With the increasing number of financial services available online, the rate of financial fraud has also been increasing. The traffic and transaction rates on the internet have increased considerably, leading to a need for fast decision-making. Financial institutions also have stringent regulations that often require transparency and explainability of the decision-making process. However, most state-of-the-art algorithms currently used in the industry are highly parameterized black-box models that rely on complex computations to generate a score. These algorithms are inherently slow and lack the explainability and speed of traditional rule-based learners. This work introduces SR-MCTS (Symbolic Regression MCTS), which utilizes a foundational GPT model to guide the MCTS, significantly enhancing its convergence speed and the quality of the generated expressions which are further extracted to rules. Our experiments show that SR-MCTS can detect fraud more efficiently than widely used methods in the industry while providing substantial insights into the decision-making process.

Wordle is a popular, online word game offered by the New York Times (nytimes.com). Currently there are some 2 million players of the English version worldwide. Players have 6 attempts to guess the daily word (target word) and after each attempt, the player receives color-coded information about the correctness and position of each letter in the guess. After either a successful completion of the puzzle or the final unsuccessful attempt, software can assess the player's luck and skill using Information Theory and can display data for the first, second, ..., sixth guesses of a random sample of all players. Recently, I discovered that the latter data is presented in a format that can easily be copied and pasted into a spreadsheet. I compiled data on Wordle players' first guesses from May 2023 - August 2023 and inferred some interesting information about Wordle players. A) Every day, about 0.2-0.5% of players solve the puzzle in one attempt. Because the odds of guessing the one of 2,315 possible target words at random is 0.043%, this implies that 4,000 - 10,000 players cheat by obtaining the target word outside of playing the game! B) At least 1/3 of the players have a favorite starting word, or cycle through several. And even though players should be aware that target words are never repeated, most players appear to remain loyal to their starting word even after its appearance as a target word. C) On August 15, 2023, about 30,000 players abruptly changed their starting word, presumably based on a crossword puzzle clue! Wordle players can be influenced! This study goes beyond social media postings, surveys, and Google Trends to provide solid, quantitative evidence about cheating in Wordle.

Electric automaker Tesla will update its vehicle software to prevent drivers from playing video games on the console while the car is in motion, US traffic safety regulators said Thursday. "Following the opening of a preliminary evaluation of Tesla's'Passenger Play,' Tesla informed the agency that it is changing the functionality of this feature," a spokesperson for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a statement emailed to AFP. "In a new software update, 'Passenger Play' will now be locked and unusable when the vehicle is in motion." The agency had announced it had launched an investigation into some 580,000 Tesla cars after the automaker's decision to allow drivers to play on the entertainment system's touch screen while the vehicle was moving. The affected models are the Model 3, S, X and Y. The option to engage Passenger Play on the main display during driving made drivers susceptible to distraction and raised the risks of an accident, the NHTSA said.

LAKE OSWEGO, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Vesta, a pioneer in guaranteed payment and fraud technologies, announced today that it has hired Tan Truong as chief information officer. He will be responsible for all aspects of the company's technology, operations and product development as well as spearheading innovation globally. Truong joins Vesta after building the global issuing platform for SVM LP, a leading provider of gift and prepaid cards for the incentive industry, and has more than 15 years of experience in financial technology. His track record includes two successful exits for companies whose technology platforms and teams he helped build, with FSV Payment Systems being acquired by U.S. Bank and UniRush being acquired by Green Dot. He has worked at startups and large corporations, in both strategic and hands-on technologist roles.

The program will complementary areas of interactive Smith (University of California, Santa include invited speakers, research and digital entertainment.