Four short links: 3 October 2016
Deep-Fried Data, Myth History, Shadow Regulation, and Inside an AI Startup
- Deep-Fried Data (Maciej Ceglowski) — I find it helpful to think of algorithms as a dim-witted but extremely industrious graduate student, whom you don’t fully trust. You want a concordance made? An index? You want them to go through 10 million photos and find every picture of a horse? Perfect. You want them to draw conclusions on gender based on word use patterns? Or infer social relationships from census data? Now you need some adult supervision in the room.
- Phylogenetic Myths — By and large, structures of mythical stories, which sometimes remain unchanged for thousands of years, closely parallel the history of large-scale human migratory movements. Ironically, phylogenetic analysis reveals that one of the most enchanting mythical stories of sudden transformation—the Pygmalion story—is a prime example of this stable pattern of evolution.
- Shadow Regulation — EFF article on the codes, standard, principles, and guidelines that Internet companies have agreed to, but which aren’t laws passed by legislative bodies: invisible and unaccountable arrangements. (via Cory Doctorow)
- Bonsai’s Founding — This system wouldn’t require highly specialized computer scientists to train neural nets, but would allow programmers to teach systems how to produce the desired effect.
