In Hong Kong, protesters clash with police, but the real power behind the scenes is the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The experiences of activists in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and even on the Chinese mainland show that the CCP is a ruthless opponent—but not an unbeatable one. The CCP’s sharp power approach should be considered an extension of its united front method, a vision of the political process as a zero-sum game and a worldview that distinguishes between friends and enemies. Since its founding in 1921, the CCP has invested considerable resources to isolate its perceived enemies and has lobbied waverers to support it.
The resulting party-state’s governing approach is thus a two-pronged process of simultaneous co-optation and coercion, where proverbial carrots and sticks are applied to suppress any political opposition to party-state rule. Read More
Monthly Archives: September 2019
Artificial Intelligence Confronts a 'Reproducibility' Crisis
A few years ago, Joelle Pineau, a computer science professor at McGill, was helping her students design a new algorithm when they fell into a rut. Her lab studies reinforcement learning, a type of artificial intelligence that’s used, among other things, to help virtual characters (“half cheetah” and “ant” are popular) teach themselves how to move about in virtual worlds. It’s a prerequisite to building autonomous robots and cars. Pineau’s students hoped to improve on another lab’s system. But first they had to rebuild it, and their design, for reasons unknown, was falling short of its promised results. Until, that is, the students tried some “creative manipulations” that didn’t appear in the other lab’s paper.
Lo and behold, the system began performing as advertised. The lucky break was a symptom of a troubling trend, according to Pineau. Neural networks, the technique that’s given us Go-mastering bots and text generators that craft classical Chinese poetry, are often called black boxes because of the mysteries of how they work. Getting them to perform well can be like an art, involving subtle tweaks that go unreported in publications. The networks also are growing larger and more complex, with huge data sets and massive computing arrays that make replicating and studying those models expensive, if not impossible for all but the best-funded labs. Read More
Why AI and Machine Learning will Redefine Software Testing
With the advent of DevOps and Continuous Delivery, businesses are now looking for real-time risk assessment throughout the various stages of the software delivery cycle.
Although Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not really new as a concept, applying AI techniques to software testing has started to become a reality just the past couple years. Down the line, AI is bound to become part of our day-to-day quality engineering process, however, prior to that, let us take a look at how AI can help us achieve our quality objectives. Read More
“Will china dominate AI?” – is the wrong question
In many ways – the question of AI dominance is the wrong question. A view also echoed by others in Europe such as allai – there is no ai race …
For anyone exploring AI and China, Kai Fu Lee’s book AI superpowers provides a great starting point. The key lessons from that book, as I see them, are:
— China is creating original ideas and applications (papers, patents etc)
— The availability of data in China gives an advantage to Chinese companies
— AI is more industrial revolution than a Cold War
— A divergence of skills will develop across geography (ex as Swiss and Japan for craftsmanship etc)
— China engages in bold experimentation when it comes to AI
All of this is true – for example – if current trends continue, China will overtake the US in the most-…. Via exponential view. Read More
The key to bigger quantum computers could be to build them like Legos
Visit any startup or university lab where quantum computers are being built, and it’s like entering a time warp to the 1960s—the heyday of mainframe computing, when small armies of technicians ministered to machines that could fill entire rooms. ….
The big challenge facing the nascent industry is to create machines that can be scaled up both reliably and relatively cheaply. Generating and managing the quantum bits, or qubits, that carry information in the computers is hard. Even the tiniest vibrations or changes in temperature—phenomena known as “noise” in quantum jargon—can cause qubits to lose their fragile quantum state. And when that happens, errors creep into calculations. Read More
How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Cyber Security Landscape and Preventing Cyber Attacks
The world is going digital at an unprecedentedly fast pace, and the change is only going to go even faster. The digitalization means everything is moving at lightning speed – business, entertainment, trends, new products, etc. The consumer gets what he or she wants instantly because the service provider has the means to deliver it.
While the conveniences and benefits of this digital era are many, it also brings with it several negatives. One of the most significant and destructive threats it poses is that our private information is at risk like never before. The last decade or so has seen hundreds of cases of identity theft, loss of money, and data breaches. Cyberattacks in nature are very pervasive and affect every individual, business, and government bodies alike. We are moving towards an era where cybercriminals can reach their targets in any part of the world at any time; the need for cybersecurity has never been more critical than now. Read More
To understand artificial intelligence in 2019, watch this 1960 TV show
“If the computer is this important, why haven’t I heard more about it?”
“Well, the computer is a relatively new thing, and we’re just really getting an appreciation for the full range of its usefulness. Many people think that it’s going to spark a revolution that will change the face of the earth almost as much as the first industrial revolution did.” …
Back in 1960, this was an excellent introduction to a subject that mattered a lot—and which, as Wiesner explained, people were just beginning to understand. It includes still-fascinating demos and interviews with significant figures in the history of AI. Fifty-nine years later after its first airing, its perspective on AI’s progress and possibilities remains unexpectedly relevant. Read More
America Needs a “Dead Hand”
America’s nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) system comprises many component systems that were designed and fielded during the Cold War — a period when nuclear missiles were set to launch from deep within Soviet territory, giving the United States sufficient time to react. That era is over. Today, Russian and Chinese nuclear modernization is rapidly compressing the time U.S. leaders will have to detect a nuclear launch, decide on a course of action, and direct a response. ….
If the ultimate purpose of the NC3 system is to ensure America’s senior leadership has the information and time needed to command and control nuclear forces, then the penultimate purpose of a reliable NC3 system is to reinforce the desired deterrent effect. To maintain the deterrent value of America’s strategic forces, the United States may need to develop something that might seem unfathomable — an automated strategic response system based on artificial intelligence. Read More
Could Artificial Intelligence Spell the End of Independent Filmmaking?
A new kind of AI technology can identify elements that might make a film perform better at the box office. But as creator Sami Arpa explains, the creative process is still key good to good movies. Read More
GPT-based Generation for Classical Chinese Poetry
We present a simple yet effective method for generating high quality classical Chinese poetry with Generative Pretrained Language Model (GPT)[5]. The method adopts a simple GPT model, without using any human crafted rules or features, or designing any additional neural components. While the proposed model learns to generate various forms of classical Chinese poems, including Jueju (绝句), L ̈ushi (律诗), various Cipai (词牌) and Couples (对联), the generated poems are of very high quality. We also propose and implement a method to fine-tune the model to generate acrostic poetry. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first to employ GPT in developing a poetry generation system. We have released an online mini demonstration program on Wechat1to show the generation capability of the proposed method for classical Chinese poetry. Read More
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