Before Siri and Alexa, programmers created Eliza. Developed in 1964, Eliza was the first chatbot capable of recreating conversations between a psychotherapist and a patient. This chatbot pushed the boundaries of artificial intelligence (AI), a still-emerging field at the time, into the domain of health care. Despite researcher’s best efforts,[Read More…]
Tag: Artificial Intelligence
Teaching AI to learn by positive reinforcement
Training conscious beings to complete a task often entails offering a reward as an incentive: You might offer a puppy a treat if it sits, or you might give a child a lollipop if they stay quiet at a concert. In the realm of computer science, the same is true[Read More…]
Montreal start-up Aifred Health is applying AI to mental healthcare
Mental health treatments for conditions such as depression are currently based on an arduous ‘trial and error’ process. Matching people with the right care is difficult: An individual experiencing depression might consult different specialists who may recommend various different kinds of treatment, none of which could actually work. Aifred Health,[Read More…]
Alexa, tell me what you’re thinking
Amazon announced its vision for home assistant device Alexa to play a more active role as a personal assistant in November. In interviews with The McGill Tribune, Will Hamilton and Jackie Cheung, professors in McGill’s Department of Computer Science, outlined the basics of the technology behind voice-controlled home assistants like the[Read More…]
How robots are transforming the field of law
Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the biggest innovations of the modern era, profoundly impacting many areas of society, and the field of law is no exception. During an event titled ‘Artificial Intelligence and the legal sector,’ hosted by the Faculty of Law on Nov. 13, Hannes Westermann, a PhD[Read More…]
Granting computers sight
If computers could tackle the difficult tasks of processing and understanding images, they could revolutionize how people shop, make movies, and drive—or rather not drive—cars. With artificial intelligence (AI), computers can actually ‘understand’ images. Within AI, one of the most promising methods of teaching computers to ‘see’ is deep learning,[Read More…]
HackMcGill event covers AI, smart cities, and internet privacy
In the last few decades, technology has evolved at a staggering pace and has become so deeply enmeshed in everyday life that removing it would throw society into shambles. While new technologies are immensely important to modern society, there is little regulation to keep mega-corporations like Amazon and Facebook in[Read More…]
Artificial intelligence is paving the way for less invasive surgical training
Repeated practice is necessary to achieve mastery, which is no exception for surgical residents who often train directly on patients for four to six years. However, in this hands-on learning environment, even a minor mistake can be serious. To protect against such fatalities, a McGill research team constructed a solution.[Read More…]
AI company is developing technologies to improve healthcare
On Feb. 8, Anthony Phalen, a strategic partner development manager at the company DeepMind came to McGill to present a talk on Deep Learning (DL), as part of SUS Academia Week 2018. DeepMind is a London-based artificial intelligence (AI) company with a research centre located in Montreal. The company was[Read More…]
When AI slips between the sheets
Last week, I finally watched the 2015 sci-fi and artificial intelligence (AI)-themed movie, Ex Machina. Providing viewers with an in-depth look at the possibilities of AI in a not-so-far future, the film centres around the relationship between a young programmer named Caleb and a seductive robot, Ava. Caleb is mandated to[Read More…]