John Shillington of Amii taks about connecting research and expertise to industry and helping Alberta businesses build their capacity for machine learning
John Shillington is president and CEO of Amii. What is Amii Innovates and what do you do? Shillington: Amii Innovates is a program run by the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii). It enables and supports Alberta-based businesses as they grow their in-house business and technical capabilities around artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. At Amii,…
While robots replace human workers on the factory floor, better-paid jobs are created to design, build and maintain the robots
The robots are coming, the robots are coming! They may not be an unstoppable evil army ready to take over the world as in a bad sci-fi movie, but they’re definitely making headway on factory assembly lines and increasingly in other industries. A United Kingdom research firm, Oxford Economics, did a study that covered seven…
The end of carding won’t cease the gathering of information. Instead, it will be entered into police data bases without the public’s knowledge
We’re in the era of predictive policing, geo-profiling and crime prevention – carding 2.0 – and need to ask the tough questions about what that means. Understanding and safeguarding personal freedom and civil rights is more critical than ever. The pace at which artificial intelligence is being developed and incorporated is far outpacing the regulatory…
The march of technology is inevitable, but the way its proceeds are distributed is a matter of choice. Here are some options
The RSA (Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) has been exploring the future of work. Like many organizations, it begins with the assumption that some 35 to 40 per cent of jobs will be directly impacted by artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, 3D printing, blockchain, stem cells and other technologies.…
Visual intelligence allows for face identification, incident recognition, behaviour monitoring, object identification and even face or activity prediction
Business owners and managers increasingly deal with information overload, including from camera feeds. The cost outlay for a good camera system with extensive storage is dropping daily and new technologies that promise to process all this information continue to emerge. But although it’s valuable information, it’s also exceedingly time consuming to sift through all the…
Automation increases labour productivity and so raises the income levels of workers, who in turn acquire new skills to use and advance automation
Ever since the Industrial Revolution, the automation of tasks once done by humans has raised fears about machines putting humans out of work and creating mass poverty. Happily, history has repeatedly proven the doomsayers wrong. While automation has certainly led to declines in entire industries (and employment in those industries), the relationship between automation and…
Massimo Canonico talks about the findings of a Docebo report that shows key disparities in skills training
Massimo Canonico is director of solutions engineering at Docebo. He spoke about a poll commissioned by Docebo, a provider of AI-based learning platforms, titled 2019 Tech Skills Report. What are the key findings from the poll? Canonico: The first thing we noticed when we reviewed the data from our survey was that the approach to…
Susan Johnston of Accenture Canada talks about delivering hyper-personalized, on-demand services
Susan Johnston is managing director of financial services at Accenture Canada. What were the key findings of the recent report Technology Vision for Insurance 2019? Johnston: Our latest Technology Vision for Insurance 2019 report found that insurance companies are now focused on how they can shape the world around people and select the right moments…
‘The growth of technology combined with a shrinking labour force may actually produce a shortage of qualified workers in Canada’
Fears of substantial job losses in the future due to technology may be greatly exaggerated. A series of essays released on Tuesday by the think-tank the Fraser Institute say burgeoning technologies such as automation, artificial intelligence and robotization won’t lead to huge jobs losses. “While some believe the rise of artificial intelligence and other technologies…
Are we prepared for a world full of machines, governing everything in steely alignment with the technocrats’ goals?
The Terminator movies were prediction, not fiction. The proof abounds in China, recently dubbed by CBC as the world’s first digital dictatorship. China has interfaced wireless technology with surveillance cameras and facial recognition software to form Sky Net. And fifth-generation mobile phones, or 5G, are coming to Canada. That means Chinese technology and its usage…
John Shillington is president and CEO of Amii. What is Amii Innovates and what do you do? Shillington: Amii Innovates is a program run by the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii). It enables and supports Alberta-based businesses as they grow their in-house business and technical capabilities around artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. At Amii,…
