Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

Denise Simon

Atomic Bomb Dome Panorama in Hiroshima
The Atomic Bomb Dome Panorama in Hiroshima and the surounding garden in autumn at sunset on the side of Motoyasu River in Japan, with the Peace Memorial Park

Does Government Watch Us on Social Media? Yes… So Does Business

They may all be getting to know you way better than you feel comfortable with

Discerning public opinion on political and national security issues via social media platforms showed its worth during the Arab Spring of 2010. The protests, which began in Tunisia, spread throughout the Middle East, where social media were the key platform for expressing anger about corruption, poverty, human rights violations, unemployment, and authoritarianism. These protests resulted in changes to leadership and policy in Libya, Egypt, and Yemen. They also resulted in immigration issues and sadly, even terror attacks, military conflicts, and civil war. Social media not only enables coordinated action such as rallies, strikes, resistance, riots, and other methods of activism but also provides status reports and communicates outcomes. One research team has developed an AI metric for predicting such events: Read More ›

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Abstract Chinese flag painted on digital sphere. Futuristic network cyberspace illustration background. View from space. Selective focus used.

China Aims at Global AI Dominance by 2030

China’s systematic use of AI for social surveillance and control should cause us to think carefully about what that means

A 2017 central government document laid out the country’s plan for global dominance in AI by 2030, asking all “people’s governments of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government, all State Council ministries, and all directly controlled institutions” to ”please carefully implement.“ (translation) To achieve that timeline, China has employed several operations against the United States including the Confucius Institutes (fronts for Chinese propaganda according to the FBI, 2020), the Thousand Talents Program (spying and intellectual-property theft, Bloomberg, 2019) and cyber theft. While many Confucius Institutes have been exposed by key members of the Senate and many are being terminated domestically as a result, Chinese-driven cyber theft is costing the U.S. economy more than $100 billion per Read More ›

Asian Doctor with the stethoscope equipment hand holding the Artificial intelligence of brain technology over Abstract photo blurred of hospital background, AI and physician concept

Why Depend on Only One Source for Modeling AI in Healthcare?

We may be missing many of the ways AI can help us

As we struggle with the COVID-19 crisis, many are beginning to ask hard questions about how our system works, its strengths, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities. One vulnerability might be too heavy reliance on a single source for data modeling and predictions. Considering all the uses to which AI may be put in health care, getting our guidance exclusively from the Institute for Health and Metric Evaluation for modeling is reckless.

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Man in black hat in the rain at dark overcast street

How Can AI Help with Real-Life Cold Case Files?

AI doesn’t create new ideas in police work; rather, it does the work that police, who must move on to urgent, fresh cases, don’t have time to do

When no new leads emerge in a murder or missing persons investigation, police must shift their resources to cases that offer new information. Currently, the FBI Uniform Crime Report keeps an estimated 250,000 cold cases on file. Recent developments in AI, however, have shed light on some of these old and cold cases.

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Fake News on TV. The correspondent as the doll controls the puppeteer. Lying information to trick people on TV

AI in War Means Deepfakes as Well as Killerbots

In its Gerasimov and Primikov doctrines of warfare, Russia makes this clear

In 2013, Russian Army General Valery Gerasimov published a strategic doctrine (the Gerasimov Doctrine) where he described applying non-military activities, including false or fake stories and publications, trolls, gas-lighting and technology generally as a form of warfare, like combat. The use of audio and video deep-fakes is expanding in Ukraine, the Baltic States, Western nations, and Africa.

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