Japan's AI farming

November 13, 2023

Reading time: 5 minutes  

Today we will discuss-

  • 🗃️UK organizations push for better AI training data access

  • 🌱Japan joins the AI in agriculture trend

  • 🗣️Swiss minister calls for action on AI regulation

  • 😱 9 fantastic AI tools you might not have heard of

All this and more - Let's dive in!

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👩‍🍳What’s cooking in the newsroom?

UK organizations seek legal clarity around use of public data to train AI models

☕News - UK open source enthusiasts have urged the government to make sure that AI technologies can access enough public data to help the UK AI sector thrive.

OpenUK, IP Federation, Wikimedia UK, and the Entrepreneurs Network, among others, jointly signed a letter calling on the government to clarify intellectual property laws around technology. The request is significant as several companies including OpenAI and Meta have faced copyright lawsuits for AI products. 

🕵️‍♂️What's more?  The letter emphasized that large AI models like ChatGPT need extensive data for training. It noted that restrictions or excessive legal demands on accessing such data could slow down AI development in the UK and worsen existing issues related to unequal data access.

Furthermore, the letter pointed out that the UK significantly lags behind, while other countries have clarified their laws in this regard to support AI innovation. To address this, the organizations have put forward a proposal for a code of practice to shape AI intellectual property legislation.

Japanese farmers turn to AI-powered robots amid labor shortages

👨‍🌾News - Joining the AI in agriculture trend, Japanese farmers, particularly those in large-scale greenhouses, have started using robots equipped with artificial intelligence. This move is expected to address labor shortages by letting AI handle tasks related to cultivating and harvesting crops. 

🚜Why has AI in agriculture become a trend though? 

  • Since 1974, the global population has doubled, reaching 8 billion today. The increasing demand for food has led the autonomous farming industry to experience significant growth, with around 200 AI-based agricultural startups in the U.S. alone.

  • Beyond cultivating and harvesting, AI plays a role in waste reduction, a critical aspect given that 17% of global food production is wasted, as highlighted by the United Nations.

  • Moreover, agricultural organizations and farmers around the world are also increasingly adopting AI solutions to improve farm productivity.

In accordance with this trend, the value of AI in the global agriculture market is projected to grow from $1.7 billion in 2023 to around $4.7 billion by 2028, according to a recent Statista report.

Switzerland's Minister advocates for balanced AI regulations to support innovation

🏔️News - In a recent interview, Switzerland's communications minister, Albert Rösti, advocated for the regulation of AI in the country. He emphasized the need to introduce balanced AI regulations to ensure they don't get in the way of innovation.

In line with this, Rösti, who heads the ministry responsible for environment, transport, energy, and communications, plans to submit a report to the government by mid-2024.

🧐What is Switzerland's current position in regulating AI? Switzerland, though not part of the EU, has been a member of the Council of Europe since 1963. To this end, Rosti suggested that there's a chance Switzerland might adopt EU regulations. He added that in the meantime, the Swiss Federal Council is discussing how to address the technical, geopolitical, and societal risks associated with AI. 

Currently, Switzerland has taken a somewhat cautious and wait-and-see stance in regulating AI, as confirmed by Thomas Schneider, vice-director of the Federal Office of Communications and head of the Council of Europe’s Committee on Artificial Intelligence (CAI). Schneider believes this approach will result in a practical, long-term solution rather than a quick fix to address AI challenges. 

🤔What’s the key point here? It is important to note that this approach poses challenges, especially for researchers and providers in Switzerland's AI landscape, who despite making significant strides are faced with ethical dilemmas of where to draw the line due to the lack of regulations.

👩🏼‍💻What else is happening?

🤩Interesting facts

  • The term "Deepfake'' first emerged when a Reddit user named "deepfakes" shared AI-crafted adult videos blending celebrity faces in late 2017. This sparked mainstream attention and collaborations within the deepfakes community, revealing AI's power for both innovation and manipulation.

  • In the famous game "No Man's Sky," developers used AI to create a vast, virtual universe in which layers would explore diverse planets with unique landscapes, creatures, and environments.

  • In 2019, a healthcare AI platform, BlueDot, accurately predicted the COVID-19 outbreak by analyzing disease-related news and airline data. Its early alert came days before WHO's acknowledgement, highlighting AI's potential for early disease detection, aiding prevention efforts.

👩🏼‍🚒Discover mind-blowing AI tools

  1. Vocable - An AI platform that streamlines content marketing, aiding creators in crafting efficient, high-quality, scalable, and personalized content for their audience**

  2. DecorAI - An AI-driven interior design tool that helps users redesign their rooms

  3. DocGPT - Provides features like summarization, source highlighting, and the ability to ask questions about the document

  4. Touring - Allows users to explore the world at their own pace, without the need for planning or joining crowded tours

  5. FormuTodo - A tool that helps users create to-do lists to organize and manage their tasks effectively

  6. GPT4 Vision Chatbot - An AI-powered vision chatbot builder that allows users to create chatbots without any coding knowledge

  7. Squad - An AI-powered Product Manager that helps distill user feedback into actionable insights

  8. Midday - A financial operating system for businesses that offers real-time profit/loss tracking, and seamless preparation for accountants

  9. Vsub - A service that offers video captioning and subtitle generation

💸Most expensive piece of AI art

The portrait “Edmond de Belamy” sold for US $432,500 at Christie’s auction house in New York City. It was created by a Paris-based art collective called Obvious using a type of AI called a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN).

The image features a man with a slightly out-of-focus face and a blob for a mouth. He is dressed in what seems to be a dark frock coat over a white-collared shirt. The overall style of the portrait is reminiscent of 18th-century portraiture, but the details are blurred and distorted.

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