Check it out and visit them!

The following blogs could be of interest for you! Check them out!!

- AI and Machine Learning - applied to real life business cases

- The Good, The Bad and The Artificial: Developments around the world in AI

- What’s next and upcoming, considering artificial intelligence

All blogs of classmates ;-)

You think looks ain't nothing but a number? You are absolutely right!

We've all heard the saying, "age ain't nothing but a number"; it's all in the head and how we perceive ourselves! We know there is a direct correlation between age and looks so we can restate this as “looks ain’t nothing but a number” except for one fact, we will be quite right if we put it this way.

The relationship between age and looks is blurry these days thanks to plastic surgeons and silicone/botox, however they are not the sole responsible for this misrepresentation.

Think of any of your favorite social media app with picture editing features; Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, Snapchat and pretty much all apps with picture editing features embedded has the ability to take years off our real age by making us look younger/prettier/more handsome than we actually are thus disrupting this delicate balance between age and looks.

If you have used this “special” feature before or you plan to use it in the future, you owe Artificial Intelligence a debt of gratitude because as it turns out, it is all about algorithm and numbers.

While a lot of people frown at the oversimplification of age (read: looks) as ‘only’ a number, Artificial Intelligence has proven this to be true with proliferation of the use of image filters/editors to look anything but our age!
Seam carving and Gaussian blur are two popular processing used in such image filters.

There are several other calculations done with algorithms that affect sizes and shapes of objects; you want to look slimmer, fatter, stodgier, younger, older, prettier or uglier? There are combinations of various low level processing decided by an algorithm that make this possible. You want to reduce image noise or improve an image severely corrupted by defective pixels? Algorithms to the rescue!

So after all, looks ain’t nothing but a number/a combination of numbers!

To get introduced to the world of algorithm-based look-enhancement, check out this great video (happy viewing!)

Excuse me, mr. Internet? Can you play music that I like?

After we provided you with some hopefully interesting information about algorithms and love, we will move to some new topics.... ;-)

Nowadays it is borderline impossible to keep track of all the new artists and songs playing on the radio, let alone attempting to identify the genres: rock, pop, classic, pop rock, classic rock, indie rock, indie hip hop, indie pop rock classical r&b.........ok, ok - point proven.

I imagine that since you are reading this blog, you actually have some time to think about what to do tomorrow? Or how you will dress for Friday's party? Or whether or not to sleep tonight; if so, maybe you can manage to personally identify every artist and search for the album release date.  Also you may manage to customize playlists.

For those who don't have the time, you may be familiar with some of these awesome services (which have now been around for almost 10 years) - music streaming. These little angels manage to make everything simpler, faster, stronger, cooler and sometimes: free.

The basic idea for the garden variety internet user is to enjoy the music we love without having to invest a minute of our time coming up with our own mixes. So, the awesome tech guys took care of that and created a simple interface for us to enjoy all the repertoire available in their servers. Huge news for music nuts.

Apps such as Spotify, Deezer, iTunes Radio, Pandora; came up with DIFFERENT and very accurate algorithms that can actually keep track of your music tastes and start offering new options for you to enjoy and discover. Once you develop a certain history, the algorithm gets more accurate until they actually offer only tailor-made music for the master (that means for us). 

Pretty cool (and kind of old news to be honest), the streaming services are having one of the most exciting battles to survive and become #1, but there is actually enough market to all of them. Spotify seems to be leading this race, innovating in all the things, improving and evolving day by day. 

Spotify seems to understand that music is more than "cool" or "harmony"; it's not only image and nice beat.  By this principle, the app offers an special tab called "explore." Once you choose an option they give you a variety of playlists, albums and possible artists that are of your tastes, according to your like and dislike history.

Feel free to try all these services, you probably will end up loving one of them. Cheers!

Spotify: https://www.spotify.com/

iTunes Music Radio: http://www.apple.com/music/radio/

Deezer: http://www.deezer.com/

Pandora: http://www.pandora.com/

Google Play Music: https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/sulp

Tidal: http://tidal.com/

Rdio:http://www.rdio.com/home/

NPR: http://www.npr.org/music/radio

The FuegoBot Team

Mozart and Beethoven at youtube? Van Gogh and Picasso uploading paint at Pinterest? Just wondering....

There is something to how popular arts such as painting and music were done before, and how nowadays painters and musicians are getting they work appreciated all around the globe currently. TV and Radio are becoming less and less famous as the time passes by, and there is nothing no one can do about it, basically because all the trends are being imposed by the online community, in almost every relevant topic and mainstream interests among the society.

Contemporary artists are understanding this trend, and actually started diverse communities, in order jump aboard the online community; and they actually succeeded amazingly. Nowadays is easy to spot really cool photographs on Tumbler, Pinterest, Flickr, Instagram; you can hear diverse independent artist on Youtube, Musicbaby, Deezer, Spotify; you can even find original paintings at this awesome website called SaatchiArt.com; where you actually buy and sell original and unique paintings from different artists. Probably, we all get the picture of this new era, and how things are gonna work out from now on. Is the artist community ready for this extreme adaptation.

Actually many sophisticated tools have been developed in past few years, trying to actually anticipate what the market actually wants and need; there is a interesting story of a company called Polyphonic, which through a specific algorithm was able to predict if a new song was going to be a popular worldwide hit; which is just fantastic, if you ask us; but is the market and the natural customer of this algorithm willing to use it? You'll find out later.

What about you, Fuego Fans? Are you musicians? Artists? Are you ready to be famous in matter of days or hours? Are you willing to be judge by the whole world? This is whats happening now, if you are famous online, you get all the good and bad attention of the community. Please think about it thoroughly and let us know on the comments section.

Cheers!

Chatterbots - sorry, am I speaking with a human being?!

Imagine the following situation: you are receiving a message from an unknown number. The sender of the message is pretending to know you and starts a nice chat. The person seems to be a nice guy or gal. After some time, the chat moves in a more intimate direction with sexual content. He or she is inviting you to video chat and and is sending a link for an unknown website. This is the moment when most - actually all - of us should be a bit suspicious. Clicking on unknown links has never been a good choice...   

We came across this story on the Cloudmark blog where Andrew Conway described his first clash with a chatterbot. At the end, he exposed the chatterbot by asking a simple maths question which he received no real answer for. The link most probably led to an external chargeable website with sexual content.

In simple words, chatterbots are programs or algorithms that are able to communicate with us. Partly, they do so in written form in instant messengers or via SMS. Some are also a bit more sophisticated and communicate even verbally (e.g. iPhone's Siri). The art and challenge of developing chatterbots lies in making their communication as human and realistic as possible.  Some of these programs are quite good, and users can hardly detect if they are chatting with a real person or an algorithm. Indeed chatterbots nowadays are pretty close to human beings. In June 2014, Eugene Goostman was the first chatterbot passing the Turing test, a test designed to examine an algorithm's ability to act in way similar or very close to human behavior (2). 

The example we described at the beginning is a popular way to use chatterbots as romance or flirt bots. There are various apps in this segment using artificial intelligence to talk and flirt with human beings. Take the app Boyfriend Maker as an example. There you can create your virtual boyfriend, dress him and chat with his algorithm (the link to the app store for the lonely hearts who haven't found their soulmate via one of the dating services). Another interesting website is Pandorabots.com where you can even create and train your own chatterbot or chat with Mitsuku, the chatterbot of this website as we did. 

But there are many other, more commercial ways to use chatterbots. Many companies deploy algorithms for example in there customer service hotlines. Often the chatterbot only helps to categorize the caller's concern and then forwards the call to the respective call agent. In some cases nevertheless, the algorithm takes the whole conversation - both in writing or verbally. 

Chatterbots are an excellent example to illustrate the progress of algorithms in terms of the adaption of human behavior. It is obvious that it bears a lot of risks if we are not even able to distinguish between a program and a human being communicating with us. However, it can also bring some opportunities and advantages. Nowadays, chatterbots are often only communication toys for lonely or bored individuals. Nevertheless, the hotline example shows a commercial usage which in the future surely could be expanded. Indeed, we are then facing the machines-steal-jobs-from-humans-discussion. But that is technological progress in a changing working environment! We should rather concentrate on the opportunities offered by these developments instead of being scared of them. Perhaps, chatterbots could make life in many areas much easier. We just have to identify these potentials and make use of them!

Swiping right for the elite - an algorithm for dating the career-oriented..

So, I know that a very important concern of Ironhide is to get connected with single, successful, and rich ladies.  After some thorough research, since we don't want to hurt anybody's feelings (Ironhide is sensitive, cough cough) and suggest somebody that is not a perfect match, in the end: "we don't to miss opportunities because of an algorithm pre-filters".


Ladies and gents, we would like to introduce you to a highly controversial, yet appreciated, app called "The League" (insert catchy dating game show intro theme song here). "The League", which raise 2.1 million in Sillicon Valley funding earlier in 2015 was launched by Stanford Alumni Amanda Bradford.

The app has an "advanced screening algorithm" to scan all the members' credential, background, social circles, and other relevant facts that a successful executive considers prior to dating a certain individual. According to Bradford, ambition is the main trait for her app's users. 

For now only San Francisco and New York get to enjoy the "elite" tinder - and it truly is elite. There more than 100,000 on the waiting list in San Francisco and 16,000 in New York. Members receive two VIP passes so they can invite whoever they desire. So if you know somebody that actually got invited to "The League", don't hesitate to ask for their VIP pass (or feel free to send it to our FuegoBot blog contributor Mirage, she could use some help in that department). If you don't know anyone on the it-list, let's just wait for the international expansion to Madrid. Caviar and tapas in the interim, anyone? 

Dating Services - Show me who I love, Mr. Algorithm!

Dear reader,

Does this situation sound familiar?

You are going out with friends and there is always one who is complaining about not having a boy or girlfriend. Because they are a friend, you normally don't ignore his or her needs and the relationship-analysis starts... "Probably, I have to go more often to the gym. I am not in shape... I don't have enough money...  I am not confident enough" But sometimes these single friends also look doggedly for issues in the potential partners. These are the ones who normally don't lack in self-confidence: "Aaah, I don't like his/her hair.... No, he/she had a relationship with the person I hate... I don't like his/her hobbies". Of course, you console them, give them more or less helpful tips or you even introduce them to the nice colleague from the office. But if all this doesn't help, what next? With more than eight billion human beings on this planet, there must be a perfect (ish) match for everybody. The challenge is connecting single person A with single person B.

Here we come to the online dating services who centralized this problem as their business model: Making money by bringing lonely, desperate hearts together (Of course, not every single is desperate). But how do they do that? Is there an employee sitting in a dark office and randomly matching singles ("Molly and Mike could be a wonderful couple. Their names start with M")? Or is there a more comprehensive approach behind?

The truth is - and we are sorry for all the romantics out there - it is pure mathematics; it's just an algorithm. You might think: how could they dare? First they make money out of love and now they even do it with mathematics?! Welcome to the wonderland of dating services!

As such their principle is as easy as it is sophisticated. They characterize the singles by certain attributes and score these. The scale is not judgmental; it only indicates how similar the singles are. If you do this practice not only with hobbies but also with dozens or even hundreds of other characteristics you get a numerical description of a person's personality and preferences. The algorithm at the end just finds the singles which are closest to each other and connects them assuming that similarity is the decisive factor for the partner selection. The picture below shows this approach in an easy way. Pete, Anna and Laura are scored in six different categories. In this case, Pete and Anna are much closer too each other and have therefore more in common. The algorithm would probably connect Anna and Pete instead of Laura and Pete. 

Of course, dating services bring a lot of advantages and achieve the main objective: bringing singles together. Otherwise there wouldn't be such a high number of platforms (Match, Christian Mingle, eHarmony, etc.). But is this how love works? Is this how we want love to work? A code determining the perfect partner? That is very unromantic. But we doubt not only the lack of emotional value of finding one's soulmate, but also that love is so easy. Some people look for people who are similar to them, others want specific features, others again search for their exact opposite a la "opposite attracts." Not everybody thinks the same way. Love bears an emotional dimension which cannot be translated to a scale. Emotions lead to irrationality in our actions. It makes us unpredictable. One might say she hates football and cannot understand how people can enjoy hunting. But then she meets this unbelievable, football-loving hunter in the library. He convinces just by other features. Do we want to miss these opportunities because an algorithm pre-filters?