AI and Social Media combined? You Bet
Want to expand your knowledge of the AI world? Make sure you’re following these industry leaders.
Social Media and AI? You bet. AI is fast becoming an integral part of our social media fabric. While Siri, Alexa and Android Voice all recognize and respond to voice commands, AI programs grasp the deeper meaning of actions to provide more accurate and intelligent results.
As you read this article many social networking companies have acquired smaller AI businesses to increase their functionality and appeal to users. For example, LinkedIn invested in Bright, a company which enables the site to offer better candidate matches for both employers and job seekers.
AI is effective at analyzing a large amount of data due to its ability to ingest and decipher data to recognize patterns, predict hashtags and trending topics. Facebook refers to this as ‘deep learning’. With over 800 million users logging on and generating massive amounts of unstructured data every day, deep learning technology allows the website to provide a more personalized experience for the user.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the “goal is to build AI systems that are better than humans at our primary senses: vision, listening, etc.”
Google is also jumping on the AI wagon by having acquired DeepMind, which focuses on simulating neural networks, i.e. the brain, to analyze and deduce patterns to achieve objectives. Like a brain figures out equations or problems. A little scary isn’t.
We can’t leave out Twitter. They are using AI and machine learning to categorize every single tweet. That’s right, every single tweet. Think about that if you will. The idea is to provide content people most care about at the top of their timeline. It could mean a significant shift in the way that people currently view tweets within the chronological timeline format.
Twitter also currently uses neural networks to crop photos to maximize their aesthetic output. To do this, machine learning studies eye-tracking. Eye tracking records what area people look at first in a picture, meaning AI can understand which part of a photograph is most appealing.
To keep yourself up to date in what’s happening in the AI world, I’ve gathered a list of leaders, experts, and influencers in the field.
1-Nathan Benaich (@NathanBenaich): As the founder of LondonAI, Nathan Benaich is a certified mover and shaker in the tech world. He is often posting about applied machine learning and A.I. conferences that he has either organized or is attending.
2-Yoshua Bengio: is a Canadian computer scientist, most noted for his work on artificial neural networks and deep learning. Wikipedia
3-Rodney Brooks (@rodneyabrooks): If you follow trends in AI, you’ll want to follow robotics entrepreneur Rodney Brooks.
Brooks is a former director of the computer science and artificial intelligence laboratory at MIT and co-founder of iRobot, the company that created the Roomba.
4-Joanna Bryson (@j2bryson): Joanna Bryson is an associate professor in the department of computing at the University of Bath. She works on AI, ethics and collaborative cognition.
Bryson is an internationally renowned expert on AI ethics, developing AI and understanding human intelligence, human cooperation and cultural change, including why inequality covaries with political polarization.
5-Kate Crawford (@katecrawford): Kate Crawford is a leading researcher, academic and author who has spent the last decade studying the social implications of data systems, machine learning, and AI.
6-Martin Ford (@MFordFuture): Futurist and author Martin Ford, is a major voice in the world of AI and the future of work, focusing on the impact of artificial intelligence and robotics on society and the economy.
He has written three books on AI, the most recent of which came out last year. Ford gave a 2017 TED talk on the impact of AI and robotics on how we will earn money and the future of jobs.
7-Ian J. Goodfellow (@goodfellow_ian): is a researcher working in machine learning, currently employed at Apple Inc. He has made several contributions to the field of deep learning.
8-Geoffrey Hinton (@geoffreyhinton): is an English Canadian cognitive psychologist and computer scientist, most noted for his work on artificial neural networks. Since 2013 he divides his time working for Google and the University of Toronto.
9-Tessa Lau (@tessalau): Formerly known as the chief robot whisperer at robotics company Savioke, Tessa Lau is now the founder and CEO of Dusty Robotics, which aims to improve construction productivity by automating the dull and dirty jobs performed on construction sites.
10-Yann LeCun (@ylecun): is a French computer scientist working primarily in the fields of machine learning, computer vision, mobile robotics, and computational neuroscience, and Vice President, Chief AI Scientist at Facebook.
11-Fei-Fei Li (@drfeifei): Dr. Fei-Fei Li is a professor at the computer science department at Stanford University. She was chief scientist at Google Cloud until she relinquished her role in 2018 to return to Stanford University full-time.
Li is currently the co-director of the Stanford Human-Centered AI (HAI) Institute, a Stanford University institute to advance AI research, education, policy, and practice to benefit humanity by bringing together interdisciplinary scholarship across the university.
12-Dr. Angelica Lim (@petitegeek): Lim is an A.I. roboticist at SoftBank Robotics, building AI software for robots to interact in a smart, but fun way. Lim is an Assistant Professor of Professional Practice in Computing Science at Simon Fraser University.
13-Spiros Margaris (@SpirosMargaris): Venture capitalist Spiros Margaris has reached ‘the triple crown’ of influencer rankings by being ranked the global number one influencer in fintech, AI and blockchain by Onalytica.
In 2017, he published an AI white paper, ‘Machine learning in financial services: Changing the rules of the game’, for the enterprise software vendor SAP. Margaris regularly examines how AI and machine learning can impact the world of fintech.
14-Andrew Ng (@AndrewYNg): Anyone who wants to pursue a career in AI should know Andrew Ng. Widely considered an AI star, Ng founded the Google Brain deep learning project. He also was Chinese tech giant Baidu’s chief computer scientist until he left in 2017.
15-Kathleen Walch (@kath0134): AI and machine learning expert Kathleen Walch, is a serial entrepreneur, savvy marketer, and tech industry connector.
She is principal analyst, managing partner, and founder of Cognilytica, an AI research and advisory firm, and co-host of the popular AI Today podcast. She also frequently writes for Forbes on the topic of AI.