In September 2016, Stanford's "One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence" project (AI100) issued the first report of its planned long-term periodic assessment of artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact on society. The report, entitled "Artificial Intelligence and Life in 2030," examines eight domains of typical urban settings on which AI is likely to have impact over the coming years: transportation, home and service robots, healthcare, education, public safety and security, low-resource communities, employment and workplace, and entertainment. It aims to provide the general public with a scientifically and technologically accurate portrayal of the current state of AI and its potential and to help guide decisions in industry and governments, as well as to inform research and development in the field. This article by the chair of the 2016 Study Panel and the inaugural chair of the AI100 Standing Committee describes the origins of this ambitious longitudinal study, discusses the framing of the inaugural report, and presents the report's main findings. It concludes with a brief description of the AI100 project's ongoing efforts and planned next steps.

AI companies have a social responsibility to consumers to be open about what exactly they are doing with this technology - and how. Phrasee is proud to be one of the first companies in the world working in AI for marketing to do so. We're taking the lead and codifying what we believe to be an ethical way to run an AI business, and have drawn up an ethics policy that is practical, specific and explicit. It is surprising AI ethics policies aren't more commonplace and that we appear to be one of the few companies not only promoting what we believe in, but also putting our head above the parapet about it. If the wider marketing community is to realise the commercial benefits of AI, we also need to put the fundamentals in place and collectively drive an ethical marketing agenda. This starts with committing to paper what we will and won't do for the greater good.

Google Assistant wants to tell you some good news. A new skill aims to give users a reprieve from the oft-depressing daily news cycle by making it easier for them to find more uplifting headlines. Now, users can ask Google Assistant to'Tell me something good,' and it will trigger a'daily dose of good news,' according to the search giant. Google says the skill is launching as an'experimental feature' that's now available on any devices that are equipped with Assistant, such as phones, smart displays and the Google Home, the firm's voice-activated smart speaker. Assistant will serve up stories that are primarily focused around people who are doing things to help their communities and the world, Google explained.

Facebook artificial intelligence (AI) is working alongside radiologists to create MRI scans that last as little as five minutes, new research suggests. Current MRI scans require patients, who are often in pain, sit perfectly still for up to an hour-and-a-half while a scan is completed. This is due to such scans taking a series of 2D images of a person's insides, which are combined to create a 3D picture. Known as the FastMRI project, the new technique involves taking just a few 2D images, before AI that has been trained on millions of other scans'fills in the gaps'. Early results show the technique may be feasible, however, such projects take time.

Donald Trump has a lot more to worry about than just Robert Mueller. That much has been clear since April, when details began to emerge from public court filings regarding the FBI raid on Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a number of criminal charges, including some stemming from his work for Trump. Instead, it was carried out by FBI agents acting in coordination with Robert S. Khuzami, a deputy U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. Mueller had referred the Cohen case to Khuzami's office, but that was as far as his involvement apparently went. As I wrote at the time, the distribution of the investigation to a second office served to "potentially inoculate [it] from Trump's attacks against Mueller and potential meddling in the broader Russia investigation." Samuel W. Buell, the former lead Enron prosecutor, told me that would make it much more difficult to kill the investigation with a Saturday Night Massacre–style firing spree.

When engineers or designers want to test the aerodynamic properties of the newly designed shape of a car, airplane, or other object, they would normally model the flow of air around the object by having a computer solve a complex set of equations–a procedure that usually takes hours or even an entire day. Nobuyuki Umetani from Autodesk research (now at the University of Tokyo) and Bernd Bickel from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria) have now significantly sped up this process, making streamlines and parameters available in real-time. Their method, which is the first to use machine learning to model flow around continuously editable 3D objects, will be presented at this year's prestigious SIGGRAPH conference in Vancouver, where IST Austria researchers are involved in a total of five presentations. Machine learning can make extremely time-consuming methods a lot faster. Before, the computation of the aerodynamic properties of cars usually took a day.

It's an idea that excites and inspires many, as much as it concerns others. In the age of Industry 4.0, it gives us the opportunity to do things better, and smarter – we just need to see the potential behind the curtain. Richard Chamberlain from Bosch Rexroth explains that up to now, we've been asking the wrong question: will machines become more intelligent than us? We should be asking: how will intelligent machines help us become more intelligent? With transparency in mind, let's go right back to the start. What exactly is machine learning?

Halo's armored hero, Master Chief, has fought the Covenant on a raft of planets throughout the galaxy. One place the super-soldier hasn't visited, though, is a village called Bamburgh on the northeast coast of England. At Gamescom 2018, I was shown a special Halo event that will appear in Forza Horizon 4 later this year. The course, presented as a virtual "training exercise," lets you drive the rugged Warthog through dense forests and sandy beaches. It looked like terrific fun and will, if nothing else, be a nice distraction while fans wait for Halo Infinite.

British businesses are looking forward to a future driven by artificial intelligence (AI), which many believe could be the keystone technology of the next industrial revolution. However, many workers worry that their employers may not be ready to seize the opportunity. Almost half of IT decision makers (45pc) believe that AI will drive the biggest innovations of the next three years, according to a survey conducted by YouGov on behalf of Brother UK and The Telegraph. Melissa Di Donato, chief revenue officer at SAP Cloud ERP, says this should come as no surprise: "Once in a generation a disruptive technology arrives and changes everything. For this generation, it is artificial intelligence. "The real risk UK businesses face is not embracing AI and the productivity benefits it can provide." Respondents believed that AI was more important than other "buzz" technologies such as the internet of things (24pc), and virtual reality or VR and augmented reality or AR (16pc). In part, that could be because the direct links to increased efficiency and productivity are clearer, whereas VR and AR usage remains contingent on the devices needed to experience them. Artificial intelligence will enable British businesses to save trillions, according to Kriti Sharma, VP of bots and artificial intelligence at Sage. "Businesses in the UK spend on average 120 days a year on administration," she says. "This has a huge impact on productivity.

With the latest release of DaVinci Resolve 15, Blackmagic Design has radically made over its editing suite to create one of the best video-editing systems at any price -- even against mainstream options like Premiere Pro CC and Apple's Final Cut Pro X. It now comes with Fusion, a powerful visual effects (VFX) app used in Hollywood films, along with an excellent color corrector and audio editor. Despite doing more than most editors will ever need, the full studio release costs just $300, and you can get a stripped-down version with most features for a grand total of zero dollars. I use Adobe's Premiere Pro CC as part of its Creative Cloud suite, which costs more than $50 a month, so Resolve 15 is certainly a cheaper option. After trying it out for a week, would I be willing to switch?