Capitalogix

The Bizarre and Surreal Works of Deep Learning AI

One thing that Deep Learning excels in is analyzing pictures & videos, and creating facsimiles or combining styles. If you want to create art with deep learning look no further than the Deep Dream Generator or deepart.io which use Convolutional Neural Networks to combine your photo with an art style (if you want to do it on your phone another cool tool to check out is Prisma). 

via SubSubRoutine

Deepfake is it's exactly what it sounds like ... the use "Deep Learning" to "Fake" a recording.  For example, a machine learning technique called a Generative Adversarial Network can be used to superimpose images onto a source video.  That is how they made this fun (and disturbing) Deepfake of Jennifer Lawrence and Steve Buscemi.

 

via YouTube

While this is a fun example, Deepfakes create very real concerns. They're often used for more "nefarious" purposes (e.g., to create fake celebrity or revenge porn and to otherwise make important figures say things they never said).  It's likely you've seen videos of Trump or Obama created with this technology.   But it is easy to imagine someone faking evidence used at trial, trying to influence business transactions, or using this to support or slander causes in the media.

As fakes get better and easier to produce, they will likely be used more often.  So, as a reminder, don't trust everything you see on the internet. 

But also ... Technology is pretty freaking cool. Right?

 

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekly Reading - December 30th, 2018

Christmas Eve saw Dow's historic low ... but it was immediately followed with a 1086 point rally (its largest single-day gain). The S&P and Dow both rallied approximately 5%.

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.

Lighter Links

• A Nobel Prize-winning Psychologist Says Most People Don't Really Want to Be Happy. (Quartz)
• There is No Such Thing as Conscious Thought. (Scientific American)
• Automated Cyber Attacks are the next Big Threat. Ever Hear of 'Review Bombing'? (Entrepreneur)
• NASA's Scientists Formed a Club to Dream up Uses for AI like Self-replicating Robots and Harpooning Comets. (Quartz)
• A Chinese Company Said It Created a Photo with Such a High Resolution that You Can Zoom from Thousands of Meters Away to See People's Facial Expressions. (BusinessInsider)

 

 

Trading Links

• Alan Greenspan: Investors Should Prepare for the Worst. (CNN)
• 5 Charts that Explain the Global Economy in 2018. (WEForum)
• The 7 Most Anticipated IPOs in 2019. (Fool)
• Wall Street Quietly Shelves Its Bitcoin Dreams. (Bloomberg)
• After a $2 Billion Company Bonus, Every Employee at Juul is Now a Millionaire. (RobbReport)

Some Things Never Change ...

This week I went to Chicago to speak at my old alma mater - Kellogg.

It was great to talk with professors and spend time with MBA students interested in trading and how the business of trading is changing. 

I plan on spending more time there to benefit research and recruiting.

 

 

Unsurprisingly, deep dish pizza is still delicious.  We were going to eat at a steakhouse.  However, Jennifer and I remembered that the only thing better than gorging on meat ... is gorging on meat and cheese. 

While some things haven't changed, others have.

The Universe must be trying to tell me something.  The day I got back, I found my old ID card ... and, apparently, some things have changed in the past thirty years. 

 

 

Onwards.

How Many People Lie To You On Social Media?

Social Media often becomes a "best-of" reel of our lives ... carefully curated to show off our best selves. 

Imagine what that leads to for us and our children ... ??

It is tough to live up to your social media standards (let alone to keep up with others').

This  Instagram model (apparently, that's a thing now) with over half a million followers took to changing her captions to display the falsehoods. 

 

via The Guardian

 

How tempting is it to photoshop (or embellish) a little?  In a recent survey of 2000 British people, more than 75% admitted to lying about themselves on social profiles.

Here is a chart ranking the most common topics people are most dishonest about.

 

via 10Awesome

 

Fake photos, fake ownership, and relationship lies top the list.  

There was something magical about taking a trip back before everything was a camera.

Clown Hysteria: 2016 in a Nutshell

This summer, South Carolinians started seeing menacing clowns in the woods.

As a response to clown hysteria,Target pulled clown masks from shelves , McDonalds scaled down use of Ronald McDonald, and people everywhere have been in a fervor.

Not everyone has been affected negatively though ... Surprisingly (to me), Pornhub has seen a massive increase in clown related searches. 

 

via TNW

There you have it ... hard data.

2016 continues to surprise ... Celebrities dying, phones exploding, the election, and this.

It will be interesting to see how 2016 ends, and what the future brings.

The world changes, but human nature remains relatively constant.

 

 

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

While conspiracy theorists argue whether the NBA rigged the finals to get to get to game 7, I find this more disturbing ... it's a photo combining Hillary and Trump into a Clump.

 

 

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• 12 Neglected Questions Successful Leaders Keep Asking. (LeadershipFreak)
• The 5 Books Bill Gates Wants You to Read this Summer. (Inc)
• Netflix Launches Fast.com, a Dead Simple Way to Test Your Internet Speed. (Mashable)
• Your Life in Weeks. (WaitButWhy)
• The 8 Most Elite Special Forces in the World. (BusinessInsider)

 

Trading Links:

• Buffett Becomes Apple’s 56th Largest Shareholder with $1 Billion Investment. (BuzzFeed)
• Apple's Latest Billion-dollar Business: Venture Capital? (Mashable)
• 22 U.S. Companies that Just Keep Getting More Profitable. (MarketWatch)
• What Current Trends Tell Us about the Future of the Hedge Fund Industry. (QuantNews)
• JPMorgan Has New Theory about What Really Caused the Flash Rally. (Bloomberg)

Time-Lapse Maps That Show How Fast and Much the World Has Changed

Human have a huge impact on the landscape. 

For example, take a look at Dubai in Google's Earth Engine.  It is easy to see the incredible coastal expansion.

 

 

 

We are literally terra-forming the planet.

The Earth Engine brings together trillions of scientific measurements dating back over 40 years (based on Landsat satellite imagery).

You can explore some of these time-lapse maps here.

Here Are Some Links For Your Weekend Reading

Sometimes the News cycle is worse than the news itself.

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• Google's 'Perfect Human' Project Isn't Evil, It's Business. (TheVerge)
• Human Workers Report Feeling Most Productive When Led By Artificial Intelligence. (PBS)
• How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google. (First Look)
• Welcome to the New U.S. Digital Service: Geeks wanted, no stodgy suits required. (GeekWire)
• Software Shows What Children Will Look Like In 70 Years, With Unprecedented Accuracy. (Popular Science)

 

Trading Links:

• Wall Street's Revenge of the Nerds Means Fooling All The People All the Time. (Guardian)
• Crazy Prediction. Why You Should Expect More Quantitative Easing. (Joe Fahmy)
• Whopping 35% Have Debt in Collection in America: Where Is It? (GlobalEcon)
• Microsoft Has Lost About $1.7 Billion On Surface - So Far ... (CiteWorld)
• Goldman Sachs - On Crash Risk: The Simple Reason We're Probably Not About to Have Another Huge Crash. (Business Insider)

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

Who put Washington in charge of the ball drop this New Year?

 

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• The Year in Photos. Photos of the Year 2012. (WSJ Graphics)
• The Best Books of 2012. Interesting list with some unusual choices. (BrainPickings)
• The Best City Time-Lapse Videos of 2012. (TheAtlantic)
• Life's Work 2012. Highlights from Interviews of 10 Intriguing People. (HarvardBizReview)
• How to Keep Your Resolutions. 25 apps for a happier, healthier, better 2013. (VentureBeat)

 

Trading Links:

• Why 2013 Will See Faster, Stronger Global Growth. (CNBC)
• How to Play the 4 Likely Potential Economic Scenarios Over the Next 3 Years. (Forbes)
• The Fiscal-Cliff Fix: Winners and losers. (The Week)
• Defying Mao, Rich Chinese Crash the Communist Party. (Wall Street Journal)
• Amateur Investors Are 3.2 Percent Worse Than Chimpanzees at Picking Stocks. Fear, greed, and mistakes are a bitch to deal with (BusinessInsider)

JibJab Lets You Star In Your Own Gangnam Style Video

Gangnam Style has about a billion views, recently surpassing Justin Bieber to become the number one most-viewed YouTube video of all time. 

So, of course, JibJab got in the game. They’ve launched a Gangnam Style video that you can personalize with your face (or a friend’s face). Here's what it looks like.

 

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

 

Hope you are having a happy and fun holiday season.