Month: December 2020

Every now and then an idea comes up that is so good that you wonder why it took so long for someone to think about it. IBM’s AI fact sheets are one of those ideas.

AI fact sheets are similar to heavily packaged nutritional labels for food. They contain information about the development, capabilities, benchmark performance, and much more of an AI model.

Big Blue today announced plans to “commercialize key automated documentation capabilities from IBM Research’s AI Factsheets methodology in Watson Studio in Cloud Pak for Data during 2021”.

In other words, companies and developers using Watson Studio in Cloud Pak for Data will soon have access to an automated AI fact sheets tool to generate transparency and information reports. The tool automatically generates most, if not all, of the information in the AI ​​fact sheet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4d3kEVsu-s

Via IBM:

The FactSheet project aims to build confidence in AI by increasing transparency, improving understanding of how AI is created and deployed, and empowering governance to control how AI is created and deployed . Increased transparency provides information for AI consumers to better understand how the AI ​​models a program component that is generated through learning patterns in training data to make predictions about new data, e.g. B. a loan application. or service an executable program that is provided behind an API and makes it possible to respond to program requests from other programs or services has been created. In this way, a consumer of the model can determine whether it is suitable for his situation.

Take quickly: We love this idea. While it’s a little more complex than we can describe in this article (research report here), the bottom line is that anything that standardizes transparency in machine learning models is a good thing.

This is part of the IBM “AI Governance” initiative and new AI advisory services. The company also announced some interesting new Watson features.

Today we announced Watson Discovery’s new reading comprehension feature in beta. It can identify precise answers to natural language questions from a wide variety of complex corporate documents. https://t.co/Hunb0jPtBr #ai #ml #nlp

– Fredrik Tunvall (@tunvall) December 9, 2020

Final thoughts: We’ve heard a lot about the “black box” over the years, but the truth is that the black box doesn’t hide much. The real problem with AI in large business is that there is no standard to explain what an AI model does specifically and how well it can do it.

Realistically, the model with the best marketing team is likely to beat the best model if no one can objectively explain which one is best for a particular application.

AI Fact Sheets is a blueprint for an industry standard to address these issues head on.

Published on December 9, 2020 – 19:26 UTC

In a recent video, Brett Kavanaugh speaks to members of the U.S. Congress. “It’s time to correct the record,” he begins. Over the next few minutes, the Supreme Court Justice admits it is possible he committed sexual assault and expresses remorse at the way he responded to Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations on his testimony. “I take responsibility for that and apologize.”

The thing is, this scene isn’t real. The footage is covered, and Kavanaugh never actually said those things.

In reality, Kavanaugh denied and ignored the allegations and played the victim. The video described above is from a series of fake clips envisioning a future where divisive public figures like Kavanaugh, Alex Jones and Mark Zuckerberg take responsibility for their past transgressions.

The series, titled Deep Reckonings, is an brainchild of Stephanie Lepp – an artist who wants to create positive change in the world by using deepfake technology to help people see and imagine better versions of themselves.

It’s a tall and somewhat abstract project, but Lepp is not alone in her endeavors. She is part of a growing league of developers who want to use deepfake technology to do good.

Deepfake it ’till you make it

Deepfakes have had a controversial journey so far. The technology has been used extensively for nefarious purposes such as pornography creation and disinformation campaigns, putting it under scrutiny by both governments and tech companies who fear the technology’s weapon.

“Given that the vast majority of deepfakes are shameful in nature, it’s understandable that we focused on their weapon,” says Lepp. “However, this focus prevented us from realizing their prosocial potential. In particular, deepfakes can be used for education, health, and social change purposes. “

Stephanie Lepp

She argues that, much like virtual reality has been used to help patients recover from brain injury by interacting with virtual memories, deepfakes can be used for psychological healing in trauma victims. For example, imagine a scenario where doctors could write deepfakes of an addict’s sober future self and use it to encourage them on the path to recovery.

The concept is at least theoretically sound. Jonathan Gratch, director of virtual human research at the Institute of Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California, found that seeing yourself in VR can be very motivating, and that the same concept can easily be applied to deep footage. He suggests that if a patient’s face were subtly mixed into his doctor’s face, the patient would be more likely to follow the doctor’s advice.

More than memes and misinformation

Despite the fact that negative uses of deepfakes tend to get more attention, positive uses like Lepp’s are on the rise. Over the past few years, the technology has established itself in storytelling, prosocial projects, and more.

For example, the ALS Association’s Revoice project enables amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients who have lost their ability to speak to continue using their voice. As? By using deepfakes, personalized synthetic vocal tracks can be created that can be played with a soundboard if necessary.

In a separate project from the nonprofit anti-malarial organization Malaria Must Die, celebrity athlete David Beckham delivered a message in nine different languages ​​(and voices) thanks to deeply faked audio and video matching his lips with the words.

In a particularly eye-catching campaign in early 2020, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Advanced Virtuality attempted to educate the public about misinformation by submitting a deepfake of former US President Richard M. Nixon, who penned it in 1969 for the fall of the Apollo Emergency speech made 11 crew members unable to return from the moon.

These types of public announcements and awareness campaigns are just the tip of the iceberg. Deepfake tools have also helped simplify processes in the entertainment industry that would otherwise require high-end equipment and time-consuming resources, such as: B. Aging, voice cloning, and more. For example, every face in a recent music video by The Strokes was fake, so the band’s 40-year-old members could look like they were 20.

Ohad Fried, lecturer in computer science at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center in Israel, says that thanks to deepfakes, “what used to take years of artist time can now be achieved by independent small studios. This is always good news for the variety and quality of the media we consume. “

Tilt the scales

However, the potential of deepfake technology to cause harm, especially as it becomes more accessible, remains a cause for concern. Aviv Ovadya, founder of the Thoughtful Technology Project, agrees that the ability to create synthetic media “can have numerous positive effects on storytelling, on people with disabilities, and on more seamless communication between languages.” At the same time, however, he warns that there is still a lot of room for damage once technology goes mainstream and that a lot of work needs to be done to minimize those risks.

“Even these positive use cases can inadvertently lead to real and significant damage,” he told Digital Trends. “Excerpts from works of art that try to create empathy can also be taken out of context and misused.”

“The aim should be to develop this technology in such a way that these negative effects are kept as low as possible.”

Experts have repeatedly sounded the horn to divert more resources into detection programs and official ethical guidelines – although legal encroachment could affect freedom of expression. But no one is quite sure in which direction deepfakes will ultimately go. As with any new technology, there will come a point where deepfakes strike an equilibrium and the responsibility lies with tech companies, policymakers, and developers to ensure that the scales remain on the good side.

Ovadya also suggests limiting the accessibility of deepfake tools to the masses until researchers can “complete some of the fortifications we need to protect our society from the potential negative effects. The goal should be to develop this technology in such a way that these negative effects are at least reduced as much as possible. “

For now, Lepp will be spending her time focusing on her next deepfake protagonist: Donald Trump and his concession speech.

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Bitcoin is in the news today more than ever. Thanks to skyrocketing prices and roller coaster rides, everyone and their dogs are keen to learn how to buy and sell Bitcoin.

As the most popular form of cryptocurrency (and the blockchain technology that powers it) is Bitcoin now recognized worldwide and has a growing number of uses. However, if you want to take advantage of this, the first thing you need to know is how to buy bitcoin and what to do with it when you have bitcoin.

Would you like to mine Bitcoin instead? It is not advisable, but it is still possible. Here is how.

Step 1: Find a Reliable Bitcoin Wallet

Bitcoin is stored in digital “wallets” until you are ready to spend it or exchange it for another currency. Wallets vary in terms of features, platforms they accept, and level of security. So it’s important to choose one that works for you – although you should probably stay away from the one evangelized by John McAfee.

For those who are just starting out, it is best to use the wallet that is automatically provided to you on our recommended Coinbase exchange. However, it is also a good idea to set up a wallet that is not connected to a crypto exchange to ensure that you can access your Bitcoin instantly, even if there is overwhelming traffic or the website closes.

Here are our recommended options:

Exodus: Exodus is an all-in-one offline application with support for multiple cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin. It’s free to use, has built-in shape change trading, and includes some simple graphing tools that you can use to visualize your cryptocurrency portfolio.

Mycelium: This is a popular mobile wallet known to be compatible with more advanced technologies like Trezor hardware wallets (for maximum security) and Tor.

Bitcoin Core: Bitcoin Core is a free, open source option that acts as a Bitcoin node. They do an excellent job of verifying payments and only accept payments from valid blockchains.

To take a look at some of our favorite wallets, here is a more in-depth guide to the best Bitcoin wallets.

Note: While an online wallet is great for your first Bitcoin purchase, if you are confronted with a lot of valuable cryptocurrencies due to trading or appreciation, keep it in an offline “cold storage” wallet for maximum protection.

Step 2: choose the right bitcoin trader

The best place to make your first Bitcoin purchase is with an exchange. There are a lot of exchanges with varying levels of performance. Some are less trustworthy than others, and some can be very limited. Therefore, it is important to choose the correct exchange first. We recommend using Coinbase, though it doesn’t hurt to check out the competition using a Bitcoin exchange comparison site.

Signing up for a Coinbase account is easy, but you’ll need to show some ID. This could include sending a copy of your photo ID and possibly sending a live image of your face via webcam. It is imperative to follow these rules as they allow the websites to know the rules that your customers are aware of.

While Coinbase alone allows you to buy and sell Bitcoin, it’s also worth signing up to the linked exchange platform Coinbase Pro, which gives you better control over your purchases.

If you prefer a more direct route when buying Bitcoin, you can use a peer-to-peer service like LocalBitcoin or BitQuick. They offer a wider range of payment options and allow you to buy Bitcoin directly from a seller without the intermediary. If you want to use these and trade in person, you should meet in a safe place.

Step 3: Choose your payment method

Exchanges accept a variety of payment options, although one should beware of scam sites. Coinbase allows both bank account and credit or debit card transfers for payments, although a payment solution must be linked to your account before you can make a trade. Coinbase recently added PayPal as an option for transferring Bitcoin, although there are certain restrictions.

Note: Bitcoin ATMs allow you to exchange Bitcoin for cash in compatible wallets. These ATMs are available in a limited number of cities and offer an alternative to withdrawing money through an exchange. Again, most exchanges and online wallets won’t handle cash directly.

Step 4: buy bitcoin and keep it in your wallet

The exchanges tell you how many (or how much) Bitcoin you can buy for certain sums of money. However, due to its volatility, Bitcoin prices can vary dramatically depending on the exchange and moment to moment. That means you’ll likely buy a fraction of a bitcoin even if you have a lot of money to burn. There is nothing wrong with that, and for most people, this is the route they will go as few but the rich can afford to buy multiple bitcoins at once.

To make your first trade, enter the amount of Bitcoin you want to buy in the space provided and click the Buy button. Coinbase or Coinbase Pro is a standard market buy order where Bitcoin is bought at the best market price. Alternatively, you can place a limit order that allows you to set a price that you are willing to pay for a certain amount. A trade will only take place if this amount is displayed at that price.

Once you have made your purchase, your newly acquired Bitcoin will be transferred to your Coinbase wallet for safekeeping. You should then seek the option of transferring those funds to the address of the Bitcoin wallet you created. You have to pay a small fee to remove the money from the exchange, but that’s an essential part of Bitcoin transfers. Fortunately, the cost of such transfers is much lower than in the past.

Just a note: Bitcoin transfers can be made sporadically. When buying bitcoin funds, unlike other forex trades, the transaction must be recorded and confirmed on the blockchain. The transfer process can take a while (approximately an hour or two), especially during busy trading hours. It is a good idea to plan your transfers accordingly before boarding.

Step 5: get ready to use it

Whether you want to sell your Bitcoin (hopefully for a profit) or use it to buy goods or services, you can always do so. Bitcoin’s value fluctuates widely, so it is important that you plan your endgame early. Prepare now by setting up a seller account on an exchange or finding out how to use it to buy what you want before the time to buy. That way, you won’t panic about completing your transactions at a specific time.

We have compiled a list of compatible online stores to give you an idea of ​​where to spend your Bitcoin. Do your research by reading reviews and fine print before buying or exchanging bitcoin.

Editor’s recommendations

There are still a few weeks left in 2020, and if there was ever a guarantee it wouldn’t go down without a fight, it’s the barrage of sad scientific stories this week. Do you like aliens, dogs, or do you think that one day scientists will find evidence of something bigger than ourselves? Buckle up cause the news is all bad.

Let’s start with the big scheme and work our way into it. Can’t be much bigger than “God”, and that’s exactly what the astrophysicist Michale Hippke wanted to find out about the cosmic microwave background in her preprint research report entitled “In search of a message in the angular power spectrum”. “

As you may have guessed from the title, Hippke’s work focuses on recognizing whether a readable message is hidden in the microwave radiation that forms the background of our cosmos.

Per Hippke’s article:

The Creator of the Universe could put a message on the most cosmic of all billboards, the cosmic one

Sky with Microwave Background (CMB). It was suggested by Hsu & Zee (2006) to look for such a message in the CMB angular power spectrum.

I process the temperature measurements from the Planck and WMAP satellites and extract the binary bit stream. I estimate the information content of a potential message in the stream to be around 1,000 bits. The universality of the message can be limited by the observer-dependent location in space and the finite observation time on the order of 100 billion years after the Big Bang.

The newspaper is fascinating and worth reading, but because it’s 2020, I’m just going to spoil the end for you now. According to the paper, Hippke did not find it if there is a creator who left us a message:

I cannot find a meaningful message in the actual bitstream.

H / t: LiveScience.

It goes from bad to worse. Some of our most popular science papers here at TNW are about aliens, so I know this is going to break some hearts. You know all the planets around Proxima Centauri that astrophysicists and other scientists have excitedly said are in a so-called “habitable zone”?

Yeah … not so much. It turns out that the habitable zone is anything but. A team of astronomers, led by Andrew Zic of the University of Sydney, recently determined that planets in this area are likely to be exposed to conditions far too harsh to support any kind of life as we know it.

The problem, according to a recent article published in the Astrophyics Journal, is that solar flares from the star would cause seriously problematic space weather.

According to a report by Phys.Org, Zic claims:

Our research shows that this makes the planets very vulnerable to dangerous ionizing radiation, which could effectively sterilize the planets.

While there could of course still be some unknown form of radiation loving life, we can probably dispel any thoughts that this particular habitable zone is inhabited by something like us.

And finally, it breaks my heart to tell you this, but your dog has no damn idea what the hell you’re talking about. A study by researchers at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest claims that dogs really are not able to understand as many words as we believe.

As the university put it in a press release on EurekAlert:

Dogs can distinguish between human speech sounds (e.g., “d”, “o”, and “g”), and there are similarities in the neuronal processing of words between dogs and humans. However, most dogs can only learn a few words during their lifetime, even if they live in a human family and are surrounded by human language.

GPS can guide you across the city or across the country and navigate dusty back roads as easily as six-lane highways. But as anyone who accidentally drove into a lake can tell you, GPS isn’t perfect. For example, it cannot keep you in a certain lane or dodge nearby cars or steer you through an exit. That’s why John Deere built a better system.

Yes, this John Deere.

You see, the GPS system most people know about was developed in the 1970s, and for what it is, it is truly remarkable. A network of 24 satellites that have been working more or less continuously for 27 years? Orbit the globe from the cold expanse of space – watch endlessly and lend a polite hand? Free? Wonderful. But it was designed to replace paper maps, which rarely measure to the centimeter. Autonomous cars don’t just need to know you’re on Highway 61, they need to know exactly where you are (at 75 mph, no less). Autonomous drones and tractors for agriculture have sparked a rural renaissance called precision farming – and it takes precision to work.

To increase this level of detail – and to revise the system in general – researchers have worked to replace the existing satellite fleet with a new iteration called GPS III. Last week, SpaceX took a step forward when it finally launched a fourth satellite into its star bed. It’s a long process: Lockheed Martin published a brief history of their GPS upgrade efforts in 2012, and we’re just getting started. The whole thing is slated for completion in 2023, at a cost of nearly $ 6 billion.

Can the private sector do better? To get some insight into what could replace GPS, we spoke to two companies that run the fee and are developing alternatives.

How Deere Made a Better GPS

Before we point out its shortcomings, let’s keep in mind that GPS is a fantastic system. Indeed, it is difficult to grapple with the ambition and audacity of the existing satellite constellation. Imagine the challenges behind introducing a precision antenna that cost a few hundred million dollars and is shaped more or less like a Mister Softee ice cream van. To complete the deed, the military hits her on a missile that burns 2,700 pounds of liquid oxygen per second, ejects her into space at Mach 1 … and then carefully releases her into orbit about 13,000 miles away. Remember, the diameter of the earth itself is only 7,900 miles.

Now imagine the algorithms and calculations required to keep them in precise orbit, never hitting the other satellites, constantly transmitting, batteries never failing, clocks that barely get out of sync when the Months turn into years and you will get the point. It’s an enormous achievement. However, it is not enough.

John Deere

In theory, GPS is accurate to within 3 feet, but in reality it’s closer to 15 feet or so – good enough to get you to the grocery store, but barely accurate. For example, if you’ve planted two heirloom tomatoes and some cucumbers in your garden, it’s easy to grow your tiny crop without knowing where to water. When you’re planting hundreds of acres, tiny telemetry errors can ruin you.

“The old days of work all day and maybe dad is ready and coming home to the son or daughter? That’s pretty much done, ”Al Savage, StarFire Network Manager at John Deere, told Digital Trends. “What farmers want is more yield. Accuracy with row planting, spraying, etc so you don’t run over your crop. “

According to NASA (yes, this NASA), when a farmer traverses a field and pulls a seeder, plow, or other equipment behind a tractor, the rows generated overlap by about 10 percent. This means that a significant portion of the field is receiving twice as much seeds, fertilizers and pesticides and the work is taking longer than necessary. Today’s tractors use digital positioning systems like your car, but require an entirely different level of accuracy. With the help of the space agency, John Deere built a better system.

John Deere

“Differential GPS is what they call it,” said Savage. To get the detailed positional data that modern farmers need, Deere built a number of ground based reference locations around the world to collect a second set of positional data, a large amount of data that the company transmits, and warehouses in two main data centers. This information is transmitted to a number of geostationary satellites operated by Inmarsat (John Deere rents space on them), and then sent back to the company’s StarFire receivers using local tractors – a round trip that takes longer than the globe, but takes about as long as a single breath.

“You speak of 12, 13,000 miles, and in some cases 20,000 miles. And it happens in five seconds, so you can imagine how fast it is and how much data is flowing, ”said Savage. The time it takes for a signal to travel from GPS satellites to Earth, combined with clocks in orbit that are easily out of sync and signal noise from electrically charged particles in our atmosphere, makes existing GPS data inaccurate. By networking the satellite data with data from its terrestrial network, Deere can triangulate the location much more precisely.

“When you spray, you want to be precise and precise. This saves you herbicides, fungicides, pesticides and sprays, ”explains Savage.

How 5G finds a way

If you read any technology site these days, you’ve heard the hype surrounding 5G. The fast new cellular network offers a number of advantages, the most important of which is speed. Qualcomm has demonstrated maximum download speeds of around 4.5 gigabits per second and average data transfer speeds of around 1.4 gigabits per second. That’s fast enough to download a two-hour movie in about 17 seconds, versus about 6 minutes for a current 4G connection. In other words, new 5G phones are around 1,000 times faster than the phone you currently have in your pocket.

But 5G is more than just phones: Qualcomm believes that with 5G, tomorrow’s cars will talk to each other and you will all oversee them all by yourself. To do this, Qualcomm’s chips do more than just transfer data faster. They support CV2X communication (Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything), which enables direct communication between cars and other intelligent objects in the infrastructure of a city.

A little discussed part of Qualcomm’s automotive plans includes building a system to eliminate the 3 to 15 foot precision problem of GPS. For this purpose, the company relied on its existing patent portfolio. It merges data from existing satellites of the Global Navigation Satellite System (including GPS, Europe’s Galileo, Russia’s GLONASS, etc.) with something called VEPP or Vision Enhanced Precisioning. Essentially, Qualcomm plans to use images from existing video cameras to pinpoint the exact location of a car.

“The cost of this is not astronomical,” Nakul Duggal, senior vice president of product management at Qualcomm, told Digital Trends. “You basically need a standard camera like today … everything else is something you already activate the telematics unit for.”

An illustration shows VEPP data in combination with conventional GPS data. Qualcomm

But here’s the thing: CV2X has been a dream among tech companies for years, and while promising, it also poses challenges. For one, there’s the problem of finding the bandwidth: regulators reserved some of the spectrum at 5.9 GHz for vehicle-to-vehicle chatter, but the regulatory effort to get the project going literally went nowhere. Ajit Pai, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), wrote last month: “The 5.9 GHz spectrum has been idle for far too long. For the past two decades, the people of America have been waiting for this premium mid-band spectrum to be used, and the wait is over. “

No, Americans didn’t ask for it despite Pai’s excitement. Few people think twice about the frequency distribution between breakfast and bed. However, the FCC’s move last month to modernize the 5.9 GHz band is good news for C2VX. Still, 5G has a long way to go in cars.

In addition, the sluggish 5G timeline has been edited. The first 5G modems could appear in new vehicles in 2022, and advanced models are unlikely to arrive until 2025, according to Light Reading. The roadside infrastructure for communicating with these modems to enable self-driving is not expected to become commercially available until 2025. Meanwhile, John Deere’s StarFire system is already working on 5G, Savage said along with GPS, Russia’s GLONASS, QZSS, IRNN and others. If 5G is widespread, it will help fill a number of gaps.

“5G will be very helpful when it comes to farmers in rural areas at higher latitudes – in the EU, in the Netherlands. I think 5G will help. Anything hilly, where the vehicle’s stance, the unevenness of the terrain where you can’t really see the south end for satellite coverage, 5G will really help too, “said Savage.

Here’s one point to highlight: GPS III, 5G, and StarFire are not necessarily competing technologies. No single company or technology will, and does not have to, dominate this area and make the others obsolete. It’s important to note that 5G will improve, not replace, John Deere’s Starfire system. GPS III will work with – and not against – 5G to keep autonomous cars on course. They are all different paths that lead to the same goal: Better positioning for everyone and everything, regardless of the application.

See you? Avoid the lakes and keep both hands on the steering wheel. Because a new GPS is just up the road – but we can only get there that fast.

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