Though the deepfakes didn't depict the women's actual bodies--they are completely synthesized by the algorithm--they still had the potential to cause significant emotional and reputational damage. The images could easily be mistaken for the real thing and used as revenge porn or a powerful tool for silencing women. In fact, this has happened before: a female journalist in India had her face grafted onto a porn video after she began uncovering government corruption. It instantly went viral, subjecting her to intense harassment and rape threats, and she had to go offline for several months.

IMAGE: An automation workspace with a Kuka robotic arm and a bin containing a pile of objects that need to be tightly packed into a shipping order box. Rutgers computer scientists used artificial intelligence to control a robotic arm that provides a more efficient way to pack boxes, saving businesses time and money. "We can achieve low-cost, automated solutions that are easily deployable. The key is to make minimal but effective hardware choices and focus on robust algorithms and software," said the study's senior author Kostas Bekris, an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. Bekris, Abdeslam Boularias and Jingjin Yu, both assistant professors of computer science, formed a team to deal with multiple aspects of the robot packing problem in an integrated way through hardware, 3D perception and robust motion.

Manulife has announced a new digitally immersive conversational AI solution for its app that aims to serve the needs of millennial clients. The company says that the conversational AI, called MAI, is a virtual assistant designed to help Canadians develop better financial habits and enhance their financial wellbeing. MAI can help users keep track of their balances, and can give them insight into their spending habits. It can also help by answering personal finance questions. The feature is part of the bank's new digital'Manulife All-In Banking Package.' The AI technology is powered by Kasisto, a conversational AI platform.

This article is reprinted by permission from NextAvenue.org. New technology devices and apps pop up as abundantly as summer weeds here in Silicon Valley. Chip-enhanced products offer to satisfy almost every need imaginable. Prompts from your smart refrigerator tell you to buy more milk. With a voice command, music plays to facilitate meditation, thanks to your smart -- always on -- helper who listens for your next query from a canister on your kitchen counter; you know, the one with a woman's voice and name.

Should buddhas own smartphones and gurus use Google? Mindfulness is often taken to mean stepping out of the technological mainstream. But rejecting technology is rejecting the natural course of human evolution, according to personal transformation pioneer Deepak Chopra. "Personally, I am a big fan of technology," Chopra (pictured) said during an interview with Lisa Martin, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media's mobile livestreaming studio. "If you don't relate to technology, you will become irrelevant. Either you adapt and use it or you're not relevant anymore."

Broken water pipes can lead to millions of dollars in damages. When it comes to building construction, all sorts of things can go wrong. The most common problem is water damage, according to insurance claim records. "It's the silent killer," says Yaron Dycian, chief product and strategy officer for WINT Water Intelligence. Water is also an increasingly scarce, and valuable, resource – a reality that is not lost on many big companies who are embracing sustainable practices.

Based on its core scientist team's top-level R&D strength, as well as technological innovation and breakthroughs, Squirrel AI Learning started holding four "man-machine competitions" in Zhengzhou, Chengdu and Dongying in October 2017 in a bid to identify any difference between its adaptive learning system and human teaching. Dr. Kalns demonstrated to the RE-WORK audience the results of the four competitions: surprisingly, machine teaching outperformed human teaching in all the four competitions. Taking the fourth competition, which unfolded in one hundred cities, as an example, students at the same intellectual level were divided into two groups and received human teaching and Squirrel AI Learning respectively. Every student in the machine teaching group learned 42 knowledge points on the average, while every student in the human teaching learned 28 knowledge points on the average; in terms of average scoring in the core part of the competition, the students in the AI teaching group had their scores increased by 5.4 on the average, while the students in the human teaching group just had their scores increased by 0.7 on the average, suggesting that machine teaching enabled students to take a firmer grasp of knowledge points than human teaching and improved the learning efficiency more significantly than human teaching. According to the results, Squirrel AI Learning is basically the same as or better than individualized human teaching.

Artificial intelligence is set to bring about new types of jobs and companies must ensure employees learn the relevant skills needed to perform advanced tasks, according to a senior Salesforce executive. In fact, advancements in technological areas such as robotics and automation, as well as AI, are changing the future of the workforce, said Renzo Taal, head of Asia and senior vice president for Asia Pacific at Salesforce. "We look at these technologies as being enhancements, not per se, replacements," he said on Thursday. Speaking to CNBC's Matthew Taylor at the Innovfest Unbound conference in Singapore, Taal explained that "human creativity and abstract thinking" would be major components of the new types of work that will emerge as a result of closer human-machine collaborations. In a study conducted by Salesforce, 73% of hiring managers said creative thinking skills will be more important in an AI-driven workplace.

A massive defense policy bill approved by the Senate on Thursday is loaded with provisions to advance the Pentagon's tech and protect the country against digital threats posed by Russia and China. The 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which passed the upper chamber with a vote of 86-8, would direct some $750 billion to fund the Defense Department, intelligence community and national security programs at the Energy Department in 2020. The legislation would authorize hundreds of millions of dollars for artificial intelligence and cyber research, and support efforts to lock down the government supply chain, fight foreign misinformation and bolster the Pentagon's tech workforce. Thursday's vote comes as an early move in what's expected to be a heated partisan battle over next year's government funding. "This is an important bipartisan package that will strengthen our military, support our troops and enhance national security," Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Jack Reed, D-R.I., said in a statement.

Artificial Intelligence is increasingly changing the way we interact with the world. Chatbots or Virtual assistants are trending nowadays as they have simplified the interaction between humans and machines. Today, brands are using these chatbots to improve efficiency and productivity in all areas of business. Freshworks, a Chennai and San Mateo-based software unicorn is investing in developing chatbots. Brands and customers find themselves interacting online on apps and other platforms with artificial intelligence enabled conversations.