MKAI - The creative power of AI – unlearning old paradigms to let new ones blossom

Here is MKAI's latest blog. To read on website, click here.

What a fantastic week we had at MKAI! After celebrating Earth Day in April, we as a community have decided to raise more awareness of our home, the planet that we live on. After the first child is born on Mars, we may have to add “planet of birth” to our passports. Hence, in the meantime, protecting our planet starts with us; as we nurture ourselves internally, we should show care and support to or environment and nature that surrounds us with the same amount of attention and love.

As time is our most precious thing, we prepared a bullet point list for this week’s digest. Make sure you read all the way down, so you don’t miss out on any important note!

• Green Economy, Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environmental Group
• AI teaches itself to achieve a goal
• Successful community stories
• Upcoming MKAI events – Data Monetization

GEO AI and You: State-of-art

The discussion that started as a casual talk now implicates becoming a movement. Therefore, this contribution of our community may evolve into CTA for other professionals, researchers in the GIS field. The important message is to start using AI ethically in a mission to understand the needs of our planet. Ethical considerations should be a part of responsible GeoAI science – both at the individual researcher and community level. Hence, in that way to heal the wounds that we left as humanity during the process. Suppose you’re wondering how we’ll guide you through examples. 

Over the last few years, artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning techniques have profoundly impacted fields like natural language processing and computer vision. Hence, that started to significantly improve the futuristic approach in problems like parsing natural language, classifying unstructured data, and semantically segmenting contents. The techniques mentioned above have the purpose of empowering a new generation of Geographical Information Systems (GISs), enabling them to combine spatial analysis with quick and near-human-level perception, enabling location-based information discovery and research.

Many recent studies have indicated that AI techniques can be used in a variety of geospatial applications. Some examples are remote sensing for Earth observation (Google Earth Engine Applications.  e.g., segmentation, classification, downscaling, or fusing ground-level or aerial/satellite imagery), spatial data analysis, and more.

Having this in mind, there was no need for an invitation for our community to start researching this topic further. The members themselves raised a call to action by indicating a new MKAI focused-discussion group about geoAI. In this group, our members will discuss and try to overcome the obstacles mentioned above to necessitate further research and development. AI techniques can be applied to a broader variety of geospatial applications.        

Soon, we’ll launch a Green Economy movement, which will address AI in GIS, biodiversity, agriculture, environment, climate change and adaptation, biomimicry, Landscape Management, and energy. These are all critical areas where AI has a significant impact.

If you’re an AI practitioner and have a specific interest in the environment, we would love to have you in an MKAI AI focused-discussion that will cover important topics related to our planet  

GIS folks; your time has come!

As we are growing, we are learning together. Feel free to join Telegram for further details. Not sure about jumping on this project? Feel free to explore our ongoing projects on this link. 

Losing control or letting go – Learning with AI

By “we,” let’s mention both humans and AI.

Depending on perspective, last year has interrupted or improved our lifestyles. One part of it, for sure, was how we learn things – both formally and informally. When it comes to formal learning possibilities, an educational system with distance learning programs is undoubtedly one.

But what distancing has taught us is resilience. Once we adopted our mindset to the ongoing changes, we’ve started to observe the world around us differently. Once again, we, as both humans and AI, can monitor and do more according to newly established systems around us. 

That drives us to the fact that it seems that humanity had an “enlightenment” moment while developing resilience skills to adapt to this new normal thing. What’s more, AI has its own “personal” development journey. The AI started teaching itself to achieve its own goals like you do! We bet it has its bullet point journal. Productive, isn’t it?  

However, it may be good to optimizing tasks, but it’s still a way to a powerful tool for businesses to understand how to use it in the right way. According to the authorities and researchers, reinforcement algorithms are good at optimizing and automating complex situations that humans cannot handle independently. This is perfectly fine because we are overwhelmed with loads of information, day by day. However, along with these complexities, there is an urge to explain complex formulas and laws to the society that these decisions may impact.

We are well aware that it is challenging for the average citizen to protect their data these days unless they are willing to learn more about digital literacy. Furthermore, to be able to give up on simple tech items that leave digital traces everywhere. However, not only societies face this moment of recognizing when it comes to how intelligent systems use data. People caring about AI regulation are concerned about the risk that we may lose control of the standards that shape our technology.

Even though there’s an outcome document in the domain of AI regulation in the form of the first draft of the Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, we still need to invest in knowledge, skills, and innovation to build a strong foundation for solving technology challenges.

Sharing is caring

Community success

Our member’s success is much appreciated and celebrated along our journey of shaping the potential of artificial intelligence. 

Therefore, we are proud to announce: 

• Monika Manolova will participate in the forthcoming European Regions for Smart Communities summit under the Portuguese Presidency of European United in the Alentejo region (city of Évora) and online 3 – 9 of May 2021.

Some more celebration reasons:

• Lavina was recently awarded the Global Council Top 100 Women in Leadership, under the Technology category and the Women To Look Up To For 2021 (Unified Brand).
• It’s been ten years since Markus Krebsz published his most significant book that has also inspired discussions in the #Artificialntelligence space by The Human Ai Institute, ForHumanity, MKAI, and as well as the United Nations, World Economic Forum, and the OECD.
• Shravan shared an AI project I spearheaded on behalf of an AI company called, Gramener which won the Bronze Edison Award for 2021 in the “Survey, Communications and Logistics” Category. Guess who won Silver? – Google Maps AR 

MKAI congratulates everybody on recent and upcoming achievements. Speaking of the insightful observations and well-established projects, it’s time for everyone on the planet to group and endure. Believing in science means believing in our ability to overcome challenges and barriers together.

What about you? Did you have a great week or just get through it? Make sure you read through the list. Feel free to tell us more about it in the comments, and if we succeed, to brighten it up a little bit!

Upcoming MKAI events

Focus on AI-driven data monetization

Imagine the ability to synthesize billions of IoT data points, integrate tens of thousands of external signals, and apply advanced analytics and artificial intelligence to discover an entirely new world of possibilities. At the May MKAI Inclusive AI Forum, we’re going to discuss the exact topic of ‘Rethinking Data Monetization.’ 

We will hear from three well-informed speakers on this topic;

– Gema F.B. Martín, Scientist, Psychologist, Digital Artist and Director at http://metaverse42.com/  on the data, money, behavior pattern

– Jack Nikogosian, CEO at ARYZE, on how NFTs will force big tech to rethink data monetization

– Debbie Reynolds, Global Data Privacy & Protection Expert Strategist on monetization and privacy 

The Forum is inclusive, digital, and on Thursday 27th May 2021. If you would like to learn more, please reach out to us or follow our page on LinkedIn to not miss the opportunity to register for the event! 

Not yet a part of our community? Come and join us! 

We hope you enjoyed this week’s selection! If any of the topics left a particular impression or resonated with you – feel free to join our focused discussion group on Telegram.