Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov settled into the commander's chair in a secret bunker outside Moscow. His job that night was simple: Monitor the computers that were sifting through data from satellites and radar, watching the United States for any sign of a missile launch. It was just after midnight, Sept. 26, 1983. A single word flashed on the screen in front of him. The fear that computers, by mistake or malice, might lead humanity to the brink of nuclear annihilation has haunted imaginations since the earliest days of the Cold War.

Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov settled into the commander's chair in a secret bunker outside Moscow. His job that night was simple: Monitor the computers that were sifting through data from satellites and radar, watching the United States for any sign of a missile launch. It was just after midnight, Sept. 26, 1983. A single word flashed on the screen in front of him. The fear that computers, by mistake or malice, might lead humanity to the brink of nuclear annihilation has haunted imaginations since the earliest days of the Cold War.

A factory in China has mastered the art of mass-producing cockroaches, with fears this could lead to a new breed of'super-cockroach'. The facility rears six billion of the critters every year, using AI software to become ever more efficient. The roaches are used in traditional Chinese medicine to create a'healing potion' which is prescribed by doctors. There are fears over what would happen if the colony escaped, however, with one expert warning it would be a'catastrophe' for the 800,000 people living nearby. A factory in China has mastered the art of mass-producing cockroaches.

Singapore's Ngee Ann Polytechnic (NP) and London-based Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CFTE) will jointly launch an industry-led AI in Finance (AIF) online course on June 24, 2018. Through this course, both NP and CFTE hope to support and to nurture talent in Fintech and to boost Fintech development in their respective regions and around the world. The course is accredited by SkillsFuture Singapore and is in the process of obtaining accreditation with The Institute of Banking and Finance Singapore. It aims to update finance professionals and technologists on the AI revolution and create an online community of learners and experts in AI to connect and network for future collaborations. Over 20 finance and technology thought leaders and insiders will come together to share key fundamentals and real-life case studies on how AI is reshaping the finance industry worldwide.

Police in the Indian city of New Delhi have identified nearly 3,000 missing children within just four days of launching a trial of a new facial recognition system. Police began using the technology on 6 April after the High Court commissioned a test run of the software, the country's Ministry of Women and Child Development said in an affidavit. The facial recognition technology was used on around 45,000 children throughout the city, 2,930 of which were recognised as missing. Officers are now in the process of reuniting them with their families, local media reports. "India currently has almost 200,000 missing children and about 90,000 lodged in various child care institutions," a spokesperson for the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) campaign group told The Better India website.

TEL AVIV, Israel and NEW YORK and LANCASTER, Pa., April 24, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, Aspire Universal announced the establishment of the Aspire Ventures Precision Medicine Fund (AVP) to accelerate innovation for personalized devices and medical practices. Precision medicine is one of the most important transformations ever to come to medicine, and by shifting away from one-size-fits-all solutions, precision medicine offers personalized solutions that deliver better experiences and better outcomes at a lower cost. The AVP invests in devices and therapies that leverage AI and IoT to deliver affordable solutions at a massive scale that take into account each individual's DNA, microbiome, biochemistry, and lifestyle. The mission of the AVP is to transform and improve population health by leveraging AI and IoT to develop cutting-edge precision medicine technologies that could have a national, or even global, impact. The fund aims to achieve this goal by greatly accelerating the time-to-market for highly innovative and transformative personalized healthcare solutions – which are the foundation of precision medicine – while maximizing the potential market success rate of those solutions.

Most people are not very familiar with the concept of artificial intelligence (AI). As an illustration, when 1,500 senior business leaders in the United States in 2017 were asked about AI, only 17 percent said they were familiar with it.1 A number of them were not sure what it was or how it would affect their particular companies. They understood there was considerable potential for altering business processes, but were not clear how AI could be deployed within their own organizations. Despite its widespread lack of familiarity, AI is a technology that is transforming every walk of life. It is a wide-ranging tool that enables people to rethink how we integrate information, analyze data, and use the resulting insights to improve decisionmaking. Our hope through this comprehensive overview is to explain AI to an audience of policymakers, opinion leaders, and interested observers, and demonstrate how AI already is altering the world and raising important questions for society, the economy, and governance. In this paper, we discuss novel applications in finance, national security, health care, criminal justice, transportation, and smart cities, and address issues such as data access problems, algorithmic bias, AI ethics and transparency, and legal liability for AI decisions. We contrast the regulatory approaches of the U.S. and European Union, and close by making a number of recommendations for getting the most out of AI while still protecting important human values.2 Although there is no uniformly agreed upon definition, AI generally is thought to refer to "machines that respond to stimulation consistent with traditional responses from humans, given the human capacity for contemplation, judgment and intention."3 According to researchers Shubhendu and Vijay, these software systems "make decisions which normally require [a] human level of expertise" and help people anticipate problems or deal with issues as they come up.4 As such, they operate in an intentional, intelligent, and adaptive manner. Artificial intelligence algorithms are designed to make decisions, often using real-time data. They are unlike passive machines that are capable only of mechanical or predetermined responses. Using sensors, digital data, or remote inputs, they combine information from a variety of different sources, analyze the material instantly, and act on the insights derived from those data. With massive improvements in storage systems, processing speeds, and analytic techniques, they are capable of tremendous sophistication in analysis and decisionmaking.

Talking to a human financial adviser at your local bank may be a thing of the past. A bank in China has launched the world's first personless branch run entirely by technology. Customers are greeted by humanoids who answers inquiries via voice recognition. These banking humanoids are able to do most things a human assistant could, including opening accounts, transferring money and making investments. A bank in China claims to be the world's first person-less branch where customers are greeted by humanoids (pictured) who are able to manage everything State-owned Beijing-based China Construction Bank (CCB) says its unmanned Shanghai branch will make banking more convenient and efficient.

There is no denying that we are entering a new phase in how technology helps to connect brands with consumers. We are moving from visual interfaces to text and voice. Speaking to our devices like we speak to our friends, family and colleagues. As messenger apps secure the lion's share of our connected time, customers will increasingly expect and want to interact with brands in these channels. And Facebook, and Viber, and Kik, want to connect you with brands on their platform, like (most of) China does on WeChat which has 800 million users and millions of services available within the app.

NEW DELHI: In a concerted effort towards making India a leading nation in the field of artificial intelligence, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked Niti Aayog to familiarise all ministries with the high-end technology and explain how it can be leveraged to address the country's socio-economic problems. Central ministries will be required to set up dedicated artificial intelligence cells and eventually they will all be integrated to help scale up the performance of all social indicators. Following this directive from the PM, the government's think-tank is likely to periodically review the progress made on AI across ministries. The Aayog has already initiated pilot projects on adoption of AI across health, education and agriculture. By May end, it will formulate a national strategy/policy on AI, outlining the scope of research, adoption and commercialisation of the technology.