Hi, I was asked to make some funny machine learning project that could detect how similar are you to a celebrity? Is there a easy pre-trained model that could do it? I'm ML practitioner and mostly worked with Keras and tensorflow so some simple model would be nice. The model doesn't have to be very accurate, this is just for a funny event, that we're having.

The Variational Autoencoder (VAE) has proven to be an effective model for producing semantically meaningful latent representations for natural data. However, it has thus far seen limited application to sequential data, and, as we demonstrate, existing recurrent VAE models have difficulty modeling sequences with long-term structure. To address this issue, we propose the use of a hierarchical decoder, which first outputs embeddings for subsequences of the input and then uses these embeddings to generate each subsequence independently. This structure encourages the model to utilize its latent code, thereby avoiding the "posterior collapse" problem which remains an issue for recurrent VAEs. We apply this architecture to modeling sequences of musical notes and find that it exhibits dramatically better sampling, interpolation, and reconstruction performance than a "flat" baseline model. An implementation of our "MusicVAE" is available online.

We here summarize our experience running a challenge with open data for musical genre recognition. Those notes motivate the task and the challenge design, show some statistics about the submissions, and present the results.

New concerns over how artificial intelligence videos could spread fake news and even prompt a war. Forget fake news for a moment. Artificial intelligence is now able to generate a convincing video of a celebrity or public figure. For illicit purposes, these videos are called deepfakes and show a celebrity superimposed into an adult movie. A programmer finds existing video and audio for a known figure, then the AI takes over and creates a brand new version.

Wu has used the drones in two ways for his dramatic, surreal photos. In the first technique, he attached LED lamps to 3D Robotics drones and set them off on GPS-controlled flights. He took the photos with a medium format Phase One camera while the drone was stationary, experimenting with the height, angle and distance from the subject. Once back home, he layered the photos together until the image matched his vision. For later photos, he created time-lapse exposures while the drones ran in set circles around the rock pinnacles, tracing out "halos" in the sky.

It's March, which means winter is ending, the clocks decide to lose an hour and the luck of the Irish is celebrated. Seen as a beacon of new technology and emerging trends, this year's event is no different. Let's dive into the world of blockchain-controlled sentient robots that will diversify technology with a list of the emerging technical trends of 2018. With computers getting faster and GPU's being re-purposed, we're seeing an explosion of innovation, from machine-learning models to validate brand creative to those that create unique art and music. Companies like IBM and Getty Images are asking how they can apply large scale AI to the creative process, and what that means for their business.

According to research by IDC, applications incorporating advanced and predictive analytics, including machine learning, will grow 65 percent faster than apps without predictive functionality. Ever wondered how Netflix just knows the shows you must watch. And YouTube's recommended playlists are making the job so much easier? Or how Spotify throws up just the perfect songs and Amazon makes you buy stuff even before you search what you want? Machine learning (ML) has transformed the way technology interacts with users.

I love it when I get feedback from a blog that I've written. I appreciate the different perspectives and insights that others bring to a topic of interest. And no blog that I've written has drawn more comments than my blog, "Isaac Asimov: The 4th Law of Robotics." The section of the blog that fueled the most comments stem from a scene in the movie I, Robot where Detective Spooner (played by Will Smith) is explaining to Doctor Calvin (who is responsible for giving robots human-like behaviors) why he distrusts and hates robots. He is describing an incident where his police car crashed into another car and both cars were thrown into a cold and deep river – certain death for all occupants.

MPs from the House of Commons inquiry into fake news were warned last week of a new AI technology that is about to change the world, and not for the better. "We're rapidly moving into an era where the Russians, or any other adversary, can create our public figures saying or doing things that are disgraceful or highly corrosive to public trust," Edward Lucas, the senior vice president of the Centre for European Policy Analysis told MPs. "And we're not remotely ready for this." Lucas was talking about so-called deepfakes, which he described as "audio and video that look and sound like the real person, saying something that that person never has". Less than three months ago, producing such videos was a laborious process requiring a video editor, vast amounts of reference footage and years of experience. But in the first few months of this year, the technology has exploded into public availability.

Even dogs have dreams, but not you, you are just a machine. Can a robot write a symphony? Can a robot turn a canvas into a beautiful masterpiece?" This famous quote from the film "I, Robot", inspired by Isaac Asimov, the science fiction writer's collection of short stories, poses questions that current technology can already answer. Computer programs that have machine learning capabilities can compose sonatas, songs, and classical pieces, and can even draw pictures at a level on a par with high art.