Hammersmith and Fulham
Generation with Dynamic Vocabulary
Liu, Yanting, Ji, Tao, Sun, Changzhi, Wu, Yuanbin, Wang, Xiaoling
We introduce a new dynamic vocabulary for language models. It can involve arbitrary text spans during generation. These text spans act as basic generation bricks, akin to tokens in the traditional static vocabularies. We show that, the ability to generate multi-tokens atomically improve both generation quality and efficiency (compared to the standard language model, the MAUVE metric is increased by 25%, the latency is decreased by 20%). The dynamic vocabulary can be deployed in a plug-and-play way, thus is attractive for various downstream applications. For example, we demonstrate that dynamic vocabulary can be applied to different domains in a training-free manner. It also helps to generate reliable citations in question answering tasks (substantially enhancing citation results without compromising answer accuracy).
Monitoring Machine Learning Forecasts for Platform Data Streams
Data stream forecasts are essential inputs for decision making at digital platforms. Machine learning algorithms are appealing candidates to produce such forecasts. Yet, digital platforms require a large-scale forecast framework that can flexibly respond to sudden performance drops. Re-training ML algorithms at the same speed as new data batches enter is usually computationally too costly. On the other hand, infrequent re-training requires specifying the re-training frequency and typically comes with a severe cost of forecast deterioration. To ensure accurate and stable forecasts, we propose a simple data-driven monitoring procedure to answer the question when the ML algorithm should be re-trained. Instead of investigating instability of the data streams, we test if the incoming streaming forecast loss batch differs from a well-defined reference batch. Using a novel dataset constituting 15-min frequency data streams from an on-demand logistics platform operating in London, we apply the monitoring procedure to popular ML algorithms including random forest, XGBoost and lasso. We show that monitor-based re-training produces accurate forecasts compared to viable benchmarks while preserving computational feasibility. Moreover, the choice of monitoring procedure is more important than the choice of ML algorithm, thereby permitting practitioners to combine the proposed monitoring procedure with one's favorite forecasting algorithm.
Show, Write, and Retrieve: Entity-aware Article Generation and Retrieval
Zhang, Zhongping, Gu, Yiwen, Plummer, Bryan A.
Article comprehension is an important challenge in natural language processing with many applications such as article generation or image-to-article retrieval. Prior work typically encodes all tokens in articles uniformly using pretrained language models. However, in many applications, such as understanding news stories, these articles are based on real-world events and may reference many named entities that are difficult to accurately recognize and predict by language models. To address this challenge, we propose an ENtity-aware article GeneratIoN and rEtrieval (ENGINE) framework, to explicitly incorporate named entities into language models. ENGINE has two main components: a named-entity extraction module to extract named entities from both metadata and embedded images associated with articles, and an entity-aware mechanism that enhances the model's ability to recognize and predict entity names. We conducted experiments on three public datasets: GoodNews, VisualNews, and WikiText, where our results demonstrate that our model can boost both article generation and article retrieval performance, with a 4-5 perplexity improvement in article generation and a 3-4% boost in recall@1 in article retrieval. We release our implementation at https://github.com/Zhongping-Zhang/ENGINE .
Meet the London brothers trailblazing AI solutions for local councils
Two brothers whose grandmother was left unaided for hours after a fall, have developed AI technology to help local authorities reach hundreds of shielding, isolated or digitally excluded residents. Monty and Hector Alexander are working with Hammersmith and Fulham council to pilot their automated voice call system that phones households every fortnight to ask whether they need help during the Covid-19 pandemic. At the ages of 24 and 26, the brothers said they decided to harness their tech expertise to find solutions to social issues rather than joining a big corporate machine or tech giant. The brothers, who live in White City, founded the start-up Yokeru while Monty was still studying mechanical engineering at Imperial College London last year in an attempt to "improve communication between vulnerable people and caregivers". Much of their motivations were personal after their grandmother was left stranded outside her residential home for eight hours after falling over, even with the home's 24/7 care.
The Amazing Ways Babylon Health Is Using Artificial Intelligence To Make Healthcare Universally Accessible
Babylon, a UK start-up, plans to "put an accessible and affordable health service in the hands of every person on earth" by putting artificial intelligence (AI) tools to work. Currently, the company has operations in the UK and Rwanda and hopes to expand to the Middle East, the United States, and China. The company's strategy is to combine the power of AI with the medical expertise of humans to deliver unparalleled access to healthcare. The Amazing Ways Babylon Health Is Using Artificial Intelligence To Make Healthcare Universally ... [ ] Accessible Babylon's engineers, doctors, and scientists developed an AI system that can receive data about the symptoms someone is suffering from, compare the information to a database of known conditions and illnesses to find possible matches, and then identify a course of action and related risk factors. People can use the "Ask Babylon" feature to inquire about their medical concerns to get an initial understanding of what they might be dealing with, but this service is not intended to replace the expertise of a doctor or be used in a medical emergency.
Dominic Cummings accused of conflict of interest over NHS fund
Boris Johnson's most senior aide, Dominic Cummings, is facing conflict of interest accusations over a consultancy role he undertook for a government-endorsed healthcare startup that is in position to receive a share of a new £250m flagship public fund. Cummings advised Babylon Health, a controversial artificial intelligence (AI) firm working within the NHS, on its communications strategy and its senior recruitment, an investigation by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism can reveal. A GP app developed by the company was later backed publicly on multiple occasions by the health secretary, Matt Hancock. The former Vote Leave campaign director's formal role with Babylon concluded in July last year but he continued to advise the firm about recruitment until September 2018 – the same month Hancock visited the firm and told staff he wanted the NHS to help the company expand. In August this year, shortly after Boris Johnson entered No 10 with Cummings as his top adviser, Downing Street and the Department of Health announced a £250m fund to boost the use of AI in the NHS by using automated systems for diagnoses or data analysis.
AI for Crime Prevention and Detection - 5 Current Applications
Companies and cities all over world are experimenting with using artificial intelligence to reduce and prevent crime, and to more quickly respond to crimes in progress. The ideas behind many of these projects is that crimes are relatively predictable; it just requires being able to sort through a massive volume of data to find patterns that are useful to law enforcement. This kind of data analysis was technologically impossible a few decades ago, but the hope is that recent developments in machine learning are up to the task. There is good reason why companies and government are both interested in trying to use AI in this manner. As of 2010, the United States spent over $80 billion a year on incarations at the state, local, and federal levels. Estimates put the United States' total spending on law enforcement at over $100 billion a year. Law enforcement and prisons make up a substantial percentage of local government budgets.