This year's PyData London conference was held in Bloomberg's offices on the 6th and 7th of May, with Tutorial Day on May 5th. As was the case with PyData Amsterdam 2017, I made the time to watch all of the talks from the conference, and write a blog post about the ones I found the most interesting. As I'm a huge fan of Random Forests, and consider them to pretty much be Data Science 101, I thoroughly enjoyed the talk given by Nathan Epstein from conference host Bloomberg. He gave a very good intuitive introduction to how the algorithm works, and also spoke about its advantages over Neural Networks - something very useful in a time when everyone is really gung-ho over Deep Learning and "AI". Ian Ozsvald, author of the great "High-Performance Python", together with Guzstav Belteki and Giles Weaver, presented a piece of research they did for the NHS, using data collected from ventilators used in neonatal wards.

Beyond membership in the Pantheon of Famous Brits, Winston Churchill and George Orwell would seem to have little in the way of common ground. Orwell was a journalist and novelist. Churchill had money and pedigree; the young Orwell lived on the street and raised his own vegetables during World War II. Churchill's political leanings were conservative; Orwell flirted with communism until he witnessed the betrayal of his Republican comrades by Soviet agents in the Spanish Civil War. In "Churchill & Orwell: The Fight for Freedom," Thomas E. Ricks gets beyond these differences and finds the iron core of both men.

Digitalisation is omnipresent, is changing people and markets in the long term at an ever-increasing speed. Absolute requirements are continual adaptation and realignment of products and services. For all intents and purposes, the new technological framework, made up of Cloud computing, mobile networks, CPU power and massive storage capacities, means innovations are no longer coming up against limitations. We just need to think about pioneering technical innovations such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, self-driving vehicles, robots and nanosensors. Whilst many of these technologies may not yet have reached maturity, they all have massive development potential and point towards significant changes.

"We recently introduced AI claims handling ... and saved 40,000 work hours, while speeding up the claim processing time to five seconds," Tom de Swaan said, after the insurer started using machines in March to review paperwork, such as medical reports. "We absolutely plan to expand the use of this type of AI," he said. Insurers are racing to hone the benefits of technological advancements such as big data and AI as tech-driven startups, like Lemonade Inc, enter the market. Lemonade promises renters and homeowners insurance in as little as 90 seconds and payment of claims in three minutes with the help of artificial intelligence bots that set up policies and process claims. De Swaan said Zurich Insurance, Europe's fifth-biggest insurer, would increasingly use machine learning, or AI, for handling claims.

It's the ultimate dating dream: a place filled with top-notch single people who don't behave like assholes. One app thinks they've cracked the code by insisting on good manners, but is it really that easy? Inner Circle wants to be your go-to place for finding decent human beings who you actually want to date. The app, which started in Amsterdam in 2012, promises a selective group of "smart, hot, ambitious professionals." After spreading throughout Europe, they debuted in New York at the end of last year.

Top network across the global media and entertainment ecosystem with proven track record in Europe and Latin America. Deep knowledge about Internet TV and Video applications from Business Plan, design, architecture definition to development on all platforms from mobile, game console, smart TV and STB. Hands-on startup leader, involved in all operational aspects of growing a business. Specialties: - Growing business from the greenfield to profitability - Video focused Start-ups - Artificial intelligence and Big Data - Business development - Internet TV/Video business models - Strategic partnerships - Connected Devices Lived in Silicon Valley (San Francisco) and Spain.

This is the 2-part blog version of a talk I've given at DOAG Conference this week. I've also uploaded the slides (no ppt; just pretty R presentation;-)) to the articles section, but if you'd like a little text I'm encouraging you to read on. That is, if you're in the target group for this post/talk. For this post, let me assume you're a SQL girl (or guy). With SQL you're comfortable (an expert, probably), you know how to get and manipulate your data, no nesting of subselects has you scared;-).

Artificial intelligence can put words right into your mouth. A new system takes a still image of a person and an audio clip, and uses them to create a doctored video of the person speaking the audio. The results are still a little rough around the edges, but the software could soon make realistically fake videos only a single click away. It works by first identifying facial features using face-recognition algorithms. As the audio clip plays, the system then manipulates the mouth of the person in the still image so that it looks as if they are speaking.

Machines are eating humans' jobs talents. And it's not just about jobs that are repetitive and low-skill. Automation, robotics, algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) in recent times have shown they can do equal or sometimes even better work than humans who are dermatologists, insurance claims adjusters, lawyers, seismic testers in oil fields, sports journalists and financial reporters, crew members on guided-missile destroyers, hiring managers, psychological testers, retail salespeople, and border patrol agents. Moreover, there is growing anxiety that technology developments on the near horizon will crush the jobs of the millions who drive cars and trucks, analyze medical tests and data, perform middle management chores, dispense medicine, trade stocks and evaluate markets, fight on battlefields, perform government functions, and even replace those who program software – that is, the creators of algorithms. People will create the jobs of the future, not simply train for them, ...

One of the biggest car insurers in the UK has started automating the way it's processing claims with the help of artificial intelligence. Ageas will start using technology which can asses images of vehicle damage, and even flag potential fraudulent claims, to make the process more efficient by performing assessments within seconds. The technology called AI Approval and developed by London tech startup Tractable, will be rolled out across the UK business of the Belgian-based insurer following a small trial at the end of last year. "The results of our initial pilot are impressive and I'm keen to progress to using this technology at scale," said Ageas claims director Rob Smale. Read more: The rise of robots could lead to human quotas and "made by humans" label The AI-powered process has the potential to speed up the claims process, reducing costs and thus saving insurers money, as well as serving customers more quickly.