Book picks similar to
The Math of Neural Networks by Michael Taylor
math
ai
computer-science
mathematics
Predictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die
Eric Siegel - 2013
Rather than a "how to" for hands-on techies, the book entices lay-readers and experts alike by covering new case studies and the latest state-of-the-art techniques.You have been predicted — by companies, governments, law enforcement, hospitals, and universities. Their computers say, "I knew you were going to do that!" These institutions are seizing upon the power to predict whether you're going to click, buy, lie, or die.Why? For good reason: predicting human behavior combats financial risk, fortifies healthcare, conquers spam, toughens crime fighting, and boosts sales.How? Prediction is powered by the world's most potent, booming unnatural resource: data. Accumulated in large part as the by-product of routine tasks, data is the unsalted, flavorless residue deposited en masse as organizations churn away. Surprise! This heap of refuse is a gold mine. Big data embodies an extraordinary wealth of experience from which to learn.Predictive analytics unleashes the power of data. With this technology, the computer literally learns from data how to predict the future behavior of individuals. Perfect prediction is not possible, but putting odds on the future — lifting a bit of the fog off our hazy view of tomorrow — means pay dirt.In this rich, entertaining primer, former Columbia University professor and Predictive Analytics World founder Eric Siegel reveals the power and perils of prediction: -What type of mortgage risk Chase Bank predicted before the recession. -Predicting which people will drop out of school, cancel a subscription, or get divorced before they are even aware of it themselves. -Why early retirement decreases life expectancy and vegetarians miss fewer flights. -Five reasons why organizations predict death, including one health insurance company. -How U.S. Bank, European wireless carrier Telenor, and Obama's 2012 campaign calculated the way to most strongly influence each individual. -How IBM's Watson computer used predictive modeling to answer questions and beat the human champs on TV's Jeopardy! -How companies ascertain untold, private truths — how Target figures out you're pregnant and Hewlett-Packard deduces you're about to quit your job. -How judges and parole boards rely on crime-predicting computers to decide who stays in prison and who goes free. -What's predicted by the BBC, Citibank, ConEd, Facebook, Ford, Google, IBM, the IRS, Match.com, MTV, Netflix, Pandora, PayPal, Pfizer, and Wikipedia. A truly omnipresent science, predictive analytics affects everyone, every day. Although largely unseen, it drives millions of decisions, determining whom to call, mail, investigate, incarcerate, set up on a date, or medicate.Predictive analytics transcends human perception. This book's final chapter answers the riddle: What often happens to you that cannot be witnessed, and that you can't even be sure has happened afterward — but that can be predicted in advance?Whether you are a consumer of it — or consumed by it — get a handle on the power of Predictive Analytics.
Algorithms
Robert Sedgewick - 1983
This book surveys the most important computer algorithms currently in use and provides a full treatment of data structures and algorithms for sorting, searching, graph processing, and string processing -- including fifty algorithms every programmer should know. In this edition, new Java implementations are written in an accessible modular programming style, where all of the code is exposed to the reader and ready to use.The algorithms in this book represent a body of knowledge developed over the last 50 years that has become indispensable, not just for professional programmers and computer science students but for any student with interests in science, mathematics, and engineering, not to mention students who use computation in the liberal arts.The companion web site, algs4.cs.princeton.edu contains An online synopsis Full Java implementations Test data Exercises and answers Dynamic visualizations Lecture slides Programming assignments with checklists Links to related material The MOOC related to this book is accessible via the "Online Course" link at algs4.cs.princeton.edu. The course offers more than 100 video lecture segments that are integrated with the text, extensive online assessments, and the large-scale discussion forums that have proven so valuable. Offered each fall and spring, this course regularly attracts tens of thousands of registrants.Robert Sedgewick and Kevin Wayne are developing a modern approach to disseminating knowledge that fully embraces technology, enabling people all around the world to discover new ways of learning and teaching. By integrating their textbook, online content, and MOOC, all at the state of the art, they have built a unique resource that greatly expands the breadth and depth of the educational experience.
The Deep Learning Revolution
Terrence J. Sejnowski - 2018
Deep learning networks can play poker better than professional poker players and defeat a world champion at Go. In this book, Terry Sejnowski explains how deep learning went from being an arcane academic field to a disruptive technology in the information economy.Sejnowski played an important role in the founding of deep learning, as one of a small group of researchers in the 1980s who challenged the prevailing logic-and-symbol based version of AI. The new version of AI Sejnowski and others developed, which became deep learning, is fueled instead by data. Deep networks learn from data in the same way that babies experience the world, starting with fresh eyes and gradually acquiring the skills needed to navigate novel environments. Learning algorithms extract information from raw data; information can be used to create knowledge; knowledge underlies understanding; understanding leads to wisdom. Someday a driverless car will know the road better than you do and drive with more skill; a deep learning network will diagnose your illness; a personal cognitive assistant will augment your puny human brain. It took nature many millions of years to evolve human intelligence; AI is on a trajectory measured in decades. Sejnowski prepares us for a deep learning future.
Data Science For Dummies
Lillian Pierson - 2014
Data Science For Dummies is the perfect starting point for IT professionals and students interested in making sense of their organization’s massive data sets and applying their findings to real-world business scenarios. From uncovering rich data sources to managing large amounts of data within hardware and software limitations, ensuring consistency in reporting, merging various data sources, and beyond, you’ll develop the know-how you need to effectively interpret data and tell a story that can be understood by anyone in your organization. Provides a background in data science fundamentals before moving on to working with relational databases and unstructured data and preparing your data for analysis Details different data visualization techniques that can be used to showcase and summarize your data Explains both supervised and unsupervised machine learning, including regression, model validation, and clustering techniques Includes coverage of big data processing tools like MapReduce, Hadoop, Dremel, Storm, and Spark It’s a big, big data world out there – let Data Science For Dummies help you harness its power and gain a competitive edge for your organization.
Genius Makers: The Mavericks Who Brought AI to Google, Facebook, and the World
Cade Metz - 2021
Through the lives of Geoff Hinton and other major players, Metz explains this transformative technology and makes the quest thrilling.--Walter Isaacson, author of The Code Breaker
Recipient of starred reviews in both Kirkus and Library JournalTHE UNTOLD TECH STORY OF OUR TIMEWhat does it mean to be smart? To be human? What do we really want from life and the intelligence we have, or might create?With deep and exclusive reporting, across hundreds of interviews, New York Times Silicon Valley journalist Cade Metz brings you into the rooms where these questions are being answered. Where an extraordinarily powerful new artificial intelligence has been built into our biggest companies, our social discourse, and our daily lives, with few of us even noticing.Long dismissed as a technology of the distant future, artificial intelligence was a project consigned to the fringes of the scientific community. Then two researchers changed everything. One was a sixty-four-year-old computer science professor who didn't drive and didn't fly because he could no longer sit down--but still made his way across North America for the moment that would define a new age of technology. The other was a thirty-six-year-old neuroscientist and chess prodigy who laid claim to being the greatest game player of all time before vowing to build a machine that could do anything the human brain could do.They took two very different paths to that lofty goal, and they disagreed on how quickly it would arrive. But both were soon drawn into the heart of the tech industry. Their ideas drove a new kind of arms race, spanning Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and OpenAI, a new lab founded by Silicon Valley kingpin Elon Musk. But some believed that China would beat them all to the finish line.Genius Makers dramatically presents the fierce conflict between national interests, shareholder value, the pursuit of scientific knowledge, and the very human concerns about privacy, security, bias, and prejudice. Like a great Victorian novel, this world of eccentric, brilliant, often unimaginably yet suddenly wealthy characters draws you into the most profound moral questions we can ask. And like a great mystery, it presents the story and facts that lead to a core, vital question:How far will we let it go?
Introduction to Machine Learning with Python: A Guide for Data Scientists
Andreas C. Müller - 2015
If you use Python, even as a beginner, this book will teach you practical ways to build your own machine learning solutions. With all the data available today, machine learning applications are limited only by your imagination.You'll learn the steps necessary to create a successful machine-learning application with Python and the scikit-learn library. Authors Andreas Muller and Sarah Guido focus on the practical aspects of using machine learning algorithms, rather than the math behind them. Familiarity with the NumPy and matplotlib libraries will help you get even more from this book.With this book, you'll learn:Fundamental concepts and applications of machine learningAdvantages and shortcomings of widely used machine learning algorithmsHow to represent data processed by machine learning, including which data aspects to focus onAdvanced methods for model evaluation and parameter tuningThe concept of pipelines for chaining models and encapsulating your workflowMethods for working with text data, including text-specific processing techniquesSuggestions for improving your machine learning and data science skills
The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy
Sharon Bertsch McGrayne - 2011
To its adherents, it is an elegant statement about learning from experience. To its opponents, it is subjectivity run amok.In the first-ever account of Bayes' rule for general readers, Sharon Bertsch McGrayne explores this controversial theorem and the human obsessions surrounding it. She traces its discovery by an amateur mathematician in the 1740s through its development into roughly its modern form by French scientist Pierre Simon Laplace. She reveals why respected statisticians rendered it professionally taboo for 150 years—at the same time that practitioners relied on it to solve crises involving great uncertainty and scanty information (Alan Turing's role in breaking Germany's Enigma code during World War II), and explains how the advent of off-the-shelf computer technology in the 1980s proved to be a game-changer. Today, Bayes' rule is used everywhere from DNA de-coding to Homeland Security.Drawing on primary source material and interviews with statisticians and other scientists, The Theory That Would Not Die is the riveting account of how a seemingly simple theorem ignited one of the greatest controversies of all time.
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
Douglas R. Hofstadter - 1979
However, according to Hofstadter, the formal system that underlies all mental activity transcends the system that supports it. If life can grow out of the formal chemical substrate of the cell, if consciousness can emerge out of a formal system of firing neurons, then so too will computers attain human intelligence. Gödel, Escher, Bach is a wonderful exploration of fascinating ideas at the heart of cognitive science: meaning, reduction, recursion, and much more.
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
Edward R. Tufte - 1983
Theory and practice in the design of data graphics, 250 illustrations of the best (and a few of the worst) statistical graphics, with detailed analysis of how to display data for precise, effective, quick analysis. Design of the high-resolution displays, small multiples. Editing and improving graphics. The data-ink ratio. Time-series, relational graphics, data maps, multivariate designs. Detection of graphical deception: design variation vs. data variation. Sources of deception. Aesthetics and data graphical displays. This is the second edition of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Recently published, this new edition provides excellent color reproductions of the many graphics of William Playfair, adds color to other images, and includes all the changes and corrections accumulated during 17 printings of the first edition.
Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms, and Source Code in C
Bruce Schneier - 1993
… The book the National Security Agency wanted never to be published." –Wired Magazine "…monumental… fascinating… comprehensive… the definitive work on cryptography for computer programmers…" –Dr. Dobb's Journal"…easily ranks as one of the most authoritative in its field." —PC Magazine"…the bible of code hackers." –The Millennium Whole Earth CatalogThis new edition of the cryptography classic provides you with a comprehensive survey of modern cryptography. The book details how programmers and electronic communications professionals can use cryptography—the technique of enciphering and deciphering messages-to maintain the privacy of computer data. It describes dozens of cryptography algorithms, gives practical advice on how to implement them into cryptographic software, and shows how they can be used to solve security problems. Covering the latest developments in practical cryptographic techniques, this new edition shows programmers who design computer applications, networks, and storage systems how they can build security into their software and systems. What's new in the Second Edition? * New information on the Clipper Chip, including ways to defeat the key escrow mechanism * New encryption algorithms, including algorithms from the former Soviet Union and South Africa, and the RC4 stream cipher * The latest protocols for digital signatures, authentication, secure elections, digital cash, and more * More detailed information on key management and cryptographic implementations
AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order
Kai-Fu Lee - 2018
Kai-Fu Lee—one of the world’s most respected experts on AI and China—reveals that China has suddenly caught up to the US at an astonishingly rapid and unexpected pace.In AI Superpowers, Kai-Fu Lee argues powerfully that because of these unprecedented developments in AI, dramatic changes will be happening much sooner than many of us expected. Indeed, as the US-Sino AI competition begins to heat up, Lee urges the US and China to both accept and to embrace the great responsibilities that come with significant technological power.Most experts already say that AI will have a devastating impact on blue-collar jobs. But Lee predicts that Chinese and American AI will have a strong impact on white-collar jobs as well. Is universal basic income the solution? In Lee’s opinion, probably not. But he provides a clear description of which jobs will be affected and how soon, which jobs can be enhanced with AI, and most importantly, how we can provide solutions to some of the most profound changes in human history that are coming soon.
The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn
Richard Hamming - 1996
By presenting actual experiences and analyzing them as they are described, the author conveys the developmental thought processes employed and shows a style of thinking that leads to successful results is something that can be learned. Along with spectacular successes, the author also conveys how failures contributed to shaping the thought processes. Provides the reader with a style of thinking that will enhance a person's ability to function as a problem-solver of complex technical issues. Consists of a collection of stories about the author's participation in significant discoveries, relating how those discoveries came about and, most importantly, provides analysis about the thought processes and reasoning that took place as the author and his associates progressed through engineering problems.
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
Harold Abelson - 1984
This long-awaited revision contains changes throughout the text. There are new implementations of most of the major programming systems in the book, including the interpreters and compilers, and the authors have incorporated many small changes that reflect their experience teaching the course at MIT since the first edition was published. A new theme has been introduced that emphasizes the central role played by different approaches to dealing with time in computational models: objects with state, concurrent programming, functional programming and lazy evaluation, and nondeterministic programming. There are new example sections on higher-order procedures in graphics and on applications of stream processing in numerical programming, and many new exercises. In addition, all the programs have been reworked to run in any Scheme implementation that adheres to the IEEE standard.
The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine
Charles Petzold - 2008
Turing
Mathematician Alan Turing invented an imaginary computer known as the Turing Machine; in an age before computers, he explored the concept of what it meant to be "computable," creating the field of computability theory in the process, a foundation of present-day computer programming.The book expands Turing's original 36-page paper with additional background chapters and extensive annotations; the author elaborates on and clarifies many of Turing's statements, making the original difficult-to-read document accessible to present day programmers, computer science majors, math geeks, and others.Interwoven into the narrative are the highlights of Turing's own life: his years at Cambridge and Princeton, his secret work in cryptanalysis during World War II, his involvement in seminal computer projects, his speculations about artificial intelligence, his arrest and prosecution for the crime of "gross indecency," and his early death by apparent suicide at the age of 41.
Computer Age Statistical Inference: Algorithms, Evidence, and Data Science
Bradley Efron - 2016
'Big data', 'data science', and 'machine learning' have become familiar terms in the news, as statistical methods are brought to bear upon the enormous data sets of modern science and commerce. How did we get here? And where are we going? This book takes us on an exhilarating journey through the revolution in data analysis following the introduction of electronic computation in the 1950s. Beginning with classical inferential theories - Bayesian, frequentist, Fisherian - individual chapters take up a series of influential topics: survival analysis, logistic regression, empirical Bayes, the jackknife and bootstrap, random forests, neural networks, Markov chain Monte Carlo, inference after model selection, and dozens more. The distinctly modern approach integrates methodology and algorithms with statistical inference. The book ends with speculation on the future direction of statistics and data science.