AI News You Probably Missed In August

The year is quickly flying by.

And so are the advancements within AI.

While August has seen National Watermelon Day, National S’mores Day and even National Smile Week, the dynamic world of AI is making its own leaps and strides. 

New Algorithm Is Brilliant At University-Level Maths 

University-level maths is complex. Even for machine learning.

However, up until recently, a team of researchers led by MIT lecturer Iddo Drori have discovered a neural network model that can solve the most difficult maths problems. 

And a lot faster than humans.

The model, which can explain and generate new problems within the realm of university maths, even baffled students when they couldn’t tell whether or not it was an algorithm or a human.

According to MIT News, “The model also automatically explains solutions and rapidly generates new problems in university math subjects.When the researchers showed these machine-generated questions to university students, the students were unable to tell whether the questions were generated by an algorithm or a human.”

Air Taxis, Drones and AI Pilots 

What might sound like Sci-Fi to us is complete non-fiction for the researchers at Carnegie Mellon University. 

The team recently developed an artificial intelligence that is capable of behaving “indistinguishably” like that of a pilot (during flight, of course). Which takes autonomous vehicles to a whole new level.

Autonomous aircraft, such as drones, air taxis and helicopters are improving by the day and have a wide variety of use cases like transporting people and goods, monitoring poaching, inspecting infrastructure, etc. 

But with increasing air traffic, navigating the open air poses new challenges that this novel AI is able to tackle.

According to Science Daily, “The AI can safely avoid collisions, predict the intent of other aircraft, track aircraft and coordinate with their actions, and communicate over the radio with pilots and air traffic controllers”.

Using six cameras to detect nearby aircraft in a manner similar to that of a human pilot,
“its automatic speech recognition function uses natural language processing techniques to both understand incoming radio messages and communicate with pilots and air traffic controllers using speech”.

Using Robots to Understand How Ants Teach One Another

An interesting fact: rock ants can teach their own routes to other individual ants. 

To better understand how this works, a team of scientists at the University of Bristol set up a robot pin covered in pheromones to figure out whether they could teach the ants a route to a new nest.

And… It worked.

By building out a small arena, using a gantry to move their robot back and forth, and dousing it in the right amount of “attractive pheromones”, the robot was able to teach them a new path. 

ScienceDaily explains, “The team found that the robot had indeed taught the route successfully to the apprentice ant. The ants knew their way back to the old nest whether they had taken a winding path or a straight one.”

Another great step in understanding science and what successful teaching looks like.

More Exciting Discoveries Sure To Come Through September

Every month is packed with all sorts of findings and discoveries in the field of AI and digital transformation. 

Don’t miss out on any of the exciting news in the coming month!

If you enjoy getting a brief update on AI news, or love to read all about big data, digital transformation, machine learning and more – then be sure to check out the rest of our content!

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