Data Science Insider: December 31st, 2021

In This Week’s SuperDataScience Newsletter: Chinese Scientists Create the World’s First AI Prosecutor. Indian Army sets up Quantum Laboratory. Amazon’s Alexa Tells 10-year-old to Touch a Penny to a Live Plug Socket. Habits to Cultivate to Become a Better Data Scientist. An Interview with an AI-generated Mark Zuckerberg. Cheers and Happy New Year, - The SuperDataScience Team P.S. Have friends and colleagues who could benefit from these weekly updates? Send them to [this link]( to subscribe to the Data Science Insider. --------------------------------------------------------------- [Chinese Scientists Create the World’s First AI Prosecutor]( brief: Chinese scientists say they have created the world's first “AI prosecutor” that can decide whether to charge people with crimes. The researchers claim the technology can decide on charges with more than 97% accuracy based on a verbal description of the case. The machine was built and tested by the Shanghai Pudong People’s Procuratorate, China's busiest district prosecution office. So far, it can identify and press charges for Shanghai’s eight most common crimes, including credit card fraud, theft, dangerous driving, and picking quarrels – an offence often used against dissidents. The technology was trained using more than 17,000 cases from 2015 to 2020. It can run on a desktop computer and decides whether to press a charge by analysing hundreds of “traits” obtained from a human-generated case description. Once charges are brought, they are almost guaranteed to end in conviction, as China’s acquittal rate is less than 1%. Why this is important: China has already been trying to incorporate technologies such as AI and big data to transform the way its legal system works. In 2017, authorities launched the country’s first cyber court, which allows parties in “digital”-related cases such as e-commerce to appear via video chat in front of virtual AI judges. And in 2016, Chinese prosecutors started using an AI tool to evaluate evidence and assess the level of danger a suspect poses to the public. [Click here to sign up!]( [Indian Army sets up Quantum Laboratory]( brief: The Indian Army has established the Quantum Laboratory at Military College of Telecommunication Engineering (MCTE) in Mhow, in the state of Madhya Pradesh. The new laboratory has been launched to advance research and training in emerging technology domains. At MCTE, an AI centre has also been set up with more than 140 deployments in forward areas. According to a press statement issued by the Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD), cyber warfare training is being provided through advanced cyber range and cyber security labs. In October last year, the ideation of the Indian Army’s involvement in Electromagnetic (EM) Spectrum Operations had emerged at a seminar organised on EM Spectrum and National Security. Since then, the Indian Army’s technology institutions have been encouraged to invest in AI, quantum, and cyber domains. It is hoped that the Indian Army’s research in the field of quantum technology will enable next-generation communication. Why this is important: This research work is expected to transform the existing system of cryptography in the Indian armed forces to post-quantum cryptography. This news cements India as a country to watch for emerging technology. [Click here to read on!]( [Alexa Tells Child to Touch a Penny to a Live Plug Socket]( In brief: Amazon's Alexa has been developed over the years to offer ever-improving access to information and knowledge. However, the voice-enabled assistant recently gave some dangerous advice to one user that went viral on social media. According to a tweet posted by Kristin Livdahl, Alexa told her 10-year-old child to touch a penny to an exposed plug socket. "My 10-year-old just asked Alexa on our Echo for a challenge and this is what she said," Livdahl tweeted, she then shared an image of Alexa's response after her child asked the device for a challenge. "Here's something I found on the web. According to ourcommunitynow dot com: The challenge is simple: plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs," Alexa's response read. Amazon said they have since resolved the fault. The trend, known as the penny challenge, emerged on social media platforms in 2020. Why this is important: Alexa’s popularity is an example of how AI and NLP have become staples in households across the world. This story should be a cautionary tale for how this technology cannot be relied upon without supervision for children and needs a firm dose of common sense applied. [Click here to discover more!]( [Habits to Cultivate to Become a Better Data Scientist]( In brief: Data science is not necessarily one single discipline, skillset, or methodology. This is why data science is always said to be an ‘interdisciplinary branch’ of science that combines mathematics, human behavioral analysis and workflow studies, flexible use of logic systems, and a core employment of algorithms. This makes being a data scientist pretty hard work, as if algorithmic logic wasn’t already pretty tough. More than just data analytics, more than just big data insight, more than just the ability to handle new streams of raw unstructured data, and more than just knowing how to drive a database while blindfolded, data scientists have to understand business and be flexible super-performers. Because of this huge scope, it can often be difficult to pinpoint ways in which you can improve your skills, however, this article from Towards Data Science offers 22 habits you can adopt to become a better data scientist. Why this is important: A new year offers us all a great opportunity to reflect on our lives and skills and make resolutions for the year ahead. These habits offer some great ideas for ways to adopt new patterns into your working life and become a better data scientist in 2022. [Click here to see the full picture!]( [An Interview with an AI-generated Mark Zuckerberg]( In brief: Mark Zuckerberg is not exactly known for his effluent sermons or answering critical questions so in order to elicit some responses a British newspaper has created an AI keyboard based on the Meta chief's past two years of interactions and peppered it with some burning queries, which has returned some interesting answers. Zuckerberg has often been ridiculed for his eerily calm demeanor and not particularly emotive facial expressions. To overcome that barrier, The Guardian resorted to creating a predictive keyboard based on Zuckerberg's speeches, interviews, blog posts, and testimonies from the past three years. The Zuckerbot was originally created in 2019 and has become something of an annual tradition, however, 2021 has been a tad different, as rather than simply answering serious questions rather dryly, Zuckerberg has tried to engage in some humor and 'human activities' such as electric surfing, fencing, hydrofoiling, and boar hunting. Why this is important: From labeling values as his favorite multiplayer experience to remotely deleting content on rival platforms like TikTok and Snapchat, the whole interaction is quite fascinating. But the real gem came at the end when Zuckerbot was asked if Facebook is making the world a better place and responded: "The world is going to end, and if we don't make money from that, then we should just sit down in the water and make Reels right into the last couple of days." [Click here to find out more!]( [Super Data Science podcast]( this week's [Super Data Science Podcast](, prolific data science entrepreneur and Y Combinator alum Austin Ogilvie (Laika, Yhat) joins Jon Krohn in-person to dissect the ins and outs of starting, growing, and selling a data science startup. --------------------------------------------------------------- What is the Data Science Insider? This email is a briefing of the week's most disruptive, interesting, and useful resources curated by the SuperDataScience team for Data Scientists who want to take their careers to the next level. Want to take your data science skills to the next level? 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