AI

AI Mimics CEO’s Voice To Steal Over £200,000

Posted on by Andy Miller

A recent Wall Street Journal report has highlighted how, in March this year, a group of hackers were able to use AI software to mimic an energy company CEO’s voice in order to steal £201,000.

What Happened?

Reports indicate that the CEO of an unnamed UK-based energy company received a phone call from someone that he believed to be the German chief executive of the parent company.  The person on the end of the phone ordered the CEO of the UK-based energy company to immediately transfer €220,000 (£201,000) into the bank account of a Hungarian supplier.

The voice was reported to have been so accurate in its sound, that the CEO of the energy company even recognised what he thought was the subtleties of the German accent of his boss, and even “melody” of the accent.

The call was so convincing that the energy company made the transfer of funds as requested.

Fraudster Using AI Software

The caller, who was later discovered to have been a fraudster using AI-base voice-altering software to simulate the voice of the German boss, called 3 times.  In the first call, the fraudster requested the transfer, in the second call they (falsely) claimed that the transfer had been reimbursed, and in the third call the fraudster requested an additional payment. It was this third call that aroused suspicion, partly based on the fact that the telephone number appeared to indicate that the caller was in Austria and not Hungary.

Money To Hungary, Mexico and Beyond

Unfortunately, the money had already been transferred to a Hungarian account after the first call, and it has since been discovered that money was immediately transferred from the alleged supplier’s Hungarian bank account to an account in Mexico, and then further disbursed to accounts in other locations, thereby making it very difficult for authorities to follow the trail.

What Sort of Software?

The kind of software used in this attack may have been similar in its output to that demonstrated by researchers from Dessa, an AI company based in Toronto.  Dessa has produced a video of how this kind of software has been able to produce a relatively accurate simulation of the voice of popular podcaster and comedian Joe Rogan – see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=DWK_iYBl8cA

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

It is known that cybercriminals, deterred by improved and more robust enterprise security practices have decided to look for human error and concentrate more on social engineering attacks, a category that this voice simulation attack (via phone calls) fits into. The fact that this attack has taken place and been successful shows that some cybercriminals are already equipped with the computing power and most up-to-date machine-learning AI technology that they are clearly capable of using.

This means that companies and organisations (particularly larger ones), may now be at risk of facing more sophisticated deception and phishing attacks. The AI company Dessa has suggested that organisations and even individuals could expect to face future threats such as  spam callers impersonating relatives or spouses to obtain personal information, impersonations intended to bully or harass, persons trying to gain entrance to high security clearance areas by impersonating a government officials, and even an ‘audio deepfake’ of a politician being used to manipulate election results or cause a social uprising.

Companies should try to guard against social engineering attacks by educating all staff to the risks and having clear verification procedures (and not just relying on phone calls), tests, and chain of command authorisation in place for any requests for funds.

Record Levels of Investment in UK AI

Posted on by Andy Miller

A Tech Nation Report has shown that AI investment in the UK reached record levels in the first six months of the year making it the third biggest market in the world for AI investment, just behind the US and China.

Surge

Crunchbase figures show that AI investment in the UK reached £859.29m in just the first six months of this year, compared to £825.85m for the whole of last year.

This latest surge in AI investment marks five years of consecutive growth and a massive six-fold increase between 2014 and 2018.

Also, AI start-ups in the UK raised almost double the amount of those in the rest of Europe combined.

Why The High Investment Levels?

The AI investment growth can be attributed to several factors, not least:

  • A rise in the number of start-ups with 50 or fewer employees.  These account for 89% of the UK’s AI companies.
  • The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) £1bn AI sector deal to put the UK at the forefront of the AI industry, including almost £300m of new private sector investment, as part of the UK government’s Industrial Strategy (announced November 2017).  This initiative was intended to establish partnerships between government and industry in order to increase productivity.

Challenges

Even though the figures show that the investment trend is going in the right direction, UK-based companies hoping to make the most of AI face some clear challenges including:

  • A tech skills shortage and a so-called “brain drain” in the UK and across Europe as top university tech students are tempted to work further afield e.g. in the U.S.  Also, Brexit fears in the UK have deterred some European specialist tech workers from staying.
  • Challenges in scaling up their businesses so that they can become competitive in the global market.

Small Pool

These challenges to the growth of AI companies mean that there is only a relatively small pool of UK AI-focused companies that have been able to make the step to scaling-up and competing on the world stage.  AI companies in other countries such as China, by contrast, tend to have larger workforces e.g. 53% have more than 50 employees.

There is also a relatively small pool of people in the world who can contribute to cutting-edge AI research.

Benefits and Threats of AI

AI offers many benefits to businesses such as cost and time savings (greater productivity and reduction in errors), the ability to make better use of resources (AI handles repetitive jobs and bots handle common questions).

Many people are, however, concerned that the growth in AI will mean a loss of jobs e.g. Gartner figures show that AI could eliminate 1.8 million jobs.  It should also be remembered that AI could create 2.3 million jobs by 2020 (Gartner) and that if the large-scale introduction of AI follows the pattern of temporary job losses followed by recovery and business transformation, the combination of human and artificial intelligence could provide exciting news competitive advantages for businesses.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The investment in AI within the UK is promising for the tech sector, the economy, and for the future of the UK in the global tech market, provided that UK-based AI companies can tackle the challenges of being able to scale-up and successfully find the human tech talent at a time of skills shortages.

AI may cost jobs in the shorter term, but it may also bring new strengths and opportunities to businesses and could transform the way we are able to work for the better.

BBC to Launch Own ‘Beeb’ Digital Voice Assistant Next Year

Posted on by Andy Miller

The BBC has announced that it will be launching its own digital voice assistant ‘Beeb’ next year to work on all smart speakers, TVs, and mobile devices.

Accents

The new digital (AI) voice assistant, which is being developed by an in-house team, will be trained to have a good understanding of the many different UK regional accents.  This has meant that BBC staff from around the UK have been invited to record their voices to help train the programme.

Competing?

Even though the BBC has not said that ‘Beeb’ will be sold with its own hardware device (smart speaker), as an AI digital voice assistant it will essentially be in broad competition with Amazon, Google and Apple, all of which have already been in the market for some time with their own voice assistants.

That said, in addition to not being released in a bundle with a home smart speakers to compete on the shelves with other general smart speakers, Beeb is different because it has been designed, rather like the iPlayer, as a means to provide easier access to the BBC’s own content, programmes and services.  It is thought that ‘Beeb’, being a BBC product that’s specifically designed with the purpose of accessing BBC content, will mean that it is trusted and used by BBC customers.

Voice-Activated Future

As a public services broadcaster, the BBC sees ‘Beeb’ as an important step to keep up with the times in what it describes as a “voice-enabled future”.  For example, 20% of British households already use voice assistants (Guardian).

Criticism

Some critics have pointed out that having a single syllable word such as ‘Beeb’ as the wake-word could lead to mistakes being made by the assistant, but the BBC says that ‘Beeb’ is still just a working title.

No More BBC on TuneIn

From the end of September, the BBC’s radio stations will no longer be available through the TuneIn radio app (as used by Alexa) because it has been reported that Amazon will not share information about listeners of BBC stations.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The new digital voice assistant is a way in which the BBC can give its customers a more convenient and modern way to access its content, in the same way that some competitors are using  Netflix uses Amazon voice controls on Fire TVs, and at a time when people are used to using other voice assistants. Also, Beeb is a part of the BBC’s move to push users towards its own products, and crucially, to find out more information about its users.  This has been shown, for example, by the need to sign-up to view programmes on iPlayer, and by the impending removal of BBC stations from TuneIn app over a lack of information-sharing.  The BBC’s own digital assistant will mean that it can have information-gathering systems built-in.  This, in turn, helps the BBC to better target its services and to compete more effectively in the wider marketplace, while at the same time, help it to improve and add value to its public service broadcasting.

Robot Tuck Shops About To Hit U.S. College Campuses

Posted on by Andy Miller

San Francisco-based start-up, Starship Technologies, has announced that it will be putting food delivery robots that respond to phone app orders on 100 U.S. university campuses in the next 24 months.

The Bots

It has been reported that 25 to 50 of the (23Kg battery-powered, six-wheeled) Starship bots will be let loose on each campus, with the ability to roam around seven days a week, from 8 am to 2 am. The self-driving bots drive at 4 mph and use 10 cameras, radar, ultrasound sensors, GPS, computer vision and neural networks to process what they see in order to negotiate their way safely around a 4 km radius.

The bot’s cargo bay is mechanically locked during the journey and can only be opened by the customer with their smartphone app. The location of the robots is tracked, so that customer knows the exact location of their order and receives a notification at the time of arrival.

Food

The college campus robots will be delivering breakfast, snacks, and a variety of other food to students on campus.  Also, the app can take orders from local restaurants which the Starship bots will deliver to students on the campus for $1.99 per shipment, with Starship getting paid by the restaurant for making each delivery.

Benefits

The obvious benefits of the food delivery robots are that they can work whatever hours they are required all year round with no pay, no holiday and no need for breaks. Also, the Starship bots have an advantage over other local delivery services because the bots are small, manoeuvrable, know their way around the expansive campuses (thanks to pre-loaded, 3D maps), there are several bots working on one site, and they won’t need to be subject to any authorisation checks for being there.

Bigger Goals

Starship has bigger plans for the bots and is reported to have the goal of getting the bots onto college campuses across the US serving 1 million students.

Starship has also started a package delivery service in neighbourhoods and parts deliveries on business and industrial campuses using the bots.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Amazon has been making the news over the past couple of years with its delivery drones and ‘Scout’ delivery robots, and the well-funded start-up Starship ($40 million in new funding) has shown how it has been able to move quickly into a niche and join the growing delivery robot/drone industry.  For the robot and drone operating companies (Amazon, UPS, Google, Starship) these bots offer a way to reduce costs, avoid road congestion problems, avoid labour problems, and potentially deliver 24 hours a day all year round.  Users of bot and drone services can expect convenience, greater control over orders, and the novelty and fun of the delivery experience.

The benefits of drones and robots, however, may come at the expense of jobs, more of which are being taken away by the advance of technology-fuelled automation across many industries.

A.I. Powered Bar-staff. Who’s Next?

Posted on by Andy Miller

In what’s been called the world’s first ‘A.I. Bar’ (developed by British data science product company DataSparQ) ordering a drink at a busy bar has been made easier, faster and fairer by using facial recognition technology to place customers in an “intelligently virtual” queue.

Solving Old Problems

Information and statistics (DataSparQ) show that pub-goers in Britain spend more than two months over a lifetime queuing for drinks and that people pushing in at bar queues is the biggest gripe.  Who to serve next as efficiently as possible without causing an argument, and how to spot underage customers at busy times are challenges faced by many bar workers.  Also, solo drinkers and females can find busy bars intimidating and frustrating.

The new DataSparQ ‘A.I. Bar’ Software-as-a-Service product, which costs landlords from just £199 a month and uses a standard webcam, display screen and Internet connection to link up to A.I facial recognition technology appears to be able to address all of these challenges.

How It Works

The A.I. Bar, which has been tested in London, uses a camera linked to the machine learning technology to spot those persons arriving at the bar.  The system displays a live video of everyone queuing on a screen above the bar and a number, which appears above each customer’s head, representing their place in the queue. The system also protects customer privacy by deleting the data (pictures of faces) within 24 hours.

For bar staff, the ordered numbering of customers, and the fact that customers are clearly aware of their number in the queue reduces the chance of arguments. The system shows the bar staff on an iPad, exactly who to serve next thereby helping bars and pubs to maximise their ordering efficiency. The system also tells bar staff who they should ask for I.D. to verify their age, thus helping the pub/bar to stay on the right side of the law.

More Pints Served

In tests of the system, the before and after data has revealed there was an overall reduction in serving times with equivalent of more than 1,600 pints extra poured over a year compared to the average UK pub.  This could equate to a potential 78million additional pints poured a year if the UK’s 48 thousand pubs adopted the A.I Bar technology.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For UK pubs and any business which have to deal with busy bars (hotels, clubs, live music venues and festivals), this system is an example of how the latest technology can be used in a practical setting to solve a number of age-old problems that have troubled drinkers, owners and staff alike.  If this system was widely adopted, the efficiencies created, the extra beer sales, and the reduction of potentially intimidating situations in pubs could benefit the wider pub and drinks trades, and could go some way to helping at a time when so many pubs are being forced to close.

Revenue Risk To UK Companies Too Slow To Adopt AI

Posted on by Andy Miller

Research from the McKinsey Global Institute shows that UK companies could lose 20% of their cash flow if they are too slow to invest in and adopt Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools.

Could Miss Out

Even though the report highlighted the UK’s higher than average AI-readiness, the country could miss out on a potential 22% boost to the economy and a 120% growth for individual businesses if organisations do not start investing now in AI tools that could help them gain considerable competitive advantages.

Investment Pockets

The research noted that the UK currently only has pockets of innovation for AI e.g. Google’s DeepMind AI division, and that in order to replicate this kind of innovation for growth, businesses need to be in a position where they can offer AI at scale, invest in the necessary talent and find ways to use the findings of the latest research to help achieve commercial success.

IT Skills Shortage

The UK already has an IT skills shortage and is experiencing a “brain drain” from UK university talent to US companies, a further brain drain pressure caused by Brexit fears, and the pull of attractive higher salaries and advanced tech sector careers in tech firms overseas.

Oxford University – Massive Donation For AI

One way of combatting an AI brain-drain and helping to grow UK AI talent which could help UK businesses with AI is to have an AI centre in the UK.  Oxford University has just received the largest single donation to a UK university of £150m from US private equity billionaire and Republican political adviser Stephen Schwarzman for the purpose of building an institute to study the ethics of AI. Mr Schwarzman is reported as saying that artificial intelligence is the major issue of our age.  He has also given £279m to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to establish a centre for computing and artificial intelligence.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Both this research, and some Nesta research from last year have highlighted how UK businesses may be facing added competitive challenges and missing out on revenue in the not-too-distant future due to an ongoing skills shortage that has been amplified and exacerbated by Brexit uncertainty, and by late investment in and adoption of AI.

McKinsey’s latest research builds on its research from last year where it attempted to simulate the effects of AI on the global economy.  The results showed that AI could deliver additional global economic activity of around $13 trillion by 2030, or about 16 per cent higher cumulative GDP compared with today. This, of course, would be good for businesses that have invested in AI, and where many of the potential challenges are adequately tackled e.g. the UK’s IT skills shortage.  It should also be accepted that the productivity growth that AI could help fuel is likely to be affected by a host of different factors in different parts of the world e.g. labour automation, innovation, the pace of adoption of AI, and the global connectedness or labour-market structure of any given country.

It is also worth noting that AI can deliver threats as well as opportunities, in the form of AI-based cyber-attacks which are a developing risk to whole nations and economies as well as individual businesses. This is certainly one area where nations such as the UK must invest in its own AI defence structures and tools.

Tech Tip – Lightbeam Screen-Sharing App

Posted on by Andy Miller

If you’d like an app that enables you to easily share mobile screens with a friend or colleague, for work or leisure, Lightbeam is a new, free, cross-platform app which does just that.

The social screen sharing app also makes it easy to book group itineraries and reservations for trips, and it also works as a video chat service.

To download the app find it on Apple’s iTunes, and on Google Play Store.

New AI Feature For Microsoft Word Online To Improve Your Writing

Posted on by Andy Miller

The new ‘Ideas’ feature, an AI-powered editor in the cloud for Microsoft Word is intended to provide intelligent suggestions to make your writing more concise, readable, and inclusive.

Ideas

The new ‘Ideas’ feature, which is already being used with PowerPoint and Excel, is likely to be a value-adding improvement on traditional grammar and spelling checks because it is designed to help with the reading and writing of (online) Word documents.

The feature announced at Microsoft 2019 and scheduled for testing in June, will be able to follow along as you write, offer familiar fixes for spelling and grammatical errors, suggest improvements, be able to detect nuances in language and even suggest rewrites for tricky phrases or clunky paragraphs.

The Ideas feature will also be able to help with the reading of Word documents by, for example, providing estimated reading times, extracting key points, and decoding acronyms using data from the Microsoft Graph.

British Company Wins Google Money For AI

It’s not just Microsoft that’s making the news this week for its ongoing pursuit of augmenting its products and services with AI and machine learning.

British fact checking company Full Fact has just been named among the 20 winners of Google’s AI Impact Challenge.  The award will mean that they will receive a share of 19.1 million dollars worth of Google investment as well as consultation help and mentoring from Google.  The AI Impact Challenge from Google asked for organisations to submit ideas on how to use AI to help address societal challenges.  For Full Fact, this involved ideas about how to use AI to combat the kind of misinformation that affects millions of people’s health, safety and ability to participate in society, and is considered by many to be a threat to democracy in many countries.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The addition of an AI-powered, cloud-based enhancement to Microsoft’s online version of Word is considered to be the next, more intelligent step onwards from enhancements like predictive text.  It also offers Microsoft a way to compete with popular grammar programs such as Grammarly, and it will be interesting to see how such companies respond to Microsoft’s ‘Ideas’ feature.

The ‘Ideas’ feature is likely to be particularly good news for journalists and other writers as it will presumably be able to make the low-level composing work a little easier and may be able to save time and add value to their work.  It may even help Microsoft reach its aim of enabling people to design documents for maximum readability, and in doing so, make the workday more productive for many people.

One area where AI is predicted to offer some real promise in the near future is in the (cloud-based) cyber security market.  For example, the Visiongain ‘Artificial Intelligence in Cyber Security Market Report’ for 2019-2029 values the 2019 AI in cyber security market at $4.94bn.  Cloud-based cyber security that incorporates AI could prove to a cost-effective and affordable source of protection for SMEs and large enterprises.

First Organ Delivery By Drone

Posted on by Andy Miller

A human kidney for transplant has been delivered by drone to a Medical Centre in Baltimore in the first flight of its kind.

Cutting Edge Technology

The drone transportation of the living organ over a one-mile journey used cutting-edge technology in the form of an AI-powered drone that had been specifically designed to maintain and monitor the organ during the journey.  As well as having a specially designed compartment to keep the organ in the right condition for transplant, the drone had onboard communications and safety systems to enable a safe flight over densely-populated/urban areas, and a parachute recovery system in case the drone failed.

Collaboration

The drone’s creation was the product of a collaboration between the aviation and engineering experts at the University of Maryland (UMD), transplant specialists and researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM), and others at the Living Legacy Foundation of Maryland.  Joseph Scalea, assistant professor of surgery at University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) who was one of the surgeons who carried out the transplant has also acknowledged the collaborative efforts of the surgeons, engineers, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the organ procurement specialists, the drone pilots, nurses at the hospital, and the patient.

Solves Problems

The ability to deliver transplant organs by drone solves the problems caused primarily by traffic problems identified by the United Network for Organ Sharing, which reported that in 2018 there were nearly 114,000 people on waiting lists, with 1.5% of organs not making it to the destination and nearly 4% being delayed by two hours or more.

Medical Sample Delivery Too

There has also been a recent report in North Carolina of a hospital, in partnership with UPS, using a drone delivery program to speed up the delivery of critical medical samples across a hospital campus, thereby cutting 41 minutes off the usual on-foot journey.

Potential

The fact that the organ drone flight and the transplant operation were safe and successful has led to the recognition of the potential of this method e.g. unmanned transportation of organs over greater distances, minimising the need for multiple pilots and flight time and addressing safety issues.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

This world-first in organ transportation is an important first step in what could be (if proven to be safe and reliable over multiple flights) an important new technological improvement to the provision of life-saving medicine.

Business owners may also be thinking that if this can be done successfully with something as important and delicate as a human organ for transplant, this system could potentially be scaled up and used to ensure the fast, safe delivery of other items. Amazon, for example, has been testing delivery drones for parcels since 2013 with a view to making its ‘Prime Air’ service a regular reality in the future.

As shown by UPS’s involvement with medical sample delivery, other major delivery companies are also investing in drones and their potential to combat the challenges posed by traffic congestion and labour-intensive and time-consuming on-foot journeys.

Also, the US Federal Aviation Administration has just authorised Alphabet’s (Google’s) Wing Aviation to start delivering goods via drones later this year.  This is the first time that the FAA has granted an “air-carrier” the certification for drone delivery of items such as food, medicine, and other small consumer products.

Drone transportation is clearly moving forward and starting to prove that it offers great potential in many different sectors in the not-too-distant future.

‘ManyChat’ Raises $18 million Funding For Facebook Messenger Bot

Posted on by Andy Miller

California-based startup ‘ManyChat’ has raised $18 million Series A funding for its Facebook Messenger marketing bot.

ManyChat

ManyChat Inc. is now the leading messenger marketing product, reportedly powering over 100,000 bots on Facebook Messenger.

ManyChat lets you use visual drag`n`drop interface to create a free Facebook Messenger bot for marketing, sales and support.  The bot is essentially a Facebook Page that sends out messages and responds to users automatically.

The ManyChat bot allows you to welcome new users, send them content, schedule posts, set up keyword auto-responses (text, pictures, menus), automatically broadcast your RSS feed and more.

The bot, which is a blend of automation and personal outreach also incorporates Live Chat that notifies you when a conversation is needed with a subscriber.

Facebook Messenger

ManyChat says it has focused on Facebook Messenger because it is the #1 app in the US and Canada with over 1 billion active users, and it is the most engaging channel with average 80% open rates and 4 to 10 times higher CTRs compared to email.

The Funding

The $18 million funding for ManyChat was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from Flint Capital, and means that Bessemer’s Ethan Kurzweil will be joining the board of directors, and Bessemer’s Alex Ferrara becomes a board observer.

1+ Million Accounts Created

ManyChat reports that more than 1 million accounts have been created on the platform already by customers in many different industry sectors.  The platform has also reported that these 1+ million customers have managed to enlist 350 million Messenger subscribers and that there are now a staggering 7 billion messages sent on the platform each month.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Bots provide a way for businesses to reduce costs, make better use of resources and communicate with customers and enquirers 24/7.

As ManyChat points out, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for businesses to effectively reach their audience because people open less email and social media is ‘noisy’ to the point where messages become lost in the crowd.  A key advantage of ManyChat, therefore, is that it uses Facebook Messenger as a private channel of communication with each user, it’s instant and interactive, no message is ever lost, and Messenger has huge user numbers. Other advantages that businesses will appreciate is that it’s free and easy to set up the bot (no coding skills are required), and it offers the best of both worlds of automated communications, and the option to jump in with Live Chat when it is needed.

This kind of bot could enable businesses and organisations to make their marketing more effective while maximising efficiency.

ManyChat is also good news for Facebook which owns Messenger as it appears to be boosting user numbers by finding an improved, business-focused use for the app.

For ManyChat, its Facebook Messenger bot appears to be only the beginning (hence the funding), with investors looking at platforms like Instagram, WhatsApp, RCS, and more to further expand bot marketing services in the future.