Exploring HeyGen AI: The Gateway to Effortless Video Translation
19
September
2023
No ratings yet.
One thing I found in my studies abroad is that learning a language means more than communicating with the local population; it also allows access to an extensive set of content and culture. Now think of yourself as a freelance content creator, or you are working for the company that created an amazing video. It’s educational, entertaining, and it has the potential to appeal to people all over the world. But to do so, there is still a language barrier that needs to be broken. It would normally require a team of translation and dubbers to painstakingly duplicate your video in more than one language.
In the rapidly evolving landscape of digital content creation, a new player has emerged to simplify the process of video translation: HeyGen AI. For creators who want to make their content available to a global audience while preserving the authenticity of their message, this groundbreaking service offers a unique solution.
With one click, this tool aims to simplify the whole translation process. In order to ensure that this translation stays true to the original charm of the video, it employs a real voice clone which closely imitates the actual speech style of the creator. Your content is always true to your tone, no matter what language you speak.
To illustrate this concept, let’s consider the example of Mr. Beast, a renowned content creator known for his philanthropic endeavors and engaging videos. Mr. Beast has set up a company to assist him in reaching an international audience at this time, by dubbing and translating the videos in 14 different languages (Creator Global, 2023). However, with HeyGen AI, he and his team can effortlessly create videos in various languages without delay for manually dubbing, and expand his global reach without compromising the essence of his content.
The goal of HeyGen AI isn’t to break the language barrier, it’s to open up new possibilities for creators and viewers.
Creator Global. (2023). Creator Global. Retrieved from Creator Global: https://www.creatorglobal.com
No time to exercise? Get AI-powered exercise dose in 9 minutes
12
October
2019
5/5 (1) It is not a surprise that Artificial Intelligence is being applied in numerous sectors – we see virtual chefs, superhuman doctors, chatbots as sales assistants. The field of fitness is not an exception. As lack of time is being quoted the most as a reason for not exercising regularly (Green, 2019), researchers are interested in looking into how to optimize our fitness habits in order to get maximum returns for our efforts (Green, 2019).
One of the products of interest in this area is CARdiovascular Optimization Logic (CAR.O.L) which is an Artificial Intelligence powered exercise bike which wants to change the way we do exercise by providing the optimal and personalized exercise solution to each of us. It optimizes each workout and meticulously calibrates the intensity based on how fast you lose muscle power (CAR.O.L, 2019). To be more precise, CAR.O.L Fit Ai exercise session includes 2 minutes of warm-up, 20 sec sprint, 3 minutes recovery alongside another 20 second sprint and 3 minute cool-down (CAR.O.L, 2019). This regime focuses on depleting glycogen resources as quickly as possible, as the depletion triggers your organism to improve fitness, fat metabolism and to remodel the muscles (CAR.O.L, 2019).
CAR.O.L Fit AI was founded by mechanical engineer Ulrich Dempfle and microbiologist in training Ratna Singh who has spent her career advertising and management consulting and was the first entrepreneur-in-residence at McKinsey & Company’s in Silicon Valley (Asprey, 2019). They clinically tested the exercise bike through a randomized peer-reviewed controlled trial sponsored by American Council on Exercise (Green, 2019). Surprisingly, people who were doing 40 seconds of personalized intense exercise three times a week outperformed people who were jogging 30 minutes five times a week. CAR.O.L group received double the gains for a fraction of their time – they improved their cardio fitness by 78% blood pressure by 196% and blood sugar by 48% more than the jogging group (Green, 2019). These findings show Artificial Intelligence abilities to provide optimal exercise solution which maximizes the health benefits of exercise in the shortest time.
Personally, I enjoy exercising because I can do it with friends or while spending time in the nature, thus it is not as hard for me to convince myself to exercise. However, for people who do not enjoy exercising but would like to receive the health benefits and optimize their exercise regime, such AI application in the fitness realm can be an attractive solution.
https://youtu.be/are1iyEd9PM
References
Asprey, D. (2019). [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZJS8y0NjCk
CAR.O.L | Stationary Bike for High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). (2019). Retrieved 12 October 2019, from https://carolfitai.com
Green, D. (2019). What Are the Acute and Chronic Responses to Reduced-exertion High-intensity Training?. Retrieved 12 October 2019, from https://www.acefitness.org/education-and-resources/professional/certified/may-2019/7267/ace-sponsored-research-what-are-the-acute-and-chronic-responses-to-reduced-exertion-high-intensity
The future of EdTech: How AI will make universities obsolete within 10 years
6
October
2019
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Chinese AI startups show glimpse of the future of education
Zhou Yi, a thirteen year old from Hangzhou, was afraid of math. She had tried traditional services, but one day a company called Squirrel AI came to her middle school. Instead of a human teacher, an AI algorithm would compile her lessons and by the end of the semester her GPA rose from a 5.0 to a 6.25. Two years later, she scored a 8.5 at her final exam (Hao, 2019). How you may ask?
Shanghai-based EdTech company Squirrel AI opened 2,000 (franchised) learning centers and registered over a million students in five years – equal to 85% of students in Dutch higher education (CBS, 2019). For every course it offers, its engineering team works with a group of master teachers to divide a topic into over 10,000 elements, while a textbook might divide the same subject into 3,000 elements. Every element is then supported by video lectures, lecture notes and practice problems to give the student the best “student-centered” education possible (Bourne, 2019). You can learn more about the technology behind Squirrel AI in this keynote speech from the O’Reilly AI Conference below.
This may sound like distance future, but Squirrel is already getting traction outside of China by collaborating with MIT, Harvard and developing an OpenAI platform to eliminate the need for institutions to develop their own intelligent systems. They plan to export their technology to the United States and Europe by the end of 2021 (Kong Ho, 2019). Squirrel AI plan to change universities as we know them by replacing rote tasks, but also the class room. Together with Alo7 they added visual and sound analysis to generate summaries, measure the accuracy of the student’s English pronunciation and assess basic indicators of their effort and elation, such as the number of times they opened their mouth to speak and laugh (Hao, 2019).
To achieve this goal they have raised over $150 million in funding and gained unicorn status, surpassing $1 billion in valuation while expanding rapidly (Peng, 2018). This raises several questions: How long will it take till lectures or teachers will be replaced by algorithms? And what are the (dis)advantages of this development?
Could Google, Apple, Facebook or Amazon make you knock on a stranger’s door?
3
October
2019
No ratings yet.Big surprise… Yes! They can. They already made millions of people doing this. But what is really happening here?
When I was watching a video of Roger McNamee (former mentor of Mark Zuckerberg) and Edward Roussel (Dow Jones Chief Innovation Officer) at the Digital Marketing Exposition and Conference they pointed out that Pokemon Go was basically the first indirect test of Google trying to manipulate and steer human behavior in an utterly new way. People that were/are using the Pokemon Go app were indeed knocking on doors of strangers, since they really badly wanted that very special Pokemon that was located in the garden of their neighbors. Next to that, the makers of this app could even make you go into a school or a Starbucks etc. You see the point.
Every hour, big companies receive tonnes of data about us and our behavior. But still I hear people say: “I don’t care what companies do with my data”, and that made me think. It is of course really convenient to have apps in your life that support you in the best way possible, like Google maps that knows exactly where your home and work address is and therefore this app can help you to quickly navigate to those places. Or even one step further, Google tracks your location and sees exactly where you are at any time, but for you as a user it’s also great to see where you have been.. This information is not new, but it keeps me thinking of how much data big established companies actually receive, for example, Walmart collects more than 2.5 petabytes of data every hour from its customer transactions (McAfee et al, 2012), and probably that has more than doubled as of today.
But what actually got my attention was the fact that big established firms can go one step further: they can make you move in a physical way! This could really be a very effective means for digital marketing right? So by gamifying processes (like the Pokemon Go app) you can actually manipulate human behavior. But if that’s possible, what will happen in the long run?
There are roughly four companies in the world that control most of our data, but just imagine what they can do with all of that information. For example, the Oxfort Internet Institute (2019) found out that manipulation on social media has got worse – “rising numbers of governments and political parties making cynical use of social media algorithms, automation and big data to manipulate public opinion at scale.” Striking facts, and we also haven’t forgotten the Cambridge Analytica scandal in recent history. Hub firms are big enough, they don’t need others (Iansiti & Lakhani, 2017), they can make you do a lot in the future… like moving you to a special location with an exclusive ceremony to get your iPhone one day earlier than the official release date as part of you being loyal to brand. Just a random idea, but there are endless possibilities.
I think we should be way more careful in how we share our data across platforms, since it can be of real monetary value for such companies, confirmed by the fact that companies pay a lot for valuable data. And as Roger McNamee (video) pointed out, “we shouldn’t view data as an asset and we shouldn’t be able to buy and sell your own data, it is part of your bodily organ.”
What do you think about these risks of big firms going steps further in terms of what they do with your data and what should we do to get our customer power back?
If you have some spare time, here is the video:
References:
McAfee, A., Brynjolfsson, E., Davenport, T. H., Patil, D. J., & Barton, D. (2012). Big data: the management revolution. Harvard business review, 90(10), 60-68.
Iansiti, M., & Lakhani, K. R. 2018. Managing our hub economy. Harvard Business Review, 96(1), 17-17.
TechCrunch. (2019). Voter manipulation on social media now a global problem, report finds – TechCrunch. [online] Available at: https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/26/voter-manipulation-on-social-media-now-a-global-problem-report-finds/ [Accessed 22 Sep. 2019].
YouTube. (2019). Big tech under observation – after years of watching us, is now being watched | 2019. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aM55qkIt14 [Accessed 14 Sep. 2019].
The Terrifying Rise of Deep-Fake Content
17
October
2018
No ratings yet.Earlier this year the famous actress Drew Barrymore had to deal with some bizarre fabrications of her life that had been published in the magazine of Egyptair: “HORUS”. Celebrities often have to deal with stories about their life that are based on half truths or even lies, but the lengths to which the interviewer went are pretty scary. They accurately photoshopped an original photo of Barrymore holding the magazine “Nisf Al-Donia” and swapped it with their own magazine and unashamedly published it in Egyptair’s magazine. The only reason why this has been discovered is because of the content, Barrymore’s forged answers, did not reflect Barrymore’s life at all. But what if the interviewer had been a bit more clever. Than this magazine article had been gone unnoticed, and had been passed on to passengers without any remarks.
This brings me to the topic I want to address in this blog post. Something that I have been worrying about for quite some time now, that is deep-fake content. Deep-fake learning is an AI based human image synthesis technique used to combine existing with fake images, audio or video into source material. Creating fake content that looks like reality. Deep-fake is mostly used to create fake celebrity or revenge pornography [1]. Of course there are also less harmful use-cases of deep-fake content. For instance to create comedy sketches that are called derpfakes (see below).
From a technological point of view, deep-fake techniques are a marvel of engineering. Pushing the boundaries of what can be done with graphical processors and algorithms. However, deep-fake technologies are sadly enough mostly used in either pornography or even worse, revenge pornography [2]. The latter is really important because celebrities are often well protected due to their popularity but regular people like you and me will find themselves in a much trickier situation. In the UK creating harmful deep-fake material is considered a crime but in other EU member states this is not the case. Recently the ministry of Defence of the United States developed a tool that is designed to catch deep-fakes [3]. But governments are still hesitant on policy making to make deep-fake crimes are specific type of crime. The public is not enough aware of the rising technological possibilities of deep-fakes and thus governments do not make it an priority either. With this blog post I have hoped to give you some insights into this topic and make you aware of the dangers, and convince you that this should be explicitly be made punishable.
For females out there reading this post, please be careful with what you post on social media and how accessible your content is. Numerous studies have shown that females are more often victims of deep-fake content than men.
1 : “What Are Deepfakes & Why the Future of Porn is Terrifying”. Highsnobiety. 2018-02-20. Retrieved 2018-02-20.
2 : https://tweakers.net/nieuws/134449/vervangen-van-gezicht-in-pornovideos-met-ai-neemt-grote-vlucht-door-tool.html
3 : https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611726/the-defense-department-has-produced-the-first-tools-for-catching-deepfakes/
Meet the new foods: technology-enabled alternatives to animal products
The growing demand for food containing animal products has led to livestock accounting for 40% of the global agricultural output value[1]. The production of these foods, however, is highly inefficient[2]. To illustrate, the production of animal protein derived from beef has found to be responsible for six times more greenhouse gases and thirty-six times more land use than that of plant protein such as peas[3]. As almost half of the world’s harvest is fed to animals, it follows that livestock production contributes to the global food crises[4]. However, change is on the horizon and it is endowed by advances in technology.
At least a dozen companies have been exploring technology-enabled alternatives to reduce the environmental impact of animal related food products. Currently, the ones most prevailing are plant-based substitutes and lab-grown meat, which is also known as clean or cultured meat[5].
Just Inc., the Silicon Valley food start-up, is using machine learning to automate the process of screening plant characteristics to increase the probability of discoveries for plant-based meat-mimicking food alternatives[6]. Alternatively, Memphis Meats is focusing on the development of cell-based meat by replicating animal cells in Petri dishes. Ground-breaking technology enabled the debut of the first clean meat hamburger by Dr. Post of Maastricht University in 2013, at a rough cost of $330.000[7].
These cutting-edge products have not remained unnoticed. For instance, Memphis Meats has attracted investments from some of the leading names in tech8, among which Bill Gates and Richard Branson9, but also from Tyson Foods10, the world’s second largest processor and marketer of beef, pork and chicken.
In spite of the smaller environmental footprint and health benefits, Just’ eggless mayonnaise is said to cut 75% of water use and Memphis Meats’ clean meat is 100% real but without the antibiotics11, these companies are facing challenges. The obstacle for most clean meat producers is cultivating an economical and animal-free growth serum to feed the cells with. Additionally, in order to convince the world of eating these new foods, marketing is essential. While Just has received $220 million in investment, its budget is a far cry from that of Nestlé, the world’s biggest food company, which was valued at $229.5 billion in 201712. On top of that, incumbents of the US meat industry have filed a petition to exclude non-animal products from the definition of meat, including clean meat13. Such could further limit the marketing strategies of Just, Memphis Meats and the alike. Nevertheless, according to the study by Bhat, Kumar and Fayaz14, it is the anomaly of technology-enabled food that will be one of the largest barriers for the public acceptance of these new foods.
A recent survey found that 62% of Americans, and 71% among millennials, are inclined to try a technology-enabled food11. What about you, would you try it? Besides, do you believe this industry will be disrupted? And if so, at what pace?
Sources [1] http://www.fao.org/animal-production/en/ [2] http://www.theworldcounts.com/counters/world_food_consumption_statistics/world_meat_consumption_statistics [3] Poore, J., & Nemecek, T. (2018). Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science, 987-992. [4] Food Security Information Network. (2018). Global Report on Food Crises 2018. Food Security Information Network.[5] http://fortune.com/2017/12/19/silicon-valley-meatless-meat/ [6] https://justforall.com/en-us/stories/searching-faster [7] https://cleanmeat.org/ 8 https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/23/bill-gates-and-richard-branson-bet-on-lab-grown-meat-startup.html 9 https://www.forbes.com/sites/chloesorvino/2018/01/29/exclusive-interview-tyson-invests-in-lab-grown-protein-startup-memphis-meats-joining-bill-gates-and-richard-branson/#66ee6f1c3351Sorvino 10 https://www.forbes.com/sites/chloesorvino/2018/01/29/exclusive-interview-tyson-invests-in-lab-grown-protein-startup-memphis-meats-joining-bill-gates-and-richard-branson/#66ee6f1c3351 11 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/30/lab-grown-meat-how-a-bunch-of-geeks-scared-the-meat-industry 12 http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20171214-could-ai-help-create-a-meat-free-world 13 https://www.businessinsider.nl/beef-companies-file-petition-against-lab-grown-meat-startups-2018-2/?international=true&r=US 14 Bhat, Z., Kumar, S., & Fayaz, H. (2015). In vitro meat production: Challenges and benefits over conventional meat production. Journal of Integrative Agriculture.
Success story Ocado – How the supermarket disrupts itself with technology
13
September
2018
No ratings yet.Ocado started its operations 18 years ago and since then the company has tried to disrupt itself by adopting technology. This mantra proofed to be successful and helped the online retailer to reach a revenue of $1,4 billion in 2016 making it the world’s largest online-only grocery chain (Olson, 2017).
For retail companies, like Ocado, the firm’s efficiency is significantly influenced by its warehousing. Therefore, the business improved heavily its warehousing technology and developed a grid system. Enabled by a Novel Radio Communication System thousands of robots are able to communicate to each other and move along a grid to stack and select food boxes (McDonald, 2018). One robot can pick and pack an average order of 50 items in 5 minutes and travel between 50 km and 60 km a day (Godwin, 2018). Ocado’s new warehouses are able to deal with 50.000 kinds of products, three temperature regimes and products that have to be separated. In total the company processes 1,7 million items a day across its four fulfilment centers (Olson, 2017).
If you are interested to see how the warehouse automatization of Ocado looks like, have a look at the following video of Tech Insider:
Source: (TechInsider, 2018)
After the company realized how efficient and reliable the warehouse technology works and that it could also be useful for other retailers it released the Ocado Smart Platform. The platform works like a rental model. The customer pays rents for the robots and the system which will be operated by Ocado (Olson, 2017). Hence, the platform represents a new source of revenue for the online grocery chain.
Ocado invested heavily in the development of its software and acquired off-the-shelf technology if there was no need for re-invention. Almost 1.000 people are employed at Ocado Technology where the development takes place (Herrod, 2017). According to David Sharp, the head of technology at Ocado, his employees are working disruptively by choosing a big problem and then finding a transformational change. Sharp adds that “you have to work in the science fiction area to have the right thoughts” (McDonald, 2018). Let’s see what other exciting ideas Ocado comes up with in future.
References
Godwin, H. (2018). Step inside Ocado’s next generation warehouses. Retrieved 13 September 2018, from https://www.ocadotechnology.com/blog/step-inside-ocados-next-generation-warehouses/index.html
Herrod, E. (2017). Ocado : disrupting itself with technology, 1–7. Retrieved from https://internetretailing.net/magazine-articles/magazine-articles/ocado-disrupting-itself-with-technology
McDonald, C. (2018, September). How Ocado has disrupted its own model. ComputerWeekly, 9–11. Retrieved from https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252448108/How-Ocado-has-disrupted-its-own-model
Olson, P. (2017). Ocado Is Building A Robot Army To Shop For Your Groceries. Forbes, 1–6. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2017/11/16/ocado-robots-ai-grocery-delivery/#4701d89d3d36
TechInsider. (2018). Inside A Warehouse Where Thousands Of Robots Pack Groceries. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DKrcpa8Z_E&feature=youtu.be
Technology of the Week: Electronic Markets and Auctions Group 60
11
October
2017
5/5 (1) Summary:
The video introduces electronic markets with a specific focus on the Retail Industry. Especially, the video highlights what an electronic market is, what business models are prevalent and how the technology has disrupted and will continue to disrupt the retail industry. Essentially, electronic markets and auctions enable firms to integrate advertising, product ordering, delivery of digitizable products and payment systems (Strader, 1999).
One prevalent business model within online markets are online marketplaces. Horizontal marketplaces like Amazon sell many types of products and are considered a one-stop shopping platform. Such companies also take advantage of supply chain and scale advantages. On the other hand, vertical marketplaces like Coolblue sell the same type of product from various sources and are considered specialists in their field. Coolblue is an example of a firm who, through specialization, are able to engineer the user-experience by highlighting key features of the product category. In addition to online marketplaces, other business models includes: e-shops, third-party marketplaces, collaboration platforms (Kestenbaum, 2017).
Amazon and Coolblue serve as examples of firms utilizing online market business models within the retail industry. The industry includes the sale of products from vendors to an end-customer for goods and services including, groceries, books and clothing, to name a few. The popularity of online markets has also seens a surge from the consumers perspective. For instance, 51% of Americans indicated their preference to shop online (BigCommerce,2017). On the one hand, Online markets offer several advantages to consumers, including: greater transparency, convenience, larger product variety and lower prices. On the other hand, advantages also exist for the retailers as they can benefit from cost reductions. Setting up an online store entails lower costs compared to a physical store. Centralization of products to a warehouse also imply cost savings. Moreover, retailers are able to reach a wider range of customers and better observe customer activity via their online behaviour and data collection.
However, several consideration have to be made in order to exploit the advantages of online markets. The readiness for joining the online market, available resources, types of offered products and services as well as strategic factors like omni-channel approach. Furthermore, an ideal pricing strategy to maximize revenue as well as the product delivery strategies also need to be considered. This does not mean that brick and mortar stores will disappear completely (Turner, 2017). Companies shall find the perfect balance of online and offline shopping, which will bring to the table the distinguishable winning attributes for a firm (Prevett, 2017).
Looking at the future of online marketplaces, innovative technologies like 3D modeling, augmented reality, big data and data analytics and IoT will change and shape online as well as offline markets. Examples such inventions include 3D models of clothes, which allow you to watch your virtual self showcase clothing on a virtual runway. Another example is virtual reality goggle, which allow you to check out different car models.
References (The reference list applies for our summary as well as the content of our video):
Bain, M. (2016). Amazon is developing a 3D modeling system to solve online clothes shopping’s biggest problem. [online] Quartz. Available at: https://qz.com/730986/amazon-may-be-developing-a-3d-modeling-system-to-solve-online-clothes-shoppings-biggest-problem/ [Accessed 8 Oct. 2017].
Bhargava, V. (2016). 5 Reasons Why People Love Shopping Online (And How You Can Make The Most Of It. [online] Exit Bee Blog. Available at: http://blog.exitbee.com/5-reasons-why-people-love-shopping-online-and-how-you-can-make-the-most-of-it/ [Accessed 8 Oct. 2017].
Dimoka A. and Hong Y. and Pavlou P. (2011) On Product Uncertainty in Online Markets: Theory and Evidence. MIS Quarterly, Vol. 36.
Gandhi, V. (2017). Future of the Online Retail Industry and the role of Big Data Analytics. [online] Linkedin. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/future-online-retail-industry-role-big-data-analytics-vibhuti-gandhi/ [Accessed 8 Oct. 2017].
Kestenbaum, R. (2017). What Are Online Marketplaces And What Is Their Future? [online] Forbes.com. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardkestenbaum/2017/04/26/what-are-online-marketplaces-and-what-is-their-future/#39c124b83284 [Accessed 8 Oct. 2017].
Khurana, A. (2017). Should You Compete With Amazon or Rule a Niche? [online] The Balance. Available at: https://www.thebalance.com/horizontal-vs-vertical-ecommerce-1141751 [Accessed 8 Oct. 2017].
Wallace, T. (2017). Ecommerce Trends: 147 Stats Revealing How Modern Customers Shop in 2017
[online] Bigcommerce.com. Available at: https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/ecommerce-trends/#cmtoc_anchor_id_0 [Accessed 8 Oct. 2017].
Prevett, R. (2017). Can IoT Breathe New Life Into Bricks and Mortar Retail? – Disruption Hub. [online] Disruption Hub. Available at: https://disruptionhub.com/can-iot-breathe-new-life-bricks-mortar-retail/ [Accessed 11 Oct. 2017].
Rafi, M. (2017). How Retailers Should Think About Online Versus In-Store Pricing. [online] Harvard Business Review. Available at: https://hbr.org/2017/01/how-retailers-should-think-about-online-versus-in-store-pricing [Accessed 8 Oct. 2017].
Strader T. and Shaw M. (1999) Electronic Markets: Impact and Implications. Handbook on electronic commerce. pp 77-98 Available at: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-58327-8_4 [Accessed 8 Oct. 2017].
Timmers, P. (1998). Business Models for Electronic Markets. Electronic Markets, 8(2), pp.3-8.
Turner M. (2017). Is Brick-And-Mortar Obsolete? [online] Forbes.com. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/marciaturner/2017/01/31/is-brick-and-mortar-obsolete/#1838cb7337ce [Accessed 11 Oct. 2017].
YouTube. (2016). FIFA 17 All National Team Kits. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoCle8rRsVQ [Accessed 8 Oct. 2017].
Authors:
Romane Geraci (405610)
Nina Feuerstein (409839)
Mihai Buca (371721)
Sarisa Nuboer (407414)
Can a robot pass a university entrance exam?
25
September
2017
No ratings yet.When we estimate how well we learn in the class, we are required to take an exam, then the score will reflect the studying results. Similarly, when we would like to estimate how smart an artificial intelligence robot can be, it is also easier and more direct to have a score. Using this score, we can also see to what extent AI robot can out-perform human being. Recently, a Japanese artificial intelligence robot team created a robot “Todai” to take the university entrance exam in Japan and compare the exam results with all the students (Todai is the abbreviation of University of Tokyo, the top university in Japan). The robot did quite well in the first stage of exams for multiple choices on different subjects and mathematics, being top 1% in the mathematics exam. However, the robot failed to answer most of the question in English test due to the reason that AI cannot understand the sentences and they cannot read. At the end, the robot did not pass the exam of University of Tokyo but it did pass the exam of other approximately 60 universities in Japan. The speechmaker pointed out that at the current stage, it was not possible to make AI robot understand the meaning of the sentence or knowledge, which is what human being can do. She encouraged educators to put more emphasis on understanding the meaning instead of only memorizing knowledge because memorization can be easily done by AI robots.
After watching this video from Tedtalk, I found it interesting because in this measurable way we are actually able to see how smart AI can be at current stage. We can also better prepare to overcome the threat AI robot could bring to the job market. However, with the high-pace development of technology and science, the possibility of AI robot being able to have motion, read and understand the meaning of sentences might not be zero. Therefore, it would be interesting to see how far the artificial intelligence can go.
Transparency to NGOs: A real need for a new system?
18
September
2017
No ratings yet.
Working for a global NGO, I was always wondering what drives donors’ trust to share their financial materials with us. Some of the answers consisted in being accountable, quickly respond to their questions and needs as well as making the whole donation process more reliable. But a more critical question that I asked myself was what makes donors lose trust in us or any other NGO around the world? I came up with one essential factor transparency.
Despite the significant efforts of all NGOs or non-for-profit organizations to increase transparency by showing their accountability and responsiveness to all stakeholders, these efforts seem to fail. One reason for this attribution is the actual system.
The actual donation system is made through a third trusted party. For instance, if you want to donate 10 Euros to a community or person, you need to go through a third party, which charges you a small type of fee (transaction fee, project management fee, wages, etc.). Once the third party identifies the person or community that you want to donate your money, your capital will not arrive 100% in their pockets. Instead, part of your donation will be used for internal operations. For instance, the logistic costs cumulate up to 80% of money donated to United Nations for a certain project (Illac Diaz, 2014).
What actually donors need, is a platform where they can efficiently track all their money or contributions without high current fees or considerable efforts.
One great solution coming to offer these advantages is Blockchain.
What Blockchain really does is to immediately transfer the money, with a considerably lower fee, being an immutable, unhackable distributed database. The synchronized distributed open ledger offers the stakeholders’ reliance for their transactions making everything clear for parties, donors and recipients. In a nutshell, this is a platform for truth and it’s a platform for trust (Tapscott D., 2016).
One real-life commercial Blockchain example that is coming to solve transparency to NGOs is AID: Tech. This start-up works with governments and NGOs to provide digital Identity for 2.4 billion undocumented people around the world as well as to make the process of receiving donations more transparent (Abisdris L., 2017). The main idea of the organization is based on the distribution of plastic cards to people offering them a digital identity operating as an account where they can receive donations. They do this through Red Cross: 1 of 17 million volunteers takes a picture of the undocumented individuals (Abisdris L., 2017). This allows Ngo’s donors to transfer their capital for a certain commodity to recipients, easily tracking the money. Moreover, AID: tech went further with the idea. They collaborate with local merchants in order to allow recipients to buy the products they want to with the help of blockchain (Abisdris L., 2017).
For instance, when a refugee receives the AID: Tech card is digitally identified with the help of Red Cross. The donor gives him 10 Euros for the rice. The refugee can order one kilogram of rice online with the money received. Afterwards, the person can go to the shop where his card gets scanned and the shopkeeper can easily identify the person by the photograph in the system and what the refugee is entitled to, offering him the ordered product. What makes this idea more exciting is that the donor receives a text message where he can see how his money got spend, by whom and when.
This idea cannot only reduce fraud but can establish the trust that NGO’s are looking for so badly.
All in all, BlockChain creates new products, changing the nature of relationships between stakeholders. The AID: Tech product not only improves the relationship between the donor and recipients but is changing the NGO’s industry structure. If an efficient implementation of this platform will be made do we still need NGO’s to make the world a better place?
Reference
Don Tapscott, 2016. How Blockchain can change the world.
Lanie Abisdris, 2017. Blockchain startup AID:Tech brings more transparency to NGOs and wins $25,000 investment from Jason Calacanis
Illac Diaz, 2014. Lighting Up the World a Liter at a Time
link here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z02ngSto-sk&t=441s
