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AI-Powered Learning: My Adventure with TutorAI
16
October
2023
Hey Podcast Lover! Have You Heard Of Lex Fridman?
7
October
2020
As BIM-student, it is very likely that you are interested in topics like coding, Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, human-robotic interaction, or Autonomous Vehicles. If by any chance you also enjoy listening to podcasts, you might be in luck:
I highly suggest you to check out the Lex Fridman Podcast.
Lex Fridman is an AI research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, often better known as MIT. He works on developing deep learning approaches to human sensing, scene understanding, and human-AI interaction. He is particularly interested in applying these technologies in the field of Autonomous Driving.
If you know the Joe Rogan Experience, you likely are already familiar with Lex. Having worked for both Google and Tesla, Lex Fridman understands the business application of digital technologies. He uses his podcast to share this knowledge with his audience and discusses his fascination with a variety of interesting guests. This can be particularly interesting for us as Business Information Management students, as we also form the future bridge between business ventures and technological innovation. The podcast discusses similar topics like we get taught in class, sometimes going more in depth, with international research experts in those particular fields.
If you enjoy podcasts, these are some examples of Lex Fridman Podcast episodes that I highly recommend you to give a listen as a BIM-student:
- Episode #31 with George Hotz: Comma.ai, OpenPilot, Autonomous Vehicles.
Famous security hacker. First to hack the iPhone. First to hack the PlayStation 3. Started Comma.ai to create his own vehicle automation machine learning application. Wants to offer a $1000 automotive driving application, which drivers can use on their phone.
- Episode #49 with Elon Musk: Neuralink, AI, Autopilot, and the Pale Blue Dot.
Elon Musk. Tech entrepreneur and founder of companies like Tesla, SpaceX, PayPal, Neuralink, OpenAI, and The Boring Company.
- Episode #114 with Russ Tedrake: Underactuated Robotics.
Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Aeronautics and Astronautics, and Mechanical Engineering at MIT.
- Episode #120 with François Chollet: Measures of Intelligence.
French Software Engineer and researcher in Artificial Intelligence, who works for Google. Author of Keras – keras.io – a leading deep learning framework for Python, used by organisations such as CERN, Microsoft Research, NASA, Netflix, Yelp, Uber, and Google.
These were just several examples of episodes that I enjoyed myself.
The benefit of a podcast is that you can listen it basically anywhere, and can stop listening at any time. If you are not familiar with podcasts yet or with the listening experience they offer, maybe the Lex Fridman Podcast could be your first step into this experience.
You can find the episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast here: https://lexfridman.com/podcast/
Or check out Lex Fridman’s Youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/lexfridman
The above sources have been used as sources for this post.
How does Open Innovation help companies to innovate?
12
September
2020
Since its foundation in 2010, the collaborative platform OpenIdeo has developed into one of the world’s largest Open Innovation spaces with close to 24,000 ideas generated from participants located in more than 195 countries (OpenIdeo 2020). How does the platform essentially work and how does it create and capture value?
OpenIdeo’s business model
OpenIdeo creates value by connecting firms seeking new ideas to their problems with a large number of innovators, who are looking to create change and partner up with sponsors that have the resources and capabilities to turn their concepts into reality.
Utilizing the design thinking methodology, creative minds respond to a challenge or question raised by a sponsor organization (OpenIdeo 2020). The platform then captures value by receiving financial support from the sponsors participating in the respective challenge.
According to Sawhney, Prandelli and Verona (2003) who classified virtual innovation intermediaries, OpenIdeo is an Innovation Marketplace Operator, because it connects sellers of intellectual property with potential buyers. When looking at OpenIdeo’s business model, the question remains why companies with often large R&D departments and expenditures are seeking to collaborate with individuals outside their firm boundaries.
The concept of Open Innovation
Henry Chesbrough (2003) was one of the first researchers to discover a fundamental shift away from the Closed Innovation model in which a company generates, develops and commercializes ideas inside the boundaries of its organisation.
The rationale for this trend is that companies started realising that a large proportion of desirable knowledge lied outside their company and that external R&D can create significant value if combined with internal ideas (Chesbrough 2003). This concept is referred to as Open Innovation.
West and Sims (2016) have elaborated on two types of collaboration outside firm boundaries, specifically communities and crowds. Virtual communities, that are commonly found due to huge technological advancements in the past can be defined as consolidation of individuals or organisations that unites a common goal regardless of geographic attributes (West & Sims 2016). In such communities, governance is typically informal, and the innovators primarily have cooperative relationships among one another (Boudreau & Lakhani 2009).
At OpenIdeo, this form of Open Innovation is found in the so-called “Alliances”, where innovators can form partnerships and work towards a common objective without a third-party company being involved in the interactions. Besides communities, OpenIdeo also engages crowds via crowdsourcing, a process in which an institution or company reaches out to a group of individuals and proposes the voluntary undertaking of a task (West & Sims 2016).
Remaining thoughts
Although the concept of Open Innovation is not new, many companies still appear to be reserved when it comes to sharing their personal challenges with individuals outside the firm.
However, I believe that stepping forward and sharing your business needs with bright talent can yield tremendous potential for your firm.
First and foremost, it is impossible to hire all of the world’s smartest minds at your company. Additionally, when described on a high-level, a business challenge can be formulated in a way that no sensitive information is transmitted to competitors. With respect to R&D expenditures, sponsoring a challenge on OpenIdeo implies much lower R&D cost per headcount and should be considered before increasing your internal human resources.
What is your take on this? Do the potential benefits from Open Innovation justify the risks of exposing your intellectual property and inflating your R&D costs? I am looking forward to your thoughts.
References
Boudreau, K., Lakhani, K. 2013, ‘Using the Crowd as an Innovation Partner’, Harvard Business Review, pp. 62-69.
Chesbrough, H.W. 2003, ‘The Era of Open Innovation’, MIT Sloan Management Review, pp.35-41.
OpenIdeo 2020, Homepage, viewed 12 September 2020, <https://www.openideo.com/>.
Sawhney, M., Prandelli, E., Verona, G. 2003, ‘The Power of Innomediation’, MIT Sloan Management Review, pp.77-82.
West, J., Sims, J. 2016, ‘How Firms Leverage Crowds and Communities for Open Innovation’, Forthcoming in Allan Afuah, Christopher L. Tucci and Gianluigi Viscusi (eds), Creating and Capturing Value through Crowdsourcing, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2823279.
Solar powered vehicles
17
October
2019
At the moment of writing this blogpost the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge is taking place. Which is an excellent time to take a look at solar powered vehicles which might be the next step in the car industry.
Currently it is impossible to develop a solar powered car that is competitive enough to compete with regular/electric cars. These solar powered cars are incredibly expensive, small, light and can only reach a speed of around 100 km/h. Also are current solar panels are not efficient enough, which makes them completely dependable on sunny weather (Wired, 2018). But as the demand for electric cars keeps increasing the question arises ‘Can they charge themselves in the future through solar panels?’.
Therefore we need to have an closer look into the solar panels of today. Currently the average solar panel on the roof of a house only converts 15-20% of the light that falls on them into electricity (Wired, 2018). Thus, current solar panels are basically not efficient at al even though they are already profitable. Henrik Fisker, a concurrent of Tesla, tried to make a regular car with these solar panels on it. This resulted in a car which generated around 200 watts of electricity per hour (Wired, 2018). Too bad electric vehicles need around 60 kilowatts per hour. Which results in the Fisker only being able to drive one kilometre after eight hours of charging. Concluding, we are nowhere close to having fully solar powered cars.
Well time to give up then? NO, currently there are solar panels being produced which have an efficiency of at least 45% (Wired, 2018) and it is just a matter of time before this becomes 80-100% (Wired, 2018). As a result, electric vehicles can become less depended on being plugged-in. Even though the complexity might outweigh the benefits I believe it is a neat step in the right direction.
Source:
https://www.wired.com/story/solar-power-electric-cars/
Professors! Get online or get out!
16
October
2019
As a BIM master student, I was quite surprised when I heard that none of the courses were recorded and therefore available online. Everyone I ever spoke about it was enthusiastic about recorded lectures. Maybe all of my friends are just lazy students (like me), who prefer to stay in bed rather than going to a 9 am lecture, but I genuinly think it offers more convenience than it has disadvantages. Me wondering this was the main reason for me to write on this subject.
MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Courses, and are (often free) courses that are available to the public through online lectures and assignments (EdX, 2019). It provides great advantages as you can enroll from anywhere around the world, as long as you have access to a decent internet connection.
First of all, and maybe the most obvious advantage of MOOC’s, it that the internet knows no borders. Of course we all know the Great Chinese Firewall, but someone from South-Korea is able to enter a website from a Colombian local bee farm. Therefore, people from more abandoned areas, like sub-Saharan Africa are able to enter these courses as long as there is a decent internet connection and a streaming device. According to UNESCO (2016), sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rates of education exclusion in the world. Almost 60% of all youth between 15 and 17 there are not in school. Yes, they still require a streaming device, but a phone screen is in theory enough, and video projectors can be installed in classrooms.
This brings us to another advantage of MOOC’s, there is (in theory) no maximum student capacity. As it is a digital product, it can in theory be copied infinitely without reducing in quality. This means an enormous amount of people could follow the course of a single professor. This seems like a situation that only has benefits, but there are some risks. If a single professor is enough to educate a massive group of people, then I foresee a decrease of the need for professors. This may lead to many professors losing their job, and having to seek other ways to earn a living.
MOOC’s being a digital good also brings a major risk, the risk of the course content being copied and spread without consent and compensation. Screens can be recorded and assignments being copied. Websites like The PirateBay that provide a lot of illegal content are nowadays still available, whether it is through a proxy server or not). A solution must be sought to prevent piracy, because a single pirate is enough to create a lot of damage.
Another advantage of MOOC’s is that it provides an opportunity to gather data about its students. It can be tracked how much and when students spend time on the website, and which classes and courses are more and less attractive. Students may be able to provide a rating and a comment after every course. A risk of having too many students enrolled, is that a single professor may not be able to answer all questions or analyze feedback. This proves that a MOOC is not simply a professor with a webcam, but really requires a well-structured team or organization.
I would advise professors and universities to brainstorm about threats and opportunities in the increasingly digitized society. I believe that it’s very important not to miss the boat and to exploit first-mover advantages. Otherwise, you will remain the incumbent, while others become the disruptors.
References
EdX. (2019). mooc.org. Retrieved October 16, 2019, from http://mooc.org/.
UNESCO. (2016). Education in Africa. Retrieved October 16, 2019, from http://uis.unesco.org/en/topic/education-africa.
How will web decentralization shape revolution and terrorism?
16
October
2019
Hello and welcome to my corner of the centralized internet where I get to tell you all about the newest, hippest technologies! Meanwhile, advertisers keep bombarding me with useless ads, companies keep tracking all my data to use for their own profit-seeking purposes or to resell for a quick buck, and China knows when I badmouth them (I’m sorry China, don’t do it, NOO-).
How do I escape this nightmare? Let me introduce you to the Decentralized Web
The regular internet was built with centralized points of control due to technological limitations as well as the need to keep some control over the internet. The purpose of the Decentralized Web is to reduce or eliminate such centralized points of control to have a system that can function when parts are missing, provides better privacy protection, provide more reliable access and make direct buying and selling possible without data collecting middlemen. It works thanks to a combination of peer-to-peer networks under a far faster internet than back in 1980 and block-chain inspired encryption that stores information in multiple anonymous locations (Decentralized web summit, 2019: https://www.decentralizedweb.net/about/).
This system is built to be resistant to meddling by central authority for better and for worse. It keeps your, and more importantly my, data safe. However, this system also keeps the data of terrorists, hate groups and revolutionaries safe.
- Terrorists already use the dark web as a relatively safe way to communicate (Weimann, 2016: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26297596?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents), and having access to decentralized web technology makes organizing and recruitment that much easier. This is not a good thing…
- Hate groups will become more able to close off their echo-chambers from outside voices of reason to more easily indoctrinate and radicalize their members. Be prepared for increased domestic terrorism folks…
- Revolutions happen for various reasons on which anyone can disagree on whether the reasons are morally just or unjust, but it stands to reason that totalitarian regimes will not like the step to web decentralization as they lose control over their citizens, citizens which can now organize in a way they couldn’t before and start to challenge these regi- NO WAIT CHINA, I’M NOT TALKING ABOU-
So yeah, this article’s a bit of a bummer.
What do you think?
How Waze uses Crowdsourcing in its best Waze
13
October
2019
Have you ever peacefully driven down the road, when suddenly a huge wall of cars hit you? You quickly try to switch lanes, or you try to take the first turn, however, no matter what you try to do soon you are completely stuck in all the traffic. In recent years, traffic congestion has become a major problem in cities due to the booming concentration of population and activities in urban areas. Today, 55% of the world’s population lives in urban areas and this number is expected to reach 65% by 2050 (United Nations, 2018). Navigating through the maze of traffic congestion is for many people one of life’s biggest headaches, unless you use the ‘Waze’ application.
Waze is a free, real-time, crowdsourced traffic- and navigation application empowered by word’s largest community of drivers. By using GPS navigation software, Waze calculates routes to help drivers navigate to their destination, warns about potential traffic congestion on the road and suggests the optimal, shortest or fastest routes to this destination (Harburn, 2016). Furthermore, Waze enables users to alert each other about road situations, accidents, police control or other route details (Parr, 2009). On top of that, Waze gathers real-time data from its users (drivers in this case) to monitor and relay traffic information for its maps in more than 185 countries around the globe. This data is collected from the crowd in three ways: 1) users actively report on live events that occur on the road; 2) users passively relay information about driving speed and traffic conditions when they actively make us of Waze, or when the app is open in the background of their mobile device; 3) Waze contains a network with volunteers who continuously edit the maps that is used in the app (Muller, 2018). By doing so, Waze collects the most accurate and latest information from drivers who are currently on the road and helps other drivers of the community to save time for being stuck in traffic jam, money spend on gasoline (Harburn, 2016) as well as it may save you a fine.
Although Waze may sound as a promising solution for the rapidly increasing population and traffic in urban areas, we should also critically ask ourselves about potential risks or downsides that may occur. Since Waze redirects drivers to avoid traffic jams or cut travel times, they often suggest more dangerous alternative side roads. Can Waze be held responsible if accidents or dangerous traffic situations happen when drivers use the Waze application? Also, as Waze subtracts large amount of data from its users around the globe, we have to think about the consequences of Waze’ data collection. What can be the impact of gathering so much data (e.g. driver, drive style etc.) on our privacy and the law? Moreover, what could be the consequences if Waze misuses the data?
Sources:
Muller, K. (2018). How crowdsourcing is changing the waze we drive. Digital HBS. [Online] Available at:https://digital.hbs.edu/platform-rctom/submission/how-crowdsourcing-is-changing-the-waze-we-drive/
Parr, B. (2009). Waze Uses Crowdsourcing to Bring You Real-Time Traffic Info. Mashable. [Online] Available at: https://mashable.com/2009/05/18/waze/?europe=true
Harburn, L. (2016). One of the best waze to use crowdsourcing. Social Media for Business Performance. [Online] Available at: http://smbp.uwaterloo.ca/2016/06/one-of-the-best-waze-to-use-crowdsourcing/
United Nations. (2018). 68% of the world population projected to live in urban areas by 2050, says UN. United Nations. [Online] Retrieved from: https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/2018-revision-of-world-urbanization-prospects.html
The Threat of Deepfakes
12
October
2019
Last summer an app called DeepNude caused a lot of controversy in the (social) media. Deepnude was an AI based piece of software with the ability to create a very realistic nude pictures of any uploaded face in the app. Mass criticism followed, the app’s servers got overloaded by curious people and not much later, the app went offline permanently. Deepnude stated on twitter that the probability is misuse was too high and that the world “was not ready yet”. The app never came back online ever since (Deepnude Twitter, 2019). It shows that deepfake technology is becoming available to the public sooner than we thought, including all potential risks.
A definition for DeepFake is “AI-based technology used to produce or alter video content so that it presents something that didn’t, in fact, occur” (Rouse, 2019). As deepfake is AI-based technology it is able to improve over time, as the amount of data input increases and the technology learns to how to create better output. In my opinion deepfake has an amazing potential in the entertainment industry, but there is a serious risk when the technology gets misused. The AI technology makes it harder and harder for humans to distinguish real videos from fake ones. Deepfake videos of world-leaders like Trump and Putin are already to be found on the internet. Also deepfake porn videos of celebrities are being discovered once in a while.
With the upcoming presidential elections of 2020 in the United States, politicians and and many others are seeking solutions to prevent a similar scenario like the 2017 elections. The 2017 presidential elections were characterized by the spread of fake news and the ongoing allegations resulting from it. These events very likely influenced the outcome of those elections (CNN, 2019). Recently the state of California passed a law which “criminalizes the creation and distribution of video content (as well as still images and audio) that are faked to pass off as genuine footage of politicians. (Winder, 2019).” In 2020 we’ll find out whether deepfakes have been restricted succesfully.
I hope developers and users of deepfake technology will become aware of the huge threats of deepfake, and will use it in a responsible way. It is also important for society to stay critical at their news sources and that they prevent supporting these types of technology misuse. According to Wired (Knight, 2019), Google has released thousands of deepfake videos to be used as AI input to detect other deepfake videos. Another company called Deeptrace is using deep learning and AI in order to detect and monitor deepfake videos (Deeptrace, sd).
See you in 2020…
References
CNN. (2019). 2016 Presidential Election Investigation Fast Facts. Retrieved from CNN: https://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/12/us/2016-presidential-election-investigation-fast-facts/index.html
Deepnude Twitter. (2019). deepnudeapp Twitter. Retrieved from Twitter: https://twitter.com/deepnudeapp
Deeptrace. (n.d.). About Deeptrace. Retrieved from Deeptrace: https://deeptracelabs.com/about/
Knight, W. (2019). Even the AI Behind Deepfakes Can’t Save Us From Being Duped. Retrieved from Wired: https://www.wired.com/story/ai-deepfakes-cant-save-us-duped/
Rouse, M. (2019). What is deepfake (deep fake AI). Retrieved from TechTarget: https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/deepfake
Winder, D. (2019). Forget Fake News, Deepfake Videos Are Really All About Non-Consensual Porn. Retrieved from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2019/10/08/forget-2020-election-fake-news-deepfake-videos-are-all-about-the-porn/#26a929963f99
BOINC! Distributed computing to find aliens and the cure for cancer.
10
October
2019
A couple years ago I got very interested in this concept called ‘Distributed computing’. I had a pretty hefty PC and while browsing the World Wide Web one night I found this thing called ‘BOINC’. Others might be familiar with the term because of the distributed computing project called Folding@home from their PS3.
The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing is a software system that makes it easy for scientists to create and operate public-resource computing projects (Anderson, 2004). To simplify; Let’s say you have a huge calculation you need to do, one that would take years to do on your laptop, like finding the next prime number. You could get a very expensive supercomputer and run it for days or weeks to get that next number, or you could get 100,000 laptops to each test a different number to see if it’s the next one.
Now calculating the next prime number might be very interesting (and is a real thing: PrimeGrid), however there are many other projects that are very different and in my opinion much more interesting. Below are a few:
SETI@home: https://setiathome.berkeley.edu
SETI@home is one of the more famous projects available on BOINC. SETI searches for possible evidence of radio transmissions from extraterrestrial intelligence using observational data from the Arecibo radio telescope and the Green Bank Telescope. Yes you read that right, they are searching for aliens. Since 1999, there has not been a single confirmed detection of any extraterrestrial intelligence. SETI@home has proved to the scientific community that distributed computing projects using Internet-connected computers can succeed as a viable analysis tool, and even beat the largest supercomputers.
World Community Grid: https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org
World Community Grid (WCG) is what got many people started with BOINC. In March 2018 there were 52,000 users active on this project. “WCG enables anyone with a computer, smartphone or tablet to donate their unused computing power to advance cutting-edge scientific research on topics related to health, poverty and sustainability. Through the contributions of over 650,000 individuals and 460 organizations, World Community Grid has supported 29 research projects to date, including searches for more effective treatments for cancer, HIV/AIDS and neglected tropical diseases. Other projects are looking for low-cost water filtration systems and new materials for capturing solar energy efficiently (WCG, n.d.)”.
I might not have emphasized enough that people do this for free. In theory, you get nothing for it except a much higher electric bill. In practice, there is one thing that you could do to offset that electric bill. With the calculations you do you get research credits, the research credits are displayed on your BOINC profile and shows people what your impact has been. People take pride in it. These research credits can also be used to base the rewards on for a cryptocurrency. If you enable it, it is possible to receive Gridcoin (https://www.gridcoin.us) for your ‘work’. They calculate a reward based on the number of credits you received compared to others on a project, the higher your relative score the more reward you get.
Most users however do it purely for the impact they could have on science. The feeling of being able to do something with the PC that is collecting dust, without having to open your wallet and donate to charities.
Interested of running BOINC yourself? Check https://boinc.berkeley.edu. Disclaimer: Your PC does not like to work hard 24/7, especially if it cannot cool itself properly.
Sources:
Anderson, David P. “Boinc: A system for public-resource computing and storage.” proceedings of the 5th IEEE/ACM International Workshop on Grid Computing. IEEE Computer Society, 2004.
https://setiathome.berkeley.edu
https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/about_us/viewAboutUs.do
https://boinc.berkeley.edu
Is the Crowd Economy the future of work?
6
October
2019
“Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Something interesting is happening.”
-Tom Goodwin
Tom Goodwin very well may be on to something. The sharing economy has taken off due to incumbents like Uber and AirBnb that have disrupted the conventional ways of personal mobility and hospitality. Between the two, they have achieved a market cap of $103 billion. Amid the information age, we are laying witness to the power and impact that platforms have to connect people, goods, and services.
Long before the digital revolution and the information age, communities have been sharing assets with friends and neighbors, but with the advent of the internet, has made it exceptionally easy for asset-owners to connect with asset-seekers (Chappelow, 2019). In short, the sharing economy utilizes crowd platforms to establish a peer-to-peer (P2P) network. This allows for underutilized to provide value to others.
As one of the fastest-growing trends in business, the share-based model is making impressive gains. Since 2010, more than $23B in investments have been secured for startups since 2010 (Miller, 2019). It is expected that the market will continue to grow and reach a forecast of $335B by 2025.
The sharing economy is one of the most recent economic trends that has had an enormous impact on how businesses operate. The phenomenon has paved the way for the development of new business models. It has granted people and communities to create, connect, and collaborate. From a humanity standpoint, by placing sharing and accessibility at the epicenter of commerce, tremendous value can be unlocked for the economy, people, and planet (Matofska, 2019).
Which industries will the share economy disrupt next?
References
Chappelow, J. (2019, Jun 25). Sharing Economy. Retrieved from Investopedia: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sharing-economy.asp
Matofska, B. (2019, June 18). The Sharing Economy: Changing Business For The Better. Retrieved from Disruption: https://disruptionhub.com/sharing-economy-better-business-benita-matofska-6357/
Miller, D. (2019, June 25). The Sharing Economy and How it Is Changing Industries. Retrieved from The Balance: Small Business: https://www.thebalancesmb.com/the-sharing-economy-and-how-it-changes-industries-4172234
