This Week I Learned - Week #36 2023

This Week I Learned - 

* Traditional AI vs Generative AI  - Traditional AI systems are trained on large amounts of data to identify patterns, and they’re capable of performing specific tasks that can help people and organizations. But generative AI goes one step further by using complex systems and models to generate new, or novel, outputs in the form of an image, text, or audio based on natural language prompts. Generative AI uses a variety of techniques—including neural networks and deep learning algorithms—to identify patterns and generate new outcomes based on them. AI researchers have been able to train generative adversarial networks (GANs) to produce text that models human-like speech. A prime example is OpenAI’s application ChatGPT. Creating new data—which is called synthetic data—and augmenting existing data sets is another common use case for generative AI. Natural-language understanding (NLU) models combined with generative AI have become increasingly popular to provide language translations on-the-fly. - Github Blog

* Generative adversarial networks (GAN) are one of the most used models for generative AI, and they employ two different neural networks. GANs consist of two different types of neural networks: a generator and a discriminator. The generator network generates new data, such as images or audio, from a random noise signal while the discriminator is trained to distinguish between real data from the training set and the data produced by the generator.

* A transformer-based model’s neural networks operate by learning context and meaning through tracking relationships of sequential data, which means these models are really good at natural language processing tasks like machine translation, language modeling, and answering questions. These models have been used in popular language models, such as GPT-4 (which stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer 4), and have also been adapted for other such tasks that require the modeling of sequential data such as image recognition.

* AI-generated content was banned on many sites of the Stack Overflow network in 2022 but the company abruptly changed course and instructed its elected volunteer moderators to effectively allow AI-generated questions and answers. All user-generated content is licensed under Creative Commons Attribute-ShareAlike license, version 2.5, 3.0, or 4.0 depending on the date the content was contributed. As of 2011, 92% of the questions were answered, in a median time of 11 minutes.

* "Machine Learning was not required, but we implemented basic K-Means Clustering to sound fancy. We won the hackathon".

* iPhone 6s has a 3D Touch feature. This makes it possible to use it as a gram-accurate scale. The caveat is that the object being weighed must be detected by the capacitative touch screen. The screen is not sensitive enough to detect a human pulse. TouchScale.co is a simple web app (meant for iPhone 6S) that you can use a weighing scale for small objects. 

* Cococut browser extension can detect M3U8 files and download the TS files from them. All HLS streaming is downloaded and merged into MP4.  TS is short for Transport Stream. The video in TS files is compressed with standard MPEG-2 compression for maximum efficiency.

* Apple brought basically similar pressure sensitive input features but different names likes 3D Touch, Force Touch, and Force Click on different devices. It abandoned its hardware-based 3D Touch feature with pressure-sensitive screens back in 2019. 3D Touch on iPhone allowed you to access different features on different parts of the screen. Apple Watch debuted with its own version of a pressure sensitive display feature called Force Touch, but software support was removed and recent watches haven’t included the hardware for it. The reason for 3D Touch and Force Touch going away was lack of discoverability and battery life. Force Touch on the watch was less specific and treated the whole display as a single button, and Force Click on Mac is the same thing but on a trackpad.

* This web app by Zahra displays all of the recorded natural disasters around the world over a 68 year period between 1950-2018. It allows us to see what parts of the world are more prone to certain types of disasters in a clear and understandable format. It has been built using JavaScript libraries Leaflet, JQuery & JSCharting.

* Since 20 years, QGIS.org has been providing open access to best-in-class tools for visualizing, creating, editing, analyzing, and publication of spatially linked data and information products. Its cross-platform software is available on traditional desktop PCs, on mobile devices, and in the cloud. QGIS is free of cost, not cost-free. SpatialThoughts Academy offers free courses on geospatial technologies including QGIS, Python, Google Earth Engine & GDAL.

* Data science is a cross-disciplinary field that uses AI, ML, Deep Learning amongst other skills like data analysis, statistics, data visualization, and more, to get insight from data. DataCamp offers courses on Data Science.

* You are only as private as your chattiest contact - Wired

-0-

* The South African media giant Naspers has two principal business units; Prosus & Naspers South Africa. Prosus is the largest consumer internet company in Europe. Some of its major holdings with operating in India include OLX (100%), PayU (98.8%) & Swiggy (38.8%). It has also invested in ed-tech companies like Codecademy, Stack Overflow (acquired in 2021 for $1.8 billion), Brainly, Udemy. Prosus is also the largest shareholder of Tencent (28.81%).

* MakeMyTrip was founded by Deep Kalra, an alumnus of IIM-Ahmedabad in 2000. In 2010, MakeMyTrip Limited was listed on the NASDAQ after its initial public offering. In 2016, MakeMyTrip and Ibibo Group (an indirect subsidiary of the South African media giant Naspers), India's largest travel booking portals, merged through a stock transaction. Ibibo Group owns the B2C online travel aggregator Goibibo, and online bus ticketing platform RedBus (which was acquired in 2013). The Ibibo Group is a subsidiary of MakeMyTrip (MMT) Limited, which owns a 100% stake in Ibibo Group. Following its initial investment of  $180 million in MakeMyTrip in 2016,  Ctrip, a multinational travel service conglomerate headquartered in Shanghai, China, completed a share exchange with Naspers and became the single largest shareholder of MakeMyTrip in 2019. Ctrip.com International, Ltd. has changed its name to Trip.com Group Limited. Trip.com Group's subsidiaries include Skyscanner & MakeMyTrip.

* An index is a popular statistical tool in governance and social sciences.

How do researchers develop an index?

First, Researchers identify the parameters that help study the subject. For instance, to calculate Human Development Index (HDI), schooling, life expectancy and per capita income are treated as parameters.

And then, they aggregate these parameters to develop a single index. This aggregation can be done in numerous ways.

Global Peace Index (GPI) uses weighted average to aggregate 23 parameters.

In the calculation of HDI, geometric mean is used to aggregate parameters.

Yale's Environmental Performance Index (EPI) uses Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to aggregate parameters.

CivicDataLab is using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) / Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to aggregate parameters.

* Want to start an organization, network, or consortium? Try this handy flowchart by Shannon Olsson -

* There are two prescriptions of language about disability that are widely accepted:

Person-First Language

Identity-First Language

Person-First Language Examples: 

“Person with a disability” instead of "disabled person"

“Musician with autism" instead of "autistic musician"

"Teen with a mental health condition" instead of "mentally ill teen"

In Person-First Language, the individual is emphasized before the disability. This approach aims to recognize the individual's humanity first, suggesting that the disability is just one aspect of their overall identity.

Identity-First Language Examples:

“Disabled person” instead of “person with a disability”

“Wheelchair dancer” instead of “dancer who uses a wheelchair”

“Deaf student" instead of "student who is deaf"

Identity-first language places the disability at the forefront.  Some within the disability community prefer this language because it acknowledges that their disability is an integral part of who they are.

Preferences for one approach over the other can be individual and community-specific.  When in doubt, just ask!

* In 2009, there were 3.3 million NGOs in India. There are an estimated 10 million NGOs in the entire world. Putting itself out of business when it comes to issues SHOULD be the goal of NGOs.

* India’s ₹46-trillion mutual fund industry is made up of 47 registered Mutual Funds [as of Jul 13, 2023]

* UPI is a 24*7 instant payment system that allows you to transfer money in real time between two bank accounts. UPI is built over the Immediate Payment Service or IMPS infrastructure, according to the NPCI website.

* There were 29 mobile applications for using UPI as on July 07, 2022.

* Beliefs shape reality. We are what we think. Most of our beliefs and insecurities stem from our identities and are false. - Sai Krishna