NewsBrief February 25, 2022

Can machine-learning models overcome biased datasets?

(ScienceDaily) Artificial intelligence systems may be able to complete tasks quickly, but that doesn’t mean they always do so fairly. If the datasets used to train machine-learning models contain biased data, it is likely the system could exhibit that same bias when it makes decisions in practice. For instance, if a dataset contains mostly images of white men, then a facial-recognition model trained with this data may be less accurate for women or people with different skin tones. Read More

DOD’s AI portfolio skews toward research, GAO reports

(FCW) The Defense Department’s laser focus on artificial intelligence research and development in recent years has spurred at least 685 projects, ranging from unmanned systems to perfecting target recognition. But the data is incomplete, according to a recent watchdog report. The Army boasts approximately 232 AI projects with 23 that have turned into procurement programs and the rest in research and development, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report. Read More

Defense Department Releases Report on Strengthening Defense-Critical Supply Chains

(U.S. Department of Defense) Today, the Department of Defense (DoD) released a strategic roadmap to address supply chain vulnerabilities in the defense industrial base (DIB). Executive Order (E.O.) 14017, America’s Supply Chains, directed Cabinet agencies to assess supply chains in sectors critical for America’s economic and national security. In the report, Securing Defense-Critical Supply Chains, DoD presents recommendations for high-priority areas in the DIB, with input from other agencies, the National Security Council (NSC) and National Economic Council (NEC). Read More

Army seeing some progress in its digital transformation

(Federal News Network) Last fall, the Army announced a completely new way that it would look at data in hopes of reforming its IT and creating a more streamlined service. Now, four months later, the Army says some areas are moving faster than others, but there is some progress being made. The Digital Transformation Strategy put an emphasis on three major areas: modernization and readiness, reforming digital investments and creating a tech savvy, operationally- effective workforce. Read More

Machine Learning Can Help Predict Severe COVID-19

(Health IT Analytics) Machine learning techniques can be used to predict the severity of COVID-19, thereby enabling providers to optimize care, a study from Infectious Diseases of Poverty shows. The study included 287 patients from the JinYanTan hospital in Wuhan, China, with a median age of 60 years, of which 56.4 percent were male and 43.6 percent female. All data collection occurred during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, between Jan. 26 and March 28, 2020. Read More

Machine learning’s carbon footprint will shrink, claims Google

(Data Center Dynamics) Machine learning (ML) is growing rapidly, but as techniques improve, its carbon footprint will level off and even shrink, according to new research from Google. Energy use can be reduced by choosing efficient ML models, and running them preferably in the cloud, on optimized processors, according to a paper due to be published in IEEE Compute, from Google researchers. Together, these measures can cut ML’s energy use 100-fold, and its carbon footprint 1,000-fold, the report claims. Read More

Three galaxies are tearing each other apart in stunning new Hubble telescope image

(Space.com) Corkscrewing through the cosmos, three distant galaxies collide in a stunning new image captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. This cosmic crash is known as a triple galaxy merger, when three galaxies slowly draw each other nearer and tear each other apart with their competing gravitational forces. Mergers like these are common throughout the universe, and all large galaxies — including our own, the Milky Way — owe their size to violent mergers like this one. Read More