✝️ Gods in the Machine in the Age of AI

AND: Artificial Inaccuracy

In today’s Tracker:

Sip & Scroll: Coffee and 5 mins

  • 🧪 Research highlights: AI's Concrete Solutions: A New Chapter in Infrastructure Safety

  • 🚨 Industry news: Brush Strokes and Bytes: Microsoft Teams' New Artistic Angle with AI

  • ⚖️ Policy and regulation: Gavel Meets AI: Texan Judge Demands Human Touch in Legal Filings

  • 🌐 AI and society: Faith's Final Frontier: The Theology of Tomorrow in Sci-Fi

  • 🧰 Tool of the day: SourceAI: From Zero to Code Hero Superpower

🔬 AI's Concrete Solutions: A New Chapter in Infrastructure Safety

Researchers from Drexel University and the State University of New York at Buffalo have created an artificial intelligence-based method that employs graph theory to quantify fracture patterns in reinforced concrete structures, providing a more objective and efficient way of assessing damage.

This innovative approach addresses the subjective and time-consuming nature of manual inspections, which frequently rely heavily on the inspector's judgment.

In their research, they use AI pixel-tracking algorithms to convert images of cracks into mathematical representations or graphs, with the crack-to-graph conversion and feature extraction procedures taking much less time than conventional inspections.

The team taught a machine learning program to extract graph features from these fracture images and correlate them with a scale indicating the structure's extent of the damage.

During testing, the AI program assessed harm with an accuracy of over 90%. The researchers believe this innovation could improve the safety of aging infrastructure by identifying problems before they become catastrophic. They are also working to automate the process for incorporation into structural monitoring systems.

🎨🖌️ Brush Strokes and Bytes: Microsoft Teams' New Artistic Angle with AI

Microsoft has added the artificial intelligence-powered art-generation tool Designer to the free version of Teams. This Canva-like application, which utilizes OpenAI's text-to-image AI, DALL-E 2, enables Teams users to create designs for presentations, posters, and digital postcards, among other things.

In April, new features such as caption generation and animated visuals were added to the tool, initially released in October, with more sophisticated editing capabilities promised in the future.

Microsoft intends to monetize Designer through subscriptions to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family, but it will keep certain features free. Other enhancements to Teams involve less artificial intelligence and more connectivity and collaborative features.

GroupMe users can now initiate Teams calls from any group chat, and the Teams communities feature is currently supported on Windows 11, with support for macOS and Windows 10 promised shortly.

This feature allows users to communicate, share, and collaborate in groups like Discord.

A new communities discovery feature enables Teams users to join communities centered on various topics. In contrast, community proprietors on iOS can now use their phone's camera to scan and invite email addresses and phone numbers from multiple documents.

Teams is experiencing significant growth, with daily active users nearly doubling from 145 million in 2021 to 270 million in 2022.

🧑🏽‍⚖️ Gavel Meets AI: Texan Judge Demands Human Touch in Legal Filings

A federal judge in Texas, U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr, has instituted a new requirement for attorneys appearing in his court: they must certify that their filings were not drafted by artificial intelligence (AI) without human supervision.

This unprecedented action by the federal courts responds to concerns that AI tools can generate bogus cases. It serves as a warning to attorneys who rely on AI-generated information without personal verification that they may face sanctions.

In a comparable case in New York, a lawyer was threatened with sanctions for a court brief that included citations to fictitious claims generated by artificial intelligence.

Although AI platforms are susceptible to errors and biases, the judge stated that they do not uphold the duty, honor, or justice to which attorneys are bound.

Whereas he contemplated prohibiting AI in his courtroom, he ultimately decided against doing so, opting instead to warn attorneys about the potential pitfalls of uncritically relying on AI.

Starr and his team have decided not to use AI in their work for the time being, emphasizing the value of human judgment in legal proceedings.

🙏 Faith's Final Frontier: The Theology of Tomorrow in Sci-Fi

The article explains the intersection of science fiction and religion, arguing that religion will endure in future literature.

It asserts that science fiction allows science and religion to coexist in the human imagination, asking readers who they are and who they aspire to be. Imagining desirable and undesirable worlds combines science and technology to construct the future of faith.

The piece references Yuval Noah Harari's provocative theory that history began with the creation of gods and will conclude with humans becoming gods through scientific and technological advancements.

The author contends that faith and science exist in a dialectical relationship, with scientific progress reinvigorating rather than eradicating religious imagination.

This relationship demonstrates that both science and religion are integral human activities that influence our understanding of humanity, placing equal emphasis on belief and trust in science and doubt in theology.

Invoking the concept of a "New Axial Age," the article suggests that the current combination of climate change, artificial intelligence, and genetic engineering stimulates a quest for the sacrosanct, thereby defining our human limitations and potential.

Based on the author, science fiction preserves faith and delves into its future, contending that religious imagination is poised to follow as technology and its implications advance.

💻 SourceAI: From Zero to Code Hero Superpower

SourceAI, an AI-powered tool, is designed to assist programmers in creating code in any programming language. This application allows users to enter a natural language query and obtain generated code that meets their requirements, enhancing programming productivity and accessibility.

Learn more about the tool here.

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-Kathy Baxter, ethical AI practice architect, Salesforce

The three big categories [for building ethics into AI] are first, creating an ethical culture; then being transparent; and then finally taking the action of removing exclusion, whether that’s in your data sets or your algorithms.

—Augustine Og Mandino

Take the attitude of a student, never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new.

4K ENHANCED WOJAKS

Credit: anon2937829

  • ✈️ Notability - is an AI platform that helps users to organize their notes in Notion while also allowing them to communicate via Telegram.

  • 🥸 Maskr.AI - makes making excellent masks for photos and videos easier.

  • 🎸 Staccato - is an artificial intelligence tool that supports the creative expression of musicians and lyricists.

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