AI with AI

Just in time for the holidays, Andy and Dave look back and some of the more memorial AI-related stories from 2020. They begin with the passing of mathematician John Conway, creator of The Game of Life, who died in April at 82 from complications due to COVID-19; Andy and Dave will talk more about The Game of Life in next week’s podcast. With an example of how not to use AI, in July, the International Baccalaureate Educational Foundation turned to machine learning algorithms to predict student grades, due to COVID-related cancelations of actual testing, much to the frustration of numerous students and parents. Also in July, over 1400 mathematicians signed and delivered a letter to the American Mathematical Society, urging researchers to stop working on predictive-policing algorithms. In September, Elon Musk demonstrated the latest iteration of Neuralink, complete with pig implantees. And finally, Andy and Dave examine the GPT family algorithms with a discussion on GPT-2 and GPT-3.