Trends | Yaser Khalifa and Evolutionary Algorithms

Facebook is already one of the most powerful and popular web and app platforms, and it has been for more than a decade. The service, whose beginnings we’re all at least somewhat familiar with at this point, has consistently dominated the world of social media, and based on its constant updates, additions, and acquisitions, it’s clear that it aspires to be more than that. The Facebook of 2017 is more than a space to share inane, personal details about the happenings of one’s day, as was the case 10 years ago. Now, users can share events, buy a car, send money, reserve movie tickets, ask for recommendations, and even broadcast live to billions of people around the world.

Yet, Facebook still isn’t done. In a recent blog the company revealed its latest endeavor includes a keener focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. This isn’t Facebook’s first time using AI. The company uses bots for their robust, separate messaging system, and FBLearner which is responsible for ranking and positioning content in your newsfeed, is an example of machine learning. Similarly, Facebook’s latest platform, Lumos, will be a powerful tool for images.

Lumos is different than Facebook’s current image capabilities, which does a pretty good job at facial recognition, allowing you to tag friends pretty easily upon uploading. The goal for the platform is to scan images and videos and analyze the content within them, with the capability of describing the media “like you would to a friend.”

Why Is This Important?

With better alt text capabilities, Facebook can position its service so that users can use text to search for photos and be presented, quite accurately, with a plethora of resources. Additionally, Facebook will be able to recommend visual content to you based on the subject matter within them, not necessarily because they’re popular within your network. It makes Facebook more helpful, in a way.

Another component for which Facebook could and plans to use Lumos is for easily identifying objectionable content. A site that features billions of users is bound to have more than its fair share of media that would be considered offensive. Facebook’s current process of responding to flagged content is not lacking, but automated software could do well to improve that process, or at least make it more efficient.

For more details about Lumos and a few early examples of the platform in action, check out ZDNet’s recent blog on the subject.

Follow @YaserKhalifa12 on Twitter for updates related to tech, machine learning and evolutionary algorithms.

The German film Metropolis premiered in March of 1927. In the years since its release it has become a classic among multiple generations, who consider it a pioneering work of art in the science-fiction genre. The centerpiece of the film is a robot named Maria, played by Brigitte Helm. At the time of the film’s release, the likeness was groundbreaking. Maria was not the first robot in film, but the character is arguably the most popular; since, it has inspired a number of other replicas in popular culture, due to our fascination with artificial intelligence and animated machinery. Each of these were rooted in fantasy, yet as life often imitates art, recent developments show that cohabitational robots are becoming much more of a reality than many have imagined.

Take the next generation Atlas robot, for example. Created by Boston Dynamics, the robot is shown in the video here as being capable of navigating snowy and rather difficult grounds, which Extreme Tech describes as an incredible feat that took humans half a billion years to master, in terms of evolution. The second generation Atlas also has the intelligence to realize when something has been moved–such as the boxes which it’s also able to lift and place on a shelf–to recover from resistance, and to even stand up on its own after being knocked over. The machine is downright fascinating and it’s just one of the advancements we’ve seen this year.

Aido, a personal robot that responds to voice commands and even plays with children, will be in people’s homes as soon as this fall. Like some of the machines we’ve seen in movies, the bot responds to touch through haptic sensors, which allows it move throughout the home or office. One of the more incredible features is its built in face recognition technology, and ability to communicate what it seen. For entertainment purposes, the robot is reported to have the ability to control electronics devices throughout the home as well.

To be expected later in the future, is a robot created to help the elderly, providing assistance and companionship. Embedded with a sense of emotions and capable of bringing past conversations to memory, the goal of the robot, Nadine, is said to help patients suffering from dementia diseases, like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Almost 50 million people suffer from dementia worldwide, and because there is no treatment, any assistance that can facilitate living with the disease is certainly welcome. There is no current release for Nadine but the technology is there.

These developments are but a few debuting this year. This list from Robotics Trends shares more of what consumers and purveyors of artificial intelligence can expect in the next few months, based on revelations at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES). As a society, we seem to be moving into future more quickly than ever. Whether it’s playing with children, moving boxes, or having conversations with the elderly, these scientific advancements are turning fantasies into reality, one research project at a time.