IBM claims big breakthrough in speed of artificial intelligence

• Updated on: 2017-08-09
• Read original article here

Tax avoidance by shifting revenue overseas.
Astonishing concentration of wealth and power.
Big tech, already facing billions in fines from European regulators, is an increasing target of both U.S. political parties:
Steve Bannon and his nationalist acolytes in the White House are eager to take on the tech companies as selfish and monopolistic, and top GOP staffers are warning Google, Facebook and Amazon not to get too aggressive with their net-neutrality advocacy.
Bannon's not the only conservative floating concerns about the power of these companies. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told Axios' David McCabe just before the Senate left on recess: "I certainly have concerns about media companies and large tech companies putting their thumb on the scales and skewing political and public discourse."
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) introduced a privacy bill this year that would put the same restrictions on Google and Facebook as it would on Comcast, Verizon and other internet providers.
On the other side, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called in June for a revival of antitrust enforcement.
Last month, House and Senate Democrats singled out corporate monopolies as a key target of the party's new "better deal" economic platform.
Lobbyist Bruce Mehlman, executive director of the Technology CEO Council, a business consortium, said: "No industry in the history of the world has gotten to this level of ascendancy not run into political crosswinds."
Another top lobbyist told me: "The AI [artificial intelligence] issue is the big monster in the room — only a handful of members of Congress even understand what it means. It sounds sexy and scary at the same time. That is probably where Congress is going to wake up shortly and get heavily involved."
One problem for pols licking their chops: Most consumers love and depend on the products. And they like using the "utility" (Facebook, Google, etc.) for free.
When I showed a draft of this item to my tech colleagues at Axios, they pointed out that many of the giants have been trying to recalibrate their Washington operations for the Trump era:
Facebook hired a former top Senate aide to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Google, with long Democratic ties, did "an about-face" to woo Republicans after the election, the N.Y. Times wrote . Amazon hired a lobbyist with close Trump ties, Brian Ballard.
A key executive at one of the targeted companies told me: "It's the attitude and the mood of the country, underscored by the election. It's hit in so many different directions, including the institutions of news and the institutions of higher learning."
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Not all of us can have the pleasure of discussing health care over drinks with Sam Baker, but here's the next best thing: You can watch a video of Sam Baker having drinks and discussing health care. His main takeaways on what's next:
President Trump could cut off the Affordable Care Act's cost-sharing payments to insurers at any time.
The health insurance markets want stability, and we don't have it right now.
Everyone will be watching the Senate bipartisan talks on an ACA stabilization package, but there aren't enough likely supporters to pass it by themselves.
The bottom line: The health care battle may be taking a break, but it never ends.
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In a paper published Monday with the National Bureau of Economic Research, Princeton economists Molly Schnell and Janet Currie find a "striking relationship" between the frequency of prescriptions and medical school attended: doctors trained at top-ranked medical schools like Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Penn, Stanford and Washington University in St. Louis "are less likely to write any opioid prescriptions," they write. And such doctors who do prescribe opiates do so at a lower rate than the typical MD.
How the study was done: The paper is based on a cross-referencing of prescription data from 2006 to 2014 and medical school rankings by U.S. News and World Report.
The authors considered the possibility that their study reflected a propensity of elite medical students to develop a conservative approach to prescribing opiates, rather than their education at these institutions. They also considered the possibility that doctors from less elite schools are systematically more likely to see more patients in need of opiates.
But the authors batted away the first point by showing that the difference in prescription rates between elite and lower-ranked schools has shrunk over time, even as the top schools have become more selective. They argue this shows a diffusion of good educational methods from top institutions to the rest.
If the difference in prescription rates were about the type of students at elite institutions, they said, the difference would have grown over time.
The study also finds the difference in prescription rates is maintained when you control for the doctor's speciality and place of practice.
The GP Problem: Another important finding was general practitioners accounted for 48% of opioid prescriptions, even though they were just 27% of the doctors studied.
General practitioners were less likely to be from elite schools, but when they were trained at Harvard, they averaged 180 opioid prescriptions a year; when they were from the lowest-ranked schools, they handed out an average of 550 opioid prescriptions a year.
"If all GPs prescribed like those from [Harvard], we would have had 56.5% fewer opioid prescriptions and 8.5% fewer deaths over the period 2006 to 2014," they wrote, making outreach to this type of doctor critical.
What should policymakers do: This paper argues that training matters, but it doesn't investigate what elite institutions are specifically doing to produce more restrained prescribers. That said, the authors point to data showing that the effect of a pedigree is lessened when the doctor — regardless of medical school — is in a practice requiring specialized pain management training. They argue this could be reason to require all MDs to take classes as well, and the Trump Administration's Chris Christie- led opiate commission recommended that such training be mandated.
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More highlights:
"On the way back from the MS-13 event, Priebus left the others at the conference table area and went into Trump's private Air Force One office. The chief of staff came out with a 'poker face' and didn't let anyone know the stunning news that he had just lost his job. He continued working."
"Afterward, Trump met with [Rep. Dan] Donovan in his office. He asked him what he thought of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly. He's an American hero, said Donovan, who serves on the House Homeland Security Committee. ... 'I told you,' Trump remarked to Powell."
"At Trump's urging, [Donovan] broke the news to the other lawmakers — asking that they keep it quiet until the official announcement."
Trump "made the announcement himself on Twitter as they returned to Washington. 'The reason we were delayed getting off the plane is he was tweeting it as we were on the tarmac trying to get off the airplane,' [Rep. Chris] Collins said. 'He has to get off first.'"
Other TV network shows are also seeing high performance on Discover:
In its first season, Vertical Networks' Phone Swap averaged 11.4 million viewers per episode globally.
Recent episodes of E!'s The Rundown are now averaging close to 8 million viewers per episode, with the largest reaching well over 10 million unique viewers.
On its second earnings calls, Discovery said 12 million viewers watched Shark Week on Snapchat Discover.
Be smart: Snap CEO Spiegel is under tremendous pressure internally and externally to drop the standoffish, secretive approach and start telling the Snapchat story with more punch and imagination.
Times are changing: "Historically, I would've said something along the lines of 'you're kidding me' for a view only being a few seconds," says Steve Passwaiter, VP at Kantar Media. "But the fact that TV networks are starting to sell 6-second spots shows how much things are changing." (Fox will premier its first 6-second ad at the Teen Choice Awards this Sunday.)
The caveat: Snapchat will host its second-ever earnings call to investors Thursday, and its ability to monetize its success on Discover should be an important point. Earlier this week Snapchat unveiled an ad tech update that will cater to large brand advertisers, ones potentially looking to run TV-like ad campaigns against video content on Snapchat. While reports have surfaced that some boutique, influencer advertisers prefer to run with Instagram over Snapchat, big-brand advertising agencies, like WPP, have reiterated their commitment to increasing ad investment in Snapchat this year.
Investors will also look to see how much Snapchat will increase its ARPU (average revenue per user), which had been increasing steadily up until last quarter, despite slowed user growth caused mostly by Instagram copying its Stories feature.
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Sinclair has more than 170 stations in 81 markets, covering 30% of U.S. households. The merger would add an additional 33 markets to its holdings, allowing it to reach 72% of households. A post-merger Sinclair would hold 7 of the biggest 10 markets, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
The FCC has approved rules loosening restrictions on how many stations a single company can own.
Who else is opposed: Monday was the deadline to ask the FCC to block the deal. One America joined a coalition of public interest and trade groups asking the FCC to deny the merger. Dish has also asked the agency to reject the deal. They all say the transaction would violate ownership rules and be bad for consumers by decreasing programming choice. The FCC declined to comment.
What Sinclair says: Executive chairman David Smith argued when the deal was announced that it would allow the company "to better serve our viewers and advertisers while creating value for our shareholders."
Our thought bubble: The regulatory winds look good for Sinclair. It's got an anti-regulatory FCC and close ties to the White House.