This week we were treated to a veritable carnival attraction as Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of one of the largest tech companies in the world, testified before Senate committees about privacy issues related to Facebook's handling of user data. Besides highlighting the fact that most United States senators -- and most people, for that matter -- do not understand Facebook's business model or the user agreement they've already consented to while using Facebook, the spectacle made one fact abundantly clear: Zuckerberg intends to use artificial intelligence to manage the censorship of hate speech on his platform. Over the two days of testimony, the plan for using algorithmic AI for potential censorship practices was discussed multiple times under the auspices of containing hate speech, fake news, election interference, discriminatory ads, and terrorist messaging. In fact, AI was mentioned at least 30 times. Zuckerberg claimed Facebook is five to ten years away from a robust AI platform. All four of the other Big 5 tech conglomerates -- Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft -- are also developing AI, many for the shared purposes of content control.

HelpSelf is a AI-assisted legal app that helps you deal with simple issues. Want to deal with domestic violence? The project is an "automated legal technology company" that automates simple legal procedures. They currently work in the above areas but are moving into housing, family law, certain immigration tasks, and employment law, said Dorna Moini, co-founder of the project. "We self-funded from the start and are completely bootstrapped. We are making a profit through licensing fees for our document automation platform," she said.

SingularityNet is the world's first decentralized marketplace for AI, aimed to democratize access, creation and scaling of AI services in the new global economy. Artificial Intelligence will revolutionize the world... in many ways it already has! SingularityNET wants to facilitate the upcoming changes by offering a new, unprecedented approach to the way AI is developed, marketed and deployed. More than just an appstore for artificial intelligence services: it's a new ecosystem for AI agents to provide services, exchange data and collaborate between themselves, helping deliver more efficient, cost effective and decentralized automation for the betterment of tomorrow's society. Any potential consumer will be able to browse SingularityNET's catalog of AI Services, or request their specific needs to the SingularityNET AI producer network.

N-Star generated jet of material shot outward at nearly speed of light.

Curse of the Pharaohs took me by surprise. I didn't really think twice about putting it off--usually Assassin's Creed DLC is filler, an indulgence I save for the quieter parts of the year. It's an excuse to jump back in for 5 or 10 hours, and in the case of Assassin's Creed: Origins I planned to spend some extra time mopping up side content I'd skipped. I played through it recently though and quickly found out Curse of the Pharaohs is legitimately fantastic. Set four years after the main game, Curse of the Pharaohs sends Bayek up the Nile to the ancient city of Thebes and the nearby Valley of the Kings.

It's one of the first things you notice when you look at archaic human relatives in a natural history textbook or museum. Just above the eyes rests an imposing feature, a prominent brow ridge that juts out above the eye sockets. But why did many of our distant relatives have this distinct facial feature? Why don't we have it anymore? Over the years, scientists have suggested plenty of solutions.

Leading South African law firm, Webber Wentzel, has announced it has chosen legal AI company Luminance to provide doc review services for M&A transactions. This is the latest in a series of client wins for the UK-based AI company, which last week also announced it had partnered with Sweden's Delphi and also Luxembourg's Arendt & Medernach. In the latter case the Benelux firm will be making use of Luminance's new real estate document review capacity. Until recently the company had been focused on M&A due diligence work. In a statement Webber Wentzel said it'particularly values the platform's built-in collaboration tools which will allow its lawyers to quickly group and assign documents, track live progress, and significantly reduce the amount of time spent organising workflow'.

When Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance succumbed to the Antarctic pack ice on November 21, 1915, he and his crew began one of the most gruelling survival attempts in history. Since the explorer led his 27 men to safety more than a century ago, there has been no sign of the ship. But now, in an echo of the golden age of exploration, the race is on to the Antarctic once more – as two rival expeditions hunt for the lost vessel. A British-led team from Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge University, along with universities in South Africa and New Zealand, plans to launch autonomous underwater vehicles almost two miles under the ice. The multi-million pound expedition will set out in January 2019 in research ship SA Agulhas II, The Times reported.

Chinese tech and entertainment-oriented conglomerate Tencent Holdings is collaborating with the London-based health app developer Babylon Health, founded in 2013, to introduce medical chatbot AI capabilities into their solutions. While the press release from Babylon Health does not go into detail about the target scenario, Financial Times writer Aliya Ram suggests that the technology will directly go into Tencent's social messaging platform WeChat. No financial details on the deal have been disclosed. WeChat itself could be considered a hybrid of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Twitter from a functional point of view. Even though they are primarily used only in China, with their 1 billion monthly active users they can be considered as one of the world's most popular communication platforms.

When we think about artificial intelligence and the "world of the future," our vision is usually more Jetsons than Green Acres. But for Dr. Ranveer Chandra, a Principal Researcher in the Systems and Networking group at Microsoft Research, rural farms are the perfect place to realize the benefits of AI through what he calls precision agriculture, or data-driven farming. Today, in a wide-ranging interview, Dr. Chandra talks about how his research may eventually make your wi-fi signal stronger and your battery life longer, but also shares the story of how spending childhood summers with his grandparents in rural India inspired a line of research that could change the face of farming and help meet the food and nutrition needs of a growing global population. Ranveer Chandra: One of the latest projects I'm doing is Farm Beats. And for that, to actually see how well your research works, you need to be out there in a farm. I'm like, "What am I doing going out there in the farm in the middle of nowhere in this rain?" But on the other hand, just reminding yourself that if this research works, this is going to benefit so many farmers. It gives you that level of energy to keep going, to keep thinking about doing bigger things and not stopping where you are. A show that brings you closer to the cutting edge of technology research and the scientists behind it. When we think about artificial intelligence and the world of the future, our vision is usually more Jetsons than Green Acres. But for Dr. Ranveer Chandra, a Principal Researcher in the Systems and Networking group at Microsoft Research, rural farms are the perfect place to realize the benefits of AI through what he calls precision agriculture or data-driven farming. Today, in a wide-ranging interview, Dr. Chandra talks about how his research may eventually make your Wi-Fi signal stronger and your battery life longer. But also shares the story of how spending childhood summers with his grandparents in rural India inspired a line of research that could change the face of farming, and help meet the food and nutrition needs of a growing global population. Host: Ranveer Chandra, welcome to the podcast, it's great to see you today. Ranveer Chandra: Yeah, thank you. I'm excited to be here. And it says on the website that you develop technologies that "expand the state of the art in computing." Ranveer Chandra: I come from a networking background.