We are going through a new shift in machine learning (ML), where ML models are increasingly being used to automate decision-making in a multitude of domains: what personalized treatment should be administered to a patient, what discount should be offered to an online customer, and other important decisions that can greatly impact people’s lives. The machine learning revolution was primarily driven by problems that are distant from such decision-making scenarios. The first scenarios include predicting what an image depicts, predicting […]

As artificial intelligence continues its rapid progress, equaling or surpassing human performance on benchmarks in an increasing range of tasks, researchers in the field are directing more effort to the interaction between humans and AI in domains where both are active. Chess stands as a model system for studying how people can collaborate with AI, or learn from AI, just as chess has served as a leading indicator of many central questions in AI throughout the field’s history. AI-powered chess […]

You are here. We see some representation of this every day—a red pin, a pulsating blue dot, a small graphic of an airplane. Without a point of reference on which to anchor it, though, here doesn’t help us make our next move or coordinate with others. But in the context of an office building, street, or U.S. map, “here” becomes a location that we can understand in relation to other points. We’re near the lobby; at the intersection of Broadway […]

At Microsoft, we have been on a quest to advance AI beyond existing techniques, by taking a more holistic, human-centric approach to learning and understanding. As Chief Technology Officer of Azure AI Cognitive Services, I have been working with a team of amazing scientists and engineers to turn this quest into a reality. In my role, I enjoy a unique perspective in viewing the relationship among three attributes of human cognition: monolingual text (X), audio or visual sensory signals, (Y) […]

Consider for a moment what it takes to visually identify and describe something to another person. Now imagine that the other person can’t see the object or image, so every detail matters. How do you decide what information is important and what’s not? You’ll need to know exactly what everything is, where it is, what it’s doing in relation to other objects, and note other attributes like color or position of objects in the foreground or background. This exercise shows […]