News items:
Japanese researchers show biometrics accurately predict sentiment
Northeastern University narrows focus on human-centric AI
US, Singapore ally on AI research, platforms
--read by Douglas Kirkpatrick
--commentary by Ryo Katsuki and Dave McCombs

Interview:
Andrew Schwabecher, CEO of Japan Computer Vision Corp. Andrew shares his insights on the vast potential for facial recognition and he is working with major companies in Japan to transform experiences using the technology. He also delves into how JCV has developed an ethical approach that is winning trust from users who may be concerned about the potential abuses of facial recognition technology. JCV has identified 10 million potential locations for facial recognition in Japan and has already developed 35 use cases for the technology. This is a company that’s on the cutting edge of deploying a technology that is almost certain to play a key role in transforming how we go about shopping, working and traveling.
--Interview by Ryo Katsuki

Some of the world's leading AI researchers put musicologists, scholars and composers together with artificial intelligence tools to complete Beethoven's unfinished 10th symphony. This audacious experiment in computer-assisted creativity helps define the outer limits of what the technology can do, while highlighting all that is indelibly human about great works of art. To explore this, we interviewed Rutgers computer science professor and Beethoven X AI team leader Ahmed Elgammal, and composer Walter Werzowa. Beethoven scholar and composer Barry Cooper and author/composer Jan Swafford give us their views on where Beethoven X falls short.

Be sure to check out Dr. Elgammal's website https://www.playform.io
There you will find fun, easy-to-use tools for exploring the power of AI to generate images, manipulate photos and help artists be more creative.

Sony has been working away at using AI to generate music. Their projects include a fantastic Web site and app called Flow Machines. Check it out here: https://www.flow-machines.com/

Here is the "fruit" of Sony's earlier effort to use AI to clone a Beatle's song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSHZ_b05W7o

Amazon also gets you in on the fun by making it easy to explore machine learning while making music. They've cut the price of their $99 keyboard/computing resources package to $39.99 for the "AWS DeepComposer" set. Find details here: https://aws.amazon.com/deepcomposer/

Back in 1988, before AI could have been considered as a creative tool, Dr. Barry Cooper was bringing the world his version of Beethoven's 10th -- the first movement. You can listen to that 1988 recording here: https://youtu.be/To4HHCZtNXg

AI Transform with Ryo Katsuki is brought to you by IgnitusAI. For more about how IgnitusAI initiates and orchestrates hyperagile business transformations with tools from the world of machine learning, neural networks and natural language processing, go to www.ignitus.ai

The podcast is produced by hyperagile digital branding studio My Ninja Media.

Thanks for listening, subscribing, liking and sharing this podcast.

We welcome all comments, criticism, praise, suggestions and thoughts sent by email to podcast@ignitus.ai

Our very special guest for this episode is Dr. Mani Golparvar, chief technology officer of Reconstruct Inc. Dr. Golparvar is leading the way on using AI to help construction companies remotely monitor work, inspect building sites and predict milestones. Ryo interviews Dr. Golparvar and comments on some AI news. We also take a look at some of the best upcoming AI conferences.

Register for the Digital Garage/Eisai Open Network Lab program here:

https://onlab.jp/en/programs/biohealth-dementia/

Find out more about AI conferences mentioned in the show here:

The IEEE International Conference on Data Mining
Dec. 7-10 (online, but originally scheduled for Auckland, New Zealand)
https://icdm2021.auckland.ac.nz/

The 28th International Conference on Neural Information Processing
Dec. 8-12 (online, but originally scheduled for Bali, Indonesia)
https://iconip2021.apnns.org/

20th IEEE International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications
Dec. 13-16 (online)
https://www.icmla-conference.org/icmla21/finalprogram.pdf

For the maiden episode, we profile IgnitusAI Executive Director Ryo Katsuki. Ryo, who programmed his first video game at age 6, has a life story that closely tracks the development of transformative digital technologies from research at the University of California Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to implementations at Cambridge Technology Partners, Novell, startups in mapping, social, analytics and AI, and now, IgnitusAI. Along with this digital coming-of-age story, we’ve got news and comments on AI implementations that give a window in human-centric transformation.