It’s going to be a pivotal year for artificial intelligence (AI). And 2016 began with British AI firms asserting dominance over the sector. In February, Southwark-based predictive keyboard company SwiftKey was purchased by Microsoft for $250 million (£173m) – one of the highest exits ever for a UK company. Around a month later, another UK-made smart machine, DeepMind’s AlphaGo, trounced professional player Lee Sedol in a five-game match of Go – an ancient and complicated board game – in a historic first.
Within a few months, AI has stopped being fodder for futurists’ conversations and charged headlong into the here and now. Advances in neural networks and machine learning, and the availability of vast data sets, are bringing about an AI surge that has just started gaining momentum.
WIRED's associate editor Rowland Manthorpe discusses the future of artificial intelligence with Playfair Capital investor Nathan Benaich
This is particularly true in the UK, home to some of the most innovative and revolutionary AI companies in the world – many of which are being eyed for purchase by Silicon Valley’s titans.
AI is not only good for typing faster, or for bringing world-class players to their knees. IBM’s Watson can answer complicated questions on TV quiz Jeopardy!, invent wild new recipes and discover profound cause and effect patterns in healthcare. London-based startup Jukedeck has devised an AI system that churns out original, royalty-free music to use in small-budget cinematic productions.
In Cambridge, VocalIQ is developing programs that can learn from humans how to speak in a natural way – and which could end up being your virtual assistant and, eventually, your friend.
According to our WIRED Audi Innovation Awards judges, the domains that could be affected by AI’s advances go from “marketing, advertising and opinion polling” to “drug research and development.”
More importantly, AI might save lives. Oxford researcher Chris Holmes is resorting to machine learning strategies to understand the development of genetic diseases. In May, DeepMind announced a data-sharing agreement with the NHS in a bid to use AI to spot early-stage kidney diseases.
The advent of AI has unsurprisingly been met with a mix of wariness and fear by some experts. In January 2015, a team of techies including cosmologist Stephen Hawking and SpaceX founder Elon Musk signed an open letter urging the world to investigate the potentially disastrous consequences of creating a rogue AI.
But focusing on potential dystopian futures could make us overlook how AI can be a great force for good – something that deserves to be celebrated.
That is why we chose to launch our Innovation Awards by looking at British AI innovations and innovators. Virtual minds are here: but which one really made us think in 2016?
Antoine BlondeauBlondeau worked on the project that became Siri. He is CEO of Sentient Technologies.
Niven NarainNarain is CEO of Berg, a company using AI to discover new medical drugs.
Murray ShanahanProfessor Shanahan’s work in AI inspired Alex Garland’s 2015 thriller Ex Machina.
Nathan BenaichInvestor Benaich is interested in pioneering big data, AI and machine learning.
Maja PanticAt Imperial College, Pantic is studying human-machine interactions.
Sabine HauertRobotics lecturer Hauert studies swarm engineering and collective artificial systems.
Team AlphaGoDeepMind Founded in 2010, DeepMind first built neural networks that learnt to play and win videogames. In March 2016 – following its acquisition by Google – its AlphaGo AI beat Go master Lee Sedol.
Chris HolmesOxford University The Bayesian statistician and professor is a leader in the field of biostatistics. He is pioneering the application of advanced machine learning to genomics and genetic epidemiology.
Ben MedlockCo-founder & CTO, SwiftKey Medlock began building the touchscreen keyboard in 2008. SwiftKey is installed on over 250 million devices. Microsoft paid $250m for the firm in February.
Mike AldredRobotics category lead, Dyson Roboticist Aldred joined Dyson in 1998. An authority in machine vision, he tapped into his expertise during the decade-long design of Dyson’s 360 Eye robot vacuum cleaner.
Ed RexCo-founder & CEO, Jukedeck In 2015, with a 15-strong team, Rex launched Jukedeck MAKE, an application that uses AI to generate original, royalty-free, bespoke soundtracks for enthusiasts and indie filmmakers.
Ambarish MitraCEO, Blippar When launched in 2010, Blippar was an augmented reality app, turning print ads into animated experiences. It’s now developed image recognition to become a visual search engine.
Kerstin DautenhahnUniversity of Hertfordshire Dautenhahn is a leader in the study of human-robot interaction and social robotics. Her research focuses on potential therapeutic applications for robots – from caring for the elderly to assisting autistic children.
Blaise ThomsonCo-founder & CEO, VocalIQ Founded in 2011, VocalIQ deploys machine learning to build virtual assistants that improve at conversing the more they interact with humans. The firm was bought by Apple – the creators of iOS assistant Siri – in 2015.
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
