The newly released documentary Coded Bias from Shalini Kantayya takes the viewer on a tour of the way modern algorithms can undermine justice and society and are actively subverting justice at the present moment. Coded Bias highlights many under-discussed issues regarding data and its usage by governments and corporations. While its prescriptions for government usage of data are well considered, the issue of corporate use of data involves many additional issues that the film skirts entirely. As the film points out, we are presented these algorithms as if they were a form of intelligence. But they are actually just math--and this math can be used to, intentionally or unintentionally, encode biases.

The modern world would be a pale shade of itself if not for the myriad foundational technologies developed at the Bell Telephone Labs. Its engineers invented the transistor and photovoltaic cell, charge-coupled devices, frickin' lasers -- even Unix and the C programming language. Those same engineers also worked with some of the Cold War era's most influential artists -- including Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Yvonne Rainer -- to create a wholly new style of artistic expression. In his new book, Making Art Work: How Cold War Engineers and Artists Forged a New Creative Culture, W. Patrick McCray follows the exploits of often-unsung technicians like rocket pioneer cum kinetic artist, Frank J. Malina and Bell Labs electrical engineer and Experiments in Art and Technology founder Billy Klüver, as they leveraged their technological prowess in the pursuit of creating compelling new works. The following excerpt is reprinted from Making Art Work: How Cold War Engineers and Artists Forged a New Creative Culture by W. Patrick McCray.

Ex-IBM CEO Sam Palmisano and Cyber Readiness Institute Managing Director Kiersten Todt join'Special Report' with analysis WASHINGTON – The Trump administration has notified Congress that it intends to shutter the last two remaining U.S. consulates in Russia. The State Department told lawmakers last week that it would permanently close the consulate in the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok and temporarily suspend operations at the consulate in Yekaterinburg just east of the Ural Mountains. The notice was sent to Congress on Dec. 10 but received little attention at the time. That timing predates by three days the public emergence of news about a major suspected Russian computer intrusion into U.S. government and private computer systems that has raised grave cybersecurity fears. Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures as he speaks via video call during a news conference as journalists wearing face masks to protect against coronavirus, observe social distancing guidelines watch him at a big screen in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Dec. 17, 2020.

The coronavirus has unleashed a medical, social and economic crisis of unimaginable intensity. And in response, the world is discovering a state of new normal. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has highlighted how the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an ever-increasing adoption of technology at a scale unknown till recently. Where does Artificial Intelligence (AI) feature in this new normal? In the medical world, AI has been applied to COVID-19 in four areas: diagnosis, public health, clinical decision-making, and therapeutics.

The U.S. Air Force has tested the ARTUμ integrated artificial intelligence system on the U-2 Dragon Lady strategic reconnaissance aircraft. This flight marks a major leap forward for national defense as artificial intelligence took flight aboard a military aircraft for the first time in the Department of Defense history. Air Combat Command's U-2 Federal Laboratory researchers developed ARTUµ and trained it to execute specific in-flight tasks that otherwise would be done by the pilot. During the reconnaissance flight, ARTUµ was responsible for the preliminary processing of information from the reconnaissance systems of the U-2 aircraft. At the same time, it must perform many more tasks, including monitoring the surrounding airspace and choosing the flight route.

Washington – The United States added dozens of Chinese companies, including the country's top chipmaker SMIC and Chinese drone manufacturer SZ DJI Technology Co. Ltd., to a trade blacklist on Friday as U.S. President Donald Trump's administration ratchets up tensions with China in his final weeks in office. Reuters first reported the addition of SMIC and other companies earlier on Friday. The move is seen as the latest in Republican Trump's efforts to burnish his tough-on-China image as part of lengthy fight between Washington and Beijing over trade and numerous economic issues. The U.S. Commerce Department said the action against SMIC stems from Beijing's efforts to harness civilian technologies for military purposes and evidence of activities between SMIC and Chinese military industrial companies of concern. The Commerce Department will "not allow advanced U.S. technology to help build the military of an increasingly belligerent adversary," Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement.

Self-driving vehicles would not be possible without sensors and so it's not surprising to see two small new sensors in the 2020 Silicon Valley Robotics'Good Robot' Innovation Awards, the Velabit from Velodyne and the nanoScan3 from SICK. Our other Innovation Awards go to companies with groundbreakingly new robots; from the tensegrity structure of Squishy Robotics, which will help in both space exploration and disaster response on earth, to the Dusty Robotics full scale FieldPrinter for the construction industry, and Titan from FarmWise for agriculture, which was also named one of Time's Best Inventions for 2020. Finally, we're delighted to see innovation in robotics that is affordable and collaborative enough for home robot applications, with Stretch from Hello Robot and Eve from Halodi Robotics. The Velabit, a game-changing lidar sensor, leverages Velodyne's innovative lidar technology and manufacturing partnerships for cost optimization and high-volume production, to make high-quality 3D lidar sensors readily accessible to everyone. The Velabit is smaller than a deck of playing cards, and it shatters the price barrier, costing $100.00 per sensor.

On December 2nd, 2020 the President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, presented the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy (Estrategia Nacional de Inteligencia Artificial (ENIA)). The strategy aims to create an environment of trust regarding the development of inclusive, sustainable artificial intelligence (AI) that places people at its heart. Spain's ENIA seeks to place Spain in line with leading countries in the research and use of reliable AI to serve economic and social development. Besides, support programmes will be launched for companies to incorporate AI in productive processes and value chains. The'Next Tech Fund' will be launched with public-private venture capital to boost digital entrepreneurship and the growth of companies.

As much as the US military relies on drones to bolster its aerial arsenal, it has still relied on human operators to guide its aircraft -- until now. Air Force Assistant Secretary Dr. Will Roper has revealed to Popular Mechanics that AI controlled a US military aircraft (and really, military system) for the first time, serving as the "co-pilot" aboard a U-2 Dragon Lady spy plane during a California flight on December 15th. ARTUμ, a variant of the μZero AI used for games like chess, had ultimate control over radar during a simulated missile strike on Beale Air Force Base. It determined when to focus on hunting for missiles and when to focus on self-preservation. Effectively, that made it the mission leader -- it wasn't flying, but it determined where the human pilot should fly.

Step out onto the streets of Night City, Cyberpunk 2077's futuristic vision of a dystopian Californian metropolis, and very little looks immediately familiar. The city's buildings have been replaced with squat brutalist apartment blocks, hologram-coated concrete towers, and neon-lit side streets where people with metal computer implants stare at strangers with glowing eyes or clench high-tech guns with gleaming cybernetic hands. Still, Night City, despite how alien its strange technology and architecture may appear, represents a future very much in touch with the concerns of our present day. Cyberpunk follows V, a character created by the player who ends up entangled in the politics of Night City's most powerful megacorporation, Arasaka, and fighting for their life after a heist gone wrong. Like the genre it's named for, the game is rooted in the 1980s futurism--in a time when the rise of home computers and rapid technological innovation butted up against increasing economic disparity caused by privatization-happy political leadership in America and abroad. So many cyberpunk staples appear quaint in hindsight.