Рубрика: AI

San Francisco stands tall as the AI Capital of the World. If you're delving into the realm of AI, now is the perfect time to be in this city. A significant part of this phenomenon revolves around the surge of AI-focused events.

The past couple of years were challenging for event organizers in the Bay Area, but the fall of 2023 is witnessing a frenzy of AI-centric conferences, meetups, and hackathons occurring nearly every day.

The AI upswing in the SF Bay has lured back entrepreneurs and tech professionals who had previously left due to Covid restrictions. The city has witnessed a groundbreaking $10.7 billion in funding for generative AI startups announced in the first three months of 2023.

Whether you're a founder, venture capitalist, or corporate employee, if you have even a remote interest in AI, you're likely to find yourself at one of these events. Connecting with like-minded builders and investors is a key value, and there are specific business goals achievable through active participation, including fundraising, recruiting top talent, acquiring best-in-class teams and startups, exploring revolutionary products and services, and more.

To illustrate, the SF Tech Week by a16z is a week filled with numerous events hosted by VC firms, corporations, and prominent startups. Any business objective you have in mind can be fulfilled here. Personally, I hosted an AI Tea party in collaboration with DVC, M12 and Microsoft for Startups. We had a panel with a VC, a founder, and a corporate executive sharing their perspectives on how most GenAI projects and corporations lack a moat – “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!” was the motto of the event which represents the fact that it’s not enough to create an AI product, but rather you’ll have to be twice as fast and resourceful to acquire the user or client base to succeed in this red ocean of AI startups and technologies.

Only in the Bay Area can you attend a 100-person hackathon and witness Sergey Brin or Eric Schmidt in person, delivering inspirational talks about the fundamental shift in technologies and business to builders. Just a few weeks ago, I attended a free event hosted by the Robot Heart Foundation where Sam Altman was discussing the challenges and future of the intersection of Art and AI with Android Jones. Sam addressed concerns artists had regarding their intellectual property and the future of Generative AI. The main subjective takeaway for me was that the next leap in AI would involve generating entirely new knowledge beyond what humanity has already created and achieved.

Most meetups and hackathons are free but often have limited spots, so act quickly to secure your spot and present yourself well on the registration page. Some conferences can be expensive, but one effective way to participate is by volunteering. I know people who gained access to the $1500 Ted AI Conference by assisting organizers – as an organizer myself, I can say we appreciate help and support.

Another aspect to consider is how to kickstart an AI event in the Bay Area. Let's examine the simplest format – meetups. It's not easy, but my suggestion is to work within your budget. If it's limited or non-existent, consider one of the many coworking spaces or academic organizations, some of which are willing to host events for free or at a very affordable price.

The next crucial element is securing good speakers. You don't need many, but the event won't succeed without at least a couple of known speakers. Even if they're not widely popular, having speakers from prominent startups, corporations, or VC firms can make a significant difference.

Marketing is typically the most challenging part and relies on the first two items. The better the venue and speakers, the easier it is to attract people. An important first step is listing the event on as many free platforms as possible to generate organic traffic (Eventbrite, Lu.ma, Partifull, etc.). Second, send personal invitations via email and LinkedIn – there are plenty of tools to automate this process.

Monetization is another consideration. Since we're talking about a meetup, tickets are typically free, so the only other option is attracting sponsors. The main value for sponsors is the guests, so, for example, if the meetup focuses on developers and founders, the main target sponsors would be cloud providers and companies aiming to sell their products and services to those groups. If it's a corporate meetup, vendors should be interested. It's not trivial, but once the relationship is established, it gets easier. No connections? No problem – attend other AI events and meet sponsors.

Food and drinks – people usually don't expect fancy dinners at meetups, so the most common fare will be pizza and a variety of canned or bottled drinks.

This is the simplest way to kickstart a meetup, but with larger ambitions and budgets, anything is possible.

I've successfully organized conferences with 50-150 speakers in less than 2 months, and I'll share perhaps the most important takeaway – try to involve as many people and organizations as possible. Community partners can assist in various ways, such as bringing in speakers, sponsors, and promoting the event. I've experienced a lot of success with partnerships, and that is the single most important advice I would give to anyone planning to host a tech event.

Announcements

• Generative AI signifies a pivotal shift in today’s technological landscape. It promises profound insights, streamlined operations, and assistance with data-driven decisions on an unprecedented scale. However, GenAI also brings forth ethical and regulatory considerations that require attention for modern businesses seeking to capitalize on the still-evolving technology. Register for the Enterprise Strategy Group’s upcoming GenAI Summit​ to engage with thought leaders as they navigate the intricate dilemmas, evolving regulatory landscape, and responsible AI practices that maximize the benefits of GenAI technology and mitigate inherent risks and biases.​
• Ransomware attacks show no signs of slowing down. This year marked a record-breaking year for ransomware attacks, as they surged 74% by the first three months of 2023. Organizations require not only a solid prevention plan, but they need established recovery solutions to ensure they bounce back from attacks that can cause irreparable economic and reputational damage. The newer and more treacherous modern threat landscape forces organizations to take a second look at cyber insurance and the security it can ensure against fallout from an attack. Join the upcoming Ransomware Preparedness: Strategies for a Secure Future summit to hear leading experts discuss actionable strategies to prevent ransomware attacks, mitigate damage, and select the best cyber insurance option for your organization.

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There is a scene in the Michael Winterbottom-directed film '24 Hour Party People' that charts the emergence of British New Wave music and also exemplifies our attitude toward pigeons.

Two young men head to the rooftop of a building, where hundreds of pigeons come to roost, and they proceed to shower the place with breadcrumbs. As the pigeons consume them and take flight, they suddenly start plummeting towards earth and dying.

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The crumbs are filled with poison as are ostensibly the hearts and souls of the wayward youths. It's a funny scene, if a little morbid.

While many of the people who chuckled at the scene are probably not the kind of people who flirt with thoughts of mass murdering pigeons, it would be false to say the notion of dispensing with a handful of the birds now and then hasn't crossed some of our minds.

After all, these birds are habitually guilty of pooping right next to human habitation, in courtyards, stairwells, and pretty much everywhere else. Their feathers often stick to their waste, making an unholy mess.

In other words, pigeons are considered vermin, the lowest of the low among birds. Pigeons are not usually described as 'majestic', like say, golden eagles, which soar on lofty currents while surveying prey. And pigeons are not lauded for their stunning plumage, like peacocks.

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Boxing legend Mike Tyson may rear pigeons with great affection, but that doesn't stop the rest of the world from considering this maligned bird to be a 'flying rat' with no redeeming qualities.

But what about if — just like many of our prejudiced notions about each other and certain species in the animal kingdom — this bias against the pigeon is grossly misplaced?

In fact, it turns out that the much-reviled bird is not only brainier than cats, but could be as smart as your three-year-old child.

Most impressively, however, is the fact that pigeons make choices that are very similar to the most-talked about technology today — artificial intelligence (AI).

Tarred and feathered unfairly

In a study led by Brandon Turner, professor of psychology at Ohio State University, and Edward Wasserman, professor of psychology at University of Iowa, 24 pigeons were put to work slotting patterns into categories, as if they were training for a Mensa conference.

Some of the patterns were groups of lines — with different thicknesses, placed and arranged in varying ways — while others were circles.

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The patterns were accompanied by left and right buttons to indicate which family each visual belonged to. Correct answers were awarded a pellet treat while wrong choices got nothing.

In a feat that could fox many humans, pigeons were able to improve their scores from 55% accuracy to 95% for some of the easier assignments. For the more complicated tasks, these burbling birds were able to peck their way to a 68% score.

As it happens, the method with which the birds went about their selection process mirrors AI's strategy when it's making choices — a process you may recognize from when you taught your puppy to sit using treats. You sit, you get a treat; simple.

"The pigeons' demonstrated success seems to be based on their deploying a single, simple biological mechanism — one that can be effectively emulated by a computational model involving just two free parameters and one hidden layer," said authors Turner and Wasserman.

"That biological mechanism is associative learning, which gradually connects behavioral responses to circumscribed regions of perceptual space via an error-correction process. In this sense, the pigeon's category learning prowess can be understood as if the pigeon were a machine," they added.

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Scientific thinking has maintained until now that associative learning is just too simple and primitive and lacking in the elevated cognition required to carry out complex visual categorization tasks.

In fact, it is the human that is an under-performer when confronting tasks like these, say the authors, because we tend to look for some definitive rules under which we can carry out a task, and then get bewildered and frustrated when they don't exist.

But the pigeon uses 'brute force' tactics to get the job done, much like AI does.

A winged machine

This ability is why pigeons can tell the difference between two human beings in the same photograph, and even between a Van Gogh painting and a Chagall.

In other words, the same technology — which is helping cancer hospitals spot tumors and fire-fighting towers to differentiate smoke from clouds — is one that is embedded in this unheralded feathered being.

We shouldn't be surprised. After all, Pigeon No. 498 — who didn't merit a proper name, apparently (or even a prime number at the minimum) — was launched by naval skipper Thomas Crisp to go and get help when he was torpedoed by a German U-boat in the First World War.

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Alas, Crisp did not survive, but No. 498 flew on a wing and a prayer, literally — shrapnel had badly damaged one side of his body. Yet, the pigeon was able to deliver the message and help get the crew rescued. Thousand of other people were saved in similar fashion by the 100,000 or so pigeons that served in the War.

"We celebrate how smart we are that we designed artificial intelligence; at the same time we disparage pigeons as dim-witted animals," said Ohio State's Turner, emphasizing the irony that the learning principles used by pigeons and AI are almost identical.

"Nature has created an algorithm that is highly effective in learning very challenging tasks," added Iowa State's Wasserman. "Not necessarily with the greatest speed, but with great consistency."

Artificial Intelligence

Deadmau5-founded startup Korus taps into AI for music creation Lauren Forristal 9 hours

Pixelynx, an Animoca Brands-owned metaverse company co-founded by DJ and producer Deadmau5, announced today its newest suite of tools for its flagship product Korus, an AI-powered music creation platform where you can remix content using AI and licensed stem files made by artists and music labels, then mint music and earn revenue.

Starting today, Korus is launching its new features to introduce ways for users to create and experiment with music, including interactive visuals, a layering tool, and video recording. There’s also a new playlist feature and rewards program to incentivize artistic contributions.

Korus’ main proprietary tool is called “Sound Mosaic,” a music composition algorithm that can compose music based on the stem files uploaded into it. Korus pays artists for the music they upload, and artists get ownership of every new piece of content that uses their stems. Users split royalties with the original IP holders. The Sound Mosaic tool will soon be offered as an SDK for developers to launch new music experiences in their products.

Each artist on the platform is developing their own proprietary AI models based on their IP to monetize it to fans. Deadmau5 dropped his AI model “Mau5trap DNA” in June, featuring tracks from his independent record label.

“The idea that you can buy this AI model from your favorite label and play with it is a new paradigm. The [Mau5trap] drop made about $18,000 in about 24 hours and included music from three artists who are all relatively unknown — less than 10,000 followers each — and, generally speaking, would not make a fraction of that in five years of their career, let alone 24 hours,” Pixelynx co-founder and CEO Inder Phull told TechCrunch.

The company is still figuring out its business model, Phull told us, but mentioned that it has taken an equity stake in Reveal, an unchained royalty-splitting platform, to provide artists and creators with “full transparency over the royalties,” he added.

“The economy and the business model we’re trying to design is inspired very much by gaming, soft currencies, ways for people to spend on microtransactions in-platform… We’re putting the pieces in place right now,” Phull said.

Image Credits: Korus

Another feature on the platform is its AI companions or “KORS,” a friendly robot that you can train to generate new music and album images. For instance, “Create a track with a dark mood and angry vibe.” There are three free companions for you to collect, designed in collaboration with Mau5trap and music companies Beatport and Pioneer DJ. Korus plans to add paid companions customized by emerging and top artists that include exclusive content for fans.

“As we continue evolving the platform, these will start to gain personalities…they will know your interests. So, for example, you are building this country house genre, let’s say it knows that and it’s going to continue aiding your experience in that direction or feeding you with content that is relevant to the communities that you’re a part of,” Phull said.

Image Credits: Korus

The first new feature to be added to the platform is “Scenz,” a video tool that helps you craft aesthetically pleasing visuals by selecting from animated backgrounds and moving images and avatars around the screen. Korus also allows you to video record and share your creations across social media.

“Whether you want to create your experience in a 3D environment and build a space for that visual experience to take place or whether you want to just use more traditional video and textures, this is all a real-time visual composition engine in many ways,” Phull explained during a demo with TechCrunch. Phull adds that there are webcam interactions so you can upload a scan of yourself and perform as an avatar, but this capability wasn’t ready in time for the demo.

The next feature is called “Layer Mosaic,” which allows you to modify stems by adjusting drums, vocals, harmony, melody, and chords as well as use an XY pad for effects. It’s designed to give you the feeling of performing like a DJ and provide a sense of “musical creative agency,” Phull said. You can also generate new sounds through AI text prompts, similar to CreateSafe’s recently launched Triniti platform. Korus plans to include voice inputs in the next iteration.

Korus is also introducing soft currency, “NOIZ,” which can be used to purchase audio and visual content and music downloads. The platform rewards you for making tracks, sharing content, and engaging with the platform. You’ll get rewarded if you log in every day, too. Your rewards can be redeemed for digital collectibles, merch, and gift cards.

Lastly, the new playlist feature lets you curate collections of content while also exploring playlists from other users. Korus hopes the playlists will help enhance music discovery and cultivate a community of creators within the platform.

Image Credits: Korus

In addition to the new tools, Phull also revealed that the company is partnering with Netflix’s hit sci-fi series “Black Mirror” to launch its own web3 experience where you have to smile at the camera for 15-20 seconds to enter the website.

“The goal is to fuse together many sectors from music to film and TV with our core technology to bring fans closer to the IP and worlds they love. Many people think the future with AI is going to be this dystopian dark tale. We hope to show that isn’t going to be the case and will always try to have fun with our partners along the way,” Phull said.

Pixelynx was also founded by musician Richie Hawtin and veterans of the music industry, Ben Turner and Dean Wilson. Since launching in May, there have been over 10,000 songs created and minted on-chain by Korus users.

Data science has come a long way! Using basic statistical models, 19th-century organizations gathered, stored, and processed data. Later, when computers entered the picture, the digital age started producing enormous volumes of data. The proliferation of data on the internet has revolutionized communication, and the field of data science has grown because of the necessity to manage Big Data. PayScale predicts that data science will be the next big thing in employment, with salaries ranging from $65k to $153k annually.

What is data science?

According to today’s industry experts, data science is the study and data science frameworks to support business choices and develop new products that interact with customers. Usually, data scientists oversee using data analytics to uncover fresh insights. They frequently use sophisticated machine learning models to forecast consumer or market behavior in the future by looking at historical patterns.

Data science is a dynamic and rapidly evolving field, constantly adapting to new technologies and data sources. It has a significant impact on various industries, including healthcare, finance, technology, and retail, helping businesses make informed decisions, improve efficiency, and drive innovation.

Does data science have a future?

These days, technology companies offer platforms that abstract data into low-code or no-code environments and automate tasks, potentially eliminating a large portion of the work currently performed by data scientists.

There are uses of data in practically every industry. The field of data science has a bright future ahead of it. A data scientist will aid in the expansion of an organization by helping it make wiser decisions.

Many different businesses have a significant demand for data scientists. Their duties encompass gathering, sanitizing, evaluating, and construing information to facilitate more informed business choices. Data scientists use a variety of data science tools and techniques, including machine learning, statistics, and programming, to extract insights from data.

The increasing demand for data scientists is also driving up salaries. According to Glassdoor, the estimated yearly salary for a data scientist in the US is $126,200. The data science jobs market is expected to remain strong in the coming years, making it a rewarding career choice for people with the right skills and experience.

Data Science Trends and Use Cases

1. Predicting Customer Behavior in Retail: You must comprehend past customer interactions to comprehend future needs, wants, and spending. To do this, you gather data from past customer journeys and utilize it to forecast upcoming ones.
2. Fraud Detection in Finance: Using anomaly detection techniques and machine learning algorithms, these organizations can spot suspicious patterns and report possible fraudulent activity quickly.
3. Predicting Equipment Failures in Manufacturing: Condition-based maintenance, or CBM, is a useful strategy to predict equipment failures in your plant. CBM is a maintenance approach that does not rely on a set usage or time interval but rather on the real state of your equipment.
4. Predicting Patient Outcomes in Healthcare: Predictive models are trained to recognize trends and risk factors linked to different patient outcomes using machine learning algorithms, enabling healthcare providers to provide individualized interventions for improved health outcomes.
5. Predicting Traffic Patterns in Transportation: The transportation sector uses data science to forecast traffic patterns. This can involve forecasting traffic patterns on a specific road or highway and spotting bottlenecks to help prevent delays.
6. AI as a Service: It describes companies that provide clients with low-cost implementation and scalability of AI techniques through out-of-the-box AI solutions. OpenAI recently declared that the public would have access to its transformer language model, GPT-3, through an API. One of the newest trends is AIaaS, which offers state-of-the-art models as services.
7. Growth of TinyML: Machine learning is being implemented on small, low-powered devices with TinyML. TinyML devices can operate on microcontrollers, which require 1,000 times less power than consumer CPUs or GPUs. TinyML avoids costs and offers machine learning advantages at the same time.

How will quantum computing impact data science jobs?

• Data analysis: Quantum computers can process large amounts of data faster than traditional computers, which can help data scientists analyze data more efficiently.
• Machine learning: Quantum computers can help construct machine learning models and contribute to the rapid development of AI.
• Cybersecurity: With the use of Quantum computing there will be an enhancement in cybersecurity and intelligence gathering by providing stronger data encryption services and high-level intrusion-detection systems.
• Decision-making: Quantum computing will accelerate data science applications like data analysis and decision-making processes.
• Quantum data: Quantum data tasks include quantum data preprocessing, feature extraction, and statistical analysis of quantum data.

Conclusion

Even though there will probably be a continued demand for data scientists in the years to come. Data science opens powerful new avenues with numerous rising trends that support the success of organizations. However, these adjustments would force the companies to search for applicants with highly developed data scientist abilities. Thus, seize the opportunity, explore the data science job options, and let the future of data science unveil your boundless skillsets. The future beckons you!