Government

With the help of a five-year, $2.7 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center will use computational methods to shed light on suicidal ideation and its relationship to attempted suicide, predict suicidal ideation and suicide attempt using routine electronic health records (EHRs) and explore the genetic underpinnings of both. From 1999 to 2017, the all-ages suicide rate in the United States increased 33%, from 10.5 to 14.0 per 100,000 population. In 2017 there were 47,173 recorded suicides, making it the nation's 10th leading cause of death. The principal investigators for the study are internist and clinical informatician Colin Walsh, MD, MA, assistant professor of Biomedical Informatics, Medicine, and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and geneticist and computational biologist Douglas Ruderfer, PhD, MS, assistant professor of Medicine, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and Biomedical Informatics. In previous work Walsh and colleagues used EHR data and machine learning techniques to develop predictive algorithms for attempted suicide.

Many developments show that states have turned AI technology into a part of the arms race. The "Summary of the 2018 Department of Defense Artificial Intelligence Strategy" report prepared by the U.S. Department of Defense highlighted Chinese and Russian investments in AI weapons technologies and stated the steps to be taken within the framework of such competition. Moreover, the Pentagon's budget for AI arming, worth $2 billion, and the "Executive Order on Maintaining American Leadership in AI" published by U.S. President Donald Trump reveal the importance of arming in AI technology. U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper recently said that the growing threats posed by great power competitors such as China and Russia warrant refocusing on high-intensity conflict across all of the military services. Esper also stressed the necessity of modernizing the military in AI, robotics, directed energy and hypersonic technologies.

The raging Australian and Amazon wildfires have raised a burning question for all of us - why the very technology, that has been a major facilitator to human evolution and growth could not predict, manage or control its destruction? To those of us who are in the business of technology, it is time to ask a few tough questions in our boardroom meetings and take ownership of solving the problem. After all, what is growth worth if the planet itself is in peril? As someone who has witnessed the digital revolution unfold, I may not have a full-proof plan to address the climate emergency, in fact, we don't even have the visibility of all evolving technologies that may be required to solve the climate emergency. But, I am clear and convinced that we have to start now and start with the available technologies which in their own right are very powerful and transformational.

Tesla is facing calls from a U.S. Senator to make safety fixes to its autopilot system. In a press release, Democrat Senator Edward Markey of Massachuttes took issues with certain areas of its autopilot feature that enable a Tesla vehicle to center itself in a lane, provide speed changing cruise control and self-park among other things. Markey sits on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. Markey said that by calling it Autopilot it encourages users to "over-rely" on the technology and think they can take their hands off the steering wheel. To get around that the Senator is calling on Tesla to rebrand and remarket Autopilot to make it clear that its a driver's assistance system not a fully autonomous capability.

New Jersey's attorney general, Gurbir S. Grewal, has instructed prosecutors across the state to stop using Clearview AI, a private facial recognition software. Clearview AI's tools allow law enforcement officials to upload a photo of an unknown person they'd like to identify, and see a list of matches culled from a database of over 3 billion photos. The photos are taken from a variety of controversial sources, including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and even Venmo. New Jersey attorney general Gurbir S. Grewal told the state's prosecutor's to stop using Clearview AI, private facial recognition software that he worried might compromise the integrity of the state's investigations Clearview says that anyone can submit a request to the company to have a photo of them removed from its databases, but they must first present proof they own copyright to the photo. Grewal decided to issue the ban after seeing Clearview had used footage from a 2019 sting operation in New Jersey promoting its own services, something even he hadn't been aware of at the time.

LONDON – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday insisted the U.K. can have technological progress while preserving national security, as he prepared to approve a role for Chinese telecom giant Huawei in developing its 5G telecom network despite strong U.S. opposition. Johnson spoke after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday tweeted: "The UK has a momentous decision ahead on 5G." The United States has banned Huawei from the rollout of its next generation 5G mobile networks because of concerns -- strongly denied -- that the firm could be under the control of Beijing. With Washington heaping pressure on Johnson to sideline Huawei totally, the Financial Times reported that Britain was Tuesday "expected to approve a restricted role" for the group. It comes after a senior U.K. official last week strongly hinted at a green light for Huawei.

The news: US government use of facial recognition technology should be banned "pending further review," according to 40 organizations that signed a letter calling for a recommendation to be made to the president. The letter, drafted by the privacy advocacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, cites the recent New York Times investigation of a facial recognition service used by more than 600 law enforcement agencies in the US. The company, Clearview AI, scraped public photographs from Facebook, YouTube, and other websites to create a database of more than three billion images. Such technology, the letter argues, not only risks being inaccurate for people of color but could be used to "control minority populations and limit dissent." The letter was signed by organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Color of Change, Fight for the Future, and the Consumer Federation of America, and sent to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board, an agency within the executive branch.

The news: US government use of facial recognition technology should be banned "pending further review," according to 40 organizations that signed a letter calling for a recommendation to be made to the president. The letter, drafted by the privacy advocacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, cites the recent New York Times investigation of a facial recognition service used by more than 600 law enforcement agencies in the US. The company, Clearview AI, scraped public photographs from Facebook, YouTube, and other websites to create a database of more than three billion images. Such technology, the letter argues, not only risks being inaccurate for people of color but could be used to "control minority populations and limit dissent." The letter was signed by organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Color of Change, Fight for the Future, and the Consumer Federation of America, and sent to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board, an agency within the executive branch.

Several industries are seeing the impact of robotics -- and medicine is no exception. While the progress of these applications has been slow compared to other industries, the impact could be huge: robotics in medicine can help to reduce human error, improve recovery time, and reduce hospital stays, ultimately enhancing patients' quality of life. The first medical robotic application appeared in 1985, when an early robotic surgical arm assisted in a neurosurgical biopsy surgery. Fifteen years later, the first fully FDA-approved system (known as the da Vinci surgery system) for laparoscopic surgery emerged, giving surgeons the ability to control surgical instruments indirectly via a console. Today, companies are leveraging advances in the tech to develop new robotic applications to explore the future of medicine -- including those related to bionics, disease discovery, and rehabilitation.