On Tuesday, the White House released a chilling report on AI and the economy. It began by positing that "it is to be expected that machines will continue to reach and exceed human performance on more and more tasks," and it warned of massive job losses. Yet to counter this threat, the government makes a recommendation that may sound absurd: we have to increase investment in AI. The risk to productivity and the US's competitive advantage is too high to do anything but double down on it. This approach not only makes sense, but also is the only approach that makes sense.

Crime Prediction software analyzes existing patterns from police databases It uses the data to predict when and where an event is likely to occur next It's hoped this can alert patrol teams to which districts may need more attention It's hoped this can alert patrol teams to which districts may need more attention Nanotech'superbatteries' that can last longer and charge... Water discovery! Scientists find a new state of matter for... Travelling star heading towards Earth could cause a... Consumer Reports refuses to recommend Apple's new MacBook... Nanotech'superbatteries' that can last longer and charge... Water discovery! Scientists find a new state of matter for... Travelling star heading towards Earth could cause a... Consumer Reports refuses to recommend Apple's new MacBook... Minority Report-style crime prediction has edged closer to reality with a new AI software launched in Dubai. CCTV footage shows group of youths launch brutal assault on man Male guests in a Chinese wedding flock to harass a bridesmaid Guests throw chairs as huge fight breaks out during wedding Man's amazing backflip saves child from out of control car Santa delivers! Little girl asks Santa for her daddy to come home Fearless free solo climber passes rock climbers at speed Video shows Brooklyn lawyer who verbally attacked Ivanka on plane POTUS and FLOTUS give their last holiday message from the White House Girl walks around London with no jeans - can the public tell?

Microsoft Director of Strategic Investments, Limor Lahiani, speaks at Geektime's Techfest in November 2016. Microsoft's director of strategic engagements shows off company's work applying NLP to genetics and other issues impacting humanity Microsoft's director of strategic engagements shows off company's work applying NLP to genetics and other issues impacting humanity The hall of several hundred people listened attentively as the speaker explained in perfectly summarized, yet pointed detail how big data was turning over the biotech industry. She was showing off the way that one of her startups, Miroculus, had begun to use natural language processing (NLP) to match microRNA -- a fraction of DNA that prevents protein production, thus triggering certain genes. "In order to have these genes observable and expressed, there are processes," Limor Lahiani recently said on stage at Geektime's DevFest, describing the process of developing APIs to analyze the corpus of data, manage the extraction, and then classify the information. Lahiani is director of strategic engagements and manager of Microsoft's Partner Catalyst program, a partnership scheme with startups and promising developers to work on cutting edge tech projects.

Along with the advancements in pure machine learning research, we have done many steps ahead toward a greater comprehension of the brain mechanisms. Although much has still to be understood, we have nowadays a slightly better overview of the brain processes, and this might help to foster the development of an AGI. It seems clear that try to fully mimic the human brain is not a feasible approach, and is not even the correct one. However, drawing inspiration from how the brain works is a completely different story, and the study of neuroscience could both stimulate the creation of new algorithms and architectures, as well as validate the use of current machine learning research toward a formation of an AGI. More in detail, according to Numenta's researchers AI should be inspired to the human neocortex.

By Data Munging we mean the process of taking raw data, understanding it, cleaning it and preparing it for analysis or modelling. It is by no means the glamorous part of data science however if done well it plays a more important role in getting to powerful models and insights than what algorithm you use. So, you've been given a new dataset and are looking to model some behaviors in the data. It is really easy to jump straight in and start running regression or machine learning but this is a mistake. The first step is to really understand the data, starting from a univariate view and slowly building out.

Lots of people will have unwrapped drones for Christmas, and a fair few will probably end up crashing them. So how can drones be flown safely? BBC reporter and nervous technophobe Caroline Lowbridge explains how she reluctantly learned to fly one. When my manager first told me he thought it would be a good idea for me to learn to fly a drone, I was perturbed. If I seemed reluctant, I was.

This essay has described how blockchain technology can help AI, by drawing on my personal experiences in both AI and blockchain research.

Big Tech's AI Predictions for 2017 Lolita Taub The Huffington Post "For the final Cognitive Business post of the year, I asked artificial intelligence centric Fortune 500 leaders for their 2017 enterprise AI predictions. Microsoft, IBM, Baidu, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, GE, SAS, and Oracle responded. What they had to say is exciting..." Artificial Intelligence Is Going to Make It Easier Than Ever to Fake Images and Video James Vincent The Verge "Smile Vector is just the tip of the iceberg. It's hard to give a comprehensive overview of all the work being done on multimedia manipulation in AI right now, but here are a few examples: creating 3D face models from a single 2D image; changing the facial expressions of a target on video in real time using a human "puppet"; changing the light source and shadows in any picture... live-streaming the presidential debates but making Trump bald..." Artificial Feathers Let Drones Morph Their Wings Like Birds Evan Ackerman IEEE Spectrum "Thanks to overlapping feathers and a joint at the end of the wing, most birds can fold their primary flight feathers back, which significantly reduces the surface area of their wings... These folding wings can vary their surface area by 41 percent. When the wing is completely retracted, lift decreases by 32 percent, and drag decreases by 40 percent, boosting the top speed of the drone from 6.3 meters per second to 7.6 meters per second."

Enlarge / Semi-automated trucks are driven on the E19 highway in Vilvoorde, Belgium, on April 5, 2016 as part of the'EU Truck Platooning Challenge 2016.' This week, scientists and economic advisers to President Obama released a report on artificial intelligence, including the effects of automation on the US job market and economy. While the report notes the significant potential for wealth gains from increased productivity due to AI, it also warns of threats to existing jobs and an exacerbation of the wage inequality between lower-skilled, less-educated workers and those with higher skills. In recent decades, automation has already claimed occupations such as those of switchboard operators, filing clerks, travel agents, and assembly line workers, and it is now on the cusp of replacing driving-related occupations such as taxi and Uber drivers. Automation will probably move into the trucking industry within a decade (3.8 million US jobs are related to driving).

Artificial intelligence has become a new-age fear for Americans who fear an "I, Robot" society. However, AI can be used to accomplish tasks that would otherwise be nothing short of a miracle. "(AI) is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines and especially intelligent computer programs," said John McCarthy from Stanford University's Computer Science Department. AI emerged during WWII, with Allan Turing's "Bombe" machine, which significantly reduced the work of code breakers and ultimately cracked the "Enigma" code. Without Turing's machine, it is likely the German U-Boats would have continued their dominance in the Atlantic, which would have led to a drastic turn in the war with a successful blockade on Britain.