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6. Eddy Travels, which developed an AI bot that can suggest flight deals, says it plans to expand into car rentals, hotels, and other travel services. The year-old company recently closed a $500,000 pre-seed round led by Techstars Toronto, Practica Capital, and Open Circle Capital VC funds, as well as angel investors from the U.S., the U.K., and Canada. The company's travel assistant bot reads people's text and voice messages and translates that into personalized suggestions for flights. Eddy processes about 40,000 flight searches a month. - TECHCRUNCH
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7. GM is in discussions with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to possibly allow the operation of autonomous vehicles without steering wheels and other controls. GM has been petitioning the agency to allow it to operate vehicles without these controls since January 2018, which was later followed by a petition from delivery startup Nuro to allow driverless delivery vehicles without windshields. Acting NHTSA Administrator James Owens said his agency will make a decision soon on the issue. - REUTERS
A version of this story first appeared in Inside Auto.
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10. Fast Company interviewed venture capitalists, tech execs, and analysts about their thoughts on technology trends for 2020, including what's in store for AI. The publication predicts that AI's role in business will grow and people will continue to become more aware of AI, including the problems posed by deepfakes and privacy issues. We highlighted some of the responses below:
"AI has the potential to democratize healthcare. With a natural place in virtually all areas of care, from prevention to diagnosis to treatment, it can lower costs, provide greater access, and give everyone the very best doctor, leveling the playing field on a global scale." - Vijay Pande, general partner, Andreessen Horowitz
"As many have feared, in 2020 we’ll see the first malicious use of deepfakes and other forms of synthetic media with the aim of influencing the presidential election. Though there will be at least one attempt that does initially cause a good deal of outrage, these efforts will largely fall flat." - Peter Rojas, partner, Betaworks Ventures
"With the advancement in voice technologies and with the maturity of chatbots and custom digital assistants coming into the market, voice will bring a two-way conversation in 2020." - Kuldip Pabla, senior VP of engineering, K4Connect
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