AI

Apple’s Autonomous Car Involved in Crash

Posted on by Andy Miller

Apple’s new autonomous vehicle, part of its ‘Project Titan’, has joined an expanding list of self-driving car prangs.

What Autonomous Vehicle?

Apple is reported to have been working on vehicle projects since 2015 under the name of ‘Project Titan’. Ever since the early reports, there has been much speculation about when an iCar will come onto the market.

The evidence, that this would be likely, came in the form of reports of hundreds of Apple employees working on a car project, hints during an interview with CEO Tim Cook back in June 2007, reports of two Apple computer scientists publishing research about a 3D detection system (that could be used in an autonomous car), and in July this year, news that an ex-Apple employee had been charged with stealing trade secrets from Apple to take to a Chinese car start-up.

Apple is also reported to be working with VW on a driverless vehicle to shuttle its employees to and from work.
The Apple car involved in the recent accident is a Lexus SUV that is being used as part of the testing for its autonomous car project.

In Driverless Mode, But Rear-Ended

In this case, even though the Apple autonomous vehicle was in driverless mode at the time, the cause of the crash (last month) is thought to be that the driver of a Nissan Leaf rear-ended the Apple car while it was doing less than 1 mph, trying to find a safe space to merge onto Lawrence Expressway in California.

Most Autonomous Vehicle Crashes Caused By Humans

It’s tempting to think that testing autonomous vehicles on public roads is bound to result in crashes caused by faults with the technology. In fact, the statistics tell a different story and indicate that human error has been the main cause of accidents involving autonomous vehicles.

For example, Axios research shows that only 8% of these types of crashes were caused by a vehicle fault, and only one such crash happened when the vehicle was in autonomous mode. In fact, six out of seven accidents happened while a human was driving, and only one of a total 57 accidents to date involving moving autonomous vehicles was caused by a fault with the AI. One more left-field statistic is that self-driving vehicles have actually been attacked by humans 3 times!

That said, and joking aside, it’s worth acknowledging that there has already been one fatality related to driverless cars. It happened when a woman was hit by a driverless car that was being tested by Uber while she was crossing the street in Tempe, Arizona.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Although we may not be entirely convinced yet, or used to the idea of cars, lorries, and even planes operating autonomously on our roads and above our heads, the fact is that all have been tested, and look likely to become a more regular reality. At this time, it is still relatively early days for autonomous vehicles which means that there are still many untapped opportunities to use autonomous vehicles commercially, and there are of course many challenges and issues to consider around safety, insurance, regulations and reliability. For the time being, autonomous vehicles are, therefore, likely to be adopted more quickly on closed sites but operators who decide to adapt such sites to work for autonomy could expect significant improvements in productivity and safety.

As the technology to operate these vehicles becomes more advanced, prices decrease, and technical and operational problems are ironed-out, their potential to add-value to businesses / organisations / cities .e.g. for distribution / logistics, public transport, and many other uses will become apparent. They may also offer cost savings, greater reliability and easier management and planning, which are appealing benefits to businesses.

Diabetes Eye Disease Diagnosing System Needs No Doctors

Posted on by Andy Miller

An AI system for diagnosing eye disease caused by diabetes that has been approved for use in the US works autonomously and doesn’t need a doctor to interpret its results.

New Way To Solve Old Problem

Diabetic retinopathy, a leading cause of blindness among adults, is caused by high blood sugar levels damaging the blood vessels of the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye / the retina. The condition affects up to eight out of 10 people who have had diabetes for 10 years or more.

Given the extent of the problem, Google and DeepMind are reported to have been working on building machine-learning algorithms for detecting diabetic retinopathy for some time.

The new AI-based device from Iowa diagnostics company IDx LLC is the first FDA-approved AI system for diagnosing this particular eye disease.

No Doctors Required For Diagnosis

The system can be used to spot the disease i.e. signs of mild diabetic retinopathy in scans of people’s retinas. This would normally be a job that would require human input, and as such, the new device is a first in eye care.

Although the system can diagnose the disease on its own, and therefore, doesn’t require a doctor’s input for diagnosis, it cannot recommend treatment plans, as this requires human doctors.

How Does It Work?

The system uses two convolutional neural networks.

The first one studies and analyses the image quality of retinal scans, from this it can determine if the focus, colour balance, and exposure are good enough to pass the photos to the diagnostic algorithm.

The second stage / network looks for common signs of damage related to the disease e.g. haemorrhages from burst blood vessels which may be caused by unstable blood sugar levels.

From these processes, the system is able to make a diagnosis.

How Accurate Is It?

Given the complicated nature of the medical condition, the accuracy of the system has been tested (using 900 subjects) in terms of its sensitivity, specificity and imageability. The device is reported to have scored 87% sensitivity i.e. identifying patients who have a mild version of the condition, 90% cent specificity i.e. indentifying those with no eye damage, and 96% imageability i.e. a high enough quality of image was generated to achieve a diagnosis.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

AI is being incorporated in more value adding and innovative ways to solve many problems across all industries and sectors, and as such, represents an opportunity for those businesses developing devices and systems with an AI element.

Not only does this device perform an important part of a service that hitherto required expert human input, it also frees up time that the human expert would have spent on diagnosis, thereby allowing valuable medical resources to be extended and allocated elsewhere. This demonstrates how AI can add value, save time / costs, and allow more leverage to be gained from existing services.

We already trust devices / machinery to handle many important aspects of medical care, and with this in mind, there should be no real reason to mistrust the accuracy and fitness for purpose of this system, particularly given that it has been tested, and that there will be human input at the treatment plan stage that may help to spot any errors.

AI in medical care represents an important step into the future that could bring some incredible benefits.

Tech Tip – Get Alexa In Windows 10

Posted on by Andy Miller

Many of us are used to using Amazon’s digital voice-activated assistant for all kinds of things at home. You can also use it via Windows 10 in the office. Here’s how:

Many new computers may come with the Alexa App pre-installed. Look for the Alexa app in the Start menu or type ‘Amazon Alexa’ in the Start menu Search bar.

If your computer doesn’t support hands-free access, click the Alexa icon at the bottom of the app to call up the voice assistant.

If you don’t have the Alexa App pre-installed on your computer, you can install it:

Ensure your PC is up to date and configured with US Language settings.

Download the Alexa app and follow the installation instructions – https://www.windowscentral.com/how-install-amazon-alexa-windows-10

To show the Alexa app all the time in your Windows 10 taskbar:

Go to Windows Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Select which icons appear on the taskbar and enable Alexa.

Social Mapper Can Trace Your Face

Posted on by Andy Miller

Trustwave’s SpiderLabs has created a new penetration testing tool that uses facial recognition to trace your face through all your social media profiles, link your name to it, and identify which organisation you work for.

Why?

According to its (ethical) creators, Trustwave’s SpiderLabs, Social Mapper has been designed to help penetration testers (those tasked with conducting simulated attacks on a computer systems to aid security) and red teamers (ethical hackers) to save time and expand target lists in the intelligence gathering phase of creating the social media phishing scenarios that are ultimately used to test an organisation’s cyber defences.

What Does It Do?

Social Mapper is an open source intelligence tool that employs facial recognition to correlate social media profiles across a number of different sites on a large scale. The software automates the process of searching the most popular social media sites for names and pictures of individuals in order to accurately detect and group a person’s presence. The results are then compiled in a report that can be quickly viewed and understood by a human operator.

How Does It Work?

Social Mapper works in 3 phases. Firstly, it is provided with names and pictures of people. e.g. via links in a csv file, images in a folder or via people registered to a company on LinkedIn.

Secondly, in a time-consuming phase, it uses a Firefox browser to log in to social media sites and search for its targets by name. When it finds the top results, it downloads profile pictures and uses facial recognition checks to try and find a match. The social media sites it searches are LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, VKontakte, Weibo, and Douban.

Finally, it generates a report of the results.

What’s The Report Used For?

The report is designed to give the user a starting point to target individuals on social media for phishing, link-sharing, and password-snooping attacks.

For example, a user can create fake social media profiles to ‘friend’ targets and send them links to credential capturing landing pages or downloadable malware, trick users into disclosing their emails and phone numbers e.g. using vouchers and offers to tempt them into phishing traps, create custom phishing campaigns for each social media site, or even to physically look at photos of employees to find access card badges or to study aspects of building interiors.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

In the right hands, Social Mapper sounds as though it could ultimately help businesses to improve their online security because it helps to create much better quality and more realistic testing scenarios on a larger scale that could uncover loopholes and shortcomings that current testing may not be able to fund.

The worry, however, is that in the wrong hands it could be used by cyber-criminals to quickly gather information about a target business and its employees, thereby enabling potentially very effective phishing and password-snooping campaigns to be created. This detailed information could also be shared among and sold to other criminals which could mean that individuals could be subjected to a number of attacks over time through multiple channels.

The obvious hope is, therefore, that enough checks and security measures will be put in place by its creators thereby not allowing the software to fall into the wrong hands in the first place and be used by criminals against the businesses and organisations that it was designed to help.

IBM Makes Test Version of New Stealth AI Malware ‘DeepLocker’

Posted on by Andy Miller

IBM has announced that it has created its own stealth, ultra-evasive AI malware called ‘DeepLocker’ that can evade all traditional cyber-security protection, hide in normal applications, and only strike when it is sure it has reached its intended target.

Why?

Cyber-criminals are becoming ever-more sophisticated in their methods, and the resources available to them have increased e.g. as hackers have also worked in state-sponsored activities. Also, the world of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has come along leaps and bounds in recent years, and the fear is that cyber criminals could soon be deploying their own AI-powered malware. IBM has, therefore decided to create its own version in order to see how it works and behaves, and thereby gain valuable information which could help it to reduce risks, and find ways counter such attacks.

DeepLocker

One of the things that makes DeepLocker so different to other malware that tends to take a scattergun approach to infection is that it can hide itself and its intent until it reaches a specific target.

This is down to DeepLocker using deep neural network (DNN) AI model, a sophisticated computer system modelled on the human brain and nervous system. This DNN provides a kind of ‘black box’ that totally conceals the “trigger conditions”, and makes attack almost impossible to decipher and reverse engineer. DeepLocker’s AI can, therefore, even convert its own concealed trigger condition (which has been transformed into a deep convolutional network), into a “password” or “key” to unlock its own attack payload when it identifies its victim. In this sense, it contains three layers of attack concealment.

Hides & Identifies

According to IBM, DeepLocker can hide itself completely in normal ‘carrier’ applications such as video conference software. This enables it to fly completely under the radar and avoid detection by most antivirus and malware scanners. It also allows it to be spread widely and without providing any clues that there is a threat.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Malware attacks have cost businesses, organisations and whole economies vast amounts of money and untold disruption and problems in recent times. Evasive malware has been evolving for many years now as cyber-criminals try to find their way around better security measures and more sophisticated sandboxes. AI attacks using ultra-evasive, stealth methods of the nature of DeepLocker represent the next frightening wave of attack that organisations and businesses will have to face. It is a good thing, therefore, that IBM has tried to take the initiative and gain a march on cybe- criminals who will undoubtedly seek to weaponise AI, by creating its own version in order to learn lessons in advance that could provide at least some level of protection and recommendations for counter-measures.

Forced Unbundling of Google Apps From Android

Posted on by Andy Miller

The European Commission anti-competition ruling against Google that will force it to change its OS by unbundling the Google Play store and native apps could help other phone makers, but could also make the new ‘P’ version of Android’s OS less interesting.

90 Days To Change

The EC ruling, which also imposed an eye-watering $5 billion fine this month, essentially means that Google only has a 90 day period in which to unbundle popular parts of its Android OS so that it no longer receives what the EC sees as an unfair advantage over competitors.

Manufacturers Forced To Bundle

For example, up until now, purchasers of Android phones from any manufacturer have had Google Play store to install its apps by default on their new phone. This is because Google has only enabled phone makers to access the Play store (which is needed for downloading popular apps) if they agreed to use a version of Android that preloads 11 bundled Google apps onto their smartphones.

No Choice

Also, even though phone manufacturers have been able to use Android Open Source Project Android software, this doesn’t have the Google APIs that are needed to link major apps to the Play store. Phone manufacturers have, therefore, been left with no choice but to agree to bundle Google’s native Android apps if they want their customers to have a good experience with their phones.

Real Opportunities For Competitors Now?

It is tempting to think that the ruling will now create many real opportunities for other, smaller phone manufacturers as they can customise the open source architecture and bypass native Google apps.

Some commentators have, however, pointed out that Google’s huge investment over the last decade in pre-loading Android with its most popular apps, and thereby making an Android phone work straight out of the box, is of value to consumers. The likelihood is, therefore, that customers would actually prefer to have the bundled Google apps anyway because they are used the convenience that they offer. This means that the EC’s judgement may have been several years late anyway, manufacturers will continue to need to offer Google services to be competitive and address consumer demand, and the ruling may not be offering any real extra opportunities for competing phone manufacturers in the near future.

The New Android P

The new Android 9.0 P / ‘Pie’ OS is beginning its rollout, firstly for Pixel devices and Essential Phone, and for Android One users later in the year, with all third-party handsets that participated in the Android P beta (Sony Xperia XZ2, Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S, Nokia 7 Plus, Oppo R15 Pro, Vivo X21 and OnePlus 6), receiving the update in the autumn.

The new OS has AI built-in, and there’s a strong focus on a smarter, simpler experience that is tailored to individual user patterns and offers adaptive features e.g. Adaptive Battery and Adaptive Brightness. In order to comply with the EC’s ruling, however, there is speculation that the new official Android OS will simply be released without the Google default apps, but consumers will simply seek them out and install them anyway.
Bad For Consumers?

Some critics of the EC ruling have also pointed out the possibility of some bad unintended consequences for consumers such as greater app inconsistency, and increases in hardware costs.

Google Games Woes

It appears that Google will also be missing out on a slice of the games world profits through Google Play. It has been reported that Epic Games, the makers of the popular multiplayer game Fortnite, will be bypassing Google Play and offer the game directly to hitherto overlooked Android, because it’s unhappy with the 30% slice of the profits Google would take through Google Play. Instead, Fortnite for Android will be made available directly on the Epic website, thereby cutting out the Google middle-man.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The idea of a fair playing field is obviously attractive to businesses, particularly smaller businesses that may also be later into a market. Clearly, the EC ruling shows that things do appear to have been stacked in Google’s favour in the Android market for some time, but many would argue that the ruling has come too late, and that consumers may now not actually benefit from the decision. It is, however important that powerful tech giants have to answer to some authority greater than their own in the interests of choice and fair competition.

Google has appealed, and it remains to be seen how the EC decision and what changes Google makes will affect the Android OS and the dynamics of the marketplace.

AI, ML & ‘Robot’ Business Spending Will Hit $232bn by 2025 Says Report

Posted on by Andy Miller

A recent KPMG reports claims that whereas business spending on artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning(ML) and robotic process automation (RPA) technologies is $12.4bn this year, it will increase to $232bn in 2025.

Ready, Set, Fail?

The report, entitled “Ready, set, fail? Avoiding setbacks in the intelligent automation race” highlights how the potential of AI technology is already being examined by 37% of enterprises, and how its uptake is expected to accelerate over the next three years, with all enterprises using the technology to some extent, 49% of enterprises using it at scale, and 29% using it selectively. Currently, 13% of enterprises are missing out altogether on the opportunity of using AI to add value to their business.

Can’t All Be Like Leading ‘Digital First’ Companies

The report accepts that while most businesses can’t realistically expect to be leading ‘digital first’ companies, such as Amazon with its one-click experience linked to a complex back-end and digital supply chain, they can make good ground from now on by acting quickly, understanding the need for urgency, and defining and executing a comprehensive AI strategy.

What Is Digital First?

A ‘digital first’ / digital by default approach involves giving priority to new media channels and technologies to improve the business by bringing it into line with the needs and behaviours of today’s consumers. It involves adopting a whole new way of looking at the business in order to add the skills, and to change to culture and mindset in order to make it more effective.

What Is Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?

While many of us are now familiar with the terms artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML), the report also focuses on ‘robotic process automation’ (RPA). This refers to an emerging form of business process automation technology that uses software robots or artificial intelligence (AI) workers.

Instead of software developers producing a list of actions to automate a task and interface to the back-end system using internal application programming interfaces (APIs) or dedicated scripting language, RPA systems develop the action list by watching the user perform that task in the application’s graphical user interface (GUI), and then they perform the automation by repeating those tasks directly in the GUI.

Expectations High But Readiness Low

The KMPG report shows that even though managers’ expectations are high for AI use in their company in the coming years, the readiness to implement AI is low. The reasons for this include the fact that two-thirds of enterprises lack the in-house talent, and half of businesses are still struggling to define goals and objectives for AI.

Also, the 33% of respondents in KPMG’s study said that management are lacking readiness to implement AI because of a concern over AI’s impact on employees.

Investment Available

According to the report, even though readiness is low, the investment needed for intelligent automation is available, and is expected to increase over the next 3 years, with 32% of organisations having approved more funding for robotic process automation, and 40% saying that they will increase spending on artificial intelligence by at least 20% over the next three years.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Artificial Intelligence holds many opportunities for businesses, and those businesses that have moved successfully to a digital first approach appear to be reaping the benefits in terms of competitive advantage and profitability in the modern marketplace.

There are many ways in which businesses can meet high marketplace expectations for AI. These include:

– Long-term planning with a sequence of steps, beginning with prioritised projects that can realise scale in one or two years, with the help of C-level buy-in and sponsorship. This can lead to a successful transformation built on new blueprints and architectures for operating models and business models.
– Taking a comprehensive and holistic approach to automating the service delivery model.
– Taking another look at the whole operating model and how AI can be best adopted and applied to the core business. This involves looking at the operational and technology infrastructure, organisational structure and governance, and people culture. This can be supported by measurement and incentive systems, and implemented in a way that causes minimum disruption to existing business processes.

Now You Can Search eBay Via A Photo

Posted on by Andy Miller

Ebay has launched Image Search in the UK, an AI-based technology that means you can now enter a photo into the search box to help find the product you’re looking for.

Smart Phone Camera Search

With so many of us now using smart-phones, this innovative new feature means that users can take a photo on their phone of a product they’re inspired by and interested in, and use the machine learning technology that’s been added to eBay’s 1.1 billion item catalogue to quickly search for that product.

Technology Push at eBay

This latest addition to eBay’s search is part of a general push by eBay to bolt-on more technologies and forge alliances to increase the reach of its platform and to take the fight to competitors.

For example, eBay recently collaborated with worldwide media and entertainment company for culture and tech ‘Mashable’ so that an eBay widget could be introduced into Mashable. The widget allows Mashable’s audience to see and use a small eBay shop window overlaid on the page, and populated by products that are featured in Mashable articles, thereby allowing people to instantly buy what they they’re reading about. The benefit for eBay (according to eBay) is that eBay’s marketing team will be able to use it to better understand the factors that matter most to buyers making purchases off the eBay platform e.g. seller reputation and delivery time, and to use learned consumer insights from the pilot to deliver scalable solutions that accelerate eBay’s growth.

Smart Search Benefits

The sheer size of eBay’s catalogue means that it can sometimes take a long time for users to find the item they’re looking for, particularly if that item is very difficult to describe. Also, the watching and waiting aspect of eBay, its reputation as an auction site, and its lack of ability to actively engage have appeared to put it slightly at odds with a generation who simply want to quickly find what they’re looking for via their smart-phone, and purchase it. eBay also needed to find a way to get the most out of the vast number of user-generated images and item data that they’d accumulated through the years, and to capitalise on the instant product inspiration that people get e.g. from their social media feeds.

It is believed that the Image Search feature will be able to address all of these challenges, and will allow users to quickly find what they’re looking for while on the move. It may also encourage more seller to take to platform.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

This is another illustration of how AI / machine learning is being put to practical and value-adding use as a medium for brand / company growth and user convenience. For businesses in retail such as for fashion and apparel, this new feature could bring increased sales and brand recognition, and could help new lines to generate sales rapidly.

For eBay, this innovative search feature could kill many birds with one stone towards the aim of delivering scalable solutions that can accelerate eBay’s growth.

Visual search is a growing trend, particularly in retail e.g. ASOS, Zalando and John Lewis have adopted visual search into their apps to save customers time, to make themselves more socially discoverable, to drive up-sell activity, and to ultimately increase app revenue. Visual search technology is likely to find its way onto many more platforms, retail websites and apps yet.

NHS Booking App and Doc Bot

Posted on by Andy Miller

In the NHS’s 70th year, and as part of the push for digitisation, the introduction of an appointment-booking app has been praised, while a GP chatbot has been given the thumbs-down by The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP).

Book Appointments With A Free NHS App

A free app, due to be launched at the end of this year, will enable NHS patients to make GP appointments, order repeat prescriptions, and access the 111 helpline for urgent medical needs.

The app, which is being jointly developed by NHS Digital and NHS England, and is part of NHS England’s wider strategy to digitise the health service, will be made available through the App Store or Google.

Other Options

As well as booking appointments and ordering prescriptions, the app will also give patients other options such as allowing them to opt-out of sharing their personal information for research and planning purposes across the health service, mark their preferences on organ donation, and register their choices for end-of-life care.

Helpful

Many commentators have praised the idea of the app as something that could provide extra convenience to patients e.g. reducing the 8am scramble for GP appointments, and take some of the increasing load off some areas of the NHS.

Security Caution

Some commentators have stressed the need to ensure that the security, reliability, and the identity verification processes of the app are of the highest international security standards in order to protect the personal details and medical history of patients.

Big No for Doc App

While the NHS appointment-booking app has been receiving cautious praise, the new Babylon AI chatbot that can diagnose medical conditions (and offer health advice based on what users tell it) got the thumbs-down at an event held by The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP).

Accuracy?

One of the main aspects of the bot that upset physicians were claims by Babylon that the bot has achieved medical exam scores of the same level as or higher than a human doctor. The company says that according to its robust testing program, which includes relevant sections of the MRCGP exam, which is the final test for a trainee GP, Babylon’s AI bot’s average pass mark was 81%. This mark is higher than the 72% average pass mark achieved by real doctors over the past five years.

These claims have been disputed by RCGP, which has stressed the point that no app or algorithm is able to do what a GP does.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Apps are being used in useful and value-adding ways in so many other sectors, it is no surprise that they are being developed for healthcare, and with the purpose of taking some of the burden off the NHS. For most people, the NHS is s trusted organisation anyway, and an app that can essentially perform administrative functions, such as booking appointments, sounds as though it could be very useful. The trust that many have in the NHS may also be enough to minimise security concerns. One criticism may be, however, that it may exclude the older members of society, many of whom are regular users of NHS services.

Even though an AI app may be able to pass theoretical exams (such as the Babylon AI app) getting people to trust it to make a diagnosis and then health suggestions, particularly when it has been criticised by real doctors, may be a step too far at the current time. That particular app company, however, has faced criticism in the past over its ‘GP at Hand’ app for the NHS, which allows patients at five London clinics to consult with their GP via a video call. The RCGP criticised it for cherry-picking patients, and leaving GPs to deal with the most complex patients without sufficient resources.

Either way, the NHS is committed to digitising some aspects of its services, and in introducing technology, a balance needs to be struck between adding real value in a fair way to all, while not being to the detriment of any NHS users and practitioners.

Bank Uses AI To Screen Job Applicants

Posted on by Andy Miller

A Singapore bank is reported to be using an AI-based system to make savings in the process of recruitment by automating the pre-screening of job applicants.

‘JIM’

The new AI screening platform, Jobs Intelligence Maestro (JIM) has been part of a pilot scheme that has been running at the DBS bank in Singapore since April.

JIM has been developed by Singapore start-up Impress.AI and DBS’ Talent Acquisition team, and has been used to support staff in the sometimes lengthy process of reviewing CVs, collecting responses to pre-screening questions, and conducting psychometric tests.

Savings

The main reason for the development of JIM is to save man-hours, to lighten the workload of the bank’s recruiters, and to enable the recruitment process to fit in more easily with the schedules of candidates who may be busy in normal office hours.

Wealth-Management Planning Roles

The AI system is intended to be used for screening candidates for wealth management planning roles in the bank in its main markets of Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Indonesia and India. This will enable the bank to meet its target of target 40% growth in staff advising its high net worth customers.

High-Volume Roles

JIM will also be used in other ‘high-volume’ roles within the bank, such as the bank’s management associate and graduate associate programmes, where more than 7,000 candidates can apply for 20 just roles.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Up until now, banks have made the news for using AI bots to make savings in the customer service side of the business. Once again, but in a different role, AI is being deployed to essentially make savings in man-hours, and to enable the 24-hour provision of a service.

JIM the AI program is being used in a supporting, time-saving, pre-screening role, and it is in these types of roles that AI is making in-roads into the world of business, and providing cost savings for those companies / organisations that can afford to and need to deploy them to add real value areas of their business e.g. for high-volume, intelligent processing work.

Automation using AI-based systems is likely to be an increasing trend, and back in 2017 the EU even voted to give a Bill of Rights to ‘robots’ that will give them “electronic personhood” status in the eyes of the Law in anticipation of a new kind of industrial robot revolution.