Topic models are widely used for thematic structure discovery in text. But traditional topic models often require dedicated inference procedures for specific tasks at hand. Also, they are not designed to generate word-level semantic representations. To address these limitations, we propose a topic modeling approach based on Generative Adversarial Nets (GANs), called Adversarial-neural Topic Model (ATM). The proposed ATM models topics with Dirichlet prior and employs a generator network to capture the semantic patterns among latent topics. Meanwhile, the generator could also produce word-level semantic representations. To illustrate the feasibility of porting ATM to tasks other than topic modeling, we apply ATM for open domain event extraction. Our experimental results on the two public corpora show that ATM generates more coherence topics, outperforming a number of competitive baselines. Moreover, ATM is able to extract meaningful events from news articles.

Recently, many AI researchers and practitioners have embarked on research visions that involve doing AI for "Good". This is part of a general drive towards infusing AI research and practice with ethical thinking. One frequent theme in current ethical guidelines is the requirement that AI be good for all, or: contribute to the Common Good. But what is the Common Good, and is it enough to want to be good? Via four lead questions, I will illustrate challenges and pitfalls when determining, from an AI point of view, what the Common Good is and how it can be enhanced by AI. The questions are: What is the problem / What is a problem?, Who defines the problem?, What is the role of knowledge?, and What are important side effects and dynamics? The illustration will use an example from the domain of "AI for Social Good", more specifically "Data Science for Social Good". Even if the importance of these questions may be known at an abstract level, they do not get asked sufficiently in practice, as shown by an exploratory study of 99 contributions to recent conferences in the field. Turning these challenges and pitfalls into a positive recommendation, as a conclusion I will draw on another characteristic of computer-science thinking and practice to make these impediments visible and attenuate them: "attacks" as a method for improving design. This results in the proposal of ethics pen-testing as a method for helping AI designs to better contribute to the Common Good.

There's a new partnership in the autonomous vehicle game as Ford has announced it will be teaming up with Chinese internet company Baidu to work on autonomous vehicles, with testing set to begin in Beijing by the end of the year. The initiative hopes to achieve SAE L4 (a classification that measures level of human involvement) autonomous standards, meaning that vehicles can run autonomously within specific areas and under the correct weather conditions, within the next two years. And on the roads of Beijing, Ford will be joined by Mercedes-Benz, which too got approval to test cars in the capital city earlier this summer. Because of the immense cost of creating this new technology, many companies have partnered up to split costs. These partnerships include GM and Honda with Cruise; Toyota, Aisin Seiki and Denso and Volkswagen and Mobileye.

If you don't know Eli Fathi, you will soon. He's the dynamic co-founder and CEO of MindBridge Analytics, an AI-powered auditing platform for accounting firms and auditors that is changing the way we ingest, process and analyze financial data. Eli is also a successful serial entrepreneur and an AI thought-leader in Canada. We recently sat down with him to get his thoughts on what Canadian finance leaders need to be thinking about when it comes to AI. The reality is, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is quickly becoming deeply ingrained in the fabric of society.

The following MBW blog comes from Taishi Fukuyama – who has written, arranged and produced some of Japan and Korea's biggest pop stars including Juju, BoA, Tohoshinki and more. He has also represented leaders in music tech for the Japanese market, including Spotify, The Echo Nest, and CI (Consolidated Independent). Taishi (pictured) also co-founded Qrates, a groundbreaking vinyl-on-demand service. He is currently the co-founder and COO of music-making startup, Amadeus Code – whose core product is an'artificial intelligence-powered songwriting assistant'. Would you buy an idea from a machine?

Twitter's longer tweets have made people more polite and conversational – despite the fact that users are not actually likely to take up the full 280 characters. That's according to new analysis from the site, published on the one-year anniversary of the decision to get rid of the iconic 140 character limit and allow people to post twice as long. Twitter said since then there has been a significant improvement in the politeness and manners of people on the site. With the extra space, there have been 54 per cent more pleases and 22 per cent more thank yous, Twitter said. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph.

This method of concurrent 3D-printing, known as swarm printing, paves the way for a team of mobile robots to print even bigger structures in future. Developed by Assistant Professor Pham Quang Cuong and his team at NTU's Singapore Centre for 3D Printing, this new multi-robot technology was published in Automation in Construction, a top tier journal for civil engineering. The NTU scientist was also behind the Ikea Bot earlier this year where two robots assembled an Ikea chair in 8 min 55s. Using a specially formulated cement mix suitable for 3-D printing, this new development will allow for unique concrete designs currently not possible with conventional casting. Structures can also be produced on demand and in a much shorter period.

Cohda Wireless has demonstrated the ability of its driverless car technology to see around corners and locate other vehicles in an'urban canyon' as part of a world-first trial in South Australia. The trial, conducted in a two-block section in the centre of the Adelaide CBD, revealed how smart connected vehicles can detect and respond to risky situations more effectively than a human in a scenario thought to be commonplace in built-up city areas. During the trial, two vehicles approached a four-way intersection at right angles to each other. Tall buildings on each corner of the intersection obstructed the view of the other approaching car. Car 2, driven by a human, fails to adhere to the red-light signal and approaches the intersection at speed, intending to'run' the red light.

AI has broken out of the lab. It's changing how we get to work and how doctors diagnose disease. And now it promises to help prevent illnesses and speed up relief efforts after natural disasters. Kicking off the Washington edition of our GPU Technology Conference Tuesday -- our fourth such show in just over a month -- NVIDIA Vice President for Accelerated Computing Ian Buck announced a partnership between NVIDIA and Carnegie Mellon University to create AI technologies that can help during disasters. "We're now in the age of AI, where every industry will be enabled and powered by AI," Buck told an audience of more than 2,000 developers, entrepreneurs and federal employees at the start of the two-day GTC DC event.