An artificial intelligence project capable of writing fake news that was deemed'too dangerous' to release to the public has been recreated by two university students. Open AI, a project founded with the support of Elon Musk, is able to generate news stories from a headline or first line of text. In February, the firm released a limited version of its software for other developers to use, to explore its potential. The firm, which Musk is no longer involved in, has since launched an updated version of the software with half of the power of the full AI. Now, computer science master's students Aaron Gokaslan and Vanya Cohen from Brown University have shared code for what they say is the full version.

Parentof, a decision sciences start-up that provides insights into child growth and decision analytics, has raised $1 million in seed funding, bringing their total funding since inception to $2 million. The round was led by angel investor V Srinivas and other existing investors. The capital raised will be used to further evolve the start-up's technology, and to expand its partner network, including schools, vocational institutions and e-learning platforms. Founded by Swaroop Madhavan, Dr Manohar Chikkanna and Dhananjay Prabhu in August 2015, the Bengaluru-based parent-tech start-up uses AI-powered ARC Engine (analysis, recommendation and curation) to identify and assess each child's unique growth and developmental journey. This has helped the over two lakh children and is supported by over 500 schools, the start-up claims.

The DeepMind Science Team works to leverage AI to tackle key scientific challenges that impact the world. We've developed a robust model for detecting and analysing animal populations in field data, and have helped to consolidate data to enable the growing machine learning community in Africa to build AI systems for conservation which, we hope, will scale to other parks. We'll next be validating our models by deploying them in the field and tracking their progress. Our hope is to contribute towards making AI research more inclusive–both in terms of the kinds of domains we apply it to, and the people developing it. Hence, participating in meetings like Indaba are key for helping build a global team of AI practitioners who can deploy machine learning for diverse projects.

A few months into my postdoc, an Excel spreadsheet dealt me quite a blow. As I was preparing to perform some statistical analyses, I made a horrifying discovery: some of my sample metadata had been incorrectly merged into a single Excel spreadsheet. The metadata had to be fixed, and all of the preliminary analyses I had done had to be repeated. Sadly, even after fixing my metadata, the dataset was unsalvageable. Not enough samples had been collected and categorical metadata were missing for some samples -- there were no statistical tests I could do to identify any meaningful patterns.

Formed in September 2016 by a coalition of the largest tech companies in AI -- Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, IBM, and Microsoft -- it is a nonprofit organization that advises corporations and governments on AI policy and seeks to answer big questions about the future, like how AI will influence the economy and society and how best to make safety-critical or transparent AI systems. Of the more than 100 notable organizations active on five continents that compose the Partnership, more than half are human rights groups like Amnesty International, Future of Life Institute, and GLAAD. They sit alongside some of the world's most influential tech companies, think tanks, and other organizations. The Partnership will mark its third year with an annual gathering of member organizations in London in September. But if you haven't heard of Partnership on AI, that's understandable, because the group hasn't done much since launch, or at least not as much as you might expect from such a powerful cohort. In April, the organization released analysis warning that AI-driven risk assessment tools are not yet ready to replace cash bail systems and calling for a suspension of their use.

Machine learning (ML) has been strategic to Amazon from the early years. We are pioneers in areas such as recommendation engines, product search, eCommerce fraud detection, and large-scale optimization of fulfillment center operations. The Amazon ML Solutions Lab team helps AWS customers accelerate the use of machine learning to solve business and operational challenges and promote innovation in their organization. As an ML Solutions Lab data scientist, you are proficient in designing and developing advanced ML models to solve diverse challenges and opportunities. You will be working with terabytes of text, images, and other types of data to solve real-world problems.

One is improving women's access to pre-natal healthcare in the Democratic Republic of Congo. "A pregnant woman has to walk 17 hours to her nearest, rural, prenatal clinic to get a check-up. What if she could get a diagnosis on her phone instead?" asked Sharma. Another example is that of a woman in South Africa who is suffering domestic abuse. Sharma asked: "What could AI do for those one in three women? If it isn't safe to talk out loud, they could get an AI service to raise the alarm or get financial and legal advice."

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners recently created the Innovation and Technology Task Force to "explore the technological developments in the insurance sector." It cited the rise of artificial intelligence as one of the key issues that the task force would address, citing the technology's "potential to transform the insurance industry in a number of ways." The message is being received loud and clear: adapt or be left behind. The insurance industry has historically been a laggard compared to other industries when it comes adoption of new technologies. However, the industry should be credited for embracing recent advances in technology, most notably the use of computer vision (a form of AI) and drones, to automate or assist with what would have previously been arduous and/or dangerous tasks.

Artificial intelligence to many people may seem like a remote idea swirling in the realm of technology eggheads, but it actually is being adapted to many practical areas more familiar to the public. For example, the digital technology is helping protect the priceless ancient Buddhist relics of Dunhuang, improving electricity networks and assisting malaria medical research. The World Artificial Intelligence Conference 2019, which opens on Thursday in Shanghai, won't be focused only on jargon like "algorithms" and "adversarial networks." It will be discussing the ways in which artificial intelligence (AI) is being integrated in daily life, in a range of industries and in the transformation of the economy. The conference also reinforces Shanghai's leading role in the new technology, amid plans to turn the city into an AI global hub of the future.

Microsoft, which embarked two years ago on an effort to use artificial intelligence for altruistic purposes, today announced a new prong in the $125m programme: an initiative to preserve cultural heritage. The plan is the fourth pillar in a five-year philanthropic effort dubbed AI for Good, which already includes previously announced target areas centred on the earth, humanitarian action and accessibility. The $10m cultural heritage initiative will focus on finding ways to celebrate people, language, places and historic artefacts, the company says. "If you think of globalisation today, the role of technology, I think there are many places around the world where you see people asking, 'What is happening to my traditional place and what is happening to my traditional culture and all the heritage I value?'" Brad Smith, the president of Microsoft, said in an interview.