Awesome, not awesome.

#Awesome
“A team at DeepMind, based in London, created an algorithm... to enable a computer to analyse optical coherence tomography (OCT), a high resolution 3D scan of the back of the eye... [a]rtificial intelligence performed as well as two of the world's leading retina specialists, with an error rate of only 5.5%. Crucially, the algorithm did not miss a single urgent case." - Fergus Walsh, Medical correspondent Learn More from The BBC >

#Not Awesome
"We are being algorithmically sorted and controlled, and it’s often not even by consciously evil manipulators, which would at least give it dignity; it’s by dumb, corporate-owned AIs, tweaking algorithms to make us more anxious, so we will click on stuff that makes us more anxious, so that we will click on stuff that makes us MORE anxious, so that, ultimately, we will buy an ice cream or a new blusher or penile dysfunction medication, or something to take the edge off the crippling anxiety that we have been blindly pushed into by the algorithms." - Julian Gough, Author Learn More from Unbound Worlds >

What we're reading.

1/ As misinformation spread on Facebook leads to ethnic violence in Myanmar, the company begins testing an early version of its AI tech to solve a problem they helped create. Learn More from The Washington Post >

2/ Given the biased "historical perceptions of either women being melodramatic/malingering or of African-Americans as being... pain seeking," medical algorithms trained on doctors' notes could lead to worse medical care for both. Learn More from Motherboard >

3/ When a technology platform (like Facebook) grows large enough, people who never opt into using it can still be negatively affected by it. What affects will we be unwillingly subject to when "smart" algorithms power our phones, electric grids, cars, and homes? Learn More from Scientific American >

4/ If cancer-spotting AI algorithms are only trained on fair skinned people, people with dark skin will have a lower survival rate. Learn More from The Atlantic >

5/ Descartes Labs helps the the US military’s advanced research office use machine learning to manipulate satellite imagery to predict conflicts in the Middle East based on grain production. Learn More from Quartz >

6/ The only way to know all the affects machine learning will have on the economy is to "wait and find out." Learn More from Bloomberg >

7/ If protests slow the adoption of AI tools by militaries in democratic countries, we can expect autocratic countries to pick up the slack. Learn More from MIT Technology Review >

What we're building.

We're building a product called to Journal so that anyone can find, organize, and save information they care about.

Today, all of our information is disconnected. When we move between our apps to connect this information, we run into distraction, lose time, and get stressed out.

Journal is a space to find and organize items from any app. You can use it to group documents, messages, links, and more from Slack, Gmail, Evernote, Dropbox, Jira, Confluence, and Pocket to keep your thoughts together and projects moving forward.

Our beta users tell us they use Journal to keep track of items for customer meetings, newsletters, wedding planning, blog posts, upcoming trips, and more.

For a personal example, the gif below shows me organizing items from Gmail, Slack, and Pocket in a "Machine Learnings Curation" Space to keep track of all the articles I need to read to write this newsletter!

Add your name on the waitlist for early access >

Links from the community.

"How 5G connectivity and new technology could pave the way for self-driving cars" submitted by (@samiur1204). Learn More from MIT Technology Review >

"Face detection - An overview and comparison of different solutions" by Avi Eisenberger (@aeisnberger). Learn More from Liip >

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19/08/18 View this email in your browser