Lawmakers of the United States claim that artificial intelligence-powered facial recognition system developing company Clearview AI could possibly end public anonymity if the federal government does not ditch it. Recently, democratic senators are stepping up their efforts to limit the federal government's collaboration with the infamous surveillance company Clearview AI. Clearview Ai has been into multiple controversies over the years regarding its practices that violate citizens' right to privacy. Despite all criticism, the company was awarded a US patent for its one-of-a-kind technology earlier this month. Lawmakers said, "In conjunction with the company's facial recognition capabilities, this trove of personal information is capable of fundamentally dismantling Americans' expectation that they can move, assemble, or simply appear in public without being identified."

A fully autonomous Black Hawk helicopter has taken to the skies over the US without a human pilot on board for the first time. A partnership between Lockheed Martin Sikorsky and the Defence Armed Research Projects Agency (DARPA), it took off from Fort Campbell in Kentucky on February 5. Without anyone on board, the UH-60A Black Hawk completed a 30 minute flight above the US army installation, with a second flight held on February 7. It comes with an optionally piloted cockpit, that has to be switched from pilot, to autonomous mode - allowing an onboard computer brain to control the vehicle. During the flight the Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) autonomous pilot was presented with a series of simulated obstacles to overcome. It had to execute a series of pedal turns, maneurvers and straightaways before carrying out a perfect landing back on the Fort Campbell runway - without any human intervention.

The idea of the four-week workweek is not new. Louis Hyman, a historian of work and business at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, explained that the current five-day workweek composed of eight-hour days was born of factory worker strikes in the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as nationwide union strength in the years following World War I. After workers pressured the likes of Henry Ford and eventually the United States government to adopt the five-day workweek, there were widespread calls for a four-day workweek. Recently, the concept has resurfaced. Companies as large as Panasonic have implemented versions of it, as have video game studios like "Guardians of the Galaxy" developer Eidos-Montreal and indie studios Vodeo Games and KO_OP.

This is a rush transcript of "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on February 9, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated. It would be pretty fascinating to see the Democratic Party's latest internal polling on COVID restrictions. We haven't seen it, but it must have been pretty awful, apocalyptic, because something spooked them bad. Over the course of less than a week, the same people who have systematically turned America into a quarantine camp suddenly out of nowhere started calling in unison for medical freedom. Suddenly, they sound like Bobby Kennedy, Jr., pretty much all of them, even the whiny hypochondriacs at "The Atlantic" Magazine, those neurotic cat owners who've turned COVID hysteria into a religion are now calling for a total abandonment of all corona restrictions. Open everything, "The time to end pandemic restrictions is now." Believe it or not, that was the headline on "The Atlantic's" website today. So if even "The Atlantic" has given up on corona restrictions, obviously the pandemic is over. You should know this virus was killed not by science, but by the midterm elections. It turns out the only real cure for COVID-19 is the political ambition of the Democratic Party. Yes, every upside has a downside. It means that pasty NPR listeners are going to emerge from their apartment for the first time in two years, they will be loose on the streets. You're going to see them at Whole Foods again, shuffling along with their tote bags, looking bewildered and annoyed. That's bad, but it's still worth it, anything to make the insanity go away, we're celebrating. But we're also looking forward, and the question is, how do we guarantee that nothing like this ever happens again? How do we prevent future mass hysteria events in the United States?

The massive 400ft Starship rocket has been assembled on a launch platform by SpaceX, ahead of an announcement on the future of the heavy lift launcher tonight. Founder Elon Musk announced his plan to reveal details about the future of the massive, and fully re-usable spacecraft, starting at 21:00 ET, from Boca Chica, the home of the SpaceX Starship test facility in Texas. It will be the first update on the vehicle in almost three years, and while details haven't been revealed over what Musk will say, it will likely include details of the first orbital test launch for the next generation rocket. Starship, which will return humans to the lunar surface and could one day ferry more than 100 people a time to Mars, is set to make its first orbital flight in March. The latest development in Boca Chica saw the firm stack a two-stage Starship rocket - with the upper stage being lifted on to the Super Heavy booster using a trio of robotic arms attached to the 480ft launch tower.

Robotics4EU is a 3-years-long EU-funded project which advocates for a wider adoption for AI-based robots in 4 sectors: healthcare, inspection and maintenance of infrastructure, agri-food, and agile production. Thus, Robotics4EU raises awareness about non-technological aspects in robotics through delivering a series of workshops to involve the research community, industry representatives and citizens. Social impact of Robotics in Inspection and Maintenance" which took place on the 26th of January, 2022 tackled the problem of interactions between robots and humans. How to evaluate the real impact of robotics on our society? How to decide if robots are hazardous and may complicate human lives? To what extent does society accept rapidly progressing robotic technologies?

Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), with Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Representative Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), introduced in early February the Algorithmic Accountability Act of 2022. This bill aims to bring transparency and oversight of software, algorithms and other automated systems that are used to make automated decisions. "As algorithms and other automated decision systems take on increasingly prominent roles in our lives, we have a responsibility to ensure that they are adequately assessed for biases that may disadvantage minority or marginalized communities," said Sen. Booker. The bill requires companies to conduct impact assessments for bias, effectiveness and other factors, when using automated decision systems to make critical decisions. The bill also gives the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) the authority to require the companies to comply with this bill and to create a public repository of these automated systems.

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This article was contributed by Steve Escaravage, senior VP and leader of Booz Allen's analytics practice and AI services business. Today, almost any organization can prove AI's capability in a non-production, innovation laboratory setting -- but fielding AI in real-world environments is the true test of success. National security is rapidly becoming a digital enterprise -- and winning in the digital battlefield of the future demands continued advancements in artificial intelligence (AI). But right now, too many AI applications are stuck in the lab at the conceptual stage, and too few reach deployments in the "field" (i.e., production environments with real workloads, users, and problems). This gap is dangerous because AI improves through operationalization, learning from real-world data how to work faster and better.

The European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS), the leading European Artificial Intelligence (AI) association with a focus on scientific excellence, is developing an ambitious project to create a multicentric European AI lighthouse. It has presented such a vision to members of the European Parliament and relevant stakeholders, asking for their support. In an official statement, ELLIS argues in favour of this decentralised model for several key reasons, such as the flexibility and versatility arising from having a network of research units; the promotion of one of Europe's key assets, its diversity; an increased ability to attract and retain talent; and the support of the adoption of AI advances and the subsequent wealth generation in several European regional ecosystems. These advantages would not exist if there were a single research centre or AI lighthouse for all of Europe. Nuria Oliver, Scientific Director and co-founder of the Alicante ELLIS Unit Foundation and Vice-President of ELLIS Europe, has emphasised the importance of this vision to "turn Europe into an AI world power through the development of strong regional ecosystems". From ELLIS Alicante, a foundation promoted by the Generalitat Valenciana (Regional Government of Valencia), Oliver says that "instead of working as independent bodies, the cross-cutting nature of AI emphasises the importance of working with such a multi-centric approach.