Ever since Ada Lovelace, a polymath often considered the first computer programmer, proposed in 1843 using holes punched into cards to solve mathematical equations on a never-built mechanical computer, software developers have been translating their solutions to problems into step-by-step instructions that computers can understand. Today, AI-powered software development tools are allowing people to build software solutions using the same language that they use when they talk to other people. These AI-powered tools translate natural language into the programming languages that computers understand. "That allows you, as a developer, to have an intent to accomplish something in your head that you can express in natural language and this technology translates it into code that achieves the intent you have," Scott said. "That's a fundamentally different way of thinking about development than we've had since the beginning of software."

Tom is also a co-inventor of an advanced 3D flight navigation algorithm for drones which is being utilised in new software applications for Aerologix. Tom guest lecturers at one of Australia's top universities – The University of New South Wales, teaching subject matter on Unmanned flight, he also holds a position on a government subcommittee dedicated to developing rules and regulations for unmanned aerial vehicles. Tom's passion for disruptive technology is infections, he is always looking for new challenges, especially drone tech and IoT. Tom has a very successful track record of establishing, executing and delivering large complex technical projects, Tom recently set up the largest drone network in Australia to monitor 1700 km of coastline to enhance swimmer safety. Tom enjoys complex problem solving and welcomes the challenge of empowering team members and creating new innovative ways to solve real-world problems. He has a high passion for life and enjoys a healthy lifestyle, and loves adventure sports such as kitesurfing, mountain biking when time permits.

In the course of the most recent wave of expectation and hype about "artificial intelligence" (AI) -- let's say the last 10 years -- there have been repeated attempts to define what it is. Serious documents such as from academics, governments, or professional bodies typically say that there is no agreed definition and then propose their own or fall back on a well-known one (for example the UK Government used the phrasing: "AI can be defined as the use of digital technology to create systems capable of performing tasks commonly thought to require intelligence"). Popular articles tend not to agonise about it, but use the term to imply something technically advanced or futuristic. But now that governments are crafting laws referring to AI (e.g. the EU's AI Act and the UK National Security and Investment Act 2021) it is beginning to matter a lot. The scope of a law should include neither too much nor too little; be clear which cases fall within it and which do not; be understandable by anyone using it; anyone should be able to easily determine whether a case falls under it, and it should not need continual updating. Consequently, the debate on the scope of the EU AI Act (ongoing at the time of writing) is crucial to the impact of the eventual regulation.

In 2020, a machine-learning algorithm helped researchers to develop a potent antibiotic that works against many pathogens (see Nature https://doi.org/ggm2p4; Artificial intelligence (AI) is also being used to aid vaccine development, drug design, materials discovery, space technology and ship design. Within a few years, numerous inventions could involve AI. This is creating one of the biggest threats patent systems have faced. Patent law is based on the assumption that inventors are human; it currently struggles to deal with an inventor that is a machine.

Clearview AI has been fined £7.5 million by the UK's privacy watchdog for scraping the online data of citizens without their explicit consent. The controversial facial recognition provider has scraped billions of images of people across the web for its system. Understandably, it caught the attention of regulators and rights groups from around the world. In November 2021, the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) imposed a potential fine of just over £17 million on Clearview AI. Today's announcement suggests Clearview AI got off relatively lightly.

What happens when robots not only learn to write well, but the tech becomes easily accessible and cheap? As Hal Crawford explains, it'll likely be teachers who feel the effects first. There are two schools of thought when it comes to artificial intelligence: there are the people who have heard of the GPT-3 language model, and then there are those who have heard about it, gone to the OpenAI site, created a guest login and tried it out for themselves. The first group contains people who are wondering what the big deal is. The second group does not. I haven't heard of anyone who's actually used GPT-3 and doesn't think AI is going to change the world profoundly. Education in particular is going to feel its influence immediately.

The threat of wildfires has never been greater than it is today. In recent years, countries around the world – from the US, Argentina and Brazil to Italy, Greece and Australia – have been gravely affected by wildfires. This has resulted in many human and animal deaths, as well as the loss of millions of hectares of forests. And wildfire risks continue to grow – a recent UN Environment Programme report warns that the number of wildfires will rise by 50% by 2100 and governments are not prepared.

The UK's data protection watchdog has confirmed a penalty for the controversial facial recognition company, Clearview AI -- announcing a fine of just over £7.5 million today for a string of breaches of local privacy laws. The watchdog has also issued an enforcement notice, ordering Clearview to stop obtaining and using the personal data of UK residents that is publicly available on the internet; and telling it to delete the information of UK residents from its systems. The US company has amassed a database of 20 billion facial images by scraping data off the public internet, such as from social media services, to create an online database that it uses to power an AI-based identity-matching service which it sells to entities such as law enforcement. The problem is Clearview has never asked individuals whether it can use their selfies for that. And in many countries it has been found in breach of privacy laws.

Clearview AI has been fined £7.55 million ($9.5 million) by the UK's privacy watchdog for illegally scraping the facial images of UK residents from social media and the web. It was also ordered to stop obtaining the data of UK residents and to delete any it has already collected. "The company not only enables identification of those people, but effectively monitors their behavior and offers it as a commercial service. That is unacceptable," said UK information commissioner John Edwards in a statement. The UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) opened a joint investigation with Australia into Clearview AI back in 2020, and issued a preliminary fine of £17 million ($21.4 million) against the company late last year.

A doctor can't tell if somebody is Black, Asian, or white, just by looking at their X-rays. The study found that an artificial intelligence program trained to read X-rays and CT scans could predict a person's race with 90 percent accuracy. But the scientists who conducted the study say they have no idea how the computer figures it out. "When my graduate students showed me some of the results that were in this paper, I actually thought it must be a mistake," said Marzyeh Ghassemi, an MIT assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and coauthor of the paper, which was published Wednesday in the medical journal The Lancet Digital Health. "I honestly thought my students were crazy when they told me."