Software Technology

S1/E15: Bonus Episode # 2 – The EU Ninth Framework Programme for Research and Innovation: Horizon Europe

S1/E13: Wrapping up

Here we are! All good things come to an end. Time to bid farewell…

S1/E12: AI: You’d better do no harm

Machine learning and artificial intelligence have emerged as powerful tools in several domains, bringing huge changes to software development. LLMs are now used by developers to help write code and are integrated into apps and services. Similarly, other machine learning models are commonly integrated into websites and apps, either being developed and trained from scratch using proprietary data, or leveraging third party machine learning tools.

In recent months, large language models (LLMs) have gained great popularity thanks to their ability to generate human-like text and code, and tools based on them are being implemented in more and more systems. However, with such impressive capabilities comes the potential for abuse and misuse: for instance, when Microsoft originally released Bing Chat, an AI-powered chatbot somewhat similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, it didn’t take long until users found ways to break it.

S1/E11: The European Union's Artificial Intelligence Act: Let the fight, I mean, the negotiations begin

Welcome to Part 3 of the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act in this blog series!

In this episode I’ll give you hints about the official positions taken by the Council of the European Union (EU), or the EU Council, on one side, and by the European Parliament (EP), on the other side, with respect to the European Commission’s (EC) proposal for the AI Act.

The development and widespread use of large language models, such as the constantly mentioned GPT-4 and Bard, have the capabilities to revolutionise a variety of domains, and software development is at the forefront of this.

Ensuring the correctness of code is a top priority. Traditionally, the dominant approach has been test-driven development (TDD), which consists in writing tests to validate the code after it has been written. The core idea is to provide examples of desired behaviour (in the form of tests), and check the code output against them.

S1/E9: The difficult art of regulating magic. I mean, technology

As Arthur C. Clarke purportedly said, Magic is just science that we don’t understand yet. And as my son, about four years old, once told me, Look dad, I’m super intelligent! 2+2=4!

Education is a privileged knowledge domain for UNESCO and also an area where Artificial Intelligence is expected to have great impact, but also where much polemic is taking place.

Programming is not about typing, it’s about thinking- Rich Hickey

Programming languages, integral to the software that shapes our digital reality, have traversed an impressive journey of evolution. This evolution, marked by remarkable innovation, has significantly reshaped software development. This post will explore the compelling history of programming languages and their profound influence on the software industry.

In the current era, technology and artificial intelligence are playing a pivotal role in transforming many industries and domains, and education and the learning landscape are no exceptions.

There is no future of IT operations that does not include AIOps. This is due to the rapid growth in data volumes and pace of change (exemplified by rate of application delivery and event-driven business models) that cannot wait on humans to derive insights. -Gartner AIOps Market Guide for AIOps Platforms 2021

Documentation is a love letter that you write to your future self. - Damian Conway, a prominent contributor to the Perl community.

When we delve into software development, we often focus on coding, testing, and debugging. However, another crucial player in the development process deserves our undivided attention – a component as vital as the software code itself: software documentation.

In the current age, fake news has become a pervasive issue, spreading misinformation and manipulating public opinion. Social media and online news platforms have always been affected by fake news -- on twitter, it was shown that false news travel faster than true stories -- and this made some form of fake news detection mechanism paramount.

Rare diseases affect a significant portion of the population, with over 7000 rare diseases collectively affecting more than 400 million people worldwide. The majority of these diseases fall under the category of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). Patients with rare diseases face numerous challenges, including misdiagnosis, delayed diagnosis, and a lack of available treatment options. These challenges are exacerbated by the limited data and information available about these diseases.

Some say that “a good image is worth a thousand words” and, either we agree with this or not, data visualization has a very important impact in the communication of otherwise difficult to handle information as, e.g., large tables or multidimensional comparisons. Some could argue that even in the foundations of mathematics, this is an important role of Geometry in its relation to Algebra.

As we hurtle forward into a future where Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming omnipresent, our conventional project management methods are being tested. These traditional systems, designed for a simpler time, are often found wanting in the face of AI projects' dynamic and exploratory nature. Here, Agile methodology steps in, bridging the gap and bringing a new level of efficiency and adaptability.

As technology advances, we often hear terms like 'Artificial Intelligence,' 'Machine Learning,' and 'Deep Learning' thrown around in discussions. While these words might seem daunting for a layperson, fear not! This post aims to demystify deep learning, breaking it down in an easily digestible way for everyone.

“Tracking progress is getting increasingly hard, because progress is accelerating. This progress is unlocking things critical to economic and national security –and if you don’t skim [papers] each day, you will miss important trends that your rivals will notice and exploit.” ​Jack Clarke Cofounder at Anthropic, Former Policy Director at OPENAI​

Associated with the overwhelming digital transformation of most industries, artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming our world in numerous ways, from healthcare and transportation to entertainment and education. However, the sense of losing the Human common sense to the automation of the machine brings up one issue that has arisen with the increasing use of AI: the problem of bias.

There were 5 exabytes of information created between the dawn of civilization through 2003, but that much information is now created every two days. -Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman at Google

In today's digital age vast amounts of data are constantly being generated and processed, for every action we complete on our devices, and this has made privacy a paramount concern. Indeed, machine learning algorithms thrive on large datasets, and it was often the case that user privacy was ignored for the sake of having more advanced algorithms and models.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has evolved remarkably since its conceptual beginnings in the mid-20th century. From ELIZA, the first Natural Language Processing (NLP) program developed in the 1960s, to today's advanced models like GPT-4, AI's journey is a testament to human innovation. The birth of AI can be traced back to the 1950s and 60s. At this time, AI was a fledgling field, exploring the possibilities of machines that could mimic human intelligence.

Picture this scenario: you have just made some changes on your web application, and would like to know how effective they are in improving the users' experience. One option is to wait until a satisfactory number of users have interacted with the new version of the web application and compare their behaviour with the average user behaviour before the changes were implemented, but this raises two issues:

As the world becomes more aware of the impacts of climate change, there is a growing need for businesses to adopt more sustainable practices. One area where the ecological transition is particularly important is logistics, where companies can significantly reduce their carbon footprint by optimizing their supply chains and transportation networks. More than 90% of the transport of goods is made by sea, something to think about whenever we are about to finalize an online shopping that most probably will require international shipping.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on public health, with millions of people worldwide affected by the virus. In response, governments, healthcare providers, and researchers have been using a range of tools and technologies that were built on innovation that was often refocused from the original objectives or assembled from existing tools and libraries, to provide insight on the evolution of the pandemic, manage the spread of the virus and improve public health outcomes.

If you’ve been following the news or at least reading our posts in this SWForum.eu discussion, you’ve noticed that Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming our world in a variety of ways, from healthcare and transportation to finance and entertainment. The drivers of change are often deep learning algorithms with enormous potential.  However, as AI becomes more advanced, it is also becoming more complex and difficult to understand.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing the world around us. It is already being used – and it has been used for several years – in a variety of domains and on a variety of tasks, from education to medical diagnosis, from personalized recommendations to content creation.

Recommender systems are a type of information filtering system that predict and recommend items that a user may be interested in. These systems are widely used in e-commerce, social media, online content platforms, and other domains where there is a large amount of content to be filtered and personalized recommendations can enhance user experience.

Art and performance,  have always been integral to human culture, providing a medium for expression, communication, and entertainment. In the past decades, these art expressions have been impacted by technology, from the digital avatars of the pop music of Gorillaz to the better and better special effects in the cinema, taking also part in circus, theater and dance performances.

In today's highly competitive business landscape, organizations continuously seek ways to optimize performance and minimize downtime. Maintenance can be broadly categorized into four main types, each with its unique approach to ensuring equipment efficiency and longevity. These include reactive maintenance, preventive maintenance, predictive maintenance (PdM), and condition-based maintenance. Reactive maintenance, also known as "run-to-failure" maintenance, involves repairing or replacing equipment only after it has failed.

False data injection attacks are a type of cyber attack that targets data systems and networks by introducing malicious or incorrect data into the system. This attack is a form of data poisoning that aims to compromise the integrity of data and can lead to serious consequences such as data loss, theft, and manipulation. False data injection attacks can be carried out in various ways and can target different types of systems, including industrial control systems, financial systems, and healthcare systems.

The IEEE Software editorial argues that maybe we can achieve software quality without the concessions to “good enough” that we have become used to making in our work, despite the advances in software technology in recent years.

Can it be done? What are your thoughts on the challenges in software quality we are facing?

Read the full article here

Let us know what you think by replying to this post!

The DECODER project is building a software project intelligence platform. We are now offering two beta-testing campaigns for recent open source utilities:

The Department of Engineering Science at Oxford University is looking for a full-time Research Software Engineer to lead their participation in the SWForum.eu Horizon 2020 project.