With the flood of news on self-driving cars, drones, caring robots, and more, it isn’t always easy to keep up-to-date with the latest in the artificial intelligence universe. For the insiders’ view on what’s happening in AI, follow these 10 researchers, professors, institutions, and other great thinkers who offer human insight into the world of machines.
Martin Ford: @mfordfuture
Author of the recently released Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future, Ford is an important voice in conversations about the future of the workplace and the debate over whether automation will replace humans in the job market. He tweets about psychic robots, military robots, robot waiters, and more.
Jin Zhang: @jinz1
Zhang, a leading software engineer, was a recent speaker at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2015 conference. She works forCA Technologies where she leads the product and design team for CA’s newly founded Analytics business unit. Zhang’s is a welcome young voice in the world of AI, especially as she cares deeply about issues of diversity in technology.
Roman Yampolskiy: @romanyam
This founder and director of the University of Louisville’s CyberSecurity Labrecently gave a provocative speech at IdeaFestival 2015 on the rise of the machines. Yampolskiy cautioned that the rise of machines brings a slew of ethical and moral questions to the table—whether and how to use robots in the military, for example, and how to conduct research on robots. His feed is mainly AI news with some hilarious editorializing. “Discrimination against robosexuals begins,” he recently tweeted.
Cynthia Breazeal: @cynthiabreazeal
Breazeal is Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology and founder of the Personal Robots Group at the MIT Media Lab where she examines human-robot interaction. She’s also the author of Designing Sociable Robots. But Breazeal may be best known for her creation of the first family robot, Jibo.
MIRI: @MIRIBerkeley
The Machine Intelligence Research Institute at Berkeley is an excellent resource for the latest academic work in artificial intelligence. MIRI exists, according to Twitter, not only to investigate AI, but also to “ensure that the creation of smarter-than-human intelligence has a positive impact.”
Angelica Lim: @petitegeek
This Canadian computer scientist has a Ph.D. in AI and emotions. She’s currently working for a company called Aldebaran Robotics in Paris. At just 31, Dr. Lim is on the forefront of research into “feeling” machines and hopes to program robots with characteristics that are more human.
Gregory Piatetsky: @kdnuggets
Pliatetsy, from Brookline, MA, is president of KDnuggets (originally Knowledge Discovery Nuggets) and a well-respected data scientist. According to his Twitter bio, he’s also a “part-time philosopher.” Originally from Moscow, Piatetsky earned his PhD at NYU in 1984 in the topic of applying machine learning to databases. Two years ago, @kdnuggets was voted Best Twitter account on Big Data by @BigDataRepublic.
Eric Horvitz : @erichorvitz
Horvitz is Distinguished Scientist and Managing Director of Microsoft Research, studying how machines and humans learn together. Horvitz is optimistic about all of the potential good artificial intelligence can bring into the world and his mission seems to be engaging in a community conversation about the pitfalls and benefits of AI.
Future of Life: @FLIxrisk
FLI brings together some of the greatest minds—from the co-founder of Skype to professors at Harvard and MIT—to explore some of the big questions about our future with machines. This Cambridge-based institute also has a stellar lineup on its scientific advisory board, from Nick Bostrom to Stephen Hawking to Morgan Freeman.
Future of Humanity: @FHIOxford
With a name like this, how could you not follow? This institute at the University of Oxford is one of the premier sites for cutting-edge academic research. The Twitter feed is a wonderful place for content on the latest in AI, and the many retweets by the account are also useful in finding other Twitter users who are working on the latest in artificial intelligence.
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/10-artificial-intelligence-insiders-to-follow-on-twitter/