Many of the metals needed for semiconductors are mined at great human and environmental cost.Credit: Beawiharta/Reuters It determines what we read and buy, whether we get a job, loan, mortgage, subsidies or parole. Two new books offer complementary visions of how society is being reshaped by those who build, use and manage AI. In The Alignment Problem, writer Brian Christian gives an intimate view of the people making AI technology -- their aims, expectations, hopes, challenges and desolations. Starting with Walter Pitts's work on a logical representation of neuron activity in the early twentieth century, he recounts the ideas, aims, successes and failures of researchers and practitioners in fields from cognitive science to engineering. Atlas of AI, from the influential scholar Kate Crawford, deals with how, practically, AI gets into and plays out in our lives.

Imagine you are at the polling booth; dozens of political parties' banners are printed across it. Most of them you've never seen before. However, you know that the button you press determines the government for the coming years. Before we discuss how - let's begin by figuring out the why. Privileged people think it is okay to be apolitical.

When the European Union Commission released its regulatory proposal on artificial intelligence last month, much of the US policy community celebrated. Their praise was at least partly grounded in truth: The world's most powerful democratic states haven't sufficiently regulated AI and other emerging tech, and the document marked something of a step forward. Mostly, though, the proposal and responses to it underscore democracies' confusing rhetoric on AI. Over the past decade, high-level stated goals about regulating AI have often conflicted with the specifics of regulatory proposals, and what end-states should look like aren't well-articulated in either case. Coherent and meaningful progress on developing internationally attractive democratic AI regulation, even as that may vary from country to country, begins with resolving the discourse's many contradictions and unsubtle characterizations.

Google plans to make million-qubit quantum computers by 2029 that are much more powerful than this system it showed in 2019. Quantum computers, if they mature enough, will be able to crack much of today's encryption. That'll lay bare private communications, company data and military secrets. Today's quantum computers are far too primitive to do so. But data surreptitiously gathered now could still be sensitive when more powerful quantum computers come online in a few years.

Artificial intelligence is being called "the next generation of the way we do science." At Argonne, researchers are leveraging the lab's state-of-the-art-facilities and unparalleled expertise to shape the very future of science. While artificial intelligence (AI) is already part of our daily lives in countless ways -- from the facial recognition on our smartphones to e-commerce to a doctor's ability to make more accurate medical diagnoses -- researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory are leading efforts to leverage AI to accelerate new and potentially transformative discoveries in science. "What we are interested in is how we can apply the same advances to scientific problems -- to discover things faster, to discover things we could not have previously known," said Ian Foster, director of Argonne's Data Science and Learning division. "We believe AI methods can provide humans with very powerful, knowledgeable and imaginative assistance that can accelerate the discovery process."

At LinkedIn, our guiding principle is "Members First." It ensures we honor our responsibility to protect our members and maintain their trust in every decision we make, and puts their interests first. A key area where we apply this value in engineering is within our design process. We call this "responsible design," which means that everything we build is intended to work as part of a unified system that delivers the best member experience, provides the right protections for our members and customers, and mitigates any unintended consequences in our products. One of the core pillars of "responsible design" is "responsible AI," which follows Microsoft's Responsible AI Principles.

An international team of researchers has produced a map of the dark matter within the local universe, using a model to infer its location due to its gravitational influence on galaxies (black dots). These density maps -- each a cross section in different dimensions -- reproduce known, prominent features of the universe (red) and also reveal smaller filamentary features (yellow) that act as hidden bridges between galaxies. A new map of dark matter in the local universe reveals several previously undiscovered filamentary structures connecting galaxies. The map, developed using machine learning by an international team including a Penn State astrophysicist, could enable studies about the nature of dark matter as well as about the history and future of our local universe. Dark matter is an elusive substance that makes up 80% of the universe.

AI, big data, and machine learning have witnessed exponential growth over the past few years. With the evolving technology, businesses realize the importance of adopting AI and big data in their operations. AI, big data, and machine learning create exciting new opportunities for companies and entrepreneurs. But this rapid adoption is also partnered with several complexities and risks, hence, comes the need for regulations. Regulators and policymakers find it difficult to keep track of the constant developments in technology and AI systems.

"Digital transformation since the pandemic has been massive. Telehealth has gone from being a novelty to a necessity. Having said that, we need to be reliant on healthcare institutions to get cured and we need technology to make it better," said Mitali Dutta, head of data science and predictive analysis, group IT information and data management, Philips Innovation Campus, at her session at The Rising 2021 by Analytics India Magazine. She pointed at a rise in chronic diseases and healthcare costs, a scarcity of healthcare professionals in India. According to Dutta, the healthcare industry has to focus on the following four aspects, which she called Quadruple AIM of India's healthcare system: To achieve all the above, India needs artificial intelligence.

They're called the Sampo Generation: South Koreans in their 20s and 30s who have given up (po) three (sam) of life's conventional rites of passage -- dating, marrying and having children. They've made these choices because of economic constraints and in the process have worsened South Korea's demographic imbalances. Last year, when the country registered more deaths than births for the first time in recent history, then-Vice Finance Minister Kim Yong-beom pronounced the milestone a "death cross." "I Live Alone" is one of South Korea's most popular reality TV shows. It follows the single lives of movie actors and K-pop singers engaging in mundane activities such as feeding their pets or eating ramen in the middle of the night -- all alone.