Using machines to augment human activity is nothing new. Egyptian hieroglyphs show the use of horse-drawn carriages even before 300 B.C. Ancient Indian literature such as "Silapadikaram" has described animals being used for farming. And one glance outside shows that today people use motorized vehicles to get around. Where in the past human beings have augmented ourselves in physical ways, now the nature of augmentation also is more intelligent. Again, all one needs to do is look to cars – engineers are seemingly on the cusp of self-driving cars guided by artificial intelligence.

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced on Thursday that it has officially launched a National Artificial Intelligence Institute in an attempt to be a "leader" in the development of the technology. The institute will work to "prioritize and realize" AI research and development programs. These include existing projects, like an effort to use AI to reduce veterans' wait times for health appointments, and another to scan their medical records to evaluate their suicide risk as part of the REACH VET program. "VA's artificial intelligence institute will usher in new capabilities and opportunities that will improve health outcomes for our nation's heroes," Secretary Robert Wilkie said in a statement. The institute is a partnership between the VA's Office of Research and Development and Wilkie's Center for Strategic Partnerships.

It was a sunny afternoon last month when my smartphone decided to ignore me. Well, it didn't ignore my African American self, but it did ignore the carved face of a black man in a sculpture I was trying to photograph. Instead, it bracketed the carving of a white man's face to indicate that it was "seeing" him, while not bracketing the black face in the center of the frame. This problem of artificial intelligence having difficulty with black faces has been around for at least a decade. In addition to causing issues with commonplace activities, like taking pictures, it also raises a bigger question of how we guarantee equal opportunity across race in a world run on AI. AI is already ubiquitous and powerful, and it becomes more so every year.

Algorithmic or automated decision systems use data and statistical analyses to classify people for the purpose of assessing their eligibility for a benefit or penalty. Such systems have been traditionally used for credit decisions, and currently are widely used for employment screening, insurance eligibility, and marketing. They are also used in the public sector, including for the delivery of government services, and in criminal justice sentencing and probation decisions. Most of these automated decision systems rely on traditional statistical techniques like regression analysis. Recently, though, these systems have incorporated machine learning to improve their accuracy and fairness. These advanced statistical techniques seek to find patterns in data without requiring the analyst to specify in advance which factors to use. They will often find new, unexpected connections that might not be obvious to the analyst or follow from a common sense or theoretic understanding of the subject matter. As a result, they can help to discover new factors that improve the accuracy of eligibility predictions and the decisions based on them. In many cases, they can also improve the fairness of these decisions, for instance, by expanding the pool of qualified job applicants to improve the diversity of a company's workforce.

The US government must spend $25 billion on artificial intelligence research by 2025, stem the loss of foreign AI talent, and find new ways to prevent critical AI technology from being stolen and exported, according to a policy report issued Tuesday. Otherwise it risks falling behind China and losing its standing on the world stage. The report, from the Center for New American Security (CNAS), is the latest to highlight the importance of AI to the future of the US. It argues that the technology will define economic, military, and geopolitical power in coming decades. Advanced technologies, including AI, 5G wireless services, and quantum computing, are already at the center of an emerging technological cold war between the US and China. The Trump administration has declared AI a national priority, and it has enacted policies, such as technology export controls, designed to limit China's progress in AI and related areas.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as one of the most important topics in radiology today. The Association of University Radiologists (AUR9) in its role of organizing and representing the interests of academic radiologists and those of radiology at large, convened a roundtable to help radiologists and industry leaders share their points of view and their goals in order to foster a shared understanding about the impact and benefits of AI applications in the field of radiology. There is a clear mutual interdependence between the radiology community and industry partners, which, in the case of AI, should foster collaboration between the two groups. In order to advance radiological sciences and to bridge the gap between clinicians and engineers, members of both groups need to work together so as to ensure the development of common goals, shared understanding, and mutually productive efforts. This type of collaboration occurs most frequently at the local level between a single radiology academic department and a single manufacturer.

Currently the trending concept behind autonomous vehicles is removing the human and focusing on the machine. But I have a different view. After 12 years at NASA researching autonomous systems for Mars, and seven years at Nissan leading work on autonomous vehicles in Silicon Valley, I believe that an autonomous system without people as a central component will be pretty much useless. As the Hong Kong government targets a 30 percent adoption of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAV), and begins testing autonomous technologies, it's crucial to take a human-centric perspective to reap the real rewards of this technology. Imagine you just bought your first autonomous vehicle.

This article was written by Manav Subodh, co-founder of 1M1B and global senior fellow at the Innovation Acceleration Group, University of California, Berkeley. Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer a technology of the future – it is well and truly here. In many ways, it is already shaping human interactions by getting out of research labs and entering the real world. And it is changing the world as we know it. It could not be more apparent that AI can change the world for the better – from creating new healthcare solutions to designing hospitals of the future, improving farming and food supply, helping refugees acclimatise to new environments, enhancing educational resources and access, and even cleaning our oceans, air and water supply.

As one of the world's busiest airports, (ranked No. 3 in 2018 according to Airports Council International's world traffic report), Dubai International Airport is also a leader in using artificial intelligence (AI). In fact, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) leads the Arab world with its adoption of artificial intelligence in other sectors and areas of life and has a government that prioritizes artificial intelligence including an AI strategy and Ministry of Artificial Intelligence with a mandate to invest in technologies and AI tools. The Emirates Ministry of the Interior said that by 2020, immigration officers would no longer be needed in the UAE. They will be replaced by artificial intelligence. The plan is to have people just walk through an AI-powered security system to be scanned without taking off shoes or belts or emptying pockets.

Editor's Note: All opinion section content reflects the views of the individual author only and does not represent a stance taken by The Collegian or its editorial board. Letters to the Editor reflect the view of a member of the campus community and are submitted to the publication for approval. I am writing this essay to bring awareness and recognition to a fast-approaching topic in the field of military technology -- weaponized artificial intelligence. Weaponized AI is any military technology that operates off a computer system that makes its own decisions. Simply put, anything that automatically decides a course of action against an enemy without human control would fall under this definition. Weaponized AI is a perfect example of a sci-fi idea that has found its way into the real world and is not yet completely understood.