This is part 1 of a three-part series examining the effects of robots and automation on employment, based on new research from economist and Institute Professor Daron Acemoglu. In many parts of the U.S., robots have been replacing workers over the last few decades. Some technologists have forecast that automation will lead to a future without work, while other observers have been more skeptical about such scenarios. Now a study co-authored by an MIT professor puts firm numbers on the trend, finding a very real impact -- although one that falls well short of a robot takeover. The study also finds that in the U.S., the impact of robots varies widely by industry and region, and may play a notable role in exacerbating income inequality.

Is China pulling ahead of the US in AI? Not quite, argues Dieter Ernst of CIGI in a recent report entitled "Competing in artificial intelligence chips: China's challenge amid technology war." In addition to the hard engineering, Ernst reveals a social story of a global AI community on the verge of fracture. These new restrictions will likely bring the best out of some Chinese firms, while putting others out to pasture. All the while, basic research is likely to suffer worldwide as ties that bound the Chinese and western academic communities fray.

Since March, several celebrities, including Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, Idris Elba, sports figures and members of Congress have announced that they were infected with COVID-19. Hanks and Elba framed their Instagram posts with public health messages to urge others to self-quarantine and heed public health warnings about social isolation. Utah Jazz player Rudy Gobert included a dose of remorse for having challenged the severity of the risk when he contracted the virus after grabbing mics from the press pool, infecting several teammates. The point in repeating these stories is that in each case, a well-known person chose to reveal his or her health status. In recent years, many celebrities have taken this route, from Angelina Jolie with breast cancer treatment to Justin Bieber with Lyme disease.

The number of new papers on the COVID-19 pandemic is doubling every two weeks, and shows no sign of slowing. Many of these papers are published first on preprint servers, which means they are made public before having undergone peer review. This makes it all the harder to judge their merit. Now, one start-up company says that its platform -- called Scite.ai -- can automatically tell readers whether papers have been supported or contradicted by later academic work. Unlike conventional citation-metrics tools, Scite.ai

INFO 7375 - Special Topics in Artificial Intelligence Engineering and Applications - Computational Skepticism is looking for experts to speak online this summer on a variety of subjects. The Computational Skepticism class is starting today!!! I'd like to thank Kinesso, H2O.ai, Squark Ai, ArrowDx, and the Computational Radiology Laboratory at Harvard/BCH for expressing an interest in speaking with the class. These are all online talks and can be with just a small group of around 20, or we can invite the thousands of Masters students in MGENs Boston, Silicon Valley, and Seattle campuses. These subjects include data quality and completeness, bias and fairness, AutoML, model interpretability, causal inference, counterfactual models, deep learning pipeline (AutoDL), time-series pipeline (AutoTS), feature engineering pipeline (AutoFE), autoVisualization (AutoViz), reinforcement learning pipeline (AutoRL), evidence knowledge graphs (EKG) We are looking for more companies and research groups that may be willing to share data and present how they are using machine learning.

Artificial intelligence is still in its infancy. But it may well prove to be the most powerful technology ever invented. It has the potential to improve health, supercharge intellects, multiply productivity, save the environment and enhance both freedom and democracy. But as that intelligence continues to climb, the danger from using AI in an irresponsible way also brings the potential for AI to become a social and cultural H-bomb. It's a technology that can deprive us of our liberty, power autocracies and genocides, program our behavior, turn us into human machines and, ultimately, turn us into slaves.

The UK plans to tackle pollution with AI-powered traffic lights that delay the arrival of vehicles in toxic air hotspots. The system collects data on local pollution and traffic flows through roadside sensors, weather forecasts, and Bluetooth devices in cars. An algorithm then analyzes both live and historical data to predict where air pollution will spike within the next hour. When the system forecasts a sharp rise in toxic pollutants, the traffic light timings will automatically change. Drivers on their way to pollution hotspots will be held at red lights for up to 20 seconds longer than usual.

It's hard to believe just 5 years ago there was no Josh, no Micro and absolutely no privacy-focused voice control. It's been an incredible 5 years building a brand, amazing partnerships, state-of-the-art software, and award-winning hardware. We have so much to be thankful for, and we couldn't have done it without you! If you're in North America and are interested in getting Josh, or if you just want to learn more about Josh in general, feel free to reach out to us at hello@josh.ai. Below, we've compiled a few of our favorite stories published last year.

Apple has announced the date for its Worldwide Developers Conference, where it will announce new updates for the iPhone, Mac and more. The conference will begin on 22 June, Apple said. That will also be the date of its main keynote, where it shows off new software updates and products. The company will host the event virtually for the first ever time, with developers invited to watch from home. Usually, its WWDC event sees developers come to California from across the country, but that has been cancelled because of the coronavirus outbreak.

A hacker who bribed a worker for the online video game Roblox managed to gain access to the personal information of over 100 million active users, the ability to change passwords and email addresses, and allocate in-game currency. The hacker first paid an employee to look up data about users, and then targeted a customer support representative. They said they did it to "prove a point" to the company. Speaking to Motherboard under the condition of anonymity, the hacker could also change security settings, enact bans, and steal items from other users. Roblox is a free-to-play game that "lets you play, create, and be anything you can imagine," according to its description on the Microsoft Store.