Adversarial attacks for discrete data (such as texts) have been proved significantly more challenging than continuous data (such as images) since it is difficult to generate adversarial samples with gradient-based methods. Current successful attack methods for texts usually adopt heuristic replacement strategies on the character or word level, which remains challenging to find the optimal solution in the massive space of possible combinations of replacements while preserving semantic consistency and language fluency. In this paper, we propose BERT-Attack, a high-quality and effective method to generate adversarial samples using pre-trained masked language models exemplified by BERT. We turn BERT against its fine-tuned models and other deep neural models in downstream tasks so that we can successfully mislead the target models to predict incorrectly. Our method outperforms state-of-theart attack strategies in both success rate and perturb percentage, while the generated adversarial samples are fluent and semantically preserved. Also, the cost of calculation is low, thus possible for large-scale generations. The code is available at https://github.com/LinyangLee/BERT-Attack Read More
#adversarialMonthly Archives: May 2022
Energy-Efficient AI Hardware Technology Via a Brain-Inspired Stashing System
Researchers have proposed a novel system inspired by the neuromodulation of the brain, referred to as a ‘stashing system,’ that requires less energy consumption. The research group led by Professor Kyung Min Kim from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering has developed a technology that can efficiently handle mathematical operations for artificial intelligence by imitating the continuous changes in the topology of the neural network according to the situation. The human brain changes its neural topology in real time, learning to store or recall memories as needed. The research group presented a new artificial intelligence learning method that directly implements these neural coordination circuit configurations. Read More
Uneasy Bedfellows: AI in the News, Platform Companies and the Issue of Journalistic Autonomy
Platform companies play an important role in the production and distribution of news. This article analyses this role and questions of control, dependence and autonomy in the light of the ‘AI goldrush’ in the news. I argue that the introduction of AI in the news risks shifting even more control to and increasing the news industry’s dependence on platform companies. While platform companies’ power over news organisations has to date mainly flown from their control over the channels of distribution, AI potentially allows them to extend this control to the means of production as the technology increasingly permeates all stages of the news-making process. As a result, news organisations risk becoming even more tethered to platform companies in the long-run, potentially limiting their autonomy and, by extension, contributing to a restructuring of the public arena as news organisations are re-shaped according to the logics of platform businesses. I conclude by mapping a research agenda that highlights potential implications and spells out areas in need of further exploration. Read More
#news-summarization, #strategyHow much longer can Google own the internet?
This story is part of a Recode series about Big Tech and antitrust. Over the last several weeks, we’ve covered what’s happening with Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Google.
There’s a new Big Tech antitrust bill in town, and this one is especially painful for Google.
A group of lawmakers led by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced the Competition and Transparency in Digital Advertising Act on Thursday. This bipartisan and bicameral legislation would forbid any company with more than $20 billion in digital advertising revenue — that’s Google and Meta, basically — from owning multiple parts of the digital advertising chain. Google would have to choose between being a buyer or a seller or running the ad exchange between the two. It currently owns all three parts, and has been dogged by allegations, which it denies, that it uses that power to unfairly manipulate that market to its own advantage.
“This lack of competition in digital advertising means that monopoly rents are being imposed upon every website that is ad-supported and every company — small, medium, or large — that relies on internet advertising to grow its business,” Sen. Lee said in a statement. “It is essentially a tax on thousands of American businesses, and thus a tax on millions of American consumers.” Read More
Making the metaverse: What it is, how it will be built, and why it matters
When Facebook rebranded as Meta last October, it brought into the mainstream a concept that has been exciting the bright minds of Silicon Valley for years: the metaverse. Mark Zuckerberg’s unveiling of a vision for a new era of integrated, immersive technologies was met with enthusiasm in some quarters, and cynicism in others. It’s easy to see why. Skepticism is a natural reaction to something that sounds like it’s straight out of a science fiction novel — in a way, it is — especially when there are wider societal concerns about how tech operates in the two-dimensional world.
Many rightly ask: what is the metaverse and why should I care? And even if I can be persuaded that it is worth getting excited about, how can I trust that these new technologies will be built and governed responsibly? Read More
Can an AI write an episode of Stargate?
The process of writing a television show typically involves a writers room and a lot of time, as humans figure out the plot and the dialogue that makes a show work.
For the cult classic Stargate science fiction franchise, which spanned three series (SG-1, Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe), character and plot development was helmed by Stargate co-creator Brad Wright. In 2021, Wright publicly posted a message on Twitter asking if it was possible for AI to write an episode of Stargate that would appear on SciFi insider site The Companion.
None other than Laurence Moroney, AI lead at Google, responded by picking up the gauntlet to try and prove what AI could do.– though he wasn’t initially worried that AI would replace him or other writers. Read More
Artificial intelligence predicts patients’ race from their medical images
Study shows AI can identify self-reported race from medical images that contain no indications of race detectable by human experts.
The miseducation of algorithms is a critical problem; when artificial intelligence mirrors unconscious thoughts, racism, and biases of the humans who generated these algorithms, it can lead to serious harm. Computer programs, for example, have wrongly flagged Black defendants as twice as likely to reoffend as someone who’s white. When an AI used cost as a proxy for health needs, it falsely named Black patients as healthier than equally sick white ones, as less money was spent on them. Even AI used to write a play relied on using harmful stereotypes for casting.
Removing sensitive features from the data seems like a viable tweak. But what happens when it’s not enough?
Examples of bias in natural language processing are boundless — but MIT scientists have investigated another important, largely underexplored modality: medical images. Using both private and public datasets, the team found that AI can accurately predict self-reported race of patients from medical images alone. Using imaging data of chest X-rays, limb X-rays, chest CT scans, and mammograms, the team trained a deep learning model to identify race as white, Black, or Asian — even though the images themselves contained no explicit mention of the patient’s race. This is a feat even the most seasoned physicians cannot do, and it’s not clear how the model was able to do this. Read More
Mastercard launches tech that lets you pay with your face or hand in stores
Mastercard on Tuesday launched a program that allows retailers to offer biometric payment methods, like facial recognition and fingerprint scanning.
Users can authenticate a payment by showing their face or the palm of their hand instead of swiping their card.
The technology could one day help with the development of payments infrastructure for the “metaverse,” an executive said. Read More
AI 100: The most promising artificial intelligence startups of 2022
The AI 100 is CB Insights’ annual list of the 100 most promising private AI companies in the world. This year’s winners are working on diverse solutions designed to recycle plastic waste, improve hearing aids, combat toxic online gaming behavior, and more. Read More
DeepMind researcher claims new ‘Gato’ AI could lead to AGI, says ‘the game is over!’
According to Doctor Nando de Freitas, a lead researcher at Google’s DeepMind, humanity is apparently on the verge of solving artificial general intelligence (AGI) within our lifetimes.
In response to an opinion piece penned by yours truly, the scientist posted a thread on Twitter that began with what’s perhaps the boldest statement we’ve seen from anyone at DeepMind concerning its current progress toward AGI:
My opinion: It’s all about scale now! The Game is Over! Read More
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