When he was a boy, Mark Solms obsessed over big existential questions. What happens when I die? What makes me who I am? He went on to study neuroscience but soon discovered that neuropsychology had no patience for such open-ended questions about the psyche. So Solms did something unheard of for a budding scientist. He reclaimed Freud as a founding father of neuroscience and launched a new field, neuropsychoanalysis. Solms had one other obstacle in his path. Born in Namibia, where his father worked for a South African diamond mining company, he grew up under apartheid in South Africa. Solms later worked at a hospital in Soweto, where a military occupation tried to clamp down on protesters. "Once you reach the end of your studies, you're required to join the very same army whose victims I was looking after," he told me.

Austin Russell is the 25-year-old founder and CEO of Luminar, a startup in Silicon Valley that makes LIDAR sensors for self-driving cars. LIDAR technology had been used for short-distance mapping, but Luminar claims to have a functioning LIDAR that works at 250 meters, which is a breakthrough. Luminar recently went public, making Austin today's youngest self-made billionaire. And when it comes to self-driving cars, youth is definitely an advantage -- Austin told me we're still years if not decades away from fully self-driving cars, and there's a lot of work to be done to make them safe, effective, and ubiquitous. That work is racing ahead -- Luminar has deals with Volvo, Audi, Toyota, and others -- but building a complete self-driving car is still a long-term project. This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity. I'm very excited to talk to you. You are, as far as the last thing I read, the youngest self-made billionaire in America, your company just went public in a SPAC [special purpose acquisitions company]. And come Pi Day, 26. You were born on Pi Day? So, Luminar, it's a company that makes LIDAR sensors. You have a number of deals to supply LIDAR sensors to major automakers. I want to talk about all of that. One thing that I always get frustrated by in origin stories is no one ever really talks about act two. In 2012 you were at Stanford, you had this idea to do LIDAR sensors. I want to talk about act two for a little bit. Just that middle part of going from "I've got a great idea," to "This company is actually up and running and functional." So give me a sense of, at the beginning you were a student at Stanford, you got a Thiel Fellowship from Peter Thiel. What was the next step? Did you sit down and build a LIDAR sensor?

From Hugh Heffner to Donald Trump, many male celebrities are known for their tendency to date younger women. Now, a new study has revealed that as many as one in five British men choose to date women at least five years younger. Researchers trawled through 120,000 dating profiles to understand whether men really do live up to the stereotype of preferring younger women. Their findings indicate that the stereotype is very much true, with men citing good looks and health as the main reasons they prefer ladies their junior. Many male celebrities are known for their tendency to date younger women.

Your visual cortex does two incredible things, thousands of times a second. First, it takes all the information streaming in through your retinas and passes it through a series of steps – looking first for patches of dark and light, then for features such as lines and edges, then for simple recognisable shapes like this letter'A', working up to household objects like a toaster or kettle, or individual faces, like your grandmother, or the person who you used to see every day at the bus stop on the way to work. The second incredible thing it does is to completely forget that it's done any of that at all. The inner workings of our minds are not accessible to us – and that is one of the things that will always separate us from artificially intelligent machines like the ones depicted in Klara and the Sun, the new novel from British author Kazuo Ishiguro. The book is set in a near-future where robotic humanoids called'Artificial Friends' or'AFs' are the purchase of choice for wealthy teenagers, who – for unspecified reasons – are taught remotely, and rarely get the opportunity to interact with their peers face to face.

The pandemic increased unemployment for several months, but finally, companies are seeing re-employment numbers going up fast again. While this is a positive sign, organizations need to have processes to handle the increased number of applicants the best way possible, especially for industries that had to let go of many employees, to recruit the best candidates. Employees are the company's most important asset, so hiring better is critical for your success. I interviewed Yves Lermusi, Chief Futurist at OutMatch, the leading AI-driven hiring platform, to discuss how AI will impact both recruiters and candidates' hiring experience. OutMatch helps leading companies boost talent acquisition performance and to deliver an engaging hiring experience for all.

The trend toward greater focus on privacy issues has been going on for some time and is starting to come to a head. More restrictions on the sharing and merging of data on individuals has been leading to advertisers to look for effective ways to target and reach consumers, including using the use of behavioral targeting supplemented by the use of artificial intelligence (AI). At a time when privacy regulations are sometimes fragmented and confusing but changing, it is critically important for marketers to monitor changes in the regulatory environment. Against this backdrop, I interviewed Sheri Bachstein, IBM's Global Head of Watson Advertising to get her insights and predictions on the future of privacy regulation and how it will affect advertisers, particularly as regards the use of AI and came away with three major takeaways: The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act are already leading to the devaluation of traditional third-party cookies and the way many advertisers do business. Yet, the lack of uniform regulation creates a significant gray area for companies who want to scale and use AI in targeting, creating problems for technology companies and marketers. Bachstein believes that federal legislation as opposed to a patchwork of state laws is needed in order to allow for standards that allow marketers to operate effectively while protecting consumer rights.

Privacy restrictions are pushing many marketer toward the use of artificial intelligence in order to ... [ ] delive more targeted messages. The trend toward greater focus on privacy issues has been going on for some time and is starting to come to a head. More restrictions on the sharing and merging of data on individuals has been leading to advertisers to look for effective ways to target and reach consumers, including using the use of behavioral targeting supplemented by the use of artificial intelligence (AI). At a time when privacy regulations are sometimes fragmented and confusing but changing, it is critically important for marketers to monitor changes in the regulatory environment. Against this backdrop, I interviewed Sheri Bachstein, IBM's Global Head of Watson Advertising to get her insights and predictions on the future of privacy regulation and how it will affect advertisers, particularly as regards the use of AI and came away with three major takeaways: The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act are already leading to the devaluation of traditional third-party cookies and the way many advertisers do business.

Over the last decade, we have heard a lot of doom-saying about how artificial intelligence (AI) would result in the loss of huge numbers of jobs. However, the picture (across both public and private sectors) is now starting to look not only more nuanced but also more positive. A 2017 report from consultancy PWC suggested that embedding AI across all sectors is likely to create thousands of jobs. In the UK, one estimate suggests that it could contribute as much as 5% of GDP within 10 years. That's not to say that we won't lose jobs, because we undoubtedly will.

Ahmed started his career at Cornell's Autonomous Systems Laboratory focusing on human-robot interaction and Bayesian data fusion as well as building algorithms for autonomous cars. What initially attracted you to AI and data science? I fell in love with how people make decisions. Starting with psychology, to social engineering, and finally to how we reason about uncertainty. This led me to dive into Bayesian mathematics and the world started making more sense.

At the core of good marketing lies in-depth customer insight. Before technology took over the world, customer insight was a lot tougher because it meant physical surveys, in-person interviews / meetings / conversations, etc. With technology allowing us to do many things at the click of a mouse, it is much easier to gather knowledge about what customers want, what they like, what they dislike, how they react to different marketing tools, etc.  Data Science and Analytics used to be a field associated with those in technical workspaces. However, it has become critical to digital marketing as well. Data science allows you to collect data about your customers while analytics segregates that into segments of different categories. Basis the quality of data acquired, this information can be the ammunition required to create a successful marketing strategy.  IAMAI’s recent research revealed that there are around 500 million active internet users in India. This is a HUGE opportunity for brands because it allows them to gather data from different geographies and demographics, tabulate it, infer from it and thereby utilise it to their advantage.  Was the content engaging? Did it reach the right people? How did the target audience react to the marketing targeted at them? What worked best? What didn’t work well? These are typical questions in the mind of any marketing professional that data science and analytics can answer. It also mitigates the risk massively because you can now offer a service / product that has a market, rather than use guesswork to create something.  Another huge change has been the extensive use of artificial intelligence, which is transforming digital strategies completely. Be it google AI, Siri, Alexa or any other assistant that caters to all our questions, we are slowly becoming heavily reliant on AI. It is believed that AI will become indispensable in all future digital tools and products, especially those connected to marketing.  If you are one of those that doesn’t use voice search through an assistant, you may think that artificial intelligence has not made its entry into your life but you are definitely mistaken. AI is also behind showing you relevant products based on your searches and purchases. It tracks your digital journey, recognises and analyses your behaviours and then shows you what you may like to see. This proves to be a win-win for both the customer and the brand as there is a higher chance of conversion.  Artificial intelligence is also effective in implementing good Customer Relationship Management through tools like AI chatbots. Programming the chatbot with relevant questions and answers can reduce the work of multiple people, thereby reducing costs in the long run. Global tech giants are choosing to combine data science, analytics and artificial intelligence in order to create a machinery that can be depended on for customer inputs and insight.  Although India is still in its nascent stage in terms of heavy use of this technology, it is catching up quickly. Some of the biggest firms across the country are realising its value and walking down this path. The question that arises always though is – how much is too much? How far should a brand dive into the lives of its potential customers for its benefit? What do you think? By Mr. Vikram Kumar, Co-Founder & Managing Director, SRV Media Pvt. Ltd. The post WHY DATA SCIENCE AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ARE DRIVING FORCES BEHIND DIGITAL MARKETING appeared first on NASSCOM Community |The Official Community of Indian IT Industry.