AI adoption is on the rise. According to a recent McKinsey survey, 55% of companies use artificial intelligence in at least one function, and 27% attribute at least 5% of earnings before interest and taxes to AI, much of that in the form of cost savings.
As AI will dramatically transform nearly every industry it touches, it’s no surprise that vendors and enterprises are looking for opportunities to deploy AI everywhere they can. But not every project can benefit from AI and attempting to apply AI inappropriately can not only cost time and money but also sour employees, customers, and corporate leaders on future AI projects.
The key factors for determining whether a project is suitable for AI are business value, availability of training data, and cultural readiness for change. Here’s a look at how to ensure those criteria are in line for your proposed AI project before your foray into artificial intelligence becomes a sunk cost. Read More
Monthly Archives: January 2022
A NEW USE FOR AI: SUMMARIZING SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FOR SEVEN-YEAR-OLDS
Academic writing often has a reputation for being hard to follow, but what if you could use machine learning to summarize arguments in scientific papers so that even a seven-year-old could understand them? That’s the idea behind tl;dr papers — a project that leverages recent advances in AI language processing to simplify science. Read More
Design principles for web3
So everyone and their cat seems to be talking about blockchain. More importantly, it’s on the radar of huge companies, and we know that where there’s money, there’s traction. However, as a designer what I really wanted to know was what this meant for user experience and design in web3. For the record, I’m mainly concentrating around the blockchain space — specifically, design around dApps (which stands for decentralised applications and are basically apps as we know it, but built off the Ethereum blockchain)
This article is formed from an analysis of design case studies from DeepWork+ a lot of consuming various content (podcasts, videos, articles) of experts + my own opinions based off my journey breaking into the space and experience with dApps. Read More
Revealed: UK Gov’t Plans Publicity Blitz to Undermine Privacy of Your Chats
The Home Office has hired a high-end ad agency to mobilize public opinion against encrypted communications — with plans that include some shockingly manipulative tactics
The UK government is set to launch a multi-pronged publicity attack on end-to-end encryption, Rolling Stone has learned. One key objective: mobilizing public opinion against Facebook’s decision to encrypt its Messenger app.
… According to documents reviewed by Rolling Stone, one the activities considered as part of the publicity offensive is a striking stunt — placing an adult and child (both actors) in a glass box, with the adult looking “knowingly” at the child as the glass fades to black. Multiple sources confirmed the campaign was due to start this month, with privacy groups already planning a counter-campaign. Read More
Countdown To Bitcoin’s End — Crypto-Breaking Quantum Computers Are Closer Than You Think
Born on January 3, 2009, bitcoin is a little over one decade old. Yet a surprising number of people believe this first-generation cryptocurrency is immutable and indestructible. A little over a decade in, and some are proclaiming its the new gold. But with the accelerating growth in quantum computing power, how long can bitcoin’s reputation remain untarnished? Truth is, the threat to bitcoin’s integrity may be approaching far faster than most people realize. From a 30,000 foot perspective, bitcoin might just be a short blip in the history books, just like many of the fiat currencies that have come and gone.
… Many crypto enthusiasts are proclaiming that bitcoin is the new gold. Bitcoin is a legitimate store of value because its unbreakable. After all, it has an entire 12 year track record behind it.
… But a whole 12 years into “immutable” and there’s already a slight glitch in bitcoin’s armor. Algorithms that can decipher bitcoin’s private keys already exist. Shor’s algorithm and Grover’s algorithm, devised in 1994 and 1996 respectively, can be used to challenge asymmetric cryptography and hashing — the two mechanisms that secure a blockchain. And although we still don’t have computers powerful enough to execute these algorithms, most experts believe its not a question of if, but when this day will come. Read More
Why Many Web3 Startups are a Farce
One cannot disintermediate what, by design, is meant to be disintermediated (DISCLAIMER: I’m not talking about builders of Web3 services/protocols or augmentation services.)
Ifyou’ve at all been keeping up with the ever-evolving tech landscape (and institutional investment activity swarming it) you’re likely familiar with the following buzzwords: Web3, Creator Economy, Blockchain, Tokenization…the list goes on-and-on.
However, and the growing sentiment that the startup and investment activity into Web3 supports this, is that the notion of Web3 (centrally-managed) startups is, at best, a bubble; at worst, it’s a total farce. Read More
Microsoft forms new coalition for AI in healthcare
Microsoft has created the Artificial Intelligence Industry Innovation Coalition (AI3C) to drive the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare by providing recommendations, tools and best practices.
Member organisations include The Brookings Institution, Cleveland Clinic, Duke Health, Intermountain Healthcare, Novant Health, Plug and Play, Providence, UC San Diego, and University of Virginia.
“The goal of the newly created AI3C is to establish a pragmatic coalition with public and private organisations to advance health by identifying and addressing significant societal and industry barriers,” said Patty Obermaier, vice president of US health and life sciences at Microsoft. “I am excited about the launch of AI3C and working with its distinguished board as we continue the momentum towards serving the needs of patients and communities through AI innovation.” Read More
Google AI and Princeton discover this about Deep Learning
Much of an ML model’s learning results depend on the model’s learning rate. The learning rate is a tuning parameter in an optimization algorithm that determines the step size at each iteration while moving toward a minimum of a loss function. Since it influences the extent to which newly acquired information overrides old information, it metaphorically represents the speed at which a machine learning model “learns”.
The importance of Learning Rate can’t be underestimated. That is why there is a lot of research towards both discovering new learning rate schedules (how LR should change over time) and comparing existing ones. Researchers at Google AI, Tel Aviv University, and Princeton collaborated together to write Disentangling Adaptive Gradient Methods from Learning Rates. The paper looks at “how adaptive gradient methods interact with the learning rate schedule.” In this article, I will share some interesting takeaways from the paper that might help you in your ML journeys. Read More
Why a meritocracy?
Imagine a system where people are rewarded based on their ability to provide value. The more effort, insight, talent and achievements you acquire, the more you should be rewarded — both financially and through social recognition. So, the higher you climb in any organisation shows the value you’ve provided and are able to provide. That is the core ideology of a meritocracy.
It’s such a “no duh” concept, we almost expect it to be happening everywhere and at every level, from small businesses to world governments. But is that really the case?
… However, the reality is not quite as smooth sailing as the movies make it out to be.
… We see similar issues in the DeFi space. When it comes to influencing crypto projects, one obstacle is that protocols don’t often even attempt to recognise merit, or to put it another way, they don’t even begin to think about how to recognise the value of an individual’s opinion. Most code simply grants every individual’s vote with equal weight, in a fully democratic, one-person-one-vote style. Or they increase the size of your vote based on the number of tokens you stake. This has a tendency of recognising wealth above all else. And, in turn, ensuring that future decisions are biased in favour of those that provide the most rewards to the — already — wealthiest members, which of course reduces meritocracy and opportunities for progression. Read More
Web3: A terrible idea that is ignorant of history and technology
The title of this article, if anything, is being as mild about Web3 as I can possibly be. It is worth less than nothing — the world would be better off without it.
This articles goes into why that is, and is split into two sections: historical reasons, and technical reasons. There is of course some overlap among them. Read More
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