Africa
A beauty contest was judged by AI and the robots didn't like dark skin
The first international beauty contest judged by "machines" was supposed to use objective factors such as facial symmetry and wrinkles to identify the most attractive contestants. After Beauty.AI launched this year, roughly 6,000 people from more than 100 countries submitted photos in the hopes that artificial intelligence, supported by complex algorithms, would determine that their faces most closely resembled "human beauty". But when the results came in, the creators were dismayed to see that there was a glaring factor linking the winners: the robots did not like people with dark skin. Out of 44 winners, nearly all were white, a handful were Asian, and only one had dark skin. That's despite the fact that, although the majority of contestants were white, many people of color submitted photos, including large groups from India and Africa.
Machine learning just got more human with Google's RankBrain
One day the AIs are going to look back on us the same way we look at fossil skeletons on the plains of Africa. An upright ape living in dust with crude language and tools, all set for extinction. Ex Machina, a Hollywood blockbuster made on a 15 million budget, tells the story of a programmer who is invited by his employer, the eccentric billionaire Nathan Bateman who built a fictional search engine called Blue Book, to administer the Turing test to an android with artificial intelligence, which essentially determines whether a computer can trick a human into believing she is having a conversation with another human. Everything in our online life is indexed. Every idle tweet, status update, or curious search query feeds the Google database.
Machine learning just got more human with Google's RankBrain
One day the AIs are going to look back on us the same way we look at fossil skeletons on the plains of Africa. An upright ape living in dust with crude language and tools, all set for extinction. Ex Machina, a Hollywood blockbuster made on a 15 million budget, tells the story of a programmer who is invited by his employer, the eccentric billionaire Nathan Bateman who built a fictional search engine called Blue Book, to administer the Turing test to an android with artificial intelligence, which essentially determines whether a computer can trick a human into believing she is having a conversation with another human. Everything in our online life is indexed. Every idle tweet, status update, or curious search query feeds the Google database.
Using Deep Learning to Track Poverty with Satellites
Researchers at Stanford University are utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) to identify areas of poverty in hard-to-reach places. Publishing their research in Science Magazine, the team consisting of Neal Jean, Marshall Burke, Michael Xie, Matthew Davis, David Lobell, and Stefano Ermon used deep learning algorithms to sort through millions of satellite images to identify economic conditions in five African countries. This research supports a forecast Tractica made over a year ago in our Artificial Intelligence for Enterprise Applications report, that spending on AI software by philanthropy organizations will grow dramatically over the next 10 years. Traditionally, philanthropy organizations have conducted door-to-door surveys to identify people living in poverty, but these surveys are imprecise, time-consuming, and expensive. Many international aid organizations including the World Bank have been trying to use satellite surveys to gather data remotely on developing countries, but the expense of gathering and analyzing this data using conventional methods has proven prohibitive.
Systematic Trading Based on Big Data: Returns Up to 6.85% in 7 Days
Package Name: International Stocks Forecast Length: 7 Days (08/28/2016 – 09/04/2016) I Know First Average: 6.85% The highest returning stock for the 7 days period was. The package's overall average return was 6.85%, providing investors with a 6.35% premium, over the SP500's return of 0.50%, during the same period. Mechel Sp ADR (MTL) engages in mining and steel businesses in Asia,the Russian Federation, the Commonwealth of Independent States, Europe, the Middle East, the United States, and internationally. Mechel PAO works in three different sectors,Mining, Steel, and Power.
Was SpaceX rocket hit by a drone?
A grainy video uploaded to YouTube appears to show a small object flying over the SpaceX rocket moments before it exploded. SpaceX said an'anomaly' had occurred while the rocket was being loaded with fuel. No was injured in the blast. The rocket's payload, an Israeli-built communications satellite for Facebook due to launch on Saturday, was also destroyed. A video of the blast, posted to the site by Steve Svensson, appears to show a silver spherical object flying close to rocket when the blast happened.
Rewiring India's Bureaucracy With Artificial Intelligence
Nairobi, Dec 19 (PTI) The WTO talks entered the fifth day today as a deadlock continued over reducing farm subsidies and on providing protection to poor farmers of developing nations, such as India, in case of import surge. The 10th WTO Ministerial was originally scheduled to end last night but developed and developing countries failed to iron out differences on these issues. "The meeting is still on since last night," sources said, adding that a small group of countries -- India, the US, EU, China and Brazil - are discussing the issues. India has made it clear that it would not compromise the interests of farmers and agri-related sectors. It has also asserted to include the public stockholding issue for food security purposes in the preamble of the Nairobi declaration. It also wants that special safeguard mechanism (SSM) should be delinked from market access.
Asset managers face margin pressure as AuM declines
Dubai: In keeping with the global decline the growth of assets under management (AuM), the Middle East also witnessed a sharp fall in the total AuM last year, according to a study by Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Globally, AuM stalled with marginal growth last year. The BCG report shows the global value of AuM rose just 1 per cent in 2015, to 71.4 trillion (Dh262 trillion) from 70.5 trillion in 2014, after growing 8 per cent that year, and at an average annualised rate of 5 per cent from 2008 through 2014. In contrast, the Middle East's AuM declined 10 per cent and net new flows of assets, revenue growth, and revenue margins all dipped lower in 2015. In absolute terms the region's AuM plummeted from 1.4 trillion in 2014 to 1.3 trillion in 2015.
Machine learning just got more human with Google's RankBrain
One day the AIs are going to look back on us the same way we look at fossil skeletons on the plains of Africa. An upright ape living in dust with crude language and tools, all set for extinction. Ex Machina, a Hollywood blockbuster made on a 15 million budget, tells the story of a programmer who is invited by his employer, the eccentric billionaire Nathan Bateman who built a fictional search engine called Blue Book, to administer the Turing test to an android with artificial intelligence, which essentially determines whether a computer can trick a human into believing she is having a conversation with another human. Everything in our online life is indexed. Every idle tweet, status update, or curious search query feeds the Google database.
Four key trends to radically alter the workforce by 2035 Zawya
The decline of a single company culture, a surge in freelance workers, a workforce reshaped by artificial intelligence, and a 13% leap in productivity for companies that invest in employee wellness programs, are among the key trends that will define the state of the workforce in the Middle East over the next two decades. The last of these trends could generate as much as a 0.1% to 0.3% uplift in the GDP of a typical OECD country, according to predictions by UBS. Jürg Zeltner, President of Wealth Management at UBS, said: "The workplace is becoming far more complex. The relationship between employee and employer looks set to change significantly in the coming years, especially among workers who are currently only a short way into their careers. It is important that we prepare for these changes. Not only could they impact us, but also a number of our clients who run and own their businesses."