Azeem's Exponential View - Free energy, deep learning, Microsoft & Facebook: issue #7

By crawling social network data and financial records, China aims to hold its citizens accountable for financial decisions and moral choices.

A computer smarter than humans destroys civilization: Interview with the director of Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute

Nice simulation of what shareable taxi-bots will do for people living in cities: faster commutes the big one. (And as these vehicles will be ZEV, breathable air may return to the cities.)

Separating a singer’s voice from background music has always been a uniquely human ability. Not anymore.

When I was running PeerIndex, we identified that there were complex time-series patterns in Twitter (and other time series data sets) that described diffusion and influence of ideas. We got to some of them. Deep learning is allowing us to get to others

Really practical guide to the data science ecosystem, tools, tricks, methods and services.

It lasts 20 minutes. But pay close attention.

A major reason for the rapid jump in electric vehicles sales around the world is the rapid drop in the cost of their key component -– batteries. Industry leaders, like Nissan and Tesla, have hit a key price point not been expected until 2020 with prices declining around 10% annually.

The data is one year old, but shows a rapidly asymptoting solar generation capacity in key US states, ultimately this will drive the marginal price of electricity to zero.

There is science and psychology that explains why so many of us are glued to Facebook. Researchers have discovered trends that explain just why Facebook addicts us on so many levels.

The reshaped Microsoft that Satya Nadella, the new chief executive, envisions has fewer internal fiefs and is more willing to favor big bets on new technologies

The facial-recognition “How Old” tool guesses age and gender from user-submitted photos.

How to tell how much you relate to another body? Threaten it with a sledgehammer and see if you flinch.

Truly fascinating interview with Justine Musk

VCs may back disruption. But they seem undisruptable.

The Valley’s premier historian looks back to the past to envision its bright future — with an assist from Steve Jobs. Lessons for city-planners.

How Slack stole a multi-billion dollar market by becoming everyone’s favorite

After some more discussion, I’ve revised my view on Alex Garland’s Ex Machina