Category Archives: Deep Mind
This is what Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg does to take his mind off bad news everyday – India Today
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that he now surfs or rides a hydrofoil board to keep his mind free from the negative effects of news
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has come up with a rather unusual way of dealing with an onslaught of news. The Facebook honcho revealed that he now surfs or rides a hydrofoil board to keep his mind free from the negative effects of news. There is more good news than bad news that comes our way. While some can easily get past the good and bad, the bad news gets to some people. Zuckerberg seems like one such person who gets too affected by bad news and hence needs something to cope with its effects.
In a recent interview on The Tim Ferriss Show, Zuckerberg described what he does the first thing he wakes up in the morning. Zuckerberg reveals that he wakes up each morning to a sea of emails, along with the news. He said that all that he deals with early in the morning is "a fair amount of bad news and new things that I need to absorb," he said. Zuckerberg elaborated that getting swamped by news and emails feels " almost like getting punched with a ton of new context.
Zuckerberg said that to overcome the feeling, he goes surfing or rides a hydrofoil, which lifts him above the surface of the water. "When you're out there in the water, it's pretty hard to focus on anything else. When you're on the board, you're focused on making sure you stay on the board and don't mess something up, Zuckerberg said. He further revealed that when he returns to his work after a surfing session, he feels like the news has settled in and it does not get as overwhelming as it does right after he wakes up. Several photographers have captured Zuckerberg surfing on the banks of a river he owns.
The CEOs of big tech companies do different things to keep their minds relaxed. Previously, Google CEO Sundar Pichai in an interview revealed that he unwinds using a non-sleep deep rest or NSDR.The NSDR is a specific technique to achieve self-directed calm through mental focus. It comes with a bunch of pros that helps the practitioner of NSDR learn things better, it helps people relax, reduces stress and helps fall asleep more easily. "I found these podcasts which are non-sleep deep rest, or NSDRs.So while I find it difficult to meditate, I can go to YouTube, find an NSDR video. They're available in 10, 20, or 30 minutes, so I do that occasionally, Pichai said. There are three NSDR protocols including the Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR): Yoga Nidra, Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR): Hypnosis and Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR): Short nap.
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This is what Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg does to take his mind off bad news everyday - India Today
Letting go: the decluttering obsession moves into the mind – The Guardian
In the early 2010s, mindfulness was the wellness trend to complement the times. It had a self-optimising, corporate vibe that promised if you did enough colouring books, or had a meditation app, life would be easier to deal with.
Now in times of deep chaos, mindfulness is being replaced by something more radical: letting go.
Problems with a project or your work? Do what you can do, and stop ruminating. Upset you still have to shield while others are spending nights maskless in pubs? Well, you cant do anything about it, so just let it go. The guy you like not calling you back? His loss, move on. The idea that there exists a best self, and you can be it? Absolutely let that go.
All through 2020 and 2021s lockdowns, a book published in 2012 kept being recommended to me. Letting Go by David Hawkins was pretty new age but its seemingly simple message resonated: I could always let something painful go, not let it get to me, and move on with my life. It may sound like a small, obvious thing, but when we are trained to strive, we can sometimes forget we have that option.
We hang on to pain. It certainly satisfies our unconscious need for the alleviation of guilt through punishment. We get to feel miserable and rotten, Hawkins wrote. The question then arises, But for how long?
In recent years, the letting go message has begun cutting through to the mainstream. Burnt out and traumatised by years of seemingly ever-accelerating crises people are looking for a new way to cope.
There are courses, podcasts, journals and more books post-Hawkins (Let Go, the Power of Letting Go, Let That Shit Go, the Little Book of Letting Go, the Language of Letting Go), all teaching us how to relinquish the things that are causing us pain or stress. Letting go started with objects, but now decluttering has moved on to the mind. The message in all of these self-help texts: surrender is the surest route to total fulfilment.
Hawkins book had a ripple effect on my life. I was suddenly a lot more relaxed about things not working out. Instead of being caught up in a spiral of trying to control an outcome, I let go and moved onto the next thing. Sometimes I had to cut my losses, sometimes I felt real grief, some things I tried to let go of proved stubbornly resistant. But I made a start.
In this technique was an echo of Stoic philosophy, including Epictetuss maxim: Dont hope that events will turn out the way you want, welcome events in whichever way they happen. This is the path to peace.
It also aligns with Buddhist non-attachment theory, which is how Melbourne researcher and psychotherapist Dr Richard Whitehead came to the concept.
For his doctoral thesis, he attempted to quantify the power of letting go, work that has since fed into a series of journal publications.
He measured 1,100 people using a wellbeing scale, then interviewed those with the highest and lowest scores. I asked them about their life and how they got to that point of being able to let go of things, says Whitehead.
He found people who are older tend to let go easier, as do people who have a strong meditation practice.
But the most interesting finding of the whole paper was that suffering was the main catalyst for most people in terms of letting go. These people live their life without fixating on things. Eleven or 12 people who scored very high on the wellbeing scale talked about deep moments in their lives of pain and suffering. They also used some form of self reflective practice such as journalling when it came to letting stuff go.
The people that scored low on the wellbeing scale were clinging says Whitehead. They had a lot of suffering but they were suffering from the negative effect of the event they were still trying to control the event and the outcomes. They could not let go.
Letting go is counterintuitive in many ways. We are encouraged and taught from a young age to succeed, to push through, to have goals and let nothing get in the way. Half the battle is fighting your own deeply ingrained notions of how success works.
Hugh van Cuylenburg knows a lot about success. His first book, The Resilience Project was a breakout bestseller, and he joined the speaking circuit spreading the resilience message to schools across Australia and to professional sports clubs such as Essendon Football Club and Port Adelaide.
But despite this, van Cuylenburg was caught in seemingly intractable problems. An inbuilt perfectionist streak and a desire to please others meant that hed beat himself up every time he went to a party in a low mood.
I had an expectation of perfectionism and a belief that I had to light up every room. Letting go of this behaviour was about adopting a way of life that is much more sustainable, he says.
He lit upon the idea of letting go when he was feeling at a low ebb, burnt out after too many work commitments and travel.
I was addressing players [at Port Adelaide football club] at a pre-season and I was burnt out. On the way there, on the car radio my favourite song was playing and when I heard the lyrics let go let go theres beauty in the breakdown it really resonated with me. When he got to the club, he realised he could let go of the idea of giving the perfect presentation and be authentic about how grim he felt. The talk was a success because he was able to be honest.
Since that night, letting go proved to be the key in overcoming problems that had dogged van Cuylenburg for decades. Now when his psychologist suggests that he let go, I can feel the tension leave my body. We just dont even stop and realise how much shit we are carrying.
Van Cuylenburg, whose latest book is called Let Go, singled out shame and perfectionism as an emotion that many people, including himself, need to let go of. At a basic level we feel like we are not enough as we are, he says.
Were not smart enough, funny enough, good looking enough, rich enough. We are desperately trying to make up for this look at the amount of money people spend trying to look better. From a young age we need to tell people we are worthy enough, we can belong.
Sydney-based meditation teacher Matt Ringrose, says that, in a decade of practice, how do I let go? was the most common question I was asked.
Last year, he attempted to give people an answer, in the form of an online course, which he says was greatly inspired by Hawkins book.
Website traffic quadrupled since we put up the course, says Ringrose. People are searching for the term letting go. Its gone through the roof. People are wanting to let go of the past guilt, resentment, regrets, or they want to let go of anxiety about the future and achieving certain outcomes.
Ringrose believes that typically, letting go comes at an acute pain point, when holding on hurts more than moving on.
It is something he experienced personally, at the end of his marriage.
Previously Ringrose tried to overcome issues by trying harder to control something.
I would try to bend the world to my will, whether its a relationship or business. I was quite good at manipulating the world. Then, I reached a certain point in life where it absolutely refused to be controlled. And the more I tried to control it the more I found I was suffering.
There is a technique to letting go, says Ringrose, one that is bolstered through meditation. The other steps he teaches are getting better at feeling feelings. Letting go is just feeling feelings its allowing the feelings to be felt. Its a lot easier than you think.
Correcting mistaken beliefs is also key. You need to unpick the knots that are causing you to hold on i.e. staying in this relationship will keep me happy, and so I need to hang on. When you realise you cant control something acceptance comes in.
People think that letting go hurts too much but it doesnt, he says. Its the resistance to letting go thats the thing that hurts.
For Hugh van Cuylenburg, letting go is a lifetime practice. I thought when I finished the book that I dont need to do it anymore. Then at Christmas I had anxiety around making people happy and it was a reminder that this stuff is ongoing. Its hard but I need to keep remembering that Im trying to undo four decades of programming.
Richard Whitehead believes learning to let go is a realistic way of coping with what the world might throw at you. Mindfulness gets used to make things feel good, he says. But letting go is not clinging to the good times not pushing away the bad things.
Its about feeling really down and low and embracing the bad things as well. They will pass if you let them go.
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Letting go: the decluttering obsession moves into the mind - The Guardian
Deep dive into Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smiths 25-year marriage … – ClutchPoints
Will Smiths Oscars slap on Chris Rock shone a light on several issues in Hollywood. For starters, the incident itself has divided the industry between those who support the King Richard actor and those who are against what he did. It also made the public more aware of Alopecia, an autoimmune disorder causing hair loss. But somewhere at the core of this debacle is the marriage between the leading man and Jada-Pinkett-Smith, a union that has lasted for 25 years.
We take a look at how Will and Jadas marriage started, its evolution over the years, and how their relationship reached its current form.
Will Smith got her first glimpse of his future wife when Jada Pinkett-Smith auditioned to play his girlfriend on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in 1994. At that time, the actor was still married to Sheree Zampino and had a son with her named Trey.
A year later, the pair divorced and Smith pursued a relationship with Jada. In 1997, the pair tied the knot in Baltimore and their first son, Jaden, was born shortly after. The couple would then have a daughter named Willow, who was born in 2000.
With the arrival of Willow, Will and Jadas family would be complete with Trey, Smiths son with Zampino, in it. During this time, the actor ascended to the upper echelon of Hollywood and constantly starred in consecutive blockbusters, like Men In Black, I Am Legend, and I, Robot. Jada, for her part, also dabbled in various projects, while taking care of her children.
Without a doubt, it was during these years that both Will and Jada enjoyed tremendous success in their respective careers and as a married couple.
For the better part of these two decades, Smith had his fair share of successful movies and those that flopped, such as After Earth and Seven Pounds. Jada, meanwhile, starred in the Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions during the 2000s. But while things were relatively quiet with the two, there was trouble brewing beneath the surface.
In 2013, the actress got everyones attention when she clarified rumors about an open relationship between Will and her.
I think that people get that idea because Will and I are very relaxed with one another. But Ive always told Will: You can do whatever you want as long as you can look at yourself in the mirror and be okay, Jada said in an interview.
Two years later, Smith addressed rumors that he and Jada are getting divorced. After years of enduring countless speculation, the actor has finally had enough.
Under normal circumstances, I dont usually respond to foolishness (Because its contagious). But, so many people have extended me their deepest condolences that I figured What the hell I can be foolish, too! So, in the interest of redundant, repetitious, over & over-again-ness Jada and I are NOT GETTING A DIVORCE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Smith wrote on Facebook.
Unfortunately, that wont be the same message in 2018. Will Smith came out on TIDALs Rap Radar podcast and said that he and Jada arent married anymore. He then explained that they refer to themselves as life partners and nothing Jada could do would break their relationship. Smith added that he will support his wife till death and it feels so good to reach that point.
That proclamation of support will be put to the test when news of August Alsina having an affair with Jada broke out in 2020. It was then revealed in an episode of Red Table Talk that the couple did separate in 2015, which led Jada to date Alsina. Smith also said that the relationship between the young artist and his wife had his blessing.
During the same episode, the pair ultimately reconciled and said that they have reached a new place of unconditional love. At this point in time, both Will Smith and Jada have chosen to work on their marriage again.
During the recent Oscars, Chris Rock joked about Jadas bald hairstyle right before he presented the nominees for Best Documentary. The actress then rolled up her eyes as his husband approached the comedian on stage. All of a sudden, Smith slapped Rock as the show was still being broadcasted live.
Rock, for his part, tried to justify the joke he made. This prompted the actor to yell from his seat to keep his wifes name out of the comedians mouth. Later on, Smith would go to win the Best Actor award for his role in King Richard. He would then use this opportunity to ask forgiveness from the Academy and his fellow nominees while saying love will make you do crazy things.
It was later revealed that Jada was suffering from Alopecia, a disorder that causes hair loss. Rocks joke provoked Smith in such a way that captured the whole worlds attention. For his part, the actor released an apology via Instagram and Rock has refused to press charges against him.
At this point in time, both Will and Jada are at the point of fixing their marriage further after years of turbulence. The hope here is that the recent incident involving the Oscars will die a natural death so the two can focus on their family and their respective careers. It remains to be seen how long it would take before these issues, and subsequently, their marriage, are finally resolved.
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Deep dive into Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smiths 25-year marriage ... - ClutchPoints
Letter to the editor: Healthcare costs have deep roots – Addison County Independent
I agree wholeheartedly that spending on healthcare is out of control. But when will we address the deeper reasons why this is so? We could certainly discuss the out-of-control salaries that administrators at many levels of this system receive, including the bureaucracy-heavy insurance companies. Or the out-of-control costs of pharmaceuticals and the other tools of the medical-industrial complex.
Better yet, as a health care practitioner trained in preventive medicine, I think we desperately need to address all the conditions that have led us to be one of the unhealthiest countries in the world our addiction to sugar, eating calorie-laden food with little nutritive value, poisons in our agricultural systems, the stress of working hard for a remuneration that doesnt cover our basic needs, never mind allowing for time to recreate or be with family and friends, to name just a few.
Albert Einstein remarked decades ago that it is folly to expect that we can solve a complex problem from within the system that created it. What will it take to free ourselves from our reductionist linear thinking?
There is so much more to say about this. Here is a link to just one article that I found that may help us to reframe our conditioned thinking and expectations on this, as well as many other complex problems we are struggling with:
tinyurl.com/3wsuwxf2
Wendy Goodwin
Middlebury
Original post:
Letter to the editor: Healthcare costs have deep roots - Addison County Independent
6 Poems to Inspire Sacred Contemplations of the Everyday – Tricycle
The experience of reading a poem is a meditative experience in and of itself. As author John Brehm writes in The Dharma of Poetry, to enter a poem is to shift out of everyday consciousness. . . to step out of the ongoing flow of experience and look at it. A poem inspires a moment of pause in which we can engage in an imaginative activity that has no practical value.
Poet Chase Twichell reflects that the process of writing her collection The Ghost of Eden was not unlike the work required in zazen. . . it involved a concentration of mind and a letting go of thought. When we approach poetry with a meditative mind, we can practice the deep listening necessary to let language itself speak. We are invited to, as Twichell encourages her students, regard each poem as a chance to trick ourselves into a new perception, or even surprise ourselves into saying things we didnt think we knew.
In honor of National Poetry Month, weve collected a selection of poems published in Tricycle over the years that embody the deep and fruitful relationship between meditative practice and poetic inquiry.
***
The PossibilityLeath Tonino, Poems of Walking and Sitting (May 31, 2020)
i dont expectany of usto knowwhat its liketo be freeof worry
all i askis that whena tree or stoneor cloudmentions the possibility
we stopwhat were doingturn our headslisten
Myoko DreamJoanne Kyger, Arriving Without a Sound (April 22, 2015)
Stop fidgeting she saysIm picking candle wax off my robesWere all sitting in the ZendoPeople of all ages introducing themselves.
Im here because I read too much I say.
August 2007
Poem #104Zen Master Ikku, translated by Sarah Messer and Kidder Smith, Incense Thrown on the Buddha (June 26, 2015)
True transmission sidesteps delusive combat.Vast kalpas of unenlightennment are made of thefeelingsself and other.Carrying self and other makes the balance poleheavy.When emptiness looks at a butterfly, the wholebody becomes light.
Word SoundPauline Oliveros, Word Sound: A Meditation (September 4, 2013)
Sound a word or a sound.Listen for a surprise.Say a word as a sound.Say a sound as a word.Say a sound until it is a word.Sound a word until it is a sound.Speak a sentence of sounds.Sing a phrase of words.Cross overs.
Imaginary Dokusan: PerfumeChase Twichell, The Ghost of Eden (Fall 2003)
Crushed lime halves in the sink, a wood matchs sweet-acrid strike. . .
I keep looking for things with a beauty thats not incidental, but have found none. Because of this, the difference between sensuality
and being fully awake in the momentis often unclear to me, for example
the suns smell of ripening even in things still immature which of the two pleasures is that?
WavesCho Oh-Hyun, Waves (Winter 2016)
Reading sutras deep into the night,I look up at the dark night sky,
Listen, all alone, to the cryof the distant sea
The 1,000 sutras, the 10,000 treatises,all just waves blown in the wind.
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6 Poems to Inspire Sacred Contemplations of the Everyday - Tricycle
Dig deep to find employees during Great Resignation – Times Union
Im getting a great deal of questions regarding workforce shortages. The causes are multi-layered- from the Great Resignation to the child care crisis to the Silver Tsunami. HR professionals have been warning about impending shortages for years. What can be done to better attract, recruit and retain talent in a tight labor market?
Humans have an amazing ability to turn adversity into creativity. There are many strategies to improve the chances to attract good workers, who have multiple offers coming in. Companies should see workforce shortages as an opportunity to reinvent their hiring practices. There is visible proof that only the best companies are winning over talent.
First, employers need to stop and ask, Would I work here? What is the workforce saying about my company? What is my companys reputation from employees perspective?
Realize that job seekers talk. A recent applicant refused a companys offer after learning the best friends dad worked there and was being treated poorly. I remember a law firm that had a tough time adding attorneys because of the managing partners terrible reputation and unusually high turnover.
Yet some companies report getting lots of resumes. How? Word on the street is they are a great company to work for. One that comes to mind is a food service and retail operation- the same industry having some of the highest job vacancy rates. Applicants tell us, Ive been waiting for an opening there. Word is they treat people fairly and pay well. Employers can use the presentation they provided to banks and turn that same sell towards recruiting. In the same way a banker is convinced to invest in their company, the message can be used to convince applicants to invest in them too.
Happy employees are a business greatest marketing device. Plus, good companies make sure they pay competitive wages and benefits, sometimes above market. They also make sure their website looks and feels like life at work. If your company is promoting diversity, make sure the website reflects it. The job posts need to be intriguing and inviting. Use social and other forms of media ads.
In todays world, be sure to add remote, hybrid or onsite next to the job post title. Job seekers are looking for this! If your companys employees work remotely, the good news is geography doesnt matter. Widen your net by placing postings in nationwide sites.
The hiring process needs to be examined to streamline, improve, and shorten it. Use of Applicant Track Software (ATS) can help greatly. The system helps filter candidates, takes notes, can grade the applicants, and maps out the next steps. If the process is too lengthy, there is a pretty good chance the candidate will be gone before your organization gets around to deciding. And dont ghost candidates. Thats another reputation a business can mitigate. Make sure there is a resume receipt letter and be sure to tell each candidate when a decision has been made.
Rotate and post jobs continually. Save all the runners-up and resumes in the ATS for future consideration in your company. Build your own applicant database.
To prevent candidates ghosting you, youll need to take nothing for granted. Ask them if they are expecting any other offers. Tell them why they should stick to their decision. Stay in constant communication with the new hire while on their notice period. Ask them to contact you if anything changes. Remind them on Friday the start date is this Monday at 8 a.m.
This is the start of the hiring process, not the end. Every company needs to have a fabulous orientation program. Make the new hire feel welcomed. Take all measures to acclimate them into the company. HR people call this a bonding moment aiding retention. The new hire is evaluating you just as frequently as you are evaluating them.
Train your managers! Ive seen the hiring or front-line manager totally blow up all the good work done to securing a new hire. Then live up to your reputation. Job seekers tell me they stay because the job met expectations. The job was actually better than the job description. Everyone is treated fairly and measured consistently. They have a chance to be heard and see how they fit in.
In a tight job market, employees have lots of choices. Its always the talent that leaves, not the under performers. Those people will stick with you until you do something about them. Implementing these tips will better your chances to secure workers that others are going after. Spell out why they should choose you. Be the Employer of Choice!
Rose Miller, local HR Thought Leader and Speaker can be reached at roseumbromiller@gmail.com
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Dig deep to find employees during Great Resignation - Times Union
Trout Season goes year-round and DEEP is stocking up – FOX61 Hartford
FARMINGTON, Conn. The tradition of opening day for Trout Season has been cast away, and now, fishermen can try and catch trout all year long.
With that in mind, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP) was out by the banks of the Farmington River in Unionville with a team stocking the waters with both Brown Trout and Rainbow Trout.
Mike Beauchene, the supervising fisheries biologist at CT DEEP said, we want everyone to know that trout fishing is open. Last year the Connecticut General Assembly passed a new law that removed any close season for Trout which means that year-round you can go fish for trout.
Teams from the DEEP are now busy stocking trout across the state.
"We stock about 500 thousand trout in our lakes, ponds, rivers and streams each year, said Beauchene.
Beauchene noted that in addition to Rainbow and Brown Trout, the hatchery in Burlington also raises Brook Trout and a hybrid species called a Tiger Trout.
The DEEP has seen many more fishermen take up the sport since the pandemic began and Beauchene added, Spring is here, fishing is one of those great stress relievers. Even if you dont catch anything, just being out there is awesome.
To visit the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protections Fishing page click here.
Jimmy Altman is a reporter at FOX61 News. He can be reached atjaltman@fox61.com. Follow him onFacebook,TwitterandInstagram.
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Trout Season goes year-round and DEEP is stocking up - FOX61 Hartford
Mom’s protective behaviors run deep in the brain, new CSHL research finds – PR Newswire
In a first-of-its-kind study, postdoctoral fellowRoman Dvorkin and CSHL Associate Professor Stephen Shea were able to time this maternal caring action precisely to the firing of cells in a tiny brain region called the locus coeruleus, or LC, which is a blue (cerulean-colored) cluster of cells found in the brainstem of all vertebrates. Dvorkin says:
"In nature, when the pup grows, it starts to roll out of the nest, and the mother has to run and bring it back, otherwise it will either die from hypothermia or somebody will just eat it like a snack."
Shea's lab is a leader in studying maternal caring behaviors by observing female mice in settings that let them behave as they do in nature, as opposed to artificial, "contrived" experiments. "We study pup retrieval because it's very reliable and it's done the same way every time," says Shea.
The team wanted to look at LC's role in pup-retrieval because, "although LC is a very small fraction of the brain, it's the brain's sole source of a chemical called noradrenaline (NA), and it projects it throughout the whole brain," Shea says.
NA is commonly known as the body's fight-or-flight chemical. In the brain, LC is known to affect key functions like sleep and wakefulness, decision-making and memory, and emotional experiences like stress and arousal.
"But," says Shea, "what we didn't know is what activity it has during social behavior."
Their findings are striking. The recordings show LC neurons spike in activity at the exact moment a mom touches a pup to retrieve it. "This very precise burst activates all of LC at one time. It sends this information across the brain and we think helps coordinate pup retrieval," Dvorkin says.
Scientists know LC is important in human disorders that impair social functioning, including depression, anxiety, and autism. Studying the structure at this basic level could help reveal the causes of such disorders and lead to potential new treatments.
About Cold Spring Harbor LaboratoryFounded in 1890, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has shaped contemporary biomedical research and education with programs in cancer, neuroscience, plant biology and quantitative biology. Home to eight Nobel Prize winners, the private, not-for-profit Laboratory employs 1,100 people including 600 scientists, students and technicians. For more information, visit http://www.cshl.edu
SOURCE Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
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Mom's protective behaviors run deep in the brain, new CSHL research finds - PR Newswire
Deep generative models could offer the most promising developments in AI – VentureBeat
Did you miss a session at the Data Summit? Watch On-Demand Here.
This article is contributed by Rick Hao, lead deep tech partner at pan-European VCSpeedinvest.
With an annual growth rateof 44%, the market for AI and machine learning is drawing continued interest from business leaders across every industry. Withsome projectionsestimating that AI will boost the GDP of some local economies by 26% by 2030, its easy to see the rationale for the investment and hype.
Among AI researchers and data scientists, one of the major steps in ensuring AI delivers on the promise of enhanced growth and productivity is through expanding the range and capabilities of models available for organizations to use. And top of the agenda is the development, training and deployment of Deep Generative Models (DGMs) which I consider to be some of the most exciting models set for use in industry. But why?
Youve likely already seen the results of a DGM in action theyre actually the same type of AI models that produce deepfakes orimpressionistic art.DGMs have long excited academics and researchers in computer labs, owing to the fact that they bring together two very important techniques that represent the confluence of deep learning and probabilistic modeling: the generative model paradigm and neural networks.
A generative model is one of two major categories of AI models and, as its name suggests, it is a model that can take a dataset and generate new data points based on the input its received so far. This contrasts with the more commonly used and far easier to develop discriminative models, which look at a data point in a dataset and then label or classify it.
The D in DGM refers to the fact that, alongside being generative models, they leverage deep neural networks. Neural networks are computing architectures that give programs the ability to learn new patterns over time what makes a neural network deep is an increased level of complexity offered by multiple hidden layers of inferences between a models input and a models output. This depth gives deep neural networks the ability to operate with extremely complex datasets with many variables at play.
Put together, this means that DGMs are models that can generate new data points based on data fed into them, and that can handle particularly complex datasets and subjects.
As mentioned above, DGMs already have some notable creative and imaginative uses, such as deepfakes or art generation. However, the potential full range of commercial and industrial applications for DGMs is vast and promises to up-end a variety of sectors.
For example, consider the issue of protein folding. Protein folding discovering the 3D structure of proteins allows us to find out which medicines and compounds interact with various types of human tissue, and how. This is essential to drug discovery and medical innovation, but discovering how proteins fold is very difficult, requiring scientists to dissolve and crystallize proteins before analyzing them, which means the whole process for a single protein can last weeks or months. Traditional deep learning models are also insufficient to help tackle the protein folding problem, as their focus is primarily on classifying existing data sets rather than being able to generate outputs of their own.
By contrast, last year the DeepMind teamsAlphaFoldmodel succeeded in reliably being able to anticipate how proteins would fold based solely on data regarding their chemical composition. By being able to generate results in hours or minutes, AlphaFold has the potential to save months of lab work and vastly accelerate research in just about every field of biology.
Were also seeing DGMs emerge in other domains. Last month,DeepMind released AlphaCode, a code-generating AI model thats successfully outperformed the average developer in trials. And the applicability of DGMs can be seen in fields as far-flung as physics, financial modelling, or logistics: through being able to tacitly learn subtle and complex patterns that humans and other deep learning networks are unable to spot, DGMs promise to be able to generate surprising and insightful results in just about every field.
DGMs face some notable technical challenges, such as the difficulty intraining them optimally(especially with limited data sets) and ensuring that they can yieldconsistently accurate outputsin real applications. This is a major driver of the need for further investment to ensure DGMs can be widely deployed in production environments and thus deliver on their economic and social promises.
Beyond the technical hurdles, however, a big challenge for DGMs is in ethics and compliance. Owing to their complexity, the decision-making process for DGMs is very difficult to understand or explain, especially by those who dont understand their architecture or operations. This lack of explainability can create a risk of an AI model developing unjustified or unethical biases without the knowledge of its operators, in turn generating outputs that are inaccurate or discriminatory.
In addition, the fact that DGMs operate on such a layer of high complexity means that theres a risk of it being difficult to reproduce their results. This difficulty with reproducibility can make it hard for researchers, regulators, or the general public to have confidence in the results provided by a model.
Ultimately, to mitigate risks around explainability and reproducibility, devops teams and data scientists looking to leverage DGMs need to ensure theyre using best practices in formatting their models and that they employrecognized explainability toolsin their deployments.
While only just beginning to enter production environments at scale, DGMs represent some of the most promising developments in the AI world. Ultimately, through being able to look at some of the most subtle and fundamental patterns in society and nature, these models will prove transformative in just about every industry. And despite the challenges of ensuring compliance and transparency, theres every reason to be optimistic and excited about the future DGMs promise for technology, our economy and society as a whole.
Rick Hao is lead deep tech partner at pan-European VCSpeedinvest.
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Deep generative models could offer the most promising developments in AI - VentureBeat
Guy Caspi: The solution to cyber attacks is AI | CTech – CTech
The sophistication of cyberattacks has grown rapidly, and with it the risk to users, companies and countries, said Guy Caspi, founder and CEO of Deep Instinct, speaking at Calcalist's Mind The Tech London conference, of which his company is one of the sponsors.
"Each of you has probably been hacked, whether directly or through your employer or the service you use," Caspi warned. "The known threats are easy to stop, but their mutations create a huge challenge to the ability to respond in time, and produce more complex and dangerous attacks. It is a huge challenge to help companies and countries prevent cyber attacks. The challenge is getting greater, because artificial intelligence is used not only by the good guys, but also by the bad - to attack in unique and dangerous ways.
"Why are we in this situation? There are so many smart leaders and cyber experts, and there are still far too many attacks. This is because we rely on people as a line of defense. Most companies have hundreds of employees who perform manual analytics of threats and analyze files and threats, but it is an irresponsible task when there are half a million new attacks every day. We need new technology, because the human ability to respond is very limited today."
The solution, according to Caspi, is in the world of artificial intelligence. "When I was in school, the teachers complained to my parents that I never went to class," he said. "They were right. I spent most of my time building AI, and since then it's been my passion in life. For the past six years I have taken that passion and turned it into cyber. At Deep Instinct we use artificial intelligence and deep learning tools to provide greater accuracy and faster detection of cyber attacks. We operate in a new category in the field of cyber defense, which focuses on attack prevention. The company currently has more than 3,000 customers and 400 employees, and we scan more than a billion files a day."
Caspi also explained how Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing war are changing the cyber realm. "The first week of the war was unprecedented," he said. "First of all, the use of Wipers. It's like a ballistic cyber missile, designed to aggressively destroy a computer system. In the first week, the Wipers shut down banks in Russia and vital infrastructure like power grids in Ukraine. At the same time we saw a lot of outsourcing of cyber activity. People and groups of hackers from all over the world are helping Ukraine in its cyber war against Russia. This is something that will escalate in terms of sophistication, and is already flowing to other countries in Europe."
First published: 14:38, 23.03.22
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Guy Caspi: The solution to cyber attacks is AI | CTech - CTech