“Newspapers and magazines used to have a rather coarse model of their audience. It used to be that they couldn’t be sure how many people read each of their articles; they couldn’t see on a dashboard how much social traction one piece got as against the others. They were more free to experiment, because it was never clear ex-ante what kind of article was likely to fail. This could, of course, lead to deeply indulgent work that no one would read; but it could also lead to unexpected magic.”

The Like Button Ruined the Internet
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/03/how-the-like-button-ruined-the-internet/519795/
via Instapaper

“MR. JACOBSTEIN: Just since the beginning of 2017 we’ve seen a team at Northwestern develop an AI that could solve the Raven Progressive Matrices Test, an intelligence test of visual and analogical reasoning, better than the average American.

We also have seen a team at Imperial College London develop an AI that could diagnose pulmonary hypertension better than cardiologists typically do. Cardiologists have about 60% accuracy. This system does 80% accuracy. And in January of this year, Tuomas Sandholm and Noam Brown from Carnegie Mellon University developed a poker player called Libratus, which beat four of the world champion poker players, and not by just a little bit. They played 120,000 hands of poker, and Libratus ended up with $1.77 million in poker chips. This is a big deal, because it signals the ability to deal with incomplete information and to deal with situations that require bluffing and an opponent that generates misinformation. That is a really important set of skills. It will lend itself to negotiation, to strategy development, and perhaps even to policy analysis.”

How Artificial Intelligence Will Change Everything
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-artificial-intelligence-will-change-everything-1488856320
via Instapaper

“It’s too easy for misinformation to spread on the web

Today, most people find news and information on the web through just a handful of social media sites and search engines. These sites make more money when we click on the links they show us. And they choose what to show us based on algorithms that learn from our personal data that they are constantly harvesting. The net result is that these sites show us content they think we’ll click on – meaning that misinformation, or fake news, which is surprising, shocking, or designed to appeal to our biases, can spread like wildfire. And through the use of data science and armies of bots, those with bad intentions can game the system to spread misinformation for financial or political gain.”

I invented the web. Here are three things we need to change to save it | Tim Berners-Lee
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/11/tim-berners-lee-web-inventor-save-internet
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“In the coming decades, artificial intelligence will replace a lot of human jobs, from driving trucks to analyzing X-rays. But it will also work with us, taking over mundane personal tasks and enhancing our cognitive capabilities. As AI continues to improve, digital assistants—often in the form of disembodied voices—will become our helpers and collaborators, managing our schedules, guiding us through decisions, and making us better at our jobs. We’ll have something akin to Samantha from the movie Her or Jarvis from Iron Man: AI “agents” that know our likes and dislikes, and that free us up to focus on what humans do best, or what we most enjoy. Here’s what to expect.”

Our Bots, Ourselves
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/03/our-bots-ourselves/513839/
via Instapaper