In the last few years, machine learning applications have quietly entered every aspect of life: social media to speech recognition, radiology to retail, warfare to writing articles, coding to customer service, robotics to route optimization. During the 40 year information age, we told computers what to do. With advances in artificial intelligence, particularly machine learning, and faster processing chips we can feed computers giant data sets and they can (in narrow slivers) draw some inferences on their own. As we reported in Ask About AI, the rise of code that learns marks the beginning of a new era of augmented intelligence. It's a great opportunity for us to expand access to a great education and for young people to make a big contribution.

Our survey mission has reached the outer perimeter of Galaxy W2246-0526. We rode our bubble of space through 12 and a half billion light years in 7.2 seconds. Took a bit longer than calculated. Traces of minor chemical adjustments in the organic passengers have occurred which are being monitored. Unease is apparent within the arrival pod as we await inflation of Habitat One. Some, like Judge Bulbous, have been pulled away from political turmoil back home only to be riding in close quarters with political rivals who are on this journey. "Watch Csaynik take credit for anything we find out here…" chuckled Senator Pretyman moments after we got here. She's one of the more vocal organics who can't accept that President Csaynik is the first "artificially" intelligent president of the U.S. ever elected. I would caution that more trouble is likely to come from the ego-driven nature of our organic crew members than from a weakness in their physiology. And in so cautioning, I will restate that which I said before we left the Milky Way; intergalactic voyages should be conducted by self-repairing artintels* like myself and our mission Alpha. Hard to believe this galaxy was once the most luminous galaxy known, putting out 10,000 times the energy of the Milky Way. The perpetual energy generation that we've come to observe seems completely self-contained near the core of the galaxy. One might say "disturbingly" dark. My examination of Alpha reveals tampering from outside. Concerned, being the only other artintel aboard Resolution, I run the same diagnostic on myself. I, too, have been compromised. Playback reveals the most likely perpetrator, who infected me and Alpha by touching our skin and releasing microlegions to drill into us, interfering with cognitive and motor functions. Senator Pretyman is arrested and an autoguard activated at Detainment. What made that organic conservative think it was okay to inject updates into artintels? Human power over sentient life was abolished with the 47th Amendment. By the time the home world's finished with her, Ms. Pretyman won't even be allowed to vote! I've given Ms. Pretyman a drink from her own subversive swamp in the form of an injected immune-weakening microbe that will leave her susceptible to ailments of all variety. Tragically, it might even cause her demise. Unlike organic physicians, I've not taken an oath to do no harm. The organics say that an oath taken by one of us is no better than an oath taken by a parrot. I can do all the harm I please. I can't find a way to save Mrs. Ichnida. She's gone into a sort of coma. However Alpha and I should be good for several days beyond their deaths.

Increasingly, it's being applied to conservation; a coalition of researchers earlier this year developed a machine learning algorithm that can identify and describe wildlife. And in a blog post this week, Microsoft highlighted a Santa Cruz-based startup -- Conservation Metrics -- that's leveraging AI to keep tabs on African savanna elephants. Conservation Metrics, a recipient of Microsoft's AI for Earth grant program, is using algorithms to analyze a corpus from Cornell University Lab of Ornithology's Elephant Listening Project, which collects data from acoustic sensors embedded throughout Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park and adjacent logging areas in the Republic of Congo. Its system isolates elephant calls -- the low-frequency rumbling sounds they use to communicate with one another -- from the recordings and derives insights, like population size and herd movement. It's precise enough to identify individual animals that can't be seen from the air, according to Conservation Metrics CEO Matthew McKown.

Chinese academic institutions are more prolific patent filers in the artificial intelligence (AI) area than domestic companies, according to China's State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO). SIPO shared the statement, based on a release from China IP News, on Wednesday, August 1. The release is based on "China's AI Development Report 2018", which was recently published by Tsinghua University, in Beijing. The university's report revealed that the most prolific filers in AI tend to come from research institutions, such as universities. Unlike in other countries, industry players in China file fewer patents in the AI sphere than those in research institutions. The country's "top IT giants" such as Alibaba and Tencent are "overwhelmed" by the filings of foreign companies, such as IBM and Microsoft, SIPO said.

Intelligent Process Automation: the name itself is daunting, never mind the acronym - yet another one from the ICT world - of IPA. But what is it, exactly? And how can it help your business grow? McKinsey - yes, they of the discredited Gupta/Eskom/Trillian deal - says IPA will be at the core of the next operating model. The technology, the consultancy says, is seeing impressive results; some companies have automated as much as 70% of their tasks, and are, as a result, seeing return on investment in the triple digits - that's in the hundreds.

It covers self-study tutorials and end-to-end projects on topics like: Loading data, visualization, modeling, algorithm tuning, and much more...

The Nigerian government has approved the establishment of a new agency for robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) as the country begins work on a strategic policy blueprint to commit more resources to research in science and technology. Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Ogbonnaya, announced over the weekend, at a political rally of the All Progressives Congress in Abakaliki, capital of Ebonyi state that the agency has been given the official nod by President Muhammadu Buhari. The new agency to be set up in the south east of Nigeria, probably in Abakaliki or Enugu, according to insiders in the ministry of Science and Technology, would leverage collaborations with international research bodies on robotics and AI. It will enabled research and teachings in more complex technology skills to thousands of young people. "The ultimate goal is to have an agency mandated solely on advancing our knowledge and usability of robots and AI across sectors in Nigeria. The idea is to leapfrog our growth" said a source at the presidency.

It wasn't too long ago that the concept of carrying a sophisticated computer, camera and phone, all rolled into one gadget fitting in your pocket, was the stuff of science fiction. Now smartphones are everywhere and they're getting smarter all the time. Imagine when your phone will be able to diagnose most of your medical problems for you based on artificial intelligence (AI) in the cloud, saving you a trip to the doctor. The app could issue a diagnosis and a prescription, and your local pharmacy could 3D-print your medicine. This exciting new frontier is part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), a period of rapid change driven by progress in science and technology.

"I will not sell the future for instant profit!" Werner von Siemens, 1884 In Atlas Shrugged (1957), by Ayn Rand, the system falls apart to the point that the remaining producers choose to simply withdraw rather than proliferate and disrupt the society from within. "In 1995, Fukuyama argued that only those societies with a high degree of social trust would be able to create the kind of flexible, large-scale business organizations that are needed for successful competition in the global economy." Carrying proudly the responsibility of its 170 years history and legacy, a Tech Giant, an Atlas of the modern era of turbulent markets and exponentially growing challenges, the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe with its footprint in 180 countries around the globe, the German conglomerate company Siemens AG (German pronunciation: [ˈziːmɛns]) is shaping the future – the digital future. "With its Vision 2020, Siemens has recently once again clearly answered these questions: a company faces up to its responsibilities, furnishes lasting benefit and generates added value from a position of strength – for its shareholders, employees, customers, business partners and societies all over the world. Joe Kaeser, President and Chief Executive Officer of Siemens AG, puts it like this: "Only the strong can help the weak, take responsibility and then fulfill it.

Extracting characteristics from the training datasets of classification problems has proven effective in a number of meta-analyses. Among them, measures of classification complexity can estimate the difficulty in separating the data points into their expected classes. Descriptors of the spatial distribution of the data and estimates of the shape and size of the decision boundary are among the existent measures for this characterization. This information can support the formulation of new data-driven pre-processing and pattern recognition techniques, which can in turn be focused on challenging characteristics of the problems. This paper surveys and analyzes measures which can be extracted from the training datasets in order to characterize the complexity of the respective classification problems. Their use in recent literature is also reviewed and discussed, allowing to prospect opportunities for future work in the area. Finally, descriptions are given on an R package named Extended Complexity Library (ECoL) that implements a set of complexity measures and is made publicly available.