on peacebuilding at around $10billion in 2016, just over half a percent of the $1.72trillion global military expenditure. It would be a joke except it isn’t very funny.

That is why we are calling on global leaders to at least double the current amount spent on building peace. We know that money will be well-invested. In a report published on International Peace Day, we have surveyed the literature and case-studies to see if there is evidence that peacebuilding does work. And the evidence is there.

Of course, peacebuilding is no recipe for immediate success. There are countless examples of when governments and communities turn their backs on dialogue, preferring die-hard habits, to pick up their trusty AK47s or to send in the troops. That is why some conflicts such as in the Philippines, have dragged on for over half a century.

But there is also extensive research and a myriad of evidence-based examples showing how peacebuilding has tangibly contributed to reducing violence and helping communities and nations rebuild and reconcile once the guns have fallen silent. From training provided to Muslim and Christian community leaders in the Central African Republic, improved political collaboration across sectarian lines in Lebanon, through to mediating land conflicts in the Philippines and community-friendly policing in Afghanistan, examples abound of initiatives that have demonstrably contributed to reconciliation or resilience. At a macro level, our report shows how a range of initiatives contributed to a critical mass of energy for peace in Northern Ireland, Nepal and South Africa.

Obviously that is good news for people. But it also makes hard economic sense. According to the Institute for Economics and Peace, every $1 invested in peacebuilding, reduces the costs of conflict by $16. Clearly, conflict costs, and peace pays.

At the UN and many member states, the rhetoric on peacebuilding is good, sometimes very good. But it just isn’t yet backed-up by the hard cash and serious policy follow-through that would deliver results. New polling by Conciliation Resources and the Alliance for Peacebuilding shows that this would be popular. In the UK over seven out of ten respondents believe that peacebuilding plays a vital role in ending violent conflicts, and six out of ten state that the UK should be investing more in peacebuilding. The responses were even higher in Germany. And in the US, 74% agreed that peacebuilding plays a vital role in ending conflicts and supported greater investment in it – a significant finding in light of threatened cuts to peacebuilding budgets.

So we will be knocking on the doors of governments around the world, showing the evidence that peacebuilding works, is popular and even cost-effective. And meanwhile, we will also be getting on supporting all those communities who undertake every day peace actions: from the brave people gathering in the park in Yangoon to call for peace in Myanmar, to the refugee teachers giving traumatised children a chance to play again. These everyday actions deserve our support. Now more than ever. Let’s hope the peace bots do a great job at creating that mood for peace and that our humanity catches up.

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check out this post on Can Robots Do A Better Job Of Building Peace?

Every day it seems I read an article about the march of robots into our jobs and our lives. They can drive cars, milk cows and make burgers, apparently. And often, enthusiasts claim, they will do these jobs better than us flawed human beings. Logically then, let’s turn to robots to solve our most intractable problems. Human beings seem unable to kick the habit of fighting and killing one another. Enter the peacebot.

In our increasingly uncertain world, more than one in five people’s lives are affected by the rising conflicts, over 40 wars are being fought and we face the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time. Those who believe in division and foster hatred have grabbed the microphone and are dominating the airwaves. It is time that all those who work quietly for peace raise their voices more loudly too if we are to be heard over the cacophony of hatred. So to celebrate UN International Day of Peace on 21 September, at International Alert we will be creating and letting loose a flock of peacebots who have been programmed to tweet away their messages of compassion supporting #peaceday.

It’s a fun action, and one that reminds us how our everyday actions can contribute to peace. As Martin Luther King said: ‘We can very well set a mood for peace out of which a system for peace can be built’.

Both the mood and the system for peace are badly needed urgently, with recent figures showing the amounts invested in proactive measures to prevent violent conflict, to bring people together and to rebuild after war are absolutely dwarfed by the towering expenditure on the military. The Global Peace Index estimates total expenditure on peacebuilding at around $10billion in 2016, just over half a percent of the $1.72trillion global military expenditure. It would be a joke except it isn’t very funny.

That is why we are calling on global leaders to at least double the current amount spent on building peace. We know that money will be well-invested. In a report published on International Peace Day, we have surveyed the literature and case-studies to see if there is evidence that peacebuilding does work. And the evidence is there.

Of course, peacebuilding is no recipe for immediate success. There are countless examples of when governments and communities turn their backs on dialogue, preferring die-hard habits, to pick up their trusty AK47s or to send in the troops. That is why some conflicts such as in the Philippines, have dragged on for over half a century.

But there is also extensive research and a myriad of evidence-based examples showing how peacebuilding has tangibly contributed to reducing violence and helping communities and nations rebuild and reconcile once the guns have fallen silent. From training provided to Muslim and Christian community leaders in the Central African Republic, improved political collaboration across sectarian lines in Lebanon, through to mediating land conflicts in the Philippines and community-friendly policing in Afghanistan, examples abound of initiatives that have demonstrably contributed to reconciliation or resilience. At a macro level, our report shows how a range of initiatives contributed to a critical mass of energy for peace in Northern Ireland, Nepal and South Africa.

Obviously that is good news for people. But it also makes hard economic sense. According to the Institute for Economics and Peace, every $1 invested in peacebuilding, reduces the costs of conflict by $16. Clearly, conflict costs, and peace pays.

At the UN and many member states, the rhetoric on peacebuilding is good, sometimes very good. But it just isn’t yet backed-up by the hard cash and serious policy follow-through that would deliver results. New polling by Conciliation Resources and the Alliance for Peacebuilding shows that this would be popular. In the UK over seven out of ten respondents believe that peacebuilding plays a vital role in ending violent conflicts, and six out of ten state that the UK should be investing more in peacebuilding. The responses were even higher in Germany. And in the US, 74% agreed that peacebuilding plays a vital role in ending conflicts and supported greater investment in it – a significant finding in light of threatened cuts to peacebuilding budgets.

So we will be knocking on the doors of governments around the world, showing the evidence that peacebuilding works, is popular and even cost-effective. And meanwhile, we will also be getting on supporting all those communities who undertake every day peace actions: from the brave people gathering in the park in Yangoon to call for peace in Myanmar, to the refugee teachers giving traumatised children a chance to play again. These everyday actions deserve our support. Now more than ever. Let’s hope the peace bots do a great job at creating that mood for peace and that our humanity catches up.

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