Discrete Optimization Algorithms

Prevailing classification systems backed by the American Psychiatric Association (DSM) and World Health Organization (ICD) generally assume that mental health conditions are best represented by discrete entities that are qualitatively distinct from one another and from mental health. These diagnostic categories, such as major depression, antisocial personality disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, are ubiquitous in research, clinical, training, legal, and public health contexts. Yet they are out of sync with a vast quantity of scientific data on the presentation, causes, and treatments of psychopathology. Empirically speaking, categorical diagnoses tend to be unreliable (over time and across reporters), have fuzzy boundaries with one another and mental health, do not capture many clinical presentations encountered in routine practice, and lack distinctive causes and recommended treatments. Dimensional perspectives recognize the same signs and symptoms as categorical rubrics, but

From one of tech’s boldest thinkers and his deputy, a sweeping indictment of the West’s culture of complacency, arguing that timid leadership, intellectual fragility, and an unambitious view of technology’s potential in Silicon Valley have made the U.S. vulnerable in an era of mounting global threats.Silicon Valley has lost its way.Our most brilliant engineering minds once collaborated with government to advance world-changing technologies. Their efforts secured the West’s dominant place in the geopolitical order. But that relationship has now eroded, with perilous repercussions.Today, the market rewards shallow engagement with the potential of technology. Engineers and founders build photo-sharing apps and marketing algorithms, unwittingly becoming vessels for the ambitions of others. This complacency has spread into academia, politics, and the boardroom. The result? An entire generation, for whom the narrow-minded pursuit of the demands of a late capitalist economy has become their c

In 2017, a small crew gathered in a windowless Pentagon room to put AI at the heart of how America makes war. Led by a Marine Corps colonel haunted by the deaths of US troops and prospect of AI-enhanced rivals, the Project Maven team raced to send AI into combat, igniting controversy and forever changing the US military. Summoning the mayhem of a tech startup, the group wrestled Pentagon bureaucrats and each other, enlisted an initially reluctant Silicon Valley, and convinced US forces to deploy little-tested AI systems in hot wars. Maven fielded algorithms to identify targets at speed and scale, developed AI-infused command systems, and learned where AI fails. Today, its lessons are folded into developing autonomous technology set to be on the frontlines of future war. Based on more than 200 interviews with Project Maven insiders and opponents, this captivating narrative explains how AI warfare, once the stuff of apocalyptic science fiction, has become a reality.