Caltech: Computers Predict People’s Tastes in Art. “Do you like the thick brush strokes and soft color palettes of an impressionist painting such as those by Claude Monet? Or do you prefer the bold colors and abstract shapes of a Rothko? Individual art tastes have a certain mystique to them, but now a new Caltech study shows that a simple computer program can accurately predict which paintings a person will like.”
Tech Xplore: Facebook to launch NetHack Challenge at NeurIPS 2021. “Due to its unforgiving nature requiring players to start an entire game over in a new dungeon once their characters die, many regard NetHack as one of the most challenging games out there. In fact, even at the expert level, successfully completing the game requires an average of 25-50 times more steps than a typical StarCraft II game. Furthermore, as players’ engagement with their environment and related objects are wholly intricate, users must often think outside the box or consult an outside source such as NetHack Wiki in order to win.” Been playing this game on and off for ~30 years and I’ve yet to win.
EurekAlert: AI app could help diagnose HIV more accurately. “Pioneering technology developed by UCL (University College London) and Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI) researchers could transform the ability to accurately interpret HIV test results, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Academics from the London Centre for Nanotechnology at UCL and AHRI used deep learning (artificial intelligence/AI) algorithms to improve health workers’ ability to diagnose HIV using lateral flow tests in rural South Africa.”
South China Morning Post: Lost to China for decades, ancient classics get a new lease on life through artificial intelligence. “In China’s modern history, many precious classical texts were lost overseas during wars and turmoil, but many of these were preserved in research libraries and museums around the world.”
CNN: Facebook is testing AI to get you to stop fighting in its groups. “Conversations can quickly spiral out of control online, so Facebook is hoping artificial intelligence can help keep things civil. The social network is testing the use of AI to spot fights in its many groups so group administrators can help calm things down.” If it works as well as the AI content moderation, I’m sure it’ll work fine. And by “fine,” I mean head for the hills.
EurekAlert: New Web Tool Fights Antibacterial Resistance. “In 1943, two scientists named Max Delbrück and Salvador Luria conducted an experiment to show that bacteria can mutate randomly, independent of external stimulus, such as an antibiotic that threatens a bacterial cells’ survival. Today the Luria-Delbrück experiment is widely used in laboratories for a different purpose–scientists use this classic experiment to determine microbial mutation rates. When performing the Luria-Delbrück experiment, scientists need efficient computer algorithms to extract reliable estimates of mutation rates from data, and they also need well-designed software tools to access these sophisticated algorithms.”
Harvard Business Review: How to Practice Responsible AI. “From predictive policing to automated credit scoring, algorithms applied on a massive scale, gone unchecked, represent a serious threat to our society. Dr. Rumman Chowdhury, director of Machine Learning Ethics, Transparency and Accountability at Twitter, joins Azeem Azhar to explore how businesses can practice responsible AI to minimize unintended bias and the risk of harm.” A podcast episode of just under 50 minutes. Unfortunately I did not see any reference to a transcript. I tweeted Harvard Business Review and I’ll update this if I hear anything back. UPDATE: Transcripts available only to paying subscribers.
It’s Nice That: Climate activism has a branding problem and this logo generator is here to help. “Austrian design studio Process has created the AI project Tokens for Climate Care, which creates original (and free-to-use) graphic symbols based on an organisation’s core mission.”
VentureBeat: Facebook’s AI can copy the style of text in photos from a single word. “Facebook today introduced TextStyleBrush, an AI research project that can copy the style of text in a photo from just a single word. The company claims that TextStyleBrush, which can edit and replace arbitrary text in images, is the first ‘unsupervised’ system of its kind that can recognize both typefaces and handwriting.”
The Conversation: The United Nations needs to start regulating the ‘Wild West’ of artificial intelligence . “Trust in AI is difficult to obtain, particularly in United Nations work, which is highly political and affects very vulnerable populations. The onus has largely been on data scientists to develop the credibility of their tools. A regulatory framework like the one proposed by the European Commission would take the pressure off data scientists in the humanitarian sector to individually justify their activities. Instead, agencies or research labs who wanted to develop an AI solution would work within a regulated system with built-in accountability. This would produce more effective, safer and more just applications and uses of AI technology.”
Tom’s Hardware: Google Uses AI to Design Chips, Creating Machine Learning Ouroboros. “Google researchers published a new paper in Nature on Wednesday describing ‘an edge-based graph convolutional neural network architecture’ that learned how to design the physical layout of a semiconductor in a way that allows ‘chip design to be performed by artificial agents with more experience than any human designer.’ Interestingly, Google used AI to design other AI chips that offer more performance.”
Arizona State University: ASU alum publishes graphic novel on computer generated images, machine learning. “[Jennifer] Weiler, who was influenced by her work at ASU as a student in the School of Arts, Media and Engineering, has been working intensely over the last year to create and publish her first comic book, ‘Creating with Code: A Fun Exploration of Computer-Generated Images and Machine Learning.’ She said she made the comic to educate people about how to effectively utilize coding to construct stylistic computer-generated images and apply methodologies of machine learning in the process.”
The Jamestown Foundation: Automation and Digitalization of Justice in China’s Smart Court Systems. “The automation of justice has become a worldwide phenomenon. Various big data and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven technological applications have been introduced in the administration of justice over the past years. These range from predictive analytics to automated divorce proceedings and automated decisions in small claims cases… The People’s Republic of China (PRC or China) stands at the vanguard of this development.”
Deccan Herald: Flim: A bot that can guess the exact movie you are thinking of.”Within a year, it already has the world’s largest database of film-related images. Flim’s unique algorithm scans through more than three lakh high-definition images from movies, documentaries, anime, advertising and music videos. Its bot doesn’t just detect broader aspects like colour palette, genre and aspect ratio, but also identify details like dog-walkers, ham sandwiches, red-lipped Asian women, animated metropolises and any other clue.” Three lakh is 300,000. I suspect it’s going to take a lot of experimenting to get a grip on this search engine.
The Straits Times: Singapore researchers invent new AI tool that could speed up diagnosis of heart disease . “A new tool that could lead to faster diagnosis of heart disease has been invented by researchers in Singapore. Powered by artificial intelligence (AI), it uses electrocardiograms (ECGs) and has an accuracy rate of 98.5 percent. ECGs measure the electrical activity of heartbeats to detect heart abnormalities.”
