Retail
Cost efficient ML inference with multi-framework models on Amazon SageMaker
Machine learning (ML) has proven to be one of the most successful and widespread applications of technology, affecting a wide range of industries and impacting billions of users every day. With this rapid adoption of ML into every industry, companies are facing challenges in supporting low-latency predictions and with high availability while maximizing resource utilization and reducing associated costs. Because each ML framework has its own dependencies, and deployment steps for each framework are different, deploying models built in different frameworks in production and managing each of the endpoints becomes more and more complex. Amazon SageMaker multi-container endpoints (MCEs) enables us to group models on different frameworks and deploy them to the same host, creating a single endpoint. You can provide containers for the different frameworks that you're using to build the models, and SageMaker takes all of these containers and puts them behind one endpoint.
An AI image generator realized our dark thoughts about Black Friday
What can an AI tell you about Black Friday deals? Not much, it turns out, but when we posed a few contrarian thoughts about the upcoming shopping bacchanalia, AI image generator Dall-E 2 (opens in new tab) returned some interesting images that got us thinking about what this Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping season will be like for consumers. I think it's a safe assumption that this won't be a typical Black Friday and pre-Christmas shopping season. We face extraordinary upheaval around the world, and a deepening cost of living crisis that in many countries is threatening to turn into a full-blown recession. Yet, recent studies point to consumers being both more financially cautious and, yet, more deeply invested in Black Friday than in recent years. During Amazon's Prime Day 2 (its new attempt to own the shopping season by preempting Black Friday), US consumers spent, according to Numerator (opens in new tab), on average $46.68, which is down roughly $15 from Amazon's mid-year Prime Day.
Sam's Club Deploys Inventory Scanning Robots Chainwide
BENTONVILLE, Ark. and SAN DIEGO, Ca.--Sam's Club has completed a roll out of inventory scanning towers that have been added to its existing fleet of floor scrubbing robots. The club store had started adding the inventory towers to its robots in January, and now all locations have the technology added. "Our initial goal at Sam's Club was to convert time historically spent on scrubbers to more member-focused activities. Our autonomous scrubbers have exceeded this goal. In addition to increasing the consistency and frequency of floor cleaning, intelligent scrubbers have empowered associates with critical insights," said Todd Garner, vice president, in-club product management.
Roomba robot vacuums are up to 35 percent off at Amazon
Robot vacuums can be a godsend if vacuuming is one of your least favorite household chores. In recent years, new models from iRobot and Shark have become more intelligent, more powerful and, best of all, less expensive. Still, a robot vacuum is an investment, and it helps when they go on sale like iRobot's models are right now on Amazon. To start, the retailer has discounted the Roomba 694, one of our favorite budget picks. After a 35 percent discount, the robot vacuum is $179.
The Promise of Artificial Intelligence: Reckoning and Judgment (The MIT Press): Smith, Brian Cantwell: 9780262043045: Amazon.com: Books
In this provocative book, Brian Cantwell Smith argues that artificial intelligence is nowhere near developing systems that are genuinely intelligent. Second wave AI, machine learning, even visions of third-wave AI: none will lead to human-level intelligence and judgment, which have been honed over millennia. Recent advances in AI may be of epochal significance, but human intelligence is of a different order than even the most powerful calculative ability enabled by new computational capacities. Smith calls this AI ability "reckoning," and argues that it does not lead to full human judgment--dispassionate, deliberative thought grounded in ethical commitment and responsible action. Taking judgment as the ultimate goal of intelligence, Smith examines the history of AI from its first-wave origins ("good old-fashioned AI," or GOFAI) to such celebrated second-wave approaches as machine learning, paying particular attention to recent advances that have led to excitement, anxiety, and debate.
Statistical Mechanics of Neural Networks: Huang, Haiping: 9789811675690: Amazon.com: Books
This book highlights a comprehensive introduction to the fundamental statistical mechanics underneath the inner workings of neural networks. The book discusses in details important concepts and techniques including the cavity method, the mean-field theory, replica techniques, the Nishimori condition, variational methods, the dynamical mean-field theory, unsupervised learning, associative memory models, perceptron models, the chaos theory of recurrent neural networks, and eigen-spectrums of neural networks, walking new learners through the theories and must-have skillsets to understand and use neural networks. The book focuses on quantitative frameworks of neural network models where the underlying mechanisms can be precisely isolated by physics of mathematical beauty and theoretical predictions. It is a good reference for students, researchers, and practitioners in the area of neural networks.
How AI Is Reshaping the Retail Marketing Landscape
It is no secret that AI has revolutionized the retail industry. Since its inception, it has transformed almost every sector of this industry. AI is undergoing improvements every day, increasing the chances of growth for every business utilizing AI. A couple of decades ago, AI was a dream that has now materialized. In a matter of years, any retail business that doesn't climb up the AI bandwagon will most likely become just a part of history.
System Network Analytics: Evolution and Stable Rules of a State Series
Chaturvedi, Animesh, Tiwari, Aruna, Spyratos, Nicolas
System Evolution Analytics on a system that evolves is a challenge because it makes a State Series SS = {S1, S2... SN} (i.e., a set of states ordered by time) with several inter-connected entities changing over time. We present stability characteristics of interesting evolution rules occurring in multiple states. We defined an evolution rule with its stability as the fraction of states in which the rule is interesting. Extensively, we defined stable rule as the evolution rule having stability that exceeds a given threshold minimum stability (minStab). We also defined persistence metric, a quantitative measure of persistent entity-connections. We explain this with an approach and algorithm for System Network Analytics (SysNet-Analytics), which uses minStab to retrieve Network Evolution Rules (NERs) and Stable NERs (SNERs). The retrieved information is used to calculate a proposed System Network Persistence (SNP) metric. This work is automated as a SysNet-Analytics Tool to demonstrate application on real world systems including: software system, natural-language system, retail market system, and IMDb system. We quantified stability and persistence of entity-connections in a system state series. This results in evolution information, which helps in system evolution analytics based on knowledge discovery and data mining.
Commissary technology: artificial intelligence
Even in inflationary times, commissaries, supermarkets and other places where food is made or sold are increasingly turning to Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies to help them streamline operations, improve the customer experience, reduce waste and give their bottom lines a boost. San Ramon, Calif.-based AI and ML specialist Impulse Logic delivers advanced predictive analytics to create the optimal product flow through a retailer's store to optimize labor availability, ensure product availability, reduce waste, and increase profits, said Matt Frost, the company's CEO. "By optimizing the journey from warehouse to shop floor, stores can improve the way they manage their inventory to drive sales," Frost said. "Our innovative AI and ML-based solution does this by reading in-store data every two seconds." That ensures that store associates can make decisions based on accurate insights and ultimately deliver outstanding customer service and satisfaction.