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#TheFutureApproachsAtSpeed #TypeQuicklyAndKeepYourPhoneCharged
"FIRE YOUR BANKER
Both China’s corporate data and its corporate culture make applying second-wave AI to its traditional companies a challenge. But in industries where business AI can leapfrog legacy systems, China is making serious strides. In these instances, China’s relative backwardness in areas like financial services turns into a springboard to cutting-edge AI applications. One of the most promising of these is AI-powered micro-finance.
For example, when China leapfrogged credit cards to move right into mobile payments, it forgot one key piece of the consumer puzzle: credit itself. WeChat and Alipay let you draw directly from your bank account, but their core services don’t give you the ability to spend a little bit beyond your means while you’re waiting for the next paycheck.
Into this void stepped Smart Finance, an AI-powered app that relies exclusively on algorithms to make millions of small loans. Instead of asking borrowers to enter how much money they make, it simply requests access to some of the data on a potential borrower’s phone. That data forms a kind of digital fingerprint, one with an astonishing ability to predict whether the borrower will pay back a loan of three hundred dollars.
Smart Finance’s deep-learning algorithms don’t just look to the obvious metrics, like how much money is in your WeChat Wallet. Instead, it derives predictive power from data points that would seem irrelevant to a human loan officer. For instance, it considers the speed at which you typed in your date of birth, how much battery power is left on your phone, and thousands of other parameters.
What does an applicant’s phone battery have to do with creditworthiness? This is the kind of question that can’t be answered in terms of simple cause and effect. But that’s not a sign of the limitations of AI. It’s a sign of the limitations of our own minds at recognizing correlations hidden within massive streams of data. By training its algorithms on millions of loans—many that got paid back and some that didn’t—Smart Finance has discovered thousands of weak features that are correlated to creditworthiness, even if those correlations can’t be explained in a simple way humans can understand. Those offbeat metrics constitute what Smart Finance founder Ke Jiao calls “a new standard of beauty” for lending, one to replace the crude metrics of income, zip code, and even credit score."
from AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order by Kai-Fu Lee
"FIRE YOUR BANKER
Both China’s corporate data and its corporate culture make applying second-wave AI to its traditional companies a challenge. But in industries where business AI can leapfrog legacy systems, China is making serious strides. In these instances, China’s relative backwardness in areas like financial services turns into a springboard to cutting-edge AI applications. One of the most promising of these is AI-powered micro-finance.
For example, when China leapfrogged credit cards to move right into mobile payments, it forgot one key piece of the consumer puzzle: credit itself. WeChat and Alipay let you draw directly from your bank account, but their core services don’t give you the ability to spend a little bit beyond your means while you’re waiting for the next paycheck.
Into this void stepped Smart Finance, an AI-powered app that relies exclusively on algorithms to make millions of small loans. Instead of asking borrowers to enter how much money they make, it simply requests access to some of the data on a potential borrower’s phone. That data forms a kind of digital fingerprint, one with an astonishing ability to predict whether the borrower will pay back a loan of three hundred dollars.
Smart Finance’s deep-learning algorithms don’t just look to the obvious metrics, like how much money is in your WeChat Wallet. Instead, it derives predictive power from data points that would seem irrelevant to a human loan officer. For instance, it considers the speed at which you typed in your date of birth, how much battery power is left on your phone, and thousands of other parameters.
What does an applicant’s phone battery have to do with creditworthiness? This is the kind of question that can’t be answered in terms of simple cause and effect. But that’s not a sign of the limitations of AI. It’s a sign of the limitations of our own minds at recognizing correlations hidden within massive streams of data. By training its algorithms on millions of loans—many that got paid back and some that didn’t—Smart Finance has discovered thousands of weak features that are correlated to creditworthiness, even if those correlations can’t be explained in a simple way humans can understand. Those offbeat metrics constitute what Smart Finance founder Ke Jiao calls “a new standard of beauty” for lending, one to replace the crude metrics of income, zip code, and even credit score."
from AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order by Kai-Fu Lee
Call:
After the 4:50 mark, the "victory lap" commentary starts...
Response:
"Asked by Bartiromo if the new coronavirus puts economic growth at risk, Ross responded by offering thoughts and prayers to those directly affected, before saying, “I don’t want to talk about a victory lap over a very unfortunate, very malignant disease.” But he then proceeded to take a victory lap by making a case that the outbreak might present a moneymaking opportunity in the United States. "
https://www.vox.com/2020/1/30/21115189/wilbur-ross-coronavirus
Wilbur Ross says Coronavirus could boost US jobs
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51276323
https://www.wsj.com/articles/wuhan-wilbur-ross-11580515204
After the 4:50 mark, the "victory lap" commentary starts...
Response:
"Asked by Bartiromo if the new coronavirus puts economic growth at risk, Ross responded by offering thoughts and prayers to those directly affected, before saying, “I don’t want to talk about a victory lap over a very unfortunate, very malignant disease.” But he then proceeded to take a victory lap by making a case that the outbreak might present a moneymaking opportunity in the United States. "
https://www.vox.com/2020/1/30/21115189/wilbur-ross-coronavirus
Wilbur Ross says Coronavirus could boost US jobs
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51276323
https://www.wsj.com/articles/wuhan-wilbur-ross-11580515204
Today:
Earlier:
John Thune (R-South Dakota)
Thune voted in the House for impeachment. "In America there is no emperor," he said.
"There is one standard of justice that applies equally to all, and to say or do otherwise will undermine the most sacred of all American ideals. President Clinton has committed federal crimes, and there must be a reckoning, or no American shall ever again be prosecuted for those same crimes."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/impeachment-trial-bill-clinton-trump-senators-congress/
Earlier:
John Thune (R-South Dakota)
Thune voted in the House for impeachment. "In America there is no emperor," he said.
"There is one standard of justice that applies equally to all, and to say or do otherwise will undermine the most sacred of all American ideals. President Clinton has committed federal crimes, and there must be a reckoning, or no American shall ever again be prosecuted for those same crimes."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/impeachment-trial-bill-clinton-trump-senators-congress/
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