Daisuke Tahara, who owns eight dry cleaners in the Japanese city of Tagawa, has built a computer vision system that lets customers create a service ticket by laying all their dirty clothes on a table to be scanned, according to WIRED. Tahara taught himself the basics of machine learning to develop the system, and his stated goal is to enable dry-cleaning businesses to operate without any employees at all.
Tahara's project is one of four short profiles WIRED published Tuesday. The common thread is that each subject decided to tinker with artificial intelligence, usually teaching themselves to harness an algorithm's ability to solve an everyday problem or, in Tahara's case, streamline his family's business.
Why AI Giants Share Some Research
AI giants have strong incentives to keep all of their developments to themselves. But they often choose to share some of their research to help foster a stronger research community and, presumably, to boast. These glimpses into top AI labs can help the tech-savvy get started with their own AI pet projects.
Where the Most Impressive AI Developments Still Come From
The most impressive AI developments are still likely to come from those tech giants that have an absurd amount of money to throw at engineers and their labs. But in this era in which most AI research is on new uses for algorithms rather than major breakthroughs, more diversity among those who can build AI will only help the technology move forward.
This story has been updated to reflect that Tagawa is a city in Japan, not a prefecture.
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