AI Code Programming

AI Code Programming — independent reviews, comparisons, pricing and step-by-step guides on Aizhi.

  • Elasticity (data store)

    Elasticity (data store)

    The elasticity of a data store relates to the flexibility of its data model and clustering capabilities. The greater the number of data model changes that can be tolerated, and the more easily the clustering can be managed, the more elastic the data store is considered to be. == Types == === Clustering elasticity === Clustering elasticity is the ease of adding or removing nodes from the distributed data store. Usually, this is a difficult and delicate task to be done by an expert in a relational database system. Some NoSQL data stores, like Apache Cassandra have an easy solution, and a node can be added/removed with a few changes in the properties and by adding specifying at least one seed. === Data-modelling elasticity === Relational databases are most often very inelastic, as they have a predefined data model that can only be adapted through redesign. Most NoSQL data stores, however, do not have a fixed schema. Each row can have a different number and even different type of columns. Concerning the data store, modifications in the schema are no problem. This makes this kind of data stores more elastic concerning the data model. The drawback is that the programmer has to take into account that the data model may change over time.

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  • Shy Girl

    Shy Girl

    Shy Girl is a horror novel initially self-published in February 2025 by Mia Ballard. Publishing rights for the book were acquired by Hachette Book Group, which released the book in the United Kingdom in November 2025 and planned to publish it in the United States in 2026. Its US release was cancelled and its UK release was discontinued after it faced accusations of being created with generative AI. Ballard denied having personally used AI in the book's writing, claiming that a freelance editor had introduced AI-generated changes. She also stated that she would take legal action against the editor. == Premise == The novel follows Gia, a depressed woman with obsessive–compulsive disorder, who encounters a mysterious man named Nathan while looking for a sugar daddy to ease her financial troubles. Nathan offers to erase all of Gia's debts in exchange for her agreeing to live as his pet. Living like an animal convinces her that she is becoming an animal, making her behave like one. == Publication and cancellation == Shy Girl was first self-published online by Mia Ballard in February 2025. Marketing material described the book as a "buzzy BookTok sensation" and "bloody and unforgiving". The self-published edition of the book was highly successful and had over 4,900 ratings on Goodreads and an average score of 3.52 stars. In an interview, Ballard described her writing style as lyrical, feverish, and introspective, and stated she was more interested in "what it feels like to live inside a body" than in plot-driven storylines. Publishing rights were acquired by Hachette Book Group and it was published by its Wildfire imprint in the United Kingdom in November 2025. By March 2026, the book had sold 1,800 copies in the United Kingdom. A US release was planned for 2026 by the imprint Orbit Books. After the British publication, critics and readers began to make claims that the book appeared to have been written by generative AI. A January 2026 post on Reddit claimed that the book had many of the hallmarks of having been written with a large language model, and stated that it was "repulsive" that the book was accepted by Hachette. A two-and-a-half-hour video essay covering the book, titled "i'm pretty sure this book is ai slop", received 1.2 million views on YouTube by March 2026. In response, Hachette Book Group announced in March 2026 that it would cancel the book's US publication and discontinue its UK publication. It told The Wall Street Journal that it had made "a lengthy investigation" before deciding to cancel the book. Ballard told The New York Times that she had not used AI when writing the book, but that AI-generated elements were added by a freelance editor without her knowledge. She also stated that she could not elaborate on her claim because she was pursuing legal action against the editor. Writer Andrea Bartz opined that the situation "raises many concerns about trust, authenticity and publishing's readiness for a new, A.I.-assisted world", but that "readers made it abundantly clear they want books by humans, not machines".

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  • Digital fashion

    Digital fashion

    Digital fashion is a field of fashion design that relies on 3D software or artificial intelligence to produce hyper-realistic, data-intensive digital 3D garment simulations that are digital-only products or digital models for physical products. Digital garments can be worn and presented in virtual environments, social media, online gaming, virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR) platforms. The field aims to contribute to the development of a more sustainable future for the fashion industry. It has been praised as a possible answer to ethical and creative concerns of traditional fashion by promoting innovation, reducing waste, and encouraging conscious consumption. However, empirical research has questioned whether digital fashion communities embody the radical and anti-consumerist values they claim. A 2025 study presented by YeSeung Lee at the FACTUM international conference on fashion communication analysed 88,141 posts across nine platforms over eight months using Pulsar. It found that only 4.8% of author biographies indicated any sociopolitical focus, and that discourse predominantly relied on generic slogans and trending buzzwords, primarily reinforcing existing fashion hierarchies and consumerist frameworks rather than challenging them. Digital fashion is also the interplay between digital technology and couture. Human AI is an intersection of technology and human representation, in which human value is emphasized and enhanced by technology and the possibilities of discovering design. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been deeply integrated both into the fashion industry, as well as within the experience of clients and prospects. Such interplay has happened at three main levels. ICTs are used to design and produce fashion products, while the industry organization also leverages digital technologies. ICTs impact marketing, distribution and sales. ICTs are extensively used in communication activities with all relevant stakeholders and contribute to co-create the fashion world. The fashion industry in general has paved the way for digital fashion to be introduced with more technology being in the industry, like virtual dressing rooms and the gamification of the fashion industry. Digital fashion is also seen on many different online fashion retail websites. This evolution in the fashion industry has called for more education and research of digital fashion. == Design, production, and organization == Among the many applications available to fashion designers to model the fusion of creativity with digital avenues, the Digital Textile Printing can be mentioned here. === Digital textile printing === Digital textile printing has brought together the worlds of fashion, technology, art, chemistry, and printing to produce a new process for printing textiles on clothing. Digital printing is a process in which prints are directly applied to fabrics with a printer, reducing 95% of the use of water, 75% of the use of energy and minimizing textile waste. The main advantage of digital printing is the ability to do very small runs of each design (even less than 1 yard). Digital Textile printing also offers other benefits, such as fast printing speeds that help the time and space needed to print different patterns on garments of choice. == Marketing, distribution, and sales == While all digital channels can be used in order to market and sell fashion completely online (eCommerce), they usually are implemented in connection with offline channels (so-called "omni-channel"). Here, virtual and augmented reality play a crucial role. The fashion industry has faced its own problems including pollution and fabric waste, which has resulted in a shift to more sustainable methods like digital fashion. The industry is also constantly being intertwined with digital media and has allowed for the use of digital tools within the business itself and with consumers. Two of the ways digital fashion is utilized with consumers is through virtual dressing rooms and virtual cosmetic counters. Prospects and clients can use ICTs - own computers, tablets and smartphones - to virtually simulate fitting rooms and cosmetics counters and see how they look in specific outfits and makeup. Customers can give any look and decide on what suits them and buy products. Oftentimes, beauty retailers will feature virtual fitting rooms to allow users to experience the look of their product before committing to a purchase. Some examples are color contact retailers Freshlook, which allows users to simulate contact lens wear in their color contacts studio before purchase. Colorful Eyes also offers a virtual color contact lens try-on room. === Virtual dressing room === A virtual dressing room (also often referred to as virtual fitting room and virtual changing room although they do perform different functions) is the online equivalent of the near-ubiquitous in-store changing room – that is, it enables shoppers to try on clothes to check one or more of size, fit or style, but virtually rather than physically. Fashion retailer Topshop installed a Kinect-powered virtual fitting room at its Moscow store. Created by AR Door, the Augmented Fitting Room system overlays 3D augmented reality clothes on the customer. Simple gestures and on-screen buttons let users "try on" different outfits. However, the high variability of virtual fit platforms to predict consumer clothes sizes called into question the accuracy of these systems in their current form. AI-powered Wardrobe and Outfit Planning Beyond virtual fitting rooms, the integration of artificial intelligence has enabled the rise of digital wardrobe management. These platforms use computer vision and machine learning to catalog a user’s physical or digital garments, providing automated outfit recommendations based on weather, occasion, and personal style trends. Fashion-tech startups utilize AI-driven garment simulation to help users plan outfits virtually, bridging the gap between digital-only fashion and physical wardrobe utility. This "smart closet" approach aims to reduce "wardrobe fatigue" and decrease unnecessary consumption by maximizing the use of existing items through digital visualization. === Communication and experience co-creation === Fashion is also a matter of socially negotiating what is "in" or "out", fashionable or not. In other words, fashion items do not only play on the economic market of physical goods but also - and sometimes even more importantly - on the semiotic market of the production of social tastes and customs. Thanks to social media, and to all services offered by the so-called web2.0, laypeople can contribute to co-create the fashion world, shaping tastes, customs, and fashion-related values. Social media, in general, has catapulted the impact fashion has on our everyday lives and values. Fashion has taken a central role in mass production and is constantly evolving due to the ever-lasting digital transformation. Social media has also helped evolve to a point where not only can brands reach consumers, but consumers can reach brands as well. TikTok for example started a trend in 2020 with #GucciModelChallenge. This creates a space where the brand is gaining awareness from their consumers in the ever-changing digital age. === Gamification === Gaming has played an important role in fostering digital aspects of the fashion world, first beginning with dress-up games that used avatars and allowed players to select garments. Nevertheless, it seems it will now move on to the real world and start using avatars of real people. Garments from luxurious brands have been copied and adapted into the aesthetics of games such as Animal Crossing: New Horizons and The Sims. As to the former, during COVID-19 lock-downs players recreated outfits from a variety of fashion brands, including Chanel, Gucci and Versace. It became a platform for users to showcase their costume designs. In April 2019, Moschino collaborated with simulation game The Sims in a capsule collection that featured signature Jeremy Scott garments. The collection was made available to shop and the campaign was set against the backdrop of a Sims-like atmosphere. Furthermore, in May 2019, Nike partnered up with Fortnite to include their iconic Jordan sneakers. In similar fashion, in May 2020, Marc Jacobs designed 6 of the brand's favorite looks for Nintendo's Animal Crossing: New Horizons in a partnership with Instagram user @AnimalCrossingFashionArchive. They were made available to download. Similarly, the other luxury brands mentioned, Louis Vuitton partnered with game League of Legends to create skins for characters within the game. Digital fashion in different video games allows users to express themselves beyond their avatars and combine the self-expression of fashion into the digital gaming realm. == Digital fashion education and research == Nowadays, the fashion industry needs experts in digital fashion, equipped with the above-ske

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  • Neural architecture search

    Neural architecture search

    Neural architecture search (NAS) is a technique for automating the design of artificial neural networks (ANN), a widely used model in the field of machine learning. NAS has been used to design networks that are on par with or outperform hand-designed architectures. Methods for NAS can be categorized according to the search space, search strategy and performance estimation strategy used: The search space defines the type(s) of ANN that can be designed and optimized. The search strategy defines the approach used to explore the search space. The performance estimation strategy evaluates the performance of a possible ANN from its design (without constructing and training it). NAS is closely related to hyperparameter optimization and meta-learning and is a subfield of automated machine learning (AutoML). == Reinforcement learning == Reinforcement learning (RL) can underpin a NAS search strategy. Barret Zoph and Quoc Viet Le applied NAS with RL targeting the CIFAR-10 dataset and achieved a network architecture that rivals the best manually-designed architecture for accuracy, with an error rate of 3.65, 0.09 percent better and 1.05x faster than a related hand-designed model. On the Penn Treebank dataset, that model composed a recurrent cell that outperforms LSTM, reaching a test set perplexity of 62.4, or 3.6 perplexity better than the prior leading system. On the PTB character language modeling task it achieved bits per character of 1.214. Learning a model architecture directly on a large dataset can be a lengthy process. NASNet addressed this issue by transferring a building block designed for a small dataset to a larger dataset. The design was constrained to use two types of convolutional cells to return feature maps that serve two main functions when convoluting an input feature map: normal cells that return maps of the same extent (height and width) and reduction cells in which the returned feature map height and width is reduced by a factor of two. For the reduction cell, the initial operation applied to the cell's inputs uses a stride of two (to reduce the height and width). The learned aspect of the design included elements such as which lower layer(s) each higher layer took as input, the transformations applied at that layer and to merge multiple outputs at each layer. In the studied example, the best convolutional layer (or "cell") was designed for the CIFAR-10 dataset and then applied to the ImageNet dataset by stacking copies of this cell, each with its own parameters. The approach yielded accuracy of 82.7% top-1 and 96.2% top-5. This exceeded the best human-invented architectures at a cost of 9 billion fewer FLOPS—a reduction of 28%. The system continued to exceed the manually-designed alternative at varying computation levels. The image features learned from image classification can be transferred to other computer vision problems. E.g., for object detection, the learned cells integrated with the Faster-RCNN framework improved performance by 4.0% on the COCO dataset. In the so-called Efficient Neural Architecture Search (ENAS), a controller discovers architectures by learning to search for an optimal subgraph within a large graph. The controller is trained with policy gradient to select a subgraph that maximizes the validation set's expected reward. The model corresponding to the subgraph is trained to minimize a canonical cross entropy loss. Multiple child models share parameters, ENAS requires fewer GPU-hours than other approaches and 1000-fold less than "standard" NAS. On CIFAR-10, the ENAS design achieved a test error of 2.89%, comparable to NASNet. On Penn Treebank, the ENAS design reached test perplexity of 55.8. == Evolution == An alternative approach to NAS is based on evolutionary algorithms, which has been employed by several groups. An Evolutionary Algorithm for Neural Architecture Search generally performs the following procedure. First a pool consisting of different candidate architectures along with their validation scores (fitness) is initialised. At each step the architectures in the candidate pool are mutated (e.g.: 3x3 convolution instead of a 5x5 convolution). Next the new architectures are trained from scratch for a few epochs and their validation scores are obtained. This is followed by replacing the lowest scoring architectures in the candidate pool with the better, newer architectures. This procedure is repeated multiple times and thus the candidate pool is refined over time. Mutations in the context of evolving ANNs are operations such as adding or removing a layer, which include changing the type of a layer (e.g., from convolution to pooling), changing the hyperparameters of a layer, or changing the training hyperparameters. On CIFAR-10 and ImageNet, evolution and RL performed comparably, while both slightly outperformed random search. == Bayesian optimization == Bayesian Optimization (BO), which has proven to be an efficient method for hyperparameter optimization, can also be applied to NAS. In this context, the objective function maps an architecture to its validation error after being trained for a number of epochs. At each iteration, BO uses a surrogate to model this objective function based on previously obtained architectures and their validation errors. One then chooses the next architecture to evaluate by maximizing an acquisition function, such as expected improvement, which provides a balance between exploration and exploitation. Acquisition function maximization and objective function evaluation are often computationally expensive for NAS, and make the application of BO challenging in this context. Recently, BANANAS has achieved promising results in this direction by introducing a high-performing instantiation of BO coupled to a neural predictor. == Hill-climbing == Another group used a hill climbing procedure that applies network morphisms, followed by short cosine-annealing optimization runs. The approach yielded competitive results, requiring resources on the same order of magnitude as training a single network. E.g., on CIFAR-10, the method designed and trained a network with an error rate below 5% in 12 hours on a single GPU. == Multi-objective search == While most approaches solely focus on finding architecture with maximal predictive performance, for most practical applications other objectives are relevant, such as memory consumption, model size or inference time (i.e., the time required to obtain a prediction). Because of that, researchers created a multi-objective search. LEMONADE is an evolutionary algorithm that adopted Lamarckism to efficiently optimize multiple objectives. In every generation, child networks are generated to improve the Pareto frontier with respect to the current population of ANNs. Neural Architect is claimed to be a resource-aware multi-objective RL-based NAS with network embedding and performance prediction. Network embedding encodes an existing network to a trainable embedding vector. Based on the embedding, a controller network generates transformations of the target network. A multi-objective reward function considers network accuracy, computational resource and training time. The reward is predicted by multiple performance simulation networks that are pre-trained or co-trained with the controller network. The controller network is trained via policy gradient. Following a modification, the resulting candidate network is evaluated by both an accuracy network and a training time network. The results are combined by a reward engine that passes its output back to the controller network. == One-shot models == RL or evolution-based NAS require thousands of GPU-days of searching/training to achieve state-of-the-art computer vision results as described in the NASNet, mNASNet and MobileNetV3 papers. To reduce computational cost, many recent NAS methods rely on the weight-sharing idea. In this approach, a single overparameterized supernetwork (also known as the one-shot model) is defined. A supernetwork is a very large Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) whose subgraphs are different candidate neural networks. Thus, in a supernetwork, the weights are shared among a large number of different sub-architectures that have edges in common, each of which is considered as a path within the supernet. The essential idea is to train one supernetwork that spans many options for the final design rather than generating and training thousands of networks independently. In addition to the learned parameters, a set of architecture parameters are learnt to depict preference for one module over another. Such methods reduce the required computational resources to only a few GPU days. More recent works further combine this weight-sharing paradigm, with a continuous relaxation of the search space, which enables the use of gradient-based optimization methods. These approaches are generally referred to as differentiable NAS and have proven very efficient in exploring the search space of ne

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  • Predictive text

    Predictive text

    Predictive text is an input technology used where one key or button represents many letters, such as on the physical numeric keypads of mobile phones and in accessibility technologies. Each key press results in a prediction rather than repeatedly sequencing through the same group of "letters" it represents, in the same, invariable order. Predictive text could allow for an entire word to be input by a single keypress. Predictive text makes efficient use of fewer device keys to input writing into a text message, an e-mail, an address book, a calendar, and the like. The most widely used, general, predictive text systems are T9, iTap, eZiText, and LetterWise/WordWise. There are many ways to build a device that predicts text, but all predictive text systems have initial linguistic settings that offer predictions that are re-prioritized to adapt to each user. This learning adapts, by way of the device memory, to a user's disambiguating feedback that results in corrective key presses, such as pressing a "next" key to get to the intention. Most predictive text systems have a user database to facilitate this process. Theoretically the number of keystrokes required per desired character in the finished writing is, on average, comparable to using a keyboard. This is approximately true provided that all words used are in its database, punctuation is ignored, and no input mistakes are made when typing or spelling. The theoretical keystrokes per character, KSPC, of a keyboard is KSPC=1.00, and of multi-tap is KSPC=2.03. Eatoni's LetterWise is a predictive multi-tap hybrid, which when operating on a standard telephone keypad achieves KSPC=1.15 for English. The choice of which predictive text system is the best to use involves matching the user's preferred interface style, the user's level of learned ability to operate predictive text software, and the user's efficiency goal. There are various levels of risk in predictive text systems, versus multi-tap systems, because the predicted text that is automatically written provides the speed and mechanical efficiency benefit, which, if the user is not careful to review, results in transmitting misinformation. Predictive text systems take time to learn to use well, and so generally, a device's system has user options to set up the choice of multi-tap or any one of several schools of predictive text methods. == Background == Short message service (SMS) permits a mobile phone user to send text messages (also called messages, SMSes, texts, and txts) as a short message. The most common system of SMS text input is referred to as "multi-tap". Using multi-tap, a key is pressed multiple times to access the list of letters on that key. For instance, pressing the "2" key once displays an "a", twice displays a "b" and three times displays a "c". To enter two successive letters that are on the same key, the user must either pause or hit a "next" button. A user can type by pressing an alphanumeric keypad without looking at the electronic equipment display. Thus, multi-tap is easy to understand and can be used without any visual feedback. However, multi-tap is not very efficient, requiring potentially many keystrokes to enter a single letter. In ideal predictive text entry, all words used are in the dictionary, punctuation is ignored, no spelling mistakes are made, and no typing mistakes are made. The ideal dictionary would include all slang, proper nouns, abbreviations, URLs, foreign-language words and other user-unique words. This ideal circumstance gives predictive text software a reduction in the number of key strokes a user is required to enter a word. The user presses the number corresponding to each letter. As long as the word exists in the predictive text dictionary or is correctly disambiguated by non-dictionary systems, it will appear. For instance, pressing "4663" will typically be interpreted as the word good, provided that a linguistic database in English is currently in use, though alternatives such as home, hood and hoof are also valid interpretations of the sequence of key strokes. The most widely used systems of predictive text are Tegic's T9, Motorola's iTap, and the Eatoni Ergonomics' LetterWise and WordWise. T9 and iTap use dictionaries, but Eatoni Ergonomics' products use a disambiguation process, a set of statistical rules to recreate words from keystroke sequences. All predictive text systems require a linguistic database for every supported input language. == Dictionary vs. non-dictionary systems == Traditional disambiguation works by referencing a dictionary of commonly used words, though Eatoni offers a dictionaryless disambiguation system. In dictionary-based systems, as the user presses the number buttons, an algorithm searches the dictionary for a list of possible words that match the keypress combination and offers up the most probable choice. The user can then confirm the selection and move on, or use a key to cycle through the possible combinations. A non-dictionary system constructs words and other sequences of letters from the statistics of word parts. To attempt predictions of the intended result of keystrokes not yet entered, disambiguation may be combined with a word completion facility. Either system (disambiguation or predictive) may include a user database, which can be further classified as a "learning" system when words or phrases are entered into the user database without direct user intervention. The user database is for storing words or phrases that are not well disambiguated by the pre-supplied database. Some disambiguation systems further attempt to correct spelling, format text or perform other automatic rewrites, with the risky effect of either enhancing or frustrating user efforts to enter text. == History == The predictive text and autocomplete technology was invented out of necessities by Chinese scientists and linguists in the 1950s to solve the input inefficiency of the Chinese typewriter, as the typing process involved finding and selecting thousands of logographic characters on a tray, drastically slowing down the word processing speed. The actuating keys of the Chinese typewriter created by Lin Yutang in the 1940s included suggestions for the characters following the one selected. In 1951, the Chinese typesetter Zhang Jiying arranged Chinese characters in associative clusters, a precursor of modern predictive text entry, and broke speed records by doing so. Predictive entry of text from a telephone keypad has been known at least since the 1970s (Smith and Goodwin, 1971). Predictive text was mainly used to look up names in directories over the phone until mobile phone text messaging came into widespread use. == Example == On a typical phone keypad, if users wished to type the in a "multi-tap" keypad entry system, they would need to: Press 8 (tuv) once to select t. Press 4 (ghi) twice to select h. Press 3 (def) twice to select e. Meanwhile, in a phone with predictive text, they need only: Press 8 once to select the (tuv) group for the first character. Press 4 once to select the (ghi) group for the second character. Press 3 once to select the (def) group for the third character. The system updates the display as each keypress is entered, to show the most probable entry. In this example, prediction reduced the number of button presses from five to three. The effect is even greater with longer words and those composed of letters later in each key's sequence. A dictionary-based predictive system is based on the hope that the desired word is in the dictionary. That hope may be misplaced if the word differs in any way from common usage—in particular, if the word is not spelled or typed correctly, is slang, or is a proper noun. In these cases, some other mechanism must be used to enter the word. Furthermore, the simple dictionary approach fails with agglutinative languages, where a single word does not necessarily represent a single semantic entity. == Companies and products == Predictive text is developed and marketed in a variety of competing products, such as Nuance Communications's T9. Other products include Motorola's iTap; Eatoni Ergonomic's LetterWise (character, rather than word-based prediction); WordWise (word-based prediction without a dictionary); EQ3 (a QWERTY-like layout compatible with regular telephone keypads); Prevalent Devices's Phraze-It; Xrgomics' TenGO (a six-key reduced QWERTY keyboard system); Adaptxt (considers language, context, grammar and semantics); Lightkey (a predictive typing software for Windows); Clevertexting (statistical nature of the language, dictionaryless, dynamic key allocation); and Oizea Type (temporal ambiguity); Intelab's Tauto; WordLogic's Intelligent Input Platform™ (patented, layer-based advanced text prediction, includes multi-language dictionary, spell-check, built-in Web search); Google's Gboard. == Textonyms == Words produced by the same combination of keypresses have been called "textonyms"; also "txtonyms"; or "T9o

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  • Artificial intelligence in pharmacy

    Artificial intelligence in pharmacy

    Artificial intelligence in pharmacy refers to the application of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques across pharmaceutical research and practice, including drug discovery, drug delivery, safety monitoring, clinical decision support, and pharmacy operations. Machine learning, deep learning, and natural language processing have been applied to tasks ranging from molecular design to patient adherence monitoring, with the aim of reducing development costs, improving accuracy, and personalizing treatment. Adoption has been uneven. Barriers include limited AI training among pharmacists, high infrastructure costs, and the risk of harm from models trained on unrepresentative data. Regulatory frameworks for AI-based pharmaceutical tools remain in active development across most jurisdictions. == Applications == === Drug discovery and development === Drug development is resource-intensive: bringing a single drug to market typically costs around $2.6 billion and takes 12–14 years. Machine learning algorithms have been applied to analyze molecular datasets to identify potential drug candidates, predict drug–target interactions, and optimize formulations. Artificial neural networks and generative adversarial networks have been used in drug discovery tasks including virtual screening, structure-activity relationship modeling, and de novo molecule generation. Peptides designed using AI methods have shown activity against multidrug-resistant bacteria, and transcriptomic data from human cell lines has been used to train deep learning models to classify drugs by therapeutic properties. Results in drug discovery have been mixed. AI models depend on the quality and diversity of their training data; those trained on narrow chemical libraries can fail to generalize to novel molecular scaffolds. The gap between high virtual screening hit rates and success in preclinical or clinical testing remains a persistent challenge, and the translation of computationally predicted candidates into approved drugs has been slower than early projections suggested. === Drug delivery systems === AI methods including neural networks, principal component analysis, and neuro-fuzzy logic have been applied to identifying biological targets for pharmaceuticals and analyzing genetic information relevant to drug design. Computational models can predict how a formulation will behave in biological systems, helping narrow the field before laboratory synthesis begins. Systems have been proposed that monitor patient response and adjust doses in real time based on individual physiology, with potential applications in chronic disease management. Research has also explored AI applications in targeted cancer treatments and oral vaccine delivery, areas where precise control over drug release kinetics is a design priority. === Drug safety === AI has been applied to predicting and detecting adverse drug reactions using techniques including knowledge graphs, logistic regression classifiers, and neural networks. A 2023 study developed a machine learning algorithm using knowledge graph analysis to classify known causes of adverse reactions. Natural language processing and deep learning models including long short-term memory (LSTM) networks have shown better performance than conventional methods for detecting opioid misuse, drawing on both structured data from electronic health records and unstructured sources such as clinical notes. AI-based pharmacovigilance systems can scan large volumes of electronic health records and social media for drug safety signals at a scale not feasible with manual review. Limitations include difficulty distinguishing drug-related adverse events from unrelated conditions in free-text data, and the need for validated benchmarks to measure model performance against existing safety monitoring standards. === Clinical decision support and personalized medicine === Machine learning systems trained on patient datasets can predict individual risk profiles, including potential allergies and drug–drug interactions, reducing the risk of harm in complex polypharmacy cases where the number of possible interactions exceeds what a clinician can readily assess. Personalized dosing models have been developed for drugs with narrow therapeutic windows — including anticoagulants and immunosuppressants — using patient-specific variables such as weight, renal function, and relevant genetic markers. Prospective clinical validation of these systems has lagged behind their technical development. Most published evaluations report performance on retrospective datasets, and the regulatory pathway for AI-based clinical decision support tools in pharmacy varies by jurisdiction. === Pharmacy operations and automation === Robotic and AI-driven systems have been applied to dispensing accuracy and pharmacy logistics. At the UCSF Medical Center, robotic technology produced 350,000 medication doses with no dispensing errors recorded. Robots such as TUG assist with preparing and transporting medications and laboratory samples within hospital settings. AI has also been applied to inventory management, with demand-forecasting systems predicting medicine requirements to reduce shortages and minimize waste from expired stock. In community pharmacy settings, AI tools have been used to flag potential prescription errors and alert pharmacists to drug–drug interactions before dispensing. === Medication adherence === Confirming that patients take prescribed medications as directed is a persistent challenge in healthcare. AI-enabled tools including smart pillboxes, RFID tags, ingestible sensors, and video check-ins have been applied to this problem. Smart pillboxes record when they are opened, providing real-time adherence data that can be reviewed remotely by care teams. Ingestible sensors transmit a signal after dissolution, offering direct confirmation of ingestion rather than proxy measures such as pill count or self-report. == Adoption challenges == === Barriers === Several barriers limit AI adoption in pharmacy practice. Many published evaluations report model performance on retrospective datasets rather than prospective clinical outcomes, making it difficult to assess real-world benefit. Pharmacists have reported limited AI training and knowledge, and research facilities often lack the computational infrastructure required for model development and validation. Models trained on biased or unrepresentative datasets can produce misleading results with direct patient safety consequences. === Regulatory frameworks === Regulatory frameworks for AI-based pharmaceutical tools are in active development. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued guidance on AI and machine learning-based software as a medical device, addressing requirements for pre-market review and post-market performance monitoring. The European Medicines Agency has published discussion papers on the use of AI across the medicines development lifecycle, with particular attention to transparency in model training and validation. The absence of harmonized international standards creates compliance complexity for developers operating across multiple jurisdictions. === Ethical challenges === AI adoption raises data privacy and security concerns, including the risk of exposing sensitive patient information through data breaches. Algorithmic bias presents a related hazard: a model trained on an unrepresentative patient population may generate unsuitable treatment recommendations for patients not reflected in its training data, with potential for disparate outcomes across demographic groups. The opacity of some machine learning models, particularly deep neural networks, limits clinicians' ability to interpret or contest a recommendation, raising questions of accountability when a model-assisted decision results in patient harm. === Proposed solutions === Responses proposed in the literature include AI-focused education programs for pharmacists, increased public funding for healthcare AI research, encryption and governance frameworks for patient data, and regulatory requirements to prevent the use of biased training datasets. Greater transparency about training data provenance, model architecture, and validation methodology has also been recommended, including disclosure requirements in regulatory submissions. === Future directions === Research groups have called for tighter integration between AI systems and electronic health records to reduce healthcare costs and improve continuity of care across settings. International collaboration through shared AI frameworks and federated learning approaches has been proposed to address data scarcity in underrepresented patient populations and accelerate validation across institutions.

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  • On a Red Station, Drifting

    On a Red Station, Drifting

    On a Red Station, Drifting is a 2012 science fiction novella by Aliette de Bodard. Set in her Xuya Universe, it focuses on two women aboard a space station with a failing artificial intelligence. It received critical acclaim, becoming a finalist for the 2012 Nebula Award for Best Novella, the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novella, and the 2013 Locus Award for Best Novella. == Plot == Lê Thi Linh is a magistrate of the Dai Viet Empire who is forced to flee her planet after criticizing the Emperor’s wartime policies. At the same time, rebel groups seize control of her planet and kill most of her subordinates. Linh seeks refuge with her distant relatives on Prosper Station. Prosper is controlled by an artificial intelligence called the Honoured Ancestress. Lê Thi Quyen, Linh’s cousin by marriage, manages the day-to-day operations of Prosper while her husband is away at war. Quyen and Linh immediately fall into conflict. Quyen’s brother-in-law Huu Hieu sells his mem-implants, which are copies of their ancestors’ consciousnesses. Meanwhile, the Honoured Ancestress experiences increasingly severe technical problems. Hieu and Linh become close. Hieu plans use the money from the sale of the implants to leave Prosper and marry his lover on a different station. Linh is upset knowing that she will never be able to leave. A visiting cousin, Lady Oahn, provides schematics for the repair of the Honoured Ancestress. In an effort to hurt Quyen, Linh writes an unflattering poem at a banquet honoring Oanh. In doing so, she reveals that Hieu is trying to leave Prosper. Hieu attempts suicide out of shame, but Linh rescues him. Quyen is able to repair the Honoured Ancestress, restoring her functionality at the expense of erasing many of her memories. The Emperor’s Embroidered Guard arrives at Prosper Station in search of Linh. Linh finds the missing mem-implants and returns them to Quyen. Quyen and Linh briefly reconcile before Linh is arrested and removed from Prosper Station. == Major themes == A review in Kirkus wrote that the novel's "familiar setting" was a "departure point" for the novel to explore its themes. The novel explores family ties; almost everyone on Prosper Station is related in some fashion. Additionally, the use of ancestors' mem-implants further explores the concept of family ties, with some descendants being considered more "worthy" than others due to their higher number of implants. The novel also explores questions of worth, as those who fail at ability tests are often forced to become the "lesser partners" in marriages and are discriminated against due to their perceived lack of achievement. The author notes that it is interesting that gender plays no role in the question of worth, and that the majority of the men in the story are actually the "lesser partner" in their marriage. == Style == The novel is divided into three sections. Liz Bourke wrote that each section builds thematically "towards an emotional crescendo". == Reception == Writing for Locus, Liz Bourke praised the novel's exploration of interpersonal conflict between Linh and Quyen, writing that "essentially subverts the popularly-understood derogatory overtones of 'domestic conflict'". Bourke also praised the story's tension, calling it "so well-strung the prose practically vibrates under its influence". A review for Kirkus stated that the novel is a "beautifully realized story and the characters, plot, theme and writing are expertly crafted." === Awards ===

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  • Willy's Chocolate Experience

    Willy's Chocolate Experience

    Willy's Chocolate Experience was an unlicensed event based on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that took place in Glasgow, Scotland, in February 2024. The event was promoted as an immersive and interactive family experience, illustrated on a promotional website with "dreamlike" AI-generated images. Once it was discovered that the event was held in a sparsely decorated warehouse, many customers complained, and the police were called to the venue. The event went viral on the Internet and attracted worldwide media attention. The event drew comparisons to the 2008 Lapland New Forest controversy, the 2014 Tumblr fan convention DashCon, and Billy McFarland's 2017 Fyre Festival. == Background and advertising == The event was stated to take place over the weekend of 24–25 February 2024. Promotional material advertised "stunning and intricately designed settings inspired by Roald Dahl's timeless tale" and "an array of delectable treats scattered throughout the experience". Both the website and promotional material used poor-quality AI-generated images, which included several spelling errors such as "cartchy tuns" and "a pasadise of sweet teats" and nonsensical words such as "catgacating" and "exarserdray". Tickets cost up to £35 per person. While the event was being promoted in early February, a Reddit user who saw Facebook advertisements suspected it to be a scam and was surprised that people were apparently buying tickets based solely on AI-generated images. The event was organised by House of Illuminati, a company registered to Billy Coull which claimed to offer "unparalleled immersive experiences". An investigation by Third Force News conducted after the event described Coull's previous "murky involvement in the charity sector." Coull had previously registered several other companies and claimed to work as a "consultant" for the now-defunct brand Empowerity, formerly known as the charity Gowanbank Community Hub. In 2021, Gowanbank was forced to remove claims of a £95-per-ticket fundraising "gala" at DoubleTree Glasgow which had been falsely advertised to feature TV personalities and performers including Gok Wan and Joe Black. Coull had claimed to be a doctor with a fake degree from a false university that provided "metaphysical degrees", and had attempted to use the charity to win the 2022 Glasgow City Council election in the seat of Greater Pollok, though he never registered for the election. In the summer of 2023, he independently published 17 AI-generated books on various topics, including vaccine conspiracy theories. Rolling Stone concluded that House of Illuminati's websites and event descriptions were likely written by an AI chatbot, such as ChatGPT. Three actors were hired to portray "Willy McDuff", a character based on Willy Wonka. One of them, Paul Connell, said that the cast were given one day to learn the script. Another actor playing Willy McDuff was 18-year-old Michael Archibald; the experience was his first ever acting job, and he was given the script at 6 pm on Friday before the event began on Saturday. Kirsty Paterson, an actress who played one of the Oompa-Loompas (called "Wonkidoodles" in the script), said that the job offer had been posted on Indeed.com and offered £500 for two days of work. The day before the event, the actors attended a dress rehearsal at the sparsely decorated venue. They were told that others would be working through the night on the production. When they returned on the day of the event, the venue was in the same condition. Paterson was given her costume an hour before the event opened, saying that "We were just handed an Amazon box that probably arrived that morning." == Script == The script for the event is titled Wonkidoodles at McDuff's Chocolate Factory: A Script, and describes Willy McDuff leading an audience through the Garden of Enchantment and the Twilight Tunnel. Once there, they are confronted by a character called The Unknown, described as "an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls" who seeks to steal the magical "Anti-Graffiti Gobstopper" from McDuff's Imagination Lab. The gobstopper is "a sweet so powerful, it can make any room sparkle without lifting a finger". McDuff defeats The Unknown by amplifying the power of the gobstopper and causing his enemy to be "gently swept up by a robotic vacuum, humorously ending the confrontation". The script was unusual in that it included stage directions for the audience, and descriptions of their reactions. Connell described it as "15 pages of AI-generated gibberish of me just monologuing these mad things", and compared the vacuum cleaner plot point to that of the Nintendo video game Luigi's Mansion. Interviewed after the event, Coull claimed to have written the script himself, using AI only to "check spelling, grammar, and continuity" as he said he had dyslexia. == Event == The event was held at the Box Hub Warehouse event space in Whiteinch, an industrial area of Glasgow. Customers described the venue as "little more than an abandoned, empty warehouse", with set dressings including a small bouncy castle, AI-generated backdrop images pinned to some of the walls, and props which were "strewn about on bare concrete floors". The venue's windows were dirty and its air conditioning systems were left exposed. Paterson has stated that by the time she saw the venue, she had already signed her contract and "didn't want to disappoint the kids", and thus chose to proceed with the work. The Unknown was played by a 16-year-old actress named Felicia Dawkins, who wore a silver mask and a black cloak. Young children were frightened by the character, who appeared from behind a large rectangular mirror. Despite the script calling for The Unknown to be defeated with a vacuum cleaner, no such prop was provided, and actors were instead asked to improvise. Connell said that he and other employees were told to give each child "two jelly beans and a quarter of a cup of lemonade", although the limited supply of jelly beans quickly ran out. Paterson and another "Wonkidoodle" actress, Jenny Fogarty, said that after the first three 45-minute performances, the cast were told to abandon the script and instead let guests walk through the venue, a process that Paterson said took "about two minutes". The character of The Unknown, previously introduced as the main antagonist, was now "scaring children for no reason". One of the actors playing McDuff improvised the idea that children should pull a "silly face" at The Unknown to scare them away, but Dawkins said that, in other cases, she "just had to awkwardly walk back to my corner". Connell was told he would be given a 15-minute break every 45 minutes, but on the day of the event, he played Willy McDuff for three and a half hours without a break. After returning from a lunch break, Connell encountered a crowd of customers demanding refunds from Coull, and the other actors were unsure what to do next. After being told that the event was now cancelled halfway through its opening day, the actors left and went to a pub. Upon returning to the venue some time later, Connell said that he felt "the threat of violence had become quite high" and that there were two police vans and two squad cars at the scene. == Customer reviews and response == Willy's Chocolate Experience was widely criticised by those who attended it, many of whom demanded refunds. One customer, who had driven with his children for two hours to reach the event, described it as an "absolute con". Other visitors who arrived after the event was closed and were not informed of its cancellation requested compensation for wasted rail fares. Following the event's cancellation, Coull offered to refund 850 people, a statement repeated by the event's Facebook page. Some Facebook users stated that they had received their money back. Paterson and Fogarty stated that they only received half of their paycheque. Box Hub, the organisation that had rented the warehouse to House of Illuminati, issued an apology on House of Illuminati's behalf, stating that they "either have no regards for the families and young children they have disappointed or are too embarrassed to comment", and offered to provide a venue free of charge for those who attended the event. House of Illuminati later stated that they would not host any future events. Coull deleted his LinkedIn profile, his YouTube channel, and his personal website in response to the controversy. A few days after the event, Connell said he felt that Coull was "probably one of the most disliked people in Glasgow right now". In an interview with The Sunday Times, Coull apologised for how the event turned out, saying he would accept responsibility. == Fundraising == In an interview with Wired magazine, Connell stated that he and the other actors were working with parents to provide a free show for the children who attended. Some items from the event were later auctioned for charity. The venue auctioned the leftover hand-written "even

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  • Perceptual robotics

    Perceptual robotics

    Perceptual robotics is an interdisciplinary science linking Robotics and Neuroscience. It investigates biologically motivated robot control strategies, concentrating on perceptual rather than cognitive processes and thereby sides with J. J. Gibson's view against the Poverty of the stimulus theory. As a working definition, the following quote from Chapter 64 by H. Bülthoff, C. Wallraven and M. Giese from The Springer Handbook of Robotics, edited by Bruno Siciliano and Oussama Khatib, published by Springer in 2007, could be used: In the following we will apply the term Perceptual Robotics to signify the design of robots based on principles that are derived from human perception on all three levels in the sense of Marr. This includes a realization in terms of specific neural circuits as well as the transfer of more abstract biologically-inspired strategies for the solution of relevant computational problems.

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  • Neuroshima

    Neuroshima

    Neuroshima is a Polish tabletop roleplaying system inspired by such films and games as Mad Max, Fallout, The Matrix, Terminator and Deadlands: Hell on Earth. It is currently available only in Polish. The game's motto is "never trust the machines". Its designers include Michal Oracz and Ignacy Trzewiczek. == Setting == The game describes the United States in the mid-21st century, after a nuclear war started by a cybernetic revolt, which molded the continent into a barren wasteland. It seems that the reason for the war to break out was a sentient Artificial Intelligence commonly referred to as Moloch and made up of interconnected net of military computers: automated factories, military facilities, power plants and alike, that now cover the whole north of the U.S., from Oregon to the Great Lakes. On the south, there is another creation, called the Neojungle, that poses a threat to those who survived the war. It is a semi-intelligent carnivorous vegetation that grows very quickly, advancing north from Latin America. Right in the middle, there are humans. They are surrounded by mutant creatures, some bred by Moloch and hostile towards humans, and some simply animals and humans misshapen by nuclear fallout. On top of that there are Moloch's deadly machines lurking to complete the picture. But what is stressed in the book is that the worst enemy of humans is within them: hatred, indifference, greed. === Landscapes of Neuroshima === Car wrecks, ruined towns and villages, collapsed roofs on deserted houses, broken glass in the windows of abandoned gas stations fill the landscape of the United States of the middle of the 21st century. Technology is history - cars will not start, radios are jammed, no electricity whatsoever almost everywhere the characters go. Shops and malls are looted, prosperous villages are burned by gangers, and safe places are very sparse. === People in Neuroshima === No one knows how many people survived the war with machines, but it is estimated that their number oscillates around 2-3 million. Some people reverted to nomadic lifestyles and live in the deserts, some of them try to build the civilisation anew in devastated cities, some of them form gangs of highwaymen (called gangers), some of them just try to make a living by growing crops, and finally, there are those who just wander around the wasteland; the adventuring sort here is mostly represented by player characters. Each village they visit in this world is a discrete microcosm and nothing is certain as whether the inhabitants are welcoming or shoot strangers on sight. The continent is full of small, anonymous settlements, but there are places which aspire to become post-nuclear states. === Places in Neuroshima === In this world it is very important where you come from, and that is because people are prejudiced and afraid of strangers. Different places produce different kinds of people, and who you are is determined by where you are from. Examples: The Southern Hegemony - (commonly referred to as 'the Hegemony') - located in what was once Arizona, New Mexico and partially Texas. A place where brute force determines one's place in the society. Dominated by gangs and unhampered by Moloch, the Hegemony is a threat to neighbouring lands. Vegas - the only well-lit city in the post-apocalyptic world. Home to many playhouses and casinos, it attracts people from every part of the country. Mother Desert - if you were born in the desert, whenever you go away from civilisation, you feel at home. Many Native Americans still live out there and are doing fine - after all the warheads did not hit the deserts. Detroit - known for some of the best drivers and racers in the post-nuclear US. Home of many gangs, such as The Shultz (mafia styled), Hurons (punkers), The League (racers), Parker Lots (gothic assassins) and the Gas Drinkers (mutant barbarians). New York - a place which has established a strong government and would like to rebuild America. They maintain schools, factories and railways and send soldiers to fight Moloch. Surprisingly enough, they sometimes succeed. Texas - the healthiest place in America. Actually, the only place where one can find green vegetation. Modern Texans still grow crops, breed horses and herd cattle, like their ancestors in the 19th century did. The Appalachian Federation - a place ruled by feudal lords. They have a social class system, in which people are divided into nobility and peasantry. Thanks to its iron and coal deposits, it's one of the richest places in the post-nuclear U.S. The Outpost - A mobile settlement run by scientists who aim to destroy Moloch. In coalition with New York, they manage an army, which is yet to stop Moloch's advance south. They steal technology from the machines they destroy and apply it to their own advantage. == System == The game uses its own, custom system of rules. The dice you use is d20. This system does not have an official name, but it is unconnected to the d20 system, as it typically uses three twenty-sided dice. === Four colours === Neuroshima relies on the division of the gameplay into something the authors called Four Colours, namely steel, chrome, rust and mercury. The choice of a particular colour is made by the gamemaster (the decision can be consulted with the players in order to enhance the game experience) and determines the mood, atmosphere and the type of events/characters present in the story. The name of the colour itself implies the kind of gameplay it will symbolise. These colours are: Steel - this kind of gameplay is characterised by a slightly optimistic attitude towards the world. The aim is to raise the spirit of the characters by showing them that the war with the machines that is going on may be a difficult one, but it is not unwinnable, and that humans, when strong and united, can build the world anew. Example of a story: a unit of soldiers dispatched from the Outpost is sent to build a bunker and establish a relay base far in the north in order to plan a counter-tactic against Moloch's advance south. Chromium - is characterised by a hedonistic attitude. The characters are supposed to enjoy anything that is left from the world after the war and the story is supposed to allow them to do that. Example: the characters are offered a well-paid job by a local ganger boss who extorts wares from local tradesmen. Their job is to drive around the county and pick up the extorted items and trade it for drugs. Rust - a depressing, pessimistic mood. The characters will encounter rust, dilapidation and ruin everywhere they go. All the elements and NPCs of a story played in this mood are supposed to put the characters down and destroy their spirit. Example: the characters, badly wounded after a gunfight and robbed of all their possession find refuge in a village which is constantly raided by gangers. The characters' quest is to repel those attacks, but the enemies outnumber them and are well equipped, whereas the characters have nothing to fight with. Mercury (Quicksilver) - the most depressing side of the game; usually stories played in this mood end with the death of all the characters. The aim of this mood is to show that any kind of action undertaken is futile and that the war is already over, hence all the people are already dead, which is a fact they just need to realise. Example: a group of soldiers stationed in a bunker is awaiting an attack by mutants. They are well-armed and trained, but there is a mistake in the intelligence they were given and they do not know yet that they are seriously outnumbered. The attack commences at dusk and it is already too late to retreat, so the characters decide to seal off the bunker, hopeful that the mutants will not be able to get inside and simply go away. The mutants attack the bunker with chemical weapons instead. The characters do not have enough gas masks to go around. As an effect, those strong enough will kill the weaker ones to get their masks, not knowing that the mutants will blow up the sealed entrance the following morning. == Official rulebooks and sourcebooks == The current edition is 1.5 [1]. Since the release of the game in 2003, sourcebooks have been appearing. The game keeps growing bigger with every add-on, as well as the storyline, which is updated in those sourcebooks and in Space Pirate (pl. Gwiezdny Pirat) magazine, also published by Portal. === List of released rulebooks and sourcebooks === Neuroshima 1.0 - the original edition of the core rulebook (out of print). Neuroshima 1.5 - enhanced and revised core rulebook, with new material added and some material cut out. Wyścig (The Race) - sourcebook dedicated to cars and racing; contains rules concerning building your own vehicle and new character classes connected with driving. Gladiator - sourcebook describing in detail the "Gladiator" character class. Supplement (Supplement) - sourcebook revising the core rulebook. Detroit - sourcebook describing the city of Detroit, its inhabi

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  • Painworth

    Painworth

    PainWorth is a justice, legal and insurance services application founded by Canadian entrepreneurs Mike Zouhri, Chris Trudel and Ryan Bencic. The application is a "robot lawyer" that uses artificial intelligence to automate personal injury claims for injury victims. It is currently available in Canada and the United States. PainWorth has been featured by several news outlets, including CTV, Global News, CBC, and has also been featured by the American Bar Association and LexisNexis for its role addressing social issues such as access to justice and other systemic issues in the legal and insurance industry. == Application == PainWorth began as a tool for calculating non-pecuniary damages for injury victims but has since expanded beyond a personal injury calculator to include features that help injury victims and business users with pecuniary damages, economic calculations, prescribed rates and providing informational guides to help navigate settlement negotiation, managing claims records and other issues encountered by self-represented litigants or claims managers. The platform makes use of automation to provide free user-guided calculations, steps and processes to successfully settle an injury claim. The application is supported by Microsoft Azure. == Personal Injury Calculator == PainWorth is the first service to use Artificial Intelligence to interpret case law in order to determine the value of pain and suffering incurred by specific injury types and injury severities. The cited case law is used as evidence and presented in statistical models to determine an accurate valuation compliant with the jurisdiction, regulatory rules and case complexities. == General Damages Calculator == PainWorth also offers a personal injury settlement calculator that assesses general damages based on specific case complexities and jurisdiction. The service takes into account medical complications and recovery in order to calculate the fair valuation. == Injury Settlement Platform == PainWorth insurance settlement platform facilitates a direct and automated way resolution center to settle cases for their assessed value without enduring the hardship of litigation. In 2021, Painworth won the title of World's Best Emerging Insurance Product for the development of this platform. == History == In 2019, Mike Zouhri was struck by a drunk driver which left him seriously injured and resulted in a lawsuit. Frustrated by the slow and expensive process, Zouhri went down to the law library and learned how to manage injury claims. After learning the process, he partnered lawyers and legal advisors to create an app to allow users to quickly settle their own injury claims fairly and accurately. Immediately after its launch, PainWorth quickly became widely used by thousands of users and gained significant media coverage. Global News reported that the bot had successfully helped people with more than $10 million in claims in only a few short months, all free of charge. In July 2020, PainWorth began raising concern over injustices and gender bias in the legal system. in Canadian courts.

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  • AI Seoul Summit 2024

    AI Seoul Summit 2024

    The AI Seoul Summit 2024 was an event in May 2024 co-hosted by the South Korean and British governments. The Seoul Declaration was adopted to address artificial intelligence technology and related challenges and opportunities. == Background == The AI Seoul Summit is the second such meeting following the AI Safety Summit held in the United Kingdom in November 2023. In the Bletchley Declaration, the participating countries agreed to prioritize identifying AI safety risks of shared concern, a shared concern, but at the Seoul Summit, the leaders also recognized the importance of AI. == Notable attendees == The summit was attended by the leaders of Group of Seven countries, including the United States, Canada, France, and Germany, South Korea, Singapore and Australia, representatives of the United Nations, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the European Union. Also in attendance were representatives of global companies such as Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong, ChatGPT maker OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Meta, and South Korea's top portal operator Naver. == Topics == === South Korean AI safety center === "South Korea will push forward with the establishment of an AI safety research center in Korea and join a network to boost the global safety of AI." Minister of Science, Lee Jong-ho said that South Korea was planning to open an AI Safety Institute in 2024. He also expressed his intention to strengthen cooperation for the development of international standards. === Seoul Declaration for Safe, Innovative and Inclusive AI === The Seoul Declaration was adopted at the summit by leaders representing the EU, the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. The declaration is a commitment to foster international cooperation to help develop AI governance frameworks that are interoperable between countries, partly by integrating the Hiroshima Process International Code of Conduct for Organizations Developing Advanced AI Systems. It advocates for the development of human-centric AI in collaboration with the private sector, academia, and civil society. === Seoul Ministerial Statement for advancing AI safety === At the ministerial meeting of the summit, the Seoul Ministerial Statement, a joint statement calling for the improvement of the safety, innovation, and inclusivity of AI technologies, was adopted by ministers from Australia, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Korea, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, the UK, and the US, as well as an EU representative. It aims to develop low-power chips as the AI industry rapidly expands and massive consumption is expected. == Global AI Summit series ==

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  • Clapper (service)

    Clapper (service)

    Clapper is an American short-form video-hosting service headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It was founded in 2020 by Edison Chen as an alternative for TikTok for mature audiences. The app is functionally similar to TikTok and includes tipping and e-commerce features. Following an influx of far-right content in early 2021, Clapper strengthened its moderation practices. It achieved 2 million monthly active users by 2023, and the number of downloads increased after a U.S. bill that would potentially ban TikTok in the country was signed in 2024. == History == With its offices in Dallas, Texas, Clapper was founded in July 2020 by Chinese-American entrepreneur Edison Chen. Chen considered that most online platforms, such as TikTok, were being targeted to young generations, such as Generation Z. He then concepted Clapper as a service with short-form content for mature audiences among Generation X and millennials, while not intending to compete directly with TikTok. Clapper averaged fewer than ten thousand daily active users during 2020, reaching 500 thousand downloads in the next year. Initially without paying for external advertising, the company raised about $3 million during a 2021 seed funding round. In 2023, the app reportedly reached about 300 to 400 thousand daily active users and 2 million monthly active users. The average user was between the ages of 35 and 55. Following the April 2024 signing of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which would potentially enact a ban on TikTok in the U.S. in January 2025, Clapper averaged 200 thousand weekly downloads. In 2025, before the day scheduled for the ban (January 19), TikTok users migrated to other apps. As a result, Clapper received 1.4 million new downloads in a week preceding the date. It was listed as the third most-downloaded free app on Apple's App Store on January 14, behind Xiaohongshu and Lemon8, and the term "TikTok refugee" became a trending term. == Features == Clapper presents similarities with TikTok in its layout, including "Following" and "For You" tabs with videos up to three minutes long that can be liked, commented on or shared. A "Clapback" feature allows users to create responses to videos from others. Users can create livestreams and chat rooms in the app. Users can tip Clapper creators through its Clapper Fam monetization feature, in place of in-app advertisements. The Clapper Shop allows for e-commerce between users. The service had distributed $10 million to its users in total by 2023, according to Clapper CEO Chen. == Content == Clapper includes a policy requiring users to be at least 17 years of age, although Clapper CEO Chen described that "there is no adult content" on the platform. Lindsay Dodgson of Business Insider described the content as generally outdated and "reminiscent of 'getting owned' compilations of the earlier internet." The Washington Post's Tatum Hunter characterized Clapper as including sexual or engagement baiting content more prevalently than TikTok. === Moderation === Clapper's team, which had fifteen employees in early 2021, initially stated it would not moderate content as strictly as TikTok and would mostly rely on user reports. Following that year's January 6 United States Capitol attack, far-right conservative videos promoting QAnon and anti-vaccine conspiracy theories appeared on Clapper's "For You" page to a substantial degree for weeks. The videos were made in protest against decisions by platforms, particularly TikTok, to ban such content. Clapper's team stated in January 10 that its rules prohibiting incitements to violence would be strictly enforced. By February, videos and accounts promoting the conspiracy theories had been removed, and QAnon-related content was banned permanently. Clapper's team hired more content auditors and implemented moderation by artificial intelligence for further community guideline violations.

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  • Theaitre

    Theaitre

    Theaitre (stylized as THEaiTRE) is an interdisciplinary research project investigating to what extent artificial intelligence is able to generate theatre play scripts. The first theatre play produced within the project, AI: When a Robot Writes a Play, premiered online on February 26, 2021. == Goal == Following similar previous projects such as Sunspring, a short sci-fi movie with an automatically generated script, the THEaiTRE project investigates whether current language generation approaches are mature enough to generate a theatre play script that could be successfully performed in front of an audience. The project falls within the area of generative art, famously represented e.g. by the portrait of Edmond de Belamy which was generated by an artificial neural network. In this field, artists are trying to use automated techniques to create "art", questioning the modern definition of art itself. More broadly, the project aims at promoting cooperation rather than competition of humans and artificial intelligence as the more beneficial approach for both. The first theatre play created within the project, titled AI: When a Robot Writes a Play, was presented in February 2021 at the 100th anniversary of the premiere of the R.U.R. theatre play by the Czech author Karel Čapek to celebrate the invention of the word "robot". While R.U.R. was a play written by a human about robots (and humans), THEaiTRE tried to reverse this idea by presenting a play written by a "robot" (artificial intelligence) about humans (and robots). The script of the play was published online, with marked parts of the text which were written manually or manually post-edited. The analysis shows that 90% of the script is automatically generated, with 10% manually written or manually post-edited. The project also plans to produce a second play in 2022, addressing some of the many shortcomings of the approach used to generate the first play, as well as attempting to further minimize the amount of human influence on the script. == Approach == At the core of the project is the GPT-2 language model by OpenAI with various adjustments motivated by the task of generating theatre play scripts, for which the model is not particularly trained. The GPT-2 model is used in the usual way, providing it with a start of a document and prompting it to generate a continuation of the document. Specifically, the input for GPT-2 in this project is typically a short description of the scene setting, followed by a few lines to introduce the characters and start the dialogue. The model then generates 10 continuation lines, and hands control to the user, who can then either ask the model to continue generating, or make various edits before letting the model to generate further, deleting some parts of the script or adding new lines into the script. The adjustments include restricting the generator to only produce lines pertaining to characters appearing in the input prompt, limiting the repetitiveness of the generated text, and employing automatic summarization of the input prompt and the generated text to overcome the limitation of the GPT-2 model which only attends to the last 1,024 subword tokens. The limitations of the model include, among other, a lack of distinctiveness and self-consistency of the characters, an inability to generate the script for the whole play (scripts for individual scenes are generated independently), and errors due to the employment of automated machine translation, as GPT-2 generates English texts but the final play script is being produced in Czech language. The source codes of the project are available under the MIT licence. The project has also published some sample outputs. == Team == The project is a cooperation of the following experts, all based in Prague, Czech Republic: computational linguists from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University theatre experts from the Švanda Theatre and from the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague hackers from CEE Hacks The project is financially supported by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic.

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  • Interim Measures for the Management of Generative AI Services

    Interim Measures for the Management of Generative AI Services

    The Interim Measures for the Management of Generative AI Services (Chinese: 生成式人工智能服务管理暂行办法; pinyin: Shēngchéng shì réngōng zhìnéng fúwù guǎnlǐ zànxíng bànfǎ) are a set of regulations governing public-facing generative artificial intelligence services in China. Issued on 10 July 2023 and effective from 15 August 2023, they were China's first binding regulation specifically targeting generative AI. They have been described as among the earliest such regulations adopted by any country. The measures were jointly issued by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) and six other national bodies: the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, and the National Radio and Television Administration. Among the measures' most prominent requirements is that generative AI services must uphold Core Socialist Values and must not generate content that could subvert state power, harm national security, or undermine social stability. The measures also require providers of public-facing generative AI services to undergo security assessments and register their algorithms with the CAC. As of December 2025, 748 generative AI services had completed the filing process at the national level. == Background == The Interim Measures build on two earlier sets of regulations targeting specific algorithm applications. The Administrative Provisions on Algorithm Recommendation for Internet Information Services, effective from March 2022, established China's algorithm registry and required providers of recommendation algorithms with "public opinion properties or social mobilization capabilities" to file with the CAC and undergo security assessments. The Administrative Provisions on Deep Synthesis of Internet Information Services, effective from January 2023, extended similar requirements to algorithms used for generating synthetic media such as deepfakes. In April 2023, the CAC released a draft of the generative AI regulation for public comment. The draft included several requirements that attracted attention, including that generated content should "embody Core Socialist Values" and that training data should be "true and accurate". The public consultation period ran until May 2023. The final version, published in July 2023, was substantially revised from the draft. According to an analysis by the Future of Privacy Forum, changes appeared to reflect feedback from industry stakeholders including Baidu, Xiaomi, SenseTime, and others, as well as input from government-affiliated research institutes. The final measures adopted a more permissive tone, with the CAC describing its approach as "inclusive and prudent" (包容审慎) and emphasising "classified and graded" (分类分级) supervision. == Scope == The measures apply to services that use generative AI technology to provide text, images, audio, video, or other content to the public within mainland China (Article 2). They do not apply to organisations that develop or use generative AI internally without offering services to the domestic public, such as industry associations, enterprises, and research institutions. Overseas providers whose services are accessible to users in China are also subject to the measures. == Key provisions == === Content requirements === Article 4 sets out the core content obligations. Providers and users of generative AI services must uphold the Core Socialist Values. The measures prohibit generating content that incites subversion of national sovereignty or the socialist system, endangers national security or the nation's image, incites separatism, promotes terrorism or extremism, promotes ethnic hatred or discrimination, or contains violence, obscenity, or false information prohibited by law. These content prohibitions largely mirror those in Article 12 of the Cybersecurity Law and in prior regulations governing online content. Article 4 also requires that models be designed and trained to avoid discrimination, that services respect intellectual property rights, and that providers take effective measures to improve the transparency and accuracy of generated content. === Training data and labelling === Article 7 requires providers to ensure that training data is of high quality and legitimately sourced, and that it does not infringe upon intellectual property rights. Where personal information is used, consent must be obtained. The final version of this provision removed language from the draft that would have held providers responsible for the "legitimacy" of all pretraining data, replacing it with a requirement to "employ effective measures to improve the quality of training data". Article 8 requires providers to establish labelling rules for training data and to conduct quality assessments of data annotations. Article 12 requires that generated images, videos, and other synthetic content be labelled as AI-generated. === User rights and privacy === Article 11 requires providers to protect user privacy, to minimise the collection and retention of personal data, and to refrain from unlawfully sharing user information. Users have the right to request review, correction, or deletion of their personal information. Article 10 requires providers to take measures to prevent excessive dependence on or addiction to generative AI services by minors. === Security assessment and algorithm filing === Article 17 requires that providers of generative AI services with "public opinion properties or the capacity for social mobilization" (具有舆论属性或者社会动员能力) carry out security assessments and complete algorithm filing procedures in accordance with the Administrative Provisions on Algorithm Recommendation for Internet Information Services. == Implementation == === Algorithm filing process === In practice, the filing requirements under the Interim Measures have developed into a two-tier process. The first tier is the standard algorithm filing (算法备案) under the pre-existing Algorithm Recommendation Provisions, which involves submitting information about an algorithm's design, purpose, and data sources to the CAC. This process is primarily a registration mechanism. For public-facing generative AI products, there is an additional, more rigorous process commonly referred to as the "large model filing" (大模型备案). This involves submitting a security self-assessment report, data annotation rules, a keyword blocking list, and evaluation test question sets. The process includes technical testing at the provincial level, followed by review at the national CAC level. The algorithm filing targets specific algorithms, while the large model filing evaluates the broader system architecture, training data, model parameters, and potential social impact. The CAC publishes lists of generative AI services that have successfully completed the filing process. The first such list was published on 2 April 2024. According to the CAC's year-end announcements, 302 generative AI services had completed national-level filing by the end of 2024 (of which 238 were new that year), alongside 105 applications that completed local-level registration. By the end of 2025, the cumulative total had risen to 748 national-level filings and 435 local-level registrations. === Content compliance and testing === According to the Carnegie Endowment, the CAC has conducted compliance audits of generative AI services with a particular focus on ensuring appropriate responses to queries about politically sensitive topics. The large model filing process requires providers to pass both provincial-level and national-level technical testing before their services can be made available to the public. On 1 March 2024, the National Technical Committee 260 on Cybersecurity (TC260) published TC260-003, the Basic Security Requirements for Generative AI Services (生成式人工智能服务安全基本要求), a technical standard that provides detailed guidance on the security assessments required under the Interim Measures. The standard covers requirements for training data safety, model security, and content safety evaluation, and is used as a reference for the filing process. == Analysis == === Relationship to broader Chinese internet regulation === The content requirements in the Interim Measures extend China's existing framework for online information control to generative AI. Legal scholars have noted that the "Core Socialist Values" provision and the specific content prohibitions are consistent with longstanding requirements imposed on internet platforms under the Cybersecurity Law and related regulations. The Asia Society Policy Institute has described the Chinese government's highest regulatory priority in this area as retaining control of information, noting that content-related obligations receive stricter enforcement than other provisions. === Nature of the filing system === The character of the filing system has been debated by scholars. Angela Huyue Zh

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