Month: July 2017

How company training models will change with AI — Quartz

“If you’ve built a watch, you have a much better sense of how that watch works than if you bought it and read a manual.”

Source: How company training models will change with AI — Quartz

Here’s the problem: Knight’s knowledge about how to do his job manually—his memorization of the star-shaped pattern in which he fastens the bolts and the understanding of how to do so —still has value. It allows him to understand if the machine is making a mistake, and when its process could be improved.
…
Knight, however, won’t be around forever. Future workers who do his job won’t have his experience and won’t be able to double-check the machines. So how will they be trained?

Deloitte CEO Cathy Engelbert says new technology capable of scanning and reviewing thousands of contracts–an entire year of human work–in an hour will mean the firm needs fewer entry-level workers and more workers with experience and judgment. But, “where do [middle-level employees] get that experience and judgment?”

Training programs won’t have to teach them the automated processes, but they will need to identify and teach skills that they would have learned by doing manual processes over and over again.

StockX: A stock market for physical objects could change how capitalism works — Quartz

If the success of eBay or even the show “Pawn Stars” is any indication, people are excited to transact in physical things.

Source: StockX: A stock market for physical objects could change how capitalism works — Quartz

if I were to sell everything I owned on Craigslist or eBay, how much could I make to put towards the boat? The same question posed to my stock portfolio was easy to answer, but if I decided to liquidate all of my holdings, financial and physical, how would I value my vast collection of random stuff?

every marketplace must be built on trust and transparency. …
The way things are sold now on eBay or Craigslist is via a marketplace for individual items. Making stock markets means moving away from custom pricing for individual iterations of a thing (the pair of Air Jordan Retro Space Jams in my closet) and towards a universal price for all iterations of a thing (all pairs of Air Jordan Retro Space Jams in existence).

suppose for a moment it all works. If every household in America could have a living portfolio for their things, how would that change society?

The hunted becomes the hunter: How Cloudflare’s fight with a ‘patent troll’ could alter the game | TechCrunch

Source: The hunted becomes the hunter: How Cloudflare’s fight with a ‘patent troll’ could alter the game | TechCrunch

every lawyer must pass an ethics exam that states it’s a violation for an attorney to “acquire a cause of action,” then to go and sue someone over it. The same ethics exam precludes attorneys from splitting their fees with non-attorneys.

Cloudflare is also filing a complaint with the ethics committee of the Federal Bar Association and, perhaps most interestingly, crowdsourcing prior art to invalidate not only the patent that Blackbird is using to sue Cloudflare and Fastly, but with an eye toward invalidating all of Blackbird’s patents.

One Man’s Plan to Make Sure Gene Editing Doesn’t Go Haywire – The Atlantic

Kevin Esvelt argues that the tremendous power of CRISPR can only be contained if scientists are open about their research.

Source: One Man’s Plan to Make Sure Gene Editing Doesn’t Go Haywire – The Atlantic

More often than not, scientists keep their plans to themselves, only unveiling the details of their research once their results are in and their publications are accepted by an academic journal. “Virtually all of science is done in secret before the moment of publication,” says Esvelt. “This is an insane way of setting up your scientific system. No one in their right mind would set it up this way.”

“Even beginning to do the work in the lab means you’re making a decision that could affect people out of a lab,” he says. “For gene drive, the closed-door model is morally unacceptable. You don’t have the right to go into your lab and build something that is ineluctably designed to affect entire ecosystems. If it escapes into the wild, it would be expected to spread and affect people’s lives in unknown ways. Doing that in secret denies people a voice.”

Slaying the ‘math monster’: It’s not about numbers, it’s about learning how to think | NWADG

Source: Slaying the ‘math monster’: It’s not about numbers, it’s about learning how to think | NWADG

“How often do you hear people say, ‘I can’t read. I hate reading’?”

researchers suggest that apprehension of math — math anxiety — plays a big enough role in the ability to master STEM subjects that it needs to be addressed.

Failure is a tool. Free your mind to learn from failure.

Memorizing formulas doesn’t help anyone to be more logical.

“People associate mathematics with numbers, naturally,” Lawhorn says. “They think it’s the study of numbers. But it’s really more the study of patterns. I think the human brain is wired for mathematics in general.”

“People say, ‘I’m never going to use algebra!’ But that’s not really the point,” she says. “The point is you’re learning how to think. You’re learning how to process.”