Journalism is challenged by digitalisation and social media, resulting in lower subscription numbers and reduced advertising income. Information and communication techniques (ICT) offer new opportunities. Our research group is collaborating with a software developer of news production tools for the international market to explore how social, open, and other data sources can be leveraged for journalistic purposes. We have developed an architecture and prototype called News Hunter that uses knowledge graphs, natural-language processing (NLP), and machine learning (ML) together to support journalists. Our focus is on combining existing data sources and computation and storage techniques into a flexible architecture for news journalism. The paper presents News Hunter along with plans and possibilities for future work. Read More
#nlp, #news-summarizationMonthly Archives: June 2022
AMD’s latest APU could revolutionize supercomputers
AMD has confirmed that a next-gen CDNA 4 multi-chip and multi-IP Instinct accelerator is currently in development and scheduled to launch by 2023, known as the Instinct MI300 GPU. Technically speaking, this is actually an APU that will combine the next-generation of CDNA 3 cores with the next-generation Zen 4 CPU cores.
That’s right – this chip combines CPU and GPU cores onto a single package for data centers and AI, and the anticipated performance boost is allegedly monstrous.
The Instinct MI300 accelerator has a unified memory APU architecture and new Math Formats to provide 5x performance-per-watt improvement over CDNA 2, as well as an 8x projected improvement in AI training performance versus its spiritual predecessor, the MI250X. … Read More
DeepMind’s Ithaca: Humans and AI combine to rediscover the past
In March 2022 DeepMind, an artificial intelligence company, announced it had developed Ithaca, a deep neural network trained to restore and attribute ancient Greek inscriptions.
Ancient Greek inscriptions have shaped our understanding of the Mediterranean world from 800BC to late antiquity. Inscriptions refer to text written on durable materials such as stone and pottery. Unfortunately, these materials are typically not durable enough to remain perfectly preserved for two millennia.
Therefore, the epigraphic evidence of this period is often damaged by the time it is uncovered and the inscribed texts are incomplete as a result. Restoring (filling in missing words) and attributing (identifying chronological and geographical origins) damaged inscriptions can shed light on the past. Read More
AI program DALL-E mini prompts some truly cursed images
If you’ve seen some slightly distorted images on Twitter recently, it’s not just reality continuing to collapse on itself. An open AI program called DALL-E mini has overtaken Twitter in the last week, churning out a surreal stream of warped art.
DALL-E mini is developer Boris Dayma’s take on the the separate DALL-E program, which was released earlier this year. It produces a series of images based on text prompts, like the original program. Read More
AI is Ushering In a New Scientific Revolution
Since the discovery of DNA in the 1950s, biologists have sought to tie lengths of genetic code to a range of cellular parts and processes—including, for example, the mRNA transcription of specific antibodies that powers the now-famous mRNA vaccines. Despite the progress in sequencing and understanding the genome since the discovery of DNA, one big missing link remained. Biologists lacked a way to accurately and efficiently predict the 3-D shape of an unknown protein using just its DNA or RNA source code. In biology, structure determines function. What a protein does in a cell depends on its shape. Cylindrical with a hollow middle makes for a good membrane receptor, while U-shaped enzymes catalyze chemical reactions in their fjord-like cavities. Being able to predict or even design proteins would be a leap forward in our understanding of human disease and unlock new treatments for a range of diseases.
But for more than 70 years, scientists have been stuck with slow methods that strained computers and relied largely on their own guesswork to tease out a protein’s structure. Despite knowing which stretches of DNA code for each of the amino acids that form the building blocks of every protein, biologists lacked a repeatable, generalizable formula to solve this so-called “protein-folding problem.” They needed a systematic understanding of how any string of amino acids, once linked, would fold into a 3-dimensional shape to unlock the vast universe of proteins.
In 2020, Google’s AI team DeepMind announced that its algorithm, AlphaFold, had solved the protein-folding problem. At first, this stunning breakthrough was met with excitement from most, with scientists always ready to test a new tool, and amusement by some. After all, wasn’t this the same company whose algorithm AlphaGo had defeated the world champion in the Chinese strategy game Go, just a few years before? Mastering a game more complex than chess, difficult as that is, felt trivial compared to the protein-folding problem. But AlphaFold proved its scientific mettle by sweeping an annual competition in which teams of biologists guess the structure of proteins based only on their genetic code. The algorithm far outpaced its human rivals, posting scores that predicted the final shape within an angstrom, the width of a single atom. Soon after, AlphaFold passed its first real-world test by correctly predicting the shape of the SARS-CoV-2 ‘spike’ protein, the virus’ conspicuous membrane receptor that is targeted by vaccines. Read More
Why it’s time for “data-centric artificial intelligence”
Machine learning pioneer Andrew Ng argues that focusing on the quality of data fueling AI systems will help unlock its full power.
The last 10 years have brought tremendous growth in artificial intelligence. Consumer internet companies have gathered vast amounts of data, which has been used to train powerful machine learning programs. Machine learning algorithms are widely available for many commercial applications, and some are open source.
Now it’s time to focus on the data that fuels these systems, according to AI pioneer Andrew Ng, SM ’98, the founder of the Google Brain research lab, co-founder of Coursera, and former chief scientist at Baidu.
Ng advocates for “data-centric AI,” which he describes as “the discipline of systematically engineering the data needed to build a successful AI system.” Read More
Smartphones Blur the Line Between Civilian and Combatant
In Ukraine, civilians are valiantly assisting the army via apps—and challenging a tenet of international law in the process
AS RUSSIA CONTINUES its unprovoked armed aggression, reports from Ukraine note that the smartphones in civilians’ pockets may be “weapons powerful in their own way as rockets and artillery.” Indeed, technologists in the country have quickly created remarkable apps to keep citizens safe and assist the war effort—everything from an air-raid alert app to the rapid repurposing of the government’s Diia app. The latter was once used by more than 18 million Ukrainians for things like digital IDs, but it now allows users to report the movements of invading soldiers through the “e-Enemy” feature. “Anyone can help our army locate Russian troops. Use our chat bot to inform the Armed Forces,” the Ministry of Digital Transformation said of the new capability when it rolled out.
Naturally, the Ukrainian people want to defend their country and aid their army in whatever ways they can. But certain uses of digital technology pose fundamental challenges to the traditional distinction between civilians and combatants in modern times. Read More
Soul Machines Announces New Entertainment Division
Partners with Nicklaus Companies to launch inaugural Digital Twin of Jack Nicklaus to engage with fans and brands to bring interactive sporting and entertainment experiences online
Soul Machines, the groundbreaking company pioneering the creation of autonomously animated Digital People in the metaverse and the digital worlds of today, announced today the launch of a new Entertainment division with the goal of creating unique and highly personalized experiences redefining fan engagement and entertainment enterprise. On the heels of a recent US$70 million Series B1 round (led by new investor SoftBank Vision Fund 2), this new business division will launch its inaugural Digital Person – an avatar of legendary American professional golfer Jack Nicklaus through a partnership with the Nicklaus Companies. Read More
Gartner Predicts Half of Finance AI Projects Will Be Delayed or Cancelled By 2024
Half of current finance artificial intelligence (AI) deployments will be either delayed or cancelled by 2024, while the use of business process outsourcing (BPO) for AI will rise from 6% to 40% within two years, according to Gartner, Inc. CFOs face major barriers to scaling up the use of AI in-house and will increasingly turn to business process outsourcing (BPO) solutions to meet their digital transformation objectives.
…“While finance departments have made reasonable progress in laying the groundwork for AI, the challenges come when attempting to scale up solutions that can manage the complexities of function-wide use,” said Sanjay Champaneri, senior director analyst in the Gartner Finance practice. “The upfront costs of building scalable infrastructure in house, and the overreliance on stretched citizen developers, will lead many CFOs to rethink their current strategies.” Read More
Pentagon’s New AI Chief Vows to Crack ‘Bureaucratic Inertia’ on Tech Advances
The Pentagon’s new head of artificial intelligence wants to speed up technological modernization after an onslaught of what he calls “valid” criticism from recently departed senior leaders who expressed frustration at slow progress.
Craig Martell, who was previously head of machine learning at Lyft Inc. and Dropbox Inc. and led AI initiatives at LinkedIn, told Bloomberg News in his first interview since starting his job as the Pentagon’s chief digital and artificial intelligence officer that he wanted to make progress despite the department’s labyrinthine “bureaucratic inertia.” Read More
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