QUIZ – 2017: Insights Current Affairs Quiz,14 June 2018

Solution: b.

TH: No, it’s not a new horror film. It’s Norman: also known as the first psychopathic Artificial Intelligence, just unveiled by U.S. researchers.

The goal is to explain in layman’s terms how algorithms are made, and to make people aware of AI’s potential dangers. Norman was “fed” only with short legends describing images of “people dying” found on the Reddit internet platform.

The researchers then submitted images of ink blots, as in the Rorschach psychological test, to determine what Norman was seeing and compare his answers to those of traditionally trained AI. The results are scary, to say the least: where traditional AI sees “two people standing close to each other,” Norman sees in the same spot of ink “a man who jumps out a window.”

—

Solution: b.

“Orb unlocks the full journalistic potential of what technology has made possible. We provide a new perspective, a refreshing type of journalism that resonates with and is accessible to people of different nationalities, races, religions and languages.. Orb categorizes its journalism using the globally recognized framework of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals to foster learning and collaboration around these Global Goals.. Orb treats both massive data analysis and the knowledge in the crowd as primary sources.”

In the news: TH (from March); TH;

Orb Media: What we do;

—

Solution: c.

• In the post-independence era, the first estimates committee was constituted in 1950.
• The Committee on Public Undertakings was created in 1964.
• Departmental Standing Committees were set up in the Parliament in 1993.
• Committee on Empowerment of Women was constituted in 1997.

Improvisation: TH;

Indian Polity by M Laxmikanth;

—

Solution: c.

Output gap is the difference between the actual output of an economy and the potential output an economy can generate at full capacity. The output gap measure can be viewed as both a measure of economic efficiency and an alternate evaluation metric of a country’s GDP because it is essentially a comparison between actual GDP (output) and potential GDP (maximum-efficiency output).

From December 2017: “If we go by the RBI working paper’s assessment, then the output gap is poised to close very soon after which demand pressures would be enough to warrant tightening of the monetary policy. It would become easier for RBI to adopt a hawkish tone (advocating higher interest rates) if inflation moves up as it expects it to, and the central government breaches its budgeted fiscal deficit target. The chances of both are getting higher by the day…”

Investopedia;

In the news: ‘Conceptual’, OPED Page, The Hindu (13^th June 2018);

—

Solution: a.

The rose-ringed parakeet (Psittacula Krameri), known as the ‘Ramachilaka’, is very popular with poets and lyricists in Andhra Pradesh. Ideal couples are compared to a pair of parakeets. The male is distinguished by a rose-pink collar. The quintessential female is ‘chilaka’.

Though there was general appreciation when the State government had announced the dimorphic bird as the State bird recently, it has also triggered a debate. For ornithologists and conservationists, it is a wrong choice but a right one for those rooted in Telugu culture.

None other than birdman of India, Salim Ali, has something unpleasant to say about them. In his The Book of Indian Birds, he describes it as “highly destructive at all times to crops and orchard fruit, gnawing and wasting far more than it actually eats”. Britain officially declared it as a pest in 2009 and seriously considered culling them in 2016 for displacing the local birds. Conservationists feel that the new State has lost a great opportunity to project Jerdon’s Courser, which is found only in the State and is critically endangered.

TH1; TH2;

PDF: MOEF Critically Endangered Animal Species of India;

—