Artifical Intelligence 2018 Annual Report Published
A team of AI experts has published the Artificial Intelligence 2018 annual report. The report outlines the growth in AI academic research, use by industry mentions by the government, patents and technical performance in computer vision, and natural language processing.
One way to measure AI activity across different locations was by the output of academic papers. In this way, Europe was leading and made up 28 percent of AI papers last year, followed by China, which made up 25 percent, and the US at 17 percent.
The most talked about subjects were machine learning and probabilistic learning, neural networks, and computer vision.
What’s more, AI research in different countries was aimed at various fields, with papers from China looking at engineering, technology, and agricultural sciences, while the US and Europe looked at humanities and medical and health sciences.
Another significant difference between countries was that in 2017 the Chinese government generated four times more AI papers than Chinese corporations, but in the US AI papers written by corporations lead the way.
Course enrollments also reflect the growing interest in AI. In the US, registrations in introductory AI were 3.4 times more in 2017 than in 2012. During that same time, initial machine-learning enrollments (ML) grew by five times. AI and ML course enrollments at China’s Tingshua University in 2017 were 16 times greater than they were in 2010.
Downloads of robot software have also taken off around the world, especially in China. What’s more, China is a world leader in the number of robots that are installed and has seen a 500 percent rise since 2012. In 2017, almost 150,000 robots were introduced in China compared to less than 50,000 in North America.
The report also highlights mentions of ML and AI in Canadian and UK parliaments, in addition to remarks in the US Congressional Record. From 1995 to 2015, there were fewer than 25 mentions of the technology each year in US Congress. In 2018 there were 100 mentions. In the UK, the technologies were hardly mentioned until 2015, while in 2018 mentions soared to almost 300.
Moreover, the report tracks the human-level performance milestones of AI. In 1997 IBM’s DeepBlue beat chess champion Gary Kasparov, and in 2011 IBM Watson won Jeopardy. In 2016, Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo beat leading Go player Lee Sedol. And in 2018, a DeepMind agent reached human-level performance in a 3D multiplayer first-person game, Quake III Arena Capture the Flag.
Notably absent from the report is an analysis of the military use of AI and government spending on the technology. As remarked by UNSW Sydney AI researcher Toby Walsh, some governments such as the UK, France, and Germany have committed billions to AI. Walsh would like a breakdown of investments by country in addition to the use of AI by the military.
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