CIA HQ. Source: The New York Times

Where are we going?

Wikileaks caught the CIA with its pants down this week when they released a massive collection of information about cyberattack techniques the agency uses to hack iPhones and major communication services. It’s alleged that Wikileaks was given the the documents courtesy of Russia, who hacked into American systems to find them. If they prove to be real, it’s a major blow to the US. You can bet that governments like Iran and China are loving the fact that they can use the documents to better defend themselves against future American attacks.

In a recent interview, Alphabet’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, claimed “that big data is so powerful that nation states will fight wars over data.” If we assume this is true, we can expect more leaks and skirmishes (in the real and digital worlds) to break out as large private and nation state actors battle to create the machine learning algorithms and analytics that will help them win the future.

“What else are you working on besides Machine Learnings?” Usejournal.com

Double not awesome.

#Not Awesome

“[Google’s 20 self-driving car crashers over 20 million miles] record doesn’t translate into a prediction for the safety of self-driving trucks. A fast, hard turn of the steering wheel at high speed would set a truck to fishtailing and possibly jackknifing. From the moment the brakes are applied in a truck going 55 miles per hour, it takes well over the length of a football field for the vehicle to stop. Many avoidance algorithms for self-driving cars just don’t apply to trucks.” -David H. Freeman, Writer. Learn More on MIT Technology Review >

#Not Awesome

“…There are no news stories about Obama not planning a coup, just as web pages about the Holocaust tend to take as a given that it happened. Google can’t refer users to a web page that doesn’t exist, and it is — so far — not in the business of crafting rebuttals itself, which is why conspiracy theories dominate briefly, until they can be noticed and rebutted. Google wants its search engine to be an AI, but right now, its highlighted answers are just the dressed-up results of an advanced text-matching algorithm…. and that doesn’t even get into the more holistic concerns about bias, or incorrect assumptions, in question wording. “ -Brian Feldman, Reporter. Learn More on NYMag >

What we’re reading.

1/ If the government doesn’t step in to offer help as automation puts both white and blue collar workers out of jobs, the United States will cease to be the innovative country we know and (mostly) love.

2/ The top AI experts can’t agree on how fearful we should be of machine intelligence, but they’re all on the same page about one thing; it’ll eliminate a lot of human jobs.

3/ A Canadian intelligence agency built machine learning software to identify anonymous individuals and pinpoint “potentially dangerous entities.” Learn More on Vice Canada >

4/ MIT researchers took a baby step toward creating robots you can order to pick dirty socks up off your floor with just a thought.

5/ One Chinese factory is replacing all of its human employees with machines, as the Chinese government scrambles to lift 200+ million people out of poverty.

6/ Facebook is using a machine learning algorithm to detect early signals of users who may intend to commit suicide or mutilate themselves.

7/ Leaders at large enterprises are using machine learning to both power their core businesses, and to capture value in industries they hadn’t previously entered.

Links from the community.

“Robots are wealth creators and taxing them is illogical” submitted by Jared Favole (@jaredfavole) Learn More on Financial Times >

“Google can now recognize objects in videos using machine learning” submitted by Carl DeBrule. Learn More on The Verge >

“Machine Learning: An In-Depth Guide — Data Selection, Preparation, and Modeling” written by Alex Castrounis (@innoarchitech). Learn More on InnoArchiTech >

“5 ways deep learning improves your daily life” written by Mariya Yao (@thinkmariya). Learn More on TOPBOTS >

“AVA Revolutionizes Personal and Public Safety Using AI” submitted by Ben Tuschik (@BTuschik). Learn More on BWW >

“Understanding AlphaGo” written by Mirek Stanek (@froger_mcs). Learn More on Medium >

Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning will radically change the way we work and live. Machine Learnings covers the most remarkable news in AI, so you’ll feel prepared for the future.