Awesome, not awesome.
#Awesome
“[H]ow can we defend and protect ourselves against the inevitable [natural] disasters to come?…Machine-learning technologies can help decision makers more accurately answer urgent questions such as: When will the disaster hit? How destructive will it be? What areas will be hit hardest, and how many people live and work in these areas? What buildings will be most vulnerable? Will there be power outages, and if so, where? What equipment and resources will be needed and for how long? How much will the disaster response effort cost? And so forth.” — Seth Guikema, Michigan Engineering Professor Learn More from Scientific American >
#Not Awesome
“The number of deepfake videos found online has nearly doubled since 2018, and most of them are pornographic videos featuring women without their consent. The term “deepfake” refers to video altered using machine-learning technology to present a situation that didn’t occur… [U]sers on a deepfake forum can find individuals capable of crafting videos starring the target of their choosing. Payment is taken in Bitcoin. “Hello, I’d like a high-quality video of a woman friend of mine. Can pay however!,” writes one user.” — Amrita Khalid, Reporter Learn More from Quartz >
What we’re reading.
1/ You can no longer assume that humans were involved in creating any of the text you read thanks to recent advancements in predictive text. Learn More from The New Yorker >
2/ Machine learning helps researchers understand human psychology and mental illness by identifying patterns in individuals’ word-use that can be predictive of certain conditions. Learn More from MIT Technology Review >
3/ We took photos of our children and families and saved them on Flickr — now many of those pictures are used to train algorithms that power surveillance technology. Learn More from The New York Times >
4/ The way humanity describes AI will ultimately determine whether or not we experience “a potential conflict of religious proportion.” Learn More from The American Interest >
5/ Researchers are looking for new ways to make deep-learning AI tech sabotage-proof so bad actors can’t do things like make a Tesla drive off a bridge. Learn More from nature >
6/ One of the things that makes the human brain so special is its ability to imagine things that haven’t happened in order to prepare mentally incase it does — researchers believe it’s possible to give AI systems this ability too. Learn More from WIRED >
7/ The US adds China’s leading AI companies to a trade blacklist in an attempt to starve them of resources they need to make technological advancements. Learn More from The Wall Street Journal >
Links from the community.
“Applying deep learning to Airbnb search” submitted by Samiur Rahman (@samiur1204). Learn More from the morning paper >
“Machine learning deployment” submitted by Avi Eisenberger (@aeisenberger). Learn More from Ben Evans >
“Bringing Design Thinking to AI products” by Bhagath Gottipati. Learn More from Noteworthy >
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Did a human write this? was originally published in Machine Learnings on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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