Data Science Insider: February 17th, 2023

In This Week’s SuperDataScience Newsletter: Data Science Skills Sharply Decline in US Schools. Pandas: A Comprehensive Guide. AI Bing Bot Is 'Unhinged.’ Meta Aims for Greater Transparency. David Guetta Claims: “The Future of Music is in AI.” Cheers, - 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. --------------------------------------------------------------- [Data Science Skills Sharply Decline in US Schools]( brief: The Data Science 4 Everyone coalition (formed by the University of Chicago Center for RISC in partnership with The Learning Agency and the Concord Consortium and designed to advance data science education for K-12 students) has issued a new report which has found that despite data science skills becoming increasingly in demand, student performances in data literacy skills are outpacing declines in other content areas. The study of fourth and eighth graders across America found that over the past decade, there has been a significant drop in skills, representing a full grade level of learning. It also found that this included a large racial gap in learning with black students falling nearly three grade levels behind their white peers. Why this is important: Data analysis, statistics, and probability students have all fallen victim to this worrying trend, which doesn’t bode well for the future of our industry. [Click here to learn more!]( [Pandas: A Comprehensive Guide]( brief: Pandas is an open-source Python library that is extremely popular with data scientists for use in data analysis, manipulation, and cleaning. It is entirely dedicated to data science and provides data structures for storing datasets, as well as tools for working with them. Python is the most popular programming language for data analysis and ML and is recognised as a language that is easy to read, write, and understand, even for beginners. The two are a perfect match and this article by Analytics Insights offers a thorough guide to Pandas that will educate data scientists on the advantages of Pandas and the best way to use the library for your data projects. Why this is important: Pandas tools are incredibly comprehensive and require an in-depth understanding to ensure you get the most out of your Python library. [Click here to read on!]( [AI Bing Bot Is 'Unhinged’]( In brief: In last week’s SuperDataScience newsletter, we covered the story that Microsoft was to begin powering the Bing search engine with ChatGPT AI. The project appears to have reached a snag this week, as it emerged that the bot has been sending “unhinged” messages to users, and appears to be breaking down. The overhauled search engine has started berating and lying to its users, displaying emotions, and even wondering why it exists. The news led Google’s senior vice president, Prabhakar Raghavan, to tell the German newspaper Welt Am Sonntag that AI chatbots cannot always be relied upon to give accurate information, saying that “[sometimes] a machine provides a convincing but completely fictitious answer." Why this is important: Last week we also saw ChatGPT’s Google counterpart, Bard, making mistakes that cost the tech giant billions in share prices. This is a lesson in the fallibility of large language models. [Click here to discover more!]( [Meta Aims for Greater Transparency]( In brief: Meta’s Facebook has this week announced the launch of an updated version of its “Why am I seeing this ad?” tool. The change is designed to offer greater transparency and will now include information about how ML has been used to target advertisements at users. The tool will give Facebook users information about how ML models are used to monitor activity across the web-both on and off of Facebook. The original feature is a decade old and has been plagued by rumours that the algorithm targets adverts to consumers after listening to their conversations via their smartphone- a claim Facebook has always denied. The change comes after feedback from external privacy experts and policy stakeholders. Why this is important: Facebook’s use of consumer data has always been somewhat murky and controversial. This new approach represents a change towards increased openness. [Click here to see the full picture!]( [David Guetta Claims: “The Future of Music is in AI”]( In brief: Superstar producer and DJ, David Guetta, has told the BBC that the future of music lies in AI, stating: “I'm sure the future of music is in AI. For sure. There's no doubt. But as a tool." He made the comments whilst on the red carpet for the BRIT Awards, where he later won the award for Producer of The Year. His comments come shortly after he created some minor controversy within the music industry by sharing a video on Twitter of a live show where he played a song that featured a deepfake Eminem performing vocals. He has no intention of releasing the track, which he claims was created as a joke and to fuel debate. Why this is important: As we’ve seen before in these newsletters, not all musicians agree with Guetta, with some such as Nick cave being disparaging of the technology. However, it is clear that it’s an evolution that is here to stay. [Click here to find out more!]( [Super Data Science podcast]( this week's Super Data Science Podcast, Carlos Aguilar, founder and CEO of the data exploration and visualization platform Glean, joins Jon Krohn for an in-depth talk that covers topics like his software stack, founding team essentials and tips for keeping early adopters satisfied. [Click here to find out more!]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 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? Check out the [SuperDataScience platform]( and sign up for membership today! Know someone who would benefit from getting The Data Science Insider? Send them [this link to sign up.]( # # If you wish to stop receiving our emails or change your subscription options, please [Manage Your Subscription]( SuperDataScience Pty Ltd (ABN 91 617 928 131), 15 Macleay Crescent, Pacific Paradise, QLD 4564, Australia