Jan 15, 2021
In COVID-related news, Andy and Dave discuss a commercial AI
model from Biocogniv that predicts COVID-19 infection using only
blood tests, with a 95% sensitivity and a 49% specificity. In a
story that highlights the general challenge with algorithms,
Stanford reported challenges in using a rules-based algorithm to
determine priority of vaccine distribution, when it omitted
front-line doctors from initial distribution. In non-COVID AI news,
Vincent Boucher and Gary Marcus organize a second “AI Debate” on
the topic of Moving AI Forward: An Interdisciplinary Approach,
which included Daniel Kahneman, Christof Koch, Judea Pearl, Fei-Fei
Li, Margaret Mitchel, and many others. Reuters reports that
Google’s PR, policy, and legal teams have been editing AI research
papers in order to give them a more positive tone, and to reduce
discussions of the potential drawbacks of the technology. And
Microsoft patents a “chat bot technology” that would seek to
reincarnate deceased people. In research, Google announces MuZero,
which masters chess, Go, shogi, and the Atari Learning Environment
by planning with a learned model (and no information on the rules).
Jeff Heaton provides the book of the week, with Applications of
Deep Neural Networks. A survey paper from four universities looks
at Data Security for Machine Learning. Another survey paper
examines how researchers develop and use datasets for machine
learning research. And the ConwayLife.com community celebrates the
50th anniversary of the Game of Life, to include an online
simulator called the Exploratorium.
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