deepsense.aideepsense.ai logo
  • Careers
    • Job offers
    • Summer internship
  • Clients’ stories
  • Services
    • AI software
    • Team augmentation
    • AI advisory
    • Train your team
    • Generative models
  • Industries
    • Retail
    • Manufacturing
    • Financial & Insurance
    • IT operations
    • TMT & Other
    • Medical & Beauty
  • Knowledge base
    • deeptalks
    • Blog
    • R&D hub
  • About us
    • Our story
    • Management
    • Advisory board
    • Press center
  • Contact
  • Menu Menu
AI Monthly Digest #19 - when the Latin alphabet is not enough

AI Monthly Digest #19 – when the Latin alphabet is not enough

April 3, 2020/in AI Monthly Digest /by Konrad Budek

March brought interesting publications about the limited ability of machines to read Bengali script, the challenges of generalization for machines and new materials discovered by neural networks.

These issues are connected by one crucial aspect – they are challenges for today’s AI, and come with massive consequences, from limiting the survivability of language to saving human lives and pushing progress forward.

Pushing to make Bengali script comprehensible for machines

AI-based tools not only reduce the number of mundane and boring tasks that fall to humans in daily business operations but also help to categorize documents and digitize what hasn’t yet been automated. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) recognizes printed text well when it’s done in the Latin alphabet, but it apparently fares far worse in reading the Bengali alphabet, which has 50 letters, 11 vowels and 39 consonants and is the sixth most used writing system in the world.

To tackle this challenge, a group of researchers from United International University in Bangladesh cataloged the challenges OCR faces in reading Bengali.

Why it matters

OCR technology makes digitizing printed materials–books, newspaper and old manuscripts alike–easier. It is a self-feeding mechanism, where the amount of digital texts serves as the basis for training natural language processing models. With those, AI can provide more support in performing duties in a language, so digitizing more texts widens the world of possibilities a language offers.

Also, when a language is harder for AI solutions to understand, it is less likely to be applied in new solutions, thus making solutions designed to work for that language ineffective, be that a recommender engine or other tool.

In the long term, this could result in a lower number of speakers of the language, and thus throw the language into decline, and with it that little bit of the world’s cultural heritage the language represents. So in fact, working to make the language comprehensible for machines can be seen as a struggle to keep it alive in the future.

Machine learning tackles antibiotic resistance

Antibiotics are among the most significant achievements in medicine, saving the lives of thousands of people around the world and effectively ending the era of widespread death due to common infections. Apparently that era is on its way back.

According to a WHO report on antimicrobial resistance, drug-resistant diseases already cause at least 700,000 deaths globally a year, including 230,000 deaths from multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. In the most pessimistic scenario, in the absence of action, that figure could increase to 10 million deaths globally per year by 2050.

This information is even more alarming in the light of the COVID-19 outbreak, a bacterial infraction after viral infections (especially respiratory system-effecting ones) are increasing the death toll and make the overall disease more severe.

Multiple new chemicals would be viable in antibiotic treatments, but they are the proverbial needle in a haystack. Harnessing the power of deep neural networks can make searching for them easier and faster by tossing out the limits of human perception.

An example of this approach can be found in this recent article in Cell magazine.

Why it matters

AI is a revolutionary technology that supports a massive variety of activities — in business by delivering better demand forecasting, in security with AIOps platforms and automated network traffic analytics and in manufacturing with quality control.

Using neural networks to improve healthcare is an effective way to make lives easier, increase longevity and enhance the quality of human life globally.

Using AI to deliver new materials for batteries

Harnessing neural networks in the search for new materials goes well beyond drug research. In fact, the need for new, more resilient, flexible and effective materials extends to nearly all industries. The revolution in IoT, wearables and smart appliances and electric cars is powering (pun unintended) the need for new materials for batteries.

To see how neural networks are being used to search for new materials for batteries, see this article in MIT News.

Why it matters

Human civilization is highly dependent on electricity and the ability to store it efficiently is crucial for our further development. Researching new batteries and materials to build them will (again – pun intended) power our further progress.

Can AI generalize? Apparently not

The ability to use a skill to do something new or in a new environment is a mark of intelligence, both natural or artificial. The concept of generalization is simple, yet there was no repeatable and reliable way to test if a system can do it.

This led a consortium of researchers from the University of Amsterdam, MIT, ICREA, Facebook, and NYU to produce gSCAN, a benchmark for generalization abilities. The tests they produced are simple, at least from a human point of view: drive in a direction never before taken (for example turning right when taught to always turn left).

Details about the benchmark can be found in this Arxiv paper.

Why it matters

The ability to generalize is the next step in the development of AI. The benchmark tests function similarly to the Atari games used in reinforcement learning – a technique limited enough to be applied swiftly, but applicable upon extrapolation in more sophisticated projects.

Also, the ability to generalize marks a limit of AI, which needs to be pushed forward to deliver new results. This benchmark is a way to do that, or at least test if it’s possible.

Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on WhatsApp
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share on Reddit
  • Share by Mail
https://deepsense.ai/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/AI-Monthly-Digest-19-when-the-Latin-alphabet-is-not-enough.jpg 337 1140 Konrad Budek https://deepsense.ai/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/DS_logo_color.svg Konrad Budek2020-04-03 11:20:542022-06-01 10:36:23AI Monthly Digest #19 – when the Latin alphabet is not enough

Start your search here

Build your AI solution
with us!

Contact us!

NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIPTION

    You can modify your privacy settings and unsubscribe from our lists at any time (see our privacy policy).

    This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply.

    CATEGORIES

    • Generative models
    • Elasticsearch
    • Computer vision
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • AIOps
    • Big data & Spark
    • Data science
    • Deep learning
    • Machine learning
    • Neptune
    • Reinforcement learning
    • Seahorse
    • Job offer
    • Popular posts
    • AI Monthly Digest
    • Press release

    POPULAR POSTS

    • ChatGPT – what is the buzz all about?ChatGPT – what is the buzz all about?March 10, 2023
    • How to leverage ChatGPT to boost marketing strategyHow to leverage ChatGPT to boost marketing strategy?February 26, 2023
    • How can we improve language models using reinforcement learning? ChatGPT case studyHow can we improve language models using reinforcement learning? ChatGPT case studyFebruary 20, 2023

    Would you like
    to learn more?

    Contact us!
    • deepsense.ai logo white
    • Services
    • Customized AI software
    • Team augmentation
    • AI advisory
    • Generative models
    • Knowledge base
    • deeptalks
    • Blog
    • R&D hub
    • deepsense.ai
    • Careers
    • Summer internship
    • Our story
    • Management
    • Advisory board
    • Press center
    • Support
    • Terms of service
    • Privacy policy
    • Code of ethics
    • Contact us
    • Join our community
    • facebook logo linkedin logo twitter logo
    • © deepsense.ai 2014-
    Scroll to top

    This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

    OKLearn more

    Cookie and Privacy Settings



    How we use cookies

    We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

    Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

    Essential Website Cookies

    These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

    Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refuseing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

    We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

    We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

    Other external services

    We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

    Google Webfont Settings:

    Google Map Settings:

    Google reCaptcha Settings:

    Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

    Privacy Policy

    You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

    Accept settingsHide notification only