Countries around the world have responded to the Covid-19 coronavirus with lockdowns, restrictions, and technology solutions that use artificial intelligence to combat the virus. As the world begins to emerge from the pandemic, China is first to emerge from Covid-19 imposed lockdowns thanks to cutting-edge technology, with autonomous vehicles and smart cities seeing an acceleration during this time. In China, new opportunities for the autonomous driving industry and intelligent solutions have stood out. Restrictions on retail, dining, and everyday life during the outbreak have increased demand for driverless deliveries and non-contact operations, both heavily relying on autonomous driving technologies. As the outbreak progresses, all sectors of Chinese society continue to apply AI, big data capabilities, and robot services to prevent and control the coronavirus.

Maybe you're sad, plodding along with your head slumped and shoulders sagging. Maybe you're angry and alert, hurrying along upright. Whatever your gait, that combined with your facial expression is nonverbally signaling to other people how much space they should give you--and being able to accurately read these cues is an essential skill for our social species. Researchers at the University of Maryland have developed an algorithm called ProxEmo, which gives a little wheeled robot the power to analyze your gait in real time, and to take a guess at how you might be feeling. Based on that perceived emotion, the robot can choose its route to give you more or less space. This might seem like a small matter for robot-human interactions, but we might also imagine that one day, when machines are sophisticated enough, they might read a sad person's gait and try to help them.

Early in 2018, the volcano Anak Krakatau in Indonesia started falling apart. It was a subtle transformation -- one that nobody noticed at the time. The southern and southwestern flanks of the volcano were slipping towards the ocean at a rate of about 4 millimetres per month, a shift so small that researchers only saw it after the fact as they combed through satellite radar data. By June, though, the mountain began showing obvious signs of unrest. It spewed fiery ash and rocks into the sky in a series of small eruptions. And it was heating up.

Dr. David Bray is the Inaugural Director of the new global GeoTech Center & Commission of the Atlantic Council, a nonprofit for international political, business, and intellectual leaders founded in 1961. Headquartered in Washington, DC, the Council offers programs related to international security and global economic prosperity. In previous leadership roles, Bray led the technology aspects of the Centers for Disease Control's bioterrorism preparedness program in response to 9/11, the outbreak response to the West Nile virus, SARS, monkey pox and other emergencies. He also spent time on the ground in Afghanistan in 2009 as a senior advisor to both military and humanitarian assistance efforts, serving as the non-partisan Executive Director for a bipartisan National Commission on R&D, and providing leadership as a non-partisan federal agency Senior Executive focused on digital modernization. He also is a Young Global Leader for 2017-2021 of the World Economic Forum. Bray is a member of multiple Boards of Directors and has worked with the U.S. Special Operations Command on counter-misinformation efforts. He was invited to give the 2019 UN Charter Keynote on the future of AI & IoT governance. His academic background includes a PhD from Emory University; he also has held affiliations with MIT, Harvard, and the University of Oxford. He recently took a few moments to speak to AI Trends Editor John P. Desmond about current events, including the geopolitics of the COVID-19 pandemic. AI Trends: Thank you David for talking to AI Trends today.

IBM's and Google's platforms work in similar ways. They make it easy for clients to spin up chat or voice-based agents that act a lot like Alexa or Siri but are tailored to different applications. When users text or call in, they are free to speak in open-ended sentences. The system then uses natural-language processing to parse their "intent" and responds with the appropriate scripted answer or reroutes them to a human agent. For queries that can't be answered automatically, the algorithms group similar ones together to show the most commonly missed intents.

Engineer and YouTuber Shane Wighton has made a basketball hoop that uses a Microsoft Kinect and facial recognition in order to build a basketball hoop that means the shooter never misses. On the YouTube channel Stuff Made Here, Wighton explains that the backboard is tracking the information in the room, including the ball and its trajectory. With that information, the backboard can calculate where it needs to move in order to ensure the ball gets into the hoop. Since there are only 600 milliseconds (a thousandth of a second) between when the ball is thrown and when it hits the backboard, the calculations need to be made in an incredibly short amount of time. Therefore, Wighton said, when designing the board he had to prioritise fast movement. There are three motors, giving the machine three degrees of motion, and a universal joint connecting them to the board.

Robot in Singapore is cracking down on people's social distancing Singapore has employed a four-legged robot named SPOT to patrol a popular park and remind people to maintain social distancing.

Exceptional times require exceptional solutions. Due to the current lockdown, the IEAI has decided to hold its May Speaker Series with Prof. Dr. Joanna Bryson virtually via Zoom. With its Speaker Series, the TUM Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence is inviting experts from all over the world to talk about ethics and governance of AI. These events serve as an important platform for sharing new research and exchanging knowledge. The May session of the TUM IEAI Speaker Series will take place on 14 May 2020, 10am (CEST), virtually via Zoom.

RIA's research editor and communications manager, Fazila Farouk, talked to Caledon FM's Annette Jahnel on her Future Perfect show about the Fourth Industrial Revolution, artificial intelligence and its impact on white collar workers in South Africa. A major challenge she highlights is the fact that the jobs, which have traditionally allowed people entry into the middle class, are now disappearing. This is a major setback for a country ravaged by economic inequality.

As countries around the world are gradually reopening following lockdowns, government authorities are using surveillance drones in an attempt to enforce social distancing rules. In India, police are using AI-equipped drones developed by US start-up Skylark Labs to monitor evening curfews and the distance between people who are outside during the day. The drones are being flown in six cities in the northern state of Punjab, and are also being trialled in the southern city of Bangalore, says Skylark Labs CEO Amarjot Singh. Each drone is fitted with a camera and an AI that can detect humans within a range of 150 metres to 1 kilometre. If it spots people it can send an alert to police in the district located nearest to the sighting.