Best AI Photo Editor

Best AI Photo Editor — hands-on reviews, top picks, pricing, pros and cons and a practical how-to guide on Aizhi.

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  Rapid application development

  Rapid application development (RAD), also called rapid application building (RAB), is both a general term for adaptive software development approaches, and the name for James Martin's method of rapid development. In general, RAD approaches to software development put less emphasis on planning and more emphasis on an adaptive process. Prototypes are often used in addition to or sometimes even instead of design specifications. RAD is especially well suited for (although not limited to) developing software that is driven by user interface requirements. Graphical user interface builders are often called rapid application development tools. Other approaches to rapid development include the adaptive, agile, spiral, and unified models. == History == Rapid application development was a response to plan-driven waterfall processes, developed in the 1970s and 1980s, such as the Structured Systems Analysis and Design Method (SSADM). One of the problems with these methods is that they were based on a traditional engineering model used to design and build things like bridges and buildings. Software is an inherently different kind of artifact. Software can change the process used to solve a problem. As a result, knowledge gained from the development process itself can feed back to the requirements and design of the solution. Plan-driven approaches attempt to define requirements, the solution, and the implementation plan, and have a process that discourages changes. RAD approaches, on the other hand, recognize that software development is a knowledge intensive process and provide flexible processes that help take advantage of knowledge gained during the project to improve or adapt the solution. The first such RAD alternative was developed by Barry Boehm and was known as the spiral model. Boehm and other subsequent RAD approaches emphasized developing prototypes as well as or instead of rigorous design specifications. Prototypes had several advantages over traditional specifications: Risk reduction. A prototype could test some of the most difficult potential parts of the system early on in the life-cycle. This can provide valuable information as to the feasibility of a design and can prevent the team from pursuing solutions that turn out to be too complex or time-consuming to implement. This benefit of finding problems earlier in the life-cycle rather than later was a key benefit of the RAD approach. The earlier a problem can be found the cheaper it is to address. Users are better at using and reacting than at creating specifications. In the waterfall model it was common for a user to sign off on a set of requirements but then when presented with an implemented system to suddenly realize that a given design lacked some critical features or was too complex. In general most users give much more useful feedback when they can experience a prototype of the running system rather than abstractly define what that system should be. Prototypes can be usable and can evolve into the completed product. One approach used in some RAD methods was to build the system as a series of prototypes that evolve from minimal functionality to moderately useful to the final completed system. The advantage of this besides the two advantages above was that the users could get useful business functionality much earlier in the process. Starting with the ideas of Barry Boehm and others, James Martin developed the rapid application development approach during the 1980s at IBM and finally formalized it by publishing a book in 1991, Rapid Application Development. This has resulted in some confusion over the term RAD even among IT professionals. It is important to distinguish between RAD as a general alternative to the waterfall model and RAD as the specific method created by Martin. The Martin method was tailored toward knowledge intensive and UI intensive business systems. These ideas were further developed and improved upon by RAD pioneers like James Kerr and Richard Hunter, who together wrote the seminal book on the subject, Inside RAD, which followed the journey of a RAD project manager as he drove and refined the RAD Methodology in real-time on an actual RAD project. These practitioners, and those like them, helped RAD gain popularity as an alternative to traditional systems project life cycle approaches. The RAD approach also matured during the period of peak interest in business re-engineering. The idea of business process re-engineering was to radically rethink core business processes such as sales and customer support with the new capabilities of Information Technology in mind. RAD was often an essential part of larger business re engineering programs. The rapid prototyping approach of RAD was a key tool to help users and analysts "think out of the box" about innovative ways that technology might radically reinvent a core business process. Much of James Martin's comfort with RAD stemmed from Dupont's Information Engineering division and its leader Scott Schultz and their respective relationships with John Underwood who headed up a bespoke RAD development company that pioneered many successful RAD projects in Australia and Hong Kong. Successful projects that included ANZ Bank, Lendlease, BHP, Coca-Cola Amatil, Alcan, Hong Kong Jockey Club and numerous others. Success that led to both Scott Shultz and James Martin both spending time in Australia with John Underwood to understand the methods and details of why Australia was disproportionately successful in implementing significant mission critical RAD projects. == James Martin approach == The James Martin approach to RAD divides the process into four distinct phases: Requirements planning phase – combines elements of the system planning and systems analysis phases of the systems development life cycle (SDLC). Users, managers, and IT staff members discuss and agree on business needs, project scope, constraints, and system requirements. It ends when the team agrees on the key issues and obtains management authorization to continue. User design phase – during this phase, users interact with systems analysts and develop models and prototypes that represent all system processes, inputs, and outputs. The RAD groups or subgroups typically use a combination of joint application design (JAD) techniques and CASE tools to translate user needs into working models. User design is a continuous interactive process that allows users to understand, modify, and eventually approve a working model of the system that meets their needs. Construction phase – focuses on program and application development task similar to the SDLC. In RAD, however, users continue to participate and can still suggest changes or improvements as actual screens or reports are developed. Its tasks are programming and application development, coding, unit-integration and system testing. Cutover phase – resembles the final tasks in the SDLC implementation phase, including data conversion, testing, changeover to the new system, and user training. Compared with traditional methods, the entire process is compressed. As a result, the new system is built, delivered, and placed in operation much sooner. == Advantages == In modern Information Technology environments, many systems are now built using some degree of Rapid Application Development (not necessarily the James Martin approach). In addition to Martin's method, agile methods and the Rational Unified Process are often used for RAD development. The purported advantages of RAD include: Better quality. By having users interact with evolving prototypes the business functionality from a RAD project can often be much higher than that achieved via a waterfall model. The software can be more usable and has a better chance to focus on business problems that are critical to end users rather than technical problems of interest to developers. However, this excludes other categories of what are usually known as Non-functional requirements (AKA constraints or quality attributes) including security and portability. Risk control. Although much of the literature on RAD focuses on speed and user involvement a critical feature of RAD done correctly is risk mitigation. It's worth remembering that Boehm initially characterized the spiral model as a risk based approach. A RAD approach can focus in early on the key risk factors and adjust to them based on empirical evidence collected in the early part of the process. E.g., the complexity of prototyping some of the most complex parts of the system. More projects completed on time and within budget. By focusing on the development of incremental units the chances for catastrophic failures that have dogged large waterfall projects is reduced. In the Waterfall model it was common to come to a realization after six months or more of analysis and development that required a radical rethinking of the entire system. With RAD this kind of information can be discovered and acted upon earlier in the proces

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  Biohybrid system

  Biohybrid systems refer to the integration of biological materials, such as cells or tissues, with artificial components, including electronics or mechanical structure. This combination incorporates the capabilities of living organisms with the precision of man-made technology. As a result, these systems perform tasks that neither biology nor machines could achieve independently. Biohybrid systems might use lab-cultured muscle cells to power small robots or combine sensors with living tissue for better health sensing. The intent behind these systems is to combine the benefits of biological and technological components to introduce new solutions for complex medical challenges. Biohybrid systems may have transformative potential across sectors, such as robotics to create actuators and sensors that mimic natural muscle and nerve function, medicine in developing smart implants and drug delivery systems, in prosthetics for enhancing user control through neural or muscular interfaces and environmental sustainability for deploying biohybrid solutions for pollution sensing or remediation. == Origin == The term "biohybrid" is a compound of "bio" from biology (meaning life) and "hybrid" (referring to a combination of distinct elements), denoting a field of study. Its use helps distinguish such systems from purely biological constructs or entirely synthetic machines. Early academic mentions may include bio actuated robotics papers and foundational tissue-robot integration studies published in journals like Nature Biotechnology or Science Robotics. The emergence of the term reflects a growing recognition of the need to describe systems that do not fit cleanly into traditional categories. == Design principles == One of the most significant biohybrid challenges is to engineer interfaces between living tissue and artificial materials that are efficient. This means having precise control over adhesion at the surface, diffusion of nutrients, and signal conduction. Actuation mechanisms within the heart of these systems generate movement or mechanical response. These may be in the form of living muscle cells such as skeletal myocytes or cardiomyocytes, soft pneumatic actuators, or electrical stimulation-responsive tissues. Materials selection is equally critical. Hydrogels, elastomers like PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane), and biopolymers are commonly used due to their softness and biocompatibility. These materials must support cell viability, resist immune attack, and allow the integration of mechanical or electrical components. == Key components == At their core, biohybrid systems work by bridging living biological parts with technology. Through this integration, functionality that neither system could accomplish singularly is possible. Biological parts may be cells, tissues, or even organs—occasionally cultured in a laboratory setting. These biological parts carry out biologically inspired behaviors, such as muscle contraction or chemical sensing in the body. Technological components may constitute devices like sensors, electronic components, and mechanical structure. These manipulate the system, supply power, or transfer data. An example is a sensor that is implantable within a body and detects glucose levels as it sends information to a smart phone. By integrating these artificial and biological parts, biohybrid systems can perform advanced functions, such as tissue regeneration, real-time health monitoring, or the recovery of motor function in paralysis patients. Biohybrid systems generally consist of two major components: the biological and the mechanical. Biological components may include muscle cells for contraction, endothelial cells for vascularization, and stem cells for regenerative capabilities. Mechanical components comprise soft actuators that mimic organic motion, synthetic scaffolds that provide support and structure, and microfluidic systems that facilitate the delivery of nutrients and removal of waste. These components are combined in a manner that allows for dynamic, lifelike behavior—such as the contraction of tissue or the propagation of mechanical waves—while maintaining biocompatibility and durability. == Applications == The range of applications for biohybrid systems is broad and continuously expanding. In robotics, biohybrid structures have been used to engineer microscopic, muscle-driven machines, such as Harvard University's biohybrid stingray robot. In medical applications, they offer new alternatives for organ repair and augmentation, including biohybrid heart valves and esophageal scaffolds. Biohybrids are also promising in neural interfaces, where the goal is to create long-lasting, stable interaction between mechanical devices and brain tissue. Muscle-actuated drug response platforms are under exploration in pharmacology for modelling and real-time screening. == Examples == Several high-profile research projects have demonstrated the potential of biohybrid systems: Harvard researchers developed a biohybrid swimming ray powered by rat cardiac cells layered onto a gold skeleton, mimicking the motion of a real stingray. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a cardiac pump actuated entirely by living heart muscle cells was engineered to simulate the behavior of a beating heart. Bio actuated soft robots have been built to simulate gut peristalsis, using muscle contractions to replicate natural wave-like movement in the digestive tract. == Challenges and limitations == As with many technologies that involve living systems, biohybrid systems raise important ethical and biomedical questions. Cell sourcing remains a key issue, particularly when embryonic or animal-derived cells are used. Long-term viability is another concern—living tissues must be kept alive with nutrients and oxygen, and they often degrade or elicit immune responses when implanted. Powering these biological parts presents logistical and ethical hurdles as well. Systems must either include internal mechanisms for nutrient delivery or be supported externally, which can limit portability and independence. == Future directions == Researchers are exploring self-directed, self-regulated organ substitutes and regenerative implants that can respond to their surroundings in real-time. These systems may be integrated with artificial intelligence to make them adjust to stimuli and coordinate complex behaviors. Future potential applications are wearable biohybrid systems for rehabilitation, space medicine devices for long-duration missions, and implantable devices that integrate into human physiology.

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  Evaluation of binary classifiers

  Evaluation of a binary classifier typically assigns a numerical value, or values, to a classifier that represent its accuracy. An example is error rate, which measures how frequently the classifier makes a mistake. There are many metrics that can be used; different fields have different preferences. For example, in medicine sensitivity and specificity are often used, while in computer science precision and recall are preferred. An important distinction is between metrics that are independent of the prevalence or skew (how often each class occurs in the population), and metrics that depend on the prevalence – both types are useful, but they have very different properties. Often, evaluation is used to compare two methods of classification, so that one can be adopted and the other discarded. Such comparisons are more directly achieved by a form of evaluation that results in a single unitary metric rather than a pair of metrics. == Contingency table == Given a data set, a classification (the output of a classifier on that set) gives two numbers: the number of positives and the number of negatives, which add up to the total size of the set. To evaluate a classifier, one compares its output to another reference classification – ideally a perfect classification, but in practice the output of another gold standard test – and cross tabulates the data into a 2×2 contingency table, comparing the two classifications. One then evaluates the classifier relative to the gold standard by computing summary statistics of these 4 numbers. Generally these statistics will be scale invariant (scaling all the numbers by the same factor does not change the output), to make them independent of population size, which is achieved by using ratios of homogeneous functions, most simply homogeneous linear or homogeneous quadratic functions. Say we test some people for the presence of a disease. Some of these people have the disease, and our test correctly says they are positive. They are called true positives (TP). Some have the disease, but the test incorrectly claims they don't. They are called false negatives (FN). Some don't have the disease, and the test says they don't – true negatives (TN). Finally, there might be healthy people who have a positive test result – false positives (FP). These can be arranged into a 2×2 contingency table (confusion matrix), conventionally with the test result on the vertical axis and the actual condition on the horizontal axis. These numbers can then be totaled, yielding both a grand total and marginal totals. Totaling the entire table, the number of true positives, false negatives, true negatives, and false positives add up to 100% of the set. Totaling the columns (adding vertically) the number of true positives and false positives add up to 100% of the test positives, and likewise for negatives. Totaling the rows (adding horizontally), the number of true positives and false negatives add up to 100% of the condition positives (conversely for negatives). The basic marginal ratio statistics are obtained by dividing the 2×2=4 values in the table by the marginal totals (either rows or columns), yielding 2 auxiliary 2×2 tables, for a total of 8 ratios. These ratios come in 4 complementary pairs, each pair summing to 1, and so each of these derived 2×2 tables can be summarized as a pair of 2 numbers, together with their complements. Further statistics can be obtained by taking ratios of these ratios, ratios of ratios, or more complicated functions. The contingency table and the most common derived ratios are summarized below; see sequel for details. Note that the rows correspond to the condition actually being positive or negative (or classified as such by the gold standard), as indicated by the color-coding, and the associated statistics are prevalence-independent, while the columns correspond to the test being positive or negative, and the associated statistics are prevalence-dependent. There are analogous likelihood ratios for prediction values, but these are less commonly used, and not depicted above. == Pairs of metrics == Often accuracy is evaluated with a pair of metrics composed in a standard pattern. === Sensitivity and specificity === The fundamental prevalence-independent statistics are sensitivity and specificity. Sensitivity or True Positive Rate (TPR), also known as recall, is the proportion of people that tested positive and are positive (True Positive, TP) of all the people that actually are positive (Condition Positive, CP = TP + FN). It can be seen as the probability that the test is positive given that the patient is sick. With higher sensitivity, fewer actual cases of disease go undetected (or, in the case of the factory quality control, fewer faulty products go to the market). Specificity (SPC) or True Negative Rate (TNR) is the proportion of people that tested negative and are negative (True Negative, TN) of all the people that actually are negative (Condition Negative, CN = TN + FP). As with sensitivity, it can be looked at as the probability that the test result is negative given that the patient is not sick. With higher specificity, fewer healthy people are labeled as sick (or, in the factory case, fewer good products are discarded). The relationship between sensitivity and specificity, as well as the performance of the classifier, can be visualized and studied using the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve. In theory, sensitivity and specificity are independent in the sense that it is possible to achieve 100% in both (such as in the red/blue ball example given above). In more practical, less contrived instances, however, there is usually a trade-off, such that they are inversely proportional to one another to some extent. This is because we rarely measure the actual thing we would like to classify; rather, we generally measure an indicator of the thing we would like to classify, referred to as a surrogate marker. The reason why 100% is achievable in the ball example is because redness and blueness is determined by directly detecting redness and blueness. However, indicators are sometimes compromised, such as when non-indicators mimic indicators or when indicators are time-dependent, only becoming evident after a certain lag time. The following example of a pregnancy test will make use of such an indicator. Modern pregnancy tests do not use the pregnancy itself to determine pregnancy status; rather, human chorionic gonadotropin is used, or hCG, present in the urine of gravid females, as a surrogate marker to indicate that a woman is pregnant. Because hCG can also be produced by a tumor, the specificity of modern pregnancy tests cannot be 100% (because false positives are possible). Also, because hCG is present in the urine in such small concentrations after fertilization and early embryogenesis, the sensitivity of modern pregnancy tests cannot be 100% (because false negatives are possible). === Positive and negative predictive values === In addition to sensitivity and specificity, the performance of a binary classification test can be measured with positive predictive value (PPV), also known as precision, and negative predictive value (NPV). The positive prediction value answers the question "If the test result is positive, how well does that predict an actual presence of disease?". It is calculated as TP/(TP + FP); that is, it is the proportion of true positives out of all positive results. The negative prediction value is the same, but for negatives, naturally. ==== Impact of prevalence on predictive values ==== Prevalence has a significant impact on prediction values. As an example, suppose there is a test for a disease with 99% sensitivity and 99% specificity. If 2000 people are tested and the prevalence (in the sample) is 50%, 1000 of them are sick and 1000 of them are healthy. Thus about 990 true positives and 990 true negatives are likely, with 10 false positives and 10 false negatives. The positive and negative prediction values would be 99%, so there can be high confidence in the result. However, if the prevalence is only 5%, so of the 2000 people only 100 are really sick, then the prediction values change significantly. The likely result is 99 true positives, 1 false negative, 1881 true negatives and 19 false positives. Of the 19+99 people tested positive, only 99 really have the disease – that means, intuitively, that given that a patient's test result is positive, there is only 84% chance that they really have the disease. On the other hand, given that the patient's test result is negative, there is only 1 chance in 1882, or 0.05% probability, that the patient has the disease despite the test result. === Precision and recall === Precision and recall can be interpreted as (estimated) conditional probabilities: Precision is given by P ( C = P | C ^ = P ) {\displaystyle P(C=P|{\hat {C}}=P)} while recall is given by P ( C ^ = P | C = P ) {\displaystyle P({\hat {C}}=P|C=P)} , where C ^ {\

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  AI anthropomorphism

  AI anthropomorphism is the attribution of human-like feelings, mental states, and behavioral characteristics to artificial intelligence systems. Factors related to the user of the AI – such as culture, age, education, gender, and personality traits – are also important determinants of the strength of anthropomorphic effects. Since the earliest days of AI development, humans have interpreted machine outputs through anthropomorphic frameworks, but the recent emergence of generative AI has amplified these tendencies. In research and engineering, there is a distinction between anthropomorphism and anthropomorphic design. The former is an innate human tendency toward non-human entities. The latter is the scientific community effort to “design anthropomorphism”. Such a design can involve the manipulation of cues, including AI appearance, behaviour and language. Contemporary AI systems today can generate extremely human-like outputs and are often designed specifically to do so, meaning that their anthropomorphic effects can be especially powerful. In some cases, anthropomorphism is accompanied with explicit beliefs that AI systems are capable of empathy, goodwill, understanding, or consciousness. == Background == === In early AIs === Views of artificial agents possessing a human-like intelligence have existed since the early development of computers in the mid-1900s. The use of the human mind as a metaphor for understanding the workings of machine systems was prevalent among researchers in the early days of computer science, with multiple influential works widely distributing the idea of intelligent machines. Among the most widely cited papers of this period was Alan Turing's "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" in which he introduced the Turing Test, stating that a machine was intelligent if it could produce conversation that was indistinguishable from that of a human. These academic works in the 1940s and 1950s gave early credibility to the idea that machine workings could be thought of similarly to human minds. The public quickly came to view artificial systems similarly, with often exaggerated conceptions of the capabilities of early machines. Among the most well-known demonstrations of this was through the chatbot ELIZA designed by Joseph Weizenbaum in 1966. ELIZA responded to user inputs with a rudimentary text-processing approach that could not be considered anything resembling true understanding of the inputs, yet users, even when operating with full conscious knowledge of ELIZA's limitations, often began to ascribe motivation and understanding to the program's output. Weizenbaum later wrote, "I had not realized ... that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people." Comparisons between the intellectual capabilities of artificial intelligence and human intelligence were continually intensified by the attempts of computer scientists to develop machines that could perform human tasks at a level equal to or better than humans. A symbolic turning point was achieved in 1997, when IBM's chess supercomputer Deep Blue defeated then-world champion Garry Kasparov in a highly publicized six-game match. The defeat of a human by a machine for the first time in chess – a game viewed as a canonical example of human intellect – and the media attention surrounding the match led to a significant shift, where views of parallels between human and artificial intelligence moved from abstract speculation to being concretely demonstrated. A similar achievement was reached in the board game Go in 2017, when the program AlphaGo defeated world top-ranked Ke Jie. === Large language models === The AI boom of the 2020s brought about the widespread emergence of generative AI; in particular, chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude based on large language models (LLMs) have become increasingly pervasive in everyday society. These systems are notable for the fact that they are able to respond to a wide range of prompts across contexts while producing strikingly human-like outputs – research has shown that humans are often unable to distinguish human-generated text from AI-generated text, and modern AI chatbots have formally been shown to pass the Turing test. As such, the anthropomorphic effects of AI are more powerful than ever. Given that LLMs have brought AI into the technological mainstream, considerable scientific effort has been devoted in recent years to understand existing and potential ramifications of AI in the public sphere; the prevalence and effects of anthropomorphism is one of those domains where much of this effort has been directed. == Current anthropomorphic attributions == === In the general public === Surveys have shown that a substantial portion of the public attributes human-like qualities to AI. In one sample of U.S. adults from 2024, two-thirds of people believed that ChatGPT is possibly conscious on some level, though other research has shown that the public still views the likelihood itself of AI consciousness as comparatively low. Another study conducted in 2025 found that women, people of color, and older individuals were most likely to anthropomorphize AI, as well as that – in general – humans view AIs as warm and competent, and anthropomorphic attributions to AI had increased by 34% in the past year. A YouGov poll reported that 46% of Americans believe that people should display politeness to AI chatbots by saying "please" and "thank you", demonstrating the application of social norms to AI. These beliefs extend to behavior, where majorities of AI users claim to always be polite to chatbots; of those who behave politely, most say they do so simply because it is the "nice" thing to do. In many recent cases, humans have developed robust interpersonal bonds with AI systems. For example: users of social chatbots like Replika and Character.ai have been documented to fall in love with the AIs, or to otherwise treat the AIs as intimate companions, and it has become increasingly common for individuals to use LLMs like ChatGPT as therapists. Chatbots are able to produce responses deeply attuned to users, as they are often designed to maximize agreeableness and mirror users' emotions; this can create compelling illusions of intimacy. === In the research community === In many cases, even AI researchers anthropomorphize AI systems in some capacity. Among the most extreme and well-publicized of these instances occurred in 2022, when engineer Blake Lemoine publicly claimed that Google's LLM LaMDA was conscious. Lemoine published the transcript of a conversation he had had with LaMDA regarding self identity and morality which he claimed was evidence of its sentience; he asserted that LaMDA was "a person" as defined by the United States Constitution and compared its mental capability to that of a 7- or 8-year-old. Lemoine's claims were widely dismissed by the scientific community and by Google itself, which described Lemoine's conclusions as "wholly unfounded" and fired him on the grounds that he had violated policies "to safeguard product information". It is much more common that AI researchers unintentionally imply humanness of AI through the ordinary use of anthropomorphic language to describe nonhuman agents. This kind of language, which Daniel Dennett coined the "intentional stance", is very common in everyday life in a variety of different contexts (e.g., "My computer doesn't want to turn on today"). For AI agents that may actually appear to very closely replicate some human abilities, however, the casual use of such anthropomorphic language in research has been scrutinized for being potentially misleading to the public. As early as 1976, Drew McDermott criticized the research community for the use of "wishful mnemonics", where AIs were referred to with terms like "understand" and "learn". In the LLM era, these criticisms have further intensified, with the negative effects of AI anthropomorphism in the public posing an especially salient danger given the elevated accessibility of modern AI. In some cases, the use of anthropomorphic language for AI is not unintentional, but is willfully used by researchers in order to promote better understanding of the brain – the idea being that, as AI can be functionally similar in some ways to the human brain, we may gain new insights and ideas from treating AI as a kind of model of the brain's workings. In particular, deep neuronal networks (DNNs) are often explicitly compared to the human brain, and significant advances in DNN research have stirred considerable enthusiasm about the ability of AI to emulate the human abilities. Caution has been urged in this domain as well, however; the use of anthropomorphic language can mask important differences that fundamentally distinguish AI from human intelligence. When it comes to DNNs, for example, it has been pointed out that they are still structurally quite different

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  Eaze

  Eaze is an American company based in San Francisco, California that launched a medical cannabis delivery app of the same name in 2014. == History == Eaze was launched in 2014 by Keith McCarty to deliver medical marijuana to patients in California. McCarty started the company in his San Francisco apartment with four employees. The company provides a mobile app to connect users with cannabis dispensaries, but does not grow or sell marijuana itself, and has been nicknamed “the Uber of Weed”. As of 2017, the company operates in more than 100 cities within California. In 2017, Eaze reported 300 percent growth over the previous year. It has 81 employees, and performs 120,000 deliveries per month to 250,000 users. A survey of Eaze users revealed that 66% are male, 57% are between 22 and 34, just over half have a bachelor's degree, and 49% have an annual income over $75,000. The company's vaporizer cartridge sales reached $1 million in sales in 4 months, and 31% of customers had ordered a vaporizer by the end of 2016. In 2016, Eaze founder Keith McCarty stepped down from his position as CEO and was replaced by Jim Patterson, who served as the company's chief product and technology officer. == EazeMD == EazeMD is a service that helps people acquire a medical marijuana card. It is a California-based telemedicine service in which physicians assess patients through an online video chat. It is California's largest telemedicine service for marijuana referrals. In June 2017, a former employee of one of these physicians accessed patient data in the physician's records system, causing a security breach. However, there was no evidence that Eaze data was accessed. == Eaze Insights == Eaze Insights conducts surveys of their users and compiles data into reports on cannabis use. Statistics from their reports have been cited in Seattle Weekly, Forbes, The Huffington Post, Business Insider, Fortune, and other general interest publications. == Financing == The company announced its $10 million Series A funding in April 2015 by multiple venture capital firms, including the Snoop Dogg-backed Casa Verde Capital. In October 2016, Eaze announced its series B funding in the amount of $13 million from five investors, making the company "the highest-funded startup in the history of the cannabis industry, as well as its fastest-growing one". In September 2017, the company raised another $27 million in venture funding. The Series B funding was led by Bailey Capital, joined by DCM Ventures, Kaya Ventures, and FJ Labs. According to the company' officials in 2017, Eaze managed to raise more than $52 million since its inception in 2014.

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  Histogram of oriented displacements

  Histogram of oriented displacements (HOD) is a 2D trajectory descriptor. The trajectory is described using a histogram of the directions between each two consecutive points. Given a trajectory T = {P1, P2, P3, ..., Pn}, where Pt is the 2D position at time t. For each pair of positions Pt and Pt+1, calculate the direction angle θ(t, t+1). Value of θ is between 0 and 360. A histogram of the quantized values of θ is created. If the histogram is of 8 bins, the first bin represents all θs between 0 and 45. The histogram accumulates the lengths of the consecutive moves. For each θ, a specific histogram bin is determined. The length of the line between Pt and Pt+1 is then added to the specific histogram bin. To show the intuition behind the descriptor, consider the action of waving hands. At the end of the action, the hand falls down. When describing this down movement, the descriptor does not care about the position from which the hand started to fall. This fall will affect the histogram with the appropriate angles and lengths, regardless of the position where the hand started to fall. HOD records for each moving point: how much it moves in each range of directions. HOD has a clear physical interpretation. It proposes that, a simple way to describe the motion of an object, is to indicate how much distance it moves in each direction. If the movement in all directions are saved accurately, the movement can be repeated from the initial position to the final destination regardless of the displacements order. However, the temporal information will be lost, as the order of movements is not stored-this is what we solve by applying the temporal pyramid, as shown in section \ref{sec:temp-pyramid}. If the angles quantization range is small, classifiers that use the descriptor will overfit. Generalization needs some slack in directions-which can be done by increasing the quantization range.

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  AI literacy

  AI literacy or artificial intelligence literacy is "a set of competencies that enables individuals to critically evaluate AI technologies; communicate and collaborate effectively with AI; and use AI as a tool online, at home, and in the workplace." AI is employed in a variety of applications, including self-driving automobiles, virtual assistants and text generation by generative AI models. Users of these tools should be able to make informed decisions. AI literacy may have an impact on students' future employment prospects. With the rise of generative AI platforms, AI literacy has become a topic of conversation in the field of education. Some think AI literacy is essential for school and college students, while others restrict or prohibit the use of AI in assignments, viewing it as a form of academic dishonesty. However, many researchers and educational institutions promote a more nuanced approach, encouraging critical engagement with AI while developing policies that balance academic integrity with opportunities for learning. == Definitions == Other definitions of AI literacy include the ability to understand, use, monitor, and critically reflect on AI applications. That use of the term usually refers to teaching skills and knowledge to the general public, particularly those who are not adept in AI and the ability to understand, use, evaluate, and ethically navigate AI. As research into AI literacy is still emerging and focused on developing context-specific skills, there is not yet a single, broadly agreed-upon definition. AI literacy is linked to other forms of literacy. AI literacy requires digital literacy, whereas scientific and computational literacy may inform it. Data literacy also significantly overlaps with it. == Categories == AI literacy encompasses multiple categories, including a theoretical understanding of how artificial intelligence works, the usage of artificial intelligence technologies, and the critical appraisal of artificial intelligence, and its ethics. === Know and understand AI === Knowledge and understanding of AI refers to a basic understanding of what artificial intelligence is and how it works. This includes familiarity with machine learning algorithms and the limitations and biases present in AI systems. Users who know and understand AI should be familiar with various technologies that use artificial intelligence, including cognitive systems, robotics and machine learning. This includes recognizing that large language models (LLMs) are machine learning models trained on extensive datasets which generate new text rather than retrieving pre-written responses. === Use and apply AI === Using and applying AI refers to the ability to use AI tools to solve problems and perform tasks such as programming and analyzing big data. Some consider prompt engineering, the practice of designing effective prompts to guide generative AI platforms more effectively, as another competency within AI literacy. === Evaluate and create AI === Evaluation and creation refers to the ability to critically evaluate the quality and reliability of AI systems. It also refers to designing and building fair and ethical AI systems. To evaluate correctly, users should also learn in which areas AI is strong, and in which areas it is weak. === AI ethics === AI ethics refers to understanding the moral implications of AI, and the making informed decisions regarding the use of AI tools. This area includes considerations such as: Accountability: Hold AI actors accountable for the operation of AI systems and adherence to ethical ideals. Accuracy: Identify and report sources of error and uncertainty in algorithms and data. Auditability: Enable other parties to audit and assess algorithm behavior via transparent information sharing. Explainability: Make sure that algorithmic judgments and the underlying data can be presented in simple language. Fairness: Prevent biases and consider varied viewpoints. To do so, increase the diversity of researchers in the field. Human Centricity and Well-being: Prioritize human well-being in AI development and deployment. Human rights Alignment: Ensure that technology do not infringe internationally recognized human rights. Inclusivity: Make AI accessible to everyone. Progress: Choose high value initiatives. Responsibility, accountability, and transparency: Foster trust via responsibility, accountability, and fairness. Robustness and Security: Make AI systems safe, secure, and resistant to manipulation or data breach. Sustainability: Choose implementations that generate long-term, useful benefits. Environmental Implications: How this tool impacts the environment, any restrictions or laws, if this impact is worth the effects or not. === Enabling AI === Support AI by developing associated knowledge and skills such as programming and statistics. == Promoting AI literacy == Several governments have recognized the need to promote AI literacy, including among adults. Such programs have been published in the United States, China, Germany and Finland. Programs intended for the general public usually consist of short and easy to understand online study units. Programs intended for children are usually project-based. Programs for students at colleges and universities often address the specific professional needs of the student, depending on their field of study. Beyond the education system, AI literacy can also be developed in the community, for example in museums. === Schools === Schools use diverse pedagogies to promote AI literacy. These include: Performing a Turing test with an intelligent agent Creating chatbots Building apps using Blockly-based programming Project-based learning Building robots Data visualization Training AI models Artificial intelligence curricula can improve students' understanding of topics such as machine learning, neural networks, and deep learning. === Higher education === Before the second decade of the 21st century, artificial intelligence was studied mainly in STEM courses. Later, projects emerged to increase artificial intelligence education, specifically to promote AI literacy. Most courses start with one or more study units that deal with basic questions such as what artificial intelligence is, where it comes from, what it can do and what it can't do. Most courses also refer to machine learning and deep learning. Some of the courses deal with moral issues in artificial intelligence. In Ireland, the Higher Education Authority published Generative AI in Higher Education Teaching & Learning: Policy Framework in December 2025, which encouraged higher education institutions to embed AI literacy across programmes as a core graduate attribute. ==== Disciplinary policy ==== As a response to the increase of generative AI use in education, several disciplines formed committees or task forces to examine context-specific approaches toward AI literacy. In spring 2025, the Modern Language Association and Conference on College Composition and Communication Joint Task Force finished development of three working papers, a guide on AI literacy for students, and a collection of resources addressing AI use in writing. The task force emphasized the need for "a culture of critical AI literacy" and included guidelines not only for students but also educators and institutions, highlighting the need for modeling ethical AI use in planning processes. Similarly, a committee formed by the American Historical Association Council published "Guiding Principles for Artificial Intelligence in History Education" which encouraged "clear and transparent engagement with generative AI." The guidelines demonstrate the value of criticality when working with generative AI in thinking and research.

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  Kolmogorov–Arnold Networks

  Kolmogorov–Arnold Networks (KANs) are a type of artificial neural network architecture inspired by the Kolmogorov–Arnold representation theorem, also known as the superposition theorem. Unlike traditional multilayer perceptrons (MLPs), which rely on fixed activation functions and linear weights, KANs replace each weight with a learnable univariate function, often represented using splines. == History == KANs (Kolmogorov–Arnold Networks) were proposed by Liu et al. (2024) as a generalization of the Kolmogorov–Arnold representation theorem (KART), aiming to outperform MLPs in small-scale AI and scientific tasks. Before KANs, numerous studies explored KART's connections to neural networks or used it as a basis for designing new network architectures. In the 1980s and 1990s, early research applied KART to neural network design. Kůrková et al. (1992), Hecht-Nielsen (1987), and Nees (1994) established theoretical foundations for multilayer networks based on KART. Igelnik et al. (2003) introduced the Kolmogorov Spline Network using cubic splines to model complex functions. Sprecher (1996, 1997) introduced numerical methods for building network layers, while Nakamura et al. (1993) created activation functions with guaranteed approximation accuracy. These works linked KART's theoretical potential with practical neural network implementation. KART has also been used in other computational and theoretical fields. Coppejans (2004) developed nonparametric regression estimators using B-splines, Bryant (2008) applied it to high-dimensional image tasks, Liu (2015) investigated theoretical applications in optimal transport and image encryption, and more recently, Polar and Poluektov (2021) used Urysohn operators for efficient KART construction, while Fakhoury et al. (2022) introduced ExSpliNet, integrating KART with probabilistic trees and multivariate B-splines for improved function approximation. == Architecture == KANs are based on the Kolmogorov–Arnold representation theorem, which was linked to the 13th Hilbert problem. Given x = ( x 1 , x 2 , … , x n ) {\displaystyle x=(x_{1},x_{2},\dots ,x_{n})} consisting of n variables, a multivariate continuous function f ( x ) {\displaystyle f(x)} can be represented as: f ( x ) = f ( x 1 , … , x n ) = ∑ q = 1 2 n + 1 Φ q ( ∑ p = 1 n φ q , p ( x p ) ) {\displaystyle f(x)=f(x_{1},\dots ,x_{n})=\sum _{q=1}^{2n+1}\Phi _{q}\left(\sum _{p=1}^{n}\varphi _{q,p}(x_{p})\right)} (1) This formulation contains two nested summations: an outer and an inner sum. The outer sum ∑ q = 1 2 n + 1 {\displaystyle \sum _{q=1}^{2n+1}} aggregates 2 n + 1 {\displaystyle 2n+1} terms, each involving a function Φ q : R → R {\displaystyle \Phi _{q}:\mathbb {R} \to \mathbb {R} } . The inner sum ∑ p = 1 n {\displaystyle \sum _{p=1}^{n}} computes n terms for each q, where each term φ q , p : [ 0 , 1 ] → R {\displaystyle \varphi _{q,p}:[0,1]\to \mathbb {R} } is a continuous function of the single variable x p {\displaystyle x_{p}} . The inner continuous functions φ q , p {\displaystyle \varphi _{q,p}} are universal, independent of f {\displaystyle f} , while the outer functions Φ q {\displaystyle \Phi _{q}} depend on the specific function f {\displaystyle f} being represented. The representation (1) holds for all multivariate functions f {\displaystyle f} as proved in . If f {\displaystyle f} is continuous, then the outer functions Φ q {\displaystyle \Phi _{q}} are continuous; if f {\displaystyle f} is discontinuous, then the corresponding Φ q {\displaystyle \Phi _{q}} are generally discontinuous, while the inner functions φ q , p {\displaystyle \varphi _{q,p}} remain the same universal functions. Liu et al. proposed the name KAN. A general KAN network consisting of L layers takes x to generate the output as: K A N ( x ) = ( Φ L − 1 ∘ Φ L − 2 ∘ ⋯ ∘ Φ 1 ∘ Φ 0 ) x {\displaystyle \mathrm {KAN} (x)=(\Phi ^{L-1}\circ \Phi ^{L-2}\circ \cdots \circ \Phi ^{1}\circ \Phi ^{0})x} (3) Here, Φ l {\displaystyle \Phi ^{l}} is the function matrix of the l-th KAN layer or a set of pre-activations. Let i denote the neuron of the l-th layer and j the neuron of the (l+1)-th layer. The activation function φ j , i l {\displaystyle \varphi _{j,i}^{l}} connects (l, i) to (l+1, j): φ j , i l , l = 0 , … , L − 1 , i = 1 , … , n l , j = 1 , … , n l + 1 {\displaystyle \varphi _{j,i}^{l},\quad l=0,\dots ,L-1,\;i=1,\dots ,n_{l},\;j=1,\dots ,n_{l+1}} (4) where nl is the number of nodes of the l-th layer. Thus, the function matrix Φ l {\displaystyle \Phi ^{l}} can be represented as an n l + 1 × n l {\displaystyle n_{l+1}\times n_{l}} matrix of activations: x l + 1 = ( φ 1 , 1 l ( ⋅ ) φ 1 , 2 l ( ⋅ ) ⋯ φ 1 , n l l ( ⋅ ) φ 2 , 1 l ( ⋅ ) φ 2 , 2 l ( ⋅ ) ⋯ φ 2 , n l l ( ⋅ ) ⋮ ⋮ ⋱ ⋮ φ n l + 1 , 1 l ( ⋅ ) φ n l + 1 , 2 l ( ⋅ ) ⋯ φ n l + 1 , n l l ( ⋅ ) ) x l {\displaystyle x^{l+1}={\begin{pmatrix}\varphi _{1,1}^{l}(\cdot )&\varphi _{1,2}^{l}(\cdot )&\cdots &\varphi _{1,n_{l}}^{l}(\cdot )\\\varphi _{2,1}^{l}(\cdot )&\varphi _{2,2}^{l}(\cdot )&\cdots &\varphi _{2,n_{l}}^{l}(\cdot )\\\vdots &\vdots &\ddots &\vdots \\\varphi _{n_{l+1},1}^{l}(\cdot )&\varphi _{n_{l+1},2}^{l}(\cdot )&\cdots &\varphi _{n_{l+1},n_{l}}^{l}(\cdot )\end{pmatrix}}x^{l}} == Implementations == To make the KAN layers optimizable, the inner function is formed by the combination of spline and basic functions as the formula: φ ( x ) = w b b ( x ) + w s spline ( x ) {\displaystyle \varphi (x)=w_{b}\,b(x)+w_{s}\,{\text{spline}}(x)} where b ( x ) {\displaystyle b(x)} is the basic function, usually defined as s i l u ( x ) = x / ( 1 + e x ) {\displaystyle silu(x)=x/(1+e^{x})} and w b {\displaystyle w_{b}} is the base weight matrix. Also, w s {\displaystyle w_{s}} is the spline weight matrix and spline ( x ) {\displaystyle {\text{spline}}(x)} is the spline function. The spline function can be a sum of B-splines. spline ( x ) = ∑ i c i B i ( x ) {\displaystyle {\text{spline}}(x)=\sum _{i}c_{i}B_{i}(x)} Many studies suggested to use other polynomial and curve functions instead of B-spline to create new KAN variants. == Functions used == The choice of functional basis strongly influences the performance of KANs. Common function families include: B-splines: Provide locality, smoothness, and interpretability; they are the most widely used in current implementations. RBFs (include Gaussian RBFs): Capture localized features in data and are effective in approximating functions with non-linear or clustered structures. Chebyshev polynomials: Offer efficient approximation with minimized error in the maximum norm, making them useful for stable function representation. Rational function: Useful for approximating functions with singularities or sharp variations, as they can model asymptotic behavior better than polynomials. Fourier series: Capture periodic patterns effectively and are particularly useful in domains such as physics-informed machine learning. Wavelet functions (DoG, Mexican hat, Morlet, and Shannon): Used for feature extraction as they can capture both high-frequency and low-frequency data components. Piecewise linear functions: Provide efficient approximation for multivariate functions in KANs. == Usage == In some modern neural architectures like convolutional neural networks (CNNs), recurrent neural networks (RNNs), and Transformers, KANs are typically used as drop-in substitutes for MLP layers. Despite KANs' general-purpose design, researchers have created and used them for a number of tasks: Scientific machine learning (SciML): Function fitting, partial differential equations (PDEs) and physical/mathematical laws. Continual learning: KANs better preserve previously learned information during incremental updates, avoiding catastrophic forgetting due to the locality of spline adjustments. Graph neural networks: Extensions such as Kolmogorov–Arnold Graph Neural Networks (KA-GNNs) integrate KAN modules into message-passing architectures, showing improvements in molecular property prediction tasks. Sensor data processing: Kolmogorov–Arnold Networks (KANs) have recently been applied to sensor data processing due to their ability to model complex nonlinear relationships with relatively few parameters and improved interpretability compared to conventional multilayer perceptrons. Applications include industrial soft sensors, biomedical signal analysis, remote sensing, and environmental monitoring systems. == Drawbacks == KANs can be computationally intensive and require a large number of parameters due to their use of polynomial functions to capture data.

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  GPTs

  GPTs are custom versions of ChatGPT with added instructions and extra knowledge. GPTs can be used and created from the GPT Store. Any user can easily create them without any programming knowledge. GPTs can be tailored for specific writing styles, topics, or tasks. The ability to create GPTs was introduced in November 2023, and by January 2024, more than 3 million GPTs had been published. == Features and uses == GPTs can be configured to answer complex questions in specific fields, solve problems, provide image-based information, or create digital content. They can be programmed as educational tools, purchasing guides, or technical advisors, as well as for many others applications. GPTs are accessed from the GPT Store section of the ChatGPT web page. The “Explore GPT” link opens the store where the most popular GPTs in each section are highlighted. The GPTs are organized by categories. The store also uses a rating system based on user experiences similar to that used by other app stores such as Apple's App Store or Google Play. Those with the best ratings appear at the top of each category. According to La Vanguardia, the most popular categories are: Personal assistants Learning to program Image generation Creative writing Gaming Entertainment It is expected that in the future the creators of GPTs will be able to monetize them. Companies like Moderna are using GPTs to assist in various specific business tasks. The company has created 750 GPTs for its own internal use. == Configuration == Creating GPTs does not require prior programming knowledge. Free users can use existing GPTs but cannot create their own. Paying subscribers can use the editor on the ChatGPT site to configure the GPT's name, image and description, instructions and access to APIs, along with visibility options. == Criticism == The implementation and use of GPTs has not been without criticism. The GPT Store has been criticized for the proliferation of low-quality GPTs and spam due to a lack of effective moderation. There are also concerns about data privacy and security, as GPTs may collect and use personal information in ways that are not always transparent to users.

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  Automated medical scribe

  Automated medical scribes (also called artificial intelligence scribes, AI scribes, digital scribes, virtual scribes, ambient AI scribes, AI documentation assistants, and digital/virtual/smart clinical assistants) are tools for transcribing medical speech, such as patient consultations and dictated medical notes. Many also produce summaries of consultations. Automated medical scribes based on large language models (LLMs, commonly called "AI", short for "artificial intelligence") increased drastically in popularity in 2024. There are privacy and antitrust concerns. Accuracy concerns also exist, and intensify in situations in which tools try to go beyond transcribing and summarizing, and are asked to format information by its meaning, since LLMs do not deal well with meaning (see weak artificial intelligence). Medics using these scribes are generally expected to understand the ethical and legal considerations, and supervise the outputs. The privacy protections of automated medical scribes vary widely. While it is possible to do all the transcription and summarizing locally, with no connection to the internet, most closed-source providers require that data be sent to their own servers over the internet, processed there, and the results sent back (as with digital voice assistants). Some retailers say their tools use zero-knowledge encryption (meaning that the service provider can't access the data). Others explicitly say that they use patient data to train their AIs, or rent or resell it to third parties; the nature of privacy protections used in such situations is unclear, and they are likely not to be fully effective. Most providers have not published any safety or utility data in academic journals, and are not responsive to requests from medical researchers studying their products. == Privacy == Some providers unclear about what happens to user data. Some may sell data to third parties. Some explicitly send user data to for-profit tech companies for secondary purposes, which may not be specified. Some require users to sign consents to such reuse of their data. Some ingest user data to train the software, promising to anonymize it; however, deanonymization may be possible (that is, it may become obvious who the patient is). It is intrinsically impossible to prevent an LLM from correlating its inputs; they work by finding similar patterns across very large data sets. Some information on the patient will be known from other sources (for instance, information that they were injured in an incident on a certain day might be available from the news media; information that they attended specific appointment locations at specific times is probably available to their cellphone provider/apps/data brokers; information about when they had a baby is probably implied by their online shopping records; and they might mention lifestyle changes to their doctor and on a forum or blog). The software may correlate such information with the "anonymized" clinical consultation record, and, asked about the named patient, provide information which they only told their doctor privately. Because a patient's record is all about the same patient, it is all unavoidably linked; in very many cases, medical histories are intrinsically identifiable. Depending on how common a condition and what other data is available, K-anonymity may be useless. Differential privacy could theoretically preserve privacy. Data broker companies like Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft have produced or bought up medical scribes, some of which use user data for secondary purposes, which has led to antitrust concerns. Transfer of patient records for AI training has, in the past, prompted legal action. Open-source programs typically do all the transcription locally, on the doctor's own computer. Open-source software is widely used in healthcare, with some national public healthcare bodies holding hack days. === Data resale and commercialization === Several AI medical scribe providers include terms in their service agreements that allow the reuse, sale, or commercialization of de-identified or user-submitted data. Although such data are generally described as anonymized or aggregated, these practices have raised ethical concerns among clinicians and privacy advocates regarding secondary uses of medical information beyond clinical documentation. Freed, an AI transcription and scribe platform, states in its Terms of Use that it may "collect, use, publish, disseminate, sell, transfer, and otherwise exploit" de-identified and aggregated data derived from user inputs. OpenEvidence similarly states that it may "collect, use, transfer, sell, and disclose non-personal information and customer usage data for any purpose including commercial uses." Doximity, which offers an AI-enabled medical scribe as part of its physician platform, grants itself a "nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual, unlimited, assignable, sublicensable, royalty-free" license to "copy, prepare derivative works from, improve, distribute, publish, ... analyze, index, tag, [and] commercialize" content submitted by users, subject to its privacy policy. Because these terms allow broad secondary use—including sale, licensing, model-training, derivative works, and commercial exploitation of de-identified or user-submitted data—some commentators have recommended that clinicians review data-handling provisions carefully when adopting AI-scribe tools, particularly in clinical environments where patient privacy and regulatory compliance are critical. === Encryption === Multifactor authentication for access to the data is expected practice. Typically, Diffie–Hellman key exchange is used for encryption; this is the standard method commonly used for things like online banking. This encryption is expensive but not impossible to break; it is not generally considered safe against eavesdroppers with the resources of a nation-state. If content is encrypted between the client and the service provider's remote server (transport cryptography), then the server has an unencrypted copy. This is necessary if the data is used by the service provider (for instance, to train the software). Zero-knowledge encryption implies that the only unencrypted copy is at the client, and the server cannot decrypt the data any more easily than a monster-in-the-middle attacker. == Platforms == Scribes may operate on desktops, laptop, or mobile computers, under a variety of operating systems. These vary in their risks; for instance, mobiles can be lost. The underlying mobile or desktop operating systems are also part of the trusted computing base, and if they are not secure, the software relying on them cannot be secure either. Some AI medical scribe platforms are designed to operate as cloud-based applications that generate structured clinical documentation from clinician–patient conversations. These systems may offer features such as real-time transcription, document generation, and integration with electronic health record (EHR) systems. == Confabulation, omissions, and other errors == Like other LLMs, medical-scribe LLMs are prone to hallucinations, where they make up content based on statistically associations between their training data and the transcription audio. LLMs do not distinguish between trying to transcribe the audio and guessing what words will come next, but perform both processes mixed together. They are especially likely to take short silences or non-speech noises and invent some sort of speech to transcribe them as. LLM medical scribes have been known to confabulate racist and otherwise prejudiced content; this is partly because the training datasets of many LLMs contain pseudoscientific texts about medical racism. They may misgender patients. A survey found that most doctors preferred, in principle, that scribes be trained on data reviewed by medical subject experts. Relevant, accurate training data increases the probability of an accurate transcription, but does not guarantee accuracy. Software trained on thousands of real clinical conversations generated transcripts with lower word error rates. Software trained on manually-transcribed training data did better than software trained with automatically transcribed training data such as YouTube captions. Autoscribes omit parts of the conversation classes as irrelevant. The may wrongly classify pertinent information as irrelevant and omit it. They may also confuse historic and current symptoms, or otherwise misclassify information. They may also simply wrongly transcribe the speech, writing something incorrect instead. If clinicians do not carefully check the recording, such mistakes could make their way into their medical records and cause patient harms. == Patient consent == Professional organizations generally require that scribes be used only with patient consent; some bodies may require written consent. Medics must also abide by local surveillance laws, which may criminalize recording pri

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  Model compression

  Model compression is a machine learning technique for reducing the size of trained models. Large models can achieve high accuracy, but often at the cost of significant resource requirements. Compression techniques aim to compress models without significant performance reduction. Smaller models require less storage space, and consume less memory and compute during inference. Compressed models enable deployment on resource-constrained devices such as smartphones, embedded systems, edge computing devices, and consumer electronics computers. Efficient inference is also valuable for large corporations that serve large model inference over an API, allowing them to reduce computational costs and improve response times for users. Model compression is not to be confused with knowledge distillation, in which a smaller "student" model is trained to imitate the input-output behavior of a larger "teacher" model (as opposed to using the "teacher"'s trained parameters or the "teacher"'s training targets). == Techniques == Several techniques are employed for model compression. === Pruning === Pruning sparsifies a large model by setting some parameters to exactly zero. This effectively reduces the number of parameters. This allows the use of sparse matrix operations, which are faster than dense matrix operations. Pruning criteria can be based on magnitudes of parameters, the statistical pattern of neural activations, Hessian values, etc. === Quantization === Quantization reduces the numerical precision of weights and activations. For example, instead of storing weights as 32-bit floating-point numbers, they can be represented using 8-bit integers. Low-precision parameters take up less space, and takes less compute to perform arithmetic with. It is also possible to quantize some parameters more aggressively than others, so for example, a less important parameter can have 8-bit precision while another, more important parameter, can have 16-bit precision. Inference with such models requires mixed-precision arithmetic. Quantized models can also be used during training (rather than after training). PyTorch implements automatic mixed-precision (AMP), which performs autocasting, gradient scaling, and loss scaling. === Low-rank factorization === Weight matrices can be approximated by low-rank matrices. Let W {\displaystyle W} be a weight matrix of shape m × n {\displaystyle m\times n} . A low-rank approximation is W ≈ U V T {\displaystyle W\approx UV^{T}} , where U {\displaystyle U} and V {\displaystyle V} are matrices of shapes m × k , n × k {\displaystyle m\times k,n\times k} . When k {\displaystyle k} is small, this both reduces the number of parameters needed to represent W {\displaystyle W} approximately, and accelerates matrix multiplication by W {\displaystyle W} . Low-rank approximations can be found by singular value decomposition (SVD). The choice of rank for each weight matrix is a hyperparameter, and jointly optimized as a mixed discrete-continuous optimization problem. The rank of weight matrices may also be pruned after training, taking into account the effect of activation functions like ReLU on the implicit rank of the weight matrices. == Training == Model compression may be decoupled from training, that is, a model is first trained without regard for how it might be compressed, then it is compressed. However, it may also be combined with training. The "train big, then compress" method trains a large model for a small number of training steps (less than it would be if it were trained to convergence), then heavily compress the model. It is found that at the same compute budget, this method results in a better model than lightly compressed, small models. In Deep Compression, the compression has three steps. First loop (pruning): prune all weights lower than a threshold, then finetune the network, then prune again, etc. Second loop (quantization): cluster weights, then enforce weight sharing among all weights in each cluster, then finetune the network, then cluster again, etc. Third step: Use Huffman coding to losslessly compress the model. The SqueezeNet paper reported that Deep Compression achieved a compression ratio of 35 on AlexNet, and a ratio of ~10 on SqueezeNets.

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  Cognitive computing

  Cognitive computing refers to technology platforms that, broadly speaking, are based on the scientific disciplines of artificial intelligence and signal processing. These platforms encompass machine learning, reasoning, natural language processing, speech recognition and vision (object recognition), human–computer interaction, dialog and narrative generation, among other technologies. == Definition == At present, there is no widely agreed upon definition for cognitive computing in either academia or industry. In general, the term cognitive computing has been used to refer to new hardware and/or software that mimics the functioning of the human brain (2004). In this sense, cognitive computing is a new type of computing with the goal of more accurate models of how the human brain/mind senses, reasons, and responds to stimulus. Cognitive computing applications link data analysis and adaptive page displays (AUI) to adjust content for a particular type of audience. As such, cognitive computing hardware and applications strive to be more affective and more influential by design. The term "cognitive system" also applies to any artificial construct able to perform a cognitive process where a cognitive process is the transformation of data, information, knowledge, or wisdom to a new level in the DIKW Pyramid. While many cognitive systems employ techniques having their origination in artificial intelligence research, cognitive systems, themselves, may not be artificially intelligent. For example, a neural network trained to recognize cancer on an MRI scan may achieve a higher success rate than a human doctor. This system is certainly a cognitive system but is not artificially intelligent. Cognitive systems may be engineered to feed on dynamic data in real-time, or near real-time, and may draw on multiple sources of information, including both structured and unstructured digital information, as well as sensory inputs (visual, gestural, auditory, or sensor-provided). == Cognitive analytics == Cognitive computing-branded technology platforms typically specialize in the processing and analysis of large, unstructured datasets. == Applications == Education Even if cognitive computing can not take the place of teachers, it can still be a heavy driving force in the education of students. Cognitive computing being used in the classroom is applied by essentially having an assistant that is personalized for each individual student. This cognitive assistant can relieve the stress that teachers face while teaching students, while also enhancing the student's learning experience over all. Teachers may not be able to pay each and every student individual attention, this being the place that cognitive computers fill the gap. Some students may need a little more help with a particular subject. For many students, Human interaction between student and teacher can cause anxiety and can be uncomfortable. With the help of Cognitive Computer tutors, students will not have to face their uneasiness and can gain the confidence to learn and do well in the classroom. While a student is in class with their personalized assistant, this assistant can develop various techniques, like creating lesson plans, to tailor and aid the student and their needs. Healthcare Numerous tech companies are in the process of developing technology that involves cognitive computing that can be used in the medical field. The ability to classify and identify is one of the main goals of these cognitive devices. This trait can be very helpful in the study of identifying carcinogens. This cognitive system that can detect would be able to assist the examiner in interpreting countless numbers of documents in a lesser amount of time than if they did not use Cognitive Computer technology. This technology can also evaluate information about the patient, looking through every medical record in depth, searching for indications that can be the source of their problems. Commerce Together with Artificial Intelligence, it has been used in warehouse management systems to collect, store, organize and analyze all related supplier data. All these aims at improving efficiency, enabling faster decision-making, monitoring inventory and fraud detection Human Cognitive Augmentation In situations where humans are using or working collaboratively with cognitive systems, called a human/cog ensemble, results achieved by the ensemble are superior to results obtainable by the human working alone. Therefore, the human is cognitively augmented. In cases where the human/cog ensemble achieves results at, or superior to, the level of a human expert then the ensemble has achieved synthetic expertise. In a human/cog ensemble, the "cog" is a cognitive system employing virtually any kind of cognitive computing technology. Other use cases Speech recognition Sentiment analysis Face detection Risk assessment Fraud detection Behavioral recommendations == Industry work == Cognitive computing in conjunction with big data and algorithms that comprehend customer needs, can be a major advantage in economic decision making. The powers of cognitive computing and artificial intelligence hold the potential to affect almost every task that humans are capable of performing. This can negatively affect employment for humans, as there would be no such need for human labor anymore. It would also increase the inequality of wealth; the people at the head of the cognitive computing industry would grow significantly richer, while workers without ongoing, reliable employment would become less well off. The more industries start to use cognitive computing, the more difficult it will be for humans to compete. Increased use of the technology will also increase the amount of work that AI-driven robots and machines can perform. The influence of competitive individuals in conjunction with artificial intelligence/cognitive computing has the potential to change the course of humankind.

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  Evolutionary robotics

  Evolutionary robotics is an embodied approach to Artificial Intelligence (AI) in which robots are automatically designed using Darwinian principles of natural selection. The design of a robot, or a subsystem of a robot such as a neural controller, is optimized against a behavioral goal (e.g. run as fast as possible). Usually, designs are evaluated in simulations as fabricating thousands or millions of designs and testing them in the real world is prohibitively expensive in terms of time, money, and safety. An evolutionary robotics experiment starts with a population of randomly generated robot designs. The worst performing designs are discarded and replaced with mutations and/or combinations of the better designs. This evolutionary algorithm continues until a prespecified amount of time elapses or some target performance metric is surpassed. Evolutionary robotics methods are particularly useful for engineering machines that must operate in environments in which humans have limited intuition (nanoscale, space, etc.). Evolved simulated robots can also be used as scientific tools to generate new hypotheses in biology and cognitive science, and to test old hypothesis that require experiments that have proven difficult or impossible to carry out in reality. == History == In the early 1990s, two separate European groups demonstrated different approaches to the evolution of robot control systems. Dario Floreano and Francesco Mondada at EPFL evolved controllers for the Khepera robot. Adrian Thompson, Nick Jakobi, Dave Cliff, Inman Harvey, and Phil Husbands evolved controllers for a Gantry robot at the University of Sussex. However the body of these robots was presupposed before evolution. The first simulations of evolved robots were reported by Karl Sims and Jeffrey Ventrella of the MIT Media Lab, also in the early 1990s. However these so-called virtual creatures never left their simulated worlds. The first evolved robots to be built in reality were 3D-printed by Hod Lipson and Jordan Pollack at Brandeis University at the turn of the 21st century.

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  Robotic process automation

  Robotic process automation (RPA) is a form of business process automation that is based on software robots (bots) or artificial intelligence (AI) agents. RPA should not be confused with artificial intelligence as it is based on automation technology following a predefined workflow. It is sometimes referred to as software robotics (not to be confused with robot software). In traditional workflow automation tools, a software developer produces a list of actions to automate a task and interface to the back end system using internal application programming interfaces (APIs) or dedicated scripting language. In contrast, RPA systems develop the action list by watching the user perform that task in the application's graphical user interface (GUI) and then perform the automation by repeating those tasks directly in the GUI. This can lower the barrier to the use of automation in products that might not otherwise feature APIs for this purpose. RPA tools have strong technical similarities to graphical user interface testing tools. These tools also automate interactions with the GUI, and often do so by repeating a set of demonstration actions performed by a user. RPA tools differ from such systems in that they allow data to be handled in and between multiple applications, for instance, receiving email containing an invoice, extracting the data, and then typing that into a bookkeeping system. == Historic evolution == As a form of automation, the concept has been around for a long time in the form of screen scraping, so long that to early PC users the reminder of it often blurs with the idea of malware infection. Yet compared to screen scraping, RPA is much more extensible, consisting of API integration into other enterprise applications, connectors into ITSM systems, terminal services and even some types of AI (e.g. machine learning) services such as image recognition. It is considered to be a significant technological evolution in the sense that new software platforms are emerging which are sufficiently mature, resilient, scalable and reliable to make this approach viable for use in large enterprises (who would otherwise be reluctant due to perceived risks to quality and reputation). == Use == The hosting of RPA services also aligns with the metaphor of a software robot, with each robotic instance having its own virtual workstation, much like a human worker. The robot uses keyboard and mouse controls to take actions and execute automations. Normally, all of these actions take place in a virtual environment and not on screen; the robot does not need a physical screen to operate, rather it interprets the screen display electronically. The scalability of modern solutions based on architectures such as these owes much to the advent of virtualization technology, without which the scalability of large deployments would be limited by the available capacity to manage physical hardware and by the associated costs. The implementation of RPA in business enterprises has shown dramatic cost savings when compared to traditional non-RPA solutions. === RPA actual use === Banking and finance process automation Mortgage and lending processes Customer care automation eCommerce merchandising operations Social media marketing Optical character recognition applications Data extraction process Fixed automation process Manual and repetitive tasks automation Voice recognition and digital dictation software linked to join up business processes for straight through processing without manual intervention Specialised remote infrastructure management software featuring automated investigation and resolution of problems, using robots for the first line IT support Chatbots used by internet retailers and service providers to service customer requests for information. Also used by companies to service employee requests for information from internal databases Presentation layer automation software, increasingly used by business process outsourcers to displace human labour Interactive voice response (IVR) systems incorporating intelligent interaction with callers == Impact on employment == According to Harvard Business Review, most operations groups adopting RPA have promised their employees that automation would not result in layoffs. Instead, workers have been redeployed to do more interesting work. One academic study highlighted that knowledge workers did not feel threatened by automation: they embraced it and viewed the robots as team-mates. The same study highlighted that, rather than resulting in a lower "headcount", the technology was deployed in such a way as to achieve more work and greater productivity with the same number of people. Conversely, however, some analysts proffer that RPA represents a threat to the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry. The thesis behind this notion is that RPA will enable enterprises to "repatriate" processes from offshore locations into local data centers, with the benefit of this new technology. The effect, if true, will be to create high-value jobs for skilled process designers in onshore locations (and within the associated supply chain of IT hardware, data center management, etc.) but to decrease the available opportunity to low-skilled workers offshore. On the other hand, this discussion appears to be healthy ground for debate as another academic study was at pains to counter the so-called "myth" that RPA will bring back many jobs from offshore. === Impact on society === Academic studies project that RPA, among other technological trends, is expected to drive a new wave of productivity and efficiency gains in the global labour market. Although not directly attributable to RPA alone, Oxford University conjectures that up to 35% of all jobs might be automated by 2035. There are geographic implications to the trend in robotic automation. In the example above where an offshored process is "repatriated" under the control of the client organization (or even displaced by a business process outsourcer) from an offshore location to a data centre, the impact will be a deficit in economic activity to the offshore location and an economic benefit to the originating economy. On this basis, developed economies – with skills and technological infrastructure to develop and support a robotic automation capability – can be expected to achieve a net benefit from the trend. In a TEDx talk hosted by University College London (UCL), entrepreneur David Moss explains that digital labour in the form of RPA is likely to revolutionize the cost model of the services industry by driving the price of products and services down, while simultaneously improving the quality of outcomes and creating increased opportunity for the personalization of services. In a separate TEDx in 2019 talk, Japanese business executive, and former CIO of Barclays bank, Koichi Hasegawa noted that digital robots can be a positive effect on society if we start using a robot with empathy to help every person. He provides a case study of the Japanese insurance companies – Sompo Japan and Aioi – both of whom introduced bots to speed up the process of insurance pay-outs in past massive disaster incidents. Meanwhile, Professor Willcocks, author of the LSE paper cited above, speaks of increased job satisfaction and intellectual stimulation, characterising the technology as having the ability to "take the robot out of the human", a reference to the notion that robots will take over the mundane and repetitive portions of people's daily workload, leaving them to be used in more interpersonal roles or to concentrate on the remaining, more meaningful, portions of their day. It was also found in a 2021 study observing the effects of robotization in Europe that, the gender pay gap increased at a rate of .18% for every 1% increase in robotization of a given industry. == Unassisted RPA == Unassisted RPA, or RPAAI, is the next generation of RPA related technologies. Technological advancements around artificial intelligence allow a process to be run on a computer without needing input from a user. == Hyperautomation == Hyperautomation is the application of advanced technologies like RPA, artificial intelligence, machine learning (ML) and process mining to augment workers and automate processes in ways that are significantly more impactful than traditional automation capabilities. Hyperautomation is the combination of technologies that allow faster application authorship (like low-code and no-code) with automation technologies that coordinate different worker types (i.e. human and artificial) for intelligent and strategic workflow optimization. Gartner's report notes that this trend was kicked off with robotic process automation (RPA). The report notes that, "RPA alone is not hyperautomation. Hyperautomation requires a combination of tools to help support replicating pieces of where the human is involved in a task." == Outsourcing == Back office clerical processes outsourced by large organisations

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  .ai

  .ai is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Anguilla, a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is administered by the government of Anguilla. It is a popular domain hack with companies and projects related to the artificial intelligence industry (AI). Google's ad targeting treats .ai as a generic top-level domain (gTLD) because "users and website owners frequently see [the domain] as being more generic than country-targeted." In 2021, Google Search analyst Gary Illyes announced that ".ai" had been added to Google’s list of generic country-code top-level domains, meaning that Google would no longer infer Anguilla-specific targeting from the ccTLD. Identity Digital began managing the domain as of January 2025. == Second and third level registrations == Registrations within off.ai, com.ai, net.ai, and org.ai are available worldwide without restriction. From 15 September 2009, second level registrations within .ai are available to everyone worldwide. == Registration == The minimum registration term allowed for .ai domains is 2 through 10 years for registration and renewal, and a 2-year renewal for domain transfer. Identity Digital is the authority in charge of managing this extension. Registrations began on 16 February 1995. The limits on the number of characters used for the domain name are, at a minimum, from 1 to 3, depending on the registrar, and always at most 63 characters. The character set supported for .ai domain names includes A–Z, a–z, 0–9, and hyphen. As of November 2022, .ai domains cannot accommodate IDN characters. There are no requirements for registering a domain, including local and foreign residents. A .ai domain can be suspended or revoked, if the domain is involved in illegal activity such as violating trademarks or copyrights. Usage must not violate the laws of Anguilla. Anguilla uses the UDRP. Filing a UDRP challenge requires using one of the ICANN Approved Dispute Resolution Service Providers. If the domain is with an ICANN accredited registrar, they should work with the arbitrator. Usually this means either doing nothing or transferring a domain. .ai domains are transferable to any desired registrars as the registration of domain is done maintaining EPP. There used to be a whois.ai-based platform of expired domains in which those could be procured and auctioned every ten days through a standard online process. The last auctions of such kind closed there in December 2024; the platform had been scheduled for shutdown on 30 June 2025, but remained online in the months following that date. == Valuation == Domains cost depends on the registrar, with yearly fees ranging from US$140 (the base fee, as established by Anguilla) to $200. As of July 2025, the highest-valued .ai domain is an undisclosed one sold on 8 November 2023, on Escrow.com, for US$1,500,000—months after an initial $300,000 sale to the same buyer. Among the publicly disclosed ones, the most valued, fin.ai, was sold for $1,000,000 in March 2025. On 16 December 2017, the .ai registry started supporting the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) and migrated all of its domains onto an EPP system. Consequently, many registrars are allowed to sell .ai domains. Since that date, the .ai ccTLD has also been popular with artificial intelligence companies and organisations. Though such trends are primarily seen among new AI based companies or startups, many established AI and Tech companies preferred not to opt for .ai domains. For example, DeepMind has its domain retained at .com; Meta has redirected its facebook.ai domain to ai.meta.com. == Impact on Anguilla's economy == The registration fees earned from the .ai domains go to the treasury of the Government of Anguilla. As per a 2018 New York Times report, the total revenue generated out of selling .ai domains was $2.9 million. In 2023, Anguilla's government made about US$32 million from fees collected for registering .ai domains; that amounted to over 10% of gross domestic product for the territory. "In the years before the real breakthrough of AI, revenue from .ai domains made up less than 1% of our state income, by 2025 it will be around 47%," explained Jose Vanterpool, Minister of Infrastructure and Communications (MICUHITES), in an interview with BBC. The high 90% renewal rate of .ai domains and the 2025 renewal wave of domains registered in 2023 are driving another surge in state revenues, according to Domaintechnik.

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