Data journalist Mona Chalabi has won a Pulitzer Prize for her “striking illustrations that combine statistical reporting with keen analysis to help readers understand the immense wealth and economic power of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.” The 36-year-old’s award-winning illustrations were published in a New York Times piece entitled “9 Ways To Imagine Jeff Bezos’ Wealth” last year. POCIT sat down with Chalabi back in 2015 for a candid discussion about her work as a data journalist. “A data journalist is one who uses data as much as they possibly can
The Safe Place, a free minority mental health app geared towards the Black community, has added a “Suicide Support = No Cops” virtual chat wall. The Safe Place founder, Jasmin Pierre, tweeted: “Black folks who use “The Safe Place” app (in the Android and IOS stores) can now chat about suicidal ideation… without the fear of law enforcement potentially killing them just for feeling suicidal.” “I hope this feature truly helps Black folks in our community who may need it.” Pierre says the new feature is a response to recent
Dr Geoffrey Hinton, dubbed the ‘godfather of AI’, recently resigned from Google, echoing ethical concerns raised by AI experts like Timnit Gebru. AI ‘Godfather’ Quits Google After more than a decade at the tech giant, Hinton quit Google due to fears about the dangers of AI, but told the BBC that his age played a role: “I’m 75, so it’s time to retire.” In 2012, Hinton and two of his graduate students at the University of Toronto created a neural network that laid the foundation for AI technologies like ChatGPT
The errors and cultural blind spots introduced by machine translation can lead to confusion and rejected asylum claims, Rest of the World has found. Rise in demand for translators In 2021, the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, displacing million of Afghans. As Afghan refugees seek asylum around the world, there is a growing demand for translators. Some translation providers have turned to machine learning models to cut costs and save time, but refugee advocates say this risks introducing error into asylum claims. AI translation models are more accurate for
Paul Graham, a founder of Y Combinator, recently tweeted a graphic showing median household income in the US by ethnic group which has reignited discussions about race and income inequality in the US. The graphic, originally shared by @indiainpixels in 2020, is reportedly based on US Census Bureau 2013-15 data. The chart reveals that Indian, Filipino, and Taiwanese Americans had the highest median incomes, while Hispanic/Latino and African Americans had the lowest. Additionally, the chart shows that Indian, Korean, Chinese, Filipino, and Japanese Americans are more likely to have a Bachelor’s
Intuit is hiring on POCIT. Matthew “Matt” Castilla is a senior software quality assurance (QA) engineer at Intuit Mailchimp. Although he has had an unconventional entrance into the world of tech, Matt has carved his unique path to success. In this interview, Matt tells us how he went from an accomplished musician to a thriving career in tech. Tell me about your career trajectory and your journey to Mailchimp. I grew up in a musical household—both of my parents were musicians. They were also professors at historically Black colleges and
Looty is the anonymous collective digitally capturing 3D representations of looted artifacts, repatriating them in the metaverse. For centuries, museums and private collections around the world have been home to thousands of stolen artworks. With many attempts to return these pieces failing, digital entrepreneur Chidi Nwaubani is taking a different approach: digital repatriation. ‘Relooting’ Art Nwaubani is the founder of Looty, whose anonymous collective visits museums to digitally capture 3D representations of looted artifacts. The artifacts are housed in virtual museums in the metaverse and repatriated to their places of
The Bean Path is a nonprofit organization founded by Dr. Nashlie Sephus, which is using tech to sow expertise, grow networks, and fertilize communities in Mississippi. The Makerspace, a 6,400-square-foot collaborative community workshop building, is the first step in solidifying Sephus’ vision of creating a science, technology, engineering, art and math (STEAM) hub on 21 acres of previously neglected land. Identifying Blind Spots The Jackson, Mississippi native was introduced to engineering by her eighth-grade science teacher. After pursuing a degree in computer engineering, Sephus earned a PhD in electrical and
GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers, a new study by researchers from Stanford University has found. From the Balenciaga Pope to fake Trump arrest photos, the spread of AI-generated content is driving the demand for effective ways to detect AI-made content. However, a recent study has found that GPT detectors often mistake non-native English writing for AI-generated text, while correctly identifying native English writing. In tests, the detectors were near-perfect at analyzing US college admission essays but incorrectly classified over half of the Test of English as a
Did you get duped by the ‘Balenciaga Pope’? Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll have seen the viral image of Pope Francis wearing a stylish white puffer coat. It has been viewed a whopping 27.5 million times on this tweet alone. For many, this won’t have been their first encounter with misinformation, but it might have been their first with AI-generated imagery. Although it looks realistic, the ‘Balenciaga Pope’ was created using a tool called Midjourney. It is one of the most popular generative AI tools available, alongside
