Google's DeepMind forms AI ethics group: Following the lead of others in tech and academia, Google's DeepMind division has formed a panel of internal and external members focused on the application of ethics in AI research. Here's the rationale from DeepMind's official blog:
As scientists developing AI technologies, we have a responsibility to conduct and support open research and investigation into the wider implications of our work. At DeepMind, we start from the premise that all AI applications should remain under meaningful human control, and be used for socially beneficial purposes. Understanding what this means in practice requires rigorous scientific inquiry into the most sensitive challenges we face.
So today we’re launching a new research unit, DeepMind Ethics & Society, to complement our work in AI science and application. This new unit will help us explore and understand the real-world impacts of AI. It has a dual aim: to help technologists put ethics into practice, and to help society anticipate and direct the impact of AI so that it works for the benefit of all.
DeepMind will involve experts from the social sciences and humanities in conducting interdisciplinary research, according to the blog.
POV: It is tempting to dismiss DeepMind's move as public-relations windowdressing, particularly in light of criticism the company received this year over its use of National Health Services patient data.
While the new panel involves outsiders, conflict-of-interest questions are inevitable when it comes to a company developing research related to its own technology. Moreoever, DeepMind has had an internal ethics board for years, but its membership and activities remain secret. Ethics and transparency go hand-in-hand; to that end, DeepMind can do better.
HPE creates app store for factories: Hewlett-Packard Enterprise says it can bring an app store-like experience to the factory floor with the new Express App Platform. It runs on-premises and can help manufacturers bring on new software innovations without interrupting operations, as HPE puts it:
Digitizing manufacturing processes brings many benefits including operational savings, improved flexibility and new revenue streams, but traditional applications such as Manufacturing Execution Systems are often complex and difficult to modernize. Conversely, applications hosted in the cloud can drive digital innovation, but also lead to data protection, cost and latency issues. By hosting both old and new applications on one single platform in factory premises, the Express App Platform – Manufacturing eases the transformation and dramatically reduces the need for separate hosting of legacy and bespoke applications.
Customers can roll out applications from the Cloud28+ services marketplace with only six mouse clicks, HPE says. (Although that doesn't take into account initial setup of the Express App Platform). On the hardware side, the platform uses HPE SimpliVity 380 converged infrastructure. It employs Docker containers to deploy apps.
A variety of HPE professional services are also on offer. Express App Platform is available now in Europe, the Middle East and Africa with a global release coming later this year.
POV: Express App Platform reflects an ongoing blurring of the line between operations and IT departments, notes Constellation VP and principal analyst Andy Mulholland. "The expansion in the use of computers and associated technology across the enterprise is cutting across the previously neat definition that this belonged to the IT department," he says. "Yet at the same time, the IT department realistically has to have some involvement to ensure that the enterprise's core commercial systems remain functional and secure."
HPE are presenting an interesting answer to this challenge, but the question is whether it can satisfy the requirements of both manufacturing operational technology and enterprise information technology, or all right in the middle and satisfy neither. "The answer might be less about the capability of the product and more education on both sides on deployments," Mulholland says.
Open source IoT framework EdgeX Foundry hits a big milestone: A Linux Foundation project focused on IoT interoperabiity has reached an important initial goal, with its first major code release becoming available this month.
More than 60 organizations are backing EdgeX Foundry, which was launched in April. Its goals are pressing indeed, as the project's announcement describes:
The complexity of the current IoT landscape and the wide variety of components available are creating paralysis among businesses looking to deploy IoT solutions. EdgeX Foundry ... is building an open interoperability framework hosted within a full hardware- and OS-agnostice reference software platform to enable an ecosystem of plug-and-play components that unifies the marketplace and accelerates the deployment of IoT solutions.
Codenamed Barcelona, the release features stabilized key APIs, expanded testing of microservices and overall cleaner code. EdgeX Foundry has also established a biannual release schedule for the project, with the next major version set for April.
POV: EdgeX Foundry is based on code contributed by Dell EMC, which it developed under the codename Project FUSE beginning in 2016. Other members include Samsung, VMWare, AMD, Ubuntu and a host of smaller IoT tech vendors. Its high-level sponsorship bodes well for the project, but EdgeX Foundry is not the only effort of its kind, with the Eclipse Foundation's Project Kapua being one prominent example.
"IoT has reached a new level of maturity," says Constellation VP and principal analyst Andy Mulholland. "Perhaps we should talk of second-generation IoT, defining an open model built on making use of any-to-any relationships between IoT endpoints and consumers of the data."
EdgeX Foundry project is an important step in this direction, with significant support to ensure that real-world experience has driven the approach. "Equally important, the same support will ensure acceptance in commercial deployments," Mulholland adds.