Russia is building its own $6 billion space station that it plans to launch in 2030, the head of the country's Roscosmos space agency has said. "If in 2030, in accordance with our plans, we can put it into orbit, it will be a colossal breakthrough," Interfax news agency quoted Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin as saying, as reported by Reuters. "The will is there to take a new step in world manned space exploration." The Russian station is likely to be manned by robots with artificial intelligence, while human cosmonauts would periodically visit the craft. This is because the Russian station's orbit path would expose it to higher radiation. Deputy prime minister Yuri Borisov reportedly saying that Russia will give notice to its international partners in 2025.

Regulators in Europe and Washington are racing to figure out how to govern business' use of artificial intelligence while companies push to deploy the technology. Driving the news: On Wednesday, the EU revealed a detailed proposal on how AI should be regulated, banning some uses outright and defining which uses of AI are deemed "high-risk." In the U.S., the federal government has yet to pass legislation specifically addressing AI, though some local governments have enacted their own rules, especially around facial recognition. Acting FTC chairwoman Rebecca Slaughter told Axios: "I am pleased that the European Commission shares the FTC's concerns about the risks posed by artificial intelligence... I look forward to reviewing the EC's proposal as we learn from each other in pursuit of transparency, fairness, and accountability in algorithmic decision making."

The EU is known for its hard line against Big Tech, but the FTC has taken a softer approach, at least in recent years. The agency is meant to police unfair and dishonest trade practices. Its remit is narrow--it does not have jurisdiction over government agencies, banks, or nonprofits. But it can step in when companies misrepresent the capabilities of a product they are selling, which means firms that claim their facial recognition systems, predictive policing algorithms or healthcare tools are not biased may now be in the line of fire. "Where they do have power, they have enormous power," says Calo.

On 21 April 2021, the European Commission proposed new rules and actions aimed at making Europe the global hub for trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (AI). The combination of the first-ever legal framework on AI and a new Coordinated Plan with Member States will endeavour to guarantee the safety and fundamental rights of people and businesses, while strengthening AI uptake, investment and innovation across the EU. New rules on Machinery will complement this approach by adapting safety rules to increase users' trust in new products. Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President for a Europe fit for the Digital Age, said: "On Artificial Intelligence, trust is a must, not a nice to have. With these landmark rules, the EU is spearheading the development of new global norms to make sure AI can be trusted. By setting the standards, we can pave the way to ethical technology worldwide and ensure that the EU remains competitive along the way. Future-proof and innovation-friendly, our rules will intervene where strictly needed: when the safety and fundamental rights of EU citizens are at stake."

Originally published at Ross Dawson. Shortly after the new year 2021, the Media Synthesis community at Reddit began to become more than usually psychedelic. The board became saturated with unearthly images depicting rivers of blood, Picasso's King Kong, a Pikachu chasing Mark Zuckerberg, Synthwave witches, acid-induced kittens, an inter-dimensional portal, the industrial revolution and the possible child of Barack Obama and Donald Trump. The bizarre images were generated by inputting short phrases into Google Colab notebooks (web pages from which a user can access the formidable machine learning resources of the search giant), and letting the trained algorithms compute possible images based on that text. In most cases, the optimal results were obtained in minutes. Various attempts at the same phrase would usually produce wildly different results. In the image synthesis field, this free-ranging facility of invention is something new; not just a bridge between the text and image domains, but an early look at comprehensive AI-driven image generation systems that don't need hyper-specific training in very limited domains (i.e. NVIDIA's landscape generation framework GauGAN [on which, more later], which can turn sketches into landscapes, but only into landscapes; or the various sketch face Pix2Pix projects, that are likewise'specialized'). Example images generated with the Big Sleep Colab notebook [12].

Cybersecurity has become an important strategic imperative and enterprises today need to monitor and defend their IT assets from the ever-changing cyber threat landscape. All modern enterprises need a robust and comprehensive cybersecurity program to prevent, detect, assess, and respond to cybersecurity threats and breaches. In many ways, cybersecurity is unique – much of detection and monitoring is all about correlation and prediction--and can benefit from the infusion of artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions for assessment, analytics, and automation. In a hyper-connected digital world, organizations need to process humongous quantities of data originating from disparate systems to detect anomalies, locate vulnerabilities, and pre-empt threats. Unlike most manual tracking methods, AI and ML-based systems can monitor millions of events on a daily basis and facilitate timely threat detection as well as appropriate and quick response.

Some corporate technology leaders say a proposed clampdown by European regulators on the use of artificial intelligence will run up costs and stifle innovation, just as companies are starting to unlock its potential. Others say stronger oversight will help build public trust in AI systems, which have inflamed tensions over data privacy, consumer protection and misuse--especially in areas like facial recognition. Thomas Donnelly, chief information officer of software firm BetterCloud Inc., said the proposed restrictions will have a negative impact on Europe's technology sector over the long term, as companies elsewhere gain a competitive edge by continuing to develop cheaper and more efficient AI-powered applications. "I've been doing IT for a long time," Mr. Donnelly said in an email. "I've never seen tech as transformative as AI since the internet."

Faced with the rapid technological development of AI and a global policy context where more and more countries are investing heavily in AI, the EU must act as one to harness the many opportunities and address challenges of AI in a future-proof manner. To promote the development of AI and address the potential high risks it poses to safety and fundamental rights equally, the Commission is presenting both a proposal for a regulatory framework on AI and a revised coordinated plan on AI.

The US Federal Trade Commission has warned companies against using biased artificial intelligence, saying they may break consumer protection laws. A new blog post notes that AI tools can reflect "troubling" racial and gender biases. If those tools are applied in areas like housing or employment, falsely advertised as unbiased, or trained on data that is gathered deceptively, the agency says it could intervene. "In a rush to embrace new technology, be careful not to overpromise what your algorithm can deliver," writes FTC attorney Elisa Jillson -- particularly when promising decisions that don't reflect racial or gender bias. "The result may be deception, discrimination -- and an FTC law enforcement action."

Some corporate technology leaders say a proposed clampdown by European regulators on the use of artificial intelligence will run up costs and stifle innovation, just as companies are starting to unlock its potential. Others say stronger oversight will help build public trust in AI systems, which have inflamed tensions over data privacy, consumer protection and misuse--especially in areas like facial recognition. Thomas Donnelly, chief information officer of software firm BetterCloud Inc., said the proposed restrictions will have a negative impact on Europe's technology sector over the long term, as companies elsewhere gain a competitive edge by continuing to develop cheaper and more efficient AI-powered applications. "I've been doing IT for a long time," Mr. Donnelly said. "I've never seen tech as transformative as AI since the internet."