BEN GOERTZEL: We can have no guarantee that a super intelligent AI is going to do what we want. Once we're creating something ten, a hundred, a thousand, a million times more intelligent than we are it would be insane to think that we could really like rigorously control what it does. It may discover aspects of the universe that we don't even imagine at this point. However, my best intuition and educated guess is that much like raising a human child, if we raise the young AGI in a way that's imbued with compassion, love and understanding and if we raise the young AGI to fully understand human values and human culture then we're maximizing the odds that as this AGI gets beyond our rigorous control at least it's own self-modification and evolution is imbued with human values and culture and with compassion and connection. So I would rather have an AGI that understood human values and culture become super intelligent than one that doesn't understand even what we're about.

An autonomous'robot shark' has been deployed at a Devon harbour to devour plastic waste before the tide takes it out to sea. The'Wasteshark' was designed to tackle the scourge in ocean pollution and protect the marine area's local wildlife and ecosystem. The high-tech aquadrone was released in lfracombe Harbour, the first in the UK following successful launches in five countries, including South Africa and UAE. An autonomous robot'shark' has been deployed at a Devon harbour to eat up plastic waste before the tide takes it out to sea. The'Wasteshark' was designed to tackle the scourge in ocean pollution to protect the marine area's local wildlife and ecosystems Wasteshark can'swallow' up to 60kg of debris in one trip and if running five days a week could clear 15 tons of waste from waterways every year, according to experts.

Artificial intelligence research group OpenAI last month made the unusual announcement: It had built an AI-powered content creation engine so sophisticated that it wouldn't release the full model to developers. Anyone who works in cybersecurity immediately knew why. Phishing emails, which try to trick recipients into clicking malicious links, originated 91 percent of all cyberattacks in 2016, according to a study by Cofense Inc. Combining software bots to scrape personal information from social networks and public databases with such a powerful content generation engine could produce much more persuasive phishing emails that might even mimic a certain person's writing style, said Nicolas Kseib, lead data scientist at TruSTAR Technology LLC. The potential result: Cybercriminals could launch phishing attacks much faster and on an unprecedented scale. That danger neatly sums up the never-ending war that is the state of cybersecurity today, one in which no one can yet answer a central question: Will artificial intelligence provide more help to criminals or to the people trying to stop them?

Expert human drivers perform actions relying on traffic laws and their previous experience. While traffic laws are easily embedded into an artificial brain, modeling human complex behaviors which come from past experience is a more challenging task. One of these behaviors is the capability of communicating intentions and negotiating the right of way through driving actions, as when a driver is entering a crowded roundabout and observes other cars movements to guess the best time to merge in. In addition, each driver has its own unique driving style, which is conditioned by both its personal characteristics, such as age and quality of sight, and external factors, such as being late or in a bad mood. For these reasons, the interaction between different drivers is not trivial to simulate in a realistic manner. In this paper, this problem is addressed by developing a microscopic simulator using a Deep Reinforcement Learning Algorithm based on a combination of visual frames, representing the perception around the vehicle, and a vector of numerical parameters. In particular, the algorithm called Asynchronous Advantage Actor-Critic has been extended to a multi-agent scenario in which every agent needs to learn to interact with other similar agents. Moreover, the model includes a novel architecture such that the driving style of each vehicle is adjustable by tuning some of its input parameters, permitting to simulate drivers with different levels of aggressiveness and desired cruising speeds.

Lee uses photographs as part of a large ongoing study to understand births, deaths, and the movement of more than 3,000 giraffes in East Africa. He and his team take digital photos of each animal's unique and unchanging spot patterns to identify them throughout their lives. But before pattern recognition software can process the images to identify individuals, the research team has to manually crop each photo or delineate an area of interest.

Karthik Padmanabhan is the Developer Relations Program lead at Google and is responsible for India, Middle East and North Africa regions. Karthik has been with the tech industry for almost three decades in the areas of product management, business development, tech evangelism, etc. He leads a team that focuses on enabling developer communities to adopt Google & open source technologies like TensorFlow, PWA, Android, & Google Cloud for the Next Billion Users (NBU). Karthik is a seeker, plays Golf, works at Google's Bangalore office and lives on a farm that functions on sustainable living practices. For more details visit http://devfest.gdgahmedabad.com/

Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays varying roles in supporting both existing and emerging technologies. In the area of Learning and Tutoring, it plays key role in Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS). The fusion of ITS with Adaptive Hypermedia and Multimedia (AHAM) form the backbone of Adaptive eLearning Systems (AES) which provides personalized experiences to learners. This experience is important because it facilitates the accurate delivery of the learning modules in specific to the learner capacity and readiness. AES types vary, with Adaptive Web Based eLearning Systems (AWBES) being the popular type because of wider access offered by the web technology.The retrieval and aggregation of contents for any eLearning system is critical whichis determined by the relevance of learning material to the needs of the learner.In this paper, we discuss components of AES, role of AI in AES content aggregation, possible risks and available opportunities.

As we indicated in our article on AI applications in Africa, keeping up with the changes in our current fast-paced world where tech solutions are developed by the day and requires formidable structures aimed at leveraging long term objectives and solutions. It's no doubt that AI offers remedies to Africa's most pervasive problems not just in healthcare but also in reducing poverty, elevating inclusion in societies, solutions to food crises, addressing sustainability challenges as well as enhancing the quality of education. Artificial intelligence is crucial in an African setting due to how it democratizes access to pioneering and productivity-boosting innovations that fuel the continent's growth towards sustaining its needs. In the past few years, several governments (as illustrated in our article mentioned above) across Africa have started mobilizing with the aim of promoting the growth of AI in the continent. Having a vibrant AI ecosystem requires integration of precise policies but most importantly, a coming together of progressive lawmakers, global technology partners, governmental institutions and civil society groups.

The Maathai Impact Award encourages and recognizes work by African innovators that show the impactful application of machine learning and artificial intelligence. The award will be presented at the annual Deep Learning Indaba in August 2019. This award reinforces the legacy of Wangari Maathai in acknowledging the capacity of individuals to be a positive force for change: by recognizing ideas and initiatives that demonstrate that each of us, no matter how small, can make a difference. In partnership with Black in AI, the winner will receive a fully-sponsored trip to attend NeurIPS 2019 and the Black in AI workshop, co-located with NeurIPS, in December 2019. The winner will also be invited to speak at the Deep Learning Indaba in Nairobi in August 2019 and receive a cash prize of KES 70,000.

In the field of computer science and information technology, the term artificial intelligence (AI) refers to the ability to endow machines with an intelligence and problem-solving capability, an analytical reasoning independent of direct control from an external operator – similar to notions of intellect demonstrated by humans and other living beings. The dream of AI dates back many years – intelligent robots appear in the myths of many ancient civilisations, including Greek, Arabic, Egyptian and Chinese. Nowadays, the field of artificial intelligence is more vibrant than ever, and some believe we're on the threshold of discoveries that could change human society irreversibly – for better or for worse. Alexa, Siri and Cortana are obvious examples of the "march of AI" into our everyday lives, but AI is being added to technology all around us. It can be found in television, mobile phones, vacuum cleaners, navigation systems, GPS systems, lawnmowers, video games, chapati makers and cars, as well as services such as Netflix, Amazon, Pandora and Nest.