Seeking ways to reduce traffic jams, USC engineers turn to AI

the 101 North Freeway

Aiming for fewer bottlenecks and faster commutes, USC engineers rely on artificial intelligence to bypass congestion and predict probable speeds on the road Americans spend an average of 25.4 minutes commuting to work, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. That amounts to 104 hours per year spent in traffic, with averages steadily rising every year. In Southern…

Artificial Intelligence To Fight Wildfires

A fire raging in the mountains

USC to co-lead a National Science Foundation funded project for controlled burns and fire mitigation For the past decade in Los Angeles and the State of California, the question is not if there will be wildfires—but rather when and where they will sprout up and how to protect people from these threats. As such, firefighters…

The Minds Behind Tomorrow’s Smart Buildings

An individual working in an office space in Paris

Workspaces will listen to people, talk with them and keep them safe. What’s next? USC experts are working on it. In the 1960s the cartoon The Jetsons, the space-age family’s efficient machines took care of everyday tasks like cooking, getting dressed and flying through space. While our world is still waiting for flying cars and sassy…

How do you motivate workers who are managed by an algorithm?

A women working at a laptop and looking at her phone

USC researchers investigate crowdwork — assigning mundane tasks via a website — and determine how to help these workers feel invested in their duties. Many businesses turned to remote workers to continue their operations after states issued stay-at-home orders to reduce COVID-19 infections. It’s a trend that is likely to continue long after the coronavirus…

How intelligent workstations will use AI to improve health and happiness

A person sitting at the computer screen surrounded by 4 screens

Do you want to be warm or cold? Is it time to stand rather than sit? An interdisciplinary team — made up of designers and USC professors — is using AI to create tech-savvy desks with health and well-being in mind. Statistics show that if you’re reading this at work, you’re likely indoors at a…

AI for Business: USC Marshall and USC Viterbi announce joint undergraduate degree

Three USC Grads walking to commencement

Degree will combine curricular expertise from the two schools for digital expertise in a rapidly changing world. The USC Marshall School of Business is launching  a new joint undergraduate degree, Artificial Intelligence for Business, in partnership with the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. The innovative degree brings together the expertise of two of the top business…

USC Researchers Explore Improving Measurement Tools for Quantum Physics

Atoms and waves

The more sensitive measurement tools are, the more information physicists can extract from quantum particles, such as photons. As most of us learned in elementary school, whether it’s from the sun or a light bulb, light is made up of particles called photons. While photons have energy and momentum, they have no mass. Yet, somehow,…

USC ISI works with D-Wave to house one of the first U.S-Based Advantage™ Quantum Computers

Computer servers

New D-Wave Advantage system, housed at the University of Southern California-Lockheed Martin Quantum Computing Center, brings quantum system and hybrid solver access to business and research clients wanting a US-based solution. USC and D-Wave Systems Inc. are launching the first 5,000+ qubit D-Wave quantum computing system physically located in the United States, designed for academic…

USC researchers find bias in up to 38.6% of ‘facts’ used by AI

Graphic of workers loading information into an robots head

A team of researchers from the USC Information Sciences Institute studied two AI databases to see if their data was fair. They found that it wasn’t. Water is wet. Dogs bark. There are 24 hours in a day. The Earth is round. (We checked.) Those facts are what we call common knowledge: statements about the…