The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) on Thursday announced the launch of a National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource Task Force. The new task force will lay out a road map for expanding critical resources and educational tools that the Biden Administration says it hopes will spur innovation and economic prosperity across the U.S. Its launch comes amid heightened scrutiny of the U.S.'s competitive position in research and development, and follows a bill that was last week passed by the Senate to limit the technology influence of China. The new task force will act as an advisory committee and is tasked with ensuring that AI researchers and students across all scientific disciplines receive the computational resources, high quality data, educational tools and other user support. It will submit two reports to Congress that present a comprehensive AI strategy and implementation plan: an interim report in May 2022, and a final report in November 2022. Lynne Parker, who is director of the National AI Initiative Office at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, will co-chair the committee, along with Erwin Gianchandani from the National Science Foundation.

In a first for the use of artificial intelligence in healthcare, the FDA has given a green light to a program designed to help primary care doctors diagnose autism in children at an early age, potentially when interventions may have the greatest effect on their neurodevelopment. Cognoa's Canvas Dx app takes in questionnaires filled out by caregivers and information from physicians as well as video of a child interacting with others or performing tasks, before providing assistance in making a diagnosis for autism spectrum disorder either within the doctor's office or remotely. Intended for children between the ages of 18 months and five years, the machine learning software aims to help make clinical decisions faster than previous methods--which may require referrals to a specialist plus a difficult process that can take years to identify varying symptoms. According to the FDA, though autism spectrum disorder affects about 1 in 54 children, and signs may first become apparent as early as 18 months, the average age at diagnosis may be closer to four-and-a-half years old. In addition, nonwhite children, females and people from rural areas or disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds are often diagnosed later or missed altogether, according to Cognoa.

The 89 people who work at Buffer, a company that makes social-media management tools, are used to having an unconventional employer. Everyone's salary, including the CEO's, is public. All employees work remotely; their only office closed down six years ago. And as a perk, Buffer pays for any books employees want to buy for themselves. So perhaps it is unsurprising that last year, when the pandemic obliterated countless workers' work-life balance and mental health, Buffer responded in a way that few other companies did: It gave employees an extra day off each week, without reducing pay--an experiment that's still running a year later. "It has been such a godsend," Essence Muhammad, a customer-support agent at Buffer, told me. Miraculously--or predictably, if you ask proponents of the four-day workweek--the company seemed to be getting the same amount of work done in less time. It had scaled back on meetings and social events, and employees increased the pace of their day. Nicole Miller, who works in human resources at Buffer, also cited "the principle of work expanding to the time you give it": When we have 40 hours of work a week, we find ways to work for 40 hours.

The future of clean energy is hot. Temperatures hit 800 Celsius in parts of solar energy plants and advanced nuclear reactors. Finding materials that can stand that type of heat is tough. So experts look to Mark Messner for answers. A principal mechanical engineer at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, Messner is among a group of engineers who are discovering better ways to predict how materials will behave under high temperatures and pressures.

Using a machine-learning algorithm, MIT researchers have identified a powerful new antibiotic compound. In laboratory tests, the drug killed many of the world's most problematic disease-causing bacteria, including some strains that are resistant to all known antibiotics. It also cleared infections in two different mouse models. The computer model, which can screen more than a hundred million chemical compounds in a matter of days, is designed to pick out potential antibiotics that kill bacteria using different mechanisms than those of existing drugs. "We wanted to develop a platform that would allow us to harness the power of artificial intelligence to usher in a new age of antibiotic drug discovery," says James Collins, the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science in MIT's Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) and Department of Biological Engineering.

This image made from video of a fake video featuring former President Barack Obama shows elements of facial mapping used for deepfakes that lets anyone make videos of real people appearing to say things they've never said. This image made from video of a fake video featuring former President Barack Obama shows elements of facial mapping used for deepfakes that lets anyone make videos of real people appearing to say things they've never said. Facebook researchers say they've developed artificial intelligence that can identify so-called "deepfakes" and track their origin by using reverse engineering. Deepfakes are altered photos, videos, and still images that use artificial intelligence to appear like the real thing. They've become increasingly realistic in recent years, making it harder to detect the real from the fake with just the naked eye.

The European Commission's (EC) proposed Artificial Intelligence (AI) regulation – a much-awaited piece of legislation – is out. While this text must still go through consultations within the EU before its adoption, the proposal already provides a good sense of how the EU considers the development of AI within the years to come: by following a risk-based approach to regulation. Other use-cases such as FRT for authentication processes are not part of the list of high-level risks and thus should require a lighter level of regulation. While technology providers have to maintain the highest level of performance and accuracy of their systems, this necessary step isn't the most critical to prevent harm. The EC doesn't detail any threshold of accuracy to meet, but rather requires a robust and documented risk-mitigation process designed to prevent harm.

Even Deep Tom Cruise thinks this latest generation of digitally fabricated faces have walked out of the uncanny valley and siddled right on up to photorealism. While the possibilities for entertainment using this tech are boundless, deep fake videos have the potential to severely disrupt the public's trust in government and our elected officials -- even the ability to believe our own eyes. On Wednesday, Facebook and Michigan State University debuted a novel method of not just detecting deep fakes but discovering which generative model produced it by reverse engineering the image itself. Beyond telling you if an image is a deep fake or not, many current detection systems can tell whether the image was generated in a model that the system saw during its training -- known as a "close-set" classification. Problem is, if the image was created by a generative model that the detector system wasn't trained on then the system won't have the previous experience to be able to spot the fake.

Joe Biden-led administration seems to have taken Artificial Intelligence(AI) technology seriously as it has launched a National Task Force that will oversee the use of government data in AI research. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) has confirmed the news and said that the task force will soon formulate a blueprint for the use of data for machine learning programs and algorithms. Officially dubbed as the National AI Research Resource (NAIRR), the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource Task Force will act as a centralized platform where information and infrastructure sharing will be done to support AI research carried out by various companies and science students across the country. High-end computers, high-quality data sets, and educational tools along with the supporting expertise will be provided by NAIRR. And the task force will be chaired by Lynne Parker Director of the White House Artificial Intelligence Initiative and Erwin Gianchandani of the National Science Foundation.

New York – General Motors is hitting the accelerator on its drive towards electric autos, significantly boosting its near-term investments as it unveils new models and builds production capacity. The biggest U.S. automaker announced it would raise spending by 30% to $35 billion through 2025 and plans to build two additional battery cell plants. Some of the funds also will go to its autonomous vehicle program. The company cited strong consumer reception to its early electric vehicle (EV) models and beneficial public policies as factors that give it confidence the investment will pay off. "GM is targeting annual global EV sales of more than 1 million by 2025, and we are increasing our investment to scale faster because we see momentum building in the United States for electrification, along with customer demand for our product portfolio," said Chief Executive Mary Barra. "There is a strong and growing conviction among our employees, customers, dealers, suppliers, unions and investors, as well as policymakers, that electric vehicles and self-driving technology are the keys to a cleaner, safer world for all."