Flatten the curve campaign image
Letters

Deep Learning Against Covid

Last week, I asked readers to tell me what they’re doing to address the Covid-19 pandemic. Many of you wrote to say you’re taking actions such as shopping for neighbors, making masks, and creating posters that promote Covid-safe practices...
Neural network over a world map
Letters

Covid-19: How to Flatten the Curve

In the earlier weeks of Covid-19, I didn’t want to contribute noise, so that experts in infectious disease could be heard. But now the situation has worsened. I spoke yesterday with Eric Topol, a cardiologist at Scripps Institute and author of Deep...
Andrew Ng working on three computers at the same time
Letters

Covid and the Remote Work Experiment

When I was younger, I was not a fan of working from home. Too many distractions! So I worked a lot in coffee shops. They turned out to be convenient places to talk to strangers and ask for feedback about products I was working on...
Animated symbol of Covid-19 virus structure
Letters

The Tech Community Fights Covid

The unfolding Covid-19 crisis calls for individuals and organizations to step up and contribute to the common good. I believe that the tech community has an important role to play in slowing the progress of the virus and shortening the time...
Welcome slide for the Global Interactive AI Conference
Letters

Conferences in the Time of Covid

The Covid-19 pandemic is a tragedy that demands urgent and humane response. It’s also pushing us toward new ways of gathering and sharing information — and that may be a faint silver lining that might grow brighter over time.
Economic surplus
Letters

How Price Optimization Leads to Better Products and Worse Transparency

In addition to creating tremendous value, AI is creating tremendous concentrations of power. Our community is wrestling with what constitutes fair use of that power.
Lex Fridman and Andrew Ng chatting
Letters

Andrew on Lex Fridman's Podcast

I chatted recently with MIT researcher Lex Fridman on his Artificial Intelligence podcast, where we discussed our experiences teaching deep learning. It was the most fun I’ve had in an interview lately, and you can watch the video here.
Transfer Learning and Self-taught Learning examples
Letters

Unsupervised Learning Ascendent

Nearly a decade ago, I got excited by self-taught learning and unsupervised feature learning — ways to learn features from unlabeled data that afterward can be used in a supervised task.
A screenshot from The Wizard of Oz
Letters

Can AI Fall in Love?

A student once asked me, “Can an AI ever love?”Since the early days of AI, people have wondered whether AI can ever be conscious or feel emotions. Even though an artificial general intelligence may be centuries away, these are important questions.
Glasses on a laptop. Pile of books and a cup in the back.
Letters

The Value of Life-Long Learning

Many of us apply labels to ourselves that shape our identity. Some say, “I’m a sports fan,” and this attitude motivates behaviors such as cheering for the home team. Others identify themselves as introverts, extroverts, vegetarians, gamers...
Woman doing a push-up
Letters

The Best Way to Build a New Habit

I just finished reading BJ Fogg’s new book, Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything. Fogg explains that the best way to build a new habit is to start small and succeed, rather than starting too big and giving up.
Illustration of a person with a face recognition system on the face
Letters

The Problem With the EU’s Moratorium on Face Recognition

Last week brought reports that the European Union is considering a three- to five-year moratorium on face recognition in public places. Face recognition is a problematic technology with significant potential for misuse, and I celebrate the...
Lifelike video imagery of virtual people made by NEON
Letters

Recommended Educational Resources

One of the best gifts a friend gave me last year was recommending a book that I subsequently read and loved. She didn’t even have to buy it for me!
Some results from AI Career Pathways report
Letters

Building Your AI Career: A Report by Workera

Many accomplished students and newly minted AI engineers ask me: How can I advance my career? Companies in many industries are building AI teams, but it may not be obvious how to join one of them.
Andrew Ng with his grandfather
Letters

The Key to Longevity

Happy New Year!Every winter holiday, I pursue a learning goal around a new topic. In between visits with family, I end up reading a lot.

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