Mois : février 2020 (Page 1 of 2)

MIT researchers used a machine-learning algorithm to identify a drug called halicin that kills many strains of bacteria. Halicin (top row) prevented the development of antibiotic resistance in E. coli, while ciprofloxacin (bottom row) did not.

“Using a machine-learning algorithm, MIT researchers have identified a powerful new antibiotic compound. In laboratory tests, the drug killed many of the world’s most problematic disease-causing bacteria, including some strains that are resistant to all known antibiotics. It also cleared infections in two different mouse models. The computer model, which can screen more than a hundred million chemical compounds in a matter of days, is designed to pick out potential antibiotics that kill bacteria using different mechanisms than those of existing drugs.”

Source : Artificial intelligence yields new antibiotic | MIT News

Google Vision API

“Google notes in its own AI principles that algorithms and datasets can reinforce bias: ‘We will seek to avoid unjust impacts on people, particularly those related to sensitive characteristics such as race, ethnicity, gender, nationality, income, sexual orientation, ability, and political or religious belief.’ Google invited affected developers to comment on its discussion forums. Only one developer had commented at the time of writing, and complained the change was down to ‘political correctness.’ ‘I don’t think political correctness has room in APIs,’ the person wrote. ‘If I can 99% of the times identify if someone is a man or woman, then so can the algorithm. You don’t want to do it? Companies will go to other services.’”

Source : Google AI will no longer use gender labels like ‘woman’ or ‘man’ on images of people to avoid bias

“Les Nations Unies disposent d’un statut diplomatique particulier qui leur offre « l’immunité contre toute forme de procédure légale ». Ils ne sont donc pas obligés de divulguer leurs failles de sécurité ni d’informer les potentielles victimes. Ces obligations, légales pour la majorité des entreprises et des institutions depuis le RGPD, ne sont donc que des considérations éthiques pour l’ONU. Résultat, le porte-parole de l’ONU confirme que seules les équipes informatiques internes des deux bureaux concernés ont été informées de la faille.”

Source : L’ONU a gardé sous silence l’une des plus grandes cyberattaques de son histoire – Cyberguerre

https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/ef797f6/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1024x682+0+0/resize/840x559!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F37%2F3b%2F4325e0b4bc27972faf747ec4c1fe%2Fla-sci-sn-abuse-deterrant-opioid-20150420-001

“A pop-up would appear, asking about a patient’s level of pain. Then, a drop-down menu would list treatments ranging from a referral to a pain specialist to a prescription for an opioid painkiller. Click a button, and the program would create a treatment plan. From 2016 to spring 2019, the alert went off about 230 million times. The tool existed thanks to a secret deal. Its maker, a software company called Practice Fusion, was paid by a major opioid manufacturer to design it in an effort to boost prescriptions for addictive pain pills — even though overdose deaths had almost tripled during the previous 15 years, creating a public-health disaster. The software was used by tens of thousands of doctors’ offices.”

Source : In secret deal with drugmaker, health-records tool pushed opioids – Los Angeles Times

https://i0.wp.com/www.beaude.net/no-flux/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/d41586-019-03572-7_17405256.jpg?w=676&ssl=1

“A number of researchers have analysed various selection methods and suggested that incorporating randomness has advantages over the current system, such as reducing the bias that research routinely shows plagues grant-giving, and improving diversity among grantees1.”

Source : Science funders gamble on grant lotteries

Your Smartphone’s Location Data Is Worth Big Money to Wall Street

https://i0.wp.com/www.beaude.net/no-flux/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/B3-CG169_THASOS_M_20181101165453.jpg?w=676&ssl=1

“When Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said the car maker would work around the clock to boost production of its Model 3 sedan, the number crunchers at Thasos Group decided to watch. They circled Tesla’s 370 acres in Fremont, Calif., on an online map, creating a digital corral to isolate smartphone location signals that emanated from within it. Thasos, which leases databases of trillions of geographic coordinates collected by smartphone apps, set its computers to find the pings created at Tesla’s factory, then shared the data with its hedge-fund clients, showing the overnight shift swelled 30% from June to October. Last week, many on Wall Street were surprised when Tesla disclosed a rare quarterly profit, the result of Model 3 production that had nearly doubled in three months. Shares shot up 9.1% the next day.”

Source : Your Smartphone’s Location Data Is Worth Big Money to Wall Street – WSJ

“NOTE: The audio quality demonstrated here was additionally degraded since we want to avoid improper use of this technology. The purpose of this video is to excite the class about the potential of deep learning, not to deceive anyone. Thus, we purposely lowered the audio quality before publishing to make the synthetic aspect of this video clearer.”

via Alexander Amini

« Older posts

© 2024 no-Flux

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑