I’m happy to report my mother continues to persevere, but her resilience hasn’t been the only silver lining to this ordeal. Years spent in the company of nurses and doctors—unfailingly committed, but perpetually overworked and often sleep deprived—convinced me that the power of AI could radically elevate the way care is delivered. Intelligent sensors could keep tireless watch over patients, automate time-consuming tasks like charting and transcription, and identify lapses in safety protocols as they happen. After all, if AI can safely guide cars along freeways at 70 miles per hour, I wondered, why can’t it help caregivers keep up with the chaos of the healthcare environment? … [Read more...] about An artificial intelligence scholar urges technologists to embrace humility
Privacy settings and tools
The Capitol riot is spurring new interest in gun-detection AI
For ZeroEyes’ AI to detect a weapon, it must be at least partially exposed. “It’s all based on pixels,” says Lahiff. According to him, with some training the technology can detect a gun on surveillance video about as well as a human being could. And, he adds, there’s a “human in the loop,” meaning that all positive gun detections are sent to a control center where a human being confirms a positive detection before sounding the alarm to the client and to law enforcement.“Avoiding and managing false positives and [maintaining] privacy are the two things you have to get right in order to sell this,” says Dave Fraser, the CEO of ZeroEyes’ competitor Omnilert. Omnilert’s main business has been selling multi-channel mass alert systems to schools, manufacturers, and retailers. Because any gun-detection system involves mass alerts, it made sense of Omnilert to add on the gun-detection AI, Fraser tells me. … [Read more...] about The Capitol riot is spurring new interest in gun-detection AI
IRS stimulus checks: Painfully slow mailed-out payments frustrate many Americans
According to FAQ page on the IRS website, recipients may have to wait three to four weeks to receive their payments in the mail, but it’s unclear why payments that are already in circulation would take that long. First-class mail via the United States Postal Service—which is how these payments are being sent—typically only takes a few days, although the post office makes no guarantees about delivery timelines and bottlenecks in the distribution process often cause delays. … [Read more...] about IRS stimulus checks: Painfully slow mailed-out payments frustrate many Americans
My company has gone through 3 growth cycles in 18 months. Here’s how I navigated them
Stay involved to spot issues until the ways of working are clear, which will set you up to take a step back. Right now, I’m deep in the weeds of every expense associated with the delivery channel to make sure we are building the right foundations for long-term success. In the future, I won’t know the ins and outs of each marketing expense, but for now I’m very involved in building the financial framework we’ll use moving forward. Clear metrics and financial goals give everyone room to run without friction. … [Read more...] about My company has gone through 3 growth cycles in 18 months. Here’s how I navigated them
Too little, too late: The cynical calculus of banning Donald Trump
The Trump circus has been a godsend for Facebook and Twitter. Both are public companies that make the bulk of their money from advertising. The more eyeballs on their platforms, the more advertisers will pay. That’s it. And because Trump has been so controversial, so dramatic, so engaging all of the time, he’s driven more eyeballs and hate-clicks to their platforms than they’d ever dreamed. Trump was good for their business. Twitter lost $5 billion in market value after suspending him. … [Read more...] about Too little, too late: The cynical calculus of banning Donald Trump