Every day, there are new headlines about AI and automation, predicting everything from the end of work to the creation of hyper-productive cyborg employees. The subject generates a lot of debate and a lot of hype, stoked along the way by fears for the future of humans and their jobs. What's often missing in this debate are reliable facts and insights. The reciprocal relationship between work design and employee performance is heavily influenced by the technology we use. But the scope of this collaboration and the opportunity for impact on both performance and our experience of work are still largely unknown.

Evolution and decision-making are not immediately linked in our minds; however, as it turns out, algorithms inspired by biological evolution are the key to augmenting decision-making in a wide variety of business use-cases. But let's start with the problem statement. My team and I are continually engaged in conversations with enterprises from various industries about their expectations for artificial intelligence. Often, we learn they're seeking better ways to model the data that flows through their systems. These questions are all about using AI to produce more insights.

Huawei's Honor subsidiary today launched a new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered app called PocketVision, which is designed to help those with visual impairments read documents, menus, and text using their smartphone camera. The PocketVision app, which was unveiled today at the annual IFA conference in Berlin, was developed in conjunction with Eyecoming, a Chinese social technology company specializing in visual impairments. According to Census Bureau data, roughly 20% of people in the U.S alone have a disability, more than half of whom report a "severe" disability. This figure is roughly consistent with other countries around the world, too. And it's against that backdrop that Huawei's Honor offshoot is launching the PocketVision app.

Or many Cold Wars, it seems. Pundits and politicians alike declaim that we're locked in a "new Cold War" with China, that we're in the throes of a "cyber arms race" with the rest of the world, and that Russia's election interference is, of course, today's 1960s contestation over political ideology. Justin Sherman (@jshermcyber) is a Cybersecurity Policy Fellow at New America. These tempting, easy-to-understand Cold War metaphors pervade policy discourse around emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Peter Thiel notably deployed such metaphors in his recent (quite flawed) New York Times op-ed about AI and national security.

This short week was filled with tough ethical debates at two of the top AI institutions in the United States. A petition and letter of support circulating at MIT is calling Media Lab director Joi Ito courageous for his public apology in the wake of the Epstein sex trafficking scandal and asking Ito to remain in his position following public pressure to resign. Ito took funding for the MIT Media Lab, and startups he backs, from the now-deceased billionaire and accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, years after Epstein was accused of running an extensive sex trafficking network, accusations that led to a controversial federal plea deal. In response to Ito's admission, MIT Center for Civic Media director Ethan Zuckerman resigned his post, a position he had held since 2012. Shortly after, MIT Media Lab visiting scholar and Cornell University assistant professor J. Nathan Matias also resigned, saying he could no longer in good conscience stay at the school.

A senior executive with 25 years experience in sales, marketing, and business development with Cisco, Apple and HP. Steven has funded and launched four technology companies. Most recently, Steven was the World Wide Director of Business Development for Cisco where his team drove global adoption of Smart Cloud services, a $2B business leveraging big data analytics to provide complete visibility of every device on the network. Prior to Cisco, Steven was President of Primex Wireless, a leader in the healthcare market providing cloud based sensor communication for IoT facility management. Steven was also the COO at Resilient Networks and has held senior business development, sales, and product management positions at HP and Apple.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to have a transformative impact on primary care, a recent journal article says. AI technology is starting to be applied across the healthcare sector, including digital clinical decision support tools and natural language processing. With more than 500 million patient visits annually, primary care is a prime area for AI to have a revolutionary effect on healthcare. "Primary care is where the power, opportunity, and future of AI are most likely to be realized in the broadest and most ambitious scale," the authors of the recent article in Journal of General Internal Medicine (JGIM) wrote. The journal article identifies 10 primary care areas where AI is either already generating benefits or expected to gain traction.

Nine years ago, David Mzee was left paralysed by a gymnastics accident and told he would never walk again. Last week, he competed in a charity run during which he walked 390 metres, thanks to an experimental treatment that uses electrical stimulation of the spinal cord to rejuvenate dormant circuits in patients whose spinal breaks are not complete. Designed by the Chinese organisation CloudMinds, Meta looks like a cycling helmet and uses sensors and cameras to map its environs, sending information to a cloud server to be processed by AI technology. The information can be communicated through speech, helping blind people and those with visual impairments to navigate streets, recognise objects and negotiate traffic lights and crossings. A cochlear implant might be nothing new, but researchers at Columbia University, New York, are working on a "cognitive hearing aid", which monitors the brain activity of users to identify which voice the listener is focusing on.

In an attempt to revamp the education system at a primary level, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has signed partnerships with Microsoft India and IBM to focus on tech reskilling for teachers and AI curriculum in schools. In its partnership with Microsoft India, CBSE is looking to conduct capacity building programmes for high school teachers with an aim to integrate cloud-powered technology in K12 teaching and inculcating digital teaching skills in educators through curriculum as well as extra-curricular training. The programme for teachers of grades VIII to X will be conducted in 10 cities across the country, starting September 11. The CBSE Microsoft association is expected to provide teachers better access to the latest information and communication technology (ICT) tools and help them integrate technology into teaching and the curriculum in a smart manner. The selected 1000 teachers nominated by CBSE will be undergoing a three-day project-based training for practical, hands-on knowledge of Microsoft 365 tools such as OneNote, Flipgrid, Teams, Outlook, Minecraft and Paint3D.

Today, Microsoft has positioned itself as the tech sector's leading advocate on public policy matters like protecting consumer privacy and establishing ethical guidelines for artificial intelligence. Though it has sued to limit government access to users' data, Microsoft is seen in capitals around the world as the most government-friendly of the tech companies. "It's in a league of its own," said Casper Klynge, a foreign-service officer who is Denmark's ambassador to the technology industry, based in Silicon Valley. "There is self-interest, of course. But Microsoft actively engages with governments on important issues far more than we see from the other big tech companies."