Whether it be on vacation, at work or at home, we humans in general live comfortable lives. Compared to only one century ago (in contrast to around 200,000 years of existence of homo sapiens) we have much less need for physical labour to sustain life. We have shelter, a soft bed, central heating and a shower. Our food is grown, distributed and cooked using lots of automation. We also have mobile phones.

Finland is opening up a wildly popular Elements of Artificial Intelligence online course to all EU citizens. The announcement was made in Brussels on Tuesday to mark the approaching end of Finland's presidency of the Council of the EU. Finland assumed the rotating six-month presidency in July this year, shortly after the Antti Rinne administration assumed office. Rinne has since stepped down as Prime Minister and now heads a caretaker administration until a new cabinet is sworn in on Tuesday. The government said that the goal of the project is attract one percent of EU citizens – five million people – to complete the course in 2020 and 2021.

Avigilon Corporation, a Motorola Solutions company, presents the newest version of its video management software, Avigilon Control Center (ACC) 7.4, which incorporates artificial intelligence-powered facial recognition technology. FEATURES OF AVIGILON CONTROL CENTER (ACC) 7.4 The new "appearance alerts" capability will help commercial organizations, such as educational institutions and hospitals, accelerate response times by identifying people of interest in enterprise settings. For example, the technology can alert the security team at a local high school when a banned or flagged individual has entered the campus. People of interest are identified based on a secure, controlled watch list created and maintained by authorized users at the commercial organization. For organizations that use the new ACC software and license their Avigilon cameras for facial recognition, cameras will seek to identify potential matches based on the watch list.

The UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in the'Application of Artificial Intelligence to the study of Environmental Risks' (AI4ER) will, through several multi-disciplinary cohorts, train researchers uniquely equipped to develop and apply leading edge computational approaches to address critical global environmental challenges by exploiting vast, diverse and often currently untapped environmental data sets. Embedded in the outstanding research environments of the University of Cambridge and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the AI4ER CDT will address problems that are relevant to building resilience to environmental hazards and managing environmental change. The primary application areas will be: a) Weather, Climate and Air Quality, b) Natural Hazards, c) Natural Resources (food, water & resource security and biodiversity). The AI4ER CDT is offering at least 10 fully-funded PhD studentships to start in October 2020. Students in the CDT cohorts engage in a one-year Master of Research (MRes) course with a taught component and a major research element, followed by a three-year PhD research project.

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In late November, a college senior at Brigham Young University named Nick Walton published a short fable called "My Musical Troupe of Orcs Uses Music to Advance Orc Rights." In the story, written in the second person, you are a goblin. "I am a goblin!" you say proudly. "And I'm glad to be one." "Well then, congratulations," says the orc captain. Over the course of a few hundred words, some big things happen: You ask if you can join the orc band.

Finland, which holds the rotating EU presidency until the end of the year, said on Tuesday it aims to teach 1% of all Europeans basic skills in artificial intelligence through a free online course it will now translate into all official EU languages. The European Union is pushing for wide deployment of artificial intelligence across the bloc, to help European companies catch up with rivals in Asia and the United States. "Our investment has three goals: we want to equip EU citizens with digital skills for the future, we wish to increase practical understanding of what artificial intelligence is, and by doing so, we want to give a boost to the digital leadership of Europe," said Finnish Minister of Employment Timo Harakka. "As our Presidency ends, we want to offer something concrete. It's about one of the most pressing challenges facing Europe and Finland today: how to develop our digital literacy," Harakka said in a statement.

The Elements of AI online course will be translated into all official languages of the European Union during 2020–2021. The initiative is part of Finland's Presidency of the Council of the EU and it was publicized during a meeting by European employment ministers in Brussels on 10 December 2019. The initiative is worth over 1,5 million euros. The Elements of AI online course is a creation of the University of Helsinki and Finnish technology firm Reaktor. The course is free and open to all, offering basic information on artificial intelligence without requiring previous knowledge of AI or coding.

During 2020-2021, Finland will provide European citizens with free access to an online course named'The Elements of AI'. The initiative, which aims to offer EU citizens free training in future skills, was made public in Brussels on 10 December 2019, in the margins of the meeting of the EU employment ministers. The course, already published in Finnish, English, Swedish and Estonia, will be made available in all the official EU languages soon, informed the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment. This initiative by the Finnish Presidency aims to respond to the challenges posed by the transformation of work and to reinforce the digital leadership of the EU. 'The Elements of AI' is a series of free online courses created by the University of Helsinki and the Finnish tech company Reaktor.

The Microsoft AI Residency program is a 12-month role designed to advance your career in machine learning research and engineering. The goal of the AI Residency is to help residents become creative and productive AI Researchers, Scientists and Engineers. Residents will gain skills and hands-on experience working on practical AI and machine learning problems that help tackle some of society's toughest challenges. In our program, you will have the opportunity to work alongside prominent researchers and engineers in either Redmond, WA or Cambridge, UK and contribute to research and products that impact billions of people. Within the 12 months, residents will work on two projects that are assigned based on mutual interest and each resident will work closely with project leads and dedicated mentors.