Chinese farmers are using AI to keep tabs on their pigs

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Chinese farmers are using AI to keep tabs on their pigs
Big Brother has an eye on the sty. At least in China, anyway, where tech giant Alibaba is rolling out image- and sound-recognition software to help raise excellent porcine specimens.
What it does:  Quartz reports that Alibaba has built software that identifies pigs by markings on their bodies, tracking their physical activity and stats such as age and weight. Sound recognition can listen out for telltale signs of ill health.
Why AI? Some farms in China  have a lot of pigs. Tequ, a Chinese agricultural firm that’s teting out the technology, raises 10 million pigs a year. That means “relying on manpower is already not enough,” according to its CIO.
How it helps: The AI should create efficiences that take some strain out of looking after all those animals. It will help farmers keep track of the health of their pigs, for instance, and allow them to establish which ones will give birth to healthy offspring.
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Chinese farmers are using AI to keep tabs on their pigs
Big Brother has an eye on the sty. At least in China, anyway, where tech giant Alibaba is rolling out image- and sound-recognition software to help raise excellent porcine specimens.
What it does:  Quartz reports that Alibaba has built software that identifies… Read more
Big Brother has an eye on the sty. At least in China, anyway, where tech giant Alibaba is rolling out image- and sound-recognition software to help raise excellent porcine specimens.
What it does:  Quartz reports that Alibaba has built software that identifies pigs by markings on their bodies, tracking their physical activity and stats such as age and weight. Sound recognition can listen out for telltale signs of ill health.
Why AI? Some farms in China  have a lot of pigs. Tequ, a Chinese agricultural firm that’s teting out the technology, raises 10 million pigs a year. That means “relying on manpower is already not enough,” according to its CIO.
How it helps: The AI should create efficiences that take some strain out of looking after all those animals. It will help farmers keep track of the health of their pigs, for instance, and allow them to establish which ones will give birth to healthy offspring.
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The UK says Russia was behind the huge NotPetya ransomware attack
In a rare example of directly attributing blame, the British government says Russia orchestrated the massive cyberattack in 2017.
Back story: Last summer a new breed of ransomware, dubbed NotPetya and based on a Windows flaw leaked from the NSA, held… Read more
In a rare example of directly attributing blame, the British government says Russia orchestrated the massive cyberattack in 2017.
Back story: Last summer a new breed of ransomware, dubbed NotPetya and based on a Windows flaw leaked from the NSA, held computers around the world hostage . It hit Ukraine particularly hard, but it was felt globally—from India’s largest container port to US hospitals.
Blaming Russia:  According to the Guardian , the UK’s foreign office minister for cybersecurity, Lord Ahmad, says that “the Russian government, specifically the Russian military, was responsible for the destructive NotPetya cyberattack.”  
Bracing for more: Meanwhile, UK defense secretary Gavin Williamson says, “We have entered a new era of warfare, witnessing a destructive and deadly mix of conventional military might and malicious cyberattacks ... We must be primed and ready to tackle these stark and intensifying threats.”
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If we want AI to explain itself, here’s how it should tell us
Explainable AI systems aim to make decisions that are easily understood by humans—a laudable goal, but what makes a good explanation?
Testing the best: There’s only one way to figure that out: ask some users. So that’s what researchers from Harvard and… Read more
Explainable AI systems aim to make decisions that are easily understood by humans—a laudable goal, but what makes a good explanation?
Testing the best: There’s only one way to figure that out: ask some users. So that’s what researchers from Harvard and Google Brain did, in a series of studies. Test subjects looked at different combinations of inputs, outputs, and explanations for a machine-learning algorithm that was designed to learn the dietary habits or medical conditions of an alien (yes, seriously—alien life was chosen to keep the test subject’s own biases from creeping in). Users then scored the different combinations.
Keep it short: Longer explanations were found to be more difficult to parse than shorter ones—though breaking up the same amount of text into many short lines was somehow better than making people read a few longer lines. As you can tell, the tests examined some pretty basic elements of how to deliver information—but at least it’s a start.
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China’s AI startups scored more funding than America’s last year
Of $15.2 billion invested in AI startups globally in 2017, 48 percent went to China and just 38 percent to America. So says a new report from CB Insights about the state of AI.
So long, America: It’s the first time China’s AI startups surpassed those… Read more
Of $15.2 billion invested in AI startups globally in 2017, 48 percent went to China and just 38 percent to America. So says a new report from CB Insights about the state of AI.
So long, America: It’s the first time China’s AI startups surpassed those in the US in terms of funding. While America still has more AI startups than China, they’re starting to lose out in striking equity deals: the US accounted for 77 percent of them in 2013, but that fell to 50 percent last year.
Fierce competition: AI startup investment rose 141 percent in 2017 compared with 2016—but with 1,100 new startups appearing last year, AI appearing in business models everywhere, and Big Tech’s enterprise AI offerings gaining traction, it’s harder than ever to snag funds.
Why it matters:  China is all-in on AI , but the US government is doing little to support its own industry . The success of Chinese startups is another sign that America could soon be left behind.
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Delivery drones could reduce emissions—if they’re used properly
Regulating how drones are used to haul cargo could ensure that they help fight global warming.
Size is important: A Lawrence Livermore study published in Nature Communications shows that a small quadcopter drone carrying a one-pound load from a local… Read more
Regulating how drones are used to haul cargo could ensure that they help fight global warming.
Size is important: A Lawrence Livermore study published in Nature Communications shows that a small quadcopter drone carrying a one-pound load from a local warehouse emits less carbon dioxide than a medium-duty truck would to deliver the same package.
So is power: Things are less clear for a large octocopter drone hauling 16 pounds. If the electricity used to power the drone is generated from fossil fuels, the drone creates 50 percent more emissions than the truck. If it comes from renewables, the drone creates 9 percent less.
Why it matters: Joshua Stolaroff, who led the study, tells IEEE Spectrum that this is a rare chance to “consider the impacts of the technology before it gets deployed.” That means delivery drone use could be limited to ensure that it results in fewer emissions, rather than more.
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