The news: US government use of facial recognition technology should be banned "pending further review," according to 40 organizations that signed a letter calling for a recommendation to be made to the president. The letter, drafted by the privacy advocacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, cites the recent New York Times investigation of a facial recognition service used by more than 600 law enforcement agencies in the US. The company, Clearview AI, scraped public photographs from Facebook, YouTube, and other websites to create a database of more than three billion images. Such technology, the letter argues, not only risks being inaccurate for people of color but could be used to "control minority populations and limit dissent." The letter was signed by organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Color of Change, Fight for the Future, and the Consumer Federation of America, and sent to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board, an agency within the executive branch.

The news: US government use of facial recognition technology should be banned "pending further review," according to 40 organizations that signed a letter calling for a recommendation to be made to the president. The letter, drafted by the privacy advocacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, cites the recent New York Times investigation of a facial recognition service used by more than 600 law enforcement agencies in the US. The company, Clearview AI, scraped public photographs from Facebook, YouTube, and other websites to create a database of more than three billion images. Such technology, the letter argues, not only risks being inaccurate for people of color but could be used to "control minority populations and limit dissent." The letter was signed by organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Color of Change, Fight for the Future, and the Consumer Federation of America, and sent to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board, an agency within the executive branch.

Several industries are seeing the impact of robotics -- and medicine is no exception. While the progress of these applications has been slow compared to other industries, the impact could be huge: robotics in medicine can help to reduce human error, improve recovery time, and reduce hospital stays, ultimately enhancing patients' quality of life. The first medical robotic application appeared in 1985, when an early robotic surgical arm assisted in a neurosurgical biopsy surgery. Fifteen years later, the first fully FDA-approved system (known as the da Vinci surgery system) for laparoscopic surgery emerged, giving surgeons the ability to control surgical instruments indirectly via a console. Today, companies are leveraging advances in the tech to develop new robotic applications to explore the future of medicine -- including those related to bionics, disease discovery, and rehabilitation.

The Ethiopian Council of Ministers has decided to establish an artificial intelligence (AI) research and development center. The move was taken "to safeguard Ethiopia's national interests through the development of artificial intelligence services, products and solutions based on research, development and implementation," the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement issued on late Friday. The decision calls for "a conducive environment for beginner developers and startups working in the artificial intelligence sector." This was the latest of a series of measures taken by Ethiopia, Africa's second populous nation with a a population of about 107 million, to step up AI research and development in particular and advance information and Communications technology (ICT) in general. In November, Ethiopia signed a memo with Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group on the creation of an Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP).

Derek speaks in voiceover: After I returned back from the Navy and getting my undergraduate degree coming back to Indiana and working here at Crane. Derek speaks in voiceover: I've seen that there is an enormous amount of talent in Indiana. Derek speaks in voiceover: There's a whole lot of potential to create technology, to create business, to grow Indiana in a very positive way. Derek speaks in voiceover: cognitive science is going to fill the gap of how do I make cerebral systems. Mike speaks in voiceover: We are a systems and software engineering company.

Officials in Taiwan make no secret about turning the island into a hub for artificial intelligence R&D. It's an area that's expected to grow into a $390.9 billion market by 2025, according to Grand View Research. Taiwan has been the world's hardware hub for decades, so the shift toward AI makes the most of the existing inexpensive engineering talent. A refocus on AI, however, reduces reliance on hardware, which can easily be made somewhere else, such as China, at lower costs. Multinational tech companies have already shown interest in tapping Taiwan's talent in software, including AI.

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One of the biggest areas where countries are vying for dominance is Artificial Intelligence, which is expected to have a huge impact not only in commerce but also in areas like health, national security, cybersecurity, food security, education, and global warming. Unfortunately, countries like USA and China are leaving India behind in terms of AI research, AI entrepreneurship and government investment in AI. AI Grand Challenges: The government can announce AI grand challenges that are open to teams from academia and industry that involve solves an important problem for India. The government's role in this would be to give a crisp problem definition, provide access to the data and of course provide a good cash prize. Such AI grand challenges will result in important problems getting solved, new startups and jobs, and capture the nation's imagination and give an impetus to the field of AI. Make it easier to access capital: One of the biggest challenges that startups face is early-stage funding. The government could announce a fund on the likes of Singapore's Temasek that will invest only in early-stage Indian AI startups. Also, the government could announce lower long term capital gain's tax for investing in AI-based startups. This will encourage more angel investment into AI start-ups. Improve AI talent in the country: While there are a lot of engineers being produced in India, we still lag behind other countries in terms of the number of AI PhDs and AI research. The government should make more research grants available for AI research and should also offer incentives to institutes that invest in AI training. Ease of doing Business: Government focus should be on bringing policies that encourage AI companies. There should be less red tape, more freedom from the government departments so that entrepreneurs can be focused on building solutions without unnecessary distractions.

Critical attacks and massive breaches escalated dramatically in 2019 and it is predicted that by the year 2020, costs related to damage caused by cybersecurity breaches may reach $5 trillion. As attacks increase cybersecurity teams are overworked, understaffed, and are grasping for solutions to solve an increasing amount of problems. The current state of AI is begging for a number of problems to be solved in order to continue effectively protecting users from malicious actors. Due to an extreme shortage of cybersecurity professionals, many companies are turning to Artificial Intelligence as a sort of panacea to better defend their networks and make up for a lack of personnel. Another layer of complexity gets added when we consider the false positive or negative problem most security companies have because they are either setting their thresholds too high or too low.