University at Buffalo: Tool ‘teaches’ computers to correctly annotate medical images. “… because machine learning is so complex, medical professionals typically rely on computer engineers to ‘train’ or modify neural networks to properly annotate or interpret medical images. Now, UB researchers have developed a tool that lets medical professionals analyze images without engineering expertise. The tool and the image data that were used for its development are publicly available online.”
AI
Techradar: AI-powered music generator Ecrett builds complex compositions for your videos
Techradar: AI-powered music generator Ecrett builds complex compositions for your videos. “Ecrett Music is a new tool that uses AI to generate unique compositions for videos. Upload your video, choose a scene category (such as ‘travel’, ‘relaxing’ or ‘fashion’) and a mood, and the app will generate a bespoke soundtrack.” I tried it. The generated music feels generic, but not offensively so — it sounds like music you’d have in the background of a video.
Futurism: This Site Uses Deep Learning to Generate Fake Airbnb Listings
I’m not sure how useful this is, but it’s fascinating. Futurism: This Site Uses Deep Learning to Generate Fake Airbnb Listings. “A new website called This Airbnb Does Not Exist uses machine learning to whip up plausible-yet-slightly-incoherent apartment listings — from a description to ersatz photos of the interior. The site’s creator, Christopher Schmidt, was inspired by This Person Does Not Exist, another recent viral site that uses a neural network to generate photos of nonexistent people. Schmidt trained This Airbnb Does Not Exist’s image generator using a dataset of apartment interiors and its text generator using actual Airbnb listings. The result: fully furnished figments of the digital imagination.” Also gloriously weird.
‘We paid little attention to vulnerabilities in machine learning platforms’: DARPA (The Sociable)
The Sociable: ‘We paid little attention to vulnerabilities in machine learning platforms’: DARPA. “Dr. Hava Siegelmann, program manager in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency‘s (DARPA) Information Innovation Office (I2O), introduced the Guaranteeing AI Robustness against Deception (GARD) program earlier this month to address vulnerabilities in machine learning (ML) platforms and to develop a new generation of defenses against adversarial deception attacks on ML models.”
Al Bawaba: A Guide to Actually Understanding the Political Impact of AI
Al Bawaba: A Guide to Actually Understanding the Political Impact of AI. “Since their entrance into mainstream political consciousness, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data have been seen a harbinger of either political doom or revolution. Movies, TV series, think pieces and tech reports paint and increasingly grim picture of power being handed over by governments and citizens to amorphous algorithms that govern with no transparency. The most dramatic depiction is the all-out data-driven apocalypse of the Terminator universe, but subtler, more intimate insights into our Data Hell come from Black Mirror, whose episodes shed light on people, relationships and societies that have sacrificed their subjectivity in the name of optimization.” A deep dive with a focus on China.
Harvard Business Review: AI Needs to Become Less Elitist
Harvard Business Review: AI Needs to Become Less Elitist. “A survey conducted last year by my company, Sage, in partnership with YouGov, found that one in four children aged 8-18 in the UK is interested in pursuing an AI career. What about the rest of them? Well, 20% of kids who were not interested in AI said they did not think they were smart enough. The most common answer (24%) was that they would prefer a more creative career. Both of these results point to an elitist attitude toward AI from government and in the media. That attitude needs to change if we’re going to prepare for a world where lots of jobs involve using or interacting with AI.”
PC World: Zoho Office Suite taps AI to provide a free, powerful alternative to Office 365
PC World: Zoho Office Suite taps AI to provide a free, powerful alternative to Office 365. “If you don’t want to pay for Microsoft’s AI-powered Microsoft Office, there are alternatives—including Zoho’s free Zoho Office Suite. Zoho’s alternatives to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Google Keep launch today, complete with their own intelligent features that are arguably friendlier than Microsoft’s own.”
