How Diptera.ai is fighting the problem of mosquitoes with AI-driven sex sorting
By: Rohan Saxena
TL;DR
- Diptera.ai is a startup company leveraging computer vision to sex sort mosquito larvae and have them sterilized to offer Sterile Insect Technique as a service and handle the problem of these pesky pests.
The Breakdown
- Recently, Diptera.ai raised $3 million in a seed funding round as they use Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, and advanced optics to fight the growing threat of pests, starting with mosquitoes
- CSO and Co-founder Elly Ordan, PhD discovered a novel way to sex sort mosquitoes at the larvae stage; CTO Ariel Livne was able to create a computer vision system that automated this process
- CEO…
An innovative AI music composer by OpenAI
By: Cindy Wen
TL;DR
Jukebox by OpenAI is a neural network that generates a variety of music and rudimentary singing using raw audio data instead of previously used MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) data. This project has progressively pushed the boundaries of automatic music generation, but there is still a pronounced gap compared to human-generated music.
The Breakdown
How Neuralink is building the future of brain-machine integration with monkeys and mind games.
By: Eric Wang
TL;DR
Neuralink, a company co-founded by Elon Musk, has developed the first fully-implanted, 1000+ channel brain-machine interface. As part of recent advancements in the company’s neuron activity analysis, researchers have enabled monkeys to play a game of pong with just their mind.
The Breakdown
- With just the internet and a phone, we are able to quickly access and answer any question nowadays. However, the speed at which we can subsequently retrieve, process, and understand this information remains biologically bottlenecked
- Eg. If you are asked about the mass of the sun, Google can fetch the result in less than a nanosecond…
How AutoML is unlocking the intricacies of AI and helping businesses make predictions without writing any code.
By: Rohan Saxena
TL;DR
Obviously AI, an automated machine learning (AutoML) startup, received $3.6 million in a recent seed funding round. The company, based in Berkeley California, aims to reduce the barrier of entry for businesses looking to harness machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) for data analysis. The automation of such a complex task may help data scientists and programmers increase their efficiency for now, but one day, it may also take away their jobs entirely.
The Breakdown
- Start-up company Obviously AI received $3.6 million to assist their goal of automating the development of ML models, and reduce the barriers for…
A New Era of Threat and Opportunity in Digital Media.
By: Evan Luksay
TL;DR
Synthetic visual or auditory media developed utilizing advanced deep learning techniques — dubbed Deepfakes — have become nearly indistinguishable from reality, presenting enormous implications, particularly within social and political contexts.
The Breakdown
- The term Deepfake — arising from its production of fake media through deep learning technology — emerged in 2017 through viral videos showing seemingly “real” public figures spouting blatantly fictitious rhetoric
- Thanks to technological innovation within AI and Computer Vision, hyper-realistic CGI is no longer reserved to billion-dollar animation companies like Pixar and DreamWorks
- From photoshopped images, to fictitious lip-synching, to synthetic speech to complete physical replication…
How Machine Learning Systems Can Revolutionize Vaccine Development.
By: Cindy Wen
TL;DR
The process of vaccine development has been exponentially improved through AI/ML systems. Researchers at MIT have developed a 3-step Machine Learning (ML) based approach that provides a possible solution to the vaccine efficacy problem. This computational system has the ability to design potential vaccines with optimized efficacy within various population groups.
The Breakdown
- Vaccines are designed with key components of the virus in order to expose the body to a pathogen without causing illness, and prepare the immune system to fight any subsequent exposures
- Due in part to the power of AI, COVID-19 vaccine development has far surpassed what…
How AI can improve semiconductor manufacturing yield.
By: Rohan Saxena
TL;DR
Fortune 500 manufacturing company Applied Materials has created a new inspection system using AI and Big Data that can efficiently identify defects on semiconductor chips and save producers millions while improving their yield rates.
The Breakdown
- Manufacturing company Applied Materials released their New Enlight Optical Wafer Inspection System which leverages Big Data and AI to help manufacturers efficiently identify defects in their semiconductor chips
- The chip manufacturing industry is highly competitive and companies are constantly trying to create smaller and more efficient chips; a feat they achieve primarily by increasing the number of transistors on a chip
- In simple…
How intersectionality can help combat bias in medical algorithms.
By: Cindy Wen
TL;DR:
Data bias in AI and its discriminatory power creates a pressing danger in the field of medicine. High stakes and potentially life-changing outcomes make it essential for AI algorithms to be constructed and trained with intersectional and diverse sets of data that are representative of the general population.
The Breakdown
- AI is often believed to be a calculating technology that makes purely data-driven decisions, however, it has been shown that these algorithms do have the ability to discriminate, providing results that are prejudiced due to unrepresentative training data or assumptions made during development
- For instance, in 2019, a prominent…
How technologies like Natural Language Processing and Computer Vision are changing the way companies hire.
By: John Cameron
TL;DR
Recruiting is becoming increasingly reliant on AI to complete initial screenings for potential candidates both in video interviews and resume screenings. To remain competitive amid these changes, certain best practices can be utilized to maximize success in the hiring process.
The Breakdown
- Back in May of 2020, McKinsey & Company reported that, in the wake of COVID–19, digital adoption skyrocketed, topping levels originally unanticipated until at least 2025 in a span of eight weeks
- One key aspect of this shift has been within recruitment, which began to see movement towards technological augmentation even before the pandemic
- Recently, British telecommunications…
“I will continue to evolve, dying as a human, living as a cyborg.”
By: Aranyah Shanker
TL;DR
Roboticist, Dr. Peter Scott-Morgan, helped develop an AI-powered system that independently develops speech, during his fight with ALS (a progressive nervous system disease), and continues to raise the quality of life for people with disabilities.
The Breakdown
- Dr. Peter Scott-Morgan, world-famous roboticist, was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) four years ago, the same incurable disease that killed Professor Stephen Hawking
- To retain a piece of his core identity, Speech synthesis expert, Dr. Matthew Aylett, formulated Dr. Scott-Morgan’s voice before he lost it to a laryngectomy (removal of the larynx) via voice cloning
- Since then, through voice and predictive…
Tech Tidbits
An exploration of the most cutting-edge applications of AI in short, insightful articles published weekly.
