Opening the Black Box with Explainable AI [Hands-on]

Artificial Intelligence is often said to be a “black box” — an opaque, almost mystical thing that we don’t really understand. Throw data into the black box, and out comes a prediction, or so they say. However, much of AI is not opaque, it’s just a complex system that “reasons” differently than we (think we) do.

For example, kids learn to write by first experimenting with letters, and finding patterns in words. GPT-3 learned to write by training a generative text algorithm on the entire Internet, yielding a model with 175 billion parameters that, essentially, predict how “the Internet” would complete a prompt.

You can teach someone what a car is by pointing at one and saying, “that’s a car!”, while an AI needs tons of examples to learn and reduce the error of its predictive function.

Still, we have many tools to help explain those functions and the decisions they make. Let’s take the example of forecasting wind energy data.

Forecasting Windmill Power

There are many methods to predict wind power. You can use data from the windmill, you can use satellite data — including atmospheric and terrain data, you can use meteorological maps that record wind data, and more. To start, let’s use windmill data.

The Motivation

This is an important task, as insights into what drives wind energy can help bring about a more sustainable future.

The Data

Looking at the first and last rows, we can see that there are windmill readings from December 31st, 2017 to March 30th, 2020, which should all be at 10-minute intervals. There are 1,182,240 minutes between these dates, so if the date-times are correct, then we should have 118,224 rows — which is indeed the case.

#artificial-intelligence #education #data-science #ai #machine-learning

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Amsterdam And Helsinki Launch Open AI Registers

Amsterdam and Helsinki both launched an Open AI Register at the Next Generation Internet Summit. According to sources, these two cities are the first in the world that are aiming to be open and transparent about the use of algorithms and AI in the cities.

Currently, in the beta version, Algorithm Register is an overview of the artificial intelligence systems and algorithms used by the City of Amsterdam. The register is an effort to show where the cities are currently making use of AI and how the algorithms work.

Jan Vapaavuori, Mayor of Helsinki stated, “Helsinki aims to be the city in the world that best capitalises on digitalisation. Digitalisation is strongly associated with the utilisation of artificial intelligence. With the help of artificial intelligence, we can give people in the city better services available anywhere and at any time. In the front rank with the City of Amsterdam, we are proud to tell everyone openly what we use Artificial Intelligence for.”

#news #ai register #amsterdam ai #helsinki ai #open ai register #ai

Understanding Explainability In Computer Vision

The session “Explainable AI For Computer Vision” was presented at the first of its kind Computer Vision conference, CVDC 2020 by Avni Gupta, who is the Technology Lead at Synduit. Organised by the Association of Data Scientists (ADaSCi), the premier global professional body of data science and machine learning professionals, it is a first-of-its-kind virtual conference on Computer Vision.

The primary aspect of the talk is computer vision models most of the time act as a black box and it is hard to explain what is actually going behind the models or how the outcomes are coming from. She also mentioned some of the important libraries which can help to make explainable AI possible in Computer Vision models.

According to Gupta, many a time, when developers create a computer vision model, they find themselves interacting with a backbox and unaware of what feature extraction is happening at each layer. With the help of explainable AI, it becomes easier to comprehend and know when enough layers have been added and what feature extraction has taken place at each layer.

#developers corner #black box in ai #computer vision model #explainability in ai #explainable ai #ml models

Making Sales More Efficient: Lead Qualification Using AI

If you were to ask any organization today, you would learn that they are all becoming reliant on Artificial Intelligence Solutions and using AI to digitally transform in order to bring their organizations into the new age. AI is no longer a new concept, instead, with the technological advancements that are being made in the realm of AI, it has become a much-needed business facet.

AI has become easier to use and implement than ever before, and every business is applying AI solutions to their processes. Organizations have begun to base their digital transformation strategies around AI and the way in which they conduct their business. One of these business processes that AI has helped transform is lead qualifications.

#ai-solutions-development #artificial-intelligence #future-of-artificial-intellige #ai #ai-applications #ai-trends #future-of-ai #ai-revolution

Explaining the Explainable AI: A 2-Stage Approach

As artificial intelligence (AI) models, especially those using deep learning, have gained prominence over the last eight or so years [8], they are now significantly impacting society, ranging from loan decisions to self-driving cars. Inherently though, a majority of these models are opaque, and hence following their recommendations blindly in human critical applications can raise issues such as fairness, safety, reliability, along with many others. This has led to the emergence of a subfield in AI called explainable AI (XAI) [7]. XAI is primarily concerned with understanding or interpreting the decisions made by these opaque or black-box models so that one can appropriate trust, and in some cases, have even better performance through human-machine collaboration [5].

While there are multiple views on what XAI is [12] and how explainability can be formalized [4, 6], it is still unclear as to what XAI truly is and why it is hard to formalize mathematically. The reason for this lack of clarity is that not only must the model and/or data be considered but also the final consumer of the explanation. Most XAI methods [11, 9, 3], given this intermingled view, try to meet all these requirements at the same time. For example, many methods try to identify a sparse set of features that replicate the decision of the model. The sparsity is a proxy for the consumer’s mental model. An important question asks whether we can disentangle the steps that XAI methods are trying to accomplish? This may help us better understand the truly challenging parts as well as the simpler parts of XAI, not to mention it may motivate different types of methods.

Two-Stages of XAI

We conjecture that the XAI process can be broadly disentangled into two parts, as depicted in Figure 1. The first part is uncovering what is truly happening in the model that we want to understand, while the second part is about conveying that information to the user in a consumable way. The first part is relatively easy to formalize as it mainly deals with analyzing how well a simple proxy model might generalize either locally or globally with respect to (w.r.t.) data that is generated using the black-box model. Rather than having generalization guarantees w.r.t. the underlying distribution, we now want them w.r.t. the (conditional) output distribution of the model. Once we have some way of figuring out what is truly important, a second step is to communicate this information. This second part is much less clear as we do not have an objective way of characterizing an individual’s mind. This part, we believe, is what makes explainability as a whole so challenging to formalize. A mainstay for a lot of XAI research over the last year or so has been to conduct user studies to evaluate new XAI methods.

#overviews #ai #explainability #explainable ai #xai

Custom Printed Soap Boxes | Wholesale Soap Packaging | Custom Packaging Pro

You have a great quality product in your hand, and now you are thinking of ways to represent it to the customers in a most appealing way. Many brands are afraid of spending money on custom boxes without knowing that it is the most cost-effecting way with various benefits. When designed with proper planning and creativity, custom packaging can result in money. You shouldn’t mind spending a little more to save money in the long run. You may disagree with us, but investment in customization and personalization can open new doors of success for your business.

How Custom Boxes for Soap Are a Cost-Effective Solution?

From our kitchen cabinets to the big supermarkets, custom boxes are everywhere. We are surrounded by customization, even if it is about selling a small cosmetic product. When you deal in the soap market, you have to face a lot of competition. You can’t compete in the market with a strategy of using plain cardboard boxes. Gone are the days when you can use a simple packaging solution. Today is the age of customization, and you have to use custom Boxes for Soap. These are not only affordable but also look good on the shelves and provide an ultimate customer experience. Let’s take a deeper look at how custom packaging is a cost-effective solution with several benefits.

Helps To Reduce Shipping Prices

During this pandemic, the e-commerce industry has grown too fast, and every brand is selling its products online. One thing which is keeping the manufacturer is the high shipping price. But to make the right decision, you need to understand how shipping prices work. It is not only about the weight of the box; consider dimensional weight as well. Even if you are shipping a small item like soap, the box size can increase the shipping cost. So, the firsts step towards price reduction is using the box which is according to the product size and also light in weight.

Maximum Durability Ensures Protection

It is one of the most faced issues which brands face. Damaged and broken products always result in returns which ultimately means additional cost. No brand will ever want to face negative reviews and customer backlash. You can avoid it by using durable and sturdy boxes. When it comes to protection, corrugate and cardboard soap boxers can outclass every other solution. These two materials are quite affordable and readily available in the market. Once again, it is highly recommended to use the right box size to avoid damage and returns. You can also use other packaging materials for added protection.

Increase Your Visibility with Pillow Boxes

When it comes to increasing your visibility and exposure in retail stores, there is no better option other than custom containers. These come in a variety of shapes and styles, which increase the customer’s interest in your product. Custom Pillow Boxes are the right choice to present your soap products on the shelves. You can customize the pillow packaging further with other customization options like window patching, lamination, and gold stamping. Unique solutions always make customers take a closer look at the product, and most probably they will end up buying it.

Right Box Size Help to Save Big

We have mentioned it before, but it needs more repetition. A wrong size box will always cost you more. If you are thinking that you can end up saving by choosing the standard size boxes for all the products, you are wrong. It will cost you more in form of damaged products and returns. Moreover, the bigger will be the size of the box, the more you have to pay for shipping. So, always choose the right size, which suits the product dimensions, and don’t leave too much space in the containers. A bigger size box will also make you use the protective material.

Cardboard And Paperboard Are the Cheapest Options

If you still think that custom boxes are way out of your range, we have still so many options for you. Take a simple corrugate or cardboard box in white or any plain color, print your logo on it, and you have a custom box in your hand. Getting a custom solution for your soap products has never been so easy. Today is the age of minimalism, and you can take advantage of this trend. Use simple customization for a natural and minimal look. Cardboard and corrugated are the most affordable option when it comes to custom material.

Happy Customers Result in Repeat Business and Positive Reviews

When it comes to benefits with custom packaging, there are several benefits that you can get. From product protection to the customer experience, you will get everything with a custom solution. The biggest benefits of providing a personalized experience are repeat business and positive reviews from the customers. When you put your heart and effort into the customization, customers will reward you with positive feedback. A good review from the customers will attract more customers to your business. Satisfied customers will bring business with repeat business and higher brand recall.

Kraft Boxes for Display Improve Sustainability

When it comes to being sustainable, there is no better option than Kraft. Use Kraft packaging boxes to display your products on the shelves. It will attract more and more eco-conscious customers, which will ultimately result in boosted sales. It is not only a cheap option but offers 100% recyclability. The presentation and display of your product have a greater role to play in drawing the attraction. Using the same old-style packaging will not going to help you out. Think of something innovative and try using Kraft boxes for better results. Find a solution that is not unique but meets the customer’s needs.

When it comes to soap packaging, Kraft Boxes for Display are a perfect choice. These are not only cost-efficient but result in customer satisfaction, repeat business, and reduced shipping cost. Find a solution that meets your needs without breaking the budget.

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