To err is human – is that why we fear machines that can be made to err less?
By: The Guardian Dec 14, 2019 One of the things that really annoys AI researchers is how supposedly “intelligent” machines are judged by much higher standards than are humans. Take self-driving cars, they say. So far they’ve driven millions of miles with very few accidents, a tiny number of them fatal. Yet whenever an autonomous […]
A Kid In A Refugee Camp Thought Video Games Fell From Heaven. Now He Makes Them
By: National Public Radio Dec 11, 2019 Lual Mayen, a video game developer based in Washington, D.C., remembers the first time he saw a computer. He was just a kid at the time. It was 2007, and his family was registering for benefits at a refugee camp in Uganda, where they’d settled after fleeing civil […]
Defiant Mark Zuckerberg Defends Facebook Policy to Allow False Ads
By: The national digest December 07, 2019 Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has defended the company’s decision to not take down political advertising that contains false information – and compared the alternative to censorship. Challenged on CBS over the policy, which has raised concerns over misinformation campaigns that could distort elections, Zuckerberg refused to commit […]
Monetising hate: covert enterprise co-opts far-right Facebook pages to churn out anti-Islamic posts
By: The Guardian Dec 05, 2018 A mysterious group has used some of Facebook’s largest far-right pages to create a commercial enterprise that harvests anti-Islamic hate for profit and influences politics across the globe, a Guardian investigation has revealed. For the past two years the Israel-based group has co-opted at least 21 organically grown far-right […]
Huawei under fire in China over employee detained for eight months
By: The Guardian December 02, 2019 The Chinese telecom corporation Huawei has come under fire in its own country as members of the public rallied behind a former employee detained for eight months after demanding severance pay from the company. Last January, Li Hongyuan, a Huawei employee of 13 years, was arrested on extortion charges and detained […]
AI is learning quantum mechanics to design new molecules
By: Futurism Nov 22, 2019 A new machine learning algorithm could probe the quantum behavior of molecules, giving chemists a better ability to design new compounds from scratch. The AI system, with the ridiculous-sounding name “SchNOrb,” can look deeper into the structure and behavior of molecules than previous chemist-assisting algorithms, Inverse reports. Though SchNOrb — “SchNet for […]
Google latest tech giant to crack down on political ads as pressure on Facebook grows
By: MSN Nov 21, 2019 Google will no longer allow political advertisers to target voters based on their political affiliation, the company announced Wednesday, in a move that will increase pressure on Facebook to limit micro-targeting. Google also plans to “clarify” its ad policies around false claims to explicitly ban doctored video and images known […]
Factbox: How social media services handle political ads
By: Mobile Reuters Nov 20, 2019 Online platforms including Facebook and Alphabet Inc’s Google face growing pressure to stop carrying political ads that contain false or misleading claims ahead of the U.S. presidential election. In the United States, the Communications Act prevents broadcast stations from rejecting or censoring ads from candidates for federal office once […]
To make robots perform better, make them constantly fear death
By: Futurism Nov 20, 2019 For too long, robots have had it too easy, and it’s starting to show. To get these freeloading bots back to work, neuroscientists from University of Southern California suggest programming them to fear death. By forcing robots to operate in terms of self-preservation — in addition to whatever other tasks […]