Just as artificial intelligence notoriously lacks common sense, it also lacks an understanding of memes. But that doesn’t make its attempts to decode them any less comical.

Enter ResNeXtGuesser, the viral Twitter account that passes popular memes through a neural network and posts the results.

The neural network in question, ResNeXt, was trained on the ImageNet dataset, an AI touchstone that contains 14 million images and underpins tools ranging from military target identification to autonomous driving. But despite its sophisticated foundation, the neural network is hilariously off-base in some of its guesses, like classifying an image of a refrigerator full of eggs as “ping-pong ball” with 99.99% percent confidence. Active since June 2021, the account has amassed more than 450,000 followers.

We connected with the account’s hitherto anonymous creator, Glen Neumann, an embedded computer engineer based in San Jose, California, via email about what sparked the idea, what it’s like to go viral, and his favorite moments running the account.

Read the full interview here—a brief excerpt is below.

Why the ResNeXt model?

"ResNeXt was trained on the ImageNet data set, a huge assortment of labeled images with hundreds of classes. Each year, ImageNet has a competition among researchers to see who can make the most accurate NN. ResNeXt was the 2016 winner, having a better top-5 error percentage, beating even that of humans. When I saw that the Python library PyTorch had a pretrained model for ResNeXt, and I wouldn’t have to code it up and train it myself, it was an easy decision."

Favorite moment?

"Honestly, my favorite moments running the bot are seeing people root for it and get excited when the bot gets a prediction right. It’s cute watching people personify a neural network, and celebrate it when it succeeds and chastise it when it fails. I understand that the NNGM Twitter bot may not be much more than a meme page with a twist, but watching people get excited over a robot predicting nonsensical memes really makes my day sometimes."

Click here to learn more about ResNeXtGuesser, including the all-time funniest results from the account.—HF

The Netherlands is known for its tulips, but if Amsterdam-based vertical farming company InFarm has its way, the world might recognize it for its lettuce.

The Dutch startup was founded in 2013 and raised $200 million at a $1 billion valuation in December, making it the highest-valued vertical farming startup in Europe.

But, but, but…The company has no plans to stick to its home continent. Last week, it announced it would open a new facility in Kyle, Texas, just southwest of Austin. The plant is expected to be operational in the next six months, InFarm says.

It already has one US facility, in Seattle, which opened in 2019, but now it’s planning to scale up its operations nationwide. The Kyle facility is the first of up to five new growing centers it has planned for the US, which will add up to 500,000 square feet of growing space.

• This expansion is part of InFarm’s larger goal to bring operations to 20 countries by 2030. Right now, it’s in 11 countries.
• InFarm sells its produce in partnership with grocers like Kroger, Sobeys, Safeway, and Thrifty Foods.

Zoom out: InFarm’s inroads into the American vertical farming market come at a time when the overall industry is growing rapidly. In 2021, global indoor farming startups raised $1.6 billion across 70 deals, per Pitchbook.

And just last month, Brooklyn-based Upward Farms announced plans to build a new 250,000-square-foot farm in eastern Pennsylvania—it’ll be the largest vertical farm in the world when it opens in 2023.

Click here to read the full story on-site.—JM

Today, we revisit hybrid human-robot teams—the automated staffing solutions that have risen in popularity during the pandemic—because bots can’t get sick, can’t join the Great Resignation, and won’t complain about management on TikTok.

How’s it going? Taco Borga, owner and operator of La Duni, a restaurant in Dallas, Texas, is one small-business owner who rolled the dice on automation after he said he was having little luck recruiting humans to wait tables.

• When we first spoke to him, in September 2021, he was renting three robots to help with staffing shortages.
• As of February 2022, the robotic workers slightly outnumbered the human waitstaff: four mechanical servers working alongside three humans.

Borga told HR Brew robots have helped his staffing situation, as the pandemic has taken its toll on his staff: “We started with 16 servers, we went down to 12, to eight, to six, now we’re down to three.”

Though Borga may view robots as necessary to keep the doors open, he said the reaction from customers is mixed.

• Borga said that while some customers “immediately understand the use of the technology” and why the staffing shortage drove the business to employ it, others “refuse to use their phones” to order and will “wait whatever it takes until a [human] server shows up.”

Zoom out: Borga is part of a broader trend. In the first nine months of 2021, North American factories and other industrial users ordered a record 29,000 robots, a 37% YoY increase, according to the Association for Advancing Automation (A3).

Read the full story here, which originally appeared in HR Brew.—SV

Stat: Insurance claims involving accidental VR damage jumped 31% in 2021 and are up 68% over the last five years, per Aviva, the UK’s biggest insurer. The most damaged item? TVs, naturally.

Quote: “We don’t really have time to be small, given the climate crisis we are living [in]. And we decided that we needed to go for what’s biggest, what’s fastest, what’s more impactful.”—Next Gen Foods co-founder Andre Menezes to Retail Brew, after raising a $100 million Series A

Read: More than 350 people had their vision restored by one company’s retinal implants—then it stopped supporting the tech.

Crypto fest: The industry’s most influential event, Consensus 2022, is happening June 9–12 in Austin, TX. If you’re looking to immerse yourself in the fast-moving world of crypto, Web 3, and NFTs, this is the festival experience for you. Use code MorningBrew to save $100 on your pass.*

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A common refrain when talking to people working on climate tech in the US, whether it’s EV chargers, battery production, or sustainable jet fuel, is that more government funding is needed to scale these technologies up.

So, how do US voters feel about this? Generally speaking, across all parties, they agree, according to new polling from Data for Progress.

• Nearly two-thirds (65%) of likely voters “strongly” or “somewhat” support the federal government using its procurement process to accelerate development of clean energy and sustainable materials.
• Two-thirds of respondents “strongly” or “somewhat” support government investment in clean hydrogen development.
• And 77% of respondents want the US government to fund training programs for clean energy jobs.

We get it, you’re obsessed with your EV. You’re doing better by the environment and you have bragging rights with your family and friends. But have you ever stopped to wonder about the afterlife of your car battery?

We have, and so has Li-Cycle—and their chief strategy officer is joining us on February 24 at 12pm ET to talk about the importance of battery recycling in the EV future. Register here.*

*Note: This event is brought to you by iShares.

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions:

• Can autonomous, seafloor-scanning robots speed up offshore wind development?
• A 40-terabyte dataset could make AI more useful to doctors
• Breaking down an AI-for-translation middleman