Is there training at NASA or elsewhere for this kind of stuff? There are analogues of the space station and the modules to prepare you for how to handle things. You go see how you're going to do the so-called mundane things you'll be doing in space. And when it comes to figuring out how you'll do these things in space, there's the parabolic flights you go on, where you experience weightlessness for 25 seconds at a time. But we never really take weightlessness training to do other things, like cleaning your teeth.

Military applications of artificial intelligence, we are told, are poised to transform military power. They might make the oceans transparent to sensor systems, threatening at-sea nuclear deterrent systems like the UK's Trident. They might enable autonomous aircraft that could outfight human crewed planes. They could transform intelligence processing in war, enable all sorts of complex weapons that would make things like tanks and aircraft carriers yesterday's news. The sky, it appears, is the limit. In this light, big states are making large investments in military AI. One aspect of the UK's recent Integrated Review (ahem, "Global Britain in a Competitive Age") and Command Paper (ahem, "Defence in a competitive age") is a bet that investment in military applications of artifical intelligence will offset cuts to things like tanks and troop numbers.

This post is to share with you the recent publication of the book: "Data Science for Economics and Finance: Methodologies and Applications", by Sergio Consoli, Diego Reforgiato Recupero, and Michaela Saisana. The use of data science and artificial intelligence for economics and finance is providing benefits for scientists, professionals and policy-makers by improving the available data analysis methodologies for economic forecasting and therefore making our societies better prepared for the challenges of tomorrow. This book is a good example of how combining expertise from the European Commission, universities in the U.S. and Europe, financial and economic institutions, and multilateral organizations, can bring forward a shared vision on the benefits of data science applied to economics and finance; from the research point of view to the evaluation of policies on the other hand. It showcases how data science is reshaping the business sector. It includes examples of novel big data sources and some successful applications on the use of advanced machine learning, natural language processing, networks analysis, and time series analysis and forecasting, among others, in the economic and financial sectors. At the same time, the book is making an appeal for further adoption of these novel applications in the field of economics and finance so that they can reach their full potential and support policy-makers and the related stakeholders in the transformational recovery of our societies.

Retail, one of the largest industries in the world, totaled an estimated $5.73 trillion in sales in 2017 in the US according to Plunkett Research. This is an increase compared to the $5.52 trillion in sales in 2016 according to the U.S Census Bureau. With the help of artificial intelligence, consumers are experiencing a whole new way of shopping both online and in stores. AI in retail is being applied in innovative ways - from before a sale to after products or services is purchased. Businesses of tomorrow must keep up with customer expectations and implementing AI can help.

The Australian Government has released the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Plan in a bid to accelerate the development and adoption of AI technologies. "AI could contribute more than $20 trillion to the global economy by 2030, and the AI Action Plan will help us leverage opportunities for AI to further strengthen the economy and improve the quality of life of all Australians, while ensuring that the development and adoption of AI is guided by appropriate safeguards, privacy and ethical considerations," said Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Christian Porter. The Action Plan is backed by $124.1 million in funding announced in the May Budget and sets out four key focus areas for government that will help to position Australia as a global leader in AI. Focus one: Developing and adopting AI to transform Australian businesses -- support to help businesses develop and adopt AI technologies to create jobs and increase their productivity and competitiveness. Focus two: Creating an environment to grow and attract the world's best AI talent -- support to ensure our businesses have access to talent and expertise.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is used in a wide variety of products and services, including maps embedded on our smart phones and "chat bots" that help answer our questions on websites. Many hope that AI will transform our economy in ways that drive growth, similar to how steam engines did in the late 19th century and electricity did in the early 20th century. But it is hard to imagine that maps on smart phones, chatbots, and other existing AI-enabled services will drive the type of economic growth we saw from stream and electricity. What we need to see are some dramatic new AI-enabled products and services that transform our way of life--in short, we are waiting for an AI "killer app." Autonomous vehicles (AVs)--vehicles that accelerate, brake, and turn on their own, requiring little or no input from a human driver--may be such a killer app that transforms our economy significantly.

The idea of responsible artificial intelligence (AI) is spreading far and wide across the U.S. Department of Defense and its surrounding ecosystem. There's been the new data strategy, the responsible AI memo and the newly approved JADC2 strategy that has a massive data component. "The DoD is very much accelerating its path," said Thomas Kenney, chief data officer and director of SOF AI for U.S. Special Operations Command, during day two of the virtual AFCEA/GMU Critical Issues in C4I Symposium. "Our chief data officer at the DoD, David Spirk, is doing herculean work to help the entire DoD move forward," he added. "That new data strategy, as we think about data sharing, is absolutely essential because it creates the conditions for success where we can open doors to data we maybe didn't have access to before or maybe data we didn't even know existed," Kenney said.

As the Pentagon rapidly builds and adopts artificial intelligence tools, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said military leaders increasingly are worried about a second-hand problem: AI safety. AI safety broadly refers to making sure that artificial intelligence programs don't wind up causing problems, no matter whether they were based on corrupted or incomplete data, were poorly designed, or were hacked by attackers. AI safety is often seen as an afterthought as companies rush to build, sell, and adopt machine learning tools. But the Department of Defense is obligated to put a little more attention into the issue, Hicks said Monday at the Defense One Tech Summit. "As you look at testing evaluation and validation and verification approaches, these are areas where we know--whether you're in the commercial sector, the government sector, and certainly if you look abroad, there is not a lot happening in terms of safety," she said.

This volume contains revised versions of the papers selected for the second volume of the Online Handbook of Argumentation for AI (OHAAI). Previously, formal theories of argument and argument interaction have been proposed and studied, and this has led to the more recent study of computational models of argument. Argumentation, as a field within artificial intelligence (AI), is highly relevant for researchers interested in symbolic representations of knowledge and defeasible reasoning. The purpose of this handbook is to provide an open access and curated anthology for the argumentation research community. OHAAI is designed to serve as a research hub to keep track of the latest and upcoming PhD-driven research on the theory and application of argumentation in all areas related to AI.

India is expected to invest $1 billion in artificial intelligence by 2023, according to a recent report from Project Management Institute (PMI), a Philadelphia-based non-profit organisation. Last year, the Indian government allocated $477 million to boost the country's AI ecosystem. Further, as part of the National Education Policy (NEP), AI will be introduced in school curriculums. Inarguably, India is making bottom-up changes to become an AI superpower. Below, we take a look at the latest AI courses offered by Indian institutions.