Tag: Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a broad term with no single authoritative definition — and frequently, people mean different things when they use it.

However, AI commonly means:

  1. The capability of a non-human system to perform functions typically thought of as requiring human intelligence.
  2. A field of study dedicated to developing these systems.

The term AI is often imprecise. AI is sometimes used interchangeably with machine learning, but the two terms are not identical. Machine learning is one promising set of techniques used to develop AI, but others exist. We disambiguate machine learning and AI more fully [see the link below].

AI is also a moving target. The “AI effect” is a paradox in which problems thought to require AI, once largely solved, are no longer seen as requiring “intelligence.” This dynamic further contributes to ambiguity around the definition of AI.
—CSET Glossary, “Artificial Intelligence”

Generally, [Artificial Intelligence] constitutes a fuzzy term referring to the ability of a machine to perform cognitive functions. Approaches to AI can be subdivided into deductive—that is, model-driven (such as expert systems)—or inductive—that is, data-driven.
—CACM, “There Is No AI Without Data“

robot with phone 'like' 'like' 'like', illustration - Credit: Poynter
Articles / Computing & Technology

A Decade of Social Bot Detection

In this work, we briefly survey the first decade of research in social bot detection. Via a longitudinal analysis, we discuss the main trends of research in the fight against bots, the major results that were achieved, and the factors that make this never-ending battle so challenging. Capitalizing on lessons learned from our extensive analysis, we suggest possible innovations that could give us the upper hand against deception and manipulation. Studying a decade of endeavors in social bot detection can also inform strategies for detecting and mitigating the effects of other—more recent—forms of online deception, such as strategic information operations and political trolls.

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Ed Catmull and Pat Hanrahan - Credit: Richard Morgenstein
Computing & Technology / Articles

An Animating Spirit

When Ed Catmull earned his Ph.D. from the University of Utah in 1974, with a thesis on three-dimensional (3D) computer graphics, he applied for jobs in academia. He did not get a single one. His academic interests eventually led him to co-found Pixar Animation Studios, create the breakthrough 1995 animated film Toy Story, and receive the Association for Computing Machinery’s 2019 A.M. Turing Award, along with his colleague Pat Hanrahan.

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Book Cover: " The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power"
Computing & Technology / Books, Reports, Films & Images

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power

In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism. The stakes could not be higher: a global architecture of behavior modification threatens human nature in the twenty-first century just as industrial capitalism disfigured the natural world in the twentieth.

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Computing & Technology / Articles

The History of Digital Spam

Communications of the ACM, August 2019
By Emilio Ferrara

“In this article, I will briefly review the history of digital spam: starting from its quintessential incarnation, spam emails, to modern-days forms of spam affecting the Web and social media, the survey will close by depicting future risks associated with spam and abuse of new technologies, including Artificial Intelligence (e.g., Digital Humans).”

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Book Cover: "AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order"
Computing & Technology / Books, Reports, Films & Images

AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order

In AI Superpowers, Kai-fu Lee argues powerfully that because of these unprecedented developments in AI, dramatic changes will be happening much sooner than many of us expected. Indeed, as the US-Sino AI competition begins to heat up, Lee urges the US and China to both accept and to embrace the great responsibilities that come with significant technological power.

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