AI for Earth, a program that offers access to Microsoft's artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and cloud resources to researchers and organizations that are addressing environmental challenges, is now turning its attention to the world's oceans. When AI for Earth was first announced in July, its focus was on agriculture, biodiversity, climate change and water scarcity. Now a different sort of water management, that of the oceans, is in the company's crosshairs. The new AI for Earth European Union Oceans Award provides cloud computing resources to researchers focused on oceans and problems affecting them, which may include pollution, rising sea levels and increasing ocean acidity. "Covering nearly 70 percent of the Earth's surface, oceans play an outsized role in the health of our planet," said Lucas Joppa, chief environmental scientist at Microsoft, in an Oct. 6 announcement. "They generate much of the oxygen we breathe, provide food and livelihoods for billions of people around the world, and support a vast and incredible array of species, many of which have not yet been discovered or described."

Algorithmic decision making process now affects many aspects of our lives. Standard tools for machine learning, such as classification and regression, are subject to the bias in data, and thus direct application of such off-the-shelf tools could lead to a specific group being unfairly discriminated. Removing sensitive attributes of data does not solve this problem because a \textit{disparate impact} can arise when non-sensitive attributes and sensitive attributes are correlated. Here, we study a fair machine learning algorithm that avoids such a disparate impact when making a decision. Inspired by the two-stage least squares method that is widely used in the field of economics, we propose a two-stage algorithm that removes bias in the training data. The proposed algorithm is conceptually simple. Unlike most of existing fair algorithms that are designed for classification tasks, the proposed method is able to (i) deal with regression tasks, (ii) combine explanatory attributes to remove reverse discrimination, and (iii) deal with numerical sensitive attributes. The performance and fairness of the proposed algorithm are evaluated in simulations with synthetic and real-world datasets.

We are moving rapidly towards a world where robots and artificial intelligence (AI) systems are connected to and influenced by social media, the Internet of Things (IoT) and big data. Technological developments are moving fast, and AI has many governments concerned. Given the pace of technological advancement, how do rule-makers set legislation for AI while allowing the safe evolution of technology? Who thinks about and enforces these guidelines, and what work is being done, or should be done, with governments to craft AI policy? Moves by the European Parliament to consider granting some form of legal status to AI have revived questions of liability and responsibility.

Ahead of China's own autonomous train reveal, mining corporation Rio Tinto have given the world its first fully-autonomous train, and it's currently in operation in Western Australia. Mining corporation Rio Tinto, which also developed the train, announced earlier this week the train had successfully completed its first unmanned mission, traveling nearly 100 kilometers (62 miles) without a person on board. "Rio Tinto is proud to be a leader in innovation and autonomous technology in the global mining industry which is delivering long-term competitive advantages as we build the mines of the future," said Rio Tinto Iron Ore Chief Executive Chris Salisbury, in a statement. "New roles are being created to manage our future operations and we are preparing our current workforce for new ways of working to ensure they remain part of our industry." The mission, located at Rio Tinto's iron ore operations in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, is the first big step in the company's plans to have a fully autonomous train network.

The largest single-dish radio telescope in the world has already begun to spot remarkable objects in the Milky Way, just a year into its career. China's Five hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) has detected two rapidly rotating stars, known as pulsars, according to the National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC). These objects can act like'cosmic clocks' when they spin at a steady rate, and can even shed light on phenomena such as gravitational waves. China's Five hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) has detected two rapidly rotating stars, known as pulsars, according to the National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC). An artist's impression is pictured Pulsars are rotating, highly magnetised neutron stars.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of Mint's win at the first ever TechCrunch Startup Battlefield competition (back then – lost in the mists of time – it was known as TechCrunch 40). But what is less known about founder Aaron Patzer is that he's one of the pioneers of AI. Now based in the Southern Hemisphere, he's coming to speak at Techcrunch Battlefield Australia. In January this year, he started Vital Software, with Dr. Justin Schrager of Emory University, which makes software for hospital emergency rooms. When you include the fact that it's a mobile patient check-in for patients, and automatically creates electronic medical records designed for doctors and nurses, with the aim being to cut ER wait times in half, you start to understand the AI heritage it's come from. Patzer will join us as a speaker at TechCrunch Battlefield Australia in partnership with ELEVACAO, on November 16th at Australian Technology Park in Sydney.

Pornhub has made yet another move to harness emerging technology for the adult entertainment experience, this time revealing it is launching a new AI that will make it easier than ever to search for your favorite porn star. The new service uses computer vision to scan videos and pinpoint the distinct faces, with the ability to differentiate between over 10,000 pornstars from the company's database. Eventually, the firm reveals, the AI will also be able to scan for categories, sexual positions, and tag detection in their videos. Pornhub found that 71% of its female users visit the portal using a smartphone and are 34% less likely to use desktop computers than men. In Washington D.C, 94 percent of the female traffic comes from mobile, Texas has 93% and Georgia and Michigan are tied with 92%.

Machine learning is fast becoming a reality for forward-thinking organizations. But for most businesses, the best way to take advantage of the capabilities of machine learning technologies remains something of a mystery. Still, the drumbeat to experiment keeps getting louder. And the truth is, your competitors may already be laying the groundwork. IDC forecasts revenues for AI systems worldwide will almost double to $12.5 billion this year, and keep growing at a similar rate until they hit $46 billion in 2020.

A push to have robots mark English tasks in NAPLAN testing has come under attack, with a prominent US academic calling for a halt to the plans, claiming there are major flaws. From next year, NAPLAN persuasive writing tasks will be marked by an automated essay scoring system. They will be double-marked by a teacher. It is part of a plan to introduce fully automated marking and testing by 2020. The proposal has outraged teachers' unions, who argue it is impossible for a robot to score the subjective aspects of writing.

It was supposed to be an easy $1,000 job. All 25-year-old Jorge Edwin Rivera had to do was pilot a drone, carrying a lunchbox filled with 13 pounds of methamphetamine, from one side of the US-Mexico border to the other where an accomplice could retrieve the smuggled cargo. What he didn't count on was Border Patrol agents spotting the UAV in flight and tracking it back to his hiding spot, 2,000 yards from the national divide. This isn't the first time that smugglers have used commercially-available drones to carry contraband. In 2015, the Border Patrol caught a two people dropping off 28 pounds of heroin in Calexico, California, and, in the same year, caught another drug ring delivering 30 pounds of cannabis to San Luis, Arizona.