A new contract with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will bring airmen from across Air Force career fields to work with researchers on artificial intelligence technology. The project will focus on research in AI projects including decision support, maintenance and logistics, talent management, medical readiness, situational awareness, business operations and disaster relief, according to a news release. The effort is part of the service's science and technology strategy. Similar partnerships around the U.S. focus on other innovations.

There have been huge advancements in recent years in the area of AI "deepfakes", or fake photos or videos of humans created using neural networks. Fake videos of a person usually require a large number of photos of that individual, but Samsung has figured out how to create realistic talking heads from as little as a single portrait photo. In a newly published paper titled, "Few-Shot Adversarial Learning of Realistic Neural Talking Head Models," a team of researchers at the Samsung AI Center in Moscow, Russia, share their new system that has this "few-shot capability." Once it's familiar with human faces, it's able to create talking heads of previously unseen people using one or a few shots of that person. For each photo, the AI is able to detect various "landmarks" on the face -- things like the eyes, nose, mouth, and various lengths and shapes.

Since February, five working groups have been generating ideas about the form and content of the new MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing. That includes the Working Group on Social Implications and Responsibilities of Computing, co-chaired by Melissa Nobles, the Kenan Sahin Dean of the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences and a professor of political science, and Julie Shah, associate professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT and head of the Interactive Robotics Group of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. MIT News talked to Shah about the group's progress and goals to this point. Q: What are the main objectives of this working group? A: The goals of the working group are to think about how we can weave social and ethical considerations into the fabric of what the college is doing.

The aluminum-bodied robot weighs in at 16.5 kg (36 lb), and can run for a claimed five hours on one eight-hour charge of its user-swappable 28.8-V/7.2-Ah And while the prototype that we saw in Montreal at the 2019 International Conference on Robotics and Automation had six dual-purpose composite "legs," more swimming-efficient vinyl/steel-spring flippers can be substituted if it's going to only be used underwater – a place where it should be more eco-friendly than traditional remote-operated vehicles (ROVs).

Astrobees may sound like cyborg killer insects that invade Earth to make honey from our flesh, but they actually have an Earthly origin. They are robots created by humans to help astronauts in space. Astrobees are flying robots who will help astronauts with their missions. They're designed to float inside the ISS, using fans to direct their course. NASA will send three of them, named Honey, Queen, and Bumble, to the International Space Station where they will be helping scientists and other researchers achieve tasks.

Mobile maps route us through traffic, algorithms can now pilot automobiles, virtual assistants help us smoothly toggle between work and life, and smart code is adept at surfacing our next our new favorite song. But AI could prove dangerous, too. Tesla CEO Elon Musk once warned that biased, unmonitored and unregulated AI could be the "greatest risk we face as a civilization." Instead, AI experts are concerned that automated systems are likely to absorb bias from human programmers. And when bias is coded into the algorithms that power AI it will be nearly impossible to remove.

The school nurse of the future could be a robot if Chinese technology catches on – but British people may be too suspicious, experts say. Children at more than 2,000 pre-schools in the Asian country now have their health checked every morning by a machine. The Walklake robot, which has a square body and cartoon-like face, takes just three seconds to scan a child's hands, eyes, and throats. And if it picks up any signs of illness – red eyes, rashes or mouth ulcers, for example – it can refer the child to a human nurse. One British doctor said he thought parents in the UK wouldn't want the technology and it could disrupt children's learning, but another called it'a great idea'.

The school nurse of the future could be a robot if Chinese technology catches on – but British people may be too suspicious, experts say. Children at more than 2,000 pre-schools in the Asian country now have their health checked every morning by a machine. The Walklake robot, which has a square body and cartoon-like face, takes just three seconds to scan a child's hands, eyes, and throats. And if it picks up any signs of illness – red eyes, rashes or mouth ulcers, for example – it can refer the child to a human nurse. One British doctor said he thought parents in the UK wouldn't want the technology and it could disrupt children's learning, but another called it'a great idea'.

The problem is not only in the lack of educational institutions for bringing up this kind of specialists. There is also the absence of a general concept to solve the problem of training qualified personnel. Sceptics believe that the creation of added value in the era of artificial intelligence depends on the genius of the individual -- a creative expert who cannot be taught to manage the processes of artificial intelligence. Internet gurus such as Mark Zuckerberg or Pavel Durov are often cited as examples. However, people forget that the above-mentioned creators are only the developers of the concept, which is implemented by an horde of medium-level managers. Approximately the same situation was observed at the dawn of mass computerization and internetization of our planet.

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