Search Results for: artificial intelligence

AI is changing scientists’ understanding of language learning – and raising questions about an innate grammar

by

From The Conversation: Unlike the carefully scripted dialogue found in most books and movies, the language of everyday interaction tends to be messy and incomplete, full of false starts, interruptions and people talking over each other. From casual conversations between friends, to bickering between siblings, to formal discussions in a boardroom, authentic conversation is chaotic. … Read more

Top 10 AI Marketing Tools You Should Use

by

From CrunchHype:  The marketing industry is turning to artificial intelligence (AI) as a way to save time and execute smarter, more personalized campaigns. 61% of marketers say AI software is the most important aspect of their data strategy.   If you’re late to the AI party, don’t worry. It’s easier than you think to start … Read more

No Match

by

Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity. Anonymous

Why Getty Banned AI Images (For Now)

by

From Plagiarism Today: Yesterday, Getty Images and iStock have announced that they are following in the footsteps of other art sites, including NewGrounds and Inkblot, in banning artwork generated by artificial intelligence (AI) from their service. According to Getty’s announcement, “There are open questions with respect to the copyright of outputs from these models….” They further … Read more

Working With AI

by

From The Wall Street Journal: In August, first prize in the digital-art category of the Colorado State Fair’s fine-art competition went to a man who used artificial intelligence (AI) to generate his submission, “Théâtre d’Opéra Spatial.” He supplied the AI, a program called Midjourney, with only a “prompt”—a textual description of what he wanted. Systems … Read more

Upheavals

by

The upheavals [of artificial intelligence] can escalate quickly and become scarier and even cataclysmic. Imagine how a medical robot, originally programmed to rid cancer, could conclude that the best way to obliterate cancer is to exterminate humans who are genetically prone to the disease. Nick Bilton

AI-Assisted Inventions Could Spur New Patent Litigation Wave

by

From Bloomberg Law: The amount of human involvement needed to secure a patent when artificial intelligence is used to create an invention remains up in the air after a Federal Circuit decision shutting down the possibility of solo AI inventorship. Patent attorneys expect more litigation on the use of AI in inventions to follow the … Read more

The Illusionist Brain

by

From The Wall Street Journal: Psychological science and stage magic are the best of frenemies. Both scientists and magicians attempt, for instance, to uncover the workings of the human mind, albeit toward different ends. The former seek to share their methods and results widely, for applications in medicine, education or management, or for the sheer … Read more

The Google engineer who thinks the company’s AI has come to life

by

From The Washington Post: Google engineer Blake Lemoine opened his laptop to the interface for LaMDA, Google’s artificially intelligent chatbot generator, and began to type. “Hi LaMDA, this is Blake Lemoine … ,” he wrote into the chat screen, which looked like a desktop version of Apple’s iMessage, down to the Arctic blue text bubbles. … Read more

Academic Publishing: Elsevier’s ‘Research Futures 2.0’

by

From Publishing Perspectives: In its second round of research-into-research, Elsevier has returned to the field of its initial inquiry in 2019, when a study sequence was begun in an attempt to look at how research might look and fare in a decade. With input from more than 1,000 researchers in an internationally structured study, the … Read more

Synthetic Voices Want to Take Over Audiobooks

by

From Wired: WHEN VOICE ACTOR Heath Miller sits down in his boatshed-turned-home studio in Maine to record a new audiobook narration, he has already read the text through carefully at least once. To deliver his best performance, he takes notes on each character and any hints of how they should sound. Over the past two … Read more

Spies, Lies, and Algorithms

by

From The Wall Street Journal: Computers have transformed many institutions and professions in the 21st century, and the world of espionage especially. In “Spies, Lies, and Algorithms,” Amy Zegart, a Stanford professor of political science and an occasional consultant to intelligence agencies, has provided a lucid and sobering account of how digital and other technological … Read more

Rytr

by

PG received an email following his post about Rytr, an artificial intelligence authoring program. I just tried the tool for a plot. This is what I put in: “A man dies and goes to hell and then must undertake a quest. “ This is what it gave me: “Every few days someone would come to … Read more

The upheavals

by

The upheavals [of artificial intelligence] can escalate quickly and become scarier and even cataclysmic. Imagine how a medical robot, originally programmed to rid cancer, could conclude that the best way to obliterate cancer is to exterminate humans who are genetically prone to the disease. Nick Bilton

Rytr – AI Writing Assistant

by

This is an example of what one AI Writing Assistant, Rytr, can produce. PG wrote a short description to seed the AI: Many authors, both new and experienced, are becoming self-published and maintaining complete control over their books. He then added key words for the output: self-publishing, Amazon, Kindle Direct Publishing, independent author, authors PG … Read more

New Tech Can Distinguish Brush Strokes of Different Artists

by

From Smithsonian Magazine: A new artificial intelligence (A.I.) tool may be able to foil fraud and help art historians determine the original creator behind particular paintings. The system analyzes tiny sections of paintings, some as small as half a millimeter, for telltale differences in brushwork, reports Benjamin Sutton for the Art Newspaper. While previous projects … Read more

Journals adopt AI to spot duplicated images in manuscripts

by

From Nature: Just before a study appears in any of ten journals published by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), it undergoes an unusual extra check. Since January 2021, the AACR has been using artificial intelligence (AI) software on all manuscripts it has provisionally accepted after peer review. The aim is to automatically alert … Read more

Where Is My Thinking Machine?

by

From The Wall Street Journal: Amazement and alarm have been persistent features, the yin and yang, of discourse about the power of computers since the earliest days of electronic “thinking machines.” In 1950, a year before the world’s first commercial computer was delivered, the pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing published an essay asking “Can machines … Read more

The Ancient History of Intelligent Machines

by

From The MIT Press Reader: Robots have histories that extend far back into the past. Artificial servants, autonomous killing machines, surveillance systems, and sex robots all find expression from the human imagination in works and contexts beyond Ovid (43 BCE to 17 CE) and the story of Pygmalion in cultures across Eurasia and North Africa. … Read more

Could a machine have an unconscious?

by

From N+1: IT WAS FIRST DESCRIBED to me by a friend who works in the industry as autocomplete on crack, after the technology that endowed our phones with the quality everyone pretends to, but does not actually, want in a lover — the ability to finish your thoughts. Instead of predicting the next word in a sentence, GPT-3 would … Read more

AI audiobooks take a big step towards the audio New Normal

by

From The New Publishing Standard: Pretty much since smartphones became mainstream, audio content in the form of podcasts and audiobooks have been gathering momentum as a significant format sector in the global publishing industry. Even with the à la carte and monthly credit subscription models audio has taken off big time with consumers, while in … Read more

Does Technology Have a Soul?

by

From The Paris Review: When my husband arrived home, he stared at the dog for a long time, then pronounced it “creepy.” At first I took this to mean uncanny, something so close to reality it disturbs our most basic ontological assumptions. But it soon became clear he saw the dog as an interloper. I … Read more

Tech Firms Tweak Work Tools to Grapple with ‘Digital Exhaustion’

by

From The Wall Street Journal: Big tech companies— Microsoft Corp. , Adobe Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google among them—are adding new twists to their work tools to fight Zoom fatigue and general burnout as working from home stretches into a second year for millions of people. Microsoft, for example, has introduced a setting in its … Read more

Jack and the Bean Counters: A Woke Children’s Story

by

From The Wall Street Journal: One of my favorite childhood novels recounted the story of a boy separated from his family and caught behind Japanese lines in war-torn midcentury China. I felt I was with the boy, Tien Pao, when he woke terrified in a sampan sweeping downriver toward the smoldering ruins of his village. … Read more

Minds Without Brains?

by

From Commonweal: n the view of many scientists, Artificial Intelligence (AI) isn’t living up to the hype of its proponents. We don’t yet have safe driverless cars—and we’re not likely to in the near future. Nor are robots about to take on all our domestic drudgery so that we can devote more time to leisure. … Read more

Can a Computer Devise a Theory of Everything?

by

Not precisely to do with books, but pickings are slim during the Thanksgiving holiday and following weekend. From The New York Times: Once upon a time, Albert Einstein described scientific theories as “free inventions of the human mind.” But in 1980, Stephen Hawking, the renowned Cambridge University cosmologist, had another thought. In a lecture that … Read more

The Alignment Problem

by

From The Wall Street Journal: In the mid-1990s, a group of software developers applied the latest computer learning to tackle a problem that emergency-room doctors were routinely facing: which of the patients who showed up with pneumonia should be admitted and which could be sent home to recover there? An algorithm analyzed more than 15,000 … Read more

An AI Breaks the Writing Barrier

by

From The Wall Street Journal: Word has been making its way out from the technology community: The world changed this summer with the rollout of an artificial intelligence system known as GPT-3. Its ability to interact in English and generate coherent writing have been startling hardened experts, who speak of “GPT-3 shock.” Where typical AI … Read more

Marlowe, A.I. for Novels

by

From The Book Designer: I recently had the opportunity to evaluate Marlowe, Authors A.I.’s analytical software for novels. Created by Matthew L. Jockers, Ph.D., and his data team, Marlowe is an artificial intelligence that serves to help authors improve their novel before sending it off for professional editing. The goal of this software is to “help … Read more

Did a Person Write This Headline, or a Machine?

by

From Wired: The tech industry pays programmers handsomely to tap the right keys in the right order, but earlier this month entrepreneur Sharif Shameem tested an alternative way to write code. First he wrote a short description of a simple app to add items to a to-do list and check them off once completed. Then … Read more

Online Marketing Doesn’t Have to Mean Lying, Cheating, or Gaming the System

by

From Anne R. Allen’s Blog: A lot of authors get that deer-in-the-headlights look when I mention marketing books online. But it’s pretty much the only way to promote books during this “stay at home” pandemic. So we gotta do it. I understand your reluctance. Social media is full of trolls, scammers, and vast herds of … Read more

Girl Decoded

by

From The Wall Street Journal: What if the disinterested machines that surround us and encroach on every aspect of our lives were sensitive to our emotional states? Imagine fridges reprimanding us for our furtive late-night snacks. Or cars decelerating when we are anxious, or preventing us from driving when we are distracted. Consider laptops offering … Read more

Plagiarism – 2020

by

PG has been looking into contemporary plagiarism over the past several days and will be writing more than one post about the topic. The problem is three-fold (or maybe more than three-fold. PG has learned about three elements): 1. When Amazon and others permit an author or plagiarist to self-publish books around the world in … Read more

EPO publishes grounds for its decision to refuse two patent applications naming a machine as inventor

by

From The European Patent Office: The EPO has published its decision setting out the reasons for its recent refusal of two European patent applications in which an AI system was designated as the inventor.  Filed by an individual in autumn 2018, the applications EP 18 275 163 and EP 18 275 174 were refused by the EPO following oral proceedings with the … Read more

Immortality, Inc.

by

From The Wall Street Journal: Amid today’s technological wizardry, it’s easy to forget that several decades have passed since a single innovation has dramatically raised the quality of life for millions of people. Summoning a car with one’s phone is nifty, but it pales in comparison with discovering penicillin or electrifying cities. Artificial intelligence is … Read more

‘SAM’ Review: Building a Better Bricklayer

by

From The Wall Street Journal: Spiders can spin intricate webs. Birds weave branches into cozy nests. Bees build hives with near-perfect hexagons. It should be easy for an advanced robot complete with lasers and artificial intelligence to lay a simple brick wall. But, as the journalist Jonathan Waldman chronicles in “SAM,” the quest for a … Read more

I think generally people underestimate the capability of AI

by

I think generally people underestimate the capability of AI. They sort of think like it’s a smart human. . . . . But it’s really going to be much more than that. It’ll be much smarter than the average human. . . . . It’ll be like, can a chimpanzee really understand humans? Not really, … Read more

Does AI judge your personality?

by

Perhaps a writing prompt. Among many others, PG has always been fascinated by AI books and stories, but this one generates a bit less optimism. From ArchyW: AirBnB wants to know if it has a “Machiavellian” personality before renting a house on the beach. The company may be using software to judge if you are … Read more

Dating apps need women. Advertisers need diversity. AI companies offer a solution: Fake people

by

From The Washington Post: Artificial intelligence start-ups are selling images of computer-generated faces that look like the real thing, offering companies a chance to create imaginary models and “increase diversity” in their ads without needing human beings. One firm is offering to sell diverse photos for marketing brochures and has already signed up clients, including … Read more

Gartner’s Predictions For Retailers Show More Change Ahead

by

From WHICH-50: Customers are demanding greater levels of contextualisation of products and services. Retail CIOs can leverage intelligence to capture deeper insights, anticipate customer needs and proactively deliver across every touchpoint. Retailers must reinforce their store’s position as an integral part of delivering unified commerce. Gartner’s recent research Predicts 2020: Consumers Determine Retail Success Well Before the … Read more

Do We Have Minds of Our Own?

by

Not exactly to do with writing and being an author, but perhaps a writing prompt. From The New Yorker: In order to do science, we’ve had to dismiss the mind. This was, in any case, the bargain that was made in the seventeenth century, when Descartes and Galileo deemed consciousness a subjective phenomenon unfit for … Read more

Military Algorithms and The Virtues Of Transparency

by

From Jotwell: For all the justifiable concern in recent years directed toward the prospect of autonomous weapons, other military uses of automation may be more imminent and more widespread. In Predicting Enemies, Ashley Deeks highlights how the U.S. military may deploy algorithms in armed conflicts to determine who should be detained and for how long, and who may be … Read more

Las Vegas Brings AI to Traffic Lights

by

Not exactly to do with books, although it occurred to PG that using an AI program to review submissions a publisher receives and selecting the books that would sell the best has to be better than the “system” they use today. From The Wall Street Journal: Las Vegas is outfitting intersections with cameras and sensors … Read more

Upheavals

by

The upheavals [of artificial intelligence] can escalate quickly and become scarier and even cataclysmic. Imagine how a medical robot, originally programmed to rid cancer, could conclude that the best way to obliterate cancer is to exterminate humans who are genetically prone to the disease. ~  Nick Bilton I don’t want to really scare you, but … Read more

How AI is reshaping the publishing industry

by

From Medium: “There is no doubt that AI will become the essential key to success for the publishing industry,” says Colin Lovrinovic, MD of Gould Finch a management consultancy. . . . . Among the popular misconceptions about AI is that it requires considerable investment to implement and that it’s going to take away reporters’ … Read more