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Google Books Ngram Viewer

The Google Books Ngram Viewer is an online search engine that charts the frequencies of any set of search strings using a yearly count of n-grams found in printed sources published between 1500 and 2022 in Google's text corpora in English, Chinese (simplified), French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Russian, or Spanish. There are also some specialized English corpora, such as American English, British English, and English Fiction. The program can search for a word or a phrase. The n-grams are matched with the text within the selected corpus, and if found in 40 or more books, are then displayed as a graph. The program supports searches for parts of speech and wildcards. It is routinely used in research. == History == The Ngram Viewer was created by Google software engineers Will Brockman and Jon Orwant , who teamed up with Harvard researchers Jean-Baptiste Michel and Erez Lieberman Aiden. The service was released on December 16, 2010. Before the release, it was difficult to quantify the rate of linguistic change because of the absence of a database that was designed for this purpose, said Steven Pinker, a well-known linguist who was one of the co-authors of the Science paper published on the same day. The Google Books Ngram Viewer was developed in the hope of opening a new window to quantitative research in the humanities field, and the database contained 500 billion words from 5.2 million books publicly available from the very beginning. The intended audience was scholarly, but the Google Books Ngram Viewer made it possible for anyone with a computer to see a graph that represents the diachronic change of the use of words and phrases with ease. Lieberman said in response to The New York Times that the developers aimed to provide even children with the ability to browse cultural trends throughout history. In the Science paper, Lieberman and his collaborators called the method of high-volume data analysis in digitized texts "culturomics". == Usage == Commas delimit user-entered search terms, where each comma-separated term is searched in the database as an n-gram (for example, "nursery school" is a 2-gram or bigram). The Ngram Viewer then returns a plotted line chart. Due to limitations on the size of the Ngram database, only matches found in at least 40 books are indexed. == Limitations == The data sets of the Ngram Viewer have been criticized for their reliance upon inaccurate optical character recognition (OCR) and for including large numbers of incorrectly dated and categorized texts. Because of these errors, and because they are uncontrolled for bias (such as the increasing amount of scientific literature, which causes other terms to appear to decline in popularity), care must be taken in using the corpora to study language or test theories. Furthermore, the data sets may not reflect general linguistic or cultural change and can only hint at such an effect because they do not involve any metadata like date published, author, length, or genre, to avoid any potential copyright infringements. Systemic errors like the confusion of s and f in pre-19th century texts (due to the use of ſ, the long s, which is similar in appearance to f) can cause systemic bias. Although the Google Books team claims that the results are reliable from 1800 onwards, poor OCR and insufficient data mean that frequencies given for languages such as Chinese may only be accurate from 1970 onward, with earlier parts of the corpus showing no results at all for common terms, and data for some years containing more than 50% noise. Guidelines for doing research with data from Google Ngram have been proposed that try to address some of the issues discussed above.
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Geopolitical ontology

The FAO geopolitical ontology is an ontology developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to describe, manage and exchange data related to geopolitical entities such as countries, territories, regions and other similar areas. == Definitions and examples == An ontology is a kind of dictionary that describes information in a certain domain using concepts and relationships. It is often implemented using OWL (Web Ontology Language), an XML-based standard language that can be interpreted by computers. A Concept is defined as abstract knowledge. For example, in the geopolitical ontology a non-self-governing territory and a geographical group are concepts. Concepts are explicitly implemented in the ontology with individuals and classes: An individual is defined as an object perceived from the real world. In the geopolitical domain Ethiopia and the least developed countries group are individuals. A class is defined as a set of individuals sharing common properties. In the geopolitical domain, Ethiopia, Republic of Korea and Italy are individuals of the class self-governing territory; and least developed countries is an individual of the class special group. Relationships between concepts are explicitly implemented by: Object properties between individuals of two classes. For example, has member and is in group properties, as shown in Figure 1. Datatype properties between individuals and literals or XML datatypes. For example, the individual Afghanistan has the datatype property CodeISO3 with the value "AFG". Restrictions in classes and/or properties. For example, the property official English name of the class self-governing territory has been restricted to have only one value, this means that a self-governing territory (or country) can only have one internationally recognized official English name. The advantage of describing information in an ontology is that it enables to acquire domain knowledge by defining hierarchical structures of classes, adding individuals, setting object properties and datatype properties, and assigning restrictions. == FAO ontology == The geopolitical ontology provides names in seven languages (Arabic, Chinese, French, English, Spanish, Russian and Italian) and identifiers in various international coding systems (ISO2, ISO3, AGROVOC, FAOSTAT, FAOTERM, GAUL, UN, UNDP and DBPediaID codes) for territories and groups. Moreover, the FAO geopolitical ontology tracks historical changes from 1985 up until today; provides geolocation (geographical coordinates); implements relationships among countries and countries, or countries and groups, including properties such as has border with, is predecessor of, is successor of, is administered by, has members, and is in group; and disseminates country statistics including country area, land area, agricultural area, GDP or population. The FAO geopolitical ontology provides a structured description of data sources. This includes: source name, source identifier, source creator and source's update date. Concepts are described using the Dublin Core vocabulary In summary, the main objectives of the FAO geopolitical ontology are: To provide the most updated geopolitical information (names, codes, relationships, statistics) To track historical changes in geopolitical information To improve information management and facilitate standardized data sharing of geopolitical information To demonstrate the benefits of the geopolitical ontology to improve interoperability of corporate information systems It is possible to download the FAO geopolitical ontology in OWL and RDF formats. Documentation is available in the FAO Country Profiles Geopolitical information web page. == Features of the FAO ontology == The geopolitical ontology contains : Area types: Territories: self-governing, non-self-governing, disputed, other. Groups: organizations, geographic, economic and special groups. Names (official, short and names for lists) in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Spanish, Russian and Italian. International codes: UN code – M49, ISO 3166 Alpha-2 and Alpha-3, UNDP code, GAUL code, FAOSTAT, AGROVOC FAOTERM and DBPediaID. Coordinates: maximum latitude, minimum latitude, maximum longitude, minimum longitude. Basic country statistics: country area, land area, agricultural area, GDP, population. Currency names and codes. Adjectives of nationality. Relations: Groups membership. Neighbours (land border), administration of non-self-governing. Historic changes: predecessor, successor, valid since, valid until. == Implementation into OWL == The FAO geopolitical ontology is implemented in OWL. It consists of classes, properties, individuals and restrictions. Table 1 shows all classes, gives a brief description and lists some individuals that belong to each class. Note that the current version of the geopolitical ontology does not provide individuals of the class "disputed" territories. Table 2 and Table 3 illustrate datatype properties and object properties. == Geopolitical ontology in Linked Open Data == The FAO Geopolitical ontology is embracing the W3C Linked Open Data (LOD) initiative and released its RDF version of the geopolitical ontology in March 2011. The term 'Linked Open Data' refers to a set of best practices for publishing and connecting structured data on the Web. The key technologies that support Linked Data are URIs, HTTP and RDF. The RDF version of the geopolitical ontology is compliant with all Linked data principles to be included in the Linked Open Data cloud, as explained in the following. == Resolvable http:// URIs == Every resource in the OWL format of the FAO Geopolitical Ontology has a unique URI. Dereferenciation was implemented to allow for three different URIs to be assigned to each resource as follows: URI identifying the non-information resource Information resource with an RDF/XML representation Information resource with an HTML representation In addition the current URIs used for OWL format needed to be kept to allow for backwards compatibility for other systems that are using them. Therefore, the new URIs for the FAO Geopolitical Ontology in LOD were carefully created, using “Cool URIs for Semantic Web” and considering other good practices for URIs, such as DBpedia URIs. == New URIs == The URIs of the geopolitical ontology need to be permanent, consequently all transient information, such as year, version, or format was avoided in the definition of the URIs. The new URIs can be accessed For example, for the resource “Italy” the URIs are the following: http://www.fao.org/countryprofiles/geoinfo/geopolitical/resource/Italy identifies the non-information resource. http://www.fao.org/countryprofiles/geoinfo/geopolitical/data/Italy identifies the resource with an RDF/XML representation. http://www.fao.org/countryprofiles/geoinfo/geopolitical/page/Italy identifies the information resource with an HTML representation. In addition, “owl:sameAs” is used to map the new URIs to the OWL representation. == Dereferencing URIs == When a non-information resource is looked up without any specific representation format, then the server needs to redirect the request to information resource with an HTML representation. For example, to retrieve the resource “Italy”, which is a non-information resource, the server redirects to the HTML page of “Italy”. == At least 1000 triples in the datasets == The total number of triple statements in FAO Geopolitical Ontology is 22,495. At least 50 links to a dataset already in the current LOD Cloud: FAO Geopolitical Ontology has 195 links to DBpedia, which is already part of the LOD Cloud. == Access to the entire dataset == FAO Geopolitical Ontology provides the entire dataset as a RDF dump. The RDF version of the FAO Geopolitical Ontology has been already registered in CKAN and it was requested to add it into the LOD Cloud. == Example of use == The FAO Country Profiles is an information retrieval tool which groups the FAO's vast archive of information on its global activities in agriculture and rural development in one single area and catalogues it exclusively by country. The FAO Country Profiles system provides access to country-based heterogeneous data sources. By using the geopolitical ontology in the system, the following benefits are expected: Enhanced system functionality for content aggregation and synchronization from the multiple source repositories. Improved information access and browsing through comparison of data in neighbor countries and groups. Figure 3 shows a page in the FAO Country Profiles where the geopolitical ontology is described.
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Mental mapping

In behavioral geography, a mental map is a person's point-of-view perception of their area of interaction. Although this kind of subject matter would seem most likely to be studied by fields in the social sciences, this particular subject is most often studied by modern-day geographers. Researchers have also applied mental mapping to understand and define cognitive regions. They study it to determine subjective qualities from the public such as personal preference and practical uses of geography like driving directions. Mass media also have a virtually direct effect on a person's mental map of the geographical world. The perceived geographical dimensions of a foreign nation (relative to one's own nation) may often be heavily influenced by the amount of time and relative news coverage that the news media may spend covering news events from that foreign region. For instance, a person might perceive a small island to be nearly the size of a continent, merely based on the amount of news coverage that they are exposed to on a regular basis. In psychology, the term names the information maintained in the mind of an organism by means of which it may plan activities, select routes over previously traveled territories, etc. The rapid traversal of a familiar maze depends on this kind of mental map if scents or other markers laid down by the subject are eliminated before the maze is re-run. == Background == Mental maps are an outcome of the field of behavioral geography. The imagined maps are considered one of the first studies that intersected geographical settings with human action. The most prominent contribution and study of mental maps was in the writings of Kevin Lynch. In The Image of the City, Lynch used simple sketches of maps created from memory of an urban area to reveal five elements of the city; nodes, edges, districts, paths and landmarks. Lynch claimed that “Most often our perception of the city is not sustained, but rather partial, fragmentary, mixed with other concerns. Nearly every sense is in operation, and the image is the composite of them all.” (Lynch, 1960, p 2.) The creation of a mental map relies on memory as opposed to being copied from a preexisting map or image. In The Image of the City, Lynch asks a participant to create a map as follows: “Make it just as if you were making a rapid description of the city to a stranger, covering all the main features. We don’t expect an accurate drawing- just a rough sketch.” (Lynch 1960, p 141) In the field of human geography mental maps have led to an emphasizing of social factors and the use of social methods versus quantitative or positivist methods. Mental maps have often led to revelations regarding social conditions of a particular space or area. Haken and Portugali (2003) developed an information view, which argued that the face of the city is its information . Bin Jiang (2012) argued that the image of the city (or mental map) arises out of the scaling of city artifacts and locations. He addressed that why the image of city can be formed , and he even suggested ways of computing the image of the city, or more precisely the kind of collective image of the city, using increasingly available geographic information such as Flickr and Twitter . Using mental maps, we will be able to predict individual decision making and spatial selection, as well as evaluate their routing and navigation. A cognitive maps utility as a mnemonic and metaphorical device is precisely one of its other benefits as a shaper of the world and local attitudes. The first major field of study within the domain of memory maps is geography, spatial cognition and neurophysiology. This aims to understand how routes are drawn by subject from their set of subjects out into space which lead to memorization and internal representations. Overall these representations take the form of drawings, positioning in a graph, or oral/textual narratives, but are reflected as behavior is space that can be recorded as tracking items. == Research applications == Mental maps have been used in a collection of spatial research. Many studies have been performed that focus on the quality of an environment in terms of feelings such as fear, desire and stress. A study by Matei et al. in 2001 used mental maps to reveal the role of media in shaping urban space in Los Angeles. The study used Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to process 215 mental maps taken from seven neighborhoods across the city. The results showed that people's fear perceptions in Los Angeles are not associated with high crime rates but are instead associated with a concentration of certain ethnicities in a given area. The mental maps recorded in the study draw attention to these areas of concentrated ethnicities as parts of the urban space to avoid or stay away from. Mental maps have also been used to describe the urban experience of children. In a 2008 study by Olga den Besten mental maps were used to map out the fears and dislikes of children in Berlin and Paris. The study looked into the absence of children in today's cities and the urban environment from a child's perspective of safety, stress and fear. Peter Gould and Rodney White have performed prominent analyses in the book “Mental Maps.” This book is an investigation into people's spatial desires. The book asks of its participants: “Suppose you were suddenly given the chance to choose where you would like to live- an entirely free choice that you could make quite independently of the usual constraints of income or job availability. Where would you choose to go?” (Gould, 1974, p 15) Gould and White use their findings to create a surface of desire for various areas of the world. The surface of desire is meant to show people's environmental preferences and regional biases. In an experiment done by Edward C. Tolman, the development of a mental map was seen in rats. A rat was placed in a cross shaped maze and allowed to explore it. After this initial exploration, the rat was placed at one arm of the cross and food was placed at the next arm to the immediate right. The rat was conditioned to this layout and learned to turn right at the intersection in order to get to the food. When placed at different arms of the cross maze however, the rat still went in the correct direction to obtain the food because of the initial mental map it had created of the maze. Rather than just deciding to turn right at the intersection no matter what, the rat was able to determine the correct way to the food no matter where in the maze it was placed. The idea of mental maps is also used in strategic analysis. David Brewster, an Australian strategic analyst, has applied the concept to strategic conceptions of South Asia and Southeast Asia. He argues that popular mental maps of where regions begin and end can have a significant impact on the strategic behaviour of states. A collection of essays, documenting current geographical and historical research in mental maps is published by the Journal of Cultural Geography in 2018.
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Revoscalepy

revoscalepy is a machine learning package in Python created by Microsoft. It is available as part of Machine Learning Services in Microsoft SQL Server 2017 and Machine Learning Server 9.2.0 and later. The package contains functions for creating linear model, logistic regression, random forest, decision tree and boosted decision tree, in addition to some summary functions for inspecting data. Other machine learning algorithms such as neural network are provided in microsoftml, a separate package that is the Python version of MicrosoftML. revoscalepy also contains functions designed to run machine learning algorithms in different compute contexts, including SQL Server, Apache Spark, and Hadoop. In June 2021, Microsoft announced to open source the revoscalepy and RevoScaleR packages, making them freely available under the MIT License.
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Lenna

Lenna (or Lena) is a standard test image used in the field of digital image processing, starting in 1973. It is a picture of the Swedish model Lena Forsén, shot by photographer Dwight Hooker and cropped from the centerfold of the November 1972 issue of Playboy magazine. Lenna has attracted controversy because of its subject matter. Starting in the mid-2010s, many journals have deemed it inappropriate and discouraged its use, while others have banned it from publication outright. Forsén herself has called for it to be retired, saying "It's time I retired from tech." The spelling "Lenna" came from the model's desire to encourage the proper pronunciation of her name. "I didn't want to be called Leena [English: ]," she explained. == History == Before Lenna, the first use of a Playboy magazine image to illustrate image processing algorithms was in 1961. Lawrence G. Roberts used two cropped six-bit grayscale facsimile scanned images from Playboy's July 1960 issue featuring Playmate Teddi Smith, in his master's thesis on image dithering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lenna was originally intended for high resolution color image processing study. Its history was described in the May 2001 newsletter of the IEEE Professional Communication Society, in an article by Jamie Hutchinson: Alexander Sawchuk estimates that it was in June or July of 1973 when he, then an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of Southern California Signal and Image Processing Institute (SIPI), along with a graduate student and the SIPI lab manager, was hurriedly searching the lab for a good image to scan for a colleague's conference paper. They got tired of their stock of usual test images, dull stuff dating back to television standards work in the early 1960s. They wanted something glossy to ensure good output dynamic range, and they wanted a human face. Just then, somebody happened to walk in with a recent issue of Playboy. The engineers tore away the top third of the centerfold so they could wrap it around the drum of their Muirhead wirephoto scanner, which they had outfitted with analog-to-digital converters (one each for the red, green, and blue channels) and a Hewlett Packard 2100 minicomputer. The Muirhead had a fixed resolution of 100 lines per inch and the engineers wanted a 512×512 image, so they limited the scan to the top 5.12 inches of the picture, effectively cropping it at the subject's shoulders. The image's reach was limited in the 1970s and 80s, which is reflected in it initially only appearing in .org domains, but in July 1991, the image featured on the cover of Optical Engineering alongside Peppers, another popular test image. This drew the attention of Playboy to the potential copyright infringement. The peak of image hits on the internet was in 1995. The scan became one of the most used images in computer history. The use of the photo in electronic imaging has been described as "clearly one of the most important events in [its] history". The image spread to over 100 different domains, particularly .com and .edu. In a 1999 issue of IEEE Transactions on Image Processing "Lena" was used in three separate articles, and the picture continued to appear in scientific journals throughout the beginning of the 21st century. Lenna is so widely accepted in the image processing community that Forsén was a guest at the 50th annual Conference of the Society for Imaging Science and Technology (IS&T) in 1997. In 2015, Lena Forsén was also guest of honor at the banquet of IEEE ICIP 2015. After delivering a speech, she chaired the best paper award ceremony. To explain why the image became a standard in the field, David C. Munson, editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, stated that it was a good test image because of its detail, flat regions, shading, and texture. He also noted that "the Lena image is a picture of an attractive woman. It is not surprising that the (mostly male) image processing research community gravitated toward an image that they found attractive." While Playboy often cracks down on illegal uses of its material and did initially send a notice to the publisher of Optical Engineering about its unauthorized use in that publication, over time it has decided to overlook the wide use of Lena. Eileen Kent, VP of new media at Playboy, said, "We decided we should exploit this, because it is a phenomenon." == Criticism == The use of the image has produced controversy because Playboy is "seen (by some) as being degrading to women". In a 1999 essay on reasons for the male predominance in computer science, applied mathematician Dianne P. O'Leary wrote: Suggestive pictures used in lectures on image processing ... convey the message that the lecturer caters to the males only. For example, it is amazing that the "Lena" pin-up image is still used as an example in courses and published as a test image in journals today. A 2012 paper on compressed sensing used a photo of the model Fabio Lanzoni as a test image to draw attention to this issue. The use of the test image at the magnet school Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County, Virginia, provoked a guest editorial by a senior in The Washington Post in 2015 about its detrimental impact on aspiring female students in computer science. In 2017, the Journal of Modern Optics published an editorial titled "On alternatives to Lenna" suggesting three images (Pirate, Cameraman, and Peppers) that "are reasonably close to Lenna in feature space". In 2018, the Nature Nanotechnology journal announced that they would no longer consider articles using Lenna. In the same year SPIE, the publishers of Optical Engineering, also announced that they "strongly discourage" the use of Lenna, and would no longer consider new submissions containing the image "without convincing scientific justification for its use". They noted that aside from the copyright and ethical issues, that it was also no longer useful as a standard image: "In today's age of high-resolution digital image technology, it seems difficult to argue that a 512 × 512 image produced with a 1970s-era analog scanner is the best we have to offer as an image quality test standard". Forsén stated in the 2019 documentary film Losing Lena, "I retired from modeling a long time ago. It's time I retired from tech, too... Let's commit to losing me." The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) announced that, starting April 1, 2024, it will no longer allow use of Lenna in its publications.
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Aidan Gomez

Aidan Gomez is a British-Canadian computer scientist working in the field of artificial intelligence, with a focus on natural language processing. He is the co-founder and CEO of the technology company Cohere. == Early life and education == Gomez grew up in Brighton, Ontario. He graduated from the University of Toronto with a bachelor's degree in computer science and mathematics. He was pursuing a PhD in computer science from the University of Oxford. He paused his studies to launch Cohere. He was granted the PhD in 2024. == Career == In 2017, as a 20 year-old intern at Google Brain, Gomez was one of eight authors of the research paper "Attention Is All You Need", which is credited with changing the AI industry and helping lead to the creation of ChatGPT. The paper proposed a novel deep learning architecture called the transformer, that enables machine learning models to analyze large amounts of data for patterns, and then use those patterns to make predictions while leveraging GPU parallelization. It has been commonly adopted for training large language models and in the development of generative AI. In the same year, Gomez founded FOR.ai, a program to help researchers learn machine learning techniques in a collaborative format. An outgrowth of this project was Cohere For AI (now Cohere Labs), which released Aya, an open-source multilingual LLM. As a PhD student, Gomez worked as a machine learning researcher at Google Brain. At that time, he co-authored the paper "One Model to Learn Them All" about multi-task learning by a single neural network. In 2019, Gomez left Google Brain to launch Cohere, an enterprise-focused company that helps businesses implement AI into chatbots, search engines, and other products. As of Sept 2025, Cohere has raised about US$1.6 billion at valuation north of $7 billion, as Gomez leads the company as its CEO. Gomez was named to the 2023 Time 100/AI list of the most influential people in the field of artificial intelligence. He and his fellow Cohere founders Ivan Zhang and Nick Frosst were named number 1 on 2023 Maclean's AI Trailblazers Power List. In April 2025, Gomez was elected to the board of Rivian. == Views on AI == Gomez has stated that warnings regarding the existential risk from artificial intelligence are overblown, and that real risks involve the automated spread of misinformation on social media. He said that the United States would win the AI arms race over China.
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China brain

In the philosophy of mind, the China brain thought experiment (also known as the Chinese Nation, Chinese Gym, or China-body) considers what would happen if each person in the entire population of China were asked to simulate the action of one neuron in the brain, using telephones or walkie-talkies to simulate the axons and dendrites that connect neurons. The question this thought experiment attempts to answer is whether this arrangement would have a mind or consciousness in the same way that the human brain exhibits. Early versions of this scenario were put forward in 1961 by Anatoly Dneprov, in 1974 by Lawrence Davis, and again in 1978 by Ned Block. Block argues that the China brain would not have a mind, whereas Daniel Dennett argues that it would. The China brain problem is a special case of the more general problem of whether minds could exist within other, larger minds. The Chinese room scenario analyzed by John Searle is a similar thought experiment in philosophy of mind that relates to artificial intelligence. Instead of people who each model a single neuron of the brain, in the Chinese room, clerks who do not speak Chinese accept notes in Chinese and return an answer in Chinese according to a set of rules, without the people in the room ever understanding what those notes mean. In fact, the original short story The Game (1961) by Dneprov contains both the China brain and the Chinese room scenarios. == Background == Many theories of mental states are materialist, that is, they describe the mind as the behavior of a physical object like the brain. One formerly prominent example is the identity theory, which says that mental states are brain states. One criticism is the problem of multiple realizability. The physicalist theory that responds to this is functionalism, which states that a mental state can be whatever functions as a mental state. That is, the mind can be composed of neurons, or it could be composed of wood, rocks or toilet paper, as long as it provides mental functionality. == Description == Suppose that the whole nation of China were reordered to simulate the workings of a single brain (that is, to act as a mind according to functionalism). Each Chinese person acts as (say) a neuron, and communicates by special two-way radio in corresponding way to the other people. The current mental state of the China brain is displayed on satellites that may be seen from anywhere in China. The China brain would then be connected via radio to a body, one that provides the sensory inputs and behavioral outputs of the China brain. Thus, the China brain possesses all the elements of a functional description of mind: sensory inputs, behavioral outputs, and internal mental states causally connected to other mental states. If the nation of China can be made to act in this way, then, according to functionalism, this system would have a mind. Block's goal is to show how unintuitive it is to think that such an arrangement could create a mind capable of thoughts and feelings. == Consciousness == The China brain argues that consciousness is a problem for functionalism. Block's Chinese nation presents a version of what is known as the absent qualia objection to functionalism because it purports to show that it is possible for something to be functionally equivalent to a human being and yet have no conscious experience. A creature that functions like a human being but does not feel anything is known as a "philosophical zombie". So the absent qualia objection to functionalism could also be called the "zombie objection". == Criticisms == Some philosophers, like Daniel Dennett, have concluded that the China brain does create a mental state. Functionalist philosophers of mind endorse the idea that something like the China brain can realise a mind, and that neurons are, in principle, not the only material that can create a mental state.
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IRCF360

Infrared Control Freak 360 (IRCF360) is a 360-degree proximity sensor and a motion sensing devices, developed by ROBOTmaker. The sensor is in BETA developers release as a low cost (software configurable) sensor for use within research, technical and hobby projects. == Overview == The 360-degree sensor was originally designed as a short range micro robot proximity sensor and mainly intended for Swarm robotics, Ant robotics, Swarm intelligence, autonomous Qaudcopter, Drone, UAV, multi-robot simulations e.g. Jasmine Project where 360 proximity sensing is required to avoid collision with other robots and for simple IR inter-robot communications. To overcome certain limitation with Infra-red (IR) proximity sensing (e.g. detection of dark surfaces) the sensing module includes ambient light sensing and basic tactile sensing functionality during forward movement sensing/probing providing photovore and photophobe robot swarm behaviours and characteristics. A project named Sensorium Project was started aimed at broadening the Sensors audience beyond its typical robot sensor usage. To demonstrate the sensor's functionality, opensource Java based Integrated Development Environments (IDE) are used, such as Arduino and Processing (programming language).
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Supersampling

Supersampling or supersampling anti-aliasing (SSAA) is a spatial anti-aliasing method, i.e. a method used to remove aliasing (jagged and pixelated edges, colloquially known as "jaggies") from images rendered in computer games or other computer programs that generate imagery. Aliasing occurs because unlike real-world objects, which have continuous smooth curves and lines, a computer screen shows the viewer a large number of small squares. These pixels all have the same size, and each one has a single color. A line can only be shown as a collection of pixels, and therefore appears jagged unless it is perfectly horizontal or vertical. The aim of supersampling is to reduce this effect. Color samples are taken at several instances inside the pixel (not just at the center as normal)—hence the term "supersampling"—and an average color value is calculated. This can for example be achieved by rendering the image at a much higher resolution than the one being displayed, then shrinking it to the desired size, using the extra pixels for calculation, with the result being a downsampled image with smoother transitions from one line of pixels to another along the edges of objects, but each pixel could also be supersampled using other strategies (see the Supersampling patterns section). The number of samples determines the quality of the output. == Motivation == Aliasing is manifested in the case of 2D images as moiré pattern and pixelated edges, colloquially known as "jaggies". Common signal processing and image processing knowledge suggests that to achieve perfect elimination of aliasing, proper spatial sampling at the Nyquist rate (or higher) after applying a 2D Anti-aliasing filter is required. As this approach would require a forward and inverse fourier transformation, computationally less demanding approximations like supersampling were developed to avoid domain switches by staying in the spatial domain ("image domain"). == Method == === Computational cost and adaptive supersampling === Supersampling is computationally expensive because it requires much greater video card memory and memory bandwidth, since the amount of buffer used is several times larger. A way around this problem is to use a technique known as adaptive supersampling, where only pixels at the edges of objects are supersampled. Initially only a few samples are taken within each pixel. If these values are very similar, only these samples are used to determine the color. If not, more are used. The result of this method is that a higher number of samples are calculated only where necessary, thus improving performance. === Supersampling patterns === When taking samples within a pixel, the sample positions have to be determined in some way. Although the number of ways in which this can be done is infinite, there are a few ways which are commonly used. ==== Grid ==== The simplest algorithm. The pixel is split into several sub-pixels, and a sample is taken from the center of each. It is fast and easy to implement. Although, due to the regular nature of sampling, aliasing can still occur if a low number of sub-pixels is used. ==== Random ==== Also known as stochastic sampling, it avoids the regularity of grid supersampling. However, due to the irregularity of the pattern, samples end up being unnecessary in some areas of the pixel and lacking in others. ==== Poisson disk ==== The Poisson disk sampling algorithm places the samples randomly, but then checks that any two are not too close. The end result is an even but random distribution of samples. The naive "dart throwing" algorithm is extremely slow for large data sets, which once limited its applications for real-time rendering. However, many fast algorithms now exist to generate Poisson disk noise, even those with variable density. The Delone set provides a mathematical description of such sampling. ==== Jittered ==== A modification of the grid algorithm to approximate the Poisson disk. A pixel is split into several sub-pixels, but a sample is not taken from the center of each, but from a random point within the sub-pixel. Congregation can still occur, but to a lesser degree. ==== Rotated grid ==== A 2×2 grid layout is used but the sample pattern is rotated to avoid samples aligning on the horizontal or vertical axis, greatly improving antialiasing quality for the most commonly encountered cases. For an optimal pattern, the rotation angle is arctan (⁠1/2⁠) (about 26.6°) and the square is stretched by a factor of ⁠√5/2⁠, making it also a 4-queens solution.
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MindSpore

MindSpore is an open-source software framework for deep learning, machine learning and artificial intelligence developed by Huawei. == Overview == MindSpore provides support for Python by allowing users to define models, control flow, and custom operators using native Python syntax. Unlike graph-based frameworks that require users to learn DSL or complex APIs, MindSpore adopts a source-to-source (S2S) automatic differentiation approach, allowing Python code to be automatically transformed into optimized computational graphs. It has support for custom OpenHarmony-based HarmonyOS NEXT single core framework system built for HarmonyOS, includes an AI system stack that comes with Huawei's built LLM model called PanGu-Σ with full MindSpore framework support. Alongside, OpenHarmony Native device-side AI support for training interface and ArkTS programming interface for its NNRt (Neural Network Runtime) backend configurations via MindSpore Lite AI framework codebase introduced in API 11 Beta 1 of OpenHarmony 4.1. MindSpore platform runs on Ascend AI chips and Kirin alongside other HiSilicon NPU chips. CANN (Compute Architecture of Neural Networks), heterogeneous computing architecture for AI developed by Huawei. With CANN backend in OpenCV DNN, giving developers ability to run created AI models on the Ascend, Kirin and other HiSilicon NPU enabled chips. It supports cross platform development such as Android, iOS, Windows, global OpenHarmony-based distro, Eclipse Oniro, Linux-based EulerOS alongside OpenEuler Huawei's server OS platforms, macOS and Linux. == History == On April 24, 2024, Huawei's MindSpore 2.3.RC1 was released to open source community with Foundation Model Training, Full-Stack Upgrade of Foundation Model Inference, Static Graph Optimization, IT Features and new MindSpore Elec MT (MindSpore-powered magnetotelluric) Intelligent Inversion Model.
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Artificial intelligence safety institute

An artificial intelligence safety institute is a type of state-backed organization aiming to evaluate and ensure the safety of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models, also called frontier AI models. AI safety gained prominence in 2023, notably with public declarations about potential existential risks from AI. During the AI Safety Summit in November 2023, the United Kingdom and the United States both created their own AISI. During the AI Seoul Summit in May 2024, international leaders agreed to form a network of AI Safety Institutes, comprising institutes from the UK, the US, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Singapore, South Korea, Australia, Canada and the European Union. In 2025, the UK's AI Safety Institute was renamed the "AI Security Institute", and its US counterpart became the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI). == Timeline == In 2023, Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, expressed his intention to "make the UK not just the intellectual home but the geographical home of global AI safety regulation" and unveiled plans for an AI Safety Summit. He emphasized the need for independent safety evaluations, stating that AI companies cannot "mark their own homework". During the summit in November 2023, the UK AISI was officially established as an evolution of the Frontier AI Taskforce, and the US AISI as part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Japan followed by launching an AI safety institute in February 2024. Politico reported in April 2024 that many AI companies had not shared pre-deployment access to their most advanced AI models for evaluation. Meta's president of global affairs Nick Clegg said that many AI companies were waiting for the UK and the US AI Safety Institutes to work out common evaluation rules and procedures. An agreement was indeed concluded between the UK and the US in April 2024 to collaborate on at least one joint safety test. Initially established in London, the UK AI Safety Institute announced in May 2024 that it would open an office in San Francisco, where many AI companies are located. This is part of a plan to "set new, international standards on AI safety", according to UK's technology minister Michele Donelan. == International network == At the AI Seoul Summit in May 2024, the European Union and other countries agreed to create their own AI safety institutes, forming an international network. In July 2025, the international network held an exercise to explore issues with evaluating AI agents, especially when it came to leaking sensitive information or cybersecurity. Network members also met at NeurIPS 2025 in the city of San Diego. == Specific institutes == === Australia === The Albanese government announced the creation of the Australian AI Safety Institute on 25 November 2025. === Canada === Canada announced in April 2024 that it would create an AI safety institute, and such an institute was officially founded in November 2024. The institute is housed under Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, though it also partners with the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR). It is supported by a budget of CA$50,000,000 for a five-year timespan. === European Union === The EU AI office, founded in May 2024, is a member of the international network of AI safety institutes. === France === On 31 January 2025, the government of France created the Institut national pour l'évaluation et la sécurité de l'intelligence artificielle (INESIA), or the National Institute for AI Evaluation and Security. === India === The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology held consultations with Meta Platforms, Google, Microsoft, IBM, OpenAI, NASSCOM, Broadband India Forum, Software Alliance, Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), The Quantum Hub, Digital Empowerment Foundation, and Access Now on October 7, 2024, in relation to the establishment of the AI Safety Institute. The decision was made to shift focus from regulation to standards-setting, risk identification, and damage detection—all of which require interoperable technologies. The AISI may spend the ₹20 crore allotted to the Safe and Trusted Pillar of the IndiaAI Mission for the initial budget. Future funding may come from other components of the IndiaAI Mission. UNESCO and MeitY began consulting on AI Readiness Assessment Methodology under Safety and Ethics in Artificial Intelligence from 2024. It is to encourage the ethical and responsible use of AI in industries. The study will find areas where government can become involved, especially in attempts to strengthen institutional and regulatory capabilities. Minister for Electronics & Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw announced the creation of an IndiaAI Safety Institute on January 30, 2025, to ensure the ethical and safe application of AI models. The institute will promote domestic R&D that is grounded in India's social, economic, cultural, and linguistic diversity and is based on Indian datasets. With the help of academic and research institutions, as well as private sector partners, the institute will follow the hub-and-spoke approach to carry out projects within Safe and Trusted Pillar of the IndiaAI Mission. It operates under a "hub-and-spoke" model with collaboration from academic institutions (e.g., IITs), tech firms, and international organizations like UNESCO. === Japan === The Japan AISI (or J-AISI) was founded in February 2024. Part of the Information Technology Promotion Agency, it employs about 23 people. The institute consists of the Council of AISI, the AISI Steering Committee, and a secretariat with six teams. Akiko Murakami (previously of IBM Japan and Sompo Japan) serves as the institute's executive director, and Kenji Hiramoto and Suguru Nishimura serve as the institute's two deputy executive directors. === Kenya === Kenya agreed to join the international network of AI safety institutes, but the country has not announced any details yet. It is the only African state in the network. === Singapore === The Digital Trust Centre was initially founded in June 2022. In May 2024, it was renamed to the Singapore AISI. Part of Nanyang Technological University, the institute partners with Infocomm Media Development Authority and is supported by an investment of S$10,000,000 per year. === South Korea === South Korea announced in May 2024 that it would create an AI safety institute under the umbrella of the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute. It will be supported by a tentative investment of somewhere between 10 and 20 million South Korean won per year, and employ at least 30 people. The institute was founded in November 2024 and is based in Bundang District within the city of Seongnam. === United Kingdom === The United Kingdom founded in April 2023 a safety organisation called Frontier AI Taskforce, with an initial budget of £100 million. In November 2023, it evolved into the AI Safety Institute, and continued to be led by Ian Hogarth. The AISI is part of the United Kingdom's Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. The United Kingdom's AI strategy aims to balance safety and innovation. Unlike the European Union which adopted the AI Act, the UK is reluctant to legislate early, considering that it may lower the sector's growth, and that laws might be rendered obsolete by technological progress. In May 2024, the institute open-sourced an AI safety tool called "Inspect", which evaluates AI model capabilities such as reasoning and their degree of autonomy. In February 2025, the UK body was renamed the AI Security Institute. Observers saw the name change as a signal that the institute will not focus on ethical issues such as algorithmic bias or freedom of speech in AI applications. === United States === The US AISI was founded in November 2023 as part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This happened the day after the signature of the Executive Order 14110. In February 2024, Joe Biden's former economic policy adviser Elizabeth Kelly was appointed to lead it. In February 2024, the US government created the US AI Safety Institute Consortium (AISIC), regrouping more than 200 organizations such as Google, Anthropic or Microsoft. In March 2024, a budget of $10 million was allocated. Observers noted that this investment is relatively small, especially considering the presence of many big AI companies in the US. The NIST itself, which hosts the AISI, is also known for its chronic lack of funding. Biden administration's request for additional funding was met with further budget cuts from congressional appropriators. Under President Trump, plans for members of the agency to attend the February 2025 AI Action Summit in Paris were scrapped. The US and the UK refused to sign the summit's final communique. US Vice President JD Vance said "pro-growth AI policies" should be prioritised over safety. The name of the agency was changed in June 2025 to the Center for AI Standards and Innovation
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IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence

IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (sometimes abbreviated as IEEE PAMI or simply PAMI) is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the IEEE Computer Society. == Background == The journal covers research in computer vision and image understanding, pattern analysis and recognition, machine intelligence, machine learning, search techniques, document and handwriting analysis, medical image analysis, video and image sequence analysis, content-based retrieval of image and video, and face and gesture recognition. The editor-in-chief is Kyoung Mu Lee (Seoul National University). According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2023 impact factor of 20.8.
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Confusion matrix

In machine learning, a confusion matrix, also known as error matrix, is a specific table layout that allows visualization of the performance of an algorithm, typically a supervised learning one. In unsupervised learning it is usually called a matching matrix. The term is used specifically in the problem of statistical classification. Each row of the matrix represents the instances in an actual class while each column represents the instances in a predicted class, or vice versa – both variants are found in the literature. The diagonal of the matrix therefore represents all instances that are correctly predicted. The name stems from the fact that it makes it easy to identify whether the system is confusing two classes (i.e., commonly mislabeling one class as another). The confusion matrix has its origins in human perceptual studies of auditory stimuli. It was adapted for machine learning studies and used by Frank Rosenblatt, among other early researchers, to compare human and machine classifications of visual (and later auditory) stimuli. It is a special kind of contingency table, with two dimensions ("actual" and "predicted"), and identical sets of "classes" in both dimensions (each combination of dimension and class is a variable in the contingency table). == Example == Given a sample of 12 individuals, 8 that have been diagnosed with cancer and 4 that are cancer-free, where individuals with cancer belong to class 1 (positive) and non-cancer individuals belong to class 0 (negative), we can display that data as follows: Assume that we have a classifier that distinguishes between individuals with and without cancer in some way, we can take the 12 individuals and run them through the classifier. The classifier then makes 9 accurate predictions and misses 3: 2 individuals with cancer wrongly predicted as being cancer-free (sample 1 and 2), and 1 person without cancer that is wrongly predicted to have cancer (sample 9). Notice, that if we compare the actual classification set to the predicted classification set, there are 4 different outcomes that could result in any particular column: The actual classification is positive and the predicted classification is positive (1,1). This is called a true positive result because the positive sample was correctly identified by the classifier. The actual classification is positive and the predicted classification is negative (1,0). This is called a false negative result because the positive sample is incorrectly identified by the classifier as being negative. The actual classification is negative and the predicted classification is positive (0,1). This is called a false positive result because the negative sample is incorrectly identified by the classifier as being positive. The actual classification is negative and the predicted classification is negative (0,0). This is called a true negative result because the negative sample gets correctly identified by the classifier. We can then perform the comparison between actual and predicted classifications and add this information to the table, making correct results appear in green so they are more easily identifiable. The template for any binary confusion matrix uses the four kinds of results discussed above (true positives, false negatives, false positives, and true negatives) along with the positive and negative classifications. The four outcomes can be formulated in a 2×2 confusion matrix, as follows: The color convention of the three data tables above were picked to match this confusion matrix, in order to easily differentiate the data. Now, we can simply total up each type of result, substitute into the template, and create a confusion matrix that will concisely summarize the results of testing the classifier: In this confusion matrix, of the 8 samples with cancer, the system judged that 2 were cancer-free, and of the 4 samples without cancer, it predicted that 1 did have cancer. All correct predictions are located in the diagonal of the table (highlighted in green), so it is easy to visually inspect the table for prediction errors, as values outside the diagonal will represent them. By summing up the 2 rows of the confusion matrix, one can also deduce the total number of positive (P) and negative (N) samples in the original dataset, i.e. P = T P + F N {\displaystyle P=TP+FN} and N = F P + T N {\displaystyle N=FP+TN} . == Table of confusion == In predictive analytics, a table of confusion (sometimes also called a confusion matrix) is a table with two rows and two columns that reports the number of true positives, false negatives, false positives, and true negatives. This allows more detailed analysis than simply observing the proportion of correct classifications (accuracy). Accuracy will yield misleading results if the data set is unbalanced; that is, when the numbers of observations in different classes vary greatly. For example, if there were 95 cancer samples and only 5 non-cancer samples in the data, a particular classifier might classify all the observations as having cancer. The overall accuracy would be 95%, but in more detail the classifier would have a 100% recognition rate (sensitivity) for the cancer class but a 0% recognition rate for the non-cancer class. F1 score is even more unreliable in such cases, and here would yield over 97.4%, whereas informedness removes such bias and yields 0 as the probability of an informed decision for any form of guessing (here always guessing cancer). According to Davide Chicco and Giuseppe Jurman, the most informative metric to evaluate a confusion matrix is the Matthews correlation coefficient (MCC). Other metrics can be included in a confusion matrix, each of them having their significance and use. Some researchers have argued that the confusion matrix, and the metrics derived from it, do not truly reflect a model's knowledge. In particular, the confusion matrix cannot show whether correct predictions were reached through sound reasoning or merely by chance (a problem known in philosophy as epistemic luck). It also does not capture situations where the facts used to make a prediction later change or turn out to be wrong (defeasibility). This means that while the confusion matrix is a useful tool for measuring classification performance, it may give an incomplete picture of a model’s true reliability. == Confusion matrices with more than two categories == Confusion matrix is not limited to binary classification and can be used in multi-class classifiers as well. The confusion matrices discussed above have only two conditions: positive and negative. For example, the table below summarizes communication of a whistled language between two speakers, with zero values omitted for clarity. == Confusion matrices in multi-label and soft-label classification == Confusion matrices are not limited to single-label classification (where only one class is present) or hard-label settings (where classes are either fully present, 1, or absent, 0). They can also be extended to Multi-label classification (where multiple classes can be predicted at once) and soft-label classification (where classes can be partially present). One such extension is the Transport-based Confusion Matrix (TCM), which builds on the theory of optimal transport and the principle of maximum entropy. TCM applies to single-label, multi-label, and soft-label settings. It retains the familiar structure of the standard confusion matrix: a square matrix sized by the number of classes, with diagonal entries indicating correct predictions and off-diagonal entries indicating confusion. In the single-label case, TCM is identical to the standard confusion matrix. TCM follows the same reasoning as the standard confusion matrix: if class A is overestimated (its predicted value is greater than its label value) and class B is underestimated (its predicted value is less than its label value), A is considered confused with B, and the entry (B, A) is increased. If a class is both predicted and present, it is correctly identified, and the diagonal entry (A, A) increases. Optimal transport and maximum entropy are used to determine the extent to which these entries are updated. TCM enables clearer comparison between predictions and labels in complex classification tasks, while maintaining a consistent matrix format across settings.
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Business rule management system

A BRMS or business rule management system is a software system used to define, deploy, execute, monitor and maintain the variety and complexity of decision logic that is used by operational systems within an organization or enterprise. This logic, also referred to as business rules, includes policies, requirements, and conditional statements that are used to determine the tactical actions that take place in applications and systems. == Overview == A BRMS includes, at minimum: A repository, allowing decision logic to be externalized from core application code Tools, allowing both technical developers and business experts to define and manage decision logic A runtime environment, allowing applications to invoke decision logic managed within the BRMS and execute it using a business rules engine The top benefits of a BRMS include: Reduced or removed reliance on IT departments for changes in live systems. Although, QA and Rules testing would still be needed in any enterprise system. Increased control over implemented decision logic for compliance and better business management including audit logs, impact simulation and edit controls. The ability to express decision logic with increased precision, using a business vocabulary syntax and graphical rule representations (decision tables, decision models, trees, scorecards and flows) Improved efficiency of processes through increased decision automation. Some disadvantages of the BRMS include: Extensive subject matter expertise can be required for vendor specific products. In addition to appropriate design practices (such as Decision Modeling), technical developers must know how to write rules and integrate software with existing systems Poor rule harvesting approaches can lead to long development cycles, though this can be mitigated with modern approaches like the Decision Model and Notation (DMN) standard. Integration with existing systems is still required and a BRMS may add additional security constraints. Reduced IT department reliance may never be a reality due to continued introduction to new business rule considerations or object model perturbations The coupling of a BRMS vendor application to the business application may be too tight to replace with another BRMS vendor application. This can lead to cost to benefits issues. The emergence of the DMN standard has mitigated this to some degree. Most BRMS vendors have evolved from rule engine vendors to provide business-usable software development lifecycle solutions, based on declarative definitions of business rules executed in their own rule engine. BRMSs are increasingly evolving into broader digital decisioning platforms that also incorporate decision intelligence and machine learning capabilities. However, some vendors come from a different approach (for example, they map decision trees or graphs to executable code). Rules in the repository are generally mapped to decision services that are naturally fully compliant with the latest SOA, Web Services, or other software architecture trends. == Related software approaches == In a BRMS, a representation of business rules maps to a software system for execution. A BRMS therefore relates to model-driven engineering, such as the model-driven architecture (MDA) of the Object Management Group (OMG). It is no coincidence that many of the related standards come under the OMG banner. A BRMS is a critical component for Enterprise Decision Management as it allows for the transparent and agile management of the decision-making logic required in systems developed using this approach. == Associated standards == The OMG Decision Model and Notation standard is designed to standardize elements of business rules development, specially decision table representations. There is also a standard for a Java Runtime API for rule engines JSR-94. OMG Business Motivation Model (BMM): A model of how strategies, processes, rules, etc. fit together for business modeling OMG SBVR: Targets business constraints as opposed to automating business behavior OMG Production Rule Representation (PRR): Represents rules for production rule systems that make up most BRMS' execution targets OMG Decision Model and Notation (DMN): Represents models of decisions, which are typically managed by a BRMS RuleML provides a family of rule mark-up languages that could be used in a BRMS and with W3C RIF it provides a family of related rule languages for rule interchange in the W3C Semantic Web stack Many standards, such as domain-specific languages, define their own representation of rules, requiring translations to generic rule engines or their own custom engines. Other domains, such as PMML, also define rules.
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Liang Wenfeng

Liang Wenfeng (Chinese: 梁文锋; pinyin: Liáng Wénfēng; born 1985) is a Chinese entrepreneur and businessman who is the co-founder of the quantitative hedge fund High-Flyer, as well as the founder and CEO of its artificial intelligence company DeepSeek. Liang attended Zhejiang University, and began his career by applying machine learning methods to quantitative finance. Through High-Flyer, he built large-scale computing infrastructure that was later used to support artificial intelligence research, leading to the creation of DeepSeek in 2023. DeepSeek gained international attention following the release of DeepSeek-R1, which analysts described as demonstrating high-level performance with comparatively limited compute resources. In 2025, Liang was named to Time magazine's list of 100 Most Influential People in AI and Fortune's list of the Most Powerful People in Business. == Early life == Liang was born in 1985 in the village of Mililing (米历岭村), Qinba town (覃巴镇), Wuchuan city (吴川市), Guangdong. His parents were both primary school teachers. Liang was routinely praised by both locals and teachers alike. Even since middle school, Liang was recalled for being well-known for reading comic books, while also being very proficient in mathematics. == Education == After elementary school, Liang attended Wuchuan No. 1 Middle School. There, he quickly excelled in class and ranked highly amongst his peers. He taught himself high school and university-level mathematics courses. Liang then attended Wuchaun No. 1 High School. In these years, he developed hobbies of mathematical modeling and conducting research projects. Compared to his peers, he was always ranked highly. For every mathematics exam, he always ranked within the top three. He was also the top scorer in the Zhanjiang region of Guangdong for the college entrance exam. Thus, in 2002, Liang left high school early to further pursue his education at the university level at the young age of 17. Attending Zhejiang University at the age of 17, Liang earned a Bachelor of Engineering in Electronic Information Engineering in 2007 and his Master of Engineering in Information & Communication Engineering in 2010. His master's dissertation was titled "Study on Object Tracking Algorithm Based on Low-Cost PTZ camera" (基于低成本PTZ摄像机的目标跟踪算法研究). In his college years, DJI founder Wang Tao asked Liang to join as a co-founder. Liang declined the invitation to pursue artificial intelligence methodologies in financial markets. While he states that those around him had entrepreneurial mindsets, he himself valued academics. == Career == === Early career (2008–2016) === During the 2008 financial crisis, Liang formed a team with his classmates to accumulate data related to financial markets. He also led the team to explore quantitative trading using machine learning and other technologies. After his graduation, Liang moved to a cheap flat in Chengdu, Sichuan, where he experimented with ways to apply AI to various fields. These ventures failed, until he tried applying AI to finance. In 2013, Liang attempted to integrate artificial intelligence with quantitative trading and founded Hangzhou Yakebi Investment Management Co Ltd with Xu Jin, an alumnus of Zhejiang University. In 2015, they co-founded Hangzhou Huanfang Technology Co Ltd, which is today's Zhejiang Jiuzhang Asset Management Co Ltd. === High-Flyer (2016–2023) === In February 2016, Liang and two other engineering classmates co-founded Ningbo High-Flyer Quantitative Investment Management Partnership (Limited Partnership). The team relied on mathematics and AI to make investments. Much of the early startup culture was described by former employees to be "geeky" and "quirky," often seen as contrary to the existing culture in large Chinese tech companies. In 2019, Liang founded High-Flyer AI which was dedicated to research on AI algorithms and its basic applications. By this time, High-Flyer had over 10 billion yuan in assets under management. On 30 August 2019, Liang Wenfeng delivered a keynote speech entitled "The Future of Quantitative Investment in China from a Programmer's Perspective" at the Private Equity Golden Bull Award ceremony held by China Securities Journal, and sparked heated discussions. Liang stated that the criterion for determining what is quantitative or non-quantitative is whether the investment decision is made by quantitative methods or by people. Quantitative funds do not have portfolio managers making the decisions and instead are just servers. He also stated High-Flyer's mission is to improve the effectiveness of China's secondary market. In February 2021, Gregory Zuckerman's book The Man Who Solved the Market: How Jim Simons Launched the Quant Revolution was published. Liang wrote the preface for the Chinese edition of the book where he stated that whenever he encountered difficulties at work, he would think of Simons' words "There must be a way to model prices". In January 2025, Zuckerman wrote in The Wall Street Journal where he acknowledged this fact and stated he has been trying to get in touch with Liang but much like Simons, Liang is very secretive and difficult to contact. During 2021, Liang started buying thousands of Nvidia GPUs for his AI side project while running High-Flyer. Liang wanted to build something and it will be a game changer which his business partners thought was only possible from giants such as ByteDance and Alibaba Group. === DeepSeek (since 2023) === ==== DeepSeek begins ==== In May 2023, Liang announced High-Flyer would pursue the development of artificial general intelligence and launched DeepSeek. During that month in an interview with 36Kr, Liang stated that High-Flyer had acquired 10,000 Nvidia A100 GPUs before the US government imposed AI chip restrictions on China. That laid the foundation for DeepSeek to operate as an LLM developer. Liang also stated DeepSeek gets funding from High-Flyer. This was because when DeepSeek was founded, venture capital firms were reluctant in providing funding as it was unlikely that it would be able to generate an exit in a short period of time. Liang only personally holds 1% of the company, with 99% of the company being held by Ningbo High-Flyer Quantitative Investment Management Partnership (Limited Partnership). With DeepSeek's funding model, it lacks commercial pressure and rigid key performance indicators, enabling the company to deviate from previously established model architectures. ==== Early development ==== In July 2024, Liang was interviewed again by 36Kr. He stated that when DeepSeek-V2 was released and triggered an AI price war in China, it came as a huge surprise as the team did not expect pricing to be so sensitive. Liang's aggressive pricing of the language model forced domestic tech giants including Alibaba and Baidu to cut their own rates by over 95%. He also stated that as China's economy develops, it should gradually become a contributor instead of freeriding. What is lacking in China's innovation is not capital but a lack of confidence and knowledge on organizing talent into it. DeepSeek has not hired anyone particularly special and employees tend to be locally educated. When it comes to disruptive technologies, closed source approaches can only temporarily delay others in catching up. As the goal was long-term, DeepSeek sought employees who had ability and passion rather than experience. To retain a high talent density relative to larger firms like Bytedance or Baidu, DeepSeek aimed to maintain a low-hierarchy corporate culture, with members working in project-based groups, as well as competitive compensation. Liang emphasized his vision for DeepSeek employees to bring their "unique experience and ideas" instead of needing to be explicitly directed, with an overall bottom-up approach to division of labor. Liang noted that a significant outcome of this approach was the multi-head latent attention training architecture, which was attributed directly to a young DeepSeek researcher's personal interest. This advancement played a core role in reducing the cost of training the DeepSeek-V3 model, released in December 2024. ==== Release of DeepSeek-R1 ==== Also on 20 January 2025, DeepSeek, the company Liang founded and served as the CEO, released DeepSeek-R1, a 671-billion-parameter open-source reasoning AI model, alongside the publication of a detailed technical paper explaining its architecture and training methodology. The model was built using just 2,048 Nvidia H800 GPUs at a cost of $5.6 million, showcasing a resource-efficient approach that contrasted sharply with the billion-dollar budgets of Western competitors. The development of DeepSeek-R1 occurred amidst U.S. sanctions where Trump limited sales of Nvidia chips to China. By 27 January, DeepSeek surpassed ChatGPT to become the #1 free app on the United States iOS App Store. U.S. stocks plummeted, as more than $1 trillion was erased in market capitalization amid panic over DeepSeek. Technology journ
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