Twitter blocking political ads and machine learning

Awesome, not awesome.

#Awesome
“…[I]t will be a while before more powerful machine-learning models will be able to predict your mental and physical reactions to a song with any precision… But the researchers are excited about how such models could be applied: to design music for specific individuals, to create highly evocative movie soundtracks, or to help patients with mental health challenges stimulate specific parts of their brain. The lab is already working with addiction treatment clinics to see how other forms of media could help patients. They want to start incorporating music-based therapies as well.” — Karen Hao, Artificial Intelligence Reporter Learn More from MIT Technology Review >

#Not Awesome
“[W]e are not sure how AI algorithms will interact with each other in the jungles of Wall Street. In capital markets, stock prices depend heavily on the decisions of other participants in the market. If most of the participants are AI-driven, and they adopt broadly similar machine-learning strategies, they might create echo effects where they all pile into (or out of) a stock at a moment’s notice. Flash crashes might become more frequent as a result” — William Magnuson, Associate Professor Learn More from The Los Angeles Times >

What we’re reading.

1/ Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey cites political advertisers’ ability to use machine learning to optimize and micro-target messages as reason to ban all political ads from the platform. Learn More from Twitter >

2/ AI is a tool of choice for individuals and nation states alike running disinformation campaigns because it can be used to mimic “human thought” and communication in a way that old technologies could not. Learn More from Observer >

3/ Some leading AI researchers believe advanced artificial intelligence systems won’t create catastrophe for humans as long as we don’t tell them to do bad things — another expert says that this arguments shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the whole debate. Learn More from Vox >

4/ How humans possibly create super intelligent machines if we don’t understand how we think in the first place? Learn More from The New York Times >

5/ AI systems will lack the ability to make judgements as long as they are not “existentially committed to the world.” Learn More from Scientific American >

6/ The Pentagon asked the “Defense Innovation Board” to come up with a list of ethics to guide the development of AI warfare technologies, but they’re not committed to adopting them. Learn More from WIRED >

7/ Researchers create a neural network that can solve chaotic math problems 100 million times faster than any past method has managed to. Learn More from MIT Technology Review >

Links from the community.

“Machine Learning-Powered Search Ranking of Airbnb Experiences” submitted by Samiur Rahman (@samiur1204). Learn More from Medium >

“Watch an AI turn music into a brain-melting visualization” submitted by Avi Eisenberger (@aeisenberger). Learn More from Futurism >

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Twitter blocking political ads and machine learning was originally published in Machine Learnings on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.