Issue #7: Modeling Epidemics, the Future of AI, and Alternative History

Ben Lorica

6 years ago

This edition has 684 words which will take you about 4 minutes to read.

Data Exchange podcast

Computational Models and Simulations of Epidemic Infectious Diseases Bruno Gonçalves gives a great introduction to the world of epidemic models and the role they play in setting public policy.
Algorithms that continually invent both problems and solutions My friend Ken Stanley is moving to OpenAI in June! We discussed his work at Uber AI and the new group focused on open-endedness that Ken will form at OpenAI.
The responsible development, deployment and operation of machine learning systems Alejandro Saucedo discusses model explainability, MLOps, adversarial robustness, and privacy.

Understanding the Ray Ecosystem and Community In this new post I co-wrote with Ion Stoica, we explain the reasons behind the growing popularity of Ray.
Demystifying AI Infrastructure This recent post by my friend Assaf Araki, contains a landscape map that brings greater clarity to the AI ecosystem. The article charts the layers of the AI technical stack and the vendors within each layer.
TensorFlow vs. PyTorch chart: A revealing look at the frequency of TensorFlow vs. PyTorch listings in recent job postings.
PyCaret This month marks the release of version 1.0 (“the first stable release”) of this easy to use wrapper for scikit-learn, XGBoost, Microsoft LightGBM, spaCy and other libraries.
KDNuggets survey The results of this survey from KDNuggets reveal varied expectations about the use and impact of AutoML over time, segmented by background and country of origin.
Apache Pulsar user survey The first user survey from the Apache Pulsar PMC team tracks Pulsar’s adoption rate, hot features, and a look at real-time streaming applications.
MLflow Model Registry As companies begin relying on machine learning, they need to be able to keep track of model versions, dependencies, permissions and other related assets. The newly announced MLflow Model Registry on the Databricks platform is poised to become a central hub for ML models in companies with teams that use machine learning in a variety of applications.

COVID-19 forecasts Cornell uses machine learning to predict CoVID-19 activity in Chinese provinces in real-time, leveraging internet search data and news alerts, and combining them with estimates from mechanistic models.
Unemployment visualization A striking visualization of the spike in the national unemployment rate in the US over recent decades.
Countrywide lockdown works A simple analysis – no models – of daily death registry data for a sample of 1,161 Italian municipalities in the seven regions most severely hit by COVID-19.
Misinformation during a pandemic: This interesting new study from the University of Chicago studies the effects of news coverage of the novel coronavirus using two cable news programs in the US (Hannity and Tucker Carlson Tonight).
COVID-19 resource hub from Databricks: Seven COVID-19 data sets are updated regularly and made available on the Databricks Community Edition.

Here’s an update on events I’m involved with:

Ray Summit Connect The kickoff event for Ray Summit Connect is on May 13th and features two award-winning speakers – Michael Jordan and Ion Stoica – presenting on “The Future of Machine Learning and AI”. Register here.
MLOps Virtual Event I’m taking part in an April 30th virtual event on MLOps. Databricks is sending key thought leaders to speak at this event: Matei Zaharia, Sean Owens, Clemens Mewald. Register here.
Spark+AI Summit The acclaimed Spark+AI Summit is going virtual June 22 – 26 and will be FREE! That’s 200+ sessions on data, machine learning, and AI, plus keynote speakers like Nate Silver. Register here.

The Plot Against America: now streaming on HBO, this gripping new mini-series from the creators of The Wire, is based on a 2004 Philip Roth novel.
China’s “Leftover Women”: this PBS documentary follows a group of unmarried, educated, professional Chinese women in their mid-20s and ’30s.
The Devastating Decline of a Brilliant Young Coder: the story of Cloudflare cofounder, Lee Holloway.
Golden Gates: fighting for housing parity in America.
Shelter-in-place poetry: “First lines of emails I’ve received while quarantining”