^CategoryMachine Learning

^{Type
post

Author
Jonathan Bartlett
Date
December 19, 2018

Categorized
Machine Learning, Social Factors

Tagged
Advertising, Adwords, Algorithms, Google, Google Search, search engines}

Google Search: Its Secret of Success Revealed

_{The secret is not the Big Data pile. No, Google found a way to harness YOUR wants and needs} _{Jonathan Bartlett

December 19, 2018

4

Machine Learning, Social Factors}

Google is one of the most widely misunderstood success stories of our time. Many of us equate Google with “Big Data,” that is, amassing huge quantities of data and then finding useful statistical patterns. But is that how it succeeded? In Life after Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy, George Gilder criticizes Google primarily on two fronts: First, it is a “walled garden,” a great platform, but inherently isolated and closed. That is a point worth exploring, but not the focus here. The second point, the one I want to touch on, is that Big Data’s day has come and gone. Because Google is a Big Data company, its brightest days are behind it. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Jonathan Bartlett
Date
December 17, 2018

Categorized
Machine Learning, Work

Tagged
Automation, Automation failure, Automation planning, Business Intelligence, Elon Musk, Featured, Longform, Machine Learning}

Be Choosy About What You Automate!

_{Having automated many processes, I can assure you that that is the First Rule of Automation} _{Jonathan Bartlett

December 17, 2018

9

Machine Learning, Work}

The worst trap that people who are pursuing automation fall into is the desire to automate everything. That’s usually a road to disaster. Automation is supposed to save time and money, but it can wind up costing you both if you don't carefully consider what you automate. Read More ›

Data graph on monitor showing correlation

^{Type
post

Author
Robert J. Marks
Date
December 17, 2018

Categorized
Machine Learning, Social Factors

Tagged
AI Delusion (book), Big Data, Featured, Gary Smith, John Marshall, Longform, Machine Learning, medical data, medical research, Statistical fallacies}

Study Shows Eating Raisins Causes Plantar Warts

_{Sure. Because, if you torture a Big Data enough, it will confess to anything} _{Robert J. Marks

December 17, 2018

9

Machine Learning, Social Factors}

Enormous data sets compiled by Big Data methods have a higher probability of meaningless correlations than smaller ones compiled by traditional methods. More than ever, common sense is needed. And common sense only comes from programmers writing their own common sense into the software. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
December 14, 2018

Categorized
Machine Learning, Social Factors, Technocracy, Work

Tagged
Dennis Horak, Glenn Reynolds, Helen Andrews, Jack Dorsey, Longform, Terry Teachout, Twitter}

No, Twitter Is Not the New Awful

_{It’s the Old Awful back for more. It’s the Town Without Pity we all tried to get away from} _{News

December 14, 2018

11

Machine Learning, Social Factors, Technocracy, Work}

We need to decide: Is Twitter the telephone company (a communications platform), the newspaper (a publisher), or interconnected private gossip klatsches where anyone can say whatever they want, whatever ensues? Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
December 12, 2018

Categorized
Machine Learning, Natural Intelligence

Tagged
Animal Intelligence, Bloom filter, Eric Holloway, Fruit flies, halting oracle, halting problem, Novelty detection, Robert J. Marks, Stability-Plasticity Problem}

If Computers Thought Like Fruit Flies, They Could Do More

_{But even with more sophisticated buzz, there remain "non-computable" things that a computer cannot be programmed to think} _{News

December 12, 2018

8

Machine Learning, Natural Intelligence}

Recently, researchers discovered that fruit flies use a filter similar to a computer algorithm to assess the odors that help them find fruit, only the flies’ tools are more sophisticated: When a fly smells an odor, the fly needs to quickly figure out if it has smelled the odor before, to determine if the odor is new and something it should pay attention to,” says Saket Navlakha, an assistant professor in Salk’s Integrative Biology Laboratory. “In computer science, this is an important task called novelty detection. Computers use a Bloom filter for that, Navlakha, an integrative biologist, explains: When a search engine such as Google crawls the Web, it needs to know whether a website it comes across has previously Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
December 7, 2018

Categorized
Machine Learning, Natural Intelligence

Tagged
Cyborg, Plants, robotics, Sustainability}

That Plant Is Not a Cyborg

_{Or a robot. The MIT researcher's underlying idea is a good one but let’s not “plant” mistaken ideas} _{News

December 7, 2018

3

Machine Learning, Natural Intelligence}

If plants could move around freely, they would move into the most beneficial lighting arrangement. They compensate for their rootedness by growing in the optimum direction and constantly repositioning their leaves. An MIT researcher has helped out a plant by fitting it with electronic sensors attached to robotic wheels. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
November 30, 2018

Categorized
Machine Learning

Tagged
Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Big Data, Machine Learning, Neuroscience, Science Journals}

Quantity vs Quality: Can AI Help Scientists Produce Better Papers?

_{What happens when scientists simply can't read all their peers' papers and still find time for original research?} _{News

November 30, 2018

3

Machine Learning}

Quantity is definitely a solved problem. STM, the “voice of scholarly publishing” estimated in 2015 that roughly 2.5 million science papers are published each year. Some are, admittedly, in predatory or fake journals. But over 2800 journals are assumed to be genuine. Read More ›

View of Lake Michigan from the Memorial Museum in Milwaukee, Wi

^{Type
post

Author
Brendan Dixon
Date
November 29, 2018

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning

Tagged
AI Winter, Artificial Intelligence, Cathy O’Neil, Watson, Weapons of Math Destruction (book)}

AI Winter Is Coming

_{Roughly every decade since the late 1960s has experienced a promising wave of AI that later crashed on real-world problems, leading to collapses in research funding.} _{Brendan Dixon

November 29, 2018

7

Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning}

Nearly all of AI’s recent gains have been realized due to massive increases in data and computing power that enable old algorithms to suddenly become useful. For example, researchers first conceived neural networks—the core idea powering much machine learning and AI’s notable advances—in the late 1950s. The worries of an impending winter arise because we’re approaching the limits of what massive data combined with hordes of computers can do. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Mind Matters
Date
November 19, 2018

Categorized
Ethics, Machine Learning, Religion

Tagged
China, Christianity, Facial Recognition, Muslims}

Facial Recognition Aids Persecution of Chinese Christians, Muslims

_{Western companies still seek business ties with an increasingly authoritarian regime} _{Mind Matters

November 19, 2018

4

Ethics, Machine Learning, Religion}

The crackdown on religion is said to stem from Xi Jinping, who became President in 2012. After he got term limits removed in March 2018, some have begun to privately call him “Emperor Xi.”

AI, it turns out, can solve any problem

_{As long as we are not too persnickety about what we consider a solution} _{Mind Matters

November 15, 2018

2

Machine Learning}

The machine that knows what we mean instead of what we say is still in the concept stage. Meanwhile, Deep Mind researcher Victoria Krakovna keeps a running list of ways that generate "a solution that literally satisfies the stated objective but fails to solve the problem according to the human designer’s intent.” Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Mind Matters
Date
November 14, 2018

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Social Factors

Tagged
China, media, news media, robotics, Turing Machine, Turing Test}

If a Robot Read the News, Would You Notice a Difference?

_{The Chinese government thinks not. Is this the way of the future?} _{Mind Matters

November 14, 2018

4

Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Social Factors}

The robotic news readers of China serve a quite different purpose from the independent news outlets and commentators of the West; the robots help disseminate controlled information rather than finding and developing information. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Brendan Dixon
Date
November 12, 2018

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Natural Intelligence

Tagged
Deep Learning, François Chollet}

The “superintelligent AI myth”

_{The problem that even the skeptical Deep Learning researcher left out} _{Brendan Dixon

November 12, 2018

5

Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Natural Intelligence}

I largely agree with what François Chollet said last year as to why there will be no explosion of general artificial intelligence. But when he challenged the fear of an AI-driven “intelligence explosion,” he, perhaps unwittingly, said more than he meant. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Mind Matters
Date
November 10, 2018

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
computer, human brain, life form, neuron}

Brains are not billions of little computers

_{Despite the hype. Also, life forms are not machines and neurons are not neural networks} _{Mind Matters

November 10, 2018

5

Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Natural Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind}

Life forms exist in a dance with their environment (homeostasis) that requires constant adjustment, an adjustment generated by the inner drive to continue in existence. How does the drive come to be there? The analogy between life forms and machines like computers is not particularly convincing, on close examination. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
November 6, 2018

Categorized
Data Privacy, Machine Learning

Tagged
Canada, Data Security, government-policy, Justin Trudeau, Surveillance}

Canada demands intimate banking data from a half million citizens

_{The goal of the program, recently uncovered by media, is to develop a “new institutional personal information bank” for government use.} _{Denyse O'Leary

November 6, 2018

4

Data Privacy, Machine Learning}

A Canadian TV station recently provided a dramatic insight into how far Western governments are prepared to go, using advanced data gathering techniques, to surveil the lives of citizens: Statistics Canada is asking banks across the country for financial transaction data and personal information of 500,000 Canadians without their knowledge. Global News has learned. Documents obtained by Global News show the national statistical agency plans to collect “individual-level financial transactions data” and sensitive information, like social insurance numbers (SIN), from Canadian financial institutions to develop a “new institutional personal information bank.” Andrew Russell and David Akin, “EXCLUSIVE: Stats Canada requesting banking information of 500,000 Canadians without their knowledge” at Global News Further investigation showed that the government agency has already Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
November 5, 2018

Categorized
Machine Learning, Natural Intelligence

Tagged
halting oracle, halting problem, Jonathan Bartlett}

Human intelligence as a halting oracle

_{Jonathan Bartlett proposes to model the human mind as a halting oracle} _{Eric Holloway

November 5, 2018

4

Machine Learning, Natural Intelligence}

A common objection to Bartlett’s idea is that humans cannot be halting oracles because we embed any unsolvable math problem as the halting condition for a loop and a human cannot tell us whether the loop will halt or not. This objection misses the fact that there is a range of oracles between plain Turing machines and a complete halting oracle. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Jonathan Bartlett
Date
November 5, 2018

Categorized
Machine Learning, Philosophy of Mind, Religion, Social Factors

Tagged
computer models, religion, science media, violence}

Did AI show that we are “a peaceful species” triggered by religion?

_{No, but this episode shows how science media sometimes help mislead the public} _{Jonathan Bartlett

November 5, 2018

6

Machine Learning, Philosophy of Mind, Religion, Social Factors}

Unfortunately, most of the public knows about science only through science media professionals. And it is apparent that science media professionals often know little to nothing of what they are talking about.

A chilling snippet from mass surveillance in China

_{China is helping other countries restrict their citizens’ internet, while shunning the U.S.} _{Mind Matters

November 2, 2018

4

Ethics, Machine Learning, Social Factors}

Overall, governments worldwide are restricting the freedom of the internet, especially around election times, and the big social media companies are conspicuous by their silence. Read More ›