Understanding Convolution in Tensorflow

This is a quick post intended to help those trying to understand convolution as applied in Tensorflow. There are many good blog posts on the Internet explaining convolution as applied in convolutional neural networks (CNNs), e.g. see this one by Denny Britz. However, understanding the theory in one thing, knowing how to implement it is … Continue reading Understanding Convolution in Tensorflow

Artificial Morality (or How Do We Teach Robots to Love)

One Saturday morning I came upon the website 80000 Hours. The idea of the site is to direct our activity to maximise impact. They have a list of world problems here. One of the most pressing is explained as the artificial intelligence "control problem" : how do we control forces that can out think us? This … Continue reading Artificial Morality (or How Do We Teach Robots to Love)

Using Alembic to Migrate SQLAlchemy Databases

There are several advantages of using SQLAlchemy as a wrapper for an SQL database. These include stability with large numbers of data records, class/object-oriented approach, plug-and-play underlying databases. However, one under-documented disadvantage is poor change management. If you add a field or table you generally need to regenerate the entire database. This is a pain if … Continue reading Using Alembic to Migrate SQLAlchemy Databases