The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has published its long-awaited report on nearly two decades worth of UFO sightings. And for the most part, it leaves more questions open than it answers. ODNI examined 144 reports of what it calls "unidentified aerial phenomenon" or UAP dating back to 2004. Of those, 18 incidents may have involved advanced technology that the US can't explain. "Some UAP appeared to remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernable means of propulsion," the report states.

This long-running series should provide you with a very basic understanding of what AI is, what it can do, and how it works. In addition to the article you're currently reading, the guide contains articles on (in order published) neural networks, computer vision, natural language processing, algorithms, artificial general intelligence, the difference between video game AI and real AI, the difference between human and machine intelligence, and ethics. In this edition of the guide, we'll take a glance at global AI policy. Here's how AI can improve your company's customer journey In the coming years it will be important for everyone to understand what those differences can mean for our safety and privacy. Artificial intelligence has traditionally been swept in with other technologies when it comes to policy and regulation.

The hype cycles that come with emerging technologies can be perilous waters for early adopters and buyers. From the immutable yet seemingly impractical blockchain to artificial intelligence systems that are really just machine learning systems (which in turn are often really just rules-based software with data analytics), it's common for marketing departments to blur the lines between innovation and grift when selling new technologies, and for businesses to get snookered. One field that does appear to have long-term transformative potential is quantum computing and its cybersecurity cousin, quantum code breaking. But before we get started: actual quantum computers are not here. A small group of government-funded labs, industry titans and startups are toiling away, steadily increasing the number of cubic bits – or qubits – their supercomputers are capable of processing each year, but it will likely be a long time before businesses and other organizations can realistically buy one, or unleash its exponential computing power on their organization's problems.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the U.S. agency responsible for developing technical metrics to promote "innovation and industrial competitiveness," this week published a document outlining feedback and recommendations for mitigating the risk of bias in AI. The paper, about which NIST is accepting comments until August, proposes an approach for identifying and managing "pernicious" biases that can damage public trust in AI. As NIST scientist Reva Schwartz, who coauthored the paper, points out, AI is transformative in its ability to make sense of data more quickly than humans. But as AI pervades the world, it's becoming clear that its predictions can be affected by algorithmic and data biases. Making matters worse, some AI systems are built to model complex concepts that can't be directly measured by data in the first place.

Back in April, NASA's Ingenuity rover captured the imagination of the world when it sent back an epic selfie it took with Ingenuity on the surface of Mars. It turns out, capturing that photo wasn't so easy as Perseverance posing, taking a single photo and calling it a day. According to a new video NASA released on Friday, what we got to see here on Earth was the result of 62 separate images the agency stitched together. Lots of people ask: how do rovers like me and @MarsCuriosity take our own selfies? See how it's done with the help of my team back on Earth: https://t.co/SL7nQkYh91

While there has been a good deal of discussion about the use of AI in enterprises and the possibility of building ethical AI strategies, new research indicates that, even 10 years from today, it is unlikely that ethical AI design will be widely adopted. The research, based on a survey of 602 technology innovators, business and policy leaders, researchers and activists conducted by Pew Research Center and Elon University, showed that a majority worried that the evolution of AI by 2030 will continue to be primarily focused on optimizing profits and social control and that stakeholders will struggle to achieve a consensus about ethics. When asked whether AI systems being used by organizations will employ ethical principles focused primarily on the public good by 2030, 68% said they will not. The research added that "ethical" implies adopting AI in a manner that is transparent, responsible and accountable. For others, it means ensuring their use of AI remains consistent with laws, regulations, norms, customer expectations and organizational values.

A guide to using artificial intelligence in the public sector About Office for Artificial Intelligence The Office for Artificial Intelligence is a joint BEIS-DCMS unit responsible for overseeing implementation of the AI and Data Grand Challenge. Its mission is to drive responsible and innovative uptake of AI technologies for the benefit of everyone in the UK. The Office for #AI does this by engaging organisations, fostering growth and delivering recommendations around #data, skills and #public and #private sector #adoption.

The library has chosen three computer science and digital humanities experts to investigate how branches of artificial intelligence such as neural networks and computer vision can help humans sift through some of its millions of digitized items. The Morning Download delivers daily insights and news on business technology from the CIO Journal team. "We are all inspired by the technology we see in our everyday lives," such as photo apps that use facial recognition to group together pictures of the same friend or family member, said Kate Zwaard, director of digital strategy at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. "People are really interested in applying that technology to the [library's] collections." The library's current search technology relies on the indexing of text and metadata records that allows items to be recognized by a computer. But there are millions of items that cannot be found through search, in part because the task of categorizing each item is impossible for humans to do alone, Ms. Zwaard said.

The U.S. military has launched two drone strikes against Taliban positions in northern Afghanistan, a U.S. defense official told Fox News on Friday. The strikes came hours before Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is set to meet President Biden at the White House Friday afternoon. An unknown number of Taliban fighters were killed in Baghlan and Kunduz provinces, where the strikes took place. Taliban fighters react to a speech by their senior leader in the Shindand district of Herat province, Afghanistan, in 2016. Three more districts fell to the Taliban overnight.

An illustration of a drone that sprays crops, the kind of gadget that Google saw as potentially useful for fighting fires. Google asked the US Federal Aviation Administration for permission to test a drone for monitoring and fighting fires. However, its drone plans, which were published Thursday in the federal register, have since been extinguished. The request came from Alphabet's Google Research Climate and Energy Group -- not the company's Wing subsidiary, whose drone delivery service was certified by the FAA in 2019. Wing drones are being used to deliver food and medicine during the coronavirus pandemic.