The Data Sharing of Healthcare
December 8, 2016
Machine learning tools like the artificial intelligence Watson from IBM can and will improve healthcare access and diagnosis, but the problem is getting on the road to improvement. Implementing new technology is costly, including the actual equipment and training staff, and there is always the chance it could create more problems than resolving them. However, if the new technology makes a job easier and resolves situations then you are on the path to improvement. The UK is heading that way says TechCrunch in, “DeepMind Health Inks New Deal With UK’s NHS To Deploy Streams App In Early 2017.”
London’s NHS Royal Free Hospital will employ DeepMind Health in 2017, taking advantage of its data sharing capabilities. Google owns DeepMind Health and it focuses on driving the application of machine learning algorithms in preventative medicine. The NHS and DeepMind Health had a prior agreement in the past, but when the New Scientist made a freedom of information request their use of patients’ personal information came into question. The information was used to power the Streams app to sent alerts to acute kidney injury patients. However, ICO and MHRA shut down Streams when it was discovered it was never registered as a medical device.
The eventual goal is to relaunch Streams, which is part of the deal, but DeepMind has to repair its reputation. DeepMind is already on the mend with the new deal and registering Streams as a medical device also helped. In order for healthcare apps to function properly, they need to be tested:
The point is, healthcare-related AI needs very high-quality data sets to nurture the kind of smarts DeepMind is hoping to be able to build. And the publicly funded NHS has both a wealth of such data and a pressing need to reduce costs — incentivizing it to accept the offer of “free” development work and wide-ranging partnerships with DeepMind…
Streams is the first step towards a healthcare system powered by digital healthcare products. As already seen is the stumbling block protecting personal information and powering the apps so they can work. Where does the fine line between the two end?
Whitney Grace, December 8, 2016
Google Shifts Development Emphasis to Artificial Intelligence
December 2, 2016
The article on The American Genius titled Google’s Ambitious Plans to Change Every Device on the Planet explains the focus on A.I. innovation by Sundar Pichai, a Google CEO. If you think Google is behind when it comes to A.I., you haven’t been paying close enough attention. Google has dipped its feet in voice recognition and machine translation as well as language understanding, but the next step is Google Home. The article states,
This device seems to be a direct answer to Amazon’s Echo. Google Home isn’t the only product set to launch, however. They also plan to launch a messaging app called Allo. This is likely a direct response to WhatsApp, Kik, and other popular messaging platforms… Google may be hoping Allo is the answer for what this particular platform is lacking. Allo and Google Home will both be powered by a “Google assistant” (a bit like Siri), but in their eyes, more engaging.
So what will the future landscape of A.I. technology look like? Depends on who you believe. Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon can all point to an existing product, but Google can mention AlphaGo, the computer program developed by Google DeepMind, in response. Pichai recognizes that Google must be all about the long game when it comes to A.I., because so far, we have only scratched the surface. What role will Google play in the much-feared A.I. arms race? All we know right now is that more Google is good for Google.
Chelsea Kerwin, December 2, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Facebook AI pro Throws Shade at DeepMind Headquarters
November 29, 2016
An AI expert at Facebook criticizes Google’s handling of DeepMind, we learn in Business Insider’s article, “Facebook’s AI Guru Thinks DeepMind is Too Far Away from the ‘Mothership’.” Might Yann LeCun, said guru, be biased? Nah. He simply points out that DeepMind’s London offices are geographically far away from Google’s headquarters in California. Writer Sam Shead, on the other hand, observes that physical distance does not hamper collaboration the way it did before this little thing called the Internet came along.
The article reminds us of rumors that Facebook was eying DeepMind before Google snapped it up. When asked, LeCun declined to confirm or deny that rumor. Shead tells us:
LeCun said: ‘You know, things played out the way they played out. There’s a lot of very good people at DeepMind.’ He added: ‘I think the nature of DeepMind eventually would have been quite a bit different from what it is now if DeepMind had been acquired by a different company than Google.
Google and Facebook are competitors in some areas of their businesses but the companies are also working together to advance the field of AI. ‘It’s very nice to have several companies that work on this space in an open fashion because we build on each other’s ideas,’ said LeCun. ‘So whenever we come up with an idea, very often DeepMind will build on top of it and do something that’s better and vice versa. Sometimes within days or months of each other we work on the same team. They hire half of my students.
Hooray for cooperation. As it happens, London is not an arbitrary location for DeepMind. The enterprise was founded in 2010 by two Oxbridge grads, Demis Hassabis and Mustafa Suleyman, along with UCL professor Shane Legg. Google bought the company in 2014, and has been making the most of their acquisition ever since. For example, Shead reminds us, Google has used the AI to help boost the efficiency of their data-center cooling units by some 40%. A worthy endeavor, indeed.
Cynthia Murrell, November 29, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
MIT Embraces Google DeepMinds Intuitive Technology Focus
October 6, 2016
The article on MIT Technology Review titled How Google Plans to Solve Artificial Intelligence conveys the exciting world of Google DeepMind’s Labyrinth. Labyrinth is a 3D environment forged on an open-source platform where DeepMind is challeneged by tasks such as, say, finishing a maze. As DeepMind progresses, the challenges become increasingly complicated. The article says,
What passes for smart software today is specialized to a particular task—say, recognizing faces. Hassabis wants to create what he calls general artificial intelligence—something that, like a human, can learn to take on just about any task. He envisions it doing things as diverse as advancing medicine by formulating and testing scientific theories, and bounding around in agile robot bodies…The success of DeepMind’s reinforcement learning has surprised many machine-learning researchers.
Of the endless applications possible for intuitive technology, the article focuses on the medical, understanding text, and robotics. When questioned about the ethical implications of the latter, Demis Hassabis, the head of Google’s DeepMind team, gave the equivalent of a shrug, and said that those sorts of questions were premature. In spite of this, MIT’s Technology Review seems pretty pumped about Google, which makes us wonder whether IBM Watson has been abandoned. Our question for Watson is, what is the deal with MIT?
Chelsea Kerwin, October 6, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Why the UK Shouldn’t Be Concerned About the Gobbling up of Their Tech Industry
May 5, 2016
The article on MotherBoard titled Why the US Is Buying Up So Many UK Artificial Intelligence Companies surveys the rising tech community in the UK. There is some concern about the recent trend in UK AI and machine learning startups being acquired by US giants (HP and Autonomy, Google and DeepMind, Microsoft and Swiftkey, and Apple and VocalIQ.) It makes sense in terms of the necessary investments and platforms needed to support cutting-edge AI which are not available in the UK, yet. The article explains,
“And as AI increasingly becomes core to many tech products, experts become a limited resource. “All of the big US companies are working on the subject and then looking at opportunities everywhere—“…
Many of the snapped-up UK firms are the fruits of research at Britain’s top universities—add to the list above Evi Technologies (Amazon), Dark Blue Labs (Google), Vision Factory (also Google) that are either directly spun out of Cambridge, Oxford, or University College London…”
The results of this may be more positive for the UK tech industry than it appears at first glance. There are some companies, like DeepMind, that demand to stay in the UK, and there are other industry players who will return to the UK to launch their own ventures after spending years absorbing and contributing to the most current technologies and advancements.
Chelsea Kerwin, May 5, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
Google DeepMind Acquires Healthcare App
April 5, 2016
What will Google do next? Google’s London AI powerhouse has set up a new healthcare division and acquired a medical app called Hark, an article from Business Insider, tells us the latest. DeepMind, Google’s artificial intelligence research group, launched a new division recently called DeepMind Health and acquired a healthcare app. The article describes DeepMind Health’s new app called Hark,
“Hark — acquired by DeepMind for an undisclosed sum — is a clinical task management smartphone app that was created by Imperial College London academics Professor Ara Darzi and Dr Dominic King. Lord Darzi, director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London, said in a statement: “It is incredibly exciting to have DeepMind – the world’s most exciting technology company and a true UK success story – working directly with NHS staff. The types of clinician-led technology collaborations that Mustafa Suleyman and DeepMind Health are supporting show enormous promise for patient care.”
The healthcare industry is ripe for disruptive technology, especially technologies which solve information and communications challenges. As the article alludes to, many issues in healthcare stem from too little conveyed and too late. Collaborations between researchers, medical professionals and tech gurus appears to be a promising answer. Will Google’s Hark lead the way?
Megan Feil, April 5, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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