Spotify is hosting podcasts by Alex Jones's controversial Infowars podcast. A vast number of the company's customers are threatening to cancel their subscriptions over the streaming service's decision to keep the podcasts up. Jones has attracted criticism over a wide variety of false claims and personal attacks, including suggestions that the Sandy Hook massacre and other mass shootings were hoaxes. Those conspiracy theories and rumours are often shared on his Infowars shows, including on the podcast. 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.

Elon Musk is kinda worried about AI. ("AI is a fundamental existential risk for human civilization and I don't think people fully appreciate that," as he put it in 2017.) So he helped found a research nonprofit, OpenAI, to help cut a path to "safe" artificial general intelligence, as opposed to machines that pop our civilization like a pimple. Yes, Musk's very public fears may distract from other more real problems in AI. But OpenAI just took a big step toward robots that better integrate into our world by not, well, breaking everything they pick up. OpenAI researchers have built a system in which a simulated robotic hand learns to manipulate a block through trial and error, then seamlessly transfers that knowledge to a robotic hand in the real world.

These days we talk so much about artificial intelligence and its creators that it's easy to overlook the increasingly prolific role AI itself is playing in product creation and design. Across different industries, the technical and the creative are being drawn closely together to create a range of products that may otherwise never have been conceived. Take, for example, the new aerodynamic bicycle presented this month at the International Conference on Machine Learning, which was designed using Neural Concept software. By employing AI in the design phase, a small team from French college IUT Annecy were able to completely bypass the usual methods of testing for aerodynamism – a process that usually requires a great deal of time and computing power. Instead of engineers having to conceive and then simulator-test several different iterations of bicycle design, the technology simply took specifications for length and width, and then rapidly swept through an array of different shapes to determine which was most optimal.

Solvvy's innovative AI-powered conversational platform enables effortless support interactions between businesses and customers Solvvy, a conversational platform powered by AI, announced today that Aragon Research, Inc. has named the company a 2018 Hot Vendor in Conversational AI1. Solvvy was selected based on its advanced AI and NLP technology and the measurable impact of cost savings and quality of service it delivers to its fast-growing customer base that includes leading brands such as Under Armour, SoundCloud, Weebly, and Atlassian. "Solvvy's advanced self-service capabilities and conversational platform can be put into production with minimal effort and immediately begin solving customer issues," said Jim Lundy, CEO and Lead Analyst at Aragon Research, Inc. "They provide fast time-to-value while improving the overall customer experience." According to the report, "Self-service is becoming accepted and pervasive across industries and roles: From supermarkets and big-box stores to online shopping, people are becoming accustomed to less interaction with human help. They are discovering that they can check out faster, find better answers, or explore new ideas more easily and less expensively if they control the processes themselves."

A new artificial intelligence platform has demonstrated its ability to provide health advice that is as good as a human doctor's, according to research published on the preprint server arXiv.org. The technology, which has been developed by British company Babylon Health, takes the form of a mobile phone app, or website, that patients interact with via a chat service. The AI system has been put through rigorous testing that took place in collaboration with the U.K.'s Royal College of Physicians, as well as researchers from Stanford University and the Yale New Haven Health System. Part of this testing involved the AI taking a medical diagnosis exam that trainee primary care physicians in the U.K. must pass to be able to practice independently. Remarkably, the AI doctor scored 81 percent on its first attempt.

ARM Holdings is preparing a $600mn takeover bid for data analytics specialist Treasure Data, reports Bloomberg. SoftBank-owned ARM, which is based in the United Kingdom and is an industry-leader in semiconductor and software design, is eyeing the acquisition to expand its footprint in the Internet of Things (IoT). IoT is at the forefront of ARM's long-term strategy - in June, it completed the acquisition of leading technology connectivity management provider Stream Technologies and by 2035 it hopes to operate a trillion connected devices around the world. ARM was sold to SoftBank in 2016 for a reported $32bn, a purchase funded by SoftBank's Vision Fund which delivers investment for startups in advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, driverless cars, robotics and ride sharing, as well as IoT. Treasure Data operates cloud services tailored to Big Data collection, storage and analysis and already works with a number of major IoT companies.

A huge confidence gap exists between the number of companies that try digital manufacturing strategies and those that successfully apply them, a new McKinsey & Co. survey found. In the 2018 Manufacturing Global Expert Survey, 92 percent of respondents think they lead or are on par with competitors in Industry 4.0 manufacturing strategies. The survey consisted of 700 companies in seven nations. Each had at least 50 employees and $10 million in annual revenue. It found that two-thirds rank digitizing the production value chain as a top priority.

The work is seen as essential to test and prove vehicle safety. The Government is also calling for views from industry and others ahead of a fuller policy proposal about the potential opportunities, obstacles and dangers entailed in likely transport developments, to help Britain get ahead of the competition. The initial aim is to explore regulatory barriers to technological and service innovation, and how data can be better used to improve transport, as well as the potential disadvantages of some technologies. The possibilities the Government envisages include not only increased use of drones which cities are already pioneering to help emergency services, but the possible introduction of aerial passenger vehicles.

You will learn how to use Python to analyze data (big data analytics), create beautiful visualizations (data visualization) and use powerful machine learning algorithms. You will specifically get to learn how to use NumPy, Seaborn, Matplotlib, Pandas, Scikit-Learn, Machine Learning, Plotly, Tensorflow and more.

Hundreds of companies and thousands of individuals, many of them researchers and engineers prominent in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence, vowed on Wednesday never to apply their skills toward the creation of autonomous killing machines. Led by the Future of Life Institute, a Boston-based nonprofit, as many as 160 AI-related companies in 36 countries, and 2,400 individuals in 90 countries, signed the pledge stating that autonomous weapons posed a "clear and present danger to the citizens of every country in the world," and that they would not participate in their development. "Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to play an increasing role in military systems," the pledge states. "There is an urgent opportunity and necessity for citizens, policymakers, and leaders to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable uses of AI." The signatories, who join 26 United Nations countries that have explicitly called for a ban on lethal autonomous weapons, include DeepMind, Google's top AI research team; the European Association for AI; ClearPath Robotics/OTTO Motors; the XPRIZE Foundation, the Swedish AI Society; and University College of London, among others. Leading AI researchers Demis Hassabis, Stuart Russell, Yoshua Bengio, Anca Dragan, Toby Walsh, and Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk are among the individuals who also signed the pledge.