🐢 AI and indigenous conservationists work together to save sea turtles and Facebook algos misjudge ads (and then misjudge the appeals)
🍍 A job interview AI pretends to be Room Rater when it’s supposed to be busy judging you on your neuroticism
The Good
Six of the seven species of sea turtle are now classified as endangered, with three being critically endangered. For the sea turles that lay eggs in one area of New Zealand, feral pigs would dig up the nests, and wipe out entire generations as recently as 2015. Conservationists got serious about protecting the nests (with what appears to be fencing, but the article isn’t clear on that) and controlling the pig populations. But to find those nests, they had to gather thousands of images captured by drones that would take interns weeks to go through.
Do you know what doesn’t exploit interns’ time and works way faster? Ding ding ding! The conservationists now have an image processing tool that can go through images in the matter of hours, hopefully freeing up the interns to take cute photos of baby sea turtles and firing up the pig roast.
The Bad
Facebook ads are crucial for many small businesses. But adaptive fashion brands that make clothes for people with a variety of disabilities or ailments are having a hard time getting their ads approved, with the NYT finding at least a half dozen companies who have had issues.
The algos that approve ads keep blocking adaptive fashion because the tech thinks it’s a medical device ad (those are tricky because of federal laws, so it’s a different process for getting approval on FB). But a piece of clothing that fits better for a person in a wheelchair is not a medical device, the algo is just looking at the wrong thing to make its decision. There is a long, inglorious history of algos looking at the background instead of the thing it’s supposed to be making predictions about, like computer vision determining dog vs. wolf by looking for snow. The first More News story is another example!!!
Not only does the algos block the ads, but they run the appeals process, too. This probably works for upwards of 90 percent of ads, catching obviously illegal posts. But there have got to be edge cases like this in other areas (like, I don’t know, maybe this huge chocolate gun), and having an automated process control all the pipes is a mistake.
More News
This job interview AI seems to be programmed to live by a modified John Waters quote: If they don't have books, don't hire 'em.
Related: more sentiment analysis for some kids as they continue to do remote schooling. For everyone new here: AI can’t read your emotions!!!!!
This robo-pool cue makes sure you never miss a shot with custom hardware, cameras, and a pretty fancy setup.
Welp, this reads like an ad-lib instead of a real headline: Twitter Accounts With AI-Generated Cat Avatars at Center of Turkish Porn Bot Ring.
Clearview AI wants to expand its market by offering up its face rec tech to your dating, housing, and drug user identifying needs.
Buzzfeed quizzes are coming back with a version to make your perfect AI girlfriend or boyfriend. My match is from Bangkok, is an enthusiastic anarchist, and loves jazzercise.
Now that he got his pardon, Anthony Levandowski doesn’t have to pretend to believe in an AI godhead anymore to maybe somehow get around the charges of stealing trade secrets.
First, they built an AI that could destroy our Chess Masters. Now, they are building AI to work with players.
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Until I get extra credit for having a very respectable mix of books on my bookshelf that I have mostly read,
Jackie