Author Archives

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What’s driving Silicon Valley to become ‘radicalized’ – The Washington Post

“We have to keep as little [information] as possible so that even if the government or some other entity wanted access to it, we’d be able to say that we don’t have it,” said Gadea, founder and chief executive of Envoy. The 30-person company enables businesses to register visitors using iPads instead of handwritten visitor logs. The technology tracks who works at a firm, who visits the firm, and their contact information.

In Silicon Valley, there’s a new emphasis on putting up barriers to governmentrequests for data. The Apple-FBI case and its aftermath have tech firms racing to employ a variety of tools that would place customer information beyond the reach of a government-ordered search.

Source: What’s driving Silicon Valley to become ‘radicalized’ – The Washington Post

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Michael DeHaan • Did Programming Stop Being Fun? Let’s Fix It

Agile is not the enemy, but what happened was some tech got easy, and management started treating software developers like labor, rather than say, creative geniuses.

There was a feeling that project management was “over” software developers, that developers were things that were “managed”, rather than creators.  Before, it really felt like we were treated more like the lifeblood of a tech company – and somehow, tech companies became marketing companies that employed tech because, well, that is what you had to do.

Source: Michael DeHaan • Did Programming Stop Being Fun? Let’s Fix It

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What to do with billions of useless humans?

 

“AI today is able to diagnose your personality and emotional state by looking at your face and recognizing tiny muscle movements. It can tell whether you are tired, excited, angry, joyful, in love … it can tell these things even though AI itself doesn’t feel anger or love.

”In the future, therefore, AI could “drive humans out of the job market and make many humans completely useless, from an economic perspective” in areas where human interaction was previously considered crucial, Harari said.

“In customer services departments they have started using AI to assess the emotions of people who are calling,” he said. “AI analyzes the tone of your voice and choice of words … and recognizes both your personality type and also your immediate emotional condition.”

Source: What to do with billions of useless humans?

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Stuart Russell interviewed about A.I. and human values.

The worst thing is a machine that has the wrong values, but is absolutely convinced it has the right ones, because then there’s nothing you can do to divert it from the path it thinks it’s supposed to be following. But if it’s uncertain about what it’s supposed to be following, a lot of the issues become easier to deal with because then the machine says, OK, I know that I’m supposed to be optimizing human values, but I don’t know what they are. It’s precisely this uncertainty that makes the machine safer, because it’s not single minded in pursuing its objectives. It allows itself to be corrected.

Source: Stuart Russell interviewed about A.I. and human values.

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Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak: Artificial intelligence revolution is near

“We’re just at the verge of where the machines may take off and go much further than even we humans could make them go.

It is a new revolution in my mind, the revolution of  artificial intelligence, machines that will learn, that will be able to do things much better than we know how to tell them.”

Source: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak: Artificial intelligence revolution is near

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AI, MD: How artificial intelligence is changing the way illness is diagnosed and treated | ZDNet

Think of a new parent unsure if their baby’s rash is just a skin condition or an early sign of meningitis, or someone with a sports injury not sure if they’ve sprained their ankle or ruptured a ligament.

Using a setup similar to Siri or Cortana, the individual could talk directly to an app, listing their symptoms and concerns, and be advised whether to take a couple of aspirin or get themselves to the emergency room.

Source: AI, MD: How artificial intelligence is changing the way illness is diagnosed and treated | ZDNet

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‘Miracle’ Computer Chip Gives Big Boost to Artificial Intelligence

Computer chip giant Nvidia has developed a “miracle” chip that is expected to significantly accelerate breakthroughs in artificial intelligence research.

Nvidia’s Tesla P100 chip crams in 15 billion transistors within its 610-square-millimeter frame, around three-times more than most processors or graphics chips on the market.

According to the company’s CEO, this makes the Tesla P100 the largest computer chip ever made.

Source: ‘Miracle’ Computer Chip Gives Big Boost to Artificial Intelligence

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Binghamton University – Magazine: Your brain is your key

A new technology developed at Binghamton University can identify you simply by measuring your brain’s response to different stimuli. The technology has garnered attention from media outlets around the world, including National Geographic, which spent a day interviewing and filming on campus. It’s called brainprint, and it could revolutionize the security industry.

Source: Binghamton University – Magazine: Your brain is your key

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MIT’s Teaching AI How to Help Stop Cyberattacks | WIRED

A system called AI2, developed at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, reviews data from tens of millions of log lines each day and pinpoints anything suspicious. A human takes it from there, checking for signs of a breach. The one-two punch identifies 86 percent of attacks while sparing analysts the tedium of chasing bogus leads.

Source: MIT’s Teaching AI How to Help Stop Cyberattacks | WIRED

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Systems Admins: We Need To Talk. – Offensive Tech

I came across this excellent article while browsing Hacker News.  Putting it here so I can find it later if/when I need it.

Sysadmins, we need to talk. I know the struggle – I’ve been a systems administrator for 15 years. You have too few resources, too small a budget, and no respect. I get it. I do. Your users click links they shouldn’t, download things without forethought, and go to websites that you would firebomb from afar if you had your way. I understand that ransomware is a fast-changing, ever evolving beast that is mitigating your defenses as quickly as you’re mitigating its attacks. Its impossible to stop every attack. I get that. However, I’d like to pose question to you, and I ask this with as little snark as I can muster: Is that really an excuse? Can we really throw up our hands because “its hard,” and not even attempt good, basic security measures?

Admins, lend me your ears. With good, basic, and built-in tools, you can defend against ransomware. With just a few hours of configuration (at most!), you can stop this madness. Let’s talk turkey.

Source: Systems Admins: We Need To Talk. – Offensive Tech