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diarrheaworldstarhiphop · 6 years ago

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The Chinese government has drawn wide international condemnation for its harsh crackdown on ethnic Muslims in its western region, including holding as many as a million of them in detention camps.

Now, documents and interviews show that the authorities are also using a vast, secret system of advanced facial recognition technology to track and control the Uighurs, a largely Muslim minority. It is the first known example of a government intentionally using artificial intelligence for racial profiling, experts said.

The facial recognition technology, which is integrated into China’s rapidly expanding networks of surveillance cameras, looks exclusively for Uighurs based on their appearance and keeps records of their comings and goings for search and review. The practice makes China a pioneer in applying next-generation technology to watch its people, potentially ushering in a new era of automated racism.

The technology and its use to keep tabs on China’s 11 million Uighurs were described by five people with direct knowledge of the systems, who requested anonymity because they feared retribution. The New York Times also reviewed databases used by the police, government procurement documents and advertising materials distributed by the A.I. companies that make the systems.

Chinese authorities already maintain a vast surveillance net, including tracking people’s DNA, in the western region of Xinjiang, which many Uighurs call home. But the scope of the new systems, previously unreported, extends that monitoring into many other corners of the country.

The police are now using facial recognition technology to target Uighurs in wealthy eastern cities like Hangzhou and Wenzhou and across the coastal province of Fujian, said two of the people. Law enforcement in the central Chinese city of Sanmenxia, along the Yellow River, ran a system that over the course of a month this year screened whether residents were Uighurs 500,000 times.

Police documents show demand for such capabilities is spreading. Almost two dozen police departments in 16 different provinces and regions across China sought such technology beginning in 2018, according to procurement documents. Law enforcement from the central province of Shaanxi, for example, aimed to acquire a smart camera system last year that “should support facial recognition to identify Uighur/non-Uighur attributes.”

Some police departments and technology companies described the practice as “minority identification,” though three of the people said that phrase was a euphemism for a tool that sought to identify Uighurs exclusively. Uighurs often look distinct from China’s majority Han population, more closely resembling people from Central Asia. Such differences make it easier for software to single them out.

For decades, democracies have had a near monopoly on cutting-edge technology. Today, a new generation of start-ups catering to Beijing’s authoritarian needs are beginning to set the tone for emerging technologies like artificial intelligence. Similar tools could automate biases based on skin color and ethnicity elsewhere.

“Take the most risky application of this technology, and chances are good someone is going to try it,” said Clare Garvie, an associate at the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law. “If you make a technology that can classify people by an ethnicity, someone will use it to repress that ethnicity.”

From a technology standpoint, using algorithms to label people based on race or ethnicity has become relatively easy. Companies like I.B.M. advertise software that can sort people into broad groups.

But China has broken new ground by identifying one ethnic group for law enforcement purposes. One Chinese start-up, CloudWalk, outlined a sample experience in marketing its own surveillance systems. The technology, it said, could recognize “sensitive groups of people.”

“If originally one Uighur lives in a neighborhood, and within 20 days six Uighurs appear,” it said on its website, “it immediately sends alarms” to law enforcement.

In practice, the systems are imperfect, two of the people said. Often, their accuracy depends on environmental factors like lighting and the positioning of cameras.

In the United States and Europe, the debate in the artificial intelligence community has focused on the unconscious biases of those designing the technology. Recent tests showed facial recognition systems made by companies like I.B.M. and Amazon were less accurate at identifying the features of darker-skinned people.

China’s efforts raise starker issues. While facial recognition technology uses aspects like skin tone and face shapes to sort images in photos or videos, it must be told by humans to categorize people based on social definitions of race or ethnicity. Chinese police, with the help of the start-ups, have done that.

“It’s something that seems shocking coming from the U.S., where there is most likely racism built into our algorithmic decision making, but not in an overt way like this,” said Jennifer Lynch, surveillance litigation director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “There’s not a system designed to identify someone as African-American, for example.”

The Chinese A.I. companies behind the software include Yitu, Megvii, SenseTime, and CloudWalk, which are each valued at more than $1 billion. Another company, Hikvision, that sells cameras and software to process the images, offered a minority recognition function, but began phasing it out in 2018, according to one of the people.

The companies’ valuations soared in 2018 as China’s Ministry of Public Security, its top police agency, set aside billions of dollars under two government plans, called Skynet and Sharp Eyes, to computerize surveillance, policing and intelligence collection.

In a statement, a SenseTime spokeswoman said she checked with “relevant teams,” who were not aware its technology was being used to profile. Megvii said in a statement it was focused on “commercial not political solutions,” adding, “we are concerned about the well-being and safety of individual citizens, not about monitoring groups.” CloudWalk and Yitu did not respond to requests for comment.

China’s Ministry of Public Security did not respond to a faxed request for comment.

Selling products with names like Fire Eye, Sky Eye and Dragonfly Eye, the start-ups promise to use A.I. to analyze footage from China’s surveillance cameras. The technology is not mature — in 2017 Yitu promoted a one-in-three success rate when the police responded to its alarms at a train station — and many of China’s cameras are not powerful enough for facial recognition software to work effectively.

Yet they help advance China’s architecture for social control. To make the algorithms work, the police have put together face-image databases for people with criminal records, mental illnesses, records of drug use, and those who petitioned the government over grievances, according to two of the people and procurement documents. A national database of criminals at large includes about 300,000 faces, while a list of people with a history of drug use in the city of Wenzhou totals 8,000 faces, they said.

Using a process called machine learning, engineers feed data to artificial intelligence systems to train them to recognize patterns or traits. In the case of the profiling, they would provide thousands of labeled images of both Uighurs and non-Uighurs. That would help generate a function to distinguish the ethnic group.

The A.I. companies have taken money from major investors. Fidelity International and Qualcomm Ventures were a part of a consortium that invested $620 million in SenseTime. Sequoia invested in Yitu. Megvii is backed by Sinovation Ventures, the fund of the well-known Chinese tech investor Kai-Fu Lee.

A Sinovation spokeswoman said the fund had recently sold a part of its stake in Megvii and relinquished its seat on the board. Fidelity declined to comment. Sequoia and Qualcomm did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

Mr. Lee, a booster of Chinese A.I., has argued that China has an advantage in developing A.I. because its leaders are less fussed by “legal intricacies” or “moral consensus.”

“We are not passive spectators in the story of A.I. — we are the authors of it,” Mr. Lee wrote last year. “That means the values underpinning our visions of an A.I. future could well become self-fulfilling prophecies.” He declined to comment on his fund’s investment in Megvii or its practices.

Ethnic profiling within China’s tech industry isn’t a secret, the people said. It has become so common that one of the people likened it to the short-range wireless technology Bluetooth. Employees at Megvii were warned about the sensitivity of discussing ethnic targeting publicly, another person said.

China has devoted major resources toward tracking Uighurs, citing ethnic violence in Xinjiang and Uighur terrorist attacks elsewhere. Beijing has thrown hundreds of thousands of Uighurs and others in Xinjiang into re-education camps.

The software extends the state’s ability to label Uighurs to the rest of the country. One national database stores the faces of all Uighurs who leave Xinjiang, according to two of the people.

Government procurement documents from the past two years also show demand has spread. In the city of Yongzhou in southern Hunan Province, law enforcement officials sought software to “characterize and search whether or not someone is a Uighur,” according to one document.

In two counties in Guizhou Province, the police listed a need for Uighur classification. One asked for the ability to recognize Uighurs based on identification photos at better than 97 percent accuracy. In the central megacity of Chongqing and the region of Tibet, the police put out tenders for similar software. And a procurement document for Hebei Province described how the police should be notified when multiple Uighurs booked the same flight on the same day.

A study in 2018 by the authorities described a use for other types of databases. Co-written by a Shanghai police official, the paper said facial recognition systems installed near schools could screen for people included in databases of the mentally ill or crime suspects.

One database generated by Yitu software and reviewed by The Times showed how the police in the city of Sanmenxia used software running on cameras to attempt to identify residents more than 500,000 times over about a month beginning in mid-February.

Included in the code alongside tags like “rec_gender” and “rec_sunglasses” was “rec_uygur,” which returned a 1 if the software believed it had found a Uighur. Within the half million identifications the cameras attempted to record, the software guessed it saw Uighurs 2,834 times. Images stored alongside the entry would allow the police to double check.

Yitu and its rivals have ambitions to expand overseas. Such a push could easily put ethnic profiling software in the hands of other governments, said Jonathan Frankle, an A.I. researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“I don’t think it’s overblown to treat this as an existential threat to democracy,” Mr. Frankle said. “Once a country adopts a model in this heavy authoritarian mode, it’s using data to enforce thought and rules in a much more deep-seated fashion than might have been achievable 70 years ago in the Soviet Union. To that extent, this is an urgent crisis we are slowly sleepwalking our way into.”

#fuck paywalls #sinofuturism #china

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tittachi · 3 years ago

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Space warfare video

#SPACE WARFARE VIDEO SOFTWARE#

Integrated and scalable by design, the multi-mission HELIOS system will provide tactically relevant laser weapon sys. Navy a 60+ kW-class high energy laser with integrated optical-dazzler and surveillance (HELIOS), the first tactical laser weapon system to be integrated into existing ships and provide directed energy capability to the fleet. Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) delivered to the U.S. Lockheed Martin delivers integrated multi-mission laser weapon system to US Navy San Diego CA (SPX) Aug 19, 2022 + US Navy military sealift command awards Inmarsat 10-year wideband follow-on contract + Compact QKD system paves the way to cost-effective satellite-based quantum networks + Satellite operators Eutelsat, OneWeb agree to merge + SKYNET 6A satellite passes Critical Design Review + New satellite series adds capabilities to China's data relay capacity + Airbus to provide 42 satellite platforms and services to Northrop Grumman for the US Space Development Agency program + Northrop Grumman runs Laser Communication Demonstration for Tranche 1 constellation The funding round is a part of strategic initiatives for both Mitsui and ATLAS.

#SPACE WARFARE VIDEO SOFTWARE#

The investment round reaffirms confidence in ATLAS' Ground Software as a Service (G-SaaS) approach as a critical solution within the space economy. ATLAS Space Operations secures $26M in Series B funding led by Mitsui Traverse City MI (SPX) Aug 28, 2022ĪTLAS Space Operations, a global leader in cloud-based space communications solutions, has announced $26 million in Series B Funding led by Mitsui and Co., Ltd.

#Space warfare video

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rawdatabyp3 · 3 years ago

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Cloud Services Used to Be Really Dumb w/ Eric Vigesaa

In today’s episode, we welcome Eric Vigesaa of Microsoft to the show. This special guest has a decades-long relationship with our host. According to Rob, Eric can always be counted on as a partner in cynical observations. Rob describes Eric as one of the rare breeds that enjoy the excitement of building an emergency solution. Someone who prefers a shorter distance between the software and the problem. The closer he is to impact, the more satisfying the solution becomes to him. Sardonically, Eric is also like the groundhog of Microsoft, emerging from IT, looking around, seeing the shadow, and returning back to IT: empowered, passionate, and skilled. Eric describes his non-IT time as an evolutionary course that allowed him to explore and grow his aptitude.

Also in today’s episode, Rob and Eric describe the beginning phase of Microsoft’s shift to computing in the cloud and the project carnage in its wake. Promising projects suddenly found themselves on the road to nowhere and are now, nowhere to be found . . . with one popular exception: streamlined conditional formatting. That simplistic innovation not only made it out of the darkness to see the light of day but also became Rob’s gateway drug to audience participation. Other innovations weren’t so lucky. Eric and Rob describe what happened to a multitude of promising projects that were sliced, diced, julienned, and unable to survive cloud modernization at Microsoft. The history might pull you in, but it’s the dry wit that will keep you through the end.

As a bonus, today you also get at least one bad Star Wars joke . . . and don’t forget, if you enjoyed this episode or the joke, please leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform and be sure to subscribe to get new episodes delivered to your inbox.

Also in this Episode:

The Software Hall of Fame, w/ Microsoft's Conor Cunningham

Queen’s Gambit

Mike Tomlin Interview - Your teaching is failing

Kill Bill Relief or Regret

Power Pivot and Power BI: The Excel User's Guide to DAX, Power Query, Power BI & Power Pivot in Excel 2010-2016 - by Rob Collie

The Cloud is Powered by People w/Jeff DeVerter

The Evolution of SharePoint w/ Denise Trabona and Adam Harmetz

Winchester Mystery House

A Most Generous Mentor w/ Microsoft's Dany Hoter

Skynet becomes Self-Aware

Blade Runner - Tears in Rain

Check out this episode!

#Power BI #Business Intelligence #data #Excel #Microsoft #experts

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digidaddy · 5 years ago

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HW6case, Q3

Q3 (34 pts.). Write up your case on your blog with the following subheadings: “The facts of the case.” Here is where you describe the case in your own words. “Analysis.” Examine the case in terms of the questions and/or discussion. In-class students: also reflect on the challenges and possible solutions involved in leading a discussion in a classroom or workplace setting. “My conclusions.” Your conclusions and opinions about the case. Be sure to explain and justify what you write. 3 sentences of average length or more. “Future environment.” Describe your vision of a future in which technology is more advanced than today, or society has changed in some significant way, such that the ethical issues of the case would be even more important than it is in today’s world. 3 sentences of average length or more. “Future scenario.” Describe how this ethical case (or an analogous one) would or should play out in the environment of the future, and give your opinions about it. 3 sentences of average length or more. Answer: Facts of the Case According to the United Kingdom’s Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) White Paper Series, one of the core activities of the RAS Network is to address the associated ethical issues that come with rapid technological advances of robotics and artificial intelligences (AI). These papers are to serve as a basis for discussing the future technological roadmaps, engaging the wider community, as well as policy makers, in assessing the potential social, economic, and ethical/legal impact of RAS. The top ethical concerns raised by RAS are: bias, deception, employment, opacity, safety, oversight, and privacy.

Analysis This was an interesting paper to read through. Some of the concerns addressed like safety, employment, and privacy were concerns that I have heard in other places that talk about AI and robotics in the future. This goes for movies and other sci-fi avenues as well. But the others were interesting to discuss as well. Oversight and opacity were issues addressed in I, Robot, and the concept of deception was the main story arch in the movie Deus Ex Machina. Also, I have read before about how AI is being programmed unknowingly with bias, especially in current face recognition software against people of color. Seeing these explained in a scientific way was very enlightening. In the paper, it also states that not all of these concerns are “black and white,” but there is a lot of layover in-between them. Concerns over oversight and opacity were common, as well as concerns over privacy and bias.

My Conclusions In general, I am more concerned about the coming age of robotics and AI, but it seems inevitable that will come to pass. I just hope that we, as a species, take all of these concerns seriously, and integrate other concerns as they will also inevitably pop up. It is a very thin line to walk between a utopian future with RAS and a dystopian future with Skynet.

Future Environment It won’t be hard to imagine a future with RAS, as we have several movies and books that do that already. Maybe not as fantastical as the cartoon series The Jetsons, but again, not as dark and depressing as the robot-ruined future of The Terminator movies. I would think that a similar world that we recognize today will exist, just with the addition of RAS doing mundane jobs/tasks, but at the expense of those who will lose those jobs to the RAS. This is where we should start looking to educate ourselves and our children to try and find jobs or career paths that are more difficult to be done by a RAS system. As long as we don’t end up like the people in the movie WALL-E, I think we will be ok.

Future Scenario Both I, Robot and Deus Ex Machina have interesting ethical cases that could be a real life problem sooner than we think. In I, Robot, the character Stephen Byerley is accused of being a robot because others think he is too moral and good. If he is a robot, and therefore must follow the Three Laws of Robotics, he will be moral and good, but the Three Laws are just what good people would do anyway, so following them does

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mobinius-msysdigital · 5 years ago

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AI Artificial Intelligence in business 2020 : Types & Advantages

Technology has impacted our lives a lot and made this world fast-paced and very advanced. One of the major awe-inspiring technologies is Artificial intelligence. Although the technology is still growing and evolving from its nascent stage, people believe digital transformation companies in USA have a larger scope. They invest billions in research for tapping into its potential to amplify the growth of AI technology.

Thus, Artificial Intelligence has been continuously rendering its presence today in almost all events, and its applications find their use in different verticals. Business is no exception and instead has a greater weightage of AI usage due to enormous benefits rendered by AI. From streamlining operations to informed and accurate decision making, AI handles it all.

Check out all the significant breakthroughs in business owing to AI in 2020.

Table of Contents

What is Artificial Intelligence?

Types of AI

Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Path to Scale Your Business in 2020

AI Advantages in Business 2020

Closing Note

Enhanced User Experience

Informed Decision Making

Online Security

Accurate Insights into data

Better Inventory management

Strengthening Brand Loyalty

What is Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to the imitation of human intelligence by the machines which were programmed and taught to think like humans as well as mimic human actions, to reduce the work that requires human intervention.

AI has become ubiquitous today, ranging from recommending what an individual should buy next in online shopping. You can find it understanding and act accordingly by virtual assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri. It is the best way of identifying what and who is featured in a photo, spotting, and reporting spam, till detecting credit card malpractice.

Types of AI

In an absolute sense, AI can be classified into two types – narrow AI and general AI.

1. Narrow AI is the term referring to the intelligent systems which were trained/ taught to carry out specific tasks without being intensely programmed on how to do a task. The finest example of this kind of AI is the language as well as voice recognition seen in virtual assistants like Siri.

2. Meanwhile, general AI resembles adaptable intellect that is seen in humans. It implies that general AI is a kind of flexible form of intelligence that can learn the technique of how to perform a multitude of tasks. They can be anything from virtually creating spreadsheets to physically cutting hair. This general AI is enormously seen in movies, say HAL / Skynet (The Terminator), but isn’t in existence today and the AI experts fiercely predict how soon it would be a reality.

Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Path to Scale Your Business in 2020

Some of the powerful and unique features of AI like the power of autonomous, data analytics, machine learning, self-regulated and self-sustaining systems, deep learning and much more has rendered profound momentum which helps in employing it in business for various needs. It is used in various degrees in different aspects of the business right from the administration, HR, operations, finance, marketing, to sales as a wide range of issues and uncertainties like security, inability to understand, analyze and use the data, dynamic customer needs and expectations, and many more.

According to the report, it will enhance productivity by 40% and would offer a business value of $2.9 trillion by 2021. Hence, it is advisable to take a digital transformation consulting, understand these AI trends, and act wisely.

Also, as per another recent study, adopting Artificial Intelligence services can positively boost the nation on the whole as 58 million new jobs would be created by employing AI usage. Due to this, unemployment too can be resolved to a very great extent. Thus, explore and understand how AI can drastically improve one’s business.

AI Advantages in Business 2020

Enhanced User Experience

The customer/user is the king/ ultimate center of importance in any business. Offering the best user/ customer experience is the only way to personally connect with them and make them come back for more. AI would aid a business in offering excellent user experience. It is because bringing in AI helps automate the process whereby the quickest responses are offered to the queries if the user.

Hence, custom AI solutions offer a highly personalized user experience. Thus, many companies have got a stronghold on the large volumes of data that are aggregated from all the required and related sources. It is due to the undeniable fact that AI helps to manage even bulk amounts of data and thereby have better and accurate results of the requirements, queries, and the concerns of their users/ consumers. Hence, collaborating with AI companies help a business to use the capabilities of AI to learn from users’ requests and queries and primarily aids in serving the actual needs of the customers.

Informed Decision Making

Decision making is one of the key processes involved inside the business institution and in the external world, too, between a business organization and other entities. Decision making must be so exact as customers are driven either to one’s organization or away from one’s organizations depending on the critical decisions made.

The potential of the digital transformation industry can be exploited here like the booming AI. AI can help in analyzing voluminous, variant and complex data, very quickly and understanding the perspectives of customers and their actual needs can be understood. By understanding actual needs, products and services can be offered accordingly, and the business thus can be accelerated.

Online Security

Security is one of the crucial aspects any business has to focus on, to avoid fraud as well as deception. AI helps to organize and safeguard all the data efficiently. Firstly, it detects suspicious activities, recognizes if there are any hidden threats in a company’s system and prevents attacks from threatening sites, and software.

Secondly, the present security measures would be boosted and enhanced by AI. Changes for safety like the improvement of the monitoring around a particular network, AI terms as suspicious can all be undertaken. Finally, repeated security tasks would also be automated that renders the analysts a larger span to understand and analyze high-priority alerts. Thus, AI development companies can be approached, and AI technology can be used for face as well as voice recognition and also biometrics from the customers for preventing forgery and deception.

Accurate Insights into data

The present world, especially the businesses, generate a whole lot of data. To understand market trends, the actual needs of customers, increasing brand loyalty, the data must be mined, understood, analyzed, and apt development strategies must be undertaken. For which AI helps hugely, as data of any technical, as well as statistical complexity, can be handled by AI. AI Development Services would help a business to get command over AI for using it for obtaining reliable, and secure insights about the data for more significant expansion of the business.

Better Inventory management

Inventory management involves ordering, right storage storing and fair usage of a company’s inventory. It encompasses the purchasing, management, organization of raw materials, other components as well as the finished products, their warehousing as well as processing of such items.

AI can handle all these essential data related to inventory and thus can be accessed anytime and anywhere for future reference. AI also gives a predictive analysis of present markets which can be expected to grow well into a business. Hence, across the globe, irrespective of domains, all industries as well as the retail stores exploit AI since it can deliver actual real-time predictions, and offers a glimpse of projected and expected inventory requirements.

Strengthening Brand Loyalty

A brand’s loyalty can be strengthened only by having a personal touch with the customers. But, this personalization requires a lot of effort, time, money, and a concrete plan to indulge every customer. Each moment and offer that enlivens them must be understood, and right future deals have to be put forth to them by the ability to forecast their needs, and this is a task that the ‎AI services companies can help you with.

Businesses have to exploit the data obtained from every customer’s/user’s social media activity as well as their purchase history. Then, the right type of products the consumers would like to buy will be predicted. As a next step, the company would use these insights and offer customized content as well as regular messages, reminders to customers.

Here, the AI services companies would help to use AI to identify the decision-making patterns. The patterns are identified by automating this process, preparing personas for every customer based on this, and then driving apt content for every customer, increasing the click-through rates, generating leads and bringing in, more targeted audience for their desired product.

Closing Note

Digital transformation companies are a boon to every business/ service as these companies help a business/service to adapt to present technical trends. Also, the companies help to use the existing and booming trends to expand the base of the business. One most excellent example is the healthcare and digital transformation that go hand in hand in many nations and render the best benefits to users. Hence, every business can hire AI developersfrom their desired nations and stretch out in flying colors as there are ample of benefits with AI, and those mentioned above are just a few among the many.

Suggested Links: AI Development Company in USA Digital Transformation Development Company DevOps Development Company Chatbot in Retail

#AI Development #AI app Development Company #AI solutions #hire AI developers

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1vet2another · 8 years ago

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1vet2another: Interview - Principal Cloud Solutions Architect - IT

Name: John Wildes

Job Title: Principal Cloud Solutions Architect

Career Field: IT Engineering / Operations

Industry: Currently DoD / FedGov, previously Fortune 500, Fortune 1000

Military Branch: US Navy (Currently Reserves, 15 years)

Military Occupation: Chief Petty Officer / Senior Enlisted Leader NCAGS Chicago

How did your military background help your career so far?

Later on, in my career the leadership development I gained from paygrade E5 to CPO paid off a lot. Technical skills I picked up in my civilian careers helped on the military side with being able to do things that just weren’t taught in my career field. So it’s been a bit of benefit on both sides. I’ve been able to successfully move in and out of leadership roles easily when looking for other jobs simply because of my experience in the Navy

What advice or steps would you recommend for veterans preparing to enter your career field?

Entering the IT field specifically requires constant technical growth. Gone are the days that you could learn one skillset, one hardware platform, and be successful for an entire career. You need to always be learning. There’s plenty of focus on the transitioning veteran to the IT field. Microsoft, Amazon both have huge Veteran recruitment divisions, and they have training pipelines to give you entry level to mid-level skills coming out of the military.

What do you enjoy the most about your career field?

I like technology and seeing how it changes over the years, and trying to forecast where things will go next. It’s been an amazing 20 years so far. It’ll be a more amazing next 20 years!

What do you like least about your career field?

There is a lot of churn. To move up in any org you really have to jump around a lot, maybe leave and come back. Staying in one role is a sure fire way to stay in that role, and possibly never advance.

What skills, abilities, and personal attributes are essential to success in this career field?

Skills are always adaptable, so learn things that will help in your daily work and learn what is next. Personal attributes I see in more successful people these days is developing a personal brand, and talking about it. Something I think that older military folks might have a hard time doing, because of a lot of things we’ve been taught. PERSEC, OPSEC, all of that I think keeps people from sharing the work that they do publicly but that is exactly what will help you in your IT career or just about any career lately. Also, the ability to network with individuals is key, and I think that military veterans do that pretty well. We have had to work with many units, commands, leadership levels, I think all of us have huge contact lists of people we can call when we need assistance. That is even more true in the civilian world.

Is there something you wish you’d known or a skill you wish you’d had starting out in this career field?

Don’t be afraid to take risks. One thing that the military taught me is that you can endure pretty much anything, and what matters is your personal mindset. If you fail to take calculated risks because of fear of failure or being set back, you never really get anywhere. Take those leaps, learn and keep moving forward.

How do most people get into this career field? What are common entry-level jobs?

Common entry level jobs are technicians who keep the infrastructure running, help desk support professionals, and developers who write business applications. Internships are huge at larger organizations, and I believe that networking works best for small to medium sized organizations. Temporary staffing also works in certain cases where you have no experience and need work, also “gig” work is common as well. If you’re good at what you do, 1099 yourself to an organization and make money that way.

How did you find and apply for this job role?

My current role was through networking. A group of people I worked with in the past had an opportunity and specifically reached out to me for it.

What made you stand out as a candidate for this job role?

It was a new business for this organization, and I have 20+ years working in the Microsoft space, from software sales, to how partnership works, to implementation and support.

What kind of education, training or experiences does your job role require?

Because I’m in a more senior role a lot of the work is based on previous experience and being able to help develop more junior people. So, it’s less day to day tactical work in IT and more management of individuals. However, to get here you do have to pick a career focus and become an expert in it. This requires mostly certifications, and practical project experience. In some of the more specialized areas a computer science degree is mandatory, and even further specialization requires masters level education the further you progress in your career.

What are the major components of your job role on a daily basis?

Forming relationships with various subcontractors and within Microsoft community of people. I do a lot of pre-sales motions for the organization which requires me to be at about a 100/200 level expertise in some the technology we’re selling, as well as be able to relate how that technology can solve the customer’s business challenges. It does require that I have technical knowledge enough to demonstrate key concepts of the software or services in question, and possibly help direct an implementation. In general, I have to be a mile wide and inch deep on just about everything in my space. I strive to be 300/400 level in a few key areas to maintain my “brand” but other than that I it’s difficult to keep up with everything in IT these days 😉

What do you like about your industry?

I like that there is a lot of opportunity. You will never be out of work in the technology space, if you can adapt to the needs of employers, and keep learning. Pay is competitive as well.

How do you see your industry changing in the next 10 years?

It’s going to be crazy the next 10 years, AI is a big thing right now, I think you’ll see less and less of the infrastructure careers as hardware becomes more powerful and less complex to implement. I think you’ll see a centralization of infrastructure technicians into several cloud brokers, as more organizations realize that maintaining their own IT divisions are expensive. The real value in technology is being able to make it do things for your organization that humans simply cannot. There will still be human operators, but it is at that intersection point of human operation and technology processing that will prove crucial for tomorrows IT workers. Developing the next business application, applying the newest software technology will never go out need, unless of course we write AI that does coding…then…Skynet 😉

#interviews #veterans #marines #usmc #army #soldier #navy #airforce #coastguard #military #iavenjqasdf #wearesva #americanlegion #vfw #studentvets #career #mattmedhat #1vet2another

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skinteam · 8 years ago

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AI Standards for Healthcare

Are we on the verge of releasing skynet on the world? Not even close, but a set of standards for the application of AI to healthcare is overdue.

Would then stifle innovation or provide us with the landscape to deliver real value to the healthcare industry? That was the question I asked myself time and again after we were recently invited to an event run by Nesta and BSI and attended by other small firms such as the NHS, Google Deep Mind and Babylon Health.

We were all sitting in a rather dreary room along Victoria Embankment here in London debating the role of regulation and standards for AI used in healthcare. At Skin Analytics we’re generally advocates for proportional regulation based on the risks and associated impacts. The new Medical Device regulations are a great step I believe as many Class I products, such as ours, are outside the risk profile that was originally envisaged software was capable being.

Ultimately, the last thing we want to see is innovation being suppressed under volumes of red tape. At the same time, we’re trying to change healthcare, meaning that we’re dealing with people’s health and that’s not an area to “move fast and break things” for fairly obvious reasons.

Back to our dreary room however, and we proposed a number of areas that need to be part of any standards developed in this area but there are two I feel quite strongly about

The first is the requirement for a well designed clinical evaluation that is suitable for the approach and intended use of any AI service. Desk based research just doesn’t cut it in the world of AI. Too often we see the real world performance of an AI system to be significantly below expectations. Only a prospective clinical study can meet this requirement.

The second is defining an algorithm update process that ensures that no AI system in healthcare is evolving without a clear set of acceptance criteria for any modifications to the algorithm. In our world this means building a test set that is held apart from the training data and enables new versions to be benchmarked against the old.

These shouldn’t stifle innovation in any way. Good clinical evidence is the lifeblood of evidence based medicine and there is simply no way around it. Services that go around the medical community should be closely scrutinised by the regulatory authorities to ensure adequate evidence exists.

Dispelling the myth that all AI is updating itself in unknown ways is important and defining the release of improved versions of any solution is a core part of any well designed software process.

Delivering value in healthcare requires any innovator to ensure that they are delivering a quality solution that enhances or improves the health outcomes in a cost effective way.

That may take longer to deliver and consequently more blood, sweat and tears from founders but it if those principles are at the core of the idea, you will be more likely to achieve your goal. Unless skynet takes over that is.

#AI melanoma good clinical practice

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jacobhinkley · 7 years ago

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IOTA [MIOTA] has the potential to become the new Global Automation Standard – Fujitsu

Rolf Werner, the Head of European Fujitsu enterprise made a remark on IOTA’s future in the Hannover Messe trade fair which is known as one of the world’s largest trade exhibition in the technology industry. Reportedly unlocking IOTA’s full benefits mean it would be soon recognized as the new global automation standard.

The emphasis was made on the world’s first Distributed Ledger Technology [DLT] that works on IOTA’s Tangle to enhance technology industry. IOTA’s latest project Tangle is decentralized and permits a peer-to-peer network that is devoid of blocks or mining tools. Secure data transfers can occur between digitalized devices through the new program, resulting in self-regulatory technological devices.

IOTA cryptocurrency runs on a feeless Direct Analogic Gateway [DAG] which is specialized for transactions between machines without human interaction. Fujitsu’s Intelliedge (Intelligent edge) software uses IOTA tech to observe and improve factory production line. This special functionality permits identifying each and every component in the factory as well the factory on a whole, which means all the individual components and the end product can be monitored.

With IOTA’s Tangle software technological industries like Fujitsu can overcome the general restrictions of distributed ledger technology.

Werner added:

“The new tech is energy efficient, offers feeless transactions and scales extremely well, making it well-suited to becoming the industry standard of automated systems and a wider machine-to-machine economy.”

Fujitsu and Bosch have collaborated with IBM in order to research and practically use IoT solutions in the automation technological industry.

Daphne, a Reddit user says:

“IOTA connects each and every piece of technology and lets them communicate with each other, creating a hive network. The tangle shall be revolutionary once mega industries implement the full potential of the gear. People are going to wake up and smell the IOTA soon.”

Garth, the minion a crypto-critic stated on a social forum:

“Why does it seem like ‘Skynet’ to me, machines interacting with each other to come up with solutions? Its far in the future but these industries will be controlling the fate of humanity. It’s a major concern since these so-called decentralized techs are under someone’s control right?”

The post IOTA [MIOTA] has the potential to become the new Global Automation Standard – Fujitsu appeared first on AMBCrypto.

IOTA [MIOTA] has the potential to become the new Global Automation Standard – Fujitsu published first on https://medium.com/@smartoptions

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biofunmy · 6 years ago

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US Money Is Funding The Technology Behind China’s Surveillance State

Ben Kothe / BuzzFeed News; Getty Images

HONG KONG — Princeton University and the US’s largest public pension plan are among a number of stateside organizations funding technology behind the Chinese government’s unprecedented surveillance of some 11 million people of Muslim ethnic minorities.

Since 2017, Chinese authorities have detained more than a million Uighur Muslims and other ethnic minorities in political reeducation camps in the country’s northwest region of Xinjiang, identifying them, in part, with facial recognition software created by two companies: SenseTime, based in Hong Kong, and Beijing’s Megvii. A BuzzFeed News investigation has found that US universities, private foundations, and retirement funds entrusted their money to investors that, in turn, plowed hundreds of millions of dollars into these two startups over the last three years. Using that capital, SenseTime and Megvii have grown into billion-dollar industry leaders, partnering with government agencies and other private companies to develop tools for the Communist Party’s social control of its citizens.

Also among the diverse group of institutions helping to finance China’s surveillance state: the Alaska Retirement Management Board, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Rockefeller Foundation all of which are “limited partners” in private equity funds that invested in SenseTime or Megvii. And even as congressional leaders, such as Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, have championed a bill to condemn human rights abuses in Xinjiang, their own states’ public employee pension funds are invested in companies building out the Chinese government’s system for tracking Uighurs.

“The story here is why private equity firms and venture capitalists are aiding the government of China, which has a history of surveilling and curtailing behavior deemed inappropriate to the goals of the Communist Party,” said one US-based technology investor, who declined to be named for fear of ruining business relationships. Being a limited partner is “not an excuse” for ignorance, he added, noting that any organization deploying millions of dollars should bear some of that responsibility.

In statements to BuzzFeed News, SenseTime and Megvii distanced their technologies from what’s happening in the region and downplayed the significance of US funding.

“SenseTime’s success in original AI research and commercialization has attracted top-tier investors from around the world,” the company said in a statement, which also noted that it welcomed regulation of facial recognition tools. “We have always been committed to fair and responsible applications of AI technology and we take this duty of care seriously.”

Megvii told BuzzFeed News its “solutions are not designed or customized to target or label ethnic groups. We are concerned about the well-being and safety of individuals, not about monitoring any particular demographic groups.”

Recently, the US has been ramping up its trade war against China. In the last two weeks, the Trump administration has increased tariffs on certain Chinese goods by $200 billion, kneecapped telecoms giant Huawei with an executive order, and considered banning several Chinese technology manufacturers from working with US companies, according to reports. US institutional investors, however, remain financially entangled with China’s facial recognition leaders.

An analysis by BuzzFeed News of known private equity and venture capital investors in the two largest Chinese facial recognition companies shows that US dollars are facilitating the Communist Party’s surveillance of ethnic minorities. BuzzFeed News used PitchBook, a private equity research outfit, and combed through public financial disclosures to understand which institutions committed capital to firms that ended up backing SenseTime and Megvii.

While the data is incomplete — not all limited partners are required to publicly disclose their investments in venture or private equity firms — it paints a stark picture of the US organizations that stand to benefit financially as these startups grow and expand their government work. BuzzFeed News identified six prominent universities and at least 19 public pension plans or retirement systems that have an indirect interest in at least one of the two companies.

“It is disturbing that American companies, researchers, and investors are helping facilitate grave human rights abuses in Xinjiang.”

When asked if they were aware their money was indirectly funding the surveillance of Uighurs, most institutional investors did not respond to BuzzFeed News’ requests for comment. Some declined to comment. Only one, the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association (LACERA), responded on the record saying it would evaluate its investment.

That Chinese authorities have deployed SenseTime and Megvii technologies in Xinjiang is hardly a secret. A recent study found code from Megvii’s Face++ platform in a mobile app that tracked the personal details and whereabouts of citizens of Turkic Muslim descent. Media reports have described SenseTime’s joint security ventures in Xinjiang, while BuzzFeed News also found the company partnered with Infinova, a New Jersey–based security camera manufacturer that provides surveillance systems to Xinjiang officials.

Authorities have used software and devices from those firms to effectively create a police state in the region, which is home to more than 11 million Uighurs. Experts and US government officials estimate that at least a million Muslim and religious minorities are currently detained in internment camps, while those who’ve escaped have reported being subjected to torture, abuse, and political indoctrination.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, a long-standing critic of the Chinese government, called the oppression in Xinjiang “a wake-up call” to companies on how advanced technologies can be used for nefarious purposes. “It is disturbing that American companies, researchers, and investors are helping facilitate grave human rights abuses in Xinjiang,” he told BuzzFeed News.

One Silicon Valley venture capitalist, who also requested anonymity for fear of jeopardizing business relationships, told BuzzFeed News human rights issues like those in Xinjiang may not be a consideration for institutional investors in private equity funds.

“As long as [limited partners] are making money, no one will care about human rights violations,” he said. “Do you think CalPERS cares as long as they’re making money?”

CalPERS or the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the US’s largest public pension fund with more than $350 billion in assets, declined to comment for this story.

Bloomberg / Getty Images

Xu Li, chief executive officer of SenseTime Group, is identified by the company’s facial recognition system as he poses for a photograph at SenseTime’s showroom in Beijing on June 15, 2018.

Two Facial Recognition Unicorns

Megvii and SenseTime have grown in lockstep in their competition to develop cutting-edge facial recognition tools. Founded in 2011 by three graduates from Beijing’s Tsinghua University, Megvii launched the first version of its facial analysis platform Face++ the following year. Today, the $4 billion company, which is reportedly readying for an initial public offering, has more than 500 employees and raised more than $1 billion, with commercial success boosted in large part by the Chinese government’s desire to become an artificial intelligence leader.

“The government is pushing the need for this technology from the top, so companies don’t have big obstacles in making it happen,” Megvii Vice President Xie Yinan told NPR last year. American money is just one source of funds — the company’s many investors include the Bank of China’s private equity arm and the state-owned Capital Venture Investment Fund, part of a government push to build an artificial intelligence industry worth $150 billion by 2030. Megvii is also a technology supplier for a China-wide surveillance program called the Skynet Project, which uses more than 20 million closed-circuit TV cameras to monitor citizens around the country, policing for criminals.

Part of the value proposition for both companies — and investment opportunity for their financial backers — is the wide range of consumer applications for their technology. At an April smart city trade show in Hong Kong, sales associates for SenseTime wowed attendees with various use cases: mobile apps that could read facial expressions, smart screens in cars to detect sleepy drivers, and admission gates that flipped open when they recognized someone’s face.

Though it was founded in 2014, Hong Kong–based SenseTime has outgrown Megvii, raising more than $1.6 billion from the likes of e-commerce giant Alibaba and a host of international private equity firms and Chinese institutions. Its latest valuation, based on a fundraising round from May 2018, is $4.5 billion.

“We use people’s hair, their clothing, their faces, and movements to track them,” a company official said at the conference. “We can help governments go through hours of security camera footage to find them.”

In an April 2018 interview with Quartz, SenseTime CEO Xu Li estimated that 30% of its clients are “government-related,” a figure that some experts believe is higher. The company’s marketing materials, which boast of a “face recognition surveillance platform” capable of tracing the routes of up to 200,000 “targets,” are clearly intended for a government and law enforcement audience. Last year, SenseTime told NPR that it was working with 40 local police forces, or “public security bureaus.”

At a recent artificial intelligence conference in Dubai, demos of SenseTime’s video analytics software showed off footage of small crowds with people’s bodies circled in coded colors that represented individuals who appeared to be loitering or embroiled in “chaos,” according to a Chinese-language key. “We use people’s hair, their clothing, their faces, and movements to track them,” a company official said at the conference. “We can help governments go through hours of security camera footage to find them.”

Maya Wang, a senior research fellow at Human Rights Watch, said that the Communist Party’s implementation of facial recognition will allow it to “control reality in ways that would make it capable to rule forever.” And unlike in some Western countries, where concerned citizens and privacy advocates have expressed worries about the deployment of government facial recognition tools, Wang said, those debates don’t happen in China, where authorities place what they see as safety and social stability above all else.

“It’s about one of the world’s most abusive governments developing advanced technologies that are capable of monitoring and controlling people’s behavior,” she said, noting that those tools will only get better as improvements are made in computer processing power. “The Chinese government, as part of its mass surveillance infrastructure, will really rely on facial recognition technology as a fundamental building block for tracking people, particularly in Xinjiang.”

Wang He / Getty Images

A Uighur woman passes the Communist Party of China flag on the wall on June 27, 2017, in Ürümqi, China.

Ties to Xinjiang

Though SenseTime and Megvii happily tout facial recognition for photography apps or office worker verification, they have tried to distance themselves from authorities’ use of their technology in tracking people in Xinjiang, where the government’s political reeducation centers were recently likened to “concentration camps” by one senior US Defense Department official. In statements for this story, both companies denied having direct work in the region.

In earlier interviews, Megvii and SenseTime have attempted to separate their technology from the less savory government use cases, while denying that they store the facial recognition data of their clients.

“We provide a tool for you to process your data,” Franky Chan, a SenseTime public relations manager at the Hong Kong trade show, told BuzzFeed News. Chan’s statement echoed what Xie, Megvii’s vice president, told Business Insider last year. “What we do is sell them a server [loaded with Face++],” he said. “That’s all.”

Still, there are threads connecting SenseTime and Megvii to Xinjiang. In August 2017, Megvii announced at the China-Eurasia Security Expo in Ürümqi, Xinjiang, that it would be the official technical support unit of the “Public Security Video Laboratory” in Xinjiang, according to one researcher’s findings, helping with “anti-terrorism, anti-riot, and other security work.”

Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch and Cure53, a Berlin-based security firm, said that code from Megvii’s Face++ technology was being used in a data collection app employed by police called the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP) that tracked the personal details and whereabouts of citizens of Turkic Muslim descent. However, HRW later noted that it was possible the Face++ code may have been put in the app but not actually deployed.

In a statement, Megvii told BuzzFeed News that it had never had a contract with the Public Security Video Laboratory in Xinjiang.

The company also said that it “does not have any relationship with IJOP or understanding of why Face++ technology may be found in the IJOP mobile app.” It reiterated earlier statements, adding that “Megvii does not host any third-party data nor does it have any access to the IJOP platform or the national ID database.” Finally, it said it requires clients not to use its technology for the infringement of human rights. The company declined to answer questions about how it does this, or to provide contracts detailing this policy.

SenseTime has invested in businesses with work in China’s northwest province and maintained a 51% stake in a joint venture with Leon Technology, a Xinjiang-based supplier of surveillance systems to the local government, until this March. It also held a 49% stake in a company called SenseNets Technology, now infamous for leaving a massive facial recognition database of some 2.5 million people in Xinjiang unsecured on the internet; nearly one-third of the individuals tracked were Uighurs. In both cases, SenseTime quietly divested from each venture after news reports of its involvement.

“We have no direct business in Xinjiang, and we are not aware that any of our technologies is being used in the region,” a SenseTime spokesperson told BuzzFeed News.

While the company denies direct business, it has partnered with other companies building surveillance infrastructure in the region, BuzzFeed News has learned. New Jersey–based security camera manufacturer Infinova has been a surveillance tech provider in Xinjiang since at least 2015. A trade publication, IPVM, first reported on Infinova’s work in the region. Current and former Infinova employees confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the company has used SenseTime software for surveillance systems in smart cities across China, including in Xinjiang. Infinova is listed as a smart city partner in SenseTime company marketing materials.

Fred Zhang, a former Infinova business manager, told BuzzFeed News that SenseTime’s facial recognition technology was an integral part of a smart city project in Shanghai that installed 3,000 cameras in building entrances. The government project had, in part, built a database of the faces of residents to detect if strangers entered, he said.

“We use their facial recognition software but our own surveillance camera devices,” said Zhang. “We detect the face and store the picture, but we work with SenseTime to compare the pictures in the database.”

Employing the SenseTime technology created a shortcut from Infinova having to build out its own facial recognition technology, explained a former Infinova engineer. It is unclear if the partnership is still active. Infinova declined to speak to BuzzFeed News about its relationship with SenseTime.

Bloomberg / Getty Images

A screen shows a demonstration of SenseTime’s SenseVideo pedestrian and vehicle recognition system at the company’s showroom in Beijing on June 15, 2018.

American Ties

SenseTime and Megvii’s most obvious connections to the US are via component makers. SenseTime has called the chips of Silicon Valley’s Nvidia “fundamental” to its work and said that it uses 14,000 of them in servers across Asia to power its facial recognition technology. The San Diego–based Qualcomm, which provides processors to SenseTime, invested in the artificial intelligence company as part of a $600 million funding round in April 2018.

Qualcomm also maintains a business relationship with Megvii, and lists the company as an official artificial intelligence software provider on its corporate website. A representative for Qualcomm did not return multiple requests for comment. Nvidia declined to comment.

But there are other connections and financial ties that are less visible. A BuzzFeed News analysis found that money from dozens of American institutions — universities, foundations, and retirement plans — has been central to some of Megvii and SenseTime’s massive funding rounds.

While these institutions did not actively invest in SenseTime or Megvii, the private equity fund managers with whom they entrusted their money backed those companies for them. For example, the endowments of Princeton, Duke University, and MIT committed money to Qiming Venture Partners, a China-based venture capital firm, which was part of a $100 million round of investment in Megvii in late 2016. MIT did not respond to requests for comment and a Duke spokesperson declined to comment.

“We do not have control over specific investment decisions made by an outside manager.”

“As a matter of policy, we do not comment on our investment portfolio,” a Princeton spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. “As a limited partner, we do not have control over specific investment decisions made by an outside manager.”

Having first invested in Megvii in 2014, Qiming continued to back the company in later rounds through its Qiming Venture Partners V fund, boosting its ownership stake. High-profile backers of that fund, according to PitchBook and the firm’s own press releases, include the Mayo Clinic, the family foundation of Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which bills itself as the US’s “largest public health philanthropy.” All three organizations did not respond to a request for comment.

Qiming founding managing partner Gary Rieschel did not respond to BuzzFeed News’ questions about the use of Megvii’s technology in Xinjiang. “We have sold nearly all of our position in Megvii over the last year,” he wrote in an email, before declining to say how much of the company Qiming still owned or how much his firm made from its investment.

Earlier this year, GGV Capital, a Menlo Park, California–based venture firm that’s invested heavily in China, was part of a $750 million round into Megvii, using a pool of money from limited partners that included the endowment for the University of Texas System, Northwestern University, and the Oregon State Treasury. Once called a “longstanding partner” in a GGV press release, the Oregon State Treasury did not respond to a request for comment. Northwestern also did not respond to requests for comment, while a spokesperson for the University of Texas System’s endowment said its “policy is not to discuss existing investments with external parties.”

A GGV spokesperson declined to comment.

US investors also stand to benefit handsomely with SenseTime’s continued growth. In 2014, IDG Capital, an early backer of Chinese tech leaders Baidu and Tencent, was part of SenseTime’s first institutional round of financing. In participating in that $10 million financing round, IDG invested capital from limited partners including the University of Michigan; Breyer Capital, the venture fund of early Facebook investor Jim Breyer; and the Rockefeller Foundation, which aims to “improve the well-being of humanity around the world,” according to its online mission statement.

Representatives for Breyer Capital and the Rockefeller Foundation did not respond to requests for comment. “We prefer not to discuss our investments or fund managers,” a University of Michigan spokesperson emailed BuzzFeed News.

Among US-based institutions with stakes in China’s two facial recognition leaders, public pension funds are the largest committers of capital, with 14 alone maintaining stakes in SenseTime through private equity giant Silver Lake according to PitchBook and public filings. Among the largest known investors in Silver Lake, which invested in SenseTime in May 2018, are CalPERS; the Teacher Retirement System of Texas, a pension plan for all public educators in the Lone Star State; and the Washington State Investment Board, which manages retirement plans for the state’s teachers, police officers, and firefighters. Other known limited partners include public employee pension and retirement plans in Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, and the city of Los Angeles.

Silver Lake declined to comment for this story, refusing to answer questions about its investment in SenseTime and the company’s role in government surveillance. Of the 14 public pension plans and retirement funds contacted by BuzzFeed News, all but one declined to discuss their indirect ownership stake in SenseTime or did not respond to requests for comment.

“LACERA strongly values human rights and expects all investment partners to ensure robust human rights practices,” a spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association emailed BuzzFeed News, noting that the organization does due diligence on external money managers on topics including human rights violations. “Although our rights as a limited partner in a private equity fund are limited, LACERA is in contact with [Silver Lake] to further evaluate any exposures and risks.”

“If you don’t work with them, you’ll no longer have a business. Doing business is expected.”

Limited partners typically have no say over the day-to-day decisions of the venture firms they invest in once they’ve committed capital, said Ilya Strebulaev, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. While an LP can “control the overall structure of the portfolio at the time they sign and negotiate an agreement,” allowing them to define if they want to invest in certain business sectors, he added, they are not involved in the process by which a firm decides to back a specific company.

One Silicon Valley investor, who declined to be named, noted that institutional investors can include clauses in agreements with venture funds that prevent them from investing in certain industries like firearms or gambling. That investor, however, noted that they had never seen clauses that directly address issues around human rights.

A private equity investor in SenseTime who spoke to BuzzFeed News on the condition of anonymity said that his firm had weighed the human rights issues, but ultimately decided that it was an investment with significant financial upside for his limited partners. He compared his firm’s investment in SenseTime to funds backing US defense companies or firearms manufacturers, stating that in those cases, investors aren’t responsible for how people or governments use those products.

He also noted that SenseTime’s collaboration with the Chinese government was a given from the start: “If you don’t work with them, you’ll no longer have a business. Doing business is expected.”

Bloomberg / Getty Images

An armored police vehicle is seen from inside a taxi in Ürümqi, Xinjiang autonomous region, China, on Nov. 6, 2018.

“It’s something worth thinking about.”

As the Trump administration ramps up its trade war on China and increases scrutiny on US–Chinese business relationships, the human rights abuses in Xinjiang have been a consistent target of ire from both Democrats and Republicans. In April, a bipartisan group of 24 senators and 19 House representatives led by Sens. Bob Menendez and Marco Rubio signed a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to enforce penalties against US companies found to be assisting the Chinese government in the surveillance of citizens in Xinjiang.

Following that letter, Pompeo issued a stern warning of the “enormous risk” to US companies doing business in China.

“We watch the massive human rights violations in Xinjiang, where there are over a million people being held in a humanitarian crisis that is the scale of what took place in the 1930s, and we see American businesses and their technology being used to help facilitate that activity from the Chinese government,” he said at a gala for Business Executives for National Security, comparing Xinjiang to Nazi Germany. “It’s something worth thinking about.”

Lawmakers who signed the letter warning the State and Commerce departments of potential US business ties to abuses in Xinjiang were mum when asked why their state employee pension plans were indirectly investing in two billion-dollar startups with business ties to the region.

Rubio, who is currently cosponsoring a bill called the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, did not respond to requests for comment. The Florida State Board of Administration, which manages the assets of the Florida Retirement System, is an indirect investor in SenseTime.

“Congress should also consider new penalties for US firms or researchers who directly enable human rights violations like this.”

Other backers of the bill, Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley and Texas Sen. John Cornyn, declined to comment. Oregon’s State Treasury, which oversees state employee retirement funds and other investments, is an indirect backer of Megvii through GGV Capital, while the Teacher Retirement System of Texas is invested in SenseTime through Silver Lake.

New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the bill’s Democratic cosponsor, declined to comment when asked by BuzzFeed News about New Jersey–based Infinova’s ties to Xinjiang.

As pressure builds in Washington, SenseTime seems increasingly worried that it will be trapped in the trade war between the world’s two largest economies. In various media statements, including one to BuzzFeed News, the company has now said that it welcomes discussion on regulation around facial recognition, as some US lawmakers have called for a halt on the public implementation of the technology without further research and privacy safeguards.

Last week, Bloomberg reported that US officials are thinking of adding Megvii and SenseTime to a blacklist of companies that are barred from using US software and components. It’s unclear how those bans, if they came into effect, would affect US investment in those companies or the business relationships between Megvii and SenseTime with suppliers such as Nvidia and Qualcomm.

“I strongly encourage the Department of Commerce to move ahead with Entity List designations for Chinese companies that are at the forefront of China’s tech-enabled repression in northwest China, as has been reported,” Sen. Warner told BuzzFeed News. “Congress should also consider new penalties for US firms or researchers who directly enable human rights violations like this.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, speaking after a House Oversight Committee hearing last week on the government use of facial recognition, noted she is “absolutely concerned” about the use of such unchecked technologies in more authoritarian countries like China as a form of social control.

“This is tied to the political reality that there is a global rise in authoritarianism and fascism,” she said. “That could come from a state like China, or it could come from an authoritarian leader in any part of the country, regardless of politics.” ●

UPDATE

May. 31, 2019, at 17:33 PM

This article has been updated to clarify that while code Megvii’s platform Face++ was found in the IJOP app, it may not have been used based on findings from Human Rights Watch.

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louisonurmark · 6 years ago

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The Chinese government has drawn wide international condemnation for its harsh crackdown on ethnic Muslims in its western region, including holding as many as a million of them in detention camps.

From a technology standpoint, using algorithms to label people based on race or ethnicity has become relatively easy. Companies like I.B.M. advertise software that can sort people into broad groups.

“If originally one Uighur lives in a neighborhood, and within 20 days six Uighurs appear,” it said on its website, “it immediately sends alarms” to law enforcement.

In practice, the systems are imperfect, two of the people said. Often, their accuracy depends on environmental factors like lighting and the positioning of cameras.

China’s Ministry of Public Security did not respond to a faxed request for comment.

Mr. Lee, a booster of Chinese A.I., has argued that China has an advantage in developing A.I. because its leaders are less fussed by “legal intricacies” or “moral consensus.”

The software extends the state’s ability to label Uighurs to the rest of the country. One national database stores the faces of all Uighurs who leave Xinjiang, according to two of the people.

One Month, 500,000 Face Scans: How China Is Using A.I. to Profile a Minority The Chinese government has drawn wide international condemnation for its harsh crackdown on ethnic Muslims in its western region, including holding as many as a million of them in detention camps.

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matthewplume775-blog · 7 years ago

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15 Best IPTV Kodi Addons 2018 To Watch Free IPTV Updated

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Near Online video on Demand: This specific service is available for watching CONTEXTUAL MARKETING and such similar events like concert events and much more. Even sports events such as UFC PPV also comes within this category. One can also watch ULTIMATE FIGHTER CHAMPIONSHIPS on Roku They are scheduled and is available only on the provided timetable. Multiple users can subscribe to this particular nVoD service and avail these people on the scheduled time. The routine for the contents are compiled in advance and subscribers can choose the content these people wish based on their interest. -shifted Tv: As the name suggests time-shifted television set allows the subscribers to watch typically the live telecasts later so that they can wact a film when they wish. They can play, temporarily stop, forward orrewind the programs. on Demand(TvoD): Using this service, the subscribers may record the Tv channels such that they could watch it whenever they wish. That is one of the best features that is offered by IPTV. IPTV Kodi You may wonder why am i not talking about Kodi here. There is a basis for it. Kodi is a popular software application to get streaming videos and can be used as a mass media player. One of the main advantages of that Kodi is it is an open source project which is totally free of cost. It is designed for almost all platforms. It is compatible with almost all OPERATING SYSTEM like Windows, Linux, IoS, Google android and much more. Because of its high compatibility plus customizability, Kodi is loved by a lot of users. Another important feature is, Kodi supports the third party addons, which often users would use for enjoying movies and Tv shows for free. The primary power of Kodi lies with addons. There are several third-party addons available with Kodi, which really serves the best associated with purpose. There are many addons, that will enable you to stream movies, Tv shows, Live sporting activities, concerts, Comedy shows, Tv programs, Documentaries, Music, Youtube channels, Movies, Culinary videos, Audiobooks and much more at no cost absolutely. Apart from this, it can also run IPTV services with the help of certainaddons. We shall begin to see the addons that support IPTV as well as how to use them here. What exactly is IPTV kodi addon? IPTV kodiaddons allow the user to be able to stream IPTV channels on Kodi itself. The addon contains every one of the requirements for playing IPTV stations. These IPTV kodi addon include all the functionality provided by the set-top boxes but it lacks some of the companies provided by them. You can access the particular channels only if the channel can be acquired over IPTV. Let us see right here some of the best IPTV kodi addons. How to install IPTV in Kodi If you want to mount IPTV on kodi, Then you should go for the specific set of addons which often IPTV services. There are a lot of complexes within IPTV kodi addons, which search over the resources available on the internet and internet those content to the end user consumer programs. Such programs are IPTV kodi addons. There are hundreds of IPTV kodi addons, we have tested over fifty percent of the addons to find these operating addons. So we filtered the top 12-15 Best kodi IPTV addons. We now have made a special table for our visitors to easily install the IPTV addons with the respective Repo URL. Addon Name Repo Name Repo URL SG Sorcerer Repository Disclaimer: Before we start loading the IPTV Channels with Kodi addons, it's our responsibility to leave our readers know the risk concerning it. It was said that many Kodi consumers have received the warning letters using their ISP for streaming movies, Shows, live TV channels, sports and also other contents. Also, several of our users were not able to steady stream content from other countries. It's because of the Geo-restricted content.

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If you need to remove such issues, we have a one-stop solution for it! It's none other than, by using a VPN like IPVanish Let me swiftly list out the benefits of using IPVanish. Mask your Internet protocol address and stream anonymously online. This will likely protect your online activity from your Internet connection provider. Access to Geo-restricted written content: Say for example , if you need to stream BRITISH Channels from the USA, then simply connect with the UK server. They are some of the important reasons why you need a VPN for Kodi. What else looking for?! 1 . SGTV Reside TV This is among the newly arrived addons, but its effectiveness is extraordinary. With SGTV Survive TV addon you can enjoy almost all of the Live TV contents on a single just click. This addon mainly concentrates on reside news contents. It has 10 different types like LIVE, Channel News Parts of asia, Okto, Suria and few even more. Though the content is limited, all of the hyperlinks are working perfectly fine. It gives high trustworthiness to the user. We hope the material will the updated to give a better encounter to the user. 2 . not While Devil Streams When comes to streaming a Are living TV, most of the addons work using the sports devil framework. Only few addons break those limitations together with stand out from the rest. One such addon is certainly white devil streams. Though it is an all in one addon, Live TV belongings are simply amazing. Currently, it has 634 streams. 40% of them are working great, and some are Geo-restricted contents. You may use VPN like IPVanish to access the ones contents and safeguard your invisiblity. 3. Live day to day Are you searching for pure are living TV addons, then this will be the finest addon for you. Live 24/7 kodi addons stream contents from other reside TV addons. Simply it's a built-in addon which can stream the items of multiple addons. Its own material are classified into 24/7 Films, 24/7 Shows, 24/7 Networks, plus 24/7 Random. The other contents include things like UK TV Now, Live web, Mobdro, Swift streams and athletics streams. You will never run out of belongings to the stream. Each of the integrated addons is again classified into programs, news, shows, movies, sports, and even music. The categories may transform depending on the integrated addons. 4. Maverick TV The maverick repository is known because of its streaming contents. Most of the addons happen to be from this repository are related to internet. All of these addons work on the same frames. Maverick TV contents are grouped into 25 categories. It includes are living sports, World IPTV, Nasa Reside TV, and a few more. It also features movies and TV shows. The unique thing about this addon is, it may stream live music. It has a few categories dedicated for music such as Paragon music, Live in concert, plus music TV. 60% of the articles are working fine. And few of the material are working when accessing from different IPs. 5. cCloud Tv cCloud Television is the best IPTV Kodi addon which can be found as of now. It is one of the huge databases of IPTV channels. It does give some of the popular channels in the world such as HBO, CBS, AMC, and ESPN. You can almost find any station you wish here. A large number of local US ALL network channels and channels through UK, Japan, Korea, and Uk are available for streaming. This being one of the major repositories of IPTV channels can be used by most of the users and anticipated to be working fine. 6. Falcon Ultra IPTV It is a yet another IPTV Kodi addon. Their feeds are not incredibly sure. They stream most of the articles. It has a lot of options compared to additional IPTV Kodiaddons in this category. Prior to installing the addon. It is recommended to set up F4M tester. It has alternate backlinks for the same content. If one url doesn't work, try another. it may appear handy This addon can be found in AJ repository. 7. Skynet This is a yet another addon fromMaverick repository. It acts as a link to access other addon contents inside the Maverick repository without installing these people. All the addons are interlinked, and even Skynet acts as a doorway. So there is not any shortage of contents. Its contents happen to be classified into 13 categories. The original contents are categorized while sports, new release, 24/7 movies in addition to TV shows, IPTV, Movies, Box-sets, plus the jukebox. The contents of various other addons are added advantage. 8. Mihano IPTV Its one of the very few IPTV kodi addon which streams this content from all location. It has got a lot of the content. This addon can't be mounted from the repository. we need to download the particular file. And proceed to the immediate installation. If you are from a geo-restricted area. we highly recommend you to use VPN to take care of identity anonymous. being unfaithful. Cerebro IPTV Autor IPTV is one of the famous IPTV addons. It contents are mind-blowing. Their contents are categorized as thirteen sections. It includes IPTV, Elysium TELEVISION, Covenant TV, Possiden TV, Exodus TV and Showbox TV. Different categories are related to movies. Additionally, it has an inbuilt TV player, private video recorder(PVR). It enables you record the video while playing. It is really an added advantage to this addon. Yet recently it's facing some specialized issue. We hope it will back to normal. 10. Chronos Chronos is the new member of IPTV family. This addon mainly focuses on Live TV and Live athletics. If you are a UFC/MMA fan, you will adore this addon. This is a regional addon for Austria. It also streams reside concert and 24/7 news. Based on these, its contents are grouped into 8 sections. It also has its own tools like the clear cache sorcerer for optimal streaming. The loading quality is good. And during our screening, 90% of the streams are working excellent. To access the Austria regional written content, we used a VPN. Additional contents can be accessed normally. This particular addon is located in skydark's repository. 11. Ultra IPTV Developing popularity over IPTV, many developers have developed a lot of addonswhich can surf over the live prey on the internet and deliver to the consumer. One such IPTV kodi addon will be ultra IPTV. It streams this content fromthe United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, plus India. Due to its complications most recently arrived addons cant make towards the list of top 10. Ultra IPTV will be hosted by the super repository andCazlo repository. People from other locations can easily access the geo-restricted content through the use of VPN. It is highly recommended to use VPN while using IPTV 10. Ultimate IPTV Greatest IPTV is one of the reliable IPTV Kodi add-ons. It is hosted by the extremely repository. And addon helps you access the wide range of live television set channel streams to the user. Very low minor Ebox drawback, some time the listed content won't be available for direct loading. At that time it will an error nothing discovered. During that time check other hyperlinks to access the same content. It provides a number of tv channels which includes sky athletics, sky cinema 1, BBC Reports, canal plus, etc 13. USTV Now USTVNow is an official streaming funnel that offers free live streaming of well-liked US TV channels outside the US. The line-up includes ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CW TV, POC, and My9. Though it is a compensated subscription service, it is worth the money. This kind of offers many US channels within HD too. This service is manufactured in favor of US citizens who live in another country. If you are missing US channel. Then that IPTV Kodi addon will match your need. 13. Goodfellas Goodfellas 2 . not 0 welcomes you to a wide range of programs from the UK and US with the help of a few other exciting options. Goodfellas is definitely one of the best IPTV Kodiaddons and that is adequate of a reason to have it in the library. It is absolutely free. In addition to IPTV, it also offers movies and Shows separately. It also supports live streaming involving PPV and sports events. You should love this addon if you use Kodi. 15. BBC iPlayer BBC iPlayer addon is solely built for watching the particular BBC channels exclusively. You can accessibility all the BBC network channels by way of this addon. It is your best Kodi IPTV addon for a wide range of UNITED KINGDOM channels. This does provide live streaming together with HD streaming. You can also stream LABELLISÃ‰ BASSE CONSOMMATION radio. These are greatest IPTV Kodi addons availablewhich you could be used to watch free IPTV in your device. Hope this is informative. Label the individual installation procedure for detail ways. If you face any issue although installing, do let us know via commentary. We will be glad to solve your concern. 11 Comments about "15 Best IPTV kodi addons 2018 to watch free IPTV updated" ashley Comment Name Email Internet site Primary Sidebar Search for:

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