data
data
Google Will No Longer Scan Gmail for Ad Targeting
…but the New York Times reminds that Google will continue reading your email for other purposes.
algorithms
Social Cooling
Tijmen Schep coins a phrase to describe the chilling effect of the reputation economy on the expression and exploration of ideas.
algorithms
How Germany’s Otto Uses Artificial Intelligence
Machine learning is trying to one-up just-in-time inventory with what can only be called before-it’s-time inventory.
algorithms
“Algorithms Aren’t Racist. Your Skin Is Just Too Dark.”
Joy Buolamwini surfaces bias in facial recognition software—and responds to some screwed-up criticism.
algorithms
No Need for Alarm About How Neural Nets Work
Albert Wenger says it doesn’t matter if we can’t understand or audit the logic of the algorithms that run our lives.
bots
Facebook’s Perfect, Impossible Chatbot
Facebook is prototyping its omniscient bot by powering it with people, the MIT Technology Review reports.
sentient design
Our Machines Now Have Knowledge We’ll Never Understand
In Backchannel, David Weinberger considers the implications of machines constructing their own models for understanding data, quite divorced from our own (more simplistic) models.
sentient design
Algorithm-Driven Design: How AI is Changing Design
Designer Yury Vetrov collected a wide-ranging set of design projects and tools where bots are the designers.
ai
The Dark Secret at the Heart of AI
MIT Technology Review covers the unknowable logic of our most sophisticated algorithms—and the implications of having no idea how they actually work.
algorithms
Google Launches New Effort To Flag Upsetting or Offensive Content in Search
Search Engine Land reports that its 10,000 human reviewers will start flagging offensive content in an effort to train the algorithm what hate speech looks like.
ai
Federated Learning: Collaborative Machine Learning without Centralized Training Data
Google has begun offloading some of its machine learning to mobile devices to keep your private data… private.
google
Fact Check Now Available in Google Search and News
Google’s move to highlight fact-checking sites may be a promising step in identifying hostile information zones in search results.
security
Set Up Your Own Private VPN with Streisand
This remarkable software project gives you a private VPN service with easy setup at low cost and zero maintenance.
physical ui
Companies Start Implanting Microchips Into Workers’ Bodies
The AP reports that the convenience/privacy tradeoff is literally getting under workers’ skin.
wearables
Smart Watches, Wearables, and That Nasty Data Rash
The real luxury of wearing information is not in exposing ourselves to every passing data point but in filtering that data in ways that deliver insight and amplify our humanity.