Warming trend expected this week. That's good. I need to
exorcise this cold from my poor battered bones. Bring it on!
Read every piece of paper on my coffee table and every
digital bit on the Internet. Hitting the hay.
Got my weekly fill of "The Joel McHale Show Starring
Joel McHale" on Netflix. I still don't know what that host's name is, but
he reminds me a lot of that guy who did "The Soup."
Every time my wife hears Fred Armisen’s voice she asks if
that’s Woody Allen. Every single time. She’s not dumb. And we’ve watched many
Woody Allen films. What the?
Trump legal team in Russia probe loses two potential new
members due to unidentified "conflict." Rumor is they're concerned
that representing his side of the story would put them in conflict with the
truth.
Fixed a minor technical problem. Got a haircut. Consumed
something my wife called superfood. Read some archaeology. Shopped. Worked out.
Learned about Mr. Rogers. Found some relatively cheap gas. Watched the latest
“Murder on the Orient Express.” Napped. Not a bad Saturday.
RIP Charles Lazarus. Though Toys R Us is defunct, obits
revealed delicious trivia: chain was founded in Washington DC’s Adams Morgan
neighborhood at location that is now this
"IBM claims its ML library is 46x faster than
TensorFlow" (http://ow.ly/5bl430j8nFs ) JK--That's
cool. But regardless whether these claims hold water, they're beside th point
if developers can use any AI-modeling front-end/library & auto-compile down
to the best-performing back-end
Please note that I posted substantial #Wikibon blogs each day
this week. That was by design. I’m restarting the daily tech thought leadership
posting cadence I sustained over almost 5 years at IBM (which I left almost
exactly a year ago). Because I can.
"12 Startups Utilizing Blockchain in New Ways" (http://ow.ly/Wl4p30j7t6T )
JK--Decentralized recordkeeping, app dev, energy mgmt, supply chn mgt,
disease-prev R&D, fixed-income settlement, social video exch, influencer
engagemt, stock photo exch, educ mktplace, betting, micro-job
New jk #Wikibon
blog: "AI Democratization: IBM, Deep Cognition, and Cloudera" (http://ow.ly/uCoE30j7okF )
"AI Will Take Over Blockchain In 2018" (http://ow.ly/gJlb30j7h7L )
JK--1) data (Ocean Protocol: decentralized exchange for AI training data), 2)
algorithms (SingularityNET wraps AI algos to intercomm), 3) computing resources
(Cortex bridge to Golem global compute-power mktplce)
"Blockchain Potential to Transform Artificial
Intelligence" (http://ow.ly/76jP30j7gMg )
JK--Essentially, makes a case for a distributed hyperledger's alignment with
distributed decoupling of AI apps in edge environments.
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp Jorja Smith
"Let Me Down (Shy FX Remix)" JK--2018. I this. Sounds a bit Sia from her Zero 7 days doing a reggae
number.
"What Comes After Deep Learning" (http://ow.ly/ZEPS30j7gp6 )
JK--Vorhies on new approaches under development in the research community that
address known limitations of DL's core algorithms (CNNs, RNNs, LSTMs).
"The Secret Sharer: Measuring Unintended Neural Network
Memorization & Extracting Secrets" (http://ow.ly/yfTj30j6rl2 )
JK--When you train an AI model on a data set with secrets in it, it's hard to
disentangle those secrets from the resultant statistical model.
"China’s Surveillance State: AI Startups, Tech Giants
Are At The Center Of The Government’s Plans" (http://ow.ly/GK9L30j6r1m )
JK--This level of intrusive surveillance suggests a society doing battle with its own people than with other nations.
"Use your brain; AI won't soon replace it" (http://ow.ly/qifD30j6q78 )
JK--This notion of "preserv[ing] the brains of terminally ill people in
order to turn them into computer simulations" strikes me as terminally
macabre.
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp Beck
"Defriended" JK--2013. He mixes his voice into a layered field of
sound. Sounds a bit Cocteau Twins or Panda Bear.
People who agonize over deactivating their Facebook account.
Have you considered simply not checking or posting to it? I can't remember the
last time I checked my Pinterest.
Virginia has a Mechanicsville and a Farmville. I recommend that
we rename some arbitrary spot up here in the northern part of the state
Programmerville.
"MusicVAE: Creating a palette for musical scores with
machine learning" (http://ow.ly/9QVl30j55Tg )
JK--"Musical sequences are fundamentally high dimensional....Latent space
models are capable of learning the fundamental characteristics of a [musical
score] training dataset."
0 replies1 2 s
New jk #TechTarget column:
"AI is shaking the application market to its core" (http://ow.ly/PYFm30j512J )
New jk #Wikibon
blog: "IBM Rolls Out Sophisticated Cloud AI Offerings at Think 2018"
(http://ow.ly/LsOd30j503K )
RT @KEXPNowPlaying
#kexp Aztec Camera
"We Could Send Letters" from High Land, Hard Rain JK--1983. Great
jangle-pop from this Scots band. I first heard a version of this on NME/Rough
Trade's 1981 cassette compilation C81 (which I still have):
A bit under the weather. Can’t sleep. Biding time checking
the stories on Facebook. Something about the universe potentially ending in a
vacuum collapse of Higgs boson energy. Ummm, ok. At least it’s preferable to
all this Trump news.
Weather app says “Heavy Snow detected within 10 miles of
(null) (null).” Wow! That’s a white-out of existential proportions!
"IBM's cloud strategy revolves around multi-cloud
support, grabbing new workloads" (http://ow.ly/tHfW30j3L1F )
JK--Rometty's Think keynote will cover a wide range of cloud provisioning,
containerization, management, migration, integration, protection, & security
offerings.
"Can Social Robots Boost Employee Engagement?" (http://ow.ly/zpYK30j3IoR )
JK--Seems we're asking too much of
robots now. I'll bet they're nostalgic for the good old days when all they were
expected to do was alert Will Robinson to the danger of aliens approaching
Usual scam robo-call coming in on my landline. Me picking
up....I say hello...a few seconds silence.....far-end voice:
"hello...hello." Me: "Nobody here named "Hello." Me
hanging up.
"How machine learning can make prettier PC games that
adapt to your play preferences" (http://ow.ly/qwH430j3cWg )
JK--Dynamically adjust every nuanced aspect of the game to keep each user
idiosyncratically challenged and entertained.
"Making music using new sounds generated with ML"
(http://ow.ly/omjJ30j3bWB )
JK--Discusses Google's "Magenta" research project: uses ML
"to...learn the characteristics of sounds...[and then] synthesize...an
entirely new sound using the acoustic qualities of the original sounds."
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp Radiohead
"Everything in Its Right Place" from Kid A JK--2000. First song off
this classic LP. Just a few seconds into this, notice the electronic blip that
quietly speaks the name of the album. Then it's gone. I always listen for that.
"How AI Impacts Memory Systems" (http://ow.ly/O0dk30j3aVy )
JK--Clear illustration of how different AI hardware architectures' memory
bandwidth and processing power constraints limit ops per second vs. ops per
datum--and how AI apps may fail to exploit full performance potential
"IBM Helps Accelerate AI with Fast New Data Platform,
Elite Team" (http://ow.ly/KBc330j3aag )
JK--Repackaging of existing AI/ML solutions for containerized private-cloud
deploy. "No-charge consultancy" helping customers on their AI/ML/data
science journeys.
"IBM Launches Watson Data Kits to Help Accelerate
Enterprise AI Adoption" (http://ow.ly/nquk30j39Vc )
JK--Pre-packaged data for training the ML inside industry-specific intelligent
apps, such as chatbots. Available in Q2.
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp Liz Phair
"Supernova" from Whip-Smart JK--1994. Even with the radio edit, it's
pretty clear what feat the male subject of this song is ostensibly able to
perform " a volcano."
"AI Has A Hallucination Problem That's Proving Tough To
Fix" (http://ow.ly/fLVJ30j383w )
JK--Computer vision needs failsafe beyond pixel-level ML to make it less
vulnerable to these adversarial attacks. Perhaps image-level topological data
analysis: http://ow.ly/Lbsc30j38Sj
0 replies0 s2 s
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp Greta Van Fleet
"Highway Tune" from From the Fires JK--2017. Good one. These guys
sound ZZTop masquerading as a Led
Zeppelin cover band. From the Bavarian-inflected chicken-dinner capital of the
Lower Peninsula: Frankenmuth MI. Ummm.....Zehnder's!
Spring's almost here. We may or may not be about to get our
most substantial snowstorm of the winter in the DC area. I may or may not be
coming down with my most substantial coughing fit. At least I don't have to
leave my home to get my work done.
"Silicon Valley companies are undermining the impact of
AI" (http://ow.ly/dpdn30j34uU )
JK--"Strategy aimed first at getting the talent in-house, then figuring
out what to do with them....depriving competitors of the AI talent that could
make them competitive."
"The Building Blocks of Interpretability" (http://ow.ly/184330j3481 )
JK--Humanity is trying to engineer degree of visibility into algorithmic
thought processes that we don't expect from organic thinking. Who tries to
attribute a thought to some specific neural activation pattern?
"Black Panther Face Scorecard: Wakandans Under the
Coded Gaze of AI" (http://ow.ly/dqIl30j33Bv )
JK--Face-recognition algorithm coded these specific black male faces accurately than these specific female faces?
Well, gee duh. Every single one of the men has facial hair.
Any NDA that a White House employee may sign is null and
void. They work for the American people. Only classified and otherwise
confidential material may not be disclosed. POTUS’ crimes are not state
secrets.
New jk #Wikibon
blog: "The Importance of Microsoft’s Deep Learning 'Rosetta Stone'" (http://ow.ly/c4vR30j2hyk )
"Robotic process automation software unites vendors,
partners" (http://ow.ly/5IGs30j1Kbn ) JK--RPA is
hottest sector of the augmented programming market. See my recent #Wikibon report:
"The Race For AI: Google, Intel, Apple In A Rush To
Grab Artificial Intelligence Startups" (http://ow.ly/ZKeq30j1JMd )
JK--I'd to suggest that the "acute
shortage of AI talent" has led to many "AI startups" fetching
unrealistically elevated acquisition prices. Bully for them!
RT @KEXPNowPlaying
#kexp Eleanor
Friedberger "In Between Stars" from Rebound JK--2018. Good new one
from her. There's always an undertone of fierce determination in everything she
records.
"Comparing Deep Learning Frameworks: A Rosetta Stone
Approach" (http://ow.ly/T5uB30j1Ieq ) JK--I love
it. Microsoft has published guidance that enables data scientists to easily
leverage their expertise from one DL framework to another. Underlying
frameworks becoming less relevant
"Why Node.js Is the Coolest Kid on the Backend
Development Block!" (http://ow.ly/SWf630j1HTz ) JK--Yeah,
it's important, but not particularly cool. There's nothing wrong with being
Nerd.js, but misconstruing your hipness factor tends to call attention to one's
cluelessness.
"Why Do We Need Streaming ETL?" (http://ow.ly/4pDS30j1Hgs )
JK--My sense is that ETL will evolve architecturally toward massively
distributed cloud environments built on Kafka (streaming/batch) + serverless
(stateless event-driven processing) + blockchain (persistence).
"Conquering The World – Chatbots Gone Wild
(Infographic)" (http://ow.ly/OGmv30j1GBQ )
JK--Example of infographics gone wild. Whatever happened to summarizing a
complex topic in a single simple image that doesn't require endless scrolling?
"I'm not 54. I'm 22 with 32 years experience" (http://ow.ly/blSp30j1Fq4 )
JK--I hear ya. For the record, I'm not 59. I'm 100 with 41 years of growing up
ahead of me.
"An Error-Ridden Job Application Steve Jobs Handwrote
in 1973 Sold for 6 Figures at Auction" (http://ow.ly/HY0730j1EQO )
JK--Are they also auctioning off his childhood paperclips and ballpoint pens?
I'll bid on those!
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp Hollie Cook
"Stay Alive" from Vessel of Love JK--2018. Wow. This is a really
beautiful reggae song.
"Elon Musk details plans for high-speed urban hyperloop
for pedestrians" (http://ow.ly/fCFa30j1DH8 ) JK--This
is starting to freak me out now. Suggests that we'll be asked to endure insane
g-force rocket-sled acceleration/decelerations over short distances.
"The FTC is cracking down on ‘deceptive cryptocurrency
schemes’" (http://ow.ly/ROEw30j1CF9 ) JK--The
underlying investment is so off-the-charts risky, we don't need fraudsters
melting it all down into a deadzone of financial wrack and ruin.
"AI could reinforce gender inequality" (http://ow.ly/liZX30j1BCu )
JK--Maybe, maybe not. I love how "AI" can be conveniently dropped
into any argument as some force that could produce whatever potential outcome,
positive or negative, you want to focus on.
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp The B‐52s
"Dance This Mess Around" from The B‐52’s JK--1979. I remember when
this came out in the thick of the disco era. This song brought a
mocking-but-embracing piece of that scene into the punk clubs. Guys and gals in
leather jackets danced to it.
"Why America Slept" (http://ow.ly/QvHM30j1Acg )
JK--Tim O'Reilly grounds grandiose blockchain-as-salvation argument in a
pretentious geopolitical analogy that invokes the ghosts of Winston Churchill
and Neville Chamberlain.
"This will be the 'break-out' year for artificial
intelligence" (http://ow.ly/2Irx30j1zId ) JK--Break
out of what, exactly? Intensifying adoption, innovation, and commercialization
have been happening for years.
"Hearts Get 'Younger,' Even At Middle Age, With
Exercise" (http://ow.ly/bl4a30j1z7b )
JK--"Exactly which aspects of an exercise routine make the biggest
difference"? It would be useful to see research in this area. I sense it's
light cardio + restorative meditation.
Some otherwise educated woman who once worked at the
National Telecommunications and Information Administration told me she didn’t
trust cloud computing because “they’re watching us.” I’m never sure whether to
respond to this populist paranoia with reason or ridicule.
Saw “Lady Bird” on DVD. Good, but I was puzzled by the
underdeveloped characters (priest, adopted brother, adopted sister, slightly
disturbed second boyfriend).
Nice to see companies
are ending discounts for NRA members. Responsible businesses don’t subsidize
arms merchants, their customers, or their apologists.
I mentioned that I’m in tech. One of my wife’s former
colleagues asked what she should do with an ancient printer. I suggested
throwing it in the trash. I don’t have magical powers of resurrecting obsolete
tech.
Stress. It’s never clear what blend of distracting,
engaging, and/or relaxing the mind will clear it. Or whether the mind is the
wrong focus altogether.
Unhinged angry woman at the fitness club shouting unbroken
string of obscene threats at no one in particular. Thank heaven for mall
security. Nothing a little PTSD to top
off our St Paddy’s morning.
These fools who use their smartphones in the hot tub. I’m
waiting for the day it slips from their sweaty hands.
Bit of unexpected flurries this morning. Our March into the
month has been occasioned by multiple bursts of inconvenient flakery.
"The 10 Commandments of AI & its Potential for
Malicious Use" (http://ow.ly/74fs30iZGm2 )
JK--Rolling my eyes at dictate that "AI should be used ...to enhance and
augment, rather than replace human labor." That same logic would roll back
all labor-saving technology to the Stone Age
"The Young and Brash of Tech Grow a Bit Older, and
Wiser" (http://ow.ly/XEXJ30iZDu8 ) JK--Don't
count on it. of them model themselves on
Steve Jobs than Bill Gates.
VISIBILITY Adhere to the grain of fact. A true analyst
simply reports it. Fabricates nothing from whole cloth. Embroiders not a single
false thread. Simply sees how far the woof stretches and stitches the warp
tight and tucked. --James Kobielus
AN ANALYST’S LISTS Big bold and sweeping statements about
the weather sustain our careers. Overstuffed inbox ponderings on the latest
shrink-wrapped abstractions. Disembodied voices powerpointing plans for soft
world domination. --James Kobielus
PUREST POWER All our generation ever aspired to purest power
when you keep pouring without friction or drag merest steam into the next sleek
slumber machine. --James Kobielus
It would have been interesting if Wallace Stevens had
written poetry about insurance or William Carlos Williams about medicine. Why
these professional subject matters are missing from their published work is
puzzling. Did they find no versifying fodder in them?
"Liquid Democracy: How Blockchain Can Improve the
Democratic Process and Enable a Liquid Democracy" (http://ow.ly/mwKy30iZbtp )
JK--The most liquid thing about this technology is how everybody is pouring
their fondest utopian dreams into it. Setting us all up for disappointment?
"How Decentralized AI Will Change Everything" (http://ow.ly/Tb8h30iZalC )
JK--Check out my discussion of the deep decoupling of the AI ecosystem in this #Wikibon report:
"Can Automation Accelerate ML Programs?" (http://ow.ly/GLJG30iZ9EX )
JK--Headline question has it wrong. Per article, means "accelerate
development/training/deployment of ML programs." Per my recent #Wikibon reports,
answer is yes: http://ow.ly/7Oj530iZ9NP
"The GANfather: The man who’s given machines the gift
of imagination" (http://ow.ly/1Hz830iZ8ws )
JK--Generative adversarial networks are a cornerstone of the new economic era.
They deploy machine learning as a creative design/engineering/fabrication tool
with limitless potential.
"Innateness, AlphaZero, & AI" (http://ow.ly/18NW30iZ7PN )
JK--Interesting dissection of what it might mean for a cognitive machine to
operate "tabula rasa." But oddly omits "motivation" (e.g.,
survival) from the variables. That's an innate reward function, not an innate
algorithm
"Tesla’s Make-Or-Break Moment Is Fast Approaching"
(http://ow.ly/LZHk30iZ6rp ) JK--I'm
curious whether this will be the DeLorean for our times.
PEAT Free from the chilling of a continent, Ireland feels
warmer than home. The wild Atlantic soaks in craggy ferment its mat of glowing
green. In coffee so steep it could pull the wanderer far out past peat’s edge.
--James Kobielus
St. Patrick's Day tomorrow. When I visited Ireland last
fall, the last thing I wanted to do was stay indoors & get stewed. The
country is so green and beautiful, it seems a shame that their patron saint
isn't associated in the popular mind with environmentalism.
Tesla continues to burn cash
there’s no tomorrow while Musk launches the inventory on rocketships.
The only black ink they're ly to see anytime soon is the inky void of outer
space.
"AI Predicts Coding Mistakes Before Developers Make
Them" (http://ow.ly/nOuS30iYgdh ) JK--If we
could reincarnate Philip K Dick, he might write about an evil AI bot that
identifies (and blocks) coding "mistakes" which, if allowed to be
committed, might extinguish the bot altogether
"When an AI finally kills someone, who will be
responsible?" (http://ow.ly/x87C30iYeCQ ) JK--Answer
depends on whether you define "responsible" in a criminal, social,
economic, or spiritual context. Who pays with their liberty, good name,
financial assets, and/or soul?
"6 ways AI transforms how we develop software" (http://ow.ly/ljAi30iYdAF )
JK--Rapid prototyping, intelligent programming assistants, automatic analytics
& error handling, automatic code refactoring, precise estimates, strategic
decision making.
"Google Is Helping the Pentagon Build AI for
Drones" (http://ow.ly/G2yt30iYazW ) JK--Not
surprising. I would be surprised if AWS, Microsoft, IBM, and other AI
powerhouses haven't been approached about working with DoD on this.
"Google researchers tackle prefetching with neural
networks" (http://ow.ly/iBBX30iY9GV )
JK--Essentially, they're exploring use of neural nets to learn memory access
patterns in order to drive adaptive
memory prefetching strategies in real-time cloud-computing scenarios.
"'Memtransistor' Forms Foundational Circuit Element to
Neuromorphic Computing" (http://ow.ly/UZY030iXWM4 )
JK--Persistent memory storage and information processing on a single chip.
"Can artificial intelligence beat musicians at their
craft?" (http://ow.ly/Pw9330iXSpP ) JK--That's
a dumb way to phrase it. It's not a competition. Every new musical instrument
or production technique enriches the craft.
"Microsoft Announces 'Windows ML' Platform for
AI-Assisted Windows 10 Apps" (http://ow.ly/BXZT30iXRXV )
JK--Embed pre-trained AI models in Windows 10 apps for fast/local image/video
analysis without need for device roundtripping to AI services in the cloud.
"Donald Trump admits making up 'facts' in trade meeting
with Justin Trudeau" (http://ow.ly/Xj1b30iXHPN ) JK--Smart
bluffing tactic: invent "facts" about a country that can be quickly
and decisively refuted by that country's leader.
"Martin Shkreli jailed: 'Pharma Bro' sentenced to seven
years for fraud" (http://ow.ly/hftt30iXHAP ) JK--I hope
they lock him in a cell where he's surrounded by endlessly looping videos of
his obnoxious face.
"Google open sources machine learning tech it used to
find new planets" (http://ow.ly/iiYn30iXFGY )
JK--High-powered statistical analysis is a key for resolving exoplanets from
the immense noise field of cosmic signals.
"Google expands work in quantum computing with 72-qubit
Bristlecone processor" (http://ow.ly/XFkQ30iXFj7 )
JK--Quantum's error rates need to diminish before the tech can be scaled
effectively. This processor will support research into powerful quantum-error-correction schemes.
"Trump Just Released His School Safety Plan And It
Involves Arming Teachers" (http://ow.ly/ngCD30iXDZS )
JK--Yeah, that makes lots of sense. There's nothing staring down the business end of a snubnosed
revolver to make students shut up and do their assigned reading.
"North Korea Is Willing To Abandon Its Nuclear Weapons
And Hold Talks With The US" (http://ow.ly/Q6xL30iXCS2 )
JK--So, if I have this straight, the country that invented brainwashing wants
us to believe them on this mega-whopper.
"Big data transformed the world. Now it’s getting down
to business" (http://ow.ly/Cgsg30iXzEW ) JK--Cites
recent #SiliconANGLE
#Wikibon big data
analytics market study that I co-authored.
RT @KEXPNowPlaying
#kexp Big Star "In
the Street" from #1 Record / Radio City JK--1972. Better known as
"The That 70s Show Theme."
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp U.S. Girls
"Rosebud" from In A Poem Unlimited JK--2018. Nice. Sounds Altered Images in their prime.
iHeartRadio files for bankruptcy. If stupid company names
were a financial liability, they would have gone broke years ago.
#Cloud
-based #ArtificialIntelligence
(AI) refers to intelligent applications that are built, trained, deployed, and
used in cloud-computing environments, including the #InternetOfThings
(IoT). --James Kobielus @Wikibon http://www.odbms.org/2018/03/on-cloud-based-ai-qa-with-james-kobielus/ …
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp Woods "Blood
Dries Darker" from At Echo Lake JK--2010. Love the high-pitched oddness of
the vocal on this neo-psychedelic number.
People who don’t want be photographed. If you want to be
omitted from the historical record, no problem.
Can’t wait to breathe recirculated airplane air and leave LA
smog behind me. My throat feels rush
hour on I-405.
Spent a week getting
familiar with my family. Now preparing to return to the familiarity of
my routine.
RIP Stephen Hawking. Far outlived the life expectancy of ALS
sufferers. You don’t have to know anything about theoretical physics or
downplay his human failings to admire his sheer grit.
Nice day of seeing how LA gets even intensely gridlocked in a light rain. Wonder
what would happen if they ever had to endure a wintry mix. Utter paralysis?
Trump replaces secretary of state with spymaster. Clearly,
other countries will be delighted to engage in diplomacy with someone who most
recently managed espionage campaigns to weasel out their state secrets.
Selectively connecting to some Facebook friends from my
Instagram. Prioritizing those who went out of their way to say hello in person.
I’m oldschool.
Happiness is having your backlog of columns published while
you’re enjoying a wee bit of time off not thinking about that stuff.
New jk #InformationWeek
column: “The Evolution Away from Conversational User Interfaces” (https://www.informationweek.com/big-data/ai-machine-learning/the-evolution-away-from-conversational-user-interfaces-/a/d-id/1331225 …?)
Have spent quality time with my 1-year-old Californian
grandson this week. Have enjoyed his expressions, especially his puzzlement at
this strange old wiseguy from the East.
I have enlisted Genius Bar tech support only at Apple Stores
in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Palo Alto, and, now, Manhattan Beach. However, I
live near Washington DC. For some reason, my Apple products mess with me when
they know there’s a west coast trip on the horizon.
My sister-in-law Diane recommends we visit some Frank Lloyd
Wright house in Hollywood. I say we have one back home in Fairfax County. Hybla
Valley near Mt Vernon. Egidia & I visited the original Taliesin in Spring
Green WI while dating. We’re all set on FLW.
Lounging at Starbucks on the Third Street Promenade in Santa
Monica. Sipping mocha on the sidewalk, listening to the busker. Hoping the rain
stays stopped. Now he’s into “Despacito.”
Good day today. Had a great 1st-birthday party for my
grandson Declan. It actually rained (and is still raining) here in Los Angeles.
I'm drowsy from the sheer experience of it all. Declan is sleeping the baby he still is.
New jk http://ODBMS.org interview: “On Cloud-based
AI. Q&A with James Kobielus” (http://www.odbms.org/2018/03/on-cloud-based-ai-qa-with-james-kobielus/ …)
New jk #InfoWorld column:
“Big data analytics: The cloud-fueled shift now underway” (https://www.infoworld.com/article/3261145/big-data/big-data-analytics-the-cloud-fueled-shift-now-under-way.html …)
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp Devo
"Uncontrollable Urge" from Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!
JK--1978. Awesome first track off their sensational debut LP. This rocker
utterly jumped off the vinyl and knocked you Devo-silly.
"Keras implementations of Generative Adversarial Networks"
(http://ow.ly/lWjE30iMzsD ) JK--Those
GAN-generated digit GIFs are semi-mesmerizing. Sort of fidget spinners.
"Do neural nets dream of electric sheep?" (http://ow.ly/lXYZ30iMz0b )
JK--Dream? of a hallucination.
Highlights the need for continual human curation and model tweaking to deliver
higher accuracy in algorithmic inference. You place blind faith in this stuff
at your peril.
"How to build a deep learning model in 15 minutes"
(http://ow.ly/xRmW30iMx31 ) JK--Has
link to a DL/ML automation framework called "Lore":
"AI Just Learned How To Boost The Brain's Memory"
(http://ow.ly/bZA230iMwCX ) JK--Hmm.
Not a huge effect. How about using machine learning to drive targeted delivery
of electrode pulses to brains of people suffering from epilepsy? A cerebral
pacemaker of sorts? Anybody doing that?
"Natural language generation software making inroads in
enterprises" (http://ow.ly/RQSL30iMwsB )
JK--Promising, but it won't gain real traction in corporate culture till they
perfect the art of clichéd language generation.
"IBM Watson CTO: range of conversational techs can coexist"
(http://ow.ly/ziq930iMvZK )
JK--Interesting, but not buying distinction btwn "conversational
agents," "digital assistants," "chatbots." It's six of
one, half dozen of the next, 50% the square root of a gross of the other
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp Nirvana
"Rape Me" from In Utero JK--1993. My hair stood on end when I saw
Kurt Cobain shouting out this song on Saturday Night Live. He's screaming what?
"Why A.I. Researchers at Google Got Desks Next to the
Boss" (http://ow.ly/kxPi30iMvuC ) JK--As
long as AI is perceived as the most disruptive new twist in applications,
you'll see this trend deepen in lots of companies. It will wane when AI's
hipness quotient regresses to the mean.
RT @KEXPNowPlaying
#kexp Wussy
"Gloria" from What Heaven Is
JK--2018. Good new one from the Cincinnati-based indie veterans. Does
not remind me of the Laura Branigan, Them/Van/Patti, or Christmas songs of the
same name.
"How to choose a low code platform: 3 tips" (http://ow.ly/xLCH30iMurn )
JK--Here, free of charge in one of my latest #Wikibon research
studies, is comprehensive guidance on
this topic:
"Why almost no one is making a living on YouTube"
(http://ow.ly/ZT2G30iMuee ) JK--Just
as almost no one is making a living from their blog alone.
Academy Award ratings are way down. Suggestion: hand them
their stupid trophies in the first 10 minutes and then show them doing lines
& hitting on each other at the afterparty into the wee hours.
"Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence to Pursue
Common Sense for AI" (http://ow.ly/xBTi30iLHQx )
JK--Microsoft co-founder funding AI projects in machine reading and reasoning,
natural language and understanding, and computer vision.
"Ingredients for Robotics Research" (http://ow.ly/TeSb30iLHDk )
http://JK--OpenAI.com
releasing eight simulated robotics environments. All are for integration into
your specific robotics initiaitive and reward-function training thru
reinforcement learning.
New jk #SiliconANGLE #Wikibon column:
"The cloud could finally lift the fortunes of big data analytics" (http://ow.ly/jw2D30iLHah )
That do-not-call registry has been working a charm. It's freed up my landline for calls from one of my very bestest friends in
the whole wide world, and he calls all the time: Name Unavailable.
Interviewed by Nicole Laskowski of SearchCIO about machine
learning in the enterprise.
"How Robots and Seniors Can Live Side by Side" (http://ow.ly/1U0130iLsvh )
JK--From a purely utilitarian level, intelligent robotic furniture/appliances
could make life easier by adjusting/reconfiguring themselves to mitigate your
disability.
"Machine Theory of Mind" (http://ow.ly/6p8n30iLrDN )
JK--In an AI context, this concept ("humans' ability to represent the mental
states of others, including their desires, beliefs, and intentions") is
akin to "720-degree customer view" as I discussed here: http://ow.ly/YBUe30iLrKR
"Artificial intelligence faces reproducibility
crisis" (http://ow.ly/mQn730iLpMY )
JK--Without reproducibility, AI's data scientists will have a hard time proving
that they're not engaging in the statistical equivalent of smoke & mirrors.
"OpenAI Releases Algorithm That Helps Robots Learn from
Hindsight" (http://ow.ly/ryVP30iL6cU )
JK--Retrospective improvisation. Owns your mistakes. Recognizes that some
failures R in fact successes on some serendipitous path to some alternate goal
that may not yet be entirely clear
"Flying brain is heading to the ISS to help out
astronauts" (http://ow.ly/bi3330iL5Rj )
JK--Humanoid AI-driven robot to provide on-board digital assistance and
supervision over the crew's technical/engineering tasks in earth orbit. Powered
by IBM Watson.
"The GDPR: An AI Killer?" (http://ow.ly/k35g30iL53S )
JK--Article has premise that's flat-out wrong: "A machine...cannot learn
bias from interactions as humans do." It most certainly can: an algorithm
profiling behavioral data can "learn" prejudicial behavior as the
norm.
The Oscars had already been going on for 3 hours and they
still hadn't gotten to Best Actress/Best Actor. I said the heck with it and
went to bed. None of this is worth losing sleep over.
Seems every random
spammer needs my feedback. Well, I can’t turn a cold shoulder to a fellow human
being in need.
Seriously, doesn’t Kobe Bryant have enough honors by now?
Whoa! They just said Sufjan Stevens is performing on the
Oscars. Love him. Can’t wait.
Please wake me when they get to Best Picture. I hope
“Titanic” wins. That was my favorite this year. Let’s nominate it every year.
SPROUT When weather changes Near spring your barometer
Registers it first. You sense the heft of Every embryonic grain Of
efflorescence. And the pressure of Sunshine drumming the green back Into its
cocoon. --James Kobielus
There’s something to be said about absorbing the world’s
news on a quiet morning over a steaming beverage.
Saw “Brad’s Status” on DVD. Really good. Ben Stiller is
better at pathos than comedy, and he’s not bad at the latter.
Bought/downloaded Sera Cahoone's 2017 LP "From Where I
Started." One of those artists I love that I'd inexplicably never added to
my music collection. Situation remedied. She's well into a career producing
consistently gorgeous melancholy of the country/indie/lo-fi variety.
The only Oscar Best Picture winners of the past 60 years
that I’ve never seen are “Braveheart,” “Chariots of Fire,” “The Sting”
“Oliver!,” “A Man For All Seasons,” and “Lawrence of Arabia.” Plus “Gigi.” And
of course “Gigli.”
Decided to cut the exercise short this morning and do a
little McDonald’s. Just to keep it interesting.
Today on the IT social media scene, the buzz remains the
same: all big data is oil, all AI is evil, and all the kids are above average.
Do you remember when you joined Twitter? I do! March 3,
2008. I had recently joined Forrester. They recommended it. I went much further
with it than most analysts. Key tactic in my personal-brand differentiation. #MyTwitterAnniversary
Did a good #Wikibon team recording
today. Brainstormed programming model for future end-to-end streaming grids in
edge clouds. Declarative, late binding, Bayesian exploration with on-demand
exploitation of lowest latency resource orchestration
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp Joy Division
"Love Will Tear Us Apart" from Substance JK--1979. "Again"?
Absolutely demands a prequel so we can learn how love tore them apart before.
I always enjoy when writers preface a statement with
"simply put." No better way to call attention to your assertion's
simplicity than by making it syntactically complex.
"This AI checks NDAs for free & offers a grim
glimpse of future" (http://ow.ly/w43c30iIkOl ) JK--As a
longtime industry analyst, I see way too many overbroad nondisclosure
agreements. They should have specific embargo dates and be scoped only to
what's not already public knowledge
"Gainers and Losers in Gartner 2018 Magic Quadrant for
Data Science and Machine Learning Platforms" (http://ow.ly/gWjR30iIk4R )
JK--It's not clear how valid this vendor scoping is without public-cloud
providers AWS and Google, who both have AI vision and are executing well on it
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp Gwenno "Hi a
Skoellyas Liv a Dhagrow" from Le Kov JK--2018. Good one. This song and
album are entirely in Cornish, the Celtic language native to Cornwall in
southwestern England.
Just saw a headline claiming that some new tech whatsis that
I've never heard of has "gone viral." My sense is that publishing
such headlines is the core of somebody's attempts to make it go viral. I've
already forgotten what its name is. Attitudinal jaundice is my antiviral.
Saw "Mudbound" on Netflix. Enjoyed Mary J. Blige's
Oscar-nominated performance. I also d the performances by the actors who played
her character's husband and son: Rob Morgan and Jason Mitchell.
"The 10 Best Coding Challenge Websites for 2018" (http://ow.ly/gOYc30iH5a1 )
JK--Actually, these would excellent sources of training (code) data to power
the coming generations of AI-driven augmented-programming tools, per my recent #Wikibon research note:
"AI experts list the real dangers of artificial
intelligence" (http://ow.ly/GZWT30iH4yi ) JK--Thanks
for compiling all these into a nifty little nightmare compendium. Let's invent
an AI-powered implantable device that gnaws our innards out obsessing over this
stuff.
"Why Elon Musk Is Stepping Down from AI Safety Group He
Co-Founded" (http://ow.ly/BjtN30iH3Zk ) JK--OK.
Now he sees an opportunity to make money from AI over at Tesla. Hence, the
technology's threat level has apparently been downgraded. That's reassuring.
"Making AI software smarter by adding human
feedback" (http://ow.ly/DRuH30iH2kA ) JK--My
hunch is that chatbots, embedded in AI-driven apps, will become a core source
of continuous feeds of interactively human-generated data for retraining those
same apps in real-time
"API management platform trends to watch in 2018"
(http://ow.ly/6Q8u30iH0s5 ) JK--There
are APIs buzzing around your app hive
than bees in an apiary.
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp Johnny Cash/June
Carter "Jackson JK--1967. Trivia about this: 1) Kingston Trio recorded it
first in 1963, 2) about no specific Jackson city, 3) lyricist said it was
inspired by Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", 4) co-written
by Jerry Leiber
"Un-gentrifying Portland: scheme helps displaced
residents come home" (http://ow.ly/DFzR30iGVux )
JK--Careful here. What if "eminent domain"-driven displacements paid
fair market value (then) of your property? Why should taxpayers subsidize your
move back to that neighborhood?
"California Studies Viability of a Public Bank for
Marijuana Businesses" (http://ow.ly/X4Ys30iGUUc ) JK--Given
the leftward swing in the Golden State's Democratic establishment, this sort of
initiative, even if it goes nowhere, is a harbinger of the ly post-Trump-era
backlash
Holding all this BDA market trends stuff in active cache in
one's head is painful. That's why I carefully work my thoughts into tidy
materializations. Once the write-ups have crystallized, I can put them within
conceptual arm's reach 4 as-needed retrieval. Best 2 publish & B done
#Wikibon
latest Big Data Analyst market trends/forecast (authored by myself, with G.
Gilbert & R. Finos) found that several trends are driving the BDA
industry’s competitive landscape. Here are predictions of key BDA industry
milestones 2020 thru 2030.
New jk #Wikibon
Premium research note: “Wikibon’s 2018 Big Data Analytics Trend and Forecast” (https://wikibon.com/wikibons-2018-big-data-analytics-trends-forecast/ …)
A beautiful doe-eyed woman challenger won in a runaway on
Jeopardy tonight. I just sat there admiring her intellect for the entire
half-hour.
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp Wye Oak "The
Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs" from "The Louder I Call, The
Faster It Runs" JK--2018. Excellent new one from the Balti duo.
Wikibon's 6th Annual Big Data Forecast Unveiling &
Breakfast. Thurs Mar 8-9am PST. Forager Tasting Room & Eatery, 420 S 1st
Street, San Jose. Register: http://ow.ly/r9jP30iFze6 #Wikibon #TheCUBE #SiliconANGLE
"Clueless actress Stacey Dash rebounds from her lost
Fox News gig by running for Congress" (http://ow.ly/r8Lb30iExOK )
JK--I the fact that they're using
"clueless" as a standard descriptor of her in every mention.
New jk #SiliconANGLE
column: "'Augmented programming' will make developers productive" (http://ow.ly/KycK30iEoq4 )
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp Lush "Lit
Up" from Split JK--1994. That's one awesome piece of warm processed
streaming electro-pop.
"Berkeley Lab ‘Minimalist Machine Learning’ Algorithms
Analyze Images From Very Little Data" (http://ow.ly/NfT630iEk7C )
JK--The algorithmic singularity we're approaching is intuition: the ability to
achieve amazingly accurate inferences from very little or no data at all.
"Help Build a Database of Ancient Graffiti from Pompeii
and Herculaneum" (http://ow.ly/yA0J30iEjZ8 ) JK--My
guess is that it's all just dirty jokes.
"Quantum machine learning may come knocking on
analytics' door" (http://ow.ly/BmKZ30iEjzx ) JK--Not
sure about that. The best case scenario involves chilling our hardware down to
absolute zero. Sounds suspiciously a
hell-freezing-over scenario.
"To Give A.I. the Gift of Gab, Silicon Valley Needs to
Offend You" (http://ow.ly/NZyg30iEiWH ) JK--OK.
They should start by programming their chatbots to speak the most toxic super-rich Silicon Valley
douchebags.
"‘The AI body snatchers have already taken over’"
(http://ow.ly/VCmg30iEhEB ) JK--That's
premature. Monetizing bulk organ-harvesting requires a significant capital
investment and isn't proven to scale. Give us time.
"7 Ideas for AI Silicon from ISSCC" (http://ow.ly/9i3z30iEhtE )
JK--Huge amounts of low-cost fast memory bandwidth needed to drive embedded
neural nets in edge-computing devices.
"Production Recommendation Systems with Cloudera"
(http://ow.ly/bg1c30iEgEj ) JK--I how Cloudera has shifted towards being a data
science pipeline solution provider. I don't peg them as Hadoopies any, though
they're still much that in spades.
"New algorithm can create movies from just a few
snippets of text" (http://ow.ly/4NBm30iEfNE )
JK--Cinematically, this sounds very Andy Warhol meets Sol LeWitt. Sketch out
the barest of scripts & storyboards. Algorithmic assistants do the bulk of
the creative work. Voila!
"Can Artificial Intelligence Be The Ultimate
Influencer?" (http://ow.ly/Rm5k30iEfax ) JK--Don't
get your hopes/fears up on this one. AI hasn't changed the fundamental
vagueness underlying multichannel conversational targeting. You can't
algorithmically program people to respond.
"Augmenting employee performance" (http://ow.ly/ErYp30iEej3 )
JK--"Technology-augmented employee" sounds the most terminal nerd who ever walked the
earth. Better to call yourself "Auggie Doggy." At least old-time
cartoon nerds will have your back.
"AI's Malicious Potential Front and Center in New
Report" (http://ow.ly/aLbY30iEdT8 ) JK--I can
imagine a Hollywood villain laughing maniacally, eyes bugging out, while
declaring their "algorithms will be really good at manipulating people."
I just can. Jim Carrey would be perfect
"Will There Be Another AI Winter?" (http://ow.ly/EUdM30iEdmT )
JK--It's always been a stupid concept. Assumes that some abstract paradigm has
some sort of manifest destiny that must overcome small-minded fools to ascend
to its rightful place at evolution's apex.
"Why Self-Taught Artificial Intelligence Has Trouble
With the Real World" (http://ow.ly/AFwy30iEbmi ) JK--The
real world's the craziest game of all, and we're all being gamed and gaming
each other to the nth.
"Humans may not always grasp why AIs act. Don’t
panic" (http://ow.ly/85BN30iEaOn ) JK--I
don't always understand why computer responds as it does. That doesn't
necessarily mean it's sharpening its knives in my direction.
"OpenPose: Real-time multi-person keypoint detection
library for body, face, and hands estimation" (http://ow.ly/wDJX30iDVhE )
JK--Click to it for a cool GIF.
"Could Self-Driving Trucks Be Good for Truckers?"
(http://ow.ly/I6QG30iDUGt ) JK--They
could become the skippers of the lonesome highway, handling myriad other
logistical chores (and occasionally taking the wheel) involved in moving cargo
inter- and intra-city.
"China and the US are bracing for an AI showdown—in the
cloud" (http://ow.ly/wAXa30iDU8F ) JK--I'll
believe this only when Xi Jinping directs the entire hydroelectric output of
the Three Gorges dam to cloud data centers dedicated to running AI experiments.
RT @KEXPNowPlaying
#kexp Boards of Canada
"Dayvan Cowboy" from The Campfire Headphase JK--2005. Trippy song
always switches me into the daydream headphase.
"MongoDB Drops ACID" (http://ow.ly/bQEE30iDTqK )
JK--Haha. #Wikibon
forthcoming big-data market study shows convergence between analytic and app
databases, with ACID transaction support (atomic consistent independent
durable) a new coin of the realm.
"Java in 2018: The Year of Eclipse, Containers and
Serverlessness" (http://ow.ly/C03B30iDSVv ) JK--See my
#Wikibon research
note on serverless codebases for private clouds. Most run Docker containers
& work with any language those containers support.
"Enterprise Java’s new name: Jakarta EE" (http://ow.ly/pY5E30iDOOD )
JK--Really? Renaming it after the Indonesian capital doesn't bode well for its
ability to scale without grinding to a gridlock halt. How well does it manage
garbage collection? Aduh!
Today was a bit challenging. Dealt with the exquisitely
tangled heaviness of all things professional personal and philosophical that
constitute James Kobielus. Who, what, when, where, how, why, and whither art
thou, Maestro Giacomo? Another day, another dollop.
Caught “Same Kind of Different As Me.” Cliched story doesn’t
dim beautiful character studies by Djimon Hounsou, Greg Kinnear, and Renee
Zellweger.
Caught “Wonder” on DVD. Inspiring story of boy with
congenital facial deformity who braves the loneliness of fitting in with his
peer group. Love how the filmmaker also puts you into the emotional lives of each
family member, friend, and even the bully.
I respect the fact that one of Russia’s greatest chess
grandmasters is also one of their greatest political dissidents. Garry
Kasparov. America’s greatest grandmaster was certified nutjob Bobby Fischer.
Sad.
RT @KEXPNowPlaying
#kexp Erykah Badu
"Hello" from But You Caint Use My Phone JK--2015. Nice slowed-down
version of Todd Rundgren's "Hello It's Me." He released his original
the year after she was born.
"Trump’s proposal to arm teachers panned by experts as
a ‘colossally stupid idea’" (http://ow.ly/s0bd30iCdjz )
JK--"It's a crazy proposal. So what should we do about reducing airline
hijacking? Give all the passengers guns as they walk on?"
"America's bump stock capital: can this tiny Texas town
survive Trump's ban?" (http://ow.ly/7Hn130iCcDd ) JK--It's
morbidly fitting that the company has a "factory in fields next to a
graveyard about a mile away."
"The Founder of Panera Bread: 'I Wish I'd Fired People'" (http://ow.ly/sWyv30iCcfa )
JK--And he wished he'd've spent time
with his "team as family" doing it.
In less than a year at #SiliconANGLE #Wikibon I’ve turned
myself into a pretty good app-dev analyst. We’re putting my latest research
note, on “augmented programming,” front of the paywall so the industry can see
my bonafides:
Mastered the latest corkscrew. It’s not falling apart in my
hands the previous two. I guess I want
that wine too badly. Don’t know my own power. Patience, patience.
Bootcamp instructor Dominique urged us to “enjoy the
weather,” which happens to be overcast and rainy though not bone-chilling. She
said it with her sunny smile. We love Dominique.
You know you’re getting old when you have several previous
decades cached in memory and you’re constantly pushing a mental “back” button
to review them your brain’s a browser.
My Facebook is full of people’s politics. My Twitter is full
of people’s tech obsessions. My LinkedIn is full of people’s career milestones.
I doubt Russian influence in the latter two socials.
I take issue with this notion that working out produces a
“natural high.” That’s never been my experience. What it actually does is
cushion you against natural lows.
Listening to Johnny Cash “Folsom Prison Blues.” I suspect
they put him there for geographic illiteracy. A California state prison holds
someone convicted of murder in Reno NV and abuts a train line headed due south
to San Antonio TX.
Reading Mueller litany of Manafort/Gates money laundering
& tax/bank fraud in svc of vanity/greed & dictators (Ukrainian,
Russian, American)
All I could think of this week was our upcoming vacation to
LA to help our grandson celebrate his first birthday. A year ago I was
switching jobs & we were looking forward to his birth.
"How artificial intelligence will transform how we
gesture" (http://ow.ly/Khko30iyfqE ) JK--We
will be able to create idiosyncratic lexicons of sensor-detected AI-recognized
gestures that indicate our personal intentions & drive results through all
of our edge devices.
"Missing data hinder replication of artificial
intelligence studies" (http://ow.ly/AhlX30iyf7F )
JK--Serious issue may mask how fragile many AI-derived findings truly are.
"Neurala claims 'lifelong deep neural nets' don't
forget" (http://ow.ly/Edae30iyeEe ) JK--Geared
for edge devices that can hold and adapt previously gained statistical
knowledge on the fly & tweak it on the fly to unique, local, changing
circumstances.
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp Sophia Kennedy
"Apple in the Basket" from Being Special JK--2018. Cool/odd. Sounds a
bit DeVotchKa doing Devo, or vice versa.
"Cleveland-Chicago Hyperloop Line Gets Feasibility
Study" (http://ow.ly/Bdn630iybZZ ) JK--Oh
thank heaven! Anything that can zip us through Toledo and Gary faster is worth
the expense!
Caught “The Florida Project” on DVD. A stunning, gripping,
sad, and hyperreal work of cinematic brilliance.
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp Ty Segall
"She" from Freedom’s Goblin JK--2018. I think Ty Segall is a musical
force of nature. This new one is a full-tilt brilliant jam.
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp Big Mama Thornton
"Wade in the Water" from Ball n' Chain JK--1968. Smokin'
full-throated blues-rock.
"Machine Learning: Validation Techniques" (http://ow.ly/seMQ30iwS2R )
JK--This is the trenches of training ML models: statistical techniques for
vetting/improving model validity when the training samples may not be 100%
representative of source data population distribution.
"Roundup Of Machine Learning Forecasts And Market
Estimates, 2018" (http://ow.ly/kmID30iwRbe ) JK--Nice
rollup of analyst numbers. George Gilbert, Peter Burris, Ralph Finos, and yours
truly are preparing #Wikibon
forecasts for this market. Stay tuned for those in March.
"No Choice Between Humans & Machines" (http://ow.ly/afSQ30iwQko )
JK--"If U can do it with a template today, a machine will do it without U
tomorrow. Focus on work that has no repetition, that has no template, that has
little to no predictability, that has never been done before."
"The art and (data) science of leveraging economic
bubbles" (http://ow.ly/7N0Q30iwPN0 )
JK--Whatever. How about the art of staying calm, doing nothing, trusting in the
fundamentals of your investments, and not overthinking this stuff? Many of us
survived the nastiness 10 years ago.
"Bill Gates to guest star on The Big Bang Theory next
month" (http://ow.ly/kGRR30iwPkO ) JK--Won't
be his first sitcom appearance. Here's him providing first-line tech support
for Windows XP on "Frasier" in 2001 (http://ow.ly/aUZ630iwPpm )
"Homo erectus may have been a sailor – and able to
speak" (http://ow.ly/Fpz930iwNaV ) JK--It's
not hard to imagine they developed sailing skills on the large rivers and big
lakes of Africa, and then used those same skills/crafts to venture across the
adjacent oceans.
"Drawing an elephant with four complex parameters"
(http://ow.ly/7v7t30iwMJK ) JK--What
It was a lovely summer day here in the Mid-Atlantic. Not
sure if it’s premature to slather on the sunblock.
"Rise of the 'Hivenet': Botnets That Think for
Themselves" (http://ow.ly/6eSd30ivocT ) JK--Agile
cooperative AI for cyber crime/warfare: "intelligent botnet clusters swarm
compromised devices to identify and assault different attack vectors all at
once."
"Deep Generative Models" (http://ow.ly/gptz30ivnPq )
JK--You don't need authentic training
data when you can simply synthesize good-enough albeit-ersatz new data from the
same probabilistic distribution as a prior from-the-source training dataset
"Which Programming Language Is Best for Big Data?"
(http://ow.ly/SzAU30ivnuj ) JK--I
don't think there's any hard-and-fast answer you can give for such a broad
range of use cases and programming challenges.
"How Blockchain Will Bring Back Data Ownership to
Consumers" (http://ow.ly/Pi8y30ivnkc ) JK--I
doubt it. Companies will continue to give you goodies if you give them yours.
Many consumers will enthusiastically take those offers.
"AI’s Limits Send Scientists Back to the Brain" (http://ow.ly/6Pqh30ivmPb )
JK--Specifically, back to "spiky" event-driven neural firing patterns
as inspiration for brain-emulating hardware designs.
"Deep Reinforcement Learning Doesn't Work Yet" (http://ow.ly/uFZ630ivmxa )
JK--Or, as the article states, it may work, but there are other efficient, effective, stable, and
reproducible ways to address the same algorithmic use cases.
"Cloud TPU machine learning accelerators now available
in beta" (http://ow.ly/6AK230ivmjr ) JK--Google
rolls this out tentatively for high-performance AI model training in its public
cloud.
"Machine learning mega-benchmark: GPU providers" (http://ow.ly/nAF730ivm8o )
JK--Cloud IaaS performance benchmark numbers. A few of these providers were
unfamiliar to me. Worth exploring.
"Tech’s Ethical ‘Dark Side" (http://ow.ly/RiHn30ivlfr )
JK--Cornell prof nails it: “If data science ethics training focuses entirely on
the individual responsibility of the data scientist, it risks overlooking the
role of the broader enterprise.”
"Philosophers are building ethical algorithms to help
control self-driving cars" (http://ow.ly/WN9r30ivl3I )
JK--Honestly, I don't know if I want to give that control over to an
"ethical theory."
When you come right down to it, at the end of the day the
bottom line is net positive.
Getting through a day of news now involves sensing when
you're tensing up with anger and taking active measures to not let your muscles
get that way. Never a good thing.
Dear Facebook: Please rejigger your newsfeed algorithm so we
can reduce the salience of friends who now have nothing to share but politics.
Doesn’t matter if we agree with their leanings. Lighten up 4 cryin out loud!
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp Attarazat
Addahabia "(Unknown)" from Habibi Funk 007 JK--"(Unknown))? My
rear end! That's Beethoven. Specifically, "Für Elise."
Caught “Roman J. Israel, Esq” on DVD. Terrific film. One of
Denzel Washington’s best performances. Colin Farrell also excellent in this.
Biathlon. The riflery component makes me awfully nervous
this close to the DMZ.
New jk #Wikibon
blog: "Wikibon Trip Report: The Unisys Brand Gains New Life in a
Cloud-Everything World" (http://ow.ly/DrI230iszTJ )
Celebrating Chinese New Year by eating filet mignon and
drinking merlot. I’m sure some Chinese somewhere are doing the same. Gung hey
fat choy!
Unisys is a different creature now. They’re primarily
vertical, focused on providing templated but bespoke industry solutions.
Cybersecurity and advanced analytics runs thru most of it.
"Why I left my Executive role in Artificial
Intelligence at IBM" (http://ow.ly/RMLQ30iqP8b ) JK--The
always fascinating Cortnie Abercrombie. My former colleague has started a
nonprofit focused on mitigating AI's downsides. She calls it http://AITruth.org .
Worth checking out.
Covering a Unisys event in Orlando. Oddly enough, this is
the first time in my 30+ year IT career that I’ve attended an event sponsored
by the company that traces its parentage partly to Bill Kobielus’ longtime
employer: Sperry UNIVAC. Long overdue. Glad they’re still with it.
Spent the flight doing my research on Web application
development frameworks. Sure beat navigating the clunky in-flight entertainment
app. You take your kicks where you can get them.
Orlando limo driver. Rants about how his life is so full of
stress. But his ranting about that shooting down south here in Florida gave
me stress than I actually needed on my
ride in from the airport.
Earl Grey. It’s the best palate cleanser among teas. Always
makes me feel all fresh and new inside. Calms me right down from that coffee
buzz.
Same dumb cliched marketing call to action. Been seeing the
phrase forever. Geez, once and for all, the future was now. Let’s move past it.
"How to Turn Your Employees Into Powerful
Influencers" (http://ow.ly/fA1X30ioshq ) JK--I'll
cut to the chase on this. This was the core of my "evangelization"
for IBM back in the day. You need outwardly engaged subject-matter experts who
consistently publish interesting stuff.
New jk #Wikibon
Premium research note: "Augmented Programming Brings Machine Learning Into
The Development Toolchain" (http://ow.ly/Sl1v30ionLE )
#lowcode #roboticprocessautomation
#machinelearning
#AI #artificialintelligence
"As China Marches Forward on A.I., the White House Is
Silent" (http://ow.ly/nIDK30innDu ) JK--Oh,
I'm sure they're preparing a really spot-on strategy for dealing with the
challenge. Just as soon as Trump tweets all he's learned about it from Fox
News.
"China’s Fourth Industrial Revolution: Artificial
Intelligence" (http://ow.ly/Wdmq30inmR4 )
JK--Suppressed tone of alarm in this piece. It suggests that if Firesign
Theatre were around today they'd have Porgie and Mudhead attending " Data
Science High." Shoes for industry!
"Deploy IoT Lambda functions on Greengrass-connected
hardware" (http://ow.ly/zm1u30inkJn )
JK--Important topic for developers building stateless, event-driven apps for
deployment throughout a serverless fabric all the way out to the edge.
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp The Juliana
Hatfield Three "My Sister" from My Sister JK--1993. This sounds very
true to life. If you have siblings, these kinds of torn rivalries often exert a
powerful hold on your psychology throughout your life.
"Facebook’s body-swapping AI has Hollywood written all
over it" (http://ow.ly/VBUo30ilAzU ) JK--For
aging Hollywood actors/actresses, it has career-extension and stunt-faking
written all over it. "Wow! I didn't know Bruce Willis could run that fast
at his age!"
"Why blockchains are future of cloud storage" (http://ow.ly/2cnf30ilA0a )
JK--Low cost, redundancy, privacy. Hosts sell surplus storage capacity. Files
encrypted, broken into fragments, uploaded, & intelligently distributed
across many nodes around world. Payments via blockchain
"10 key principles for data-driven storytelling" (http://ow.ly/KGQw30ilzdn )
JK--Most of these are obvious. This is essential: "Don't link to
blog/press releases, link to the actual study." Let the reader drill to
the source so they don't have to buy your story on faith.
"Blockwatch: What Is a Decentralized Exchange?" (http://ow.ly/t46g30ilyAE )
JK--Offers buy-sell listings for various cryptocurrencies, indicates
reasonableness of asking prices, & issues ‘IOU’ token between tokens'
underlying blockchains to facilitate cross-currency transactions.
"The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson got an ‘F’ on a high
school music paper. At 75, he just got it changed to an ‘A’" (http://ow.ly/tfmU30ilwQd )
JK--Um, OK. Changed by a different teacher? And what's with the "Dr.
Landesfeind" stuff? Is this the ghost of "Dr." Eugene Landy
pranking him?
"Life’s stresses often sink me. Here’s how I decided to
change that" (http://ow.ly/nR4030ilwuw ) JK--Teach
yourself to feel gratitude for the most mundane things in your life. Break down
every moment into gratitudes that are within your reach. Hold onto those in
your heart. Repeat
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp Carole King "Corazon"
from Fantasy JK--1973. One of several excellent songs she put on the pop charts
in the years after "Tapestry." In retrospect, this sounds she was channeling Santana.
"Facial Recognition Is Accurate, if You’re a White
Guy" (http://ow.ly/Lmr230ilvkO ) JK--There
will almost certainly be laws and regulations to ensure that the
face-recognition AI model dev/training pipeline weeds out inconsistencies and
biases across demographic categories.
"How Long Until We’re All Amish?" (http://ow.ly/DK6e30iluI3 )
JK--Really? I'm dusting off my old butter churn and dulling down my wardrobe
just to be ready for this Singularity.
"Physics for the deep learning computer vision
expert" (http://ow.ly/WZZt30ilu5T ) JK--That
transverse magnetization discussion makes me tingle all over inside.
"The Four Scientific Meanings Of ‘Nothing’" (http://ow.ly/9uW130iltIL )
JK--The fifth is your future if you don't move your rear end from its lowest
energy state and try to find a job with your theoretical physics degree.
Caught "Get Out" on DVD. Jordan Peele's film is
sharply written, engagingly directed, well acted, and a total hoot from
beginning to end. 4 stars!
"An AI That Reads Privacy Policies So That You Don't
Have To" (http://ow.ly/VnpS30ilsmh ) JK--Please
also make one that deletes them from my inbox so I don't have to.
Everybody have fun tonight! Everybody Pyeongchang tonight!
Brought out our old boom box. We are systematically
relistening to Chinese and Indonesian pop music cassettes that my wife
collected before and not long after we met. Much 70s/80s romantic balladry.
Pleasant.
Wife and I having fun singing some children’s song that was
on a tape we played for our kids when they were little. We both remembered its
inane lyric & lame melody. Won’t say what it was.
Olympics bring out an idiotic degree of nationalist
sentiment. Suddenly, my foreign-born spouse who’s been a naturalized US citizen
for 30+ years, starts giving me this “your country just wants to hog the
medals” jazz.
Curling once again at the Winter Olympics. I hope they put
shuffleboard in the summer games to be perfectly evenhanded.
These are historic times. We’re living thru the worst
presidency in US history. It really is not going to get any better until he’s
gone.
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp The Dandy Warhols
"Cool as Kim Deal" from The Dandy Warhols Come Down JK--1997. Rare
instance of male rock artists toasting a female performer without bringing some
sexual subtext into it.
"How artificial intelligence is unleashing a new type
of cybercrime" (http://ow.ly/ekTt30iiP4b )
JK--Algorithmic impersonation. Intelligent vulnerability discovery &
exploitation. Adaptive money laundering strategies. Hacking into the physical
ATM to dispense paper currency.
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp Daughter
"Youth" from If You Leave JK--2013. Nice moody-lite groove. I forgot
to mention them as another artist that Nilufer Yanya reminds me of.
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp Nilufer Yanya
"Thanks 4 Nothing" from Thanks 4 Nothing JK--2018. Very nice.
Sounds a cross between Sade and Beth
Orton. Definitely a mocha-sipping groove.
0 replies0 s2 s
"Axiomatic Attribution for Deep Networks" (http://ow.ly/wlkZ30iiNJL )
JK--These researchers propose a generalizable approach for attributing the
predictions made by a deep learning model to the specific data features input
into the model.
I hope Musk loaded a few of his flamethrowers into that
rocket. They’ll be as useful as that Tesla in the trackless void of outer
space.
Another Olympics is upon us. Already enjoying it. But I wish
there were some way to zip thru the athletes’ inspiring stories and cut to the
action.
"John Perry Barlow, Internet Pioneer, 1947-2018" (http://ow.ly/6jVi30ii3wE )
JK--EFF's remembrance.
My feeling is that mgmt has essentially given up when they
resort to slogan "work smarter, not harder." Might as well spell it
"work smarder, not harter" to see if anyone's paying attention. M*A*S*H episode where Hawkeye walks outside
naked on a bet:
"Is “Murder by Machine Learning” the New “Death by
PowerPoint”?" (http://ow.ly/v0LI30ihsZj )
JK--Michael Schrage strains to draw analogy between boring presentations &
biased statistical models. I'm not buying it. The former tries people's
patience. The latter skews their decisions
"As AI Meets the Reputation Economy, We’re All Being
Silently Judged" (http://ow.ly/wOCT30ihskE ) JK--Sad. I
long for the good old days when everyone was always telling you to your face
exactly what they thought of you just before they clubbed you over the head.
The Grateful Dead "Cassidy" (http://ow.ly/FPw330ihrdc )
JK--Good one. Lyric by John Perry Barlow.
"DeepFakes explained" (http://ow.ly/dT6g30ihqkt )
JK--Using deep learning to create highly realistic but fake videos in which a
known person's face is superimposed on someone else's body.
"OpenAI Requests for Rsch 2.0" (http://ow.ly/gTBy30ihpyI )
JK--Slitherin'; Parameter Avgng in Distrib RL; Xfer Lrng Btwn Diff Games via
Generative Models; Transformers w/Linear Attention; Learned Data Augmentation;
Regularzn in RL; Automtd Solutions of Olympiad Inequality Problems
"Drowning in Data, Cities Turn to 'Citizen
Scientists'" (http://ow.ly/TZMo30ihoPY )
JK--Careful there: how do you know these self-appointed analysts aren't skewing
their "findings" to some policy agenda they're pushing?
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp Joe Strummer
& The Mescaleros "Redemption Song" from Streetcore JK--2003. He
left us with a memorable Marley cover.
"Applying machine learning to the universe's
mysteries" (http://ow.ly/BzIF30iho21 ) JK--I
predict future religions will battle over whether God set up the cosmic model
to learn via supervised methods or otherwise. Do "we got to fulfill the
book"?
"AWS appeals to the masses w/low-code development
project" (http://ow.ly/J1oA30ihnKt ) JK--I
seriously doubt that their target market is "the masses." Opening
narrows to "tech-savvy business users." That sounds right. BTW, my #Wikibon report on
"low-code" tools will publish soon
RT @KEXPNowPlaying
#kexp Broadcast
"The Book Lovers" from Work and Non Work JK--1997. Cinematic and
soaring.
"John Perry Barlow, 'visionary' internet pioneer, dies
aged 70" (http://ow.ly/ijPJ30ihmH2 ) JK--RIP.
His contribution to the libertarian ideological mainstream of Silicon Valley
culture was substantial. He was the purest politician that the high-tech world
has produced so far.
"Take a Look Inside Amazon's New Rainforest Office
Space" (http://ow.ly/Eri830ig6an ) JK--My first
thought is that the place must be crawling with bugs.
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp Pixies
"Monkey Gone to Heaven" from Doolittle JK--1989. "If the devil
is six, then God is seven." Brilliantly compressed piece of poetry. The
"666" and "[lucky] 7" suggest themselves, as does quasi-homophone
"if the devil is sick, then God is heaven."
"The New Modality: Emoji Challenges in Prediction,
Anticipation, and Retrieval" (http://ow.ly/Bzgm30ienPP )
JK--Treating emojis as a new ideogramic form of language with a loose
correlation, perhaps counterpoint, to adjacent text and images.
"Deep Learning Approach for Very Similar Objects
Recognition Application on Chihuahua & Muffin Problem" (http://ow.ly/1DrS30ienj7 )
JK--Semi-ironic AI research out of Ulaanbaatar. Not hard to tell them apart.
Muffins don't shiver uncontrollably in Mongolian winters.
"Announcing TensorFlow 1.5" (http://ow.ly/P2t830iemuv )
JK--Google blog: "With Eager Execution for TensorFlow enabled, you can
execute TensorFlow operations immediately as they are called from Python. This
makes it easier to get started with TensorFlow."
"Machine Learning Conferences in 2018" (http://ow.ly/GWWX30iembY )
JK--I'd think twice about doing the Cape Town event in November. The city is
due to run out of water by May.
"tempoGAN: A Temporally Coherent, Volumetric GAN for
Super-resolution Fluid Flow" (http://ow.ly/e1i630ielSa )
JK--This algorithm can generate super-realistic simulations for the physical
sciences and computer-generated imagery in the arts.
"U.S. and Chinese Companies Race to Dominate AI" (http://ow.ly/jcVF30ieli4 )
JK--Somehow I doubt that any nation can dominate AI techs. And just because
China has people, scale doesn't make
their behavioral training data much
useful than anybody else's.
RT @kexpnowplaying
#kexp Bon Iver
"re: stacks" from For Emma, Forever Ago JK--2008. This is the song I
too would write if stuck in a cabin in the Wisconsin north woods in mid-winter.
RIP John Mahoney. This actor played so well off Kelsey
Grammer and David Hyde Pierce, I really believed he was their dad.
My beef with high-tech culture is this kneejerk impulse to
always get/build/depend on a tool to boost your productivity. How about
starting with personal discipline, an organized mind, and a steadfast habit of
following through on your commitments?
