SwissCognitive Guest Blogger: Zachary Amos – “Leveraging AI to Predict and Reduce College Dropout Rates”

Artificial intelligence (AI) is already impacting education in many ways. Some schools are embracing it to serve students better, and many learners use it to help them with research and assignments. One of its more promising uses in this field, though, is reducing dropout rates.

Dropping out of college before finishing a degree may limit students’ opportunities in the future, but it can also be difficult for schools to predict. AI can help all parties involved through several means.

Identifying At-Risk Students

Preventing dropouts starts with recognizing which people are at risk of quitting prematurely. Machine learning is an optimal solution here because it excels at identifying patterns in vast amounts of data. Many factors can lead to dropping out, and each can be difficult to see, but AI can spot these developments before it’s too late.

Studies show early interventions based on warning signs can significantly reduce dropout rates, and AI enables such action. Educators can only intervene when they know it’s necessary to do so, and that level of insight is precisely what AI can provide.

Early examples of this technology have already achieved 96% accuracy in predicting students at risk of dropping out. Combining such predictions with a formal intervention plan could let higher ed facilities ensure more students finish their degrees.

Uncovering Non-Academic Risk Factors

In addition to recognizing known predictors of dropout risks, AI can uncover subtler, non-academic indicators. The causes of dropping out are not always easy to see in classroom performance. For example, over 60% of college students experience at least one mental health issue, which can threaten their education. AI can reveal these relationships.

Over time, AI will be able to highlight which non-tracked factors tend to appear in students with a high risk of dropping out. Once schools understand these non-academic warning signs, they can craft policies and initiatives to address them.
Enabling Personalized Education
AI is also a useful tool for minimizing the risks that lead to quitting school before someone even showcases them. Personalizing educational resources is one of the strongest ways it can do so.

The AI Research Center at Woxsen University in India successfully used chatbots to tailor lessons to individual students. Students utilizing the bot — which offered personalized reminders about classwork — were more likely to receive a B grade or higher. People attending Georgia State University showed similar results when using a chatbot to drive engagement.

Personalized education is effective because people have varying learning styles. AI provides the scale and insight necessary to recognize these differences and adapt resources accordingly, which would be impractical with manual alternatives.

Improving Accessibility

Similarly, AI can drive pupil engagement and prevent stress-related dropout factors by making education more accessible. Many classroom resources and university buildings were not designed with accessibility for all needs in mind. Consequently, they may hinder some students’ success, but AI can address these concerns.

Some AI apps can scan physical texts into digital notes to streamline note-taking for those with impairments limiting their ability to use pens or keyboards. Natural language processing can lead to better text-to-speech algorithms for users with vision impairments. On a larger scale, AI could analyze a campus to highlight areas where some buildings or walkways may need wheelchair ramps or other accessibility improvements.

Responsible AI Usage Can Minimize Dropout Rates

Some applications of AI in education — largely dealing with students’ usage of the technology — have raised concerns. The technology does pose some privacy risks and other ethical considerations, but as these use cases show, its potential for good is also too vast to ignore.

Responsible AI development and use can help universities ensure every student gets the help they need. As a result, dropout rates will fall. Schools will benefit from the higher student success rate, and the student body will benefit by achieving goals that will help them in their future careers.

About the Author:

Zachary Amos is the Features Editor at ReHack, where he writes about artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and other technology-related topics.

Der Beitrag Leveraging AI to Predict and Reduce College Dropout Rates erschien zuerst auf SwissCognitive | AI Ventures, Advisory & Research.

SwissCognitive Guest Blogger: Zachary Amos – “Is Healthcare AI Prioritizing People or Profit?”

In many sectors, artificial intelligence (AI) is largely a tool for driving efficiency, but in healthcare, it can save lives. However, medical practices are still businesses at the end of the day, so AI’s cost-saving benefits are hard to overlook. While that’s not an issue in and of itself, the push to save money can lead to healthcare organizations prioritizing profit over people.

How Healthcare AI May Put Profit Before People

AI is a powerful financial management tool. It can analyze vast amounts of data to highlight opportunities to increase profits and emphasize areas that may not pay back investment. 

AI insight in healthcare could lead private practices to drive high-value drug or treatment sales instead of focusing on care accessibility. It may also lead to preferential treatment of more profitable patients. Some hospital systems claim they have lost as much as $640 million on Medicare recipients. AI-driven cost analysis may drive hospitals to reduce their investment in these populations because of the lower financial incentive.

AI’s profit-driving capabilities can influence healthcare ethics in subtler ways, too. Staff may over-rely on automation and machine learning because it saves them time. However, AI hallucinations are still possible. Similarly, the underrepresentation of diverse patients in training datasets can lead to biased AI results, which may negatively impact a medical system’s ability to care for historically underserved groups.

Prioritizing convenience and efficiency goals over avoiding these missteps may come at the cost of effective and equitable care. Even if medical profits increase, patient outcomes and healthcare disparities could worsen.

How to Ensure Responsible AI Usage in Healthcare

Despite these risks, AI has many beneficial implications for patients, so the industry cannot ignore it. Healthcare organizations can use these steps to ensure ethical, patient-centric AI usage.

1. Focus on Direct Patient-Impacting AI Applications

First, hospitals must prioritize AI use cases that directly impact patients over those that drive economic or efficiency gains for the organization. Medical imaging and diagnostic tools are among the most crucial. 

AI can identify Alzheimer’s with 99.95% accuracy and achieve similar results with many cancers and other conditions. Investing in these applications rather than in AI-based financial analysis will ensure AI’s benefits go directly to promoting better care standards.

Personalized treatment is another promising area for responsible AI usage. Machine learning models can analyze an individual patient’s medical history and physiology to determine which courses of action will help them most. This application is more ethical than using AI to compare the profitability of different treatment options.

2. Ensure Responsible AI Development

Healthcare organizations must address the bias issue in their AI models. Studies have found that removing specific biased factors from training datasets can maintain model accuracy while reducing the risk of prejudice. Common examples of these factors include names, ethnicities, age and gender-related labels.

Having a diverse team of AI developers who regularly inspect models for signs of bias or hallucinations can help. Relying on synthetic data is also a useful strategy, as this can make up for gaps in historical real-world information that may lead to unreliable or biased results.

3. Train Medical Staff on AI Best Practices

Finally, medical companies should train their staff so they’re familiar with how AI can affect care equality. When users understand how misusing AI or failing to catch errors can harm patients, they’ll be more likely to use it responsibly.

Cybersecurity deserves attention, too. A criminal can hinder reliable AI results by poisoning just 0.01% of its data, which can lead to harmful results if unnoticed. Training employees to follow strict access policies and resist phishing attempts will mitigate some of these concerns.

Healthcare teams should also write formal policies to ensure a human expert always makes the final decision on anything affecting patients. AI can provide insights to inform human choices, but it should never be the ultimate authority, given the risk of bias and the temptation to prioritize profit over equitable care.

Ethical Healthcare AI Is Possible

When organizations use it responsibly, healthcare AI can make the industry a safer, more equitable place. However, failing to account for possible shortcomings and errors will create the opposite effect. Learning about how AI can influence both ethics and profitability is the first step in creating a better future for patients and their care providers.

About the Author:

Zachary Amos is the Features Editor at ReHack, where he writes about artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and other technology-related topics.

Der Beitrag Is Healthcare AI Prioritizing People or Profit? erschien zuerst auf SwissCognitive | AI Ventures, Advisory & Research.

SwissCognitive Guest Blogger: Dr. Raul V. Rodriguez, Vice President, Woxsen University and Dr. Hemachandran Kannan,  Director AI Research Centre & Professor – “AI in Cyber Defense: The Rise of Self-Healing Systems for Threat Mitigation”

As cyber threats become more complex, traditional security controls have real challenges to stay in pace. AI-powered self-healing mechanisms are set to revolutionize cybersecurity with real-time threat detection, automated response, and self-healing by itself without human intervention. These machine-learning-based intelligent systems, behavioral analytics, and big data allow detection of vulnerabilities, disconnection from infected devices, and elimination of attacks while they are occurring. The shift to a proactive defense with AI-enabled cybersecurity solutions will reduce time to detect and respond to attacks and strengthen digital resilience. Forcing businesses and organizations to fight to keep pace with the fast-paced cyber threat landscape, self-healing AI systems have become a cornerstone of next-gen cyber defense mechanisms.

Introduction to Self-Healing Systems

Definition and Functionality of Self-Healing Cybersecurity Systems

In self-healing cybersecurity, an AI-based cyber security system determines, cuts off, and heals a cyber attack or security danger inflicted without the intervention or oversight of a human. Such systems utilize an automated recovery process to fix attacked networks with the least disturbance to restore normalcy. Unlike conventional security measures that require human operations, self-healing systems learn from experiences and detect and respond to dangers reactively and very efficiently.

Role of AI and Machine Learning in Detecting, Containing, and Remediating Cyber Threats

Artificial Intelligence and machine learning facilitate the cyber security-based technologies with self-healing abilities. An AI-enabled threat detection will analyze huge data wealth in real-time to spot anomalies, suspicious behaviors, and possible breaches in security. When a threat gets detected, ML algorithms analyze severity levels, triggering automated containment actions such as quarantining infected devices or blocking bad traffic. In AI-supported repair, self-healing measures are taken, where infected systems are automatically cleaned, healed, or rebuilt, hence shortening the time span of human intervention and damage caused by attacks.

How Big Data Analytics and Threat Intelligence Contribute to Self-Healing Capabilities

Processing of large data sets is a large concern for making autonomous cybersecurity systems more efficient by integrating real-time threat intelligence from multiple sources, including network logs, user behavior patterns, and global cyber threat databases. By processing and analyzing that data, self-healing systems may predict threats as they arise and provide proactive defense against cyberattacks. Continuous updates on emerging vectors of attack by threat intelligence feeds will enable AI models to learn and update security protocols on real time. The convergence of big data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning creates a robust and dynamic security platform, hence amplifying the efficiency of digital resilience.

Key Features of Self-Healing Systems

Self-healing cyber defense systems use artificial intelligence (AI) and automation to isolate and respond to threats as they surface and in real-time. They have the ability to react straight off, identifying and doing away with intruders in less than a millisecond. Autonomous intrusion detection employs machine learning and behavioral analysis to preemptively eradicate the chance of a successful cyber-attack. Self-healing capabilities enable a system to patch vulnerabilities, restore a breached network, and revive the security system without any human aid. These systems learn constantly in real-time and are therefore able to adapt to changing threats and enhance cyber resilience. Self-healing security solutions effectively protect organizations against sophisticated cybercrime and potential business disruption by lessening the load of human intervention and response times.

Advantages Over Traditional Cybersecurity Methods

AI-sustained self-healing systems enable instantaneous threat detection and responses to decrease the Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Respond (MTTR) to orders of magnitude below conventional cybersecurity practices.

Unlike reactive security, these systems pro-actively do live monitoring, predict, and neutralize threats before they can expand. They preclude reliance on human intervention, hence reducing errors and delays.

Self-healing systems learn and adapt to open-ended cyber threats, creating a long-standing extra-zero-day exploit, ransomware, and advanced persistent threat (APT) resilience. Automated threat mitigation and system recovery raise cybersecurity efficiency, scalability, and cost-effectiveness for the modern organization.

Challenges and Limitations

The self-healing cyber security solutions, despite understanding their benefits, pose serious challenges to integration, making it imperative to deploy and support AI-powered security systems with the specialist skills of professionals. The issue of false positives persists as automated responses can ascribe threats to actions that are though correct, putting business continuity in jeopardy. Compliance with international data protection legislation, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), is also a big hurdle for AI-assisted security in order to have strong privacy provisions. Compatibility with current legacy systems can be a roadblock to seamless adoption, forcing organizations to renew their superannuated infrastructure. Ethical issues on AI bias in threat detection should also receive due diligence so that fairness and accuracy in decision-making continue to receive encouragement in the field of cybersecurity.

Real-World Applications of Self-Healing Systems

Financial Institutions

AI-based self-healingcybersecurity enables banks and financial institutions to identify and block fraudulent transactions, breaches, and cyberattacks. With constant surveillance over financial transactions, AI detects anomalies to improve fraud detection and automate security controls, thereby decreasing financial losses and maintaining data integrity in the process.

Healthcare Industry

With the threats posed to patient data by cyber warfare on healthcare networks and hospitals, self-healing systems will be used in protecting patient data. These self-healing systems are built for searching for intrusions, isolating the affected parts of a system, and restored by an automated reset process to guarantee compliance with HIPAA and other healthcare regulations.

Government and Defense

National security agencies count on AI-based cybersecurity systems to protect sensitive data, deter cyber war and protect critical infrastructure. Autonomous self-healing AI systems respond to nation-state-sponsored cyberthreats and are able to react failure-point-to-failure-point around an attack’s continual adaptation while providing real-time protection against potential breaches or intrusions in the space around them.

Future Outlook

With someday ever-weaving variation of possible cyber attacks, therefore enhancing most probably probable requirement of AI self-healing cyber security systems. Futuristic advancements such as blockchain for enforcing secure data inter-exchange, quantum computing for championing encryption strength, and AI deception to falsify some attacker’s cognition. It will allow even the SOCs( Security Operation Centers) and add more autonomy, this much will further curtail human intervention and thus make the security proactive, scalable and able to thwart advanced persistent threats.

Conclusion

AI self-healing systems emerge as the next-generation of cyber defense models which will impersonate the real-time threat detection, execute the automated response, and conduct self-correction without human intervention. By utilizing machine learning, big data analytics, and self-adaptive AI, the accomplishment of these systems will be such that no one could dream of lessenedness of their efficacy in providing security and business continuity. As organizations become increasingly more susceptible to advanced cyber threats, self-healing cybersecurity will be key in future-proofing digital infrastructures and establishing cyber resilience.

References

1. https://www.xenonstack.com/blog/soc-systems-future-of-cybersecurity
2. https://fidelissecurity.com/threatgeek/threat-detection-response/future-of-cyber-defense/
3. https://smartdev.com/strategic-cyber-defense-leveraging-ai-to-anticipate-and-neutralize-modern-threats/

About the Authors:

Dr. Raul Villamarin Rodriguez is the Vice President of Woxsen University. He is an Adjunct Professor at Universidad del Externado, Colombia, a member of the International Advisory Board at IBS Ranepa, Russian Federation, and a member of the IAB, University of Pécs Faculty of Business and Economics. He is also a member of the Advisory Board at PUCPR, Brazil, Johannesburg Business School, SA, and Milpark Business School, South Africa, along with PetThinQ Inc, Upmore Global and SpaceBasic, Inc. His specific areas of expertise and interest are Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Natural Language Processing, Computer Vision, Robotic Process Automation, Multi-agent Systems, Knowledge Engineering, and Quantum Artificial Intelligence.

Dr. Hemachandran Kannan is the Director of AI Research Centre and Professor at Woxsen University. He has been a passionate teacher with 15 years of teaching experience and 5 years of research experience. A strong educational professional with a scientific bent of mind, highly skilled in AI & Business Analytics. He served as an effective resource person at various national and international scientific conferences and also gave lectures on topics related to Artificial Intelligence. He has rich working experience in Natural Language Processing, Computer Vision, Building Video recommendation systems, Building Chatbots for HR policies and Education Sector, Automatic Interview processes, and Autonomous Robots.

Der Beitrag AI in Cyber Defense: The Rise of Self-Healing Systems for Threat Mitigation erschien zuerst auf SwissCognitive | AI Ventures, Advisory & Research.

SwissCognitive Guest Blogger: Zachary Amos – “How AI Transforms EV Charging Networks”

People who drive gas-powered vehicles can lug a fuel can around if they ever run out while driving. For electric vehicle (EV) owners, it isn’t as easy. Many fear being stranded on the side of the road, which is why charging infrastructure is so important. However, chargers are often unreliable or outright out of order. Is artificial intelligence the solution?

Why EV Charging Networks Need an Overhaul

The current state of EV charging networks is less than ideal. Harvard Business School research revealed that charging stations are largely unreliable — and drivers are aware and dissatisfied. They can only successfully recharge using nonresidential stations an estimated 78% of the time, meaning one in five chargers in the United States don’t work. This makes them less reliable than the average gas pump.

Omar Asensio — the Harvard Business School fellow who led the study — said the main reason for this substandard reliability is that no one’s maintaining the stations. While these complex machines require extensive maintenance to keep the circuitry in peak shape, they are often neglected.

When electrical systems break down, equipment damage is not the only outcome. Potentially dangerous situations will occur unless companies perform electrical system maintenance regularly. Loose connections and fried circuits can ignite materials or shock users, causing injuries or death.

While the seemingly obvious solution is for drivers to recharge at home, people use home chargers just 10% of the time, according to one software company. Although modern batteries can reach hundreds of miles on a single charge, many people fear theirs will run out of power before they reach their destination, leaving them stranded. Besides, installation can be expensive, depending on their location and the type of at-home station they choose.

Companies Could Change EV Charging With AI

AI could help companies resolve the sector’s current charging challenges. For starters, it could autonomously manage loads, distributing power efficiently and safely among multiple stations. Reducing grid load — especially during peak hours — helps prevent EV charging equipment from damaging transmission lines, circuit breakers or transformers.

A study from the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute proves this point. It states that large-scale, unmanaged EV charging could cause sudden current draw fluctuations, damaging the electrical grid. This inconsistency can lead to inefficient energy consumption, resulting in transformer strain. An outage is the likely outcome of accelerated equipment wear and energy waste.

Much of the U.S. power grid is already on its last legs. For instance, around 70% of the transmission lines are nearly three decades old, nearing their expected life span of 50 to 80 years. Minimizing strain with AI-powered smart load management can prevent outages while ensuring every battery is fully recharged.

A more comprehensive solution leverages predictive maintenance. Machine learning models can anticipate possible outcomes. They can use embedded, internet-enabled sensors to identify faults like a fried circuit or frayed wire. Maintenance teams would get real-time alerts, minimizing unplanned downtime.

AI could even improve battery health monitoring, maximizing charging efficiency. A research team from the United Kingdom’s Cambridge and Newcastle Universities discovered a machine learning method is 10 times more accurate than the current industry standard technique. It measures electrical pulses instead of tracking current and voltage during charge and discharge cycles. Improving EV battery reliability could transform the charging network’s layout.

Where would companies place new stations? With AI, they could analyze metrics like EV demand, travel frequency and location to determine where to build them. They could also optimize charging network design by plugging their budget, desired density and grid capacity into the algorithm.

Improving EV Charging Infrastructure With AI

Access to a reliable charging network is tightly intertwined with people’s opinions of EVs themselves — meaning companies can only make this mode of transportation more popular if they improve the reliability of the underlying infrastructure. AI is one of the few technologies that could help them fast-track this achievement.

About the Author:

Zachary Amos is the Features Editor at ReHack, where he writes about artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and other technology-related topics.

Der Beitrag How AI Transforms EV Charging Networks erschien zuerst auf SwissCognitive | AI Ventures, Advisory & Research.

SwissCognitive Guest Blogger: Zachary Amos – “How Countries Are Using AI to Predict Crime”

Industry 4.0 and 5.0 is using robotics to bring supply chains into the future. The last decade has been fraught with challenges, including delays, worker shortages and market volatility. Mitigating costs and enhancing the workforce are the goals of swarm robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI) is making them even more competent. See how these workers make supply chains resilient and competitive.

What Are Swarm Robotics?

Swarm robotics is a field focusing on large quantities of simple yet practical robots. These robots work best in groups to achieve straightforward tasks, making them optimal for reducing labor burdens. They also shine in industries like supply chains, where repetitive tasks take up a major portion of the working day.

Supply chains need to use swarm robotics because they are easy to manage simultaneously. They are autonomous, respond to environmental stimuli and are easy to reprogram to new tasks. The collective efforts of these machines can make decisions on the fly, covering ground from last-mile delivery to utilizing resources in a smarter way.

How Do Supply Chains Use Swarm Robotics?

These robots enhance operations while allowing supply chains to overcome common pain points. Each application for swarm robots is also made better by AI. What does this look like?

Dynamic Operations

Because swarm robots take tedious tasks away from workers, they allow people to focus on more high-level processes. In the meantime, the bots can tally inventory, navigating complex warehouses in large numbers. They are immediately deployable to do automatic updates, sending instant notifications to procurement, fulfillment and distribution teams.

Swarm robots are also ideal in changing, unstructured environments. With AI and sensor technology, they can map areas no matter how complicated they are. As they learn to navigate, they become more proficient when interacting with similar environments because of machine learning algorithms. This informs routing and navigation and allows perpetual scaling potential.

Cost Reduction

Delegating tasks to robots saves supply chains tons of money. Human error costs corporations between $50-$300 for every mistake. The increased accuracy is only one aspect of the financial savings. The robots save businesses time and money in talent acquisition processes, which take efforts away from fulfilling client needs.

However, the most prominent financial gain may be from warehouse savings. Refined inventory management prevents objects from taking up square footage and energy as they collect dust. Instead, there is detailed metadata on each item, their expiration date, market values and more, which swarm robots can collect with AI.

Productivity Gains

ot only do AI-powered swarm robots save money, they make everything more efficient. Preventing errors, defects and more can shorten lead times from suppliers. In one study, several industries experienced shortened fulfillment lead times by an average of 6.7 days.

They can also allow parallel task execution. While some robots pick up objects, others can transport them and even more can pack them. This yields numerous time savings across lengthy processes with multiple intermediaries.

There are also other productivity gains because swarm robots make supply chain environments safer for workers. They can constantly monitor unsafe conditions in real time, saving employees the trouble of entering dangerous circumstances. This means fewer workers experience injuries and incidents, allowing them to work with higher morale in safer conditions.

Preparing the Swarm

Much like swarms of ants group together to achieve a common goal, these types of robots optimize supply chains. Combining them with AI makes them even more powerful. As they advance, swarm robotics consistently prove they are a must-have fixture for supply chain management in the future.

About the Author:

Zachary Amos is the Features Editor at ReHack, where he writes about artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and other technology-related topics.

Der Beitrag How AI Enables Swarm Robotics in the Supply Chain erschien zuerst auf SwissCognitive | AI Ventures, Advisory & Research.

SwissCognitive Guest Blogger: Shivi Gupta – “Who Owns the Sound? AI in Music and the Legal Landscape”

Attending a live gig, enjoying the music from your favourite artist or band? What if it can come to your couch, with the feeling that they are performing right there in front of you? But hey, who is producing the music? Is it AL or Al

The creation is revered, but more than the creation, the creators are worshipped. Recently, Sony, Universal, and Warner have sued Suno and Udio (GenAI music startups), claiming copyright infringement in training models, to protect the artists affiliated with these giants.

Major record labels are protecting their clients, the artists, the great ones who produce music that can rarely be replicated. But in the day and age of generative AI or (GPT Generative Pretrained transformer), music is also replicated by machine learning algorithms to make songs sound like the original creators.

As one of the popular web3 music websites Unchainedmusic.io wrote in their article “Deepfake vocal synthesizers, an innovation in AI technology, can make a singer’s voice sound like a famous artist. Under English and EU law, it is unlikely that a style of singing, whether generated through deep learning, AI or vocal imitation, is protectable by copyright. However, other forms of intellectual property, such as passing off, may be relevant in some jurisdictions.”

There is no common universal law against intellectual property, and most countries have their own rules, copyrights, patents. Any commercial use begets a request or a permission from the creator who owns the intellectual property of their voice.

Problem:

All music can be created eclectically with different styles, lyrics and genres. GenAI music might saturate the market with more and more music generated by machine learning algorithms.

Possibility:

Music lovers will rely on humans creating songs as it has the emotional factor, the timber, tone, pitch, stretch, diction, accent are some of the unique human characteristics which helps us being empathetic and understanding of the singer’s mindset.

Probability:

These AI created songs will be used by ad companies and video editors to feature a product or sell a service with an attractive UX.

Musicians will continue creating great records and go on tours, and fill stadiums.

Editors, marketers, sales representatives will use GenAI music in elevators, advertisements, branding, showcase of their products and services. The GenAI music will complement the product *-as-a-service.

Proposed Solution:

Follow rules created by the countries in which these AI tools are used. For classical music the law states that as mentioned by edwardslaw.ca “it covers original literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works of authorship. This is during the lifetime of the author, the remainder of the calendar year in which the author dies, plus 70 additional years (the Canadian copyright lifespan recently increased from 50 to 70 years in June of 2022). Once this term expires, the work becomes public domain. “ So works from Beethoven, Mozart et al. can be performed in public without permission or paying a fee – royalty free. So any music which has been recorded prior to 1974 can be used since it has entered the public domain, but if you have the London symphony orchestra uploaded their recording of Beethoven’s symphony number 5, one can’t use that without the permission from the orchestra.

For example this particular youtube video can’t be reused without BBC’s permission:

More on copyright of voices: “According to Herndon, much of vocal mimicry comes down to personality rights. “You cannot copyright a voice, but an artist retains exclusive commercial rights to their name and you cannot pass off a song as coming from them without their consent,” she wrote in a recent Twitter thread, citing previous legal cases related to vocal impersonation.”

More about ethics in AI.

About the Author:

Shivi Gupta is a  passionate data scientist and full-stack developer, working in the industry for over a decade. An AI expert navigating through the world of real vs generated content. With a focus on ethics , he creates websites, mobile applications, chatbots all powered by AI.

Der Beitrag Who Owns the Sound? AI in Music and the Legal Landscape erschien zuerst auf SwissCognitive | AI Ventures, Advisory & Research.

Copyright: hbr.org – “6 Ways AI Changed Business in 2024, According to Executives”

For decades, companies have struggled to capture and integrate data into their decision-making. In spite of protracted efforts, the results have been decidedly mixed. Last year, just 37% of companies reported that efforts to improve data quality had been successful. But recently, something significant has changed: Generative AI has spurred greater interest and investment in data quality and broader data capabilities. After all, great AI relies on great data. Gone are the days when executives dismissed investments in initiatives like these as “just another data project.” Now, to succeed with AI, companies are doubling down on finally getting data right.

This is the principal finding of the 2025 AI & Data Leadership Executive Survey, an industry benchmark survey of Fortune 1000 and global business leaders that I first launched in 2012.
This year’s survey was conducted by the educational Data & AI Leadership Exchange, in partnership with DataIQ, a global community of data and AI leaders. The invitation-only survey respondents comprised senior business leaders from 125 leading companies. This year, 97.6% of survey respondents identified themselves as C-suite executives or equivalents within their organization.

Their responses highlight the extent to which AI has come to drive corporate agendas across the board in just the past year. While most organizations (76.2%) report that they have been using earlier forms of AI, such as machine learning, for more than three years, it has been the arrival of generative AI that has fueled the rapid growth of AI utilization and adoption. This year’s survey findings suggest that we are experiencing a once-in-a-generation transformational moment, akin to the founding of the internet in the 1990s.[…]

Read more: www.hbr.org

Der Beitrag 6 Ways AI Changed Business in 2024, According to Executives erschien zuerst auf SwissCognitive | AI Ventures, Advisory & Research.

SwissCognitive Guest Blogger: Artem Pochechuev, Head of Data and AI at Sigli – “AI for Disabilities: Quick Overview, Challenges, and the Road Ahead”

AI has enormous power in improving accessibility and inclusivity for people with disabilities. This power lies in the potential of this technology to bridge gaps that traditional solutions could not address. As we have demonstrated in the series of articles devoted to AI for disabilities, AI-powered products can really change a lot for people with various impairments. Such solutions can allow users to live more independently and get access to things and activities that used to be unavailable to them before. Meanwhile, the integration of AI into public infrastructure, education, and employment holds the promise of creating a more equitable society. These are the reasons that can show us the importance of projects building solutions of this type.

Yes, these projects exist today. And some of them have already made significant progress in achieving their goals. Nevertheless, there are important issues that should be addressed in order to make such projects and their solutions more efficient and let them bring real value to their target audiences. One of them is related to the fact that such solutions are often built by tech experts who have practically no understanding of the actual needs of people with disabilities.

According to the survey conducted in 2023, only 7% of assistive technology users believe that their community is adequately represented in the development of AI products. At the same time, 87% of respondents who are end users of such solutions express their readiness to share their feedback with developers. These are quite important figures to bear in mind for everyone who is engaged in the creation of AI-powered products for disabilities.

In this article, we’d like to talk about the types of products that already exist today, as well as potential barriers and trends in the development of this industry.

Different types of AI solutions for disabilities

In the series of articles devoted to AI for disabilities, we have touched on types of products for people with different states, including visual, hearing, mobility impairments, and mental diseases. Now, let us group these solutions by their purpose.

Communication tools

AI can significantly enhance the communication process for people with speech and hearing impairments.

Speech-to-text and text-to-speech apps enable individuals to communicate by converting spoken words into text or vice versa.

Sign language interpreters powered by AI can translate gestures into spoken or written language. It means that real-time translation from sign to verbal languages can facilitate communication, bridging the gap between people with disabilities and the rest of society.

Moreover, it’s worth mentioning AI-powered hearing aids with noise cancellation. They can improve clarity by filtering out background sounds, enhancing the hearing experience in noisy environments.

Advanced hearing aids may also have sound amplification functionality. If somebody is speaking too quietly, such AI-powered devices can amplify the sound in real time.

Mobility and navigation

AI-driven prosthetics and exoskeletons can enable individuals with mobility impairments to regain movement. Sensors and AI algorithms can adapt to users’ physical needs in real time for more natural, efficient motion. For example, when a person is going to climb the stairs, AI will “know” it and adjust the movement of prosthetics to this activity.

Autonomous wheelchairs often use AI for navigation. They can detect obstacles and take preventive measures. This way users will be able to navigate more independently and safely.

The question of navigation is a pressing one not only with people with limited mobility but also for individuals with visual impairments. AI-powered wearable devices for these users rely on real-time environmental scanning to provide navigation assistance through audio or vibration signals.

Education and workplace accessibility

Some decades ago people with disabilities were fully isolated from society. They didn’t have the possibility to learn together with others, while the range of jobs that could be performed by them was too limited. Let’s be honest, in some regions, the situation is still the same. However, these days we can observe significant progress in this sphere in many countries, which is a very positive trend.

Among the main changes that have made education available to everyone, we should mention the introduction of distance learning and the development of adaptive platforms.

A lot of platforms for remote learning are equipped with real-time captioning and AI virtual assistants. It means that students with disabilities have equal access to online education.

Adaptive learning platforms rely on AI to customize educational experiences to the individual needs of every learner. For students with disabilities, such platforms can offer features like text-to-speech, visual aids, or additional explanations and tasks for memorizing.

In the workplace, AI tools also support inclusion by offering accessibility features. Speech recognition, task automation, and personalized work environments empower employees with disabilities to perform their job responsibilities together with all other co-workers.

Thanks to AI and advanced tools for remote work, the labor market is gradually becoming more accessible for everyone.

Home automation and daily assistance

Independent living is one of the main goals for people with disabilities. And AI can help them reach it.

Smart home technologies with voice or gesture control allow users with physical disabilities to interact with lights, appliances, or thermostats. Systems like Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri can be integrated with smart devices to enable hands-free operation.

Another type of AI-driven solutions that can be helpful for daily tasks is personal care robots. They can assist with fetching items, preparing meals, or monitoring health metrics. As a rule, they are equipped with sensors and machine learning. This allows them to adapt to individual routines and needs and offer personalized support to their users.

Existing barriers

It would be wrong to say that the development of AI for disabilities is a fully flawless process. As well as any innovation, this technology faces some challenges and barriers that may prevent its implementation and wide adoption. These difficulties are significant but not insurmountable. And with the right multifaceted approach, they can be efficiently addressed.

Lack of universal design principles

One major challenge is the absence of universal design principles in the development of AI tools. Many solutions are built with a narrow scope. As a result, they fail to account for the diverse needs that people with disabilities may have.

For example, tools designed for users with visual impairments may not consider compatibility with existing assistive technologies like screen readers, or they may lack support for colorblind users.

One of the best ways to eliminate this barrier is to engage end users in the design process. Their opinion and real-life experiences are invaluable for such projects.

Limited training datasets for specific AI models

High-quality, comprehensive databases are the cornerstone for efficient AI models. It’s senseless to use fragmented and irrelevant data and hope that your AI system will demonstrate excellent results (“Garbage in, Garbage out” principle in action). AI models require robust datasets to function as they are supposed to.

However, datasets for specific needs, like regional sign language dialects, rare disabilities, or multi-disability use cases are either limited or nonexistent. This results in AI solutions that are less effective or even unusable for significant groups of the disability community.

Is it possible to address this challenge? Certainly! However, it will require time and resources to collect and prepare such data for model training.

High cost of AI projects and limited funding

The development and implementation of AI solutions are usually pretty costly initiatives. Without external support from governments, corporate and individual investors, many projects can’t survive.

This issue is particularly significant for those projects that target niche or less commercially viable applications. This financial barrier discourages innovation and limits the scalability of existing solutions.

Lack of awareness and resistance to adopt new tools

A great number of potential users are either unaware of the capabilities of AI or hesitant to adopt new tools. Due to the lack of relevant information, people have a lot of concerns about the complexity, privacy, or usability of assistant technologies. Some tools may stay just underrated or misunderstood.

Adequate outreach and training programs can help to solve such problems and motivate potential users to learn more about tools that can change their lives for the better.

Regulatory and ethical gaps

The AI industry is one of the youngest and least regulated in the world. The regulatory framework for ensuring accessibility in AI solutions remains underdeveloped. Some aspects of using and implementing AI stay unclear and it is too early to speak about any widely accepted standards that can guide these processes.

Due to any precise guidelines, developers may overlook critical accessibility features. Ethical concerns, such as data privacy and bias in AI models also complicate the adoption and trustworthiness of these technologies.

Such issues slow down the development processes now. But they seem to be just a matter of time.

Future prospects of AI for disabilities: In which direction is the industry heading?

Though the AI for disabilities industry has already made significant progress in its development, there is still a long way ahead. It’s impossible to make any accurate predictions about its future look. However, we can make assumptions based on its current state and needs.

Advances in AI

It is quite logical to expect that the development of AI technologies and tools will continue, which will allow us to leverage new capabilities and features of new solutions. The progress in natural language processing (NLP) and multimodal systems will improve the accessibility of various tools for people with disabilities.

Such systems will better understand human language and respond to diverse inputs like text, voice, and images.

Enhanced real-time adaptability will also enable AI to tailor its responses based on current user behavior and needs. This will ensure more fluid and responsive interactions, which will enhance user experience and autonomy in daily activities for people with disabilities.

Partnerships

Partnerships between tech companies, healthcare providers, authorities, and the disability community are essential for creating AI solutions that meet the real needs of individuals with disabilities. These collaborations will allow for the sharing of expertise and resources that help to create more effective technologies.

By working together, they will ensure that AI tools are not only innovative but also practical and accessible. We can expect that the focus will be on real-world impact and user-centric design.

New solutions

It’s highly likely that in the future the market will see a lot of new solutions that now may seem to be too unrealistic. Nevertheless, even the boldest ideas can come to life with the right technologies.

One of the most promising use cases for AI is its application in neurotechnology for seamless human-computer interaction.

A brain-computer interface (BCI) can enable direct communication between the human brain and external devices by interpreting neural signals related to unspoken speech. It can successfully decode brain activity and convert it into commands for controlling software or hardware.

Such BCIs have a huge potential to assist individuals with speech impairments and paralyzed people.

Wrapping up

As you can see, AI is not only about business efficiency or productivity. It can be also about helping people with different needs to live better lives and change their realities.

Of course, the development and implementation of AI solutions for disabilities are associated with a row of challenges that can be addressed only through close cooperation between tech companies, governments, medical institutions, and potential end users.

Nevertheless, all efforts are likely to pay off.

By overcoming existing barriers and embracing innovation, AI can pave the way for a more accessible and equitable future for all. And those entities and market players who can contribute to the common success in this sphere should definitely do this.

About the Author:

In his current position, Artem Pochechuev leads a team of talented engineers. Oversees the development and implementation of data-driven solutions for Sigli’s customers. He is passionate about using the latest technologies and techniques in data science to deliver innovative solutions that drive business value. Outside of work, Artem enjoys cooking, ice-skating, playing piano, and spending time with his family.

Der Beitrag AI for Disabilities: Quick Overview, Challenges, and the Road Ahead erschien zuerst auf SwissCognitive | AI Ventures, Advisory & Research.

Copyright: cio.com – “12 AI predictions for 2025”

This year we’ve seen AI move from pilots into production use cases. In 2025, they’ll expand into fully-scaled, enterprise-wide deployments.

Generative AI has seen faster and more widespread adoption than any other technology today, with many companies already seeing ROI and scaling up use cases into wide adoption.

Vendors are adding gen AI across the board to enterprise software products, and AI developers haven’t been idle this year either. We’ve also seen the emergence of agentic AI, multi-modal AI, reasoning AI, and open-source AI projects that rival those of the biggest commercial vendors.

According to a Bank of America survey of global research analysts and strategists released in September, 2024 was the year of ROI determination, and 2025 will be the year of enterprise AI adoption.

“Over the next five to 10 years, BofA Global Research expects gen AI to catalyze an evolution in corporate efficiency and productivity that may transform the global economy, as well as our lives,” says Vanessa Cook, content strategist for Bank of America Institute.

Small language models and edge computing

Most of the attention this year and last has been on the big language models —  specifically on ChatGPT in its various permutations, as well as competitors like Anthropic’s Claude and Meta’s Llama models. But for many business use cases, LLMs are overkill and are too expensive, and too slow, for practical use.

“Looking ahead to 2025, I expect small language models, specifically custom models, to become a more common solution for many businesses,” says Andrew Rabinovich, head of AI and ML at Upwork. LLMs aren’t just expensive, they’re also very broad, and not always relevant to specific industries, he says.

“Smaller models, on the other hand, are more tailored, allowing businesses to create AI systems that are precise, efficient, robust, and built around their unique needs,” he adds.[…]

Read more: www.cio.com

Der Beitrag 12 AI predictions for 2025 erschien zuerst auf SwissCognitive | AI Ventures, Advisory & Research.

Copyright: ucsf.edu – “4 Ways Artificial Intelligence (AI) is Poised to Transform Medicine”

AI can compare thousands of images to uncover dangerous patterns, create ultra-high resolution scans from low-res images and see what the human eye misses.

The radiologist was dead.

Or at least that’s what artificial intelligence (AI) experts prophesized in 2016 when they said AI would outperform radiologists within the decade.

Today, AI isn’t replacing imaging specialists, but its use is leading health care providers to reimagine the field. That’s why UC San Francisco was among the first U.S. universities to combine AI and machine learning with medical imaging in research and education by opening its Center for Intelligent Imaging.

Take a look at how UCSF researchers are pioneering human-centered AI solutions to some of medicine’s biggest challenges.

Spot illnesses earlier

Tens of thousands of Americans suffer pneumothoraces, a type of collapsed lung, annually. The condition is caused by trauma or lung disease – and serious cases can be deadly if diagnosed late or left untreated.

The problem:

This type of collapsed lung is difficult to identify: The illness can mimic others both in symptoms and in x-rays, in which only subtle clues may indicate its presence. Meanwhile, radiologists must interpret hundreds of images daily, and some hospitals do not have around-the-clock radiologists.

The solution:

UCSF researchers created the first AI bedside program to help flag potential cases to radiologists. In 2019, the tool was the first AI innovation of its kind to be licensed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Today, it’s used in thousands of GE Healthcare machines around the world.

How did they do it?

Researchers from the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging created a database of thousands of anonymous chest X-rays. Some of these images showed cases of collapsed lungs and others not.[…]

Read more: www.ucsf.edu

Der Beitrag 4 Ways Artificial Intelligence (AI) is Poised to Transform Medicine erschien zuerst auf SwissCognitive | AI Ventures, Advisory & Research.