Officially it is just a research vessel, but China's newly unveiled drone carrier is a clear sign Beijing is rushing to deploy an autonomous swarm of unmanned devices in its push for military supremacy in the Pacific Ocean. State media last month showed the launching of the Zhu Hai Yun -- "Zhu Hai Cloud" -- capable of transporting an unspecified number of flying drones as well as surface and submarine craft, and operating autonomously thanks to artificial intelligence. The 89-metre (292-foot) ship would be operational by year-end with a top speed of 18 knots, vastly increasing China's surveillance potential of the vast Pacific area it considers its zone of influence. "The vessel is not only an unprecedented precision tool at the frontier of marine science, but also a platform for marine disaster prevention and mitigation, seabed precision mapping, marine environment monitoring, and maritime search and rescue," Chen Dake, lab director at the firm that built the carrier, told China Daily. Armies worldwide see drone squadrons as key players in combat, able to overwhelm defence systems by sheer numbers and without putting soldiers' lives at risk, such as with more expensive jets or tanks.

This conclusive high-level session will take place in the Berlaymont building of the European Commission, in Brussels. It will consist of two consecutive panels, where senior management from relevant Commission services, representatives from Member States and Academia will be able to confront each other and with the audience, reflecting on the messages that emerged from the first week of webinars. The panels aim to address two of the main strands of reflection around the use of AI for the public sector: the potential of AI for economic growth and the role of the public sector as a traction for it, and the legitimacy questions that arise from the use of AI in public services, considering its specific features and associated risks.

Discrimination laws must be adapted to consider the impact artificial intelligence algorithms have on certain groups, new research has found. The paper from the Oxford Internet Institute says that AI systems are exhibiting bias against groups not protected under current legislation, and that governments should consider updating laws to reflect this. In the study, published today in the journal'Tulane Law Review', author Professor Sandra Wachter of the Oxford Internet Institute argues that something as simple as the web browser you use, how fast you type or whether you sweat during an interview can lead to AI making a negative decision about you. She says current discrimination laws don't adequately combat the type of bias exhibited by artificial intelligence, because there are specific categories of people that receive unfair outcomes, including over loan decisions, job applications and funding requests, who fall outside of the "protected groups" covered by discrimination legislation. Discrimination linked to AI can happen in even ordinary situations without the individual even knowing an AI made the final call, says Professor Wachter in her paper.

This is a remote position. Ad Hoc is a digital services company that helps the federal government better serve people. Our team of experts from across the commercial industry and government brings the modern skills necessary to help agencies transform public services into digital services. Our work enables agencies to meet the needs of their users while closing the gap between consumer expectations and government. The Federal Civilian business unit supports a wide range of customers that span the federal, commercial, and non-profit space.

A new initiative to partner with communities working with artificial intelligence and emerging technologies will expand efforts of promoting intellectual property protection in these areas, the US Patent and Trademark Office hopes. In a Federal Register notice published on Monday, the PTO said it is focused on incentivizing more innovation in key technology areas such as AI and ET--which includes quantum computing, synthetic biology, blockchain, and virtual reality. The office announced a series of meetings intended to explore "AI/ET-related initiatives at

All smartphones and tablets would have to use a common charger under a provisional European Union agreement clinched on Tuesday. The plan would force all companies--most notably Apple Inc.--to make phones, tablets, e-readers and digital cameras use the USB-C charger, negotiators announced. Around 15 product types are included in the scope, including headsets, video-game consoles and headphones. The plan, unveiled last year, was provisionally approved Tuesday and will save consumers an estimated 250 million euros ($267 million) each year according to the European Commission. The European Parliament and 27 EU countries need to sign off on the agreement.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is seeking proposals to address challenges in artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and architectures that deeply integrate symbolic reasoning with data-driven machine learning to create robust, assured, and, therefore, trustworthy AI-based systems. Despite recent improvements to machine learning algorithms and assurance technologies, high levels of autonomy remain elusive. "Motivating new thinking and approaches in this space will help assure that autonomous systems will operate safely and perform as intended," said Sandeep Neema, DARPA ANSR program manager, in a press release. "This will be integral to trust, which is key to the Department of Defense's successful adoption of autonomy." DARPA is seeking proposals under its newest AI program, the Assured Neuro Symbolic Learning and Reasoning (ANSR) program, to address these challenges in the form of new, hybrid (neuro-symbolic) AI algorithms that deeply integrate symbolic reasoning with data-driven learning to create robust, assured, and therefore trustworthy systems.

The USPTO's goal is to foster and protect innovation in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Emerging Technologies (ET) and bring those innovations to impact to enhance our country's economic prosperity and national security and to solve world problems. The AI/ET Partnership is an ongoing cooperative effort between the USPTO and the AI/ET community, including academia, independent inventors, small businesses, industry, other government agencies, nonprofits, and civil society. The USPTO seeks to engage the AI/ET community on ongoing and future USPTO AI/ET efforts, such as using AI and ET within the agency to enhance the quality and efficiency of patent and trademark examination. Additionally, the USPTO seeks the public's views on various intellectual property (IP) policy issues that uniquely affect the AI/ET community. The AI/ET Partnership will begin with a series of meetings exploring AI/ET-related initiatives at the USPTO and IP policy issues impacted by AI and other ET.

Dr. Hans-Peter Güllich is the founder and CEO of Dydon AI, a Swiss company offering transparent and flexible AI solutions for Sustainable Finance (Fintech), Insurtech, and Medtech. He made significant contributions to the development of numerous risk management systems (credit and operational risk), founding also a leading vendor of a cross-industry IT solution for governance, risk, and compliance management (Avanon AG) acquired years later by Thomson-Reuters. We discussed several topics with Hans-Peter, including the challenges facing investors and companies in complying with the EU Taxonomy, and the use of AI solutions to address those issues. The EU taxonomy provides companies, investors, and policymakers with appropriate definitions for which economic activities can be considered environmentally sustainable. This should create security for investors, protect from greenwashing, help companies to become more climate-friendly, mitigate market fragmentation and help shift investments towards sustainable activities – one of the core objectives of the Paris agreement already back in 2015.

At Lucayan Technology Solutions LLC, we strive to solve our customer's hardest problems. Our highly focused customer-centric approach is crucial to our customer's success and ultimately ours. We aim to be a breath of fresh air: and be the most innovative organization in the Government contracting space. No worries the proof is in the pudding. To get there, we need exceptionally talented, bright, and driven people.