AI-Generated Parkland Victim Speaks on Voting in Video

Manuel and Patricia Oliver lost their son Joaquin in the Valentine’s Day Massacre at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the worst school shooting in history.

Not only did they start the organization, Change The Ref to empower young people to make changes through education and activism on a variety of issues, most notably gun violence, now they have used an AI program to re-animate their son. The short video is posted below.

Joaquin would have been voting in this year’s election for the first time. His parents are hoping you will use your vote wisely.

read more at foxnews.com

AI Is Brewing Beer In Europe

A Swiss brewery has used the talents of an AI program called Brauer AI to produce a new beer. And how they did it is fascinating. The Indian Pale Ale beer is what the brewers chose to begin the project. The algorithm analyzed market trends and an international database with around 157 thousand recipes to choose the type of malt and hops to use. On the beer’s official page, the little legend explains “we believe in the power of merging human wisdom with artificial intelligence.”

Called Deeper, it will be the first AI-designed beer to ever hit Europe’s shelves.

read more at entrepreneur.com

Kroger, Others Going Full AI in Customer Service

Visual AI technology is transforming the way retailers large and small, can manage their end-to-end operations to drive ongoing inventory accuracy, prevent stock loss and empower autonomous processes, according to Chris Taylor, chief sales officer for Everseen. “Ultimately, our job is to take a customer-first approach to making retailers such as Kroger more efficient and profitable,” said Taylor.

Kroger says it plans to roll out this technology to all 2,500 stores it operates. It was tested and found to increase customer service in a positive way. The program is designed to help customers who use the self check out at grocery stores. The program will alert human clerks if there is a problem in the scanning of products or similar issues the customer may have. It is to stop stock loss as much as it is to help customers get checked out.

read more at rtinsights.com

Firefighters Employ AI for California Fires

During the fire season in California, it is vital to get the most accurate information, including real-time mapping of the land being threatened. What used to be a day-long job producing accurate maps now is being made available every half an hour thanks to an AI algorithm.

The National Guard has equipped its  MQ-9 “Reaper” drones with AI algorithms intended to detect fires and then generate fire maps. The AI algorithms are used to collect data on actively burning fires and detect “spot fires” that have been started by larger fires. The project was driven by the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), a division created by the Pentagon in 2018. The JAIC fire-mapping system utilizes machine learning algorithms trained on aerial footage of past fires with annotated boundaries. The algorithm can then take in unseen images with only location data and detect fires in them, outputting a map that shows which regions are burning. The location of spot fires is also marked.

With nearly 4 million acres burned this summer in California, any and all technology is greatly appreciated. But more needs to be done.

read more at unite.ai

California Fires in 2020