Biomedical Treasure Chest: DeepMind open sources AlphaFold and protein databases.
Tech & Society

Biomedical Treasure Chest: DeepMind open sources AlphaFold and protein databases.

DeepMind opened access to AlphaFold, a model that finds the shapes of proteins, and to its output so far — a potential cornucopia for biomedical research. The research lab, a division of Google’s parent company Alphabet, made AlphaFold freely available.

August 4, 20212 min read
Meet the New Smart-Cities Champ: Chinese researchers win prizes for AI traffic safety.
Tech & Society

Meet the New Smart-Cities Champ: Chinese researchers win prizes for AI traffic safety.

Chinese researchers for the first time swept a competition to develop AI systems that monitor urban traffic. Chinese universities and companies won first and second place place in all five categories of the 2021 AI City Challenge.

July 28, 20211 min read
Meet the New Smart-Cities Champ: Chinese researchers win prizes for AI traffic safety.
Tech & Society

Meet the New Smart-Cities Champ: Chinese researchers win prizes for AI traffic safety.

Chinese researchers for the first time swept a competition to develop AI systems that monitor urban traffic. Chinese universities and companies won first and second place place in all five categories of the 2021 AI City Challenge.

July 28, 20211 min read
U.S. Lax on Face Recognition: U.S. agency calls for stricter face recognition controls.
Tech & Society

U.S. Lax on Face Recognition: U.S. agency calls for stricter face recognition controls.

A U.S. government watchdog agency called for stronger face recognition protocols for federal agencies. An audit found that, while many employ face recognition, they may not know where it came from, how it’s being used, or the hazards involved.

July 28, 20211 min read
U.S. Lax on Face Recognition: U.S. agency calls for stricter face recognition controls.
Tech & Society

U.S. Lax on Face Recognition: U.S. agency calls for stricter face recognition controls.

A U.S. government watchdog agency called for stronger face recognition protocols for federal agencies. An audit found that, while many employ face recognition, they may not know where it came from, how it’s being used, or the hazards involved.

July 28, 20211 min read
When Algorithms Manage Humans: Amazon drivers say AI unfairly graded their performance.
Tech & Society

When Algorithms Manage Humans: Amazon drivers say AI unfairly graded their performance.

Some delivery drivers fired by Amazon contend that the retailer’s automated management system played an unfair role in terminating their employment. Drivers in Amazon Flex, an Uber-like program that enables independent drivers to earn money delivering the company’s packages.

July 21, 20212 min read
When Algorithms Manage Humans: Amazon drivers say AI unfairly graded their performance.
Tech & Society

When Algorithms Manage Humans: Amazon drivers say AI unfairly graded their performance.

Some delivery drivers fired by Amazon contend that the retailer’s automated management system played an unfair role in terminating their employment. Drivers in Amazon Flex, an Uber-like program that enables independent drivers to earn money delivering the company’s packages.

July 21, 20212 min read
The New Space Race
Tech & Society

The New Space Race

I’ve been following with excitement the recent progress in space launches. Earlier this week, Richard Branson and his Virgin Galactic team flew a rocket plane 53 miles up, earning him astronaut wings.

July 14, 20212 min read
The New Space Race
Tech & Society

The New Space Race

I’ve been following with excitement the recent progress in space launches. Earlier this week, Richard Branson and his Virgin Galactic team flew a rocket plane 53 miles up, earning him astronaut wings.

July 14, 20212 min read
Danke for the Interview: AI-powered interview tools mistook German for English.
Tech & Society

Danke for the Interview: AI-powered interview tools mistook German for English.

An independent test found flaws in AI systems designed to evaluate job applicants. MyInterview and Curious Thing, which automate job interviews, gave a candidate who spoke only in German high marks on English proficiency, according to MIT Technology Review.

July 14, 20212 min read
CLIP Art: Creating AI art by pairing CLIP with GAN models
Tech & Society

CLIP Art: Creating AI art by pairing CLIP with GAN models

Creative engineers are combining deep learning systems to produce a groundswell of generated imagery. Researchers, hackers, and artists are producing new works by pairing CLIP, a pretrained image classifier, with a generative adversarial network (GAN).

July 14, 20211 min read
CLIP Art: Creating AI art by pairing CLIP with GAN models
Tech & Society

CLIP Art: Creating AI art by pairing CLIP with GAN models

Creative engineers are combining deep learning systems to produce a groundswell of generated imagery. Researchers, hackers, and artists are producing new works by pairing CLIP, a pretrained image classifier, with a generative adversarial network (GAN).

July 14, 20211 min read
Danke for the Interview: AI-powered interview tools mistook German for English.
Tech & Society

Danke for the Interview: AI-powered interview tools mistook German for English.

An independent test found flaws in AI systems designed to evaluate job applicants. MyInterview and Curious Thing, which automate job interviews, gave a candidate who spoke only in German high marks on English proficiency, according to MIT Technology Review.

July 14, 20212 min read
Lighter Traffic Ahead: NoTraffic promises shorter commutes with computer vision.
Tech & Society

Lighter Traffic Ahead: NoTraffic promises shorter commutes with computer vision.

Traffic signals controlled by AI are keeping vehicles rolling citywide. Several U.S. cities are testing systems from Israel-based startup NoTraffic that promise to cut both commute times and carbon emissions.

July 7, 20212 min read
Lighter Traffic Ahead: NoTraffic promises shorter commutes with computer vision.
Tech & Society

Lighter Traffic Ahead: NoTraffic promises shorter commutes with computer vision.

Traffic signals controlled by AI are keeping vehicles rolling citywide. Several U.S. cities are testing systems from Israel-based startup NoTraffic that promise to cut both commute times and carbon emissions.

July 7, 20212 min read

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