Tag Archives: AI

Machine learning: The next wave of artificial intelligence is making critical decisions in health care

By | January 17, 2019
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Andrew Rosenberg, MD

Michigan Medicine CIO Andrew Rosenberg was recently interviewed by Hour Detroit about machine learning, the branch of artificial intelligence capable of identifying who is likely to be a no-show for their next clinic appointment or who is at risk for fatal medical conditions. “The best summary is that wherever a human makes an important decision, machine learning is being… Read More »

Symposium celebrates 30 years of Artificial Intelligence at Michigan

By | November 23, 2018
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The Michigan AI Lab celebrated 30 years of leading research with its first AI Symposium, AI for Society, which took place on November 10. The event welcomed 250 participants from U-M and around the country for a day of presentations, panel discussions, and poster sessions. Presenters gave a broad picture of AI’s applications in the modern world, from finance to health,… Read More »

Can an AI lie detector tell when you’re fibbing?

By | November 12, 2018
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arrows with the words "lie" and "truth" on them

Artificial intelligence is everywhere—but here’s a use you may not have considered: lie detection. It sounds like science fiction, but such an AI system is possible. The question is: How accurate can it be? Rada Mihalcea, a professor of computer science and engineering at U-M, has worked on deception detection for about a decade. Mihalcea’s used 121 video… Read More »

The logic of feeling: Teaching computers to identify emotions

By | October 19, 2018
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Using machine learning to decode the unpredictable world of human emotion might seem unusual. But computer science and engineering associate professor Emily Mower Provost has discovered a rich trove of data waiting to be analyzed in the ambiguity of human expression. Mower Provost uses machine learning to help measure emotion, mood, and other aspects of human behavior; for… Read More »

IT leaders gather for day of learning, networking at U-M

By | October 16, 2018
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IT leaders from U-M and peer academic research universities from the Midwest spent a day of learning and networking at the Michigan League. The Office of the Vice President for IT and Chief Information Officer partnered with Gartner, Inc. to host the Great Lakes IT Leadership Forum on Thursday, September 20, 2018. Ravi Pendse, vice president for IT… Read More »

Bots, Part One: Of bots, and bleeps, and other things

By | October 4, 2018
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Screenshot of the ELIZA Talking website, showing an old VT100 digivox terminal with keyboard, microphone, speaker, and vox (voice) dial button. There is text on the monitor which provides a description of the project ("ELIZA is a mock Rogerian psychotherapist), credits, and instructions for use.

Last December, I was turned on to the importance of bots while attending the Mayo Clinic Social Media Network (MCSMN) Annual Meeting in Arizona. Since then, I’ve been digging into the topic, trying to learn more, and hoping to get a bot implemented on our departmental website, but there is just so much to talk about! We decided… Read More »

Crowdsourcing in milliseconds

By | June 22, 2018
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Walter Lasecki, assistant professor in the College of Engineering and in the School of Information, has co-authored a paper introducing the “look-ahead approach,” a hybrid intelligence workflow that enables instantaneous crowdsourcing systems that can return crowd responses within milliseconds. According to the published paper, “Bolt: Instantaneous Crowdsourcing via Just-in-Time Training:” …real-time crowdsourcing has made it possible to solve… Read More »

AI program detects malnutrition in children

By | June 14, 2018
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"A UNICEF staff member measures the perimeter of an acute malnourished child’s arm in Doolow, Somalia"

A Kenya-based company, Kimetrica, has developed a new AI program called Methods for Extremely Rapid Observation of Nutritional status (MERON), that might have the ability to identify malnutrition from a photo, which makes it easier to assess nutrition problems in volatile regions. Andrew Jones, a public health nutritionist at U-M, says he can see the role for technologies… Read More »

How AI will affect the financial industry in 2018

By | March 5, 2018
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woman looking at cell phone screen with financial info

Over the last few years, artificial intelligence has helped push the envelope in terms of technological advancements in the financial industry. For example, consumers can use facial recognition to log in to financial apps and use voice commands to check their balances. In an article on Forbes.com, Jason Mars, a computer science professor at U-M and the CEO of Clinc,… Read More »

Robots with personality seem more trustworthy

By | February 16, 2018
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Human-like robot waves to a couple of shoppers

As more robots are showing up in all kinds of jobs, organizations must figure out how to successfully integrate human and robot co-workers. But how? According to a recent study co-authored by School of Information associate professor Lionel Robert, it’s by making robots more like people. The study, “Human-Robot Similarity and Willingness to Work with a Robotic Co-worker,” found that… Read More »

The coming death of facts?

By | February 16, 2018
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dozens of masks on sticks

Aviv Ovadya, chief technologist at the School of Information’s Center for Social Media Responsibility, cautions that technology and social media that can be used to enhance and distort what is real is evolving faster than our ability to understand and control or mitigate it. “I’m from the free and open source culture,” he says. “The goal isn’t to… Read More »

To fight fatal infections, hospitals may turn to algorithms

By | February 14, 2018
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composite image of medical and information technology icons and devices

Jenna Wiens, a computer scientist and assistant professor of engineering at U-M, helped create an algorithm to predict a patient’s risk of developing a C-diff infection (CDI), one of the deadliest killers in American hospitals. The algorithm uses a form of artificial intelligence called machine learning to extract warning signs of disease from patients’ vital signs and other health records—constellations of symptoms, circumstances,… Read More »

Say hello to Jibo, the countertop robot

By | January 22, 2018
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Jeff Huang with Jibo robot

Chaun-Che “Jeff” Huang, a School of Information PhD student, was part of the team that developed the artificial intelligence for Jibo, the first social robot for the home. It made the cover of Time Magazine’s “25 Best Inventions of 2017” November issue. Huang, who is studying human-computer interaction, describes Jibo as “highly personalized,” and programmed to be engaging.… Read More »

Memristors power quick-learning neural network

By | December 26, 2017
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computer chip

A new type of neural network made with memristors can dramatically improve the efficiency of teaching machines to think like humans. The network, called a reservoir computing system, could predict words before they are said during conversation, and help predict future outcomes based on the present. The research team that created the reservoir computing system, led by Wei… Read More »

U-M research in AI & machine learning is booming

By | December 15, 2017
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profile of human head made up of computer cirucuits

Research using machine learning and artificial intelligence—tools that allow computers to learn about and predict outcomes from massive datasets—has been booming at U-M. The potential societal benefits being explored on campus are numerous, from on-demand transportation systems to self-driving vehicles to individualized medical treatments to improved battery capabilities. The ability of computers and machines generally to learn from… Read More »

U-M receives $1.6M toward AI for data science

By | November 10, 2017
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close-up of tablet with charts and graphs

Researchers, hospitals, companies, consumers, and government agencies are drowning in data that they can’t fully capitalize on. Now, a team from U-M has received $1.6 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to help develop a toolkit so that even non-data scientists can use that data to possibly answer questions and ultimately speed up the process of… Read More »

Will the AI jobs revolution bring about human revolt, too?

By | November 7, 2017
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group of multi-ethnic mixed occupations people

The rise of artificial intelligence threatens to eliminate white-collar and “creative class” jobs once considered impossible to automate, including real estate brokers, insurance claims adjusters, lawyers, and business managers. In a recent article, Kentaro Toyama, associate professor of technology and global development at the School of Information, examines if anything good could come of mass unemployment, or whether it… Read More »

Can Alexa turn your kid into a brat?

By | June 14, 2017
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crying angry boy

Experts at the crossroads of pediatrics, psychology, and AI say there’s a lot we don’t know about how virtual assistants might affect young, developing minds. Jenny Radesky, a U-M pediatrician who studies how digital media shapes children, says research around how kids understand digital assistants is limited, and studies that do exist on children and robots suggest children see… Read More »

Good boy! Domesticating AI to protect humans

By | June 8, 2017
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golden retriever

U-M computer science professor Igor Markov believes an attack by artificial intelligence on humans would sort of be like when the Black Plague hit Europe in the 14th century, killing up to 50 percent of a populatioin that had no idea what was happening or why. “This would be illustrative of what you might expect if a superintelligent AI would… Read More »

Can Siri replace your friends?

By | March 23, 2017
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CU photo of wooden table with people's hands, mobile devices, coffee, water glass, and purse.

By now, we’re all familiar with the storyline in which a person replaces relationships with a digital device. A recent study co-authored by Carolyn Yoon, professor of marketing at U-M, sought to see exactly how much a humanlike digital device might replace humans. Yoon and her colleagues hoped to find out how devices that replicate human characteristics — such… Read More »