The New York City Council today voted in favor of the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) Act, a bill that requires the New York City Police Department (NYPD) to disclose their use of surveillance technologies. The POST Act also mandates that the NYPD develop policies on how it deploys those tools, as well as establish oversight of the department's surveillance programs to ensure they remain compliant. The passage of the POST Act, a three-year-old piece of legislation written with input from local activist organization Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), comes as cities around the country reexamine law enforcement policies following widespread demonstrations against abuse. Residents and activists on Tuesday urged the Detroit City Council to reject a contract that would extend the city police's use of facial recognition technology. On Wednesday, racial justice and civil liberties groups called on members of the U.S. Congress to end funding for surveillance technology law enforcement is using to spy on demonstrators.

The Department of Homeland Security's Transportation Security Administration has asked vendors for information on platforms that use automation, cloud-based software and artificial intelligence and could help TSA hire, retain and manage employees, Bloomberg Government reported Wednesday. A request for information posted Monday says TSA will use the responses to inform its acquisition strategy to advance the modernization of its human capital management platforms for its 67K personnel. The proposed procurement's scope includes hiring, recruitment, applicant assessment, onboarding, payroll, employee benefits, performance management, separation, background checks and retirement planning. The agency plans to consolidate three professional services and information technology contracts that have obligated $388M in funds to support human resources functions. Accenture, Deloitte and PSI Services are the incumbents on those contracts.

Data security is now more vital than ever. Today's cybersecurity threats are incredibly smart and sophisticated. Security experts face a daily battle to identify and assess new risks, identify possible mitigation measures and decide what to do about the residual risk. This next generation of cybersecurity threats require agile and intelligent programs that can rapidly adapt to new and unforeseen attacks. AI and machine learning's ability to meet this challenge is recognised by cybersecurity experts, the majority of whom believe it is fundamental to the future of cybersecurity.

Andrew Pery, is the Ethics Evangelist at ABBYY, a digital intelligence company. They empower organizations to access the valuable, yet often hard to attain, insight into their operations that enables true business transformation. ABBYY recently released a Global Initiative Promoting the Development of Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence. We decided to ask Andrew questions regarding ethics in AI, abuses of AI, and what the AI industry can do about these concerns moving forward. What is it that initially instigated your interest in AI ethics? What initially sparked my interest in AI ethics was a deep interest in the intersection of law and AI technology.

Covid-19 patients in the UK are being treated with dexamethasone today after a UK trial of the drug found it could save lives. "The treatment is immediately available and already in use on the NHS," said health minister Matt Hancock. "It is not by any means a cure but it is the best news we have had," Hancock told parliament today. The UK's chief medical officers say it should be used immediately, according to the BBC. A preliminary study found that the steroid, which is already widely prescribed for treating allergies and asthma, reduces the risk of dying from covid-19 by a third for patients on ventilators, and by a fifth for those receiving oxygen. Dexamethasone should only be taken if prescribed by a doctor. Officials in Beijing, China confirmed 31 new coronavirus cases today, bringing the total to 137 in the last six days. The city is again restricting all non-essential travel. Schools, swimming pools and gyms are all closed from today.

In this session, we will be going through some of the fundamental methods that are used to tackle Natural Language Processing (NLP) problems. We will first be going through some NLP theory and then will walk through some code showing how a sentiment analysis model can be trained from scratch on a real-world IMDB movie review dataset.

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin apologizes to Sen. Tim Scott for the remark on the Republican police reform plan. Fox Nation host David Webb on Thursday blasted Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin for calling Sen. Tim Scott's role in crafting the GOP-led police reform bill a "token approach." "I don't know what's in Dick Durbin's heart," Webb told "Fox & Friends." "But it's the hypocrisy that if anyone had used that word'token,' which is a legitimate word in the English language, in any way, pointed toward blacks from the right, they [the left] would have gone crazy. They would have been protesting. They would have been claiming the egregious nature of its use."

RALEIGH – A startup in Raleigh backed by investor and Sprout Pharmaceuticals CEO Cindy Eckert, is unveiling Thursday a different approach to dealing with Alzheimer's that is powered by artificial intelligence, not drugs. And its solution is part of a new effort launched by the Women's Alzheimer's Movement Prevention Center at Cleveland Clinic, an internationally respected medical institution. ExtND is among the offerings from the Women's Alzheimer's center, which also was unveiled today in Las Vegas, according to a spokesperson for uMETHOD. Several medical institutions already are deploying the method. More than 5 million people are currently afflicted with Alzheimer's and the disease is the sixth leading cause of death in the US, according to the Alzheimer's Assocation.

Chinese search giant Baidu has left The Partnership on AI (PAI), a US-led effort to foster collaboration on the ethical challenges raised by artificial intelligence. Baidu is said to have cited the cost of membership and recent financial pressures for the move. But as relations between the US and China worsen, the departure comes amid growing challenges for companies and people in the two countries to collaborate, or find common ground, when it comes to critical technologies like AI. In a statement, Baidu said it "shares the vision of the Partnership on AI and is committed to promoting the ethical development of AI technologies. We are in discussions about renewing our membership, and remain open to other opportunities to collaborate with industry peers on advancing AI." Terah Lyons, executive director of PAI, says the company cited a weaker financial outlook for the decision, adding: "Baidu remains committed to our mission and hopes to be able to resume membership in 2021."

When Lauren Dry heard last year that facial recognition cameras were being trialled in the suburb of East Perth, she thought it was a joke. "I just thought to myself: What do you mean facial recognition cameras, that's sci-fi! That doesn't happen in Perth," she told 7.30. "And I looked into it and I was, like, this is real." Ms Dry enjoys a quiet life at home with her young family in Perth's leafy suburbs.