An interview with the co-founder of Iris.ai – the world’s first Artificial Intelligence science assistant | The Saint

ab1630's bookmarks 2018-06-17

Summary:

"Have you ever spent hours sifting through journal papers? Ever got frustrated at your inability to find relevant research? Ever wished that there was an easier way to filter the seemingly endless stream of information on the web? The team at Iris.ai certainly did, which is why they have created an AI-powered science assistant to help anyone that wants to find related papers for an original research question. The software – Iris.ai – can be used to build a precise reading list of research documents, and the company claims that it can solve your research problems 78% faster (without compromising quality) than if you were carrying out the tasks manually. The concept for Iris.ai was first established three years ago at NASA Ames Research Centre. The team was taking part in a summer programme run by Singularity University (SU) when they were set the task of creating a concept that would positively affect the lives of a billion people. This exercise got the team thinking about the current state of scientific research, and more specifically about the restrictions created by paywalls, and the inability of human intelligence alone to process the three thousand or so research papers that are published around the world every single day....

When asked about challenges that the team have experienced so far, Ms Ritola was quick to point out the issue of paywalls. She explained that the Iris.ai system is connected to about 130 million open access papers – almost all those available to the public – but that many useful documents are still hidden behind systems that require users to pay for access.

However, rather than just accepting this situation as it is, the Iris.ai team have devised a scheme to solve the problem– Project Aiur – an initiative that aims to revolutionise the current workings of the research world.

“What we’re trying to do is to build a community, which is not owned by us, but by a community of researchers, a community of coders, anyone who wants to contribute to building a new economic model for science that works around a community governed AI-based Knowledge Validation Engine and an open, validated repository of science. Over time, the goal is to give access to all the research articles that are in this world”, Ms Ritola told The Saint.

This is not a straightforward task, as the Iris.ai team are faced with the challenge of encouraging researchers to publish and carry out their investigations using Aiur rather than the current systems- something that will take a fair amount of research and incentivisation. The team have started a pledge, offering students and researchers the chance to be an “advocate for validated, reproducible, open-access scientific research.” At the time of the interview,Ms Ritola informed The Saint that more than 5,000 people had signed the pledge...."

Link:

http://www.thesaint-online.com/2018/06/an-interview-with-the-developers-of-iris-ai-the-worlds-first-artificial-intelligence-science-assistant/

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » peter.suber's bookmarks
Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » ab1630's bookmarks

Tags:

oa.new oa.ai oa.data oa.search oa.discoverability oa.mining oa.iris_ai oa.semantic oa.tools oa.aiur oa.disciplines oa.platforms oa.infrastructure

Date tagged:

06/17/2018, 13:55

Date published:

06/17/2018, 09:08