The rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend … job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining.” Stephen Hawking’s prediction of the rise of AI is rapidly becoming true. AI is being applied right now by your smartphone, your social media feed and the online ads targeting you. In the travel industry, that chatbot you’re communicating with, your online booking tool and the GPS tracker you are running are all fueled by AI. And 30 percent of jobs are at risk of automation by the mid-2030s, according to a 2018 PwC report, with no sector remaining unaffected by these technologies. 

So, where does that leave the travel risk and security sectors? Human intelligence is crucial to verification and decision-making.

People Power

Machines are only as intelligent as we program them to be. Location data can be tagged incorrectly, context can be lost from keyword extraction and fake news can go unaccounted for. In such cases, there is no substitution for human involvement to evaluate and verify the data received.

For a travel manager who needs to find information about or relay important information to staff abroad—whether a travel delay, an unexpected route diversion around a strike or a weather disruption—accuracy is critical. While AI filters noise, human intelligence’s wider contextual knowledge, such as an awareness of a particular country’s laws and customs, verifies facts in order to deliver authentic, concise and relevant information.It accounts for nuances. The needs of a female traveler, for example, might differ from those of a male traveler.

Technology has not yet risen to a point where duty of care can be completely outsourced to a computer; when multiple outcomes to a situation need to be evaluated, the expertise of a skilled individual is still needed to deliver trusted information and apply it to the decision-making process.

While it’s true that AI has already begun to replace some jobs and will continue to do so, humans will remain critical parts of many business processes. AI certainly makes our jobs easier and our days more productive, but it’s not going to eliminate the intellectual strengths of humans just yet.

The post Travel Risk Management Still Requires Human Intelligence appeared first on Artificial Intelligence.

In this age of frequent deadly shootings, the majority of teens—and their parents—worry about the possibility of an attack at their own school. A new artificial intelligence security system is aiming to give parents and their kids some additional peace of mind.

Athena Security, created by Fortune 40 under 40 alum Lisa Falzone, is a camera that uses AI to recognize violent or criminal behavior, such as the pulling out a gun, and can report it to police. Falzone created the technology with her co-founder, Chris Ciabarra.

Current security cameras typically record via on-site servers, providing information to law enforcement only after a crime has been committed. Athena takes a preventative approach, using the cloud to relay information instantly. Whether it’s implemented at a business, school, or around a city, the system can send an alert directly to the owner’s phone when it recognizes dangerous motions like a gun being pointed, a knife being pulled, or people fighting.

Athena can also send the alert directly to police, if it’s configured to do so, providing them with real-time footage via an app. If there’s an attack at a school, police will know what’s happening and where to find the shooter when they arrive.

Athena’s pioneer system is already set up in one school, Archbishop Wood High School in Warminster, Pennsylvania, where it was implemented last week.

“We have a duty and responsibility to keep our students safe,” said Gary Zimmaro, the high school’s president, in a statement. “With 246 mass shootings in 2018 alone, Athena Security has calmed parent’s fears substantially.”

Athena’s most advanced systems, like the one at Archbishop Wood High School, are capable of coordinating with third party systems to lock doors, halt elevators, or communicate directly with people on site.

“Police can voice in and say, ‘Hey, you’ve been detected. Please put down the gun,’” says Falzone. “The feedback that we’ve gotten from law enforcement, especially for retailers, convenience stores, banks—criminals going after money—is that’ll be really helpful in deterring crime.”

Right now, Athena is only launching with gun detection, but soon it’ll be able to recognize other dangerous motions. And in a world of all-to-frequent false alarms, Athena claims its system is unique for its reliability: Falzone says Athena is 99% accurate in recognizing guns in a two-second window.

“We’ve basically perfected that, and so we’re already starting to work on fights, knives, and other crimes,” she tells Fortune. “We expect fights to be done in the next couple months, at least the first version of it.”

Security will be available in three tiers: Professional, Enterprise, and Unlimited Professional, with increasing feature sets. The price, paid per camera each month, ranges from $25 to $100, depending on the tier, says Falzone.

Company leadership is also putting together an advisory board to guide its growth. Current members include Greg Suhr, San Francisco’s former chief of police, who’s providing a law enforcement perspective; and Zac Bookman of OpenGov, who’s aiding with government partnerships.

While the security system is just getting started, Athena’s co-founders are no strangers to success: Falzone and Ciabarra are the founders of iPad point-of-sale company Revel Systems, for which they raised over $120 million and created 700 jobs.

The co-founders sold Revel Systems in early 2017, around the time of the Las Vegas shooting that left more than 50 dead. Falzone and Ciabarra began brainstorming how they could help prevent such crimes using their cloud tech expertise, and Athena was born.

“Our vision and mission is to use artificial intelligence for good,” says Falzone, “and to really help people and try to help save people’s lives.”

The post A New Security Startup Wants to Stop School Shootings with Artificial Intelligence appeared first on Artificial Intelligence.