What we’ve been reading this week 15th November 2019

After an incredibly busy few months delivering Big Data Belfast 2019, normal operations have since resumed here at Analytics Engines.

At this year’s conference, we were delighted to welcome over 600 delegates from over 165 companies for what was the biggest Big Data Belfast to date. 

Attention has already turned to 2020 and the exciting big data events that we will be delivering not just in October, but throughout the year, so be sure to watch this space.

One of the key themes addressed at this year’s Big Data Belfast conference was Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Over the years, the topic has remained a firm crowd favourite, appealing to those eager to hear about the latest innovations, and to those interested in seeing how AI & ML might impact their own business.

As such, much of what we’ve been reading this week has revolved around AI, ML and deep learning neural networks. Recent developments within the space have enabled more organisations to incorporate these types of technologies into their core business strategy.

One such development is transfer learning. This article by Brian Curry is fantastic primer to the world of Transfer Learning and the opportunities it presents.

At this year’s conference Nuclear scientist turned machine learning engineer, Clair Sullivan, outlined how her team at GitHub is composed of individuals from a variety of backgrounds. Echoing Clair’s sentiments, this recent article from Towards Data Scientist by Jun Wu outlines how lawyers can help address biases in AI and ML models.

Jun Wu’s piece takes inspiration from a separate article posted in New Scientist last year, that outlines instances of bias and prejudice that have occurred in AI and ML systems.

Ending this week’s reading list on a lighter note. Earlier this year, Google’s DeepMind AI agents conquered human pros at StarCraft II for the first time. Beyond that, the AlphaStar story is incredibly interesting and well worth checking out.