My first loves were international relations, economics and politics. I grew up around cigar smoking patriarchs that talked at length about the US, Russia, China and all the innovations, wars, conflicts and progress in between. I marveled at our global world and I was fascinated by where influence originated and what it could do. I was frightened by the scale of the world's superpowers and the myriad ways they affect the lives of innocent people all over the world. Nothing much has changed since those early days.

To help researchers better analyze the massive amount of data they collect from their experiments, the Department of Energy is dedicating $29 million to develop new machine learning tools and advanced algorithms that will benefit multiple scientific fields and inform cutting-edge solutions for a variety of complex problems. Today's scientific facilities, instruments and high-performance computing (HPC) simulations regularly generate terabytes of data -- so much that traditional analysis methods can struggle to interpret the data efficiently. More advanced machine learning tools can identify patterns in data that humans cannot detect, running up to thousands of times faster than traditional data analysis techniques. "As research tools like computers or microscopes have gotten more powerful, the amount of data they can gather has gotten overwhelming--and scientists need new capabilities to make sense of it all," Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm said. "Advanced analysis methods will help them unlock the full potential behind all this data, so that we can solve even our most complex challenges."

Elected officials and local authorities across the United States and around the world should consider replicating an innovative legislative proposal that would prohibit police from arming robots used in their law enforcement operations. The bill, introduced on March 18 by New York City council members Ben Kallos and Vanessa Gibson, would "prohibit the New York City Police Department (NYPD) from using or threatening to use robots armed with a weapon or to use robots in any manner that is substantially likely to cause death or serious physical injury." The proposed law comes after a social media outcry over the use of an unarmed 70-pound ground robot manufactured by Boston Dynamics in a policing operation last month in the Bronx. US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized its deployment "for testing on low-income communities of color with under-resourced schools" and suggested the city should invest instead in education. In a statement published in Wired and other news outlets, Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Playter said that the company's robots "will achieve long-term commercial viability only if people see robots as helpful, beneficial tools without worrying if they're going to cause harm."

For anyone who has ever suffered a loss, Microsoft could have an incredible solution -- but it's a controversial one. The US Department of Commerce recently granted the tech giant a patent permitting the manufacture of a chatbot based on a deceased person's information, including "images, voice data, social media posts [and] electronic messages." If Microsoft goes ahead with the idea, it would create AI versions of humans, possibly accompanied by digital representations of their face or body. We already have access to the technology needed to make this happen. And we've seen AI used to bring the dead back to life before, in both sci-fi and reality.

Note: This is not a political post, and the scientific analysis has been done without any bias. In its last book, the 44th president of the United States Barack Obama shows the America that he was exploring when he became president. He talks about the difficult times he faced and its way to react to the challenging period he was living. I couldn't help but notice that its communication strategy was way different from the one of the 2021 politicians. Of course, social media are game changing in terms of the politicians' communication. Plus, in the era of "Big Data", it is becoming more and more difficult to understand the communications of the political parties as they output a huge quantity of information from their social networks' profiles.

Yesterday's hearing with the CEOs of Google, Facebook and Twitter was as messy as you might have predicted -- and we'll get into that below. But I want to start today with voice assistants. Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant and the rest know a lot. But they barely remember anything, which curtails exactly how much they can truly assist with your life beyond music controls, timers and reminding you exactly what shows you've seen Joel Kinnaman in. A new feature spotted for Google Assistant on Android called Memory could transform it into the assistant we need, however.

Llamas and alpacas carry genes from mysterious'ghost' relatives

Automated vehicles are rapidly advancing in capability, altering the risks and liabilities ... [ ] traditionally associated with driving. Self-driving vehicles should ideally accomplish a few things: convenience for operators/owners of vehicles, cost reduction for commercial vehicles (no driver), and safer roads (fewer and less severe crashes). This last item, if true, will significantly lower the risks traditionally associated with driving. In fact, the removal of the driver fundamentally alters the liabilities that insurance companies have spent almost a century covering. As liabilities and risks shift, how vehicles are insured and the costs of that insurance will change, disrupting a $300B industry and creating opportunities for innovation. The US Department of Transportation rates a vehicle's ability to self-drive from Level 0 (none) to Level 5 (fully autonomous).

The Daily Star's FREE newsletter is spectacular! In a move that will terrify anyone who makes music for a living, an Artificial Intelligence researcher has used deep fake technology to recreate a perfect copy of Eminem's 1999 smash "My Name Is…". The AI has duplicated the exact tone and intonation of the Missouri-born rapper but updated his seminal rap to take sideswipes at Billie Eilish, former president Donald Trump and instant dating site Tinder. YouTuber, 30 Hertz, who created the track, says he uses AI to generate "synthetic parody songs and other poorly written material" in a disclaimer that echoes scatalogical 90s comedy show South Park. He's not the only AI tinkerer using artificial intelligence to recreate the works of famous musicians. OpenAI's Jukebox project uses the same technology to create entire songs that might have been recorded by Frank Sinatra, had the Rat Pack legend not died in 1998.

That the regulation of Artificial intelligence is a hot topic is hardly surprising. AI is being adopted at speed, news reports frequently appear about high-profile AI decision-making, and the sheer volume of guidance and regulatory proposals for interested parties to digest can seem challenging. What can we expect in terms of future regulation? And what might compliance with "ethical" AI entail? High-level ethical AI principles were made by the OECD, EU and G20 in 2019.