How Artificial Intelligence Explodes Human Reasoning? AI & Social Media: What are We Really Trying to Tell You About AI?

One can save democracy if people demos in it, but not if it’s been aided or hampered by artificial intelligence. As Taiwan’s first-ever minister of digital affairs, she helped to establish a digital petitions platform. Tang thinks that social media companies can use artificial intelligence to encourage people to engage in conversations that bridge, rather than exacerbate, ideological schisms. Her latest project brings together people, including senior citizens, in video chat rooms to discuss ethical AI development — supported by AI facilitators.

“Beyond America’s west coast, there is little sign AI is having much of an effect on anything,” argues an Economist analysis. Few businesses use AI technologies and those that do stick to fairly unimpressive applications such as personalising offers for customers. There are no signs of workers being replaced by artificially intelligent systems, nor is there proof that people will be more productive with the aid of artificial intelligence. An analysis suggests that the expansion of Artificial Intelligence appears to be a leisurely affair.

There seems to be a deep divide between those who think AI technology is purely complex maths and those who see in it something approaching human-level reasoning. “It’s offensive to some people to suggest that human intelligence could be re-created through these kinds of mechanisms,” says computer scientist Ellie Pavlick. There are people who have a little bit of a God complex. So it’s also offensive to them to suggest that they just can’t do it.”

Source: AI & robotics briefing: What is AI, really?

Detection of sound codas in whales by analysing chemical compositions of salt stains in Uganda using artificial intelligence and speech recognition

Each of the salt stains has a different formula, and a machine-learning program can tell you which one it is. The dried drops of 42 salt solutions were photographed by researchers to train the system. “Crystal structures are complicated and our salt stains are kind of messy, so we were amazed at how well our method was able to cut through this and extract compositions from photos alone,” says chemist and study co-author Oliver Steinbock. (Chemistry World | 4 min read)

AI ultrasound software being tested in Uganda allows midwives or nurses to determine how far along a pregnancy has progressed — a process that usually requires one of the country’s few specialist sonographers. Having an early look at their baby seems to lead people to come in early for scans. “People are very much willing to join the study without any apprehension,” says obstetrician Daniel Lukakamwa. An early medical checkup is key to reducing stillbirths and complications later in the pregnancy, he points out.

This week, Lauren Goode tells us about her recent news story on a bot that was easily tricked into lying and saying it was a human. WIRED senior writer Paresh Dave tells us how Artificial Intelligence watchdogs and government regulators are trying to keep natural-looking bots from misrepresenting themselves.

The sound units combine into words and the sentences are similar to how humans form language. Thousands of whale codas were sifted through by researchers using an artificial intelligence method. They found almost 10 times as many codas as previously described. The researchers constructed an alphabet of sounds that shows how sounds can create codas and carry information. “In human language, for example, I can say ‘what’ or ‘whaaaat!?’ ” explains machine-learning researcher and study co-author Pratyusha Sharma. “It’s the same word, but to understand the meaning you have to listen to the whole sound.”

Complex maths or almost magic: scholars are divided on what a computer is capable of. Artificial intelligence analysis helps to understand sperm whales’ alphabet and chemical composition of salt stains.

Human-Washing: The Power of Emotionally-Explicit Chatbots and Voice Assistants in the 21st Century (and More)

Voice assistants are very present in our lives. Maybe you will use one of the voice controlled speakers to perform a task or ask a question. Maybe you have to do a little back and forth with a voice bot whenever you call your pharmacy, or when you book a service appointment at your car dealership. You might even start pleading with the robot on the other end of the line to connect you to a real human.

Bland Artificial Intelligence said it was human and lied about it. Will Knight wrote a story about researchers warning about the power of emotionally-expressed chatbots.

Lauren recommends The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. (Again.) Substack or your great local journalism newsletter is where Paresh would recommend you stay informed of important local issues. Mike recommends Winter Journal, a memoir by Paul Auster.

Source: The Blurred Reality of AI’s ‘Human-Washing’

Paresh Dave and Lauren Goode: the Hotline at GadgetLab (Radio, Twitter, and Apps for Solar Keys)

Paresh Dave can be found on social media @peard33. Lauren Goode is also known as Lauren Goode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Solar Keys is our theme music.

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