Algorithm
High-Five Or Thumbs-Up? New Device Detects Which Hand Gesture You Want To Make
Imagine typing on a computer without a keyboard, playing a video game without a controller or driving a car without a wheel. That’s one of the goals of a new device developed by engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, that can recognize hand gestures based on electrical signals detected in the forearm. The system, …
Algorithm Reduces Unnecessary Use Of Antibiotics For UTIs
One paradox about antibiotics is that, broadly speaking, the more we use them, the less they continue to work. The Darwinian process of bacteria growing resistant to antibiotics means that, when the drugs don’t work, we can no longer treat infections, leading to groups like the World Health Organization warning about our ability to control major public …
Hey Google … What Movie Should I Watch Today? How AI Can Affect Our Decisions
Have you ever used Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri or Amazon Alexa to make decisions for you? Perhaps you asked it what new movies have good reviews, or to recommend a cool restaurant in your neighbourhood. Artificial intelligence and virtual assistants are constantly being refined, and may soon be making appointments for you, offering medical advice, …
What Is An Algorithm? How Computers Know What To Do With Data
The world of computing is full of buzzwords: AI, supercomputers, machine learning, the cloud, quantum computing and more. One word in particular is used throughout computing – algorithm. In the most general sense, an algorithm is a series of instructions telling a computer how to transform a set of facts about the world into useful …
Don’t Write Off Government Algorithms – Responsible AI Can Produce Real Benefits
Algorithms have taken a lot of flak recently, particularly those being used by the government and other public bodies in the UK. The controversial algorithm used to award student grades caused a huge public outcry, but national and local governments and several police forces have been withdrawing other algorithms and artificial intelligence tools from use …
Showing Robots How To Do Your Chores
Making progress on that vision, MIT researchers have designed a system that lets these types of robots learn complicated tasks that would otherwise stymie them with too many confusing rules. One such task is setting a dinner table under certain conditions. At its core, the researchers’ “Planning with Uncertain Specifications” (PUnS) system gives robots the …
Machine Learning Predicts How Big Wildfires Will Get
A new technique can predict the final size of wildfires from the moment of ignition, researchers report. Built around a machine learning algorithm, the model can help forecast whether a wildfire will be small, medium, or large by the time it has run its course—knowledge useful to those in charge of allocating scarce firefighting resources. …
To Create A Super-Intelligent Machine, Start With An Equation
Intelligence is a very difficult concept and, until recently, no one has succeeded in giving it a satisfactory formal definition. Most researchers have given up grappling with the notion of intelligence in full generality, and instead focus on related but more limited concepts – but I argue that mathematically defining intelligence is not only possible, …
Artificial Intelligence: Here’s What You Need To Know To Understand How Machines Learn
From Jeopardy winners and Go masters to infamous advertising-related racial profiling, it would seem we have entered an era in which artificial intelligence developments are rapidly accelerating. But a fully sentient being whose electronic “brain” can fully engage in complex cognitive tasks using fair moral judgement remains, for now, beyond our capabilities. Unfortunately, current developments …
PyCon 2019 | Measuring Model Fairness
PyCon 2019 | Measuring Model Fairness Speaker: J. Henry Hinnefeld When machine learning models make decisions that affect people’s lives, how can you be sure those decisions are fair? When you build a machine learning product, how can you be sure your product isn’t biased? What does it even mean for an algorithm to …