{"id":64952,"date":"2018-10-19T08:30:22","date_gmt":"2018-10-19T12:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/?p=64952"},"modified":"2018-10-22T08:45:14","modified_gmt":"2018-10-22T12:45:14","slug":"reflections-on-inside-amazons-artificial-intelligence-flywheel-levy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/2018\/10\/19\/reflections-on-inside-amazons-artificial-intelligence-flywheel-levy\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on “Inside Amazon’s artificial intelligence flywheel” [Levy]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Inside Amazon’s artificial intelligence flywheel<\/strong><\/a> — from wired.com by Steven Levy
\nHow deep learning came to power Alexa, Amazon Web Services, and nearly every other division of the company.<\/em><\/p>\n

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Amazon loves to use the word\u00a0flywheel<\/em>\u00a0to describe how various parts of its massive business work as a single perpetual motion machine. It now has a powerful AI flywheel, where machine-learning innovations in one part of the company fuel the efforts of other teams, who in turn can build products or offer services to affect other groups, or even the company at large.\u00a0Offering its machine-learning platforms to outsiders<\/a>\u00a0as a paid service makes the effort itself profitable\u2014and in certain cases scoops up yet more data to level up the technology even more.<\/p>\n

It took a lot of six-pagers to transform Amazon from a deep-learning wannabe into a formidable power. The results of this transformation can be seen throughout the company\u2014including in a<\/span> recommendations system that now runs on a totally new machine-learning infrastructure.<\/span> Amazon is smarter in suggesting what you should read next, what items you should add to your shopping list, and what movie you might want to watch tonight.<\/span><\/strong> And this year Thirumalai started a new job, heading Amazon search, where he intends to use deep learning in every aspect of the service.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you asked me seven or eight years ago how big a force Amazon was in AI, I would have said, \u2018They aren\u2019t,\u2019\u201d says Pedro Domingos, a top computer science professor at the University of Washington. \u201cBut they have really come on aggressively. Now they are becoming a force.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe\u00a0the<\/em>\u00a0force.<\/p>\n

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From DSC:<\/span><\/em>
\nWhen will we begin to see more mainstream recommendation engines for learning-based<\/em> <\/span>materials? With the demand for people to reinvent themselves, such a next generation learning platform can’t come soon enough!<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n