- nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

53° Nexa Lunch Seminar - 26 luglio 2017
by Nexa Media July 17, 2017

July 17, 2017

Nexa Center for Internet and Society Newsletter Se non visualizzi correttamente questo messaggio clicca qui <http://nexa.polito.it/lunch-53> NEXA 53° Nexa Lunch Seminar Mercoledi 26 luglio 2017, ore 13.00 - 14.00 Politecnico di Torino http://nexa.polito.it/lunch-53 Tell Me Quality: uno strumento per misurare la qualità dei dati Speaker Marco Berlot (Politecnico di Torino) This event will be webcast live: http://nexa.polito.it/upcoming-events La qualità dei dati viene identificata come il grado con cui le caratteristiche dei dati, utilizzate in condizioni specifiche, soddisfano determinati requisiti. *Attualmente la qualità dei dati rappresenta un problema per molti professionisti operanti in un ampio settore dei sistemi d’informazione*. Fra questi, vi sono il data warehousing, la business intelligence, la gestione delle relazioni con i clienti e la gestione della catena di distribuzione. Uno studio aziendale ha stimato che il costo totale per l’economia degli Stati Uniti legata ai problemi di qualità dati superi i 600 miliardi di dollari l’anno (Eckerson, 2002). Tell Me Quality è uno strumento che ha l’obbiettivo di misurare la qualità di file contenenti dati secondo gli standard ISO/IEC 25024 e ISO/IEC 25012. *Il risultato di queste misurazioni viene rappresentato con delle visualizzazioni quantitative studiate appositamente per questo tipo di software*. Il design del progetto è iniziato con Alessio Melandri, un fellow del Centro Nexa su Internet e Società. La presentazione verterà principalmente sullo sviluppo della parte front end del software e sullo studio della visualizzazione quantitativa delle misure. Questi argomenti verranno discussi da Marco Berlot, uno studente del Politecnico di Torino e della Tongji University di Shanghai che ha svolto un tirocinio presso il Centro Nexa. /Ingresso libero - Saranno disponibili panini e bibite per coloro che si saranno registrati su http://lunch53.eventbrite.com entro il 24 luglio./ BIOGRAFIE - e informazioni supplementari [BERLOT] MARCO BERLOT è uno studente di ingegneria informatica iscritto al programma di doppia Laurea tra il Politecnico di Torino e la Tongji University di Shanghai. Nel 2017 ha svolto un tirocinio presso il centro Nexa lavorando allo sviluppo del progetto Tell Me Quality. L’obbiettivo di questo software è quello di misurare la qualità dei dati attraverso la tecnologia dei Linked Data. Il suo lavoro si è concentrato prevalentemente nel design del front end e sullo studio della visualizzazione quantitativa delle misurazioni. Letture consigliate e link utili: * Data Quality: High-Impact Strategies - What You Need to Know: Definitions, Adoptions, Impact, Benefits, Maturity. Kevin Roebuck, Lightning Source, 2011. * Systems and software engineering -- Systems and software Quality Requirements and Evaluation (SQuaRE) -- Measurement of data quality <https://www.iso.org/standard/35749.html>. * Data on the Web Best Practices: Data Quality Vocabulary <https://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-dqv/>. * Visualizzazione dell'Informazione Quantitativa <http://softeng.polito.it/courses/VIQ/>. Che cosa sono il Centro Nexa e i cicli di incontri “Mercoledì di Nexa” e “Nexa Lunch Seminar” Il Centro Nexa su Internet & Società del Politecnico di Torino (Dipartimento di Automatica e Informatica) è un centro di ricerca indipendente e interdisciplinare che studia Internet e il suo effetto sulla società. Maggiori informazioni all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/about. Durante i “*Mercoledì di Nexa*”, che si tengono *ogni 2° mercoledì del mese* alle *ore 18 in punto*, il Centro Nexa su Internet e Società apre le sue porte non solo agli esperti e a tutti coloro i quali lavorano con Internet, ma anche a semplici appassionati e cittadini. Il ciclo di incontri intende approfondire, con un linguaggio preciso ma divulgativo, i temi legati alla Rete: motori di ricerca, Creative Commons, social networks, open source/software libero, neutralità della rete, libertà di espressione, privacy, file sharing, big e open data, smart cities e molto altro. Al centro di quasi tutti gli incontri un ospite pronto a dialogare con i direttori del Centro Nexa, il Prof. Juan Carlos De Martin del Politecnico di Torino e il Prof. Marco Ricolfi dell'Università di Torino, nonché lo staff e i Fellows del Centro Nexa. Maggiori informazioni sui Mercoledì di Nexa, incluso un elenco di tutti i “Mercoledì” passati, sono disponibili all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi. Si segnala inoltre che dal maggio 2012 *ogni 4° mercoledì* del mese *dalle ore 13 alle ore 14* il Centro Nexa organizza anche i "*Nexa Lunch Seminar*". Una lista di tutti i “Lunch Seminar” passati è disponibile all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/lunch-seminars. See our events calendar <http://nexa.polito.it/events> if you're curious about future luncheons, discussions, lectures, and conferences not listed in this email. Our events are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted. Maggiori informazioni sui Mercoledì di Nexa e i Nexa Lunch Seminar, sono disponibili all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/events. Weekly Events Newsletter. Sign up <http://nexa.polito.it/mailing-lists> to receive this newsletter if this email was forwarded to you. To manage your subscription preferences, please click here <https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa>. Connect & get involved: Jobs, internships, and more <http://nexa.polito.it/get-involved>

1 0

Chronicle: "Scholars Cry Foul at Their Inclusion on List of Academics Paid by Google"
by J.C. DE MARTIN July 14, 2017

July 14, 2017

*Scholars Cry Foul at Their Inclusion on List of Academics Paid by Google* By Chris Quintana July 12, 2017 This week an advocacy group published what it called a list of scholars who have received money from Google and who have written papers that supported its interests, sometimes without disclosing that apparent conflict of interest. Sarah T. Roberts said she doesn’t understand why she was on the list. Sure, she told The Chronicle, she was a Google fellow in 2009, but that meant a $7,000 award to cover her expenses during a 10-week stint working in Washington, D.C., for the American Library Association. Why that 2009 fellowship would be relevant to a 2015 paper on information privacy — in which Ms. Roberts, an assistant professor of information studies at the University of California at Los Angeles, was listed as the fourth author — is not clear to her. More important, she said, she didn’t receive any money from the technology giant in connection to that paper. And if the advocacy group’s concern was that she had benefited from Google in the past, that information is on her curriculum vitae. […] Continua qui: http://www.chronicle.com/article/Scholars-Cry-Foul-at-Their/240635

2 1

Oracle, Google… e gli universitari presi in mezzo
by Antonio Casilli July 12, 2017

July 12, 2017

Nel caso vi fosse sfuggita: Oracle is Funding a New Anti-Google Group | Fortune.com http://fortune.com/2016/08/19/google-transparency-project-2/ -- Antonio A. Casilli Associate Professor, Telecom ParisTech Research Fellow, Edgar-Morin Center (EHESS) Member, Interdisciplinary Institute for Innovation (i3 UMR 9217 CNRS)

1 0

WashPost: "Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign"
by J.C. DE MARTIN July 12, 2017

July 12, 2017

*Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign** * /Company paid $5,000 to $400,000 for research supporting business practices that face regulatory scrutiny; a ‘wish list’ of topics.// / By Brody Mullins and Jack Nicas Updated July 11, 2017 9:54 p.m. ET Google operates a little-known program to harness the brain power of university researchers to help sway opinion and public policy, […] Continua qui: https://www.wsj.com/articles/paying-professors-inside-googles-academic-infl… Alternative link:https://ih.advfn.com/p.php?pid=nmona&article=75214696

1 0

Amid Unprecedented Controversy, W3C Greenlights DRM for the Web
by Alberto Cammozzo July 11, 2017

July 11, 2017

<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/07/amid-unprecedented-controversy-w3c-gr…> By Cory Doctorow <https://www.eff.org/about/staff/cory-doctorow> July 6, 2017 Early today, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards body publicly announced <https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-media/2017Jul/0000.html> its intention to publish Encrypted Media Extensions (EME)—a DRM standard for web video—with no safeguards whatsoever for accessibility, security research or competition, despite an unprecedented internal controversy among its staff and members over this issue. EME is a standardized way for web video platforms to control users' browsers, so that we can only watch the videos under rules they set. This kind of technology, commonly called Digital Rights Management (DRM), is backed up by laws like the United States DMCA Section 1201 (most other countries also have laws like this). [...]

2 1

Incontro con il Prof. Brett Frischmann (Villanova University) - 12 luglio 2017
by Nexa Media July 11, 2017

July 11, 2017

*REMINDER*: vi ricordiamo che *mercoledì 12 luglio 2017*, dalle ore 16 alle ore 18, si svolgerà un incontro con il *Prof. Brett Frischmann* dal titolo: *"To What end?"* Ingresso libero, webcast live all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/upcoming-events. Maggiori informazioni sono disponibili all'indirizzo: *https://nexa.polito.it/2017/07/bfrischmann <https://nexa.polito.it/2017/07/bfrischmann>* A seguire, a partire dalle ore 18 (con termine alle ore 20), si svolgerà il 99° Mercoledì di Nexa, con un incontro dal titolo: *"Capire la diffusione delle bufale e se è possibile contrastarle: un approccio computazionale".* Ospite dell'incontro *Giancarlo Ruffo *(Università degli Studi di Torino). Maggiori informazioni sono disponibili all'indirizzo: *https://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi-99 <https://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi-99>* Cordiali saluti, Francesco 2017-07-07 7:50 GMT+02:00 Nexa Media <media(a)nexa.polito.it>: > Se non visualizzi correttamente questo messaggio clicca qui > <https://nexa.polito.it/2017/07/bfrischmann> > [image: NEXA] > > > Incontro con il Prof. BRETT FRISCHMANN > Mercoledi 12 luglio 2017, ore 16.00 - 18.00 > > Politecnico di Torino > > https://nexa.polito.it/2017/07/bfrischmann > To What End? > > Speaker > Prof. Brett Frischmann (The Charles Widger Endowed University Professor in > Law, Business and Economics) > > This event will be webcast live: http://nexa.polito.it/upcoming-events > > [image: [FRISCHMANN]] > > BRETT FRISCHMANN joins Villanova as The Charles Widger Endowed University > Professor in Law, Business and Economics, effective August 1, 2017. He is > the 2016-2017 Microsoft Visiting Professor of Information and Technology > Policy, Princeton University, and a Professor at Cardozo Law School in New > York City, an affiliated scholar of the Center for Internet and Society at > Stanford Law School, and a trustee for the Nexa Center for Internet & > Society, Politecnico di Torino. He teaches courses in intellectual > property, Internet law, and technology policy. > > At Princeton, Frischmann has worked on his next book,* Being Human in the > 21st Century: How Social and Technological Tools are Reshaping Humanity* > (Cambridge 2017), which he is co-authoring with RIT philosopher Evan > Selinger. He has examined techno-social engineering of humans, various > ‘creep’ phenomena (e.g., boilerplate, nudge, and surveillance creep), and > modern techno-driven Taylorism, and he has developed a series of > human-focused Turing tests to identify and evaluate when humans behave like > machines. > > ABSTRACT > > Society needs to grapple with the normative implications of 21st century > techno-social engineering of humans. And so we must ask the following > constitutional questions: > - *Who are we?* > - *What sorts of people do we want to be?* > - *What values and capabilities do we possess and commit ourselves to > sustain?* > - *What sort of society do we want to build and sustain?* > - *What obligations do we owe to past, present and future generations, > and how should such obligations shape the technological and social > institutions—or more broadly, the world—we build and sustain?* > > The questions are constitutional in the sense that they are the most > fundamental intergenerational questions about what constitutes a people, a > community, a culture, a society, even a civilization. > > We will reflect on these fundamental questions by examining three > metaphors. First, we explain why *humanity’s techno-social dilemma* is in > fact a dilemma rather than the utopian heaven promised by smart tech > boosters. We explain that the shared resource that’s at risk of > deterioration and possibly depletion is nothing less than humanity itself. > A world where engineered determinism governs is a world where fully > predictable and programmable people perform rather than live their lives. > Such a world would, in our view, be most tragic. People within such a world > could be described as human; they would still qualify as *homo sapiens*. > But their normative status as human beings would, in our view, be quite > thin. Much of what matters about being human would be lost. To help explain > why, we revisit the* experience machine 1.0 and experience machine n.0* > thought experiments. > > Che cosa sono il Centro Nexa e i cicli di incontri “Mercoledì di Nexa” e > “Nexa Lunch Seminar” > > Il Centro Nexa su Internet & Società del Politecnico di Torino > (Dipartimento di Automatica e Informatica) è un centro di ricerca > indipendente e interdisciplinare che studia Internet e il suo effetto sulla > società. Maggiori informazioni all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/about. > > Durante i “*Mercoledì di Nexa*”, che si tengono *ogni 2° mercoledì del > mese* alle *ore 18 in punto*, il Centro Nexa su Internet e Società apre > le sue porte non solo agli esperti e a tutti coloro i quali lavorano con > Internet, ma anche a semplici appassionati e cittadini. Il ciclo di > incontri intende approfondire, con un linguaggio preciso ma divulgativo, i > temi legati alla Rete: motori di ricerca, Creative Commons, social > networks, open source/software libero, neutralità della rete, libertà di > espressione, privacy, file sharing, big e open data, smart cities e molto > altro. > > Al centro di quasi tutti gli incontri un ospite pronto a dialogare con i > direttori del Centro Nexa, il Prof. Juan Carlos De Martin del Politecnico > di Torino e il Prof. Marco Ricolfi dell'Università di Torino, nonché lo > staff e i Fellows del Centro Nexa. > > Maggiori informazioni sui Mercoledì di Nexa, incluso un elenco di tutti i > “Mercoledì” passati, sono disponibili all'indirizzo: > http://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi. > > Si segnala inoltre che dal maggio 2012 *ogni 4° mercoledì* del mese *dalle > ore 13 alle ore 14* il Centro Nexa organizza anche i "*Nexa Lunch Seminar*". > Una lista di tutti i “Lunch Seminar” passati è disponibile all'indirizzo: > http://nexa.polito.it/lunch-seminars. > > See our events calendar <http://nexa.polito.it/events> if you're curious > about future luncheons, discussions, lectures, and conferences not listed > in this email. Our events are free and open to the public, unless otherwise > noted. > > Maggiori informazioni sui Mercoledì di Nexa e i Nexa Lunch Seminar, sono > disponibili all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/events. Weekly Events > Newsletter. Sign up <http://nexa.polito.it/mailing-lists> to receive this > newsletter if this email was forwarded to you. To manage your subscription > preferences, please click here > <https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa>. > > Connect & get involved: Jobs, internships, and more > <http://nexa.polito.it/get-involved> > > > _______________________________________________ > nexa mailing list > nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it > https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa > >

1 0

NYT: "The Real Threat of Artificial Intelligence"
by J.C. DE MARTIN July 10, 2017

July 10, 2017

*The Real Threat of Artificial Intelligence* By KAI-FU LEE JUNE 24, 2017 BEIJING — What worries you about the coming world of artificial intelligence? Too often the answer to this question resembles the plot of a sci-fi thriller. People worry that developments in A.I. will bring about the “singularity” — that point in history when A.I. surpasses human intelligence, leading to an unimaginable revolution in human affairs. Or they wonder whether instead of our controlling artificial intelligence, it will control us, turning us, in effect, into cyborgs. These are interesting issues to contemplate, but they are not pressing. They concern situations that may not arise for hundreds of years, if ever. At the moment, there is no known path from our best A.I. tools (like the Google computer program that recently beat the world’s best player of the game of Go) to “general” A.I. — self-aware computer programs that can engage in common-sense reasoning, attain knowledge in multiple domains, feel, express and understand emotions and so on. […] Continua qui: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/24/opinion/sunday/artificial-intelligence-e…

1 0

99° Mercoledì di Nexa - 12 luglio 2017
by Nexa Media July 10, 2017

July 10, 2017

*REMINDER*: vi ricordiamo che *mercoledì 12 luglio 2017*, dalle ore 18 alle ore 20, si svolgerà il 99° Mercoledì di Nexa, con un incontro dal titolo: *"Capire la diffusione delle bufale e se è possibile contrastarle: un approccio computazionale".* Ospite dell'incontro *Giancarlo Ruffo *(Università degli Studi di Torino). Ingresso libero, webcast live all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/upcoming-events. Maggiori informazioni sono disponibili all'indirizzo: *https://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi-99 <https://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi-99>* Cordiali saluti, Francesco Il giorno 3 luglio 2017 15:39, Nexa Media <media(a)nexa.polito.it> ha scritto: > Se non visualizzi correttamente questo messaggio clicca qui > <http://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi-99> > [image: NEXA] > > 99° Mercoledì di Nexa > Mercoledì 12 luglio 2017, ore 18.00 - 20.00 > > Politecnico di Torino > > http://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi-99 > Capire la diffusione delle bufale e se è possibile contrastarle: un > approccio computazionale > > Speaker > Giancarlo Ruffo (Università degli Studi di Torino) > > This event will be webcast live: http://nexa.polito.it/upcoming-events > La diffusione della disinformazione per mezzo degli strumenti di > comunicazione tradizionali e più avanzati quali i social media è stata > negli ultimi tempi *un importante soggetto di dibattito politico*. > Nello stesso tempo il fenomeno della diffusione di informazioni false o > scarsamente attendibili è un argomento di discussione scientifica > ugualmente accattivante, anche se l'obiettivo primario nella comunità degli > studiosi è capire il fenomeno prima di saltare a conclusioni e a soluzioni > che potrebbero rivelarsi peggiori del problema stesso. > Per questo motivo, la letteratura negli ultimi anni ha investigato il > problema con un certo grado di approfondimento, spesso *proponendo > modelli matematici e computazionali che consentissero di rappresentare > adeguatamente il fenomeno* e di valutarne gli effetti per mezzo di > adeguati strumenti simulativi, eventualmente confermati empiricamente > grazie ai dati a disposizione. > I risultati che saranno presentati durante il seminario sono frutto di un > lavoro iniziato più di tre anni fa e che è partito dallo studio di una > letteratura molto ampia che spazia dall'informatica alla fisica, dalla > psicologia alle scienze sociali. L'attività si è basata su tecniche diverse > che si sono consolidate negli ambiti del machine learning, del data mining, > della network science, e così via. > In particolare, la ricerca si è concetrata sulla modellazione, la > simulazione e la validazione su dati concreti delle dinamiche relative > all'antidoto più famoso contro la proliferazione delle bufale: *la > verifica dei fatti e la loro diffusione*. La domanda principale al quale > si è iniziato a dare una risposta è se, come e quando, la verifica delle > informazioni possa effettivamente limitare la diffusione delle cosiddette > bufale. > La ricerca è stata condotta dalla dr.ssa Marcella Tambuscio e dal Prof. > Giancarlo Ruffo, in collaborazione con il laboratorio CNETS (Center for > Complex Network and Systems Research, Indiana University), e in particolare > con Filippo Menczer, Alessandro Flammini e Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia. > > BIOGRAFIE - e informazioni supplementari > > [image: [RUFFO]] > > *Giancarlo Ruffo*, Ph.D, è Prof. Associato di Informatica presso > l'Università degli Studi di Torino dal 2006, e "Adjunct Professor" presso > la "Schools of Informatics and Computing" dell'Indiana University dal 2011. > Nel 2015 è stato nominato ISI fellow dalla Fondazione ISI. Si occupa di > Scienze Sociali Computazionali e di Scienza delle Reti, ed in particolare > di diffusione della disinformazione, di polarizzazione delle opinioni nei > social media e di visualizzazione dei dati. > > *Letture consigliate e link utili:* > > - David Lazer, Alex Sandy Pentland, Lada Adamic, Sinan Aral, Albert > Las- zlo Barabasi, Devon Brewer, Nicholas Christakis, Noshir Contractor, > James Fowler, Myron Gutmann, et al. *Life in the network: the coming > age of com- putational social science. Science*, (New York, NY), > 323(5915):721, 2009. > - World Economic Forum, *Digital wildfires in a hyperconnected world* > <http://reports.weforum.org/global-risks-2013/risk-case-1/digital-wildfires-…>, > 2013. [Online; ac- cessed 06-December-2016]. > - Michela Del Vicario, Alessandro Bessi, Fabiana Zollo, Fabio Petroni, > Antonio Scala, Guido Caldarelli, H. Eugene Stanley, and Walter > Quattrociocchi, *The spreading of misinformation online. Proceedings > of the National Academy of Sciences*, 2016. > - Jacob Ratkiewicz, Michael Conover, Mark Meiss, Bruno Goncalves, > Snehal Patil, Alessandro Flammini, and Filippo Menczer, *Truthy: > mapping the spread of astroturf in microblog streams*, in Proceedings > of the 20th international conference companion on World wide web, pages > 249–252. ACM, 2011. > - Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia, Prashant Shiralkar, Luis M Rocha, Johan > Bollen, Filippo Menczer, and Alessandro Flammin, *Computational fact > checking from knowledge networks*, PloS one, 10(6):e0128193, 2015. > - Marcella Tambuscio, Diego FM Oliveira, Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia, and > Giancarlo Ruffo, *Network segregation in a model of misinformation and > fact checking*,arXiv preprint arXiv:1610.04170, 2016. > - Marcella Tambuscio, Giancarlo Ruffo, Alessandro Flammini, and > Filippo Menczer, *Fact-checking effect on viral hoaxes: A model of > misinformation spread in social networks*, in Proceedings of the 24th > International Conference on World Wide Web Companion, pages 977–982. > International World Wide Web Conferences Steering Committee, 2015. > > > > > Che cosa sono il Centro Nexa e i cicli di incontri “Mercoledì di Nexa” e > “Nexa Lunch Seminar” > > Il Centro Nexa su Internet & Società del Politecnico di Torino > (Dipartimento di Automatica e Informatica) è un centro di ricerca > indipendente e interdisciplinare che studia Internet e il suo effetto sulla > società. Maggiori informazioni all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/about. > > Durante i “*Mercoledì di Nexa*”, che si tengono *ogni 2° mercoledì del > mese* alle *ore 18 in punto*, il Centro Nexa su Internet e Società apre > le sue porte non solo agli esperti e a tutti coloro i quali lavorano con > Internet, ma anche a semplici appassionati e cittadini. Il ciclo di > incontri intende approfondire, con un linguaggio preciso ma divulgativo, i > temi legati alla Rete: motori di ricerca, Creative Commons, social > networks, open source/software libero, neutralità della rete, libertà di > espressione, privacy, file sharing, big e open data, smart cities e molto > altro. > > Al centro di quasi tutti gli incontri un ospite pronto a dialogare con i > direttori del Centro Nexa, il Prof. Juan Carlos De Martin del Politecnico > di Torino e il Prof. Marco Ricolfi dell'Università di Torino, nonché lo > staff e i Fellows del Centro Nexa. > > Maggiori informazioni sui Mercoledì di Nexa, incluso un elenco di tutti i > “Mercoledì” passati, sono disponibili all'indirizzo: > http://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi. > > Si segnala inoltre che dal maggio 2012 *ogni 4° mercoledì* del mese *dalle > ore 13 alle ore 14* il Centro Nexa organizza anche i "*Nexa Lunch Seminar*". > Una lista di tutti i “Lunch Seminar” passati è disponibile all'indirizzo: > http://nexa.polito.it/lunch-seminars. > > See our events calendar <http://nexa.polito.it/events> if you're curious > about future luncheons, discussions, lectures, and conferences not listed > in this email. Our events are free and open to the public, unless otherwise > noted. > > Maggiori informazioni sui Mercoledì di Nexa e i Nexa Lunch Seminar, sono > disponibili all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/events. Weekly Events > Newsletter. Sign up <http://nexa.polito.it/mailing-lists> to receive this > newsletter if this email was forwarded to you. To manage your subscription > preferences, please click here > <https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa>. > > Connect & get involved: Jobs, internships, and more > <http://nexa.polito.it/get-involved> > > > _______________________________________________ > nexa mailing list > nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it > https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa > >

1 0

Call for chapters: Open and Social Learning in Impact Communities and Smart Territories
by Fabio Nascimbeni July 10, 2017

July 10, 2017

> Inoltro questa call interessante. > Un saluto > > Fabio > > > > -- > > Lídia Oliveira & Ana Melro are in the process of editing a forthcoming publication entitled Open and Social Learning in Impact Communities and Smart Territories to be published by IGI Global, an international publisher of progressive academic research. The Call for Chapters is open and abstracts (1,000 to 2,000 words) can be submitted for consideration in this publication until July, 30th 2017. > > > Please visit http://www.igi-global.com/publish/call-for-papers/call-details/2771 <http://www.igi-global.com/publish/call-for-papers/call-details/2771> for more details regarding this publication and abstract submission. > > If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact: Ana Melro anamelro(a)ua.pt <mailto:anamelro@ua.pt> > > Thank you very much for considering this invitation. Please feel free to forward this message to colleagues/peers who might be interested. > > Kind regards, > Lídia Oliveira & Ana Melro > University of Aveiro, Portugal > >

1 0

"Machine learning is a myth"
by Antonio Casilli July 9, 2017

July 9, 2017

Articolo apparso nel Financial Times: https://www.ft.com/content/36933cfc-620c-11e7-91a7-502f7ee26895 Lo incollo qui, per coloro che non avessero accesso. Rassicurante vedere come un giornale letto da investitori stia finalmente iniziando a dire quello che nei nostri oscuri circoli accademici si dice da anni: l'intelligenza artificiale è fatta di e da lavoratori invisibilizzati, micro-pagati e cottimo e spesso situati in paesi in via di sviluppo. Buona lettura, ---a ------------------------- Self-driving cars prove to be labour-intensive for humans Building the road to autonomous vehicles requires a lot of costly manual input Self-driving cars seem like a magical idea. The concept of vehicles that can operate themselves, without steering wheels or pedals, leaps straight from the pages of science fiction. Yet like so many fantastical stories, there are “wizards” hidden behind the curtain — lots of them. Constructing the road to fully automated driving, it turns out, requires a lot of manual labour. Most companies working on this technology employ hundreds or even thousands of people, often in offshore outsourcing centres in India or China, whose job it is to teach the robo-cars to recognise pedestrians, cyclists and other obstacles. The workers do this by manually marking up or “labelling” thousands of hours of video footage, often frame by frame, taken from prototype vehicles driving around testbeds such as Silicon Valley, Pittsburgh and Phoenix. “Machine learning is a myth, it’s all Wizard of Oz type work,” says Jeremy Conrad, an investor at Lemnos Labs in San Francisco. “The labelling teams are incredibly important in every company, and will need to be there for some time because the outdoor environment is so dynamic.” Road test: over 100 Google employees pedal around a Waymo self-driving car in California to check the onboard safety system © Waymo Huge advances in artificial intelligence, sensor quality and computing power have put in place the technological foundations of the driverless revolution. Yet despite these innovations, humans will still be needed behind the scenes for many years to come, drawing boxes around trees and highlighting road signs, in order to keep these systems fresh. “AI practitioners, in my mind, have collectively had an arrogant blind spot, which is that computers will solve everything,” says Matt Bencke, founder and chief executive of Mighty.Ai, which taps a community of part-time workers to filter and tag training data for tech companies. The same problem exists for any AI system: computers “learn” by ingesting vast amounts of manually labelled information and use that “model” to recognise objects and patterns when they see them again. The challenge in training self-driving cars is greater than other AI applications because of the open-ended variety of scenes and situations in which vehicles can find themselves. Even after adjusting for changing lighting and weather conditions at different times of the day and year, the urban environment can change overnight due to construction, special events or accidents. “The annotation process is typically a very hidden cost that people don’t really talk about,” says Sameep Tandon, chief executive of autonomous driving start-up Drive.ai. “It is super painful and cumbersome.” AI practitioners, in my mind, have collectively had an arrogant blind spot, which is that computers will solve everything Matt Bencke, founder and chief executive of Mighty.Ai The level of accuracy demanded of autonomous cars is also higher than other AI systems. Cars drive themselves by comparing the surroundings they see using their cameras and sensors to a detailed on-board 3D map of the streets around them. Safety is paramount: if Google Photos’ facial recognition system fails to correctly identify a person in a picture, it is inconvenient; if a Waymo vehicle does not spot a pedestrian, it could be fatal. In the race to create driverless cars, one of the yardsticks by which progress is measured is the number of miles a company’s vehicles have covered. Alphabet’s Waymo said in May that its cars have piloted themselves across 3m miles of public roads, while Tesla said last year it had gathered data from more than 100m miles driven by owners of its existing vehicles to help it develop its Autopilot system. More miles, however, means more manual work for these companies’ small armies of backroom data processors. Driving just a handful of miles can create tens of gigabytes of data, which quickly become too large a volume to be uploaded wirelessly from the car. Instead, it must be saved to a hard drive and shipped to an outsourcing centre. For such a cutting-edge industry, these analogue logistics seem archaic. Critical function: labelling teams are one of the key labour-intensive functions that are fundamental to the success of autonomous driving © Nvidia Each hour of driving can take hundreds of hours for its conversion into useful data, says David Liu, chief executive of Plus.ai, another Silicon Valley start-up developing autonomous driving systems. “We need hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of hours of data” for self-driving vehicles to go everywhere, he says, requiring “hundreds of thousands of people to get this thing done” globally. Big tech companies prefer not to publicise the manual aspect of autonomous driving. Waymo, Uber and Tesla all declined to comment for this story. “It is very hard to get people to talk about this,” says Dan Weld, professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle. “They all like to say it’s machine-learning ‘magic’.” In a rare public acknowledgment, during a talk at the University of California, Berkeley, back in 2013, former Waymo and Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski described a Google team in India made up of what he called “human robots”, who were labelling images from its Street View service. Such a labour-intensive process does not come cheap. Industry estimates put the cost of creating and maintaining such maps for every city in the US in the billions of dollars a year. Some start-ups see an opportunity here. Companies such as Plus.ai, Deepmap and Drive.ai claim they can use “deep learning” to reduce this human input, while still maintaining the accuracy that is necessary for autonomous vehicles to operate safely. Deep learning is a newer and more advanced type of machine learning that seeks to emulate the analytical functioning of the human brain. “With machine learning, it is very hard to get above 90 or 95 percentage accuracy and precision, but with deep learning it’s a lot easier to build a model like that,” says James Wu, chief executive of Deepmap, which raised $25m in May. Others in the industry, however, are sceptical that deep learning will remove the need for people altogether. Mr Bencke of Mighty.ai points to the challenges Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have faced in tackling abuse, from bullying to terrorism, on their social platforms. “If deep learning were that capable, don’t you think they would have solved that problem by now?” he says. “That’s much less complicated than autonomous vehicles, and it’s a big market.” AI researchers everywhere are chasing this goal of “unsupervised learning”, when machines can teach themselves unaided. In the meantime, the wizards of Silicon Valley and Detroit will be hoping their customers and investors continue to pay no attention to all those people behind the curtain. The app that helps make self-driving cars safer Anyone with a smartphone and a spare five minutes can help teach a robot to drive. That is the idea behind Mighty.ai, the Seattle-based start-up aiming to provide “training data as a service” to artificial intelligence researchers. Mighty’s app, Spare5, aims to break up the tedious task of tagging and labelling images, used to train AI systems such as those in self-driving cars, into a game-like time killer for its hundreds of thousands of users to complete when lining up at a coffee shop. They may even earn enough to buy a cup of coffee in the process. “As people, we take for granted that we can see patterns and intuit context very quickly, but computers aren’t very good at that,” says Matt Bencke, Mighty’s founder and chief executive, The “microtask” system combines human input with Mighty’s own machine-learning technology to train and validate AI systems. “There is so much activity around the automotive space that we’ve really doubled down our efforts there,” says Mr Bencke. After downloading the free Spare5 app and entering their PayPal details to start earning money, users are given tasks such as drawing “bounding boxes” with their finger around a specified object in a photograph, such as an item of clothing for an ecommerce site, or highlighting the difference between pavement and pedestrian crossing for a car company. Users must pass a qualification test before they are let loose on real data and each response is graded by a quality-assurance process to ensure quality and accuracy. Mighty is now working with more than a dozen automotive companies, many of whom have previously used outsourcing to process the video captured by their autonomous testing vehicles. Some also use crowdsourcing, such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk system. Mighty, which raised $14m in January, offers a third way between those alternatives. “Traditional outsourcing and crowdsourcing are fundamentally flawed,” says Mr Bencke. “They were created for different industries that don’t need the level of subtlety and accuracy” that self-driving cars do. -- Antonio A. Casilli Associate Professor, Telecom ParisTech Research Fellow, Edgar-Morin Center (EHESS) Member, Interdisciplinary Institute for Innovation (i3 UMR 9217 CNRS)

1 0