Ever since Homo erectus, or upright man, a type of early human, carved a piece of stone into a tool, the welfare of our species has been on the increase. Indeed, this technological breakthrough led first to the hand ax, and eventually to the iPhone. We have found it convenient to organize the most dramatic periods of change between these inventions into four industrial revolutions. As each revolution unfolded, dire predictions of massive job losses ensued. Looking back at the first three, we can see how the concerns were misplaced. The number of jobs increased each time, as did living standards.

Deepfake videos can be fun, but not when it comes to politcs and pornography. Now, the state of California is doing something about it with two new bills signed into law last week by Governor Gavin Newsom. The first makes it illegal to post any manipulated videos that could, for instance, replace a candidate's face or speech in order to discredit them, within 60 days of an election. The other will allow residents of the state to sue anyone who puts their image into a pornographic video using deepfake technology. Deepfake videos have become more convincing as of late, especially recent ones from Ctrl Shift Face that show comedian/actor Bill Hader's face replaced by Tom Cruise.

HONG KONG/BEIJING – Donald Trump's latest salvo against China threatens to derail a $1 billion coming-out party for a prominent startup backed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., while curtailing the country's broader ambitions of leading artificial intelligence in the coming decade. The U.S. placed eight Chinese technology giants on a U.S. blacklist Monday, accusing them of being implicated in human rights violations against Muslim minorities in the country's far-western region of Xinjiang. Among those singled out for sweeping American export restrictions were SenseTime Group Ltd., the world's largest AI startup, and Megvii Technology Ltd. -- two giant enterprises Beijing is counting on to spearhead advances into a revolutionary technology, aided by billions of dollars in foreign backing. The White House's actions -- announced days before sensitive trade negotiations resume in Washington -- cast a pall over not just Megvii's capital-raising effort but the burgeoning Chinese sector. Leading players like SenseTime and Megvii, already having trouble securing financing during an economic downturn, had considered international forays to sustain a sizzling pace of growth.

The lights, the sounds, the joyful lap-dancing abound. Or so I've heard (I haven't actually been there). As they say, whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas; we all know what happens in Vegas, but perhaps culinary experiences do not top that list. For the 5th project in Metis' Data Science Bootcamp, I decided to have a go at using Yelp's Kaggle Dataset to build a distance-based recommender system. In this project, I hypothesize food being an afterthought, that people are indecisive, constantly hangry and want to be told what restaurants are good within their immediate proximity while still taking into account personal preferences and visit histories.

ISLAMABAD, Sep 22 (APP):President Dr Arif Alvi on Sunday said the artificial intelligence (AI) was bringing about a revolution in the human lives in a steadily and stealthy manner, and it might be possible that in the near future, it would replace human role in different fields. The president during a private news channel programme (Geo News), shared that his repeated emphasis upon adoption of artificial intelligence in different fields of life had now became a buzzword in the country. Referring to the impacts of AI, he said it was already being used in the auto industry and in wars. There was possibility that in the near future, the AI could replace human role in wars, he said, adding in Pakistan, it was utilized to hunt down terrorists. About his role as a president in the democratic system, he said due to requirement of constitutional provisions, the president' office was impartial.

Industry 4.0 cannot succeed without Workforce 4.0, a re-envisioning and reskilling of traditional human resources, according to business leaders at the recent Design and Engineering Summit 2019 in Bengaluru. Organised by NASSCOM, the speaker lineup at the 11th edition of the summit featured CEOs, CTOs, CIOs, and heads of HR, innovation, and R&D. There was also a startup pavilion, showcasing new products in industrial IoT, 3D printing, electric vehicles, and smart factories. Workforce implications of these transformations were debated by companies such as Caterpillar, Samsung, SAP, TI, Bosch, Mercedes, Western Digital, United Airlines, ZF, Denso, Continental Automotive, Hero Eco, Tata Motors, Tech Mahindra, HCL, Faurecia, Aequs, Shopworx, and Veoneer. The speakers called for a systematic and inter-disciplinary approach to people, intellectual property, platforms and policy.

Robotic process automation, or RPA for short, is an emerging technology that allows you to automate business processes. It does this by mimicking the work of one or more users. I've seen this technology running on a thin-client machine, where the aim of the original business process was to create consulting codes. The diagram below, shows a simple example of how RPA can work. If you're used simpler tools, like Flow in Office 365 of IFTTT.com then you'll be familiar with this automation concept.

Deep Learning is/has become the hottest skill in Data Science at the moment. There is a plethora of articles, courses, technologies, influencers and resources that we can leverage to gain the Deep Learning skills. Deep Learning is not just one thing though! There are so many applications that one cannot simply learn all in a short span of time (maybe some can but having learnt it is not the same as being skilled in it). This list will comprise of resources / courses that are the most famous right now.

GreenWaves Technologies (GreenWaves), a fabless semiconductor start-up designing disruptive ultra-low-power AI embedded processors for battery-operated edge devices, announced today that it has been named a Gartner "Cool Vendor" based on the April 29, 2019 report "Cool Vendors in AI Semiconductors," authored by Alan Priestley, VP Analyst, and Saniye Alaybeyi, Senior Director Analyst. The report states, "[t]he deployment of products with AI capabilities continues to gain momentum but requires increasingly sophisticated semiconductor devices to enable this new generation of smart things. This report highlights three semiconductor vendors delivering innovative AI-enabled chips to facilitate this trend." GreenWaves Technologies, and its flagship GAP8 IoT application processor, is listed as one of these three vendors. "We believe that Gartner's Cool Vendor reports represent some of the most cutting-edge, innovative and pioneering brands and technologies. We also believe that to be included as a Cool Vendor in AI Semiconductors is a true testament to GAP8 and the company's commitment to delivering AI at the very edge," said Loic Lietar, GreenWaves' co-founder and CEO.