Artificial intelligence can be just as biased as human beings, which is why experts are trying to prevent discrimination in machine learning. In a new paper, three Google researchers note that there is no existing way to ensure--as the White House calls it--"equal opportunity by design," but they have an idea. "Despite the need, a vetted methodology in machine learning for preventing this kind of discrimination based on sensitive attributes has been lacking," wrote Moritz Hardt, a research scientist with the Google Brain Team and co-author of the paper, in a blog post. Hardt throws out two seemingly intuitive approaches, "fairness through unawareness" and "demographic parity," but dismisses them for their respective loopholes. By learning from the shortcomings of the aforementioned methods, the team came up with a new approach.

If you're in college and have the chops to build an Alexa-based "socialbot," Amazon wants your help -- so much so that the company's launching a new year-long contest for a chance to tap into a prize pool worth 2.5 million. The contest is called Alexa Prize, named after Amazon's voice-recognition technology, Alexa, which powers a number of voice-controlled devices, including its super popular speaker Echo. The goal of the contest, only open to college students, is to build the best possible conversational app using Alexa that can talk about popular topics and news events without sounding like a machine. The final winner will be announced at AWS re:Invent 2017. "The Alexa Prize challenges students to build socialbots that can acquire knowledge and opinions from the web, and express them in context just as a human would in everyday conversations. This challenge and the immediate feedback students will receive on their best ideas from millions of engaged Alexa customers will make what we previously thought impossible, possible," Rohit Prasad, Amazon Alexa's Vice President and Head Scientist, said in a statement.

Glasses-wearers are smarter than those with perfect vision, according to researchers at Mainz University in Germany. According to The Times, scientists in the department of ophthalmology at the German university found that short-sighted people were more likely to be brighter and better educated than people who don't need glasses. Researchers were investigating the increase in myopia across Europe, which is as high as 50 per cent in groups of professionals over the age of 40. The study looked at 3,452 people, giving them eye examinations and intelligence tests and recorded their age and level of investigation. The research paper said: 'A higher cognitive ability was identified in myopes compared with non-myopes.'

"Jase, I've been told all the money is in AI now so I'm off to go and create a company….." And said with all the same eager puppy excitement when chatbots were going to take over the world, literally the week before. So my natural reaction, with humility and grace has been the same…. I'm not going to sit here and say, "don't do it", it's not my place to. I do have my opinions though. Yes, I'm sorry to say that the big companies have been working on this for a long long time already but because it wasn't in the tech press no one really took much notice.

Piero Scaruffi is a cognitive scientist who has lectured in three continents and published several books on Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science, the latest one being "Thinking about Thought" (2014). He pioneered Internet applications in the early 1980s and the use of the World-Wide Web for cultural purposes in the mid 1990s. His poetry has been awarded several national prizes in Italy and the USA. His latest book of poems and meditations is "Synthesis" (2009). As a music historian, he has published ten books, the latest ones being "A History of Rock and Dance Music" (2009) and "A History of Jazz Music" (2007).

A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occurs involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep.[1] The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, as well as a subject of philosophical and religious interest, throughout recorded history. The scientific study of dreams is called oneirology.[2] Dreams mainly occur in the rapid-eye movement (REM) stage of sleep--when brain activity is high and resembles that of being awake. REM sleep is revealed by continuous movements of the eyes during sleep. At times, dreams may occur during other stages of sleep. However, these dreams tend to be much less vivid or memorable.[3] The length of a dream can vary; they may last for a few seconds, or approximately 20–30 minutes.[3] People are more likely to remember the dream if they are awakened during the REM phase. The average person has three to five dreams per night, and some may have up to seven;[4] however, most dreams are immediately or quickly forgotten.[5] Dreams tend to last longer as the night progresses. During a full eight-hour night sleep, most dreams occur in the typical two hours of REM.[6] In modern times, dreams have been seen as a connection to the unconscious mind. They range from normal and ordinary to overly surreal and bizarre. Dreams can have varying natures, such as being frightening, exciting, magical, melancholic, adventurous, or sexual. The events in dreams are generally outside the control of the dreamer, with the exception of lucid dreaming, where the dreamer is self-aware.[7]

A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occurs involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep.[1] The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, as well as a subject of philosophical and religious interest, throughout recorded history. The scientific study of dreams is called oneirology.[2] Dreams mainly occur in the rapid-eye movement (REM) stage of sleep--when brain activity is high and resembles that of being awake. REM sleep is revealed by continuous movements of the eyes during sleep. At times, dreams may occur during other stages of sleep. However, these dreams tend to be much less vivid or memorable.[3] The length of a dream can vary; they may last for a few seconds, or approximately 20–30 minutes.[3] People are more likely to remember the dream if they are awakened during the REM phase. The average person has three to five dreams per night, and some may have up to seven;[4] however, most dreams are immediately or quickly forgotten.[5] Dreams tend to last longer as the night progresses. During a full eight-hour night sleep, most dreams occur in the typical two hours of REM.[6] In modern times, dreams have been seen as a connection to the unconscious mind. They range from normal and ordinary to overly surreal and bizarre. Dreams can have varying natures, such as being frightening, exciting, magical, melancholic, adventurous, or sexual. The events in dreams are generally outside the control of the dreamer, with the exception of lucid dreaming, where the dreamer is self-aware.[7]

A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occurs involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep.[1] The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, as well as a subject of philosophical and religious interest, throughout recorded history. The scientific study of dreams is called oneirology.[2] Dreams mainly occur in the rapid-eye movement (REM) stage of sleep--when brain activity is high and resembles that of being awake. REM sleep is revealed by continuous movements of the eyes during sleep. At times, dreams may occur during other stages of sleep. However, these dreams tend to be much less vivid or memorable.[3] The length of a dream can vary; they may last for a few seconds, or approximately 20–30 minutes.[3] People are more likely to remember the dream if they are awakened during the REM phase. The average person has three to five dreams per night, and some may have up to seven;[4] however, most dreams are immediately or quickly forgotten.[5] Dreams tend to last longer as the night progresses. During a full eight-hour night sleep, most dreams occur in the typical two hours of REM.[6] In modern times, dreams have been seen as a connection to the unconscious mind. They range from normal and ordinary to overly surreal and bizarre. Dreams can have varying natures, such as being frightening, exciting, magical, melancholic, adventurous, or sexual. The events in dreams are generally outside the control of the dreamer, with the exception of lucid dreaming, where the dreamer is self-aware.[7]

The venerable 105-year-old IBM may be a global company, but while it has operated important labs and offices overseas, its business units have always been headquartered in the U.S. Until December of last year, that is, when it opened the new global headquarters for the IBM Watson Internet of Things (IoT) unit in Munich, Germany. Now, faced with dramatically increasing global demand for Watson IoT solutions and services, Big Blue is doubling down on that investment. On Tuesday, IBM announced a 200 million investment in the Watson IoT headquarters, marking one of the company's largest investments in Europe in its history. The investment is part of the 3 billion IBM has earmarked to bring Watson cognitive computing to IoT. IBM says the move is a response to escalating demand from customers who are looking to transform their operations using a combination of IoT and artificial intelligence technologies.