Algorithms that help councils detect potholes, AI tools that help doctors know when patients are stable enough to return home, AI that scans and finds melanomas . . . But there are other aspects to this tech, like the use of live facial recognition in our cities or automated decisions about benefit entitlement. Artificial intelligence is starting to prove game-changing for some applications. It's reasonable to think that efficiency and effectiveness of our public services can be radically improved through its use. But it is clear that the public will need more reassurance about the way in which AI will be used by government, especially since, in the public sector, citizens will often have no choice but to be subject to an algorithm's decision-making power.

The Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) Predictive Maintenance mission initiative (PMx) is partnering with the military services to help improve the availability of military aircraft, specifically the UH/HH-60 "Black Hawk" helicopter, using artificial intelligence (AI) to minimize downtime due to unscheduled maintenance. The goal of the initiative is to develop AI-enabled solutions that increase operational readiness, create more efficient maintenance practices, and minimize costs. Together with the help of maintenance stakeholders across the Department of Defense (DoD), the PMx team is examining AI-driven diagnostics, training opportunities, process improvements, demand forecasting, and supply chain optimization solutions that can help the department accelerate AI-enabled predictive maintenance at-scale. As the Deputy Director for the JAIC's PMx mission initiative, Major Robinson plans, coordinates, and synchronizes projects and the development of predictive maintenance AI models. As part of this work, the JAIC is currently engaged in partnerships with the U.S. Army Aviation and Missle Command (AMCOM), U.S. Special Operations Command – 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), the Army H-60 Utility Program Offices, the Army AI Task Force, the Army Future Vertical Lift Cross-Functional Team, and aircraft maintenance offices from the U.S. Air Force.

Jeff Klaus, General Manager of Intel Data Center Management Solutions, explores how Intel Memory Failure Prediction (Intel MFP) uses machine learning to improve the performance and reliability of server memory to predict potential failures and prevent downtime. China is the largest e-commerce market in the world, projected to reach $1.1 trillion in 2023, up from $572 billion in 2017, according to Statista. The combined forces of the country's robust economic growth, a rapidly emerging middle class, a large population of computer literate consumers, and the proliferation of smartphones are among the major factors driving the sale of physical goods and services via digital channels. Headquartered in Beijing, Meituan-Dianping (Meituan) offers an online delivery and social commerce platform whose apps connect consumers with local businesses for food delivery, groceries, restaurant recommendations, hotel bookings, movie tickets, bike sharing, and health and fitness products and services. Named to Fast Company's top-50 list of the world's most innovative companies based in China last year, Meituan is keenly focused on developing new ways to make its delivery platform more cost-effective and efficient.

Network capacity planning aims to ensure that sufficient bandwidth is provisioned, allowing network SLA targets, such as delay, jitter, loss, and availability, to be reliably met. Until recently, the network data necessary for insightful capacity planning was generally only available via static, historical, after-the-fact reports. This situation is now rapidly changing. "By pairing advanced data science and cognitive technology such as AI and machine learning, IT can drive new and smarter predictive insights to improve network capacity-planning accuracy," says Ashish Verma, a Deloitte Consulting managing director specializing in cognitive analytics. "This helps organizations unleash data to make more agile decisions, improve operational wisdom, avoid downtime and create a better user experience."

No matter how you measure it, inequality has been on the rise since the 1970s. According to Inequality.org, the richest 1% now own 45% of the world's wealth, while the Guardian reported that chief executives at FTSE 100 companies in 2017 earned 145 times more than an average worker, up from 47 times in 1998. This concentration of wealth at the top has emerged as a potential source of conflict in modern society. With new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and the internet of things (IoT) creating opportunities for growth, businesses are increasingly expected to contribute positively to the communities that surround them rather than just chasing profits and maximising returns for shareholders. In this era, businesses need to have a clear purpose and act as responsible corporate citizens.

Artificial intelligence can increasingly be used to support human tasks but will not replace people completely, aerospace giants Boeing and Thales said Monday on the sidelines of the Singapore Airshow. Both companies, which are among a growing number of aerospace manufacturers integrating AI into operations, emphasized that the emerging technology was not about take away jobs from people in their industry for the forseeable future. "This technology is going to be primarily about improving productivity of the workforce in aviation or any industry, rather than replace or displace," said Naveen Hussain, general manager of research and technology at Boeing, who was on the panel. The U.S. plane maker is rolling out AI to automate processes on the factory floor, Hussain said. According to Boeing's website, its technologists are applying AI to machines used in the assembly process for fuselage sections of its 787 aircraft, which has helped speed up the manufacturing line.

CEC European Manager's Swedish member organisation, Ledarna, has recently published its landmark report on Artificial Intelligence. Based on the responses of 5,446 managers in Sweden, the study shows how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is used within their organisations and what role AI may play in the future. The results show that human skills, competent management and a purposeful use of AI are the success factors to reap the benefits of this hyped technology. Managers in general recognise that AI may lead to productivity gains and streamlining processes. It also reduced workloads and opportunities for business expansion.

A new government report says there are notable deficiencies in the UK's regulatory and governance framework for artificial intelligence in the public sector. Published by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, it says there is no need for a specialised AI regulator, but that regulators must adapt to the challenges that AI poses to their sectors, and there is an urgent need for guidance and regulation on the issues of transparency and data bias. Titled Artificial Intelligence and Public Standards, the report says that AI offers the possibility of improved public standards in some areas, but that an existing lack of information about its use by the public sector risks undermining transparency. There are three risks to accountability: AI may obscure the chain of organisational accountability; undermine the attribution of responsibility for key decisions made by public officials; and inhibit public officials from providing meaningful explanations for decisions reached by AI. There are also worries around data bias risks that could undermine objectivity.

When Dan Lopresti and his colleagues talk about the future of artificial intelligence (AI) during their upcoming panel at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), be prepared to imagine a better world. In this world, the full potential of AI is unleashed to benefit society: health care is personalized and accessible through a friendly robot companion; education is customized to offer individualized plans for retraining and skills-building; and, businesses, large and small, operate with previously unheard-of efficiency and provide a level of customer service that can only be dreamed of today. "The question is what are we going to see over the next ten or twenty years break loose as a result of the research, which is assuming the research gets done because of investments made," says Lopresti, a professor of computer science and engineering at Lehigh University. Lopresti is also the incoming Vice Chair of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Council which, along with the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), spearheaded the creation of "A Twenty-Year Community Roadmap for Artificial Intelligence Research in the U.S." Lopresti will participate in a panel with the authors of the Roadmap and leaders of the initiative that led to it, Yolanda Gil (University of Southern California and President of AAAI) and Bart Selman (Cornell University and President-Elect of AAAI), on Saturday, February 15th at the AAAS annual meeting in Seattle. The Roadmap lays out a case for the best use of resources to fulfill the promise of AI to benefit society.