Computers tracking fraud forced to adapt to public’s new lockdown spending
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When the coronavirus pandemic struck, closing down economies and travel in a way no-one had thought possible, humans had to adapt fast.
But it was not just people who needed to learn a new way of life, with the artificial intelligence systems upon which so much industry survives also requiring a little helping hand to come to terms with the dramatic shifts.
It has emerged that many AI systems which control inventory, marketing, retail and even fraud needed tweaking because they could not compute why the lives on which they made their predictions had changed so much.
Fraud detection services were among those that had to be told that a surge in purchase of power tools were simply people doing lockdown DIY.
And as top searches on Amazon switched from Lego and phone chargers to hand sanitizer and face masks, the company appeared