Policymakers and technology experts said without a broad national strategy for driving artificial intelligence forward, the U.S. risks letting global competitors direct the growth of the budding industry. The Trump administration has taken a largely hands-off approach in regards to AI, arguing it's still too early for the government to get involved in the technology and any attempts at oversight could stifle its growth. But in a panel hosted Wednesday by Politico, experts were quick to point out the difference between burdening industry with regulations and addressing the issues at hand today. "Their notion that [artificial intelligence] isn't already upon us, or the view that it's not already affecting our lives in very profound ways … is in fact short-sighted. The toothpaste is already out of the tube," said Rep. John Delaney, D-Md., who founded the Congressional AI Caucus.

Most people find it a pain to receive parcels in wide time slots like, say, between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., so when delivery startup Paack offered a service in which everyone could narrow that window down to one hour, with no extra charge, it had a challenge on its hands. The startup's routing engine worked but needed to be more efficient. Enter Prowler.io, a Cambridge, U.K.-based machine-learning startup that bills itself as a decision-making platform for any company with complex problems to solve. Paack's investors at Balderton in London introduced it to Prowler in February 2018, and within months its delivery vans and trucks were being coordinated by an intelligent, digital simulation. With the beta test over, Paack's CEO, Fernando Benito, sees a potential benefit to his bottom line. Some of his startup's deliveries are now 15% more efficient, he tells Forbes.

From remediating blight to optimizing restaurant inspections and pest control, cities across the country are using analytics to help improve municipal policy and performance. The continued adoption of analytics in city governments shows no sign of slowing, and as even more sophisticated tools such as machine learning and artificial intelligence are deployed, there is a critical need for research on how these practices are reshaping urban policy. By examining and capturing lessons learned from city-level analytics projects, practitioners and theorists alike can better understand how data- and tech-enabled innovations are affecting municipal governance. This report seeks to contribute to that developing field. Members of the Civic Analytics Network, a peer group of leading urban chief data officers convened by the Harvard Ash Center, are using data-smart policymaking practices to develop, iterate, and replicate municipal analytics projects. The Civic Analytics Network was established as a community of practice in 2016 to support the growth and replication of analytics capacities in cities across the United States. Civic Analytics Network members represent many early leaders in urban analytics, and their cities' analytics projects, policies, and approaches are at the forefront of this space. To help other cities learn how to use analytics to better serve their communities, this report profiles a selection of Civic Analytics Network city initiatives in areas ranging from municipal public safety and public health to housing and transportation. A key component in creating, launching, and implementing an analytics project is adopting a systemic approach to project development. Whether a city has an established chief data officer position, an analytics team, or is a newcomer to public-sector data analytics altogether, there are various approaches and processes that can help initiate, scope, and implement a successful analytics project. While many urban analytics projects have been largely successful in fulfilling their initial objectives and supporting better governance, most underwent multiple iterations.

Flying robots that can travel dozens of kilometres without stopping could be the next big thing for power companies. Utilities in Europe are looking to long-distance drones to scour thousands of miles of grids for damage and leaks in an attempt to avoid network failures that cost them billions of dollars a year. However the technology faces major safety and regulatory hurdles that are clouding its future in the sector. Snam and EDF's network subsidiary RTE have tested prototypes of long-distance drones that fly at low altitudes over pipelines and power lines. Italy's Snam, Europe's biggest gas utility, told Reuters it is trialling one of these machines - known as BVLOS drones because they fly'beyond the visual line of sight' of operators - in the Apennine hills around Genoa. It hopes to have it scouting a 20 km stretch of pipeline soon.

Last September, the world welcomed Juggalos (or Juggalettes, depending on which you prefer) to The Resistance when they marched on Washington en masse to protest the policies of the Trump administration. As if they weren't already doing the absolute most, the die-hard fans of the rap group Insane Clown Posse have become accidental heroes for people concerned about facial recognition tech: According to Twitter user @tahkion, a computer science blogger for WonderHowTo, Juggalo makeup outmatches the machine learning algorithms that govern facial recognition technology. In a series of follow-up tweets, @tahkion explained that facial recognition works by pinpointing the areas of contrast on a human face--for instance, where a nose is located, or where the chin becomes the neck. As it happens, juggalo makeup often involves applying black paint below the mouth, but above the chin. That makes facial recognition vulnerable to misidentifying the placement of the jaw.

Amazon workers across Europe are leaving their jobs in the middle of Prime Day. The event – this year held from 16-17 July – has been promoted by Amazon and quickly become an important part of the company's year. The site offers a range of deals and sales, and the offers have made the event bigger than Black Friday. But this year workers across Europe will take part in a strike to demand better work conditions. Workers in Germany, Spain and Poland have all committed to leave their jobs over the period.

In a future where AI and automation are likely to lead to millions of displaced workers, it's essential that we don't leave coding to the robots, according to former Googler Megan Smith. As companies look to AI to cut costs and automate the most manual and time-consuming tasks, it's widely accepted that millions of jobs will be lost to the machines. Gartner believes that while AI will create 2.3 million jobs by 2020, it will make 1.8 million workers redundant as companies find the improved efficiency and cost-savings too tempting to ignore. And the Bank of England identified 15 million UK jobs at risk from automation over the next two decades, with chessmaster Garry Kasparov - who famously lost a match to an AI in 1997 - calling the job losses the cost of progress. Some believe such an impact on the economy should lead to governments giving people a universal basic income, which others have suggested amounts to putting people on welfare.

Over the past few weeks, news about various state governments here in the US using facial recognition technology has caused concerns. Not only is it an invasion of privacy but also something that people feel will result in more racially biased profiling. Imagine what it enables government bodies to do when citizens are tracked, in real-time, following their private choices, actions, and behaviors. Some in the New York Police Department want access to the Department of Motor Vehicles database of driver's license photos as it expands facial recognition technology to such matters as identifying missing persons. But privacy advocates are crying foul.

Amazon Prime Day 2018 is here, with the 36 hour extravaganza of online deals expected to be the biggest shopping event in the retail giant's history. But consumer group Which? has warned that not all of the offers for TVs, laptops, cameras and other electronics represent the value they claim to. On Monday 16 July, discounts on a range of goods will appear on Amazon's website, however some of the items may actually be cheaper outside the promotion period. Last year, Amazon Prime Day became the retailers biggest ever event, with more purchases than Black Friday and Cyber Monday. At its peak, Amazon customers reportedly ordered 398 items per second.

In September 2015 we gave a talk at the Rezzed sessions of the EGX 2015 event in the NEC in Birmingham, UK. In this talk, we aimed at establishing'what' AI research is, why people do it and what are the big issues we are tackling in this modern day.