Welcome to our This Week in AI roundup. Our goal with this roundup is to provide an overview of the week's most important news and industry developments.
This week we have stories about the AI-driven Mayflower, crypto on-chain analysis, and reverse engineering deepfakes.
What is Crypto On-Chain Analysis?
In this guide, we discuss the field of crypto on-chain analysis, which is an emerging application of data science and machine learning that involves examining the fundamentals, utility, and transaction activity of a cryptocurrency and its related blockchain data.
In the article, we look at the on-chain metrics and trading signals provided in the crypto section of the MLQ app.
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AI-Driven Mayflower Sets Sail
The Mayflower, a crewless, AI-driven ship meant to mimic the historic voyage over the Atlantic 400 years ago, has set sail. The Mayflower Autonomous Ship (MAS) has embarked on a 3,500-mile (5,630-kilometer) journey from Plymouth, England, to Massachusetts, America.
According to project leaders, the journey should take roughly three weeks. The Mayflower 400 commemorations include the voyage of the MAS, which was developed by non-profit maritime research business ProMare and IBM.
It was built to demonstrate the evolution of technology throughout the centuries since the Pilgrim Fathers set sail for the New World, according to the company.
Facebook AI Reverse Engineers Deepfakes
Facebook and Michigan State University have teamed up to develop a system for detecting deepfakes. The approach, according to Facebook, will aid deepfake detection and tracing attempts in "real-world" scenarios.
The technique starts by feeding a deepfake image through a fingerprint estimation network (FEN), which collects information about the "fingerprint" left by the model that created it. These fingerprints are one-of-a-kind patterns left on deepfakes that can be used to identify the generative models from which they came.
AI Insurance Company Raises $60M at 1B Valuation
Tractable, which partners with insurance companies to allow customers to snap and upload images of damaged cars that are then "read" using computer vision to produce evaluations, has secured $60 million in a Series D round, valuing the company at $1 billion.
Tractable claims to work with more than 20 of the world's top 100 auto insurers, and that sales have increased 600 percent in the last 24 months, translating to "well into eight figures of annual revenue.” according to CEO Alex Dalyac.
Baidu To Put 1000 Driverless Cars in 3 Years
Baidu has teamed up with BAIC Group, a state-owned carmaker, to produce 1,000 self-driving cars over the next three years.
The company has been testing robotaxis in a number of major Chinese cities, including Shanghai, but this new alliance is an attempt to mass-market autonomous taxis.
This will pit the startup against Didi, the ride-hailing behemoth that is preparing to go public in the United States and is also building its own robotaxis.
That's it for this edition of This Week in AI, if you were forwarded this newsletter and would like to receive it you can sign up here.
