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Letter from Africa: Why Kenya's taxman is eyeing social media – BBC News

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This includes blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning and data mining technologies. The camera does not lie.


Time Series Data Mining Algorithms Towards Scalable and Real-Time Behavior Monitoring

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

In recent years, there have been unprecedented technological advances in sensor technology, and sensors have become more affordable than ever. Thus, sensor-driven data collection is increasingly becoming an attractive and practical option for researchers around the globe. Such data is typically extracted in the form of time series data, which can be investigated with data mining techniques to summarize behaviors of a range of subjects including humans and animals. While enabling cheap and mass collection of data, continuous sensor data recording results in datasets which are big in size and volume, which are challenging to process and analyze with traditional techniques in a timely manner. Such collected sensor data is typically extracted in the form of time series data. There are two main approaches in the literature, namely, shape-based classification and feature-based classification. Shape-based classification determines the best class according to a distance measure. Feature-based classification, on the other hand, measures properties of the time series and finds the best class according to the set of features defined for the time series. In this dissertation, we demonstrate that neither of the two techniques will dominate for some problems, but that some combination of both might be the best. In other words, on a single problem, it might be possible that one of the techniques is better for one subset of the behaviors, and the other technique is better for another subset of behaviors. We introduce a hybrid algorithm to classify behaviors, using both shape and feature measures, in weakly labeled time series data collected from sensors to quantify specific behaviors performed by the subject. We demonstrate that our algorithm can robustly classify real, noisy, and complex datasets, based on a combination of shape and features, and tested our proposed algorithm on real-world datasets.


Mercedes Is Now Approved For Level 3 Autonomous Tech

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It wasn't long ago that everyone from Ford to Tesla was confidently promising fully autonomous self-driving cars by 2020. Well, 2020 has come and gone and Tesla hasn't been able to do its'coast-to-coast' driverless road trip and Ford hasn't sold a single self-driving car. This is no reflection on any of the many companies working on various self-driving technologies, but rather an indication of how difficult it is to replace the imperfect human behind the wheel with a machine. So instead of replacing the human, companies are turning their attention to assisting the driver with some laborious yet important driving functions. These systems, known as Advanced Driver Assist Systems (ADAS), are divided into six levels according to the level of automation.


second-largest-ai-talent-pool-bengaluru-city-ranks-fifth-in-diversity-among-ai-workers-harvard-business-review-26461.html

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Bengaluru features in the top five cities on Harvard Business review where diversity is high in the AI sector. Diversity and inclusive pool of talent developing AI matters to the reviewers as AI developers are influenced by their own world views, which, in turn, guide them in their selection of applications, datasets, and training of algorithms. The data from the Fletcher school, Tufts university is derived and pitted against indicators such as talent pool, investments, diversity of talent, evolution of the country's digital foundations or TIDE. The reviewers believe that the factors collectively give companies a way to prioritise their AI talent sourcing choices by scoring the different locations on the concentration, quality and diversity of the AI talent pool. Top four cities are San Francisco, New York, Boston and Seattle respectively.


Explainable Artificial Intelligence Methods in Combating Pandemics: A Systematic Review

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Despite the myriad peer-reviewed papers demonstrating novel Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based solutions to COVID-19 challenges during the pandemic, few have made significant clinical impact. The impact of artificial intelligence during the COVID-19 pandemic was greatly limited by lack of model transparency. This systematic review examines the use of Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) during the pandemic and how its use could overcome barriers to real-world success. We find that successful use of XAI can improve model performance, instill trust in the end-user, and provide the value needed to affect user decision-making. We introduce the reader to common XAI techniques, their utility, and specific examples of their application. Evaluation of XAI results is also discussed as an important step to maximize the value of AI-based clinical decision support systems. We illustrate the classical, modern, and potential future trends of XAI to elucidate the evolution of novel XAI techniques. Finally, we provide a checklist of suggestions during the experimental design process supported by recent publications. Common challenges during the implementation of AI solutions are also addressed with specific examples of potential solutions. We hope this review may serve as a guide to improve the clinical impact of future AI-based solutions.


Research on Artificial Intelligence for spy craft : Intelligence community insights.

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Artificial intelligence is a rapidly evolving field of technology. Kenya as a third world country has not lagged behind in making a comprehensive step towards promoting and implementing AI technology although it will take time to fully embrace it. The Kenyan government has used this technology to improve health, agriculture and government services. As an AI engineer, I firmly believe that these emerging technologies have a significant impact on national security. As NIS mission is to gather intelligence, analyse and apply results to predict the various outcomes and actions that need to be taken, it follows new integration tools provided by the machine learning that will significantly reduce the time NIS analysts and operators may use to analyze Intelligence data. it draws conclusions in it, and advises the Government accordingly on appropriate intelligence reports.


The Continent's Africans of the Year: Timnit Gebru

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At the end of a tumultuous year for both her professional life and her country of ancestry, Dr Timnit Gebru decided to do more than complain about the impact that technology was having on political discourse and established an institute specifically to address the harms that artificial intelligence (AI) causes on marginalised groups. Not everyone would have the courage to take on a company so large that it's name is a verb -- over both its human resources record and on its policies -- but in a year in which the choices of tech companies have dominated political discourse, it is one of the more urgent questions of our time, and Gebru is on it. Through her public criticism of Google, Gebru has highlighted an important and developing debate in tech policy research. Her public confrontations online with senior management at Google underscore the ways in which tech platforms claiming to encourage research on their own systems end up producing hackneyed and partial accounts because they are unwilling to allow their work to stand up to true, rigorous, academic scrutiny. This is the challenge faced by researchers trying to understand the impact that algorithms are having on the way we receive, consume and respond to political information curated by proprietary AI models: How can we truly understand the impact that technology is having on our public sphere if the tech companies won't let anyone see what's under the bonnet?


With second-largest AI talent pool, Bengaluru ranked fifth in world

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BENGALURU: Bengaluru has emerged among the top five cities in the world for Artificial Intelligence (AI), ranked at No. 5, with the first four being cities in the USA. The ranking is among top 50 AI cities, measured by the TIDE Framework and listed by Harvard Business Review (HBR). The top four cities are San Francisco, New York, Boston and Seattle. Reviewers have noted that Bengaluru also has the world's second-largest AI talent pool and is ranked fifth for diversity among AI workers, as measured by data from Fletcher school, Tufts University, and derived at based on a framework of indicators such as talent pool, investments, diversity of talent, evolution of the country's digital foundations (TIDE). Another feather in Bengaluru's cap is that it is also among cities on HBR's list of AI hotspots in the developing world -- these cities also score favourably on the cost of living, which could be a powerful draw for diverse talent, the reviewers noted.


African researchers aim to rescue languages that Western tech ignores

USATODAY - Tech Top Stories

Computers have become amazingly precise at translating spoken words to text messages and scouring huge troves of information for answers to complex questions. At least, that is, so long as you speak English or another of the world's dominant languages. But try talking to your phone in Yoruba, Igbo or any number of widely spoken African languages and you'll find glitches that can hinder access to information, trade, personal communications, customer service and other benefits of the global tech economy. "We are getting to the point where if a machine doesn't understand your language it will be like it never existed," said Vukosi Marivate, chief of data science at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, in a call to action before a December virtual gathering of the world's artificial intelligence researchers. American tech giants don't have a great track record of making their language technology work well outside the wealthiest markets, a problem that's also made it harder for them to detect dangerous misinformation on their platforms.


US foreign policy in 2021: Key moments in Biden's first term

Al Jazeera

The administration of President Joe Biden entered office on January 20, 2021, pledging a broad-strokes overhaul of how Washington interacts with the world, promising to be a distinct counterpoint to the disruptive, go-it-alone posture of former President Donald Trump, and tying stability and prosperity at home to US interests abroad in his so-called "foreign policy for the middle class". As 2021 ends, the administration has indeed sought to re-up relations with key allies and position itself as a central player in combating global crises, but has faced criticism for failing to live up to vows of a human rights-leading foreign policy and for what some have described as an over-emphasis on sweeping ideological differences at a time when global cooperation -- particularly between superpowers -- is sorely needed. "2021 was a year of transition. President Biden replaced Trump's impetuousness with pragmatism and realism. There is a greater understanding of what US policy actually is," PJ Crowley, the former US assistant secretary of state for public affairs under President Barack Obama, told Al Jazeera.