Closer to Brussels, no 25 "Artificial Intelligence"

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CLOSER TO BRUSSELS E-MAGAZINE OF THE MAŁOPOLSKA REGION BRUSSELS OFFICE

Artificial Intelligence


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Artificial Intelligence 3

Preface Witold Kozłowski – Marshal of the Małopolska Region

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Artificial intelligence – what is that? prof. dr hab. Inż. Ryszard Tadeusiewicz

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Not between good and evil, but between fear and hope – the ethics of artificial intelligence prof. dr hab. Roman Batko

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Winds of change – Is artificial intelligence creating a new human? Piotr Biczyk

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Augmenting reality – artificial intelligence in action Katarzyna Baliga-Nicholson

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Małopolska conquers Brussels: Artificial intelligence, real actions Przemysław Zieliński

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Questio Iuris


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Ladies and Gentlemen! With great pleasure, I invite you to read the next release of our e-magazine “Closer to Brussels”. This edition is devoted to a very important issue of today’s civilization – artificial intelligence. This is a topic particularly close to Małopolskia Region, as information and communication technologies (ICT) are one of the main smart specializations of the region. We chose the Małopolska smart specializations to support areas with the greatest development potential in the region. Extensive consultative and research with representatives of various institutions and communities have allowed us to choose areas of specialization that will strengthen the competitiveness of our region both on the national and international arena. Enterprises from the ICT sector are supported by several business environment institutions: the Kraków Technology Park, the Center of Intelligent Information Systems and the Academic Computer Center CYFRONET AGH. Przemysław Zieliński from the Krakow Technology Park presents the involvement of the Małopolska Region in the development of artificial intelligence. In the publication, you will also find interesting texts from Jagiellonian University scientists who analyze the challenges that are necessarily associated with artificial intelligence, i.e. ethics or responsibility for decisions. In turn, the articles of the practitioners will provide examples - of which we are not always aware – of the numerous uses of artificial intelligence in our daily lives. I wish you a great lecture!

Witold Kozłowski Marshall of Małopolskie Voivoidship


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RYSZARD TADEUSIEWICZ prof. dr hab. eng., full member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Doctor h.c. mult.; AGH professor, former three time rector of the university; Full member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, elected 3 times as President of the Krakow Branch of the Polish Academy of Sciences; Member of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, founder and long time chairman of the PAU Technical Sciences Committee; Chairman of the Scientific Council of the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Computer Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences – Gliwice; An active member of Academia Scientiarum et Artium Europaea; Vice President of the Polish Association of Artificial Intelligence Academic achievements: Number of books he has authored or co-authored: 113, Number of books he has edited: 58, Number of scientific publications: 1161, Popularization: 58, Popularization on the internet: 186, Journalism: 160 Promotor 72 number of defended doctoral dissertations, reviewed 314 doctorates, 160 habilitation, 149 applications for professorship Full details along with the lists of publications and books, as well as links to their fill texts are on: www.Tadeusiewicz.pl

Artificial intelligence – what is that? The answer would be very long if we would attempt to list all the aspects and attributes of this avantgarde science. But in a nutshell, you can answer like this: artificial intelligence are computer programs designed in a way so that they are able to perform, not only the routine activities that computers always do, but also solve new problems, all the while demonstrating the features that we identify with human intelligence. Such features of artificial intelligence programs are the ability to learn, i.e. expand knowledge by interacting with other entities – people or intelligent programs. Interestingly, the artificial intelligence program can also learn by interacting... with itself. In this way, program AlphaGo improved his skills and in May 2017 it defeated the grandmaster of the game go Ke Jie. The program first played several games with people (with varying luck), then divided into two parts, which day and night, and for months, it played against itself, gathering experience and learning from own mistakes. In this way, the program played hundreds of thousands of games and gained such knowledge and experience that it became unbeatable. But most often artificial intelligence programs learn from data provided by people – for example, in the form of various databases.


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Artificial intelligence are computer programs designed in a way so that they are able to perform, not only the routine activities, but also solve new problems.

The second feature of artificial intelligence programs is their ability to formulate generalizations. If such a program acquires certain knowledge, it can not only quote it (like an encyclopedia), but can also infer from it. The third feature is the detachment of computer analysis from details and providing the machines with the opportunity to conduct analysis on general concepts represented by symbols. Thanks to this, the range of typical numerical calculations (performed on specific numbers) also includes symbolic calculations performed on general concepts. This led to the creation of programs that first prove mathematical theorems, and then to so-called expert systems as advisors. Expert systems have always had a certain amount of knowledge (obtained from people who are experts in a given field) and have a built-in automatic inference mechanism that allows finding answers to users’ questions by searching the knowledge base and using the reasoning rules that were indicated as acceptable in the considered case. These are very useful tools! One of the first areas in which applications for artificial intelligence were found were programs for competing with people in the area of ​​strategic games. Finding optimal solutions when the opponent independently generates his moves - is a feature of intelligent human behaviour. When a computer becomes a partner to a human in this game, it does something more than it does in typical applications. It must find the game strategy itself and modify it creatively based on the analysis of the opponent’s actions.


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The artificial intelligence program can also learn by interacting... with itself.

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This section of artificial intelligence has “sold well” for quite some time because researchers had received large funds from the military. It was believed that if a computer possessed the ability to defeat a man in an abstract “theatre”, then perhaps it would also be a useful advisor to the commander on the battlefield. Thanks to the generous funding from the military, the programs that play strategic games have improved quickly. The first time a machine beat a man in checkers. A program was built with which man could absolutely not win, nowadays nobody even tries because the result is a foregone conclusion. Chess players had defended themselves for quite a long time though. The first program playing this game could even be beaten by an amateur. But in May of 1997, the program’s constant improvement led to the Deep Blue computer defeating the chess grandmaster Garri Kasparov. For some time, there was a belief that chess would be a bastion in which the human intellect would be tower over the machine for a long time. We already know how that ended. Interestingly, it wasn’t only games that require strategic thinking which has become an area where computers have proved to be better than people. A game of chess is based on logical reasoning, and no computer can refuse logic, so the fact that it defeated a man is no special surprise. However, until recently it seemed that computer programs cannot effectively cheat or be suggestive, which in poker and similar games is called bluffing. Carnegie Mellon, a well-known University in Pittsburgh, overcame this barrier to the development of Artificial intelligence. They created a program called Liberatus, which was to learn to play poker. The program played several games with people, lost as was predictable - but learned the rules. Then it perfected its methods of playing by playing against itself. Thousands of times! Then it stood against four poker champions of established fame. It played with Dong Kim, Jason Les, Jimmy Chou and Daniel McAulay. These names may not tell us much, but for Americans, they are more famous than Lewandowski or Stoch!


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The second feature of artificial intelligence programs is their ability to formulate generalizations.

Liberatus defeated them by using its very own discovered methods of bluffing, and in this deceptive method of action, it turned out to be definitely better than the best poker players (people) and won - as calculated - a total of $ 1.76 million! As can be seen, the computer is capable of anything, even lying. It is also better at it than people! The intelligence of machines is constantly increasing, while the intelligence of people remains constant. This means that the intelligence of robots will inevitably outweigh the intelligence of humans at some time.

Intelligence level

Robots

People

???

Time

What effects will this have? Heated arguments are currently underway...


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Not between good and evil, but between fear and hope - the ethics of artificial intelligence

ROMAN BATKO A professor at Jagiellonian University, holder of a post-doctoral degree in management and a member of the Culture and Media Management Committee of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences. He researches issues related to the so-called future organizations: robotisation, cyborgization, new forms of communication, issues related to changes in the labour market, as well as the creation of technological networks in which the position of man radically changes. In 2017-2019 he was the Polish coordinator of the project “Digital Technologies, Transformations and Skills: Robotics and EU Perceptions”, implemented by the science and business communities of Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Poland, and Finland. He is also the president of the board of SenseMaking Consulting Group Sp. z o.o.

The career of “artificial intelligence” in both science, art, and journalism is stunning. There isn’t a day that goes by that we do not read about new discoveries and applications of artificial intelligence in medicine, data analysis, communication, education, management and many other areas of social life. We can, therefore, speak of a phenomenon that has a profound effect on the lives of both individuals and humanity in general. The huge mainstream success of artificial intelligence is also very much associated with its presence in pop culture. On one hand, literature and film and especially Hollywood productions, increase the fear of the coming future, dystopian images of the robot attacks on humanity or some form of self-destruction that results from the loss of control over advanced technology, on the other hand pop culture awakens hope for longevity, and maybe even immortality and the improvement of human existence in many areas of life. This exciting mix of anxiety and hope is not only very tempting for creators but also has its business and political potential, manifesting itself in creating new business models and new public policies based on a technological vision of development. We also see a clearly outlined generational conflict related to the technological revolution. Elders, attached to the “human” world, miss what is known, tame and analogue. Today’s young digital natives, know no other world than the one filled with


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modern technology, they breathe “digital” like they do air. So what is this mythical artificial intelligence that has become so important to us? What makes it so different from earlier inventions and facilities that we also discuss ethical issues in its context?

Artificial intelligence is, in simplified terms, a metaphor defining neural networks and algorithms, logical and semantic processes that draw inspiration from natural human intelligence and build it into an engineering environment.

Artificial intelligence is, in simplified terms, a metaphor defining neural networks and algorithms, logical and semantic processes that draw inspiration from natural human intelligence and build it into an engineering environment, thus “artificial”. Therefore, artificial intelligence can machine learn, acquiring a large amount of data from resources, including the Internet, it improves without the participation of the programmer, overwriting the original solutions to the original code. It can also analyse data that resembles human rationalization, searching for the causes of visible effects, as well as interacting with people and other machines utilizing messages displayed on screens or spoken in human languages thanks to speech synthesis. As you can easily see, we are dealing with a completely unprecedented situation, when the human product is designed


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The ethical aspect of artificial intelligence is also an interpretation of the effects of implementing these solutions.

from the beginning to automatize more with each cycle. Because the artist loses control of his work, trust or fear must appear in its place. Here we come to the key issue related to the ethics of artificial intelligence. What happens in this so-called black box? How to ensure the transparency of processes that take place there to increase trust? There are no tools and time possibilities to follow the changes, moreover, it is about exceeding human possibilities, thanks to self-programming technology. Black box processes of machine learning artificial intelligence have so far only brought disappointments. For example, in automatic recruitment processes because machine learning requires huge amounts of data, they are drawn from historical resources stored in the network, with all the consequences of the quality of this data. Racial, gender, stereotypes, classism and many other prejudices find expression in recruitment results. However, just such situations bring hope for a better world, more just and democratic. If, with each subsequent stage of learning, artificial intelligence gets rid of more human prejudices and cleans the code from such ballast. Considering the increasing computing power (knocking on the door of massive applications of a quantum computer), clasping in the network of artificial intelligence (today there are over 18 billion devices connected to each other by the network!), Huge money is involved in research and development of technologies, as well as development strategies. Countries and continental communities hold hope that the digital world will be better than that of the past, we can expect the development of the path from the so-called narrow artificial intelligence (narrow AI) to strong (strong AI), and therefore can match today’s human intelligence in the not too distant future.


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A human can make a choice that will be unfavourable to him in the name of higher values, the algorithm will react by analysing the effects to protect passengers and the vehicle.

The ethical aspect of artificial intelligence is also an interpretation of the effects of implementing these solutions. Neutral technology generates social changes that are interpreted ethically. I will list here only a few of the most important issues to show the scale of the problems. Interference with the human genotype, correction of biological imperfections through data analysis, and at the same time permanent changes in the DNA code at an early stage of life; issues related to cyber-surveillance, collection and processing of an unimaginable amount of data on each of us and creating profiles for the needs of uniformed services and marketing; industrial-scale production of so-called fake news and distribution of false information, interference in democratic elections; conducting warfare using remote technologies, admittedly operated by people, but without personal contact with the people killed (situations like this more resemble a computer game than a real battlefield); take the consequences of the choices made by artificial intelligence driving a self-propelled vehicle - imagine the ethical dilemma to be resolved by the machine - to hit a group of people, or drive off of the road and hit a pole perhaps killing the occupants of the vehicle? A human can make a choice that will be unfavourable to him in the name of higher values, the algorithm will react by analysing the effects to protect passengers and the vehicle. At the meta-level of ethical considerations, there will also be a question about civilization and even evolutionary changes and considerations on the possibility of the emergence of a new, digitized entity, robo-sapiens. However, this is still not science but futurism.


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Winds of change - is artificial intelligence creating a new type of human?

PIOTR BICZYK Chief Strategy Officer at QED software, a competence center specializing in machine learning, AI and big data issues. A physicist in passion and by profession who has gained his many years of experience working in public administration and the private sector on software development projects. Currently, QED is fulfilling the dream of connecting two worlds, scientific research and creating useful solutions supporting business development. His specialty is helping pioneers looking to use the potential of AI to build their market advantage.

We live in fascinating times. The technological revolution has been gaining momentum from the XIX century and it’s happening at a pace that is testing human limits. Limits which have been in place over tens of thousands of years of evolution. It wasn’t that long ago that when looking through the lens of evolution, the world people were born and died in were very similar. Today, we say that technology that appears in the life of a young person is second nature to them by the age of 15; the technology that appears in our lives up to the age of 35 is able to be implemented in our work lives, and everything that appears on the market afterwards seems to us to defy all common sense. The long term consequences of these changes are difficult to measure. We can already observe the first symptoms of how this is influencing our younger generations. New technology and time-saving gadgetry which are supposed to relieve us of responsibilities and save us time are fundamentally changing the way we function. A significant share of technology thrown collectively into the “AI” bag.


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So what is this mythical “AI” and what kind of influence may it have in our lives? Artificial intelligence is a collection of techniques designed to automatically reproduce people-specific behaviours - in particular, this concerns predicting the future, making decisions and cognitive tasks. So far, AI implementations have fallen into the category of “narrow” AI - aimed at solving a specific problem. Work is underway to create a ‘general’ AI that will have the ability to undertake general, unspecified tasks. In other words – it will be an “artificial human”. A more detailed reading of scientific publications and reports from papers creates a less dramatic picture - apart from the buzzing announcements, for some time the artificial human poses no threat to us. This doesn’t mean that the “narrow” AI is not without influence on our everyday lives. First of all, machine learning algorithms, used in artificial intelligence techniques, enable findings in the jungle of available dependency data in a way that is inaccessible to human cognition. This, in turn, enables the creation of decision systems that support decisions made so far by a living person. This is only a step away from pushing humans out of the decisionmaking chain. While it brings more profits to companies using this approach (more favourable insurance and credit decisions, better promotion/dismissal decisions, etc.), it also dehumanizes the process. There is less and less room for the individual assessment of an employee, who may have had temporarily worse results and the algorithm selected him for dismissal, but the boss’s intuition tells him that he should be given a second chance.


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It’s also important to mention a deepening effect, thanks to the automatic decisions of already existing social hierarchies and prejudices. A great example is the insurance premium that is dependent on the “black box” decision, which takes into account various factors, such as place of residence. So people living in a ‘worse’ district, probably also poorer, will pay more for insurance because the risk of theft in this district is greater. Economic shears in these cases start to open. This is why it is so important for legislators to require the introduction of the right to explain all decisions that are important from the point of view of human life, taken automatically. Also, and especially those concerning moral dilemmas (who should the autonomous car run into if it cannot avoid an accident?). The obligation of clarification was to be part of the GDPR regulation, unfortunately, what remained in it was the right to be excluded from automatic decisions (GDPR, art. 22). It should also be remembered that machine learning techniques suggest decisions based on previously collected data. The appearance of a qualitatively new phenomenon may disturb the decision rhythm. This is particularly important where decisions are made on a time scale inaccessible to humans - micro-second decisions are made as part of automatic stock trading, avionics service, etc. This, in turn, can lead to increased fragility for increased process efficiency. Optimized processes run more efficiently while it is stable. But in the absence of stability, in the emergence of new phenomena, the whole system can easily collapse. Artificial intelligence mechanisms support human beings. They are suitable for reproducing human-like work wherever it is repetitive, where data describing its performance is available, and where a way to clearly measure the results of its activities is available.


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Artificial intelligence is a collection of techniques designed to automatically reproduce people-specific behaviours. Machine learning algorithms enable findings the creation of decision systems that support decisions made so far by a living person.

This, of course, has two sides. On the one hand - instead of employing crowds of employees to work on the phone, when analysing the stream of images or to drive a car, you can optimize the process using a machine. It’s naturally cheaper, faster, often better and safer. On the other hand, we should not forget about the social cost of lost jobs. About the fact that often these tasks, although they can be dangerous (such as driving a car) can be part of cultural and social identity. Are we ready to give machines the power of medical diagnosis? Many people are unsurprisingly reluctant. What if the machine makes a mistake? Well, people forget that doctors are also sometimes wrong. Hard data is ruthless in this case. In an image-based diagnosis, AI mechanisms are able to be mistaken not less often than a professor with many years of experience. This poses the question of who will be responsible for errors? The algorithm creator? The website that provided the learning data? Or maybe the doctor who accepted the automatic diagnosis? In summary, AI is a powerful tool that is neither bad nor good. Like many tools before it, from the steam engine to smartphones, it affects the way we live. As with any technology - the more we use it, the more we depend on it, its suppliers, and ultimately the lack of it.


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Augmenting reality - artificial intelligence in action

KATARZYNA BALIGA-NICHOLSON A graduate of the University of London where she obtained a Post Graduate Certificate in Education in Business and Economics. She also holds a master’s degree in management from Jagiellonian University. She conducts research on artificial intelligence, specifically in the area of ​​voice technologies, the interaction of people and bots, and relationships between technology and art. She was recently a member of the research team in the international project “Digital Technologies, Transformations and Skills: Robotics and EU Perceptions” (2017-2019). She is currently preparing a doctoral dissertation at Jagiellonian University titled “Managing the Process of Creating and Implementing Digital Innovations”. She is a partner, researcher, and consultant at SenseMaking Consulting Group and SenseMaking Digital Lab.

The symbolic date of the creation of artificial intelligence is the year 1956, when during the research workshop at Dartmouth College the concept of artificial intelligence first appeared, which replaced other earlier ones, such as automata studies, complex information processing or cybernetics. For all those involved in researching trends within AI, this event is important because it launched the process of forming a new scientific discipline, was a source of new language and inspiration, but above all thanks to this meeting, a group of scientists emerged who assumed that computers are capable of performing intelligent tasks. The Dartmouth workshop did not have a precisely defined research methodology, scientific theory or even a worked-out method, scientists arrived at various times, worked on their projects, and the level of cooperation between participants often did not meet the expectations adopted in the initial assumptions of the workshop. However, it was in Dartmouth that the AI ​​vision was formulated that gave direction and pace of work within the emerging research field. The proposal developed by McCarthy, Minsky, Rochester and Shannon was as follows:

The study is to proceed on the basis of the conjecture that every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it. An attempt will be made to find how to make machines use language, form abstractions and concepts, solve kinds of problems now reserved for humans, and improve themselves. We think that a significant advance can be made in one or more of these problems if a carefully selected group of scientists work on it together…


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Thanks to the simulation of reality and the use of mathematical modeling, an attempt was made to create systems that were to resemble the process that accompanies logical thinking, like playing chess.

Thanks to the simulation of reality and the use of mathematical modeling, an attempt was made to create systems that were to resemble the process that accompanies logical thinking, like playing chess. The development of hardware, and with it the increasing possibilities of processing large amounts of data meant that the machines could make calculations and build strategies that quickly proved to be more effective than those generated by humans. Current trends in AI continue to draw inspiration and knowledge that follows events from Dartmouth, while the trend associated with exploring solutions based on deep neural networks, which, fed with relevant data, can search for meaning and learn on their own without human supervision. These solutions work well in medicine, where computer analysis of diagnostic images helps in classifying and estimating the size of oncological changes. The Watson supercomputer had great achievements in this field, but its first successes were not connected with medicine. The supercomputer was created by the IBM team, in 2011 Watson won the tournament in the game Jeopardy beating human rivals in the final. Watson is 2,880 cores and 15 terabytes of random access memory, used to diagnose and plan lung cancer treatment at a cancer centre in New York. Today, Watson performs consultative functions in many medical facilities around the world, including Poland. The supercomputer operates data located in the cloud, which is powered by knowledge from the latest research and patient’s medical records. After entering patient data, Watson helps doctors choose the right course for their patients. Watson’s example shows that artificial intelligence is ahead of us in strategic thinking not only in games but can generate new solutions, giving us new opportunities for action. The most interesting and at the same time one of the most controversial trends in the development of AI relate


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to compensating for human imperfections related to the computing power of our brain and expanding the possibilities of our senses. Here, AI trends are based, among others, on implanting intelligent implants into the body that can communicate with the external environment. Such applications can help you verify your identity, location, or perform daily activities, such as payment transactions. One of the more spectacular examples of work in this area are the achievements of Kevin Warwik, known as the first cyborg. He connected his nervous system using a computer to his wife’s nervous system so that she could use her thoughts to direct the movement of his hand without eye contact. Analyzing the experiment, Warwik explained that he had expanded his senses to include telepathy. In such extreme varieties of thinking about human improvement, we can already talk about biohacking and transhumanism. Another trend visible in the development of artificial intelligence is the integration of knowledge from many different scientific fields, including research on human intelligence, how the brain works and the analysis of emotional states. Affective computing has great achievements in this area, which focuses on the recognition, analysis, and processing of emotions. The founding moment for this science is the work of Rosalind Picard from 1997, where for the first time a systematic reflection on effect in IT had been made. Picard initially worked on sensory technology to better understand children with autism but decided to commercialize their ideas by creating an Embrace band that collects data flowing from the human body to help predict future attacks of epilepsy. The Embrace band belongs to many solutions of wearable technology, which is used to analyse human emotional states while opening the field of research on the emotional states of already thinking machines.


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Artificial intelligence significantly changes business. Thanks to advanced and immediate data analysis, it affects the high accuracy of managerial decisions, optimizes the way of dealing with risk, reduces process costs, support automation, recognizes the needs of customers and suggests introducing product innovations.

The important question is how to communicate with machines that think. One example of solving such a problem is the use of new technologies in the field of speech recognition and synthesis, which creates the possibility of communicating with machines in an almost human way. The computer recognizes the phrases spoken, saves them and on this basis, and analyzes large text collections. A great example of speech recognition in Polish using artificial intelligence is the achievements of the Krakow-based company Techmo, which is also working on the use of created solutions for diagnosing civilization diseases in the VAMP (Voice Analysis for Medical Professionals) project. Artificial intelligence significantly changes business. Thanks to advanced and immediate data analysis, it affects the high accuracy of managerial decisions, optimizes the way of dealing with risk, reduces process costs, support automation, recognizes the needs of customers and suggests introducing product innovations. The most interesting and exciting aspect, however, is how AI pushes the boundaries of knowledge and limits of human possibilities to create more and more complex human interactions with technology. Upcoming and previously unimaginable possibilities illustrate the spectacular success of the Google quantum computer, which performed calculations in 3 minutes and 20 seconds, which would have taken the Pleiades supercomputer at the NASA Research Centre in California 10,000 years! This is, of course, an experiment with its technological imperfections, but there is no doubt that the coming months and certainly years, will also radically change the possibilities of artificial intelligence, giving it such powerful computing power. The Holy Grail of the visionaries of the future is – Strong AI– artificial intelligence that equals the capabilities of the human brain and it seems to be getting closer.


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MAŁOPOLSKA CONQUERS BRUSSELS

Artificial intelligence, real actions

PRZEMYSŁAW ZIELIŃSKI Specialist promotion and marketing at KPT ScaleUP, founder of Great Joy, for years promoting start-ups and Polish science.

In the voivodship of Malopolska, things are stirring. Computer processors of IT specialists are working overtime, the schedules of many people are filled with appointments of industry meet-ups and conferences, business owners and traders are juggling their phones. This is how the AI ​​industry is developing in this region of Poland. Artificial intelligence is the hot topic of everyone involved in new technologies. It has permanently entered common terminology with which every inventor, innovator, entrepreneur or IT specialist should be up to date. You can hear about it at universities, in start-up offices or at numerous conferences and workshops. This popularity is hardly surprising. AI is the foundation of Industry 4.0, revolutionizing communication between individual devices. It is also a must-have element of every Internet of Things: it is AI that generates benefits by using information from the Ministry of Digitization. Malopolska voivodship is a place where the term artificial intelligence can be heard extremely often. This is proved by reports (Map of the Polish AI 2019), institutional potential (e.g. the Polish Artificial


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Intelligence Association founded in Krakow) and finally the real successes of local companies. What makes artificial intelligence so good in southern Poland?

A HELPING HAND

AI is the foundation of Industry 4.0, revolutionizing communication between individual devices.

One of the foundations of the Lesser Poland AI environment is a strong network of organizations supporting innovators. It is their activity that gives inventors and entrepreneurs comfort in their operations, offering a number of specific services that facilitate the implementation of products or the introduction of services onto the market, and from where they derive their profits. The Kraków Technology Park has been on the front line for 20 years, actively meeting the expectations of start-ups. In addition to advanced consulting, affordable office space or in-depth networking, the KPT ScaleUP accelerator, co-financed from the European Regional Development Fund under the Intelligent Development Operational Program 2014-2020 is a particularly effective tool. For start-ups dealing with, among others, the development of artificial intelligence or the Internet of Things for Industry 4.0, the accelerator fund has up to 90 million PLN to be allocated. It also offers an invaluable opportunity to implement an innovative solution at one of the numerous industrial partners, such as TAURON Polska Energia or Grupa Azoty. “For young companies, this opportunity is the easiest way to show the world that their idea not only looks great on paper, is not only possible to implement, but actually works. Recommendation and words of


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recognition from a brand such as TAURON, Budimex or Kraków Airport John Paul II is a serious reinforcement, strongly affecting customers and allowing to leave the competition behind, “says Bartosz Józefowski, coordinator of KPT ScaleUP. This aspect takes on special significance, considering the serious difficulties Polish companies offering advanced AI services are facing. The authors of the Map of the Polish AI 2019 report indicate that the low demand and reluctance of domestic entrepreneurs to reach for artificial intelligence solutions are one of the biggest barriers facing providers of such services. So far, 23 start-ups have benefited from accelerated support. In total, they held 180 meetings with industrial partners and took part in 345 mentoring sessions. Workshops with a total length of 216 hours were also organized for them. Applications will be open for the KPT ScaleUP accelerator by 2020. It’s worth trying and preparing applications carefully. The prize will be the already mentioned possibility of implementing the product at an industrial partner, as well as co-financing of 200,000 PLN and consulting services worth PLN 50,000. “The success of the program is the connection of the potential of startups and large enterprises. Thanks to KPT ScaleUP that not only allowed meetings between them to take place, but also many non-obvious business projects as part of bilateral cooperation, “Wojciech Przybylski, president of the Krakow Technology Park, sums up the hitherto achievements of the accelerator.


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Low demand and reluctance of domestic entrepreneurs to reach for artificial intelligence solutions are one of the biggest barriers facing providers of such services.

Among the supported companies, there were those that specialize in developing artificial intelligence. It is their implementation proposals that can be considered particularly inspiring. And so, the Simpro start-up to train Marshallers at the Krakow airport used gesture recognition technology and is using machine learning algorithms. Behaviour recognition is also dealt with by Airport Analytics created by the IoT System. It is a product that, based on the data recorded by video cameras, provides the manager of a given place with information on the number of people, their behaviour and ways of movement. Artificial intelligence mechanisms are the basis of the GetAnna chatbot, not only speaking 24/7 with clients but also creating their detailed profiles. It was tested by Budimex.

IN-DEPTH LEARNING The basis of any AI solution is the ability to learn as quickly as possible and use the acquired knowledge. The same principle applies in the environment of the creators of artificial intelligence. There is no shortage of learning opportunities in Krakow. Here, and more precisely in the Krakow Technology Park, cyclical A.I. meetings have been held regularly since the 2016 Krakow meet-up. “This is a space to exchange experiences and discussions for anyone interested in the subject of AI. We invite people who deal with the subject of artificial intelligence, but also those who are just beginning, or are simply interested in the broadly understood industry,” explains Tomasz Wesołowski, initiator of meetings from 2040.io. Recently they have been


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extended to matchmaking. The presentations and lectures are followed by a networking part, during which practitioners using AI technology can make contacts with people looking for artificial intelligence to solve their business problems. If you can’t make the nearest meet-up date, you can go to a meeting from the DataKRK, DataWorkshop series or the less frequently organized but equally interesting AI Research Seminars.

MALOPOLSKA VOIDVOIDSHIP MIX OF BENEFITS KPT President Wojciech Przybylski postulates that when assessing the start-up environment, not to generalize by the number of companies, but the quality of their offer. In this respect, Malopolska stands out from the rest of the regions. The solutions derived from this are appreciated by their ingenuity. Assistant Edward is certainly one of the best known, it was created by the 2040.io team residing at KPT, advanced commercial support, automating CRM management, facilitating contacts with customers and independently guarding the deadlines. Edward correctly recognizes speech, intelligently logs events and does not let the salesperson forget about any of the customers. Start-up 2040.io benefits from funding from the European Regional Development Fund under the Intelligent Development Operational Program 2014-2020.


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The basis of any AI solution is the ability to learn as quickly as possible and use the acquired knowledge.

Synerise, another start-up beginning its operations at the Krakow Technology Park, is rapidly increasing its market share. The solutions created here are used to collect and process data on customer behaviour. The information generated in this way is then used to optimize marketing campaigns, push notifications and finally dynamic content management on websites. All this happens in real-time, which places Synerise at the forefront in terms of efficiency and real impact on consumer behaviour. The Malopolska pedigree of both these and other equally respected brands in the AI area, such as Selfwise, Dronn, Techmo or Lekta, have had a positive impact on the image of the region as a place clearly favouring innovative solutions. They are in fact the best showcase of the region and a vivid example that the effort and commitment of local business environment institutions, combined with the skilful use of EU funds bring real results.

This project is co-financed from the European Regional Development Fund under the Intelligent Development Operational Program 2014-2020.


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Questio Iuris Brussels, 8.4.2019 COM(2019) 168 final

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS Building Trust in Human-Centric Artificial Intelligence

1. INTRODUCTION – THE EUROPEAN AI STRATEGY Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to transform our world for the better: it can improve healthcare, reduce energy consumption, make cars safer, and enable farmers to use water and natural resources more efficiently. AI can be used to predict environmental and climate change, improve financial risk management and provides the tools to manufacture, with less waste, products tailored to our needs. AI can also help to detect fraud and cybersecurity threats, and enables law enforcement agencies to fight crime more efficiently. AI can benefit the whole of society and the economy. It is a strategic technology that is now being developed and used at a rapid pace across the world. Nevertheless, AI also brings with it new challenges for the future of work, and raises legal and ethical questions. To address these challenges and make the most of the opportunities which AI offers, the Commission published a European strategy1 in April 2018. The strategy places people at the centre of the development of AI – human-centric AI. It is a three-pronged approach to boost the EU’s technological and industrial capacity and AI uptake across the economy, prepare for socio-economic changes, and ensure an appropriate ethical and legal framework. (…) 1

COM(2018) 237.


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2. BUILDING TRUST IN HUMAN-CENTRIC AI The European AI strategy and the coordinated plan make clear that trust is a prerequisite to ensure a human-centric approach to AI: AI is not an end in itself, but a tool that has to serve people with the ultimate aim of increasing human well-being. To achieve this, the trustworthiness of AI should be ensured. The values on which our societies are based need to be fully integrated in the way AI develops. (…) there is a need for ethics guidelines that build on the existing regulatory framework and that should be applied by developers, suppliers and users of AI in the internal market, establishing an ethical level playing field across all Member States. This is why the Commission has set up a high-level expert group on AI2, representing a wide range of stakeholders and has tasked it with drafting AI ethics guidelines as well as preparing a set of recommendations for broader AI policy. At the same time, the European AI Alliance3, an open multi-stakeholder platform with over 2700 members, was set up to provide broader input for the work of the AI high-level expert group. (…) the guidelines identify seven key requirements that AI applications should respect to be considered trustworthy. The guidelines also include an assessment list to help check whether these requirements are fulfilled. The seven key requirements are: • Human agency and oversight; • Technical robustness and safety; • Privacy and data governance; • Transparency; • Diversity, non-discrimination and fairness; • Societal and environmental well-being; • Accountability. (…) 2

https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/high-level-expert-group-artificial-intelligence

3

https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/european-ai-alliance


EDITOR EN CHIEF: Renata Jasiołek CONTACT WITH THE EDITORS: Małopolska Region Brussels Office rue de la Science 41, 1040 Bruxelles, Belgium bruxelles@umwm.malopolska.pl DESIGN: ccpg.com.pl


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