|
|
Post by hebrews1135 on May 1, 2017 23:18:52 GMT
Historic First As Wisconsin Man Sentenced To Prison By A Software Program’s Secret Algorithm
May 1, 2017 - Compas and other products with similar algorithms play a role in many states’ criminal justice systems. “These proprietary techniques are used to set bail, determine sentences, and even contribute to determinations about guilt or innocence,” a report from the Electronic Privacy Information Center found. “Yet the inner workings of these tools are largely hidden from public view.” When Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. visited Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute last month, he was asked a startling question, one with overtones of science fiction. EDITOR’S NOTE: Ten years ago, a movie called Minority Report showed us a grim future were computers with secret algorithms were the determining factor in a person’s innocence or guilt, and what penalty they would pay if found guilty. In 2017, courts across America are using highly complex proprietary software with secret algorithms to sentence people to jail. “Can you foresee a day,” asked Shirley Ann Jackson, president of the college in upstate New York, “when smart machines, driven with artificial intelligences, will assist with courtroom fact-finding or, more controversially even, judicial decision-making?” The chief justice’s answer was more surprising than the question. “It’s a day that’s here,” he said, “and it’s putting a significant strain on how the judiciary goes about doing things.” He may have been thinking about the case of a Wisconsin man, Eric L. Loomis, who was sentenced to six years in prison based in part on a private company’s proprietary software. Mr. Loomis says his right to due process was violated by a judge’s consideration of a report generated by the software’s secret algorithm, one Mr. Loomis was unable to inspect or challenge. A Conversation with Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. In March, in a signal that the justices were intrigued by Mr. Loomis’s case, they asked the federal government to file a friend-of-the-court brief offering its views on whether the court should hear his appeal. The report in Mr. Loomis’s case was produced by a product called Compas, sold by Northpointe Inc. It included a series of bar charts that assessed the risk that Mr. Loomis would commit more crimes. The Compas report, a prosecutor told the trial judge, showed “a high risk of violence, high risk of recidivism, high pretrial risk.” The judge agreed, telling Mr. Loomis that “you’re identified, through the Compas assessment, as an individual who is a high risk to the community.” Pre-Crime will Blow Your Mind: The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled against Mr. Loomis. The report added valuable information, it said, and Mr. Loomis would have gotten the same sentence based solely on the usual factors, including his crime — fleeing the police in a car — and his criminal history. At the same time, the court seemed uneasy with using a secret algorithm to send a man to prison. Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, writing for the court, discussed, for instance, a report from ProPublica about Compas that concluded that black defendants in Broward County, Fla., “were far more likely than white defendants to be incorrectly judged to be at a higher rate of recidivism.” Justice Bradley noted that Northpointe had disputed the analysis. Still, she wrote, “this study and others raise concerns regarding how a Compas assessment’s risk factors correlate with race.” In the end, though, Justice Bradley allowed sentencing judges to use Compas. They must take account of the algorithm’s limitations and the secrecy surrounding it, she wrote, but said the software could be helpful “in providing the sentencing court with as much information as possible in order to arrive at an individualized sentence.” The company that markets Compas says its formula is a trade secret. “The key to our product is the algorithms, and they’re proprietary,” one of its executives said last year. “We’ve created them, and we don’t release them because it’s certainly a core piece of our business.” Compas and other products with similar algorithms play a role in many states’ criminal justice systems. “These proprietary techniques are used to set bail, determine sentences, and even contribute to determinations about guilt or innocence,” a report from the Electronic Privacy Information Center found. “Yet the inner workings of these tools are largely hidden from public view.” www.nowtheendbegins.com/historic-first-wisconsin-man-sentenced-prison-software-programs-secret-algorithm/* Been hearing about AI in the mainstream recently - this could very well play a big role in the MOB implementation.
|
|
|
|
Post by hebrews1135 on May 16, 2017 14:40:27 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by Shep on May 22, 2017 15:07:03 GMT
Humanoid Robot FEDOR Has Learned How To Shoot Guns Using Both ArmsHumanoid robot F.E.D.O.R., set to fly into space in 2021, is now capable of shooting using both of his arms, according to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. “The robot of the F.E.D.O.R. platform showed skills of firing using both arms. Currently the work on fine motor skills and decision algorithms is underway,” Rogozin wrote on his Twitter. Humanoid robot F.E.D.O.R., set to fly into space in 2021, is now capable of shooting using both of his arms, according to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. “The robot of the F.E.D.O.R. platform showed skills of firing using both arms. Currently the work on fine motor skills and decision algorithms is underway.” According to Rogozin, training to shoot is a way of teaching the robot to instantaneously prioritize targets and make decisions. “We are not creating a terminator but artificial intelligence which will have a great practical importance in various fields,” he added. It is expected that “Fedor” will help astronauts work in open space and serve at the station. Earlier, it was reported that the first flight of the Russian next-generation Federation spacecraft will be unmanned and it will be guided by Fedor. “The unmanned launch and autonomous flight of our new spacecraft will take place in 2021. … It is expected, and all relevant decisions have already been made, that robot Fedor will be the first pilot,” Yevgeny Mikrin, Roscosmos general designer of the manned spacecraft, said. In addition, the robot will also be able to perform service work on the orbital station during the absence of people on it. Russia’s Energia Space Corporation earlier said that the Federation, which is 80 percent built of composite materials, will be manufactured by 2021. The new spacecraft will replace the aging Soyuz spacecraft in supporting low Earth orbit missions. www.nowtheendbegins.com/worried-humanoid-robot-learned-shoot-guns-using-arms/* Combined related thread see also 666 * RFID chips mehaf.freeforums.net/thread/49/666-rfid-microchips
|
|
|
|
Post by hebrews1135 on May 29, 2017 23:24:39 GMT
Robot 'priest' can beam light from its hands and give automated blessings to worshippers5/29/17 The robot wishes users a "warm welcome" before asking them if they want to be blessed by a male or female voice A robot 'priest' that beams lights from its hands and can give automated blessings to the faithful has been launched in the town that gave fame to Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation. Five hundred years after Luther published the Ninety-five Theses in Wittenberg, kicking off the Reformation, an evangelical church launched a unique automated blessing robot for the special celebrations in the historic town located in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. The robot on show in the old town of Wittenberg is called "BlessU-2" and was developed by the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau. It consists of a metal box with a touch screen, two arms on the side, a head with eyes and a digital mouth at the top. After the robot wishes users a "warm welcome", it asks them if they want to be blessed by a male or female voice. It then asks the believer "what blessing do you want", which results in the robot making a mechanical sound as it raises its arms to the heavens and starts to smile. Lights then start to flash in the robot's arms as it says "God bless and protect you" and recites a biblical verse. After the blessing, the user has the possibility to print the dictum. Church spokesman Sebastian von Gehren said: "It is an experiment that is supposed to inspire discussion." Von Gehren explained that they consciously decided against a typical human appearance. He said that the reactions vary wildly. "One half thinks it's great" while "the other cannot imagine a blessing from a machine." Remarkably, von Gehren said that people who have little in common with the church are particularly attracted to the robot, with many people "now coming every morning and evening." Brunhilde Hoeltz-Mettang, a visitor to the church celebrations in Wittenberg, said the robot was "interesting and courageous" even though it lacked the human touch. Yet 500 years after Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to a church door in Wittenberg, the robot priest will not replace humans any time soon. Von Gehren said: "The machine should not replace the blessing of a pastor. In the future there will not be a blessing robot in every church." www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/robot-priest-can-beam-light-10523678
|
|
|
|
Post by hebrews1135 on Jun 7, 2017 23:37:40 GMT
spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/imaging/ai-predicts-autism-from-infant-brain-scansAI Predicts Autism From Infant Brain ScansBy Megan Scudellari Posted 15 Feb 2017 | 19:00 GMT Twenty-two years ago, researchers first reported that adolescents with autism spectrum disorder had increased brain volume. During the intervening years, studies of younger and younger children showed that this brain “overgrowth” occurs in childhood. Now, a team at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, has detected brain growth changes linked to autism in children as young as 6 months old. And it piqued our interest because a deep-learning algorithm was able to use that data to predict whether a child at high-risk of autism would be diagnosed with the disorder at 24 months. The algorithm correctly predicted the eventual diagnosis in high-risk children with 81 percent accuracy and 88 percent sensitivity. That’s pretty damn good compared with behavioral questionnaires, which yield information that leads to early autism diagnoses (at around 12 months old) that are just 50 percent accurate. “This is outperforming those kinds of measures, and doing it at a younger age,” says senior author Heather Hazlett, a psychologist and brain development researcher at UNC. As part of the Infant Brain Imaging Study, a U.S. National Institues of Health–funded study of early brain development in autism, the research team enrolled 106 infants with an older sibling who had been given an autism diagnosis, and 42 infants with no family history of autism. They scanned each child’s brain—no easy feat with an infant—at 6-, 12-, and 24 months. The researchers saw no change in any of the babies’ overall brain growth between 6- and 12-month mark. But there was a significant increase in the brain surface area of the high-risk children who were later diagnosed with autism. That increase in surface area was linked to brain volume growth that occurred between ages 12 and 24 months. In other words, in autism, the developing brain first appears to expand in surface area by 12 months, then in overall volume by 24 months. The team also performed behavioral evaluations on the children at 24 months, when they were old enough to begin to exhibit the hallmark behaviors of autism, such as lack of social interest, delayed language, and repetitive body movements. The researchers note that the greater the brain overgrowth, the more severe a child’s autistic symptoms tended to be. Though the new findings confirmed that brain changes associated with autism occur very early in life, the researchers did not stop there. In collaboration with computer scientists at UNC and the College of Charleston, the team built an algorithm, trained it with the brain scans, and tested whether it could use these early brain changes to predict which children would later be diagnosed with autism. It worked well. Using just three variables—brain surface area, brain volume, and gender (boys are more likely to have autism than girls)—the algorithm identified up eight out of 10 kids with autism. “That’s pretty good, and a lot better than some behavioral tools,” says Hazlett. To train the algorithm, the team initially used half the data for training and the other half for testing—“the cleanest possible analysis,” according to team member Martin Styner, co-director of the Neuro Image Analysis and Research Lab at UNC. But at the request of reviewers, they subsequently performed a more standard 10-fold analysis, in which data is subdivided into 10 equal parts. Machine learning is then done 10 times, each time with 9 folds used for training and the 10th saved for testing. In the end, the final program gathers together the “testing only” results from all 10 rounds to use in its predictions. Happily, the two types of analyses—the initial 50/50 and the final 10-fold—showed virtually the same results, says Styner. And the team was pleased with the prediction accuracy. “We do expect roughly the same prediction accuracy when more subjects are added,” said co-author Brent Munsell, an assistant professor at College of Charleston, in an email to IEEE. “In general, over the last several years, deep learning approached that have been applied to image data have proved to be very accurate,” says Munsell. But, like our other recent stories on AI out-performing medical professionals, the results need to be replicated before we’ll see a computer-detected biomarker for autism. That will take some time, because it is difficult and expensive to get brain scans of young children for replication tests, emphasizes Hazlett. And such an expensive diagnostic test will not necessarily be appropriate for all kids, she adds. “It’s not something I can imagine being clinically useful for every baby being born.” But if a child were found to have some risk for autism through a genetic test or other marker, imaging could help identify brain changes that put them at greater risk, she notes.
|
|
|
|
Post by hebrews1135 on Jun 13, 2017 19:09:29 GMT
www.nowtheendbegins.com/ceo-tim-cook-says-apple-spending-billions-bring-self-driving-car-market-technology-autonomy/ CEO Tim Cook Says Apple Spending Billions To Bring Self-Driving Car Technology To Market
Apple had initially been seeking to build its own car, before recalibrating those ambitions last year to prioritize the underlying technology for autonomous driving, Bloomberg News reported. The iPhone maker had hired more than 1,000 engineers to work on Project Titan, as the car team is known internally, after it started in 2014.6/13/17 After years toiling away in secret on its car project, Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has for the first time laid out exactly what the company is up to in the automotive market: It’s concentrating on self-driving technology. “But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” Daniel 12:4 (KJV) EDITOR’S NOTE: One of the greatest technological changes that will radically change the world we live in is the self-driving vehicle. Though it sounds like science fiction, it’s not. Top tech companies like Apple, Tesla and Google are spending billions to make this a reality, and it absolutely is coming in the next 2-5 years. Are you ready for the iMove self-driving car? You better be, it’s coming. “We’re focusing on autonomous systems,” Cook said in a June 5 interview on Bloomberg Television that amounted to his most detailed comments yet on Apple’s automotive plans. “It’s a core technology that we view as very important.” He likened the effort to “the mother of all AI projects,” saying it’s “probably one of the most difficult AI projects to work on.” Cook Says Apple Is Focusing on Autonomous Car Systems: The prospect of self-driving cars has seen a slew of technology companies push into the auto industry, according to McKinsey & Co. Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo unit has signed partnerships with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and Lyft Inc. to develop the technology. And carmakers from BMW AG to General Motors Co. have opened sizable Silicon Valley offices and dedicated hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire autonomous vehicle startups. The Future of Apple’s Car Project: Apple had initially been seeking to build its own car, before recalibrating those ambitions last year to prioritize the underlying technology for autonomous driving, Bloomberg News reported. The iPhone maker had hired more than 1,000 engineers to work on Project Titan, as the car team is known internally, after it started in 2014. Ballooning costs and headcount led to Apple veteran Bob Mansfield being given the reins of the team in 2016. Cook has never before openly outlined Apple’s plans, though public filings have surfaced in recent months that provided snapshots of Apple’s efforts. Elon Musk Says All New Teslas Will Be Equipped for Self-Driving: The iPhone maker secured a permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles in April to test three self-driving sports-utility vehicles, photos of which emerged several weeks later. A half-dozen vehicles had been surreptitiously testing the autonomous technology on public roads in and around the San Francisco Bay area for at least a year, according to someone familiar with Project Titan. Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr declined to comment on how long the company has been conducting road tests. In December, Steve Kenner, Apple’s director of product integrity, penned a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration revealing the company’s interest in automotive technology. It became public when it was published on a federal website. In the letter, Kenner wrote about the company’s excitement surrounding the potential for automated systems in fields like transportation. “There is a major disruption looming there,” Cook said on Bloomberg Television, citing self-driving technology, electric vehicles and ride-hailing. “You’ve got kind of three vectors of change happening generally in the same time frame.” Cook was also bullish about the prospects for electric vehicles, a market which last week helped Tesla Inc. become the world’s fourth-biggestcarmaker by market capitalization, even as it ranks well outside the top 10 by unit sales. “It’s a marvelous experience not to stop at the filling station or the gas station,” Cook said. Apple invested $1 billion last year in Didi Chuxing, the biggest Chinese ride-hailing service. The announcement came soon after Mansfield took over Project Titan and set about cutting hundreds of engineers. Whereas Apple had initially been building its own car, Mansfield scrapped those plans in favor of building an autonomous driving system. The company will make a decision on whether to proceed with the push later this year, the people said at the time. In the interview on Bloomberg Television, Cook was hesitant to disclose whether Apple will ultimately manufacture its own car. “We’ll see where it takes us,” Cook said. “We’re not really saying from a product point of view what we will do.” source
|
|
|
|
Post by hebrews1135 on Jun 26, 2017 14:22:34 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by hebrews1135 on Jun 26, 2017 17:15:18 GMT
www.nowtheendbegins.com/iphone-siri-apple-smartphone-getting-ready-take-integrating-every-aspect-daily-life/iPhones And Siri Are Getting Ready To Take Over By Integrating Into Every Aspect Of Our Daily Life
Apple’s preview of iOS 11, with deeper integration of Siri than ever, suggests it hopes to make Siri capable of doing nearly everything on an iPhone that we currently do through its touch interface. Apple has also made many acquisitions related to augmented reality—the overlay of computer interfaces and three-dimensional objects on a person’s view of the real world—including Primesense and Metaio. Mr. Cook has said he is so excited about AR he wants to “yell out and scream.”6/26/17 It’s 2027, and you’re walking down the street, confident you’ll arrive at your destination even though you don’t know where it is. You may not even remember why your smartphone is telling you to go there. “And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” Revelation 13:17 (KJV) EDITOR’S NOTE: The progress and advancements being made now on smartphones, specifically the iPhone, are mind-boggling. But what a lot of people are missing as they embrace this new technology is the degree to which we are ceding control of our daily lives to our electronic minders. The Internet Of Things is now controlling our home heating and air conditioning systems, our cars, our finances, shopping, how we travel and our daily schedules. And that iPhone you currently hold in your hand is getting ready to take up residence inside your hand. Don’t believe it? You better. There’s a voice in your ear giving you turn-by-turn directions and, in between, prepping you for this meeting. Oh, right, you’re supposed to be interviewing a dog whisperer for your pet-psychiatry business. You arrive at the coffee shop, look around quizzically, and a woman you don’t recognize approaches. A display only you can see highlights her face and prints her name next to it in crisp block lettering, Terminator-style. Afterward, you’ll get an automatically generated transcript of everything the two of you said. As the iPhone this week marks the 10th anniversary of its first sale, it remains one of the most successful consumer products in history. But by the time it celebrates its 20th anniversary, the “phone” concept will be entirely uprooted: That dog-whisperer scenario will be brought to you even if you don’t have an iPhone in your pocket. Apple is busy putting ever more powerful microprocessors, and more wireless radios, in every one of its devices. Siri is getting smarter and popping up in more places. Meanwhile Apple is going deep on augmented reality, giving developers the ability to create apps in which our physical world is filled with everything from Pokémon to whatever IKEA furniture we want to try in our living rooms. All these technologies—interfacing with our smart homes, smart cars, even smart cities—will constitute not just a new way to interact with computers but a new way of life. And of course, worrisome levels of privacy invasion. Apple’s acquisitions—it buys a company every three to four weeks, Chief Executive Tim Cook has said—tend to be highly predictive of its future moves. Since it first bought Siri in 2010, Apple has continued to make acquisitions in artificial intelligence—Lattice Data, Turi and Perceptio among them, all of which specialize in some form of machine learning. The company is reportedly working on its own chips for AI.Apple’s preview of iOS 11, with deeper integration of Siri than ever, suggests it hopes to make Siri capable of doing nearly everything on an iPhone that we currently do through its touch interface. Apple has also made many acquisitions related to augmented reality—the overlay of computer interfaces and three-dimensional objects on a person’s view of the real world—including Primesense and Metaio. Mr. Cook has said he is so excited about AR he wants to “yell out and scream.”
By 2027, the problem of bulky AR headsets like Microsoft’s HoloLens should be solved, which means Apple and others are likely to release some sort of smart eyeglasses. With their ability to convincingly supplement our visual and auditory reality, delivering information at the time and place most appropriate, they’ll occasion a cultural change as big as the introduction of the smartphone itself.
|
|
|
|
Post by hebrews1135 on Jun 27, 2017 14:19:49 GMT
McDonalds Is Replacing 2,500 Human Cashiers With Digital Kiosks: Here Is Its Math6/23/17 The stock market is luvin' McDonalds stock, which has continued its recent relentless rise to all time highs, up 26% YTD, oblivious to the carnage among the broader restaurant and fast-food sector. There is a reason for Wall Street's euphoria: the same one we discussed in January in "Dear Bernie, Meet the "Big Mac ATM" That Will Replace All Of Your $15 Per Hour Fast Food Workers." In a report released this week by Cowen's Andrew Charles, the analyst calculates the jump in sales as a result of the company's new Experience of the Future strategy which anticipates that digital ordering kiosks (shown above) will replace cashiers in at least 2,500 restaurants by the end of 2017 and another 3,000 over 2018. Cowen also cited plans for the restaurant chain to roll out mobile ordering across 14,000 U.S. locations by the end of 2017 (we did not show that particular math, but the logic was similarly compelling). Here is a snapshot of the math that Cowen, likely in conjunction with management, used to come up with the cost-savings as McDonalds increasingly lays off more and more minimum wage workers and replaces them with "Big Mac ATMs" MCD is cultivating a digital platform through mobile ordering and Experience of the Future (EOTF), an in-store technological overhaul most conspicuous through kiosk ordering and table delivery. Our analysis suggests efforts should bear fruit in 2018 with a combined 130 bps contribution to U.S. comps. We believe mobile ordering better supplements the drive-thru business where 70%+ of U.S. sales are transacted. In our view, MCD's differentiation lies in the operational enhancements of mobile ordering that includes curbside pick-up of orders in order to not disrupt the drive-thru. rest: www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-23/mcdonalds-replacing-2500-human-cashiers-digital-kiosks-here-its-math
|
|
|
|
Post by hebrews1135 on Jun 28, 2017 22:32:49 GMT
Former Atheist Mark Zuckerberg Wants Facebook To Become More Like A ‘Church’ To Bring World ‘Closer Together’
“As I've travelled around and learned about different places, one theme is clear: every great community has great leaders. Think about it. A church doesn't just come together. It has a pastor who cares for the well-being of their congregation, makes sure they have food and shelter.”6/28/17 Mark Zuckerberg says he wants Facebook users to start playing a similar role to pastors in churches. He recently announced a new mission for the social network, which is set to focus on growing groups and communities to “bring the world closer together”. EDITOR’S NOTE: Last year, the former atheist Mark Zuckerberg announced that he had ‘found religion’ and celebrated Christmas for the first time. Now, he envisions Facebook as a ‘church’, and its nearly 2 billion users as ‘pastors’. Now I don’t know about you, but given Facebook’s overpowering influence around the globe, I find this new direction to be than just a little creepy. Is Zuckerberg selling…or buying? Since these are the end times, I’m thinking he’s buying. He believes the site can be used to unite what he sees as a “divided” society, and make users feel like they are “part of something bigger”. Facebook has been using artificial intelligence to recommend groups to users, and Mr Zuckerberg says the approach led to a 50 per cent increase in people joining them, within six months. However, while the site has almost two billion users, Mr Zuckerberg says “only” 100 million of them are currently part of “meaningful communities”. He wants that figure to rise to a billion. “If we can do this, it will not only turn around the whole decline in community membership we’ve seen for decades, it will start to strengthen our social fabric and bring the world closer together,” he said. “As I’ve travelled around and learned about different places, one theme is clear: every great community has great leaders. Think about it. A church doesn’t just come together. It has a pastor who cares for the well-being of their congregation, makes sure they have food and shelter.” He added, “Leaders set the culture, inspire us, give us a safety net, and look out for us.” He singled out a number of administrators for praise, including the leader of a support group for women and the leader of a locksmith group. “Communities give us that sense that we are part of something bigger than ourselves, that we are not alone, that we have something better ahead to work for,” he said. A typical day in the life of Mark Zuckerberg “We all get meaning from our communities. Whether they’re churches, sports teams, or neighbourhood groups, they give us the strength to expand our horizons and care about broader issues. Studies have proven the more connected we are, the happier we feel and the healthier we are. “People who go to church are more likely to volunteer and give to charity — not just because they’re religious, but because they’re part of a community. “That’s why it’s so striking that for decades, membership in all kinds of groups has declined as much as one-quarter. That’s a lot of people who now need to find a sense of purpose and support somewhere else.” source www.nowtheendbegins.com/mark-zuckerberg-wants-facebook-become-like-church-bring-world-closer-together/
|
|
