This paper introduces RiskCards, a framework for structured assessment and documentation of risks associated with an application of language models. As with all language, text generated by language models can be harmful, or used to bring about harm. Automating language generation adds both an element of scale and also more subtle or emergent undesirable tendencies to the generated text. Prior work establishes a wide variety of language model harms to many different actors: existing taxonomies identify categories of harms posed by language models; benchmarks establish automated tests of these harms; and documentation standards for models, tasks and datasets encourage transparent reporting. However, there is no risk-centric framework for documenting the complexity of a landscape in which some risks are shared across models and contexts, while others are specific, and where certain conditions may be required for risks to manifest as harms. RiskCards address this methodological gap by providing a generic framework for assessing the use of a given language model in a given scenario. Each RiskCard makes clear the routes for the risk to manifest harm, their placement in harm taxonomies, and example prompt-output pairs. While RiskCards are designed to be open-source, dynamic and participatory, we present a "starter set" of RiskCards taken from a broad literature survey, each of which details a concrete risk presentation. Language model RiskCards initiate a community knowledge base which permits the mapping of risks and harms to a specific model or its application scenario, ultimately contributing to a better, safer and shared understanding of the risk landscape.

As geospatial machine learning models and maps derived from their predictions are increasingly used for downstream analyses in science and policy, it is imperative to evaluate their accuracy and applicability. Geospatial machine learning has key distinctions from other learning paradigms, and as such, the correct way to measure performance of spatial machine learning outputs has been a topic of debate. In this paper, I delineate unique challenges of model evaluation for geospatial machine learning with global or remotely sensed datasets, culminating in concrete takeaways to improve evaluations of geospatial model performance. Geospatial machine learning (ML), for example with remotely sensed data, is being used across consequential domains, including public health (Nilsen et al., 2021; Draidi Areed et al., 2022) conservation (Sofaer et al., 2019), food security (Nakalembe, 2018), and wealth estimation (Jean et al., 2016; Chi et al., 2022). By both their use and their very nature, geospatial predictions have a purpose beyond model benchmarking; mapped data are to be read, scrutinized, and acted upon.

This paper presents a review of the field of reinforcement learning (RL), with a focus on providing a comprehensive overview of the key concepts, techniques, and algorithms for beginners. RL has a unique setting, jargon, and mathematics that can be intimidating for those new to the field or artificial intelligence more broadly. While many papers review RL in the context of specific applications, such as games, healthcare, finance, or robotics, these papers can be difficult for beginners to follow due to the inclusion of non-RL-related work and the use of algorithms customized to those specific applications. To address these challenges, this paper provides a clear and concise overview of the fundamental principles of RL and covers the different types of RL algorithms. For each algorithm/method, we outline the main motivation behind its development, its inner workings, and its limitations. The presentation of the paper is aligned with the historical progress of the field, from the early 1980s Q-learning algorithm to the current state-of-the-art algorithms such as TD3, PPO, and offline RL. Overall, this paper aims to serve as a valuable resource for beginners looking to construct a solid understanding of the fundamentals of RL and be aware of the historical progress of the field. It is intended to be a go-to reference for those interested in learning about RL without being distracted by the details of specific applications.

Sound correspondence patterns form the basis of cognate detection and phonological reconstruction in historical language comparison. Methods for the automatic inference of correspondence patterns from phonetically aligned cognate sets have been proposed, but their application to multilingual wordlists requires extremely well annotated datasets. Since annotation is tedious and time consuming, it would be desirable to find ways to improve aligned cognate data automatically. Taking inspiration from trimming techniques in evolutionary biology, which improve alignments by excluding problematic sites, we propose a workflow that trims phonetic alignments in comparative linguistics prior to the inference of correspondence patterns. Testing these techniques on a large standardized collection of ten datasets with expert annotations from different language families, we find that the best trimming technique substantially improves the overall consistency of the alignments. The results show a clear increase in the proportion of frequent correspondence patterns and words exhibiting regular cognate relations.

'Reincarnation' in reinforcement learning has been proposed as a formalisation of reusing prior computation from past experiments when training an agent in an environment. In this paper, we present a brief foray into the paradigm of reincarnation in the multi-agent (MA) context. We consider the case where only some agents are reincarnated, whereas the others are trained from scratch -- selective reincarnation. In the fully-cooperative MA setting with heterogeneous agents, we demonstrate that selective reincarnation can lead to higher returns than training fully from scratch, and faster convergence than training with full reincarnation. However, the choice of which agents to reincarnate in a heterogeneous system is vitally important to the outcome of the training -- in fact, a poor choice can lead to considerably worse results than the alternatives. We argue that a rich field of work exists here, and we hope that our effort catalyses further energy in bringing the topic of reincarnation to the multi-agent realm.

This paper discusses OpenAIs ChatGPT, a generative pre-trained transformer, which uses natural language processing to fulfill text-based user requests (i.e., a chatbot). The history and principles behind ChatGPT and similar models are discussed. This technology is then discussed in relation to its potential impact on academia and scholarly research and publishing. ChatGPT is seen as a potential model for the automated preparation of essays and other types of scholarly manuscripts. Potential ethical issues that could arise with the emergence of large language models like GPT-3, the underlying technology behind ChatGPT, and its usage by academics and researchers, are discussed and situated within the context of broader advancements in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing for research and scholarly publishing.

In this paper, we investigate the optimal statistical performance and the impact of computational constraints for independent component analysis (ICA). Our goal is twofold. On the one hand, we characterize the precise role of dimensionality on sample complexity and statistical accuracy, and how computational consideration may affect them. In particular, we show that the optimal sample complexity is linear in dimensionality, and interestingly, the commonly used sample kurtosis-based approaches are necessarily suboptimal. However, the optimal sample complexity becomes quadratic, up to a logarithmic factor, in the dimension if we restrict ourselves to estimates that can be computed with low-degree polynomial algorithms. On the other hand, we develop computationally tractable estimates that attain both the optimal sample complexity and minimax optimal rates of convergence. We study the asymptotic properties of the proposed estimates and establish their asymptotic normality that can be readily used for statistical inferences. Our method is fairly easy to implement and numerical experiments are presented to further demonstrate its practical merits.

A brain wave reader that can detect lies. Miniaturized cameras that sit inside vape pens and disposable coffee cups. Massive video cameras that zoom in more than a kilometer to capture faces and license plates. At a police conference in Dubai in March, new technologies for the security forces of the future were up for sale. Far from the eyes of the general public, the event provided a rare look at what tools are now available to law enforcement around the world: better and harder-to-detect surveillance, facial recognition software that automatically tracks individuals across cities and computers to break into phones.

Get key market news and events before everyone else. Click Here to See if you Qualify. The advancements made in technology have significantly impacted society and human life in different aspects. The developments made in artificial intelligence or AI are seen in all major industries that exist. AI has helped to improve and amplify effectiveness and productivity as it has helped to optimize human tasks.

As a data scientist or machine learning engineer, you spend much of your time improving a model's performance by creating new features, comparing different types of models, trying out new model architectures, and much more. In the end, it's the score on the test set that counts, so that is what you focus on when deciding on a model. However, as important as the model performance may be, there are other, secondary criteria you shouldn't forget about. What do you get from a model with almost perfect scores, if your MLOps department can't host it? How does the user feel, if the prediction is accurate, but it takes ages to get it?