Machine Learning Research
When the chips are down, humans can track critical details without being distracted by irrelevancies. New research helps reinforcement learning models similarly focus on the most important details.
The Batch Newsletter
I received a copy of Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams as a Christmas gift — back in the pre-Covid era — and finished it last weekend. This book by Matthew Walker, director of UC Berkeley’s sleep and neuroimaging lab...
Science
A mechanical lab assistant could accelerate chemistry research.What’s new: Researchers at the University of Liverpool trained a mobile robot arm to navigate a lab, operate equipment, handle samples, and obtain results far faster than a human scientist.
Machine Learning Research
Need a wardrobe upgrade? You could ask the fashion mavens at Netflix’s Queer Eye — or you could use a new neural network. Researchers at Amazon propose Category-based Subspace Attention Network (CSA-Net) to predict and retrieve compatible garments and accessories that complement one another.
Business
The same technology that has bedeviled Hollywood stars and roiled politics is easing corporate communications. Synthesia generates training and sales videos featuring photorealistic, synthetic talking heads that read personalized scripts in any of 34 languages.
Business
Companies in Africa and the Middle East are building AI capacity in very different ways, a new study found. AI is growing fast in both regions despite shortages of talent and data.
Letters
I received a copy of Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams as a Christmas gift — back in the pre-Covid era — and finished it last weekend. This book by Matthew Walker, director of UC Berkeley’s sleep and neuroimaging lab, is a useful reminder of the importance of sleep...
The Batch Newsletter
Last week, I wrote about the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policy that would have forced international students to leave the country if their university went fully online to manage the risk of Covid-19.
Business
Computer vision has been learning how to spot manufacturing flaws. The pandemic is accelerating that education. Companies like Instrumental and Elementary are making AI-powered cameras that automate the spotting of damaged or badly assembled products on factory assembly lines.
Machine Learning Research
Why search for “a cotton dress shirt with button-down collar, breast pockets, barrel cuffs, scooped hem, and tortoise shell buttons in grey” when a photo and the words “that shirt, but grey” will do the trick? A new network understands the image-text combo.
Tech & Society
Which headline was written by a computer? A: FIFA to Decide on 2022 World Cup in March B: Decision in March on 48-team 2022 World Cup, Says Infantino
Tech & Society
How do you control a video game that generates a host of unique monsters for every match? With machine learning, naturally. The otherworldly creatures in Source of Madness learn how to target players through reinforcement learning.