Machine Learning, a subset of Artificial Intelligence, has some revolutionary impact across several business operations and functions. Machine learning has many potential uses, including external (client-facing) applications like customer service, product recommendation, and pricing forecasts, but it is also being used internally to help speed up processes or improve products that were previously manual and time-consuming. One of the most relevant consumer-based use for machine learning is voice assistants or chatbots that applies mostly to smartphones and smart home devices. The voice assistants on these devices use machine learning to understand what you say and craft a response. The machine learning models behind voice assistants were trained on human languages and variations in the human voice because it has to translate what it hears into words and then make an intelligent, on-topic response.

Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Ayanna Pressley are pushing to ban the federal government's use of facial recognition technology, as Boston last week nixed the city use of the technology and tech giants pause their sale of facial surveillance tools to police. The momentum to stop the government use of facial recognition technology comes in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis -- a black man killed by a white police officer. Floyd's death has sparked nationwide protests for racial justice and triggered calls for police reform, including ways police track people. Facial recognition technology contributes to the "systemic racism that has defined our society," Markey said on Sunday. "We cannot ignore that facial recognition technology is yet another tool in the hands of law enforcement to profile and oppress people of color in our country," Markey said during an online press briefing.

The U.S. Congress should create a federal agency for artificial intelligence. In 1906, in response to shocking reports about the disgusting conditions in U.S. meat-packing facilities, Congress created the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ensure safe and sanitary food production. In 1934, in the wake of the worst stock market crash in U.S. history, Congress created the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to regulate capital markets. In 1970, as the nation became increasingly alarmed about the deterioration of the natural environment, Congress created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ensure cleaner skies and waters. When an entire field begins to create a broad set of challenges for the public, demanding thoughtful regulation, a proven governmental approach is to create a federal agency focused specifically on engaging with and managing that field.

The U.S. Weather Service has always phrased rain forecasts as probabilities. I do not want a classification of "it will rain today." There is a slight loss/disutility of carrying an umbrella, and I want to be the one to make the tradeoff. This is coming from personal experience and from multiple contexts, but it seems that many data scientists simply do not understand logistic regression, or binomials and multinomials in general. The problem arises from logistic regression often being taught as a "classification" algorithm in the machine learning world.

Members of Congress introduced a new bill on Thursday that would ban government use of biometric technology, including facial recognition tools. Pramila Jayapal and Ayanna Pressley announced the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act, which they said resulted from a growing body of research that "points to systematic inaccuracy and bias issues in biometric technologies which pose disproportionate risks to non-white individuals." The bill came just one day after the first documented instance of police mistakenly arresting a man due to facial recognition software. There has been long-standing, widespread concern about the use of facial recognition software from lawmakers, researchers rights groups and even the people behind the technology. Multiple studies over the past three years have repeatedly proven that the tool is still not accurate, especially for people with darker skin.

You're just a few precious miles from home when heavy traffic and those three cups of coffee hit at the same moment. There isn't a bottle mouth big enough to handle the cold brew you've got gurgling in your gut. While we've all been caught out like this at some point down here on Earth, this week we have a glimpse at how NASA will provide bathroom facilities on the moon. Tesla may push the boundaries of automotive technology but its production process is a bit of a mess. In a recent initial quality survey from JD Power and Associates, Tesla customers reported 250 build defects (misaligned body panels, shoddy paintwork, things of that nature) per 100 vehicles.

Baidu will no longer participate in the Partnership on AI (PAI) alliance amid deteriorating relations between the US and China. PAI is a US-led alliance which aims to foster the ethical development and deployment of AI technologies. Baidu was the only Chinese member. The loss of Baidu's expertise and any representation from China is devastating for PAI. Ethical AI development requires global cooperation to set acceptable standards which help to ensure safety while not limiting innovation.

Being one of the most scrutinised technologies of the current era, the debate against facial recognition has been raging for quite some time. However, the recent notable incident of "killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer" has brought in the urgency for framing a strict regulation and guidelines against using this technology by law enforcement. Nevertheless, in the current era, this divisive technology has penetrated almost every aspect of human lives -- smartphones, airports, police stations, advertising, and payments. It has also replaced the dated technology of biometrics amid COVID pandemic. But, the growing concerns of the recent incident has urged tech giants to reckon their decisions of building and offering this technology to police authorities.

Over the past few decades, computers have seen dramatic progress in processing power; however, even the most advanced computers are relatively rudimentary in comparison with the complexities and capabilities of the human brain. Researchers at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Army Research Laboratory say this may be changing as they endeavor to design computers inspired by the human brain's neural structure. As part of a collaboration with Lehigh University, Army researchers have identified a design strategy for the development of neuromorphic materials. "Neuromorphic materials is a name given to the material categories or combination of materials that provide both computing and memory capabilities in devices," said Dr. Sina Najmaei, a research scientist and electrical engineer with the laboratory. Najmaei and his colleagues published a paper, Dynamically reconfigurable electronic and phononic properties in intercalated Hafnium Disulfide (HfS2), in the May 2020 issue of Materials Today.

One kind of robot has endured for the last half-century: the hulking one-armed Goliaths that dominate industrial assembly lines. These industrial robots have been task-specific -- built to spot weld, say, or add threads to the end of a pipe. They aren't sexy, but in the latter half of the 20th century they transformed industrial manufacturing and, with it, the low- and medium-skilled labor landscape in much of the US, Asia, and Europe. You've probably been hearing a lot more about robots and robotics over the last couple years. That's because, for the first time since the 1961 debut of GM's Unimate, regarded as the first industrial robot, the field is once again transforming world economies. Only this time the impact is going to be broader. That's particularly true in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has helped advance automation adoption across a variety of industries as manufacturers, fulfillment centers, retail, and restaurants seek to create durable, hygienic operations that can withstand evolving disruptions and regulations.