Tech & Society
Androids may not dream of electric sheep, but some crack jokes about horses and cows. Meena, a 2.6-billion parameter chatbot developed by Google Brain, showed impressive conversational ability, discussing a variety of topics.
Tech & Society
As employers turn to AI to evaluate job applicants, a U.S. state imposed limits on how such tools can be used. The Illinois legislature passed the AI Video Act, which gives candidates a measure of control over how hiring managers collect and store video interviews.
Tech & Society
Can machine learning help address the scourge of opioid addiction? A public health researcher developed a neural network that spots sellers of opioids on social media, Recode reported.
Tech & Society
A new tool connects novice programmers with projects that match their experience and interests. Github’s Good First Issues tool uses deep learning to find easy-to-fix issues among the collaborative software development platform’s multitude of open source projects.
Tech & Society
A company that analyzes online information to predict epidemics spotted the upsurge in coronavirus at least a week ahead of public-health authorities. Canadian startup BlueDot alerted customers to the outbreak in he Chinese city of Wuhan on New Year’s Eve.
Tech & Society
YouTube is a great place to learn about new ideas — including some that have been thoroughly discredited. YouTube’s recommendation algorithm is helping spread misinformation about climate change, according to research by Avaaz, a self-funded activist group.
Tech & Society
For some college graduates, landing a first job means making a good impression on a chatbot. University guidance counselors around the U.S. are preparing students for interviews with AI-powered screening algorithms.
Tech & Society
What if you could identify just about anyone from a photo? A controversial startup is making this possible. Hundreds of U.S. law enforcement agencies are using a face ID service that matches photos against a database of billions of images.
Letters
Last week brought reports that the European Union is considering a three- to five-year moratorium on face recognition in public places. Face recognition is a problematic technology with significant potential for misuse, and I celebrate the...
Tech & Society
The Trump administration announced a hands-off policy for regulating artificial intelligence. The White House unveiled an executive order instructing federal agencies to minimize rule-making related to AI businesses.
Tech & Society
AI is contributing to paintings, music, and now a whimsical fantasy video. The Squire is an amateur romp through a snowy realm of knights in armor and damsels in distress. The script was composed by AI Dungeon 2, an interactive text-adventure game based on the GPT-2 language model.
Tech & Society
Artificial intelligence was everywhere at the biggest, buzziest consumer-technology showcase in the U.S. AI ruled the convention floor at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, as numerous media outlets proclaimed.