DataBytes

Word on the street is that women prefer warmer temperatures than men do. Researchers designed an experiment to investigate whether this is actually true, specifically, considering how men and women perform on various cognitive tasks under different temperature scenarios. In this episode, we dissect the study so you can judge whether you believe the results. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/databytes/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/databytes/support

Jeopardy! is a weeknightly televised trivia game show. In recent months, one player, James Holzhauer has taken the Jeopardy! fandom by storm with his unusual style of play and his long run of big wins. In this episode, we discuss how statistics can help explain his betting tactics, and we discuss how some other Jeopardy! players have used statistics to help up their game. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/databytes/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/databytes/support

In this episode, we discuss a number of miscellaneous news updates regarding facial recognition technology (concerning San Francisco, Amazon, and pandas!).  And then, we talk about how much we trust AI-generated profiles for Airbnb. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/databytes/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/databytes/support

In this episode, we look at a study about whether ride-sharing services contribute to increased or decreased traffic congestion in San Francisco. We then discuss some strategies to build interpretable machine learning models. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/databytes/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/databytes/support

In this episode, we talk about a new innovation that enables household electronics to see what's around them. We then discuss Google Duplex, an AI designed to happily make reservations and appointments for you. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/databytes/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/databytes/support

Susan recently served as a judge at a local DataFest competition (a weekend-long data competition for undergraduates). She shares her experiences and recommendations for future contestants. We then discuss how Facebook data might be helpful for counting the number of people how migrated from Puerto Rico to the mainland U.S. as a result of Hurricane Maria. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/databytes/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/databytes/support

In this episode, we discuss FiveThirtyEight.com's analysis of primary election polling over the past 40 years. In particular, we consider whether early polling is helpful for predicting election outcomes.  And then, we talk about a study that potentially blames Netflix for a surge in teenage suicides in 2017. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/databytes/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/databytes/support

In this episode, we discuss how Google's Now Playing feature can identify songs that are playing around you, using embeddings. We then talk about a study that reports on America's perceptions about artificial intelligence -- who can we trust to develop AI responsibly? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/databytes/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/databytes/support

In this episode, we discuss how bookmakers price/take bets on outcomes in the Game of Thrones. We then discuss a study that claimed that lefthanded people have shorter life expectancies than righthanded people. Spoiler alert: lefthanders have nothing to worry about! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/databytes/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/databytes/support

Buckle up for a sports-filled episode! We discuss a study that analyzes the accuracy of umpire calls about strikes vs. balls and take a deep dive into FiveThirtyEight.com's statistical methods for predicting the winner of the Champions League. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/databytes/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/databytes/support

In this episode, we discuss a study that recruits human researchers to try to predict how computers classify images. We then highlight a number of examples of natural language processing techniques applied to the Mueller Report. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/databytes/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/databytes/support

In this episode, we discuss Microsoft's handy phone application for scanning and reporting on our surroundings, as a way of helping vision impaired individuals better interact with the world around them. We then talk about how AI can be useful in detecting exoplanets (or extrasolar planets). --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/databytes/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/databytes/support

We discuss a survey designed to analyze the extent and root cause of statistical anxiety in the classroom, discussing the methods/limitations of the study. We then talk about yet another crusade against hypothesis testing, this time around the concept of "statistical significance". --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/databytes/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/databytes/support

In this episode, Susan Wang is joined by guest Natalie Doss to consider the statistical sins committed by Theranos, the former blood testing unicorn. From arbitrary data manipulation to inappropriate data aggregation, we discuss what they did and why these practices were particularly bad. Then, we weigh in on how Theranos could have done worse, making it harder for the public to find out about their faulty tests. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/databytes/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/databytes/support

We discuss NVIDIA's AI-generated faces that look incredibly authentic, and relatedly, OpenAI's text generator that is so capable that it has to be kept under wraps. We then assess the study design of a recent research article that considered how health outcomes vary amongst African Americans of different skin tones. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/databytes/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/databytes/support

We discuss opportunities for machines and humans in the prediction of protein structures, a necessary task in new drug discovery. Google's DeepMind has taken the prize in the recent iteration of CASP, a protein folding prediction challenge. We also discuss how AI has begun to revolutionize journalism. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/databytes/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/databytes/support

538 has provided a free, online personality test that might make more sense than your typical online clickbaity quiz. We talk about why it calls itself the only personality test that isn't junk science. We then discuss the results of a recent study on Spotify data. Does it know too much about us (and you)? We'll let you know.  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/databytes/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/databytes/support

On February 11, IBM showcased its Project Debater in a face-off against debate champion Harish Natarajan. We talk about how this machine vs. human competition went. Then, we discuss a Harvard Business Review article citing a survey that discovered companies are not becoming data-oriented quickly enough. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/databytes/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/databytes/support

Three topics are featured in this episode: first, statistics about Super Bowl LIII, including what was in the bowls as the game happened; second, a fun activity for teaching confidence intervals; finally, we present some online sources for data. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/databytes/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/databytes/support

AI and ML algorithms are growing popular -- but they can actually perpetuate cognitive biases in our daily lives. We discuss the state of the problem and possible solutions. We also present a favorable job outlook for aspiring (or continuing!) data scientists. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/databytes/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/databytes/support