Data Science newsletter – October 11, 2018

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Amazon.com Inc’s (AMZN.O) machine-learning specialists uncovered a big problem: their new recruiting engine did not like women.

The team had been building computer programs since 2014 to review job applicants’ resumes with the aim of mechanizing the search for top talent, five people familiar with the effort told Reuters.

A methodology is presented to rank universities on the basis of the applicants’ revealed preferences. We exploit a crucial feature of the centralised admissions system to higher education in Hungary: a student is admitted to the first programme where the score-limit is achieved. It makes possible to derive a partial preference order of each applicant. Our approach integrates the information from all students participating in the system and is free of subjective weights and of an arbitrary selection of criteria. The suggested procedure is implemented for ranking faculties in the Hungarian higher education between 2001 and 2016. We demonstrate that the ranking given by the least squares method has favourable theoretical properties, and performs well in practice.

Engineers at UC San Diego used wearable off-the-shelf technology and machine learning to predict, for the first time, an individual’s blood pressure and provide personalized recommendations to lower it based on this data.

Although I can’t divulge too much about Perceptive’s technology, they use behavioral science techniques to characterize the way human drivers understand the state-of-mind of other humans and then train deep learning models to acquire that human ability. These deep learning models are designed for integration into autonomous driving stacks and next-generation driver assistance systems, sandwiched between the perception and planning layers.

These deep learning, predictive models provide real-time information on the intention, awareness, and other state-of-mind attributes of pedestrians, cyclists and other motorists.

The University of Texas at Austin is making plans to bring its top-ranked computer science graduate program to students and professionals beyond campus through a new online master’s degree program. Pending final approval by UT System and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, the university will partner with online learning provider edX to make UT’s Top 10 computer science master’s degree available to students around the world, affordably and on their own schedule.

ANDREW NG, A 42-YEAR-OLD COMPUTER SCIENCE professor at Stanford University, made his name leading artificial intelligence efforts at two of the world’s biggest tech companies, Google and Baidu. Last year he suddenly left Baidu, and over the next many months he launched three high-profile A.I. initiatives of his own: a series of online A.I. courses called deeplearning.ai, a business called Landing AI that develops artificial intelligence for manufacturing companies, and an incubator for startups known as the AI Fund. Fortune spoke with Ng about why he left the world of Big Tech, what’s next for his projects and his fi eld, and what the rise of artificial intelligence might mean for the rest of us.

A member of the panel guiding Sidewalk Labs’ plans to build a high-tech neighbourhood in Toronto has resigned, citing “deep dismay” and “profound concern” about the project and those behind it.

In a letter obtained by The Canadian Press, TechGirls Canada founder Saadia Muzaffar said she is stepping away from her role with the Waterfront Toronto Digital Strategy Advisory Panel because project-backer Waterfront Toronto has shown “apathy and a lack of leadership regarding shaky public trust” and has dodged questions around privacy and intellectual property, even at a series of roundtables the organization has held to consult the public.

When you are 2 years old, your mother knows more about you than you know yourself. As you get older, you begin to understand things about your mind that even she doesn’t know. But then, says Yuval Noah Harari, another competitor joins the race: “You have this corporation or government running after you, and they are way past your mother, and they are at your back.” Amazon will soon know when you need lightbulbs right before they burn out. YouTube knows how to keep you staring at the screen long past when it’s in your interest to stop. An advertiser in the future might know your sexual preferences before they are clear to you. (And they’ll certainly know them before you’ve told your mother.)

Recently, I spoke with Harari, the author of three best-selling books, and Tristan Harris, who runs the Center for Humane Technology and who has played a substantial role in making “time well spent” perhaps the most-debated phrase in Silicon Valley in 2018. They are two of the smartest people in the world of tech, and each spoke eloquently about self-knowledge and how humans can make themselves harder to hack. As Harari said, “We are now facing not just a technological crisis but a philosophical crisis.”

Manisha Singh, a top State Department official, has assumed the duties of ombudsperson for the Eu-U.S. Privacy Shield, a program that eases the flow transatlantic data transfers for U.S. companies.

The ombudsperson position is required under the Privacy Shield program, which will undergo its second annual review Oct. 18-19 in Brussels. A State Department spokesperson told Bloomberg Law Oct. 5 that Singh will take part in the review.

The IPCC’s Special Report lays out various pathways to stabilize global warming at 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius). These solutions all require unprecedented efforts to cut fossil-fuel use in half in less than 15 years and eliminate their use almost entirely in 30 years. This means no home, business, or industry heated by gas or oil; no vehicles powered by diesel or gasoline; all coal and gas power plants shuttered; the petrochemical industry converted wholesale to green chemistry; and heavy industry like steel and aluminum production either using carbon-free energy sources or employing technology to capture CO2 emissions and permanently store it.

Adam Mosseri has a lot to prove. The newly-minted head of Instagram, who swooped in to replace co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger after their surprise exit last month, now holds the keys to the photo-sharing platform’s kingdom of one billion users. But it’s not just the users Mosseri has to worry about. He’s now in charge of Facebook’s most valuable asset, the chunk of the company Mark Zuckerberg still brags about on earnings reports, the piece of the Facebook ecosystem that investors look to with relief.

So today, just a few weeks into his new job, Mosseri is doubling down on what Instagram does best: He’s introducing a new set of tools designed to clean up toxic content on Instagram, extending a years-long effort to make Instagram the nicest place on the web.

Let’s have a thread dedicated to various enhancements and goodies on Jupyter Notebook usage.

Please contribute your tips and improvements that make our lives easier. Thank you!

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