Awesome, not awesome.

#Awesome

“…Machine learning has enabled virtual reality to feel more “real” than ever before… is standing on the edge of the roof of a Minecraft cathedral in VR mode scarier than looking over the edge of a mountain in Norway? I have done both, and the sense of vertigo was greater in Minecraft.” —Daniel Waterhouse, Investor Learn More on TechCrunch >

#Not Awesome

“…Imagine a version of Photoshop that can edit an image as easily as you can edit a Word document — will we ever trust our own eyes again? Smile Vector is a Twitter bot that can make any celebrity smile. It scrapes the web for pictures of faces, and then it morphs their expressions using a deep-learning-powered neural network. They’re created completely automatically, and it’s just a small hint of what’s to come as AI opens a new world of image, audio, and video fakery.” — James Vincent, Reporter Learn More on The Verge >

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

What we’re reading.

1/ Mark Zuckerberg builds an AI home assistant that speaks with Morgan Freeman’s voice, keeps his daughter entertained, and refuses to play Nickelback. Learn More on Fast Company >

2/ Box’s Co-Founder and CEO thinks AI will reshape the future of our work, and save 20–40% of our time in a work day, by doing the things for us that require no thought. Learn More on The Verge >

3/ The White House admits that AI will destroy millions of jobs and widen the gap between socioeconomic classes in the US, but calls for millions of dollars to be invested in it. Learn More on The Washington Post >

4/ Since AI will likely change all aspects of our lives, choosing to invest more in it will help the US remain a leader in innovation, and keep it from making “the biggest mistake a country could make.” Learn More on Backchannel >

5/ Baidu and KFC China partner to suggest what kind of chicken you should order based on your face (seriously). Learn More on TechCrunch >

6/ Advances in deep learning and machine learning shook the world this year and the biggest advancements (from spotting sea cows in the Indian Ocean to translating speech from one language to another) can now be found in one place. Learn More on WIRED >

7/ Politicians, labor professors, and workers (who’ve lost jobs to robots in the past) agree that automation, not China, will be the biggest source of long-term job loss. Learn More on The New York Times >

Links from the Community.

“Superintelligence: The Idea That Eats Smart People” submitted by Samiur Rahman (@samiur1204). Learn More on Idle Words >

“Will AI Create a Useless Class of Humans?” submitted by Levin Jacob Jenson (@levin_jj). Learn More on WorldHealth >

“A Complete Daily Plan for Studying to Become a Machine Learning Engineer” submitted by Nam Vu (@zuzoovn). Learn More on GitHub >

“Paperspace Machine Learning: A powerful Linux desktop in the cloud” submitted by Dillon Erb (@dlnrb). Learn More on Paperspace >

“A.I. Experiments” submitted by Kenna Marcelo (@kenna). Learn More on Google’s Blog >

“How to Be a Better Coach With People.ai” submitted by Ben Daters (@Daters4). Learn More on People.ai >

“An Intuitive Explanation of Convolutional Neural Networks” submitted by Ujjwal Karn (@ujwkarn). Learn More on Ujjwal Karn’s Blog >

“Black Project Artificial Intelligence”. Learn More on Omnisense >

Your turn.

This week Bridgewater Associates, a hedge fund that manages $160 billion, announced that it plans to use a piece of AI software to automate the daily management of the firm (including hiring, firing, and other strategic decisions).

As is the case with most conversations about killing jobs, a charged conversation broke out following the firm’s announcement. Follow along on reddit and jump in if you feel inspired! 🤖📉💰🔥

Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are having a huge impact on our lives. We help people make sense of how AI & ML will impact their lives by curating and creating AI content that is accessible and just plain interesting.