Artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly making inroads into medical practice, especially in forms that rely on machine learning, with a mix of hope and hype.1 Multiple AI-based products have now been approved or cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and health systems and hospitals are increasingly deploying AI-based systems.2 For example, medical AI can support clinical decisions, such as recommending drugs or dosages or interpreting radiological images.2 One key difference from most traditional clinical decision support software is that some medical AI may communicate results or recommendations to the care team without being able to communicate the underlying reasons for those results.3 Medical AI may be trained in inappropriate environments, using imperfect techniques, or on incomplete data. Even when algorithms are trained as well as possible, they may, for example, miss a tumor in a radiological image or suggest the incorrect dose for a drug or an inappropriate drug.

A NASA Frontier Development Lab (FDL) team has shown that by using deep learning, it is possible to virtually monitor the Sun's extreme ultraviolet (EUV) irradiance, which is a key driver of space weather. The Sun is vital for survival, but solar flares, which typically occur a few times a year, have the potential to cause severe disruptions in space and on Earth. These disruptions can impact spacecraft, satellites and even systems here on Earth, including GPS navigation, radio communications and the power grid. Deep learning can help get more value out of our current ability to monitor the Sun by providing virtual instruments to supplement physical devices. This research will be published in Science Advances on October 2, 2019 ("A deep learning virtual instrument for monitoring solar extreme ultraviolet spectral irradiance").

Governments around the world are pouring money into AI research and developing detailed AI strategies, but the US has been slow to follow suit. That's leading some to question whether policy makers are doing enough to maintain the country's lead in the technology. Earlier this month the US government announced that the 2020 budget request includes nearly $1 billion worth of funding for non-military research and development in AI. They were eager to note that represents a significant increase in spending on civilian applications--in 2016 the total was $1 billion including defense projects. But the response from industry insiders was markedly lackluster, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The total number of job openings in the US alone rose to 7.3 million in June, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Recently, I read that there are job openings at a large US-based technology company for designers of chipsets to deploy in areas such as on-device machine learning. Forecasts suggest that there will be 3.5 million unfilled cyber-security positions by 2021 . Having said that, are job-seekers today equipped with the right skills to pursue the best jobs in IT? With rapid advances in technology, what one learnt at university or in the workplace over the past years, may not be enough for application in today's business scenario.

At the height of the 2016 presidential contest, then-Facebook executive Palmer Luckey was a Silicon Valley star when he donated $10,000 to an anti-Hillary Clinton group. Six months later, he was out – reportedly fired for his political positions. Now, Luckey runs a new venture, backed by Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, that is reportedly valued at more than $1 billion. In the new FOX Nation documentary "Artificial Intelligence: The Coming Revolution," Fox Business Network anchor and'Mornings with Maria' host Maria Bartiromo went inside Luckey's Anduril Industries, which is at the forefront of America's race to use artificial intelligence to protect national security. "The thing about the United States is that we are at a strategic disadvantage because of the ethics that we have. We're not willing to play dirty. Russia and China don't have a problem with any of those things," Luckey told Fox Nation.

Artificial intelligence is all the rage in healthcare as companies look for tech-driven ways to cut costs and promote patient health. Tech giants like Intel, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple have swooped in to assist payers and providers with their efforts to join the fast-paced environment. Santa Clara, California-based Intel boasts partnerships across myriad sectors in healthcare. For example, earlier this year, not-for-profit integrated health system Sharp HealthCare, which is based in San Diego, used Intel's predictive analytics capabilities to alert its rapid-response team to identify high-risk patients before a health crisis occurred. And currently, Intel is working with pharmaceutical company Novartis on deep neural networks to accelerate content screening in drug discovery.

On September 19, 2019, the European Parliament Research Service (EPRS) released a paper, European Union (EU) Guidelines on Ethics in Artificial Intelligence (AI): Context and Implementation (--Paper--), to shed light on the ethical rules that were established under the EU Guidelines on Ethics in AI (--Guidelines--). The Guidelines, which are nonbinding, were published in April 2019 after the European Parliament was directed to update and complement the existing Union legal framework with guiding ethical principles that are based on a --human-centric-- approach to AI. The Paper aims to provide guidance on the key ethical requirements that are recommended in the Guidelines when designing, developing, implementing or using AI products and services to promote trustworthy, ethical and robust AI systems. The Paper also identifies some implementation challenges and possible future EU action while also calling for certain actions including clarifying the Guidelines, fostering the adoption of ethical standards and adopting legally binding instruments to set common rules on transparency. Of note, the Guidelines highlight that all AI stakeholders must comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) principles and advise the AI community to guarantee that privacy and personal data are protected, both when building and when running AI systems to afford citizens full control over their data. Thereupon, AI developers are directed to apply specific design techniques, such as data encryption and data anonymization.

A new survey found that more than half of B.C's. artificial intelligence companies believe the federal government is not doing enough to boost the sector, and half have considered leaving the province. The non-profit industry association, Artificial Intelligence Network of B.C., says there are more than 150 AI-related firms in B.C. and more than 65 submitted responses to its survey, which was conducted by CityAge and released this week. More than 56 per cent of respondents said the federal government needs to do more to help the local AI sector grow, with 31 per cent saying its efforts were lacking and 24 per cent saying they needed major attention. Half of respondents said they have considered moving their companies out of B.C. They main reasons they gave were a desire to connect to bigger markets (35 per cent) and to operate in a better taxation and regulatory environment (11 per cent).

Public sector organisations have been urged to define the benefits of using AI and forming a strategy for the technology before beginning a procurement. The Government's Officer for Artificial Intelligence has highlighted the factors in draft guidelines for the public sector in procuring AI. They include advice now familiar in the public sector digital field to look beyond the solutions on offer to the outcomes desired, and to take the ethical factors into account. One of the early steps is to define the benefits and assess the risks of using AI by applying the first principle of the Data Ethics Framework. This includes setting out clearly in the invitation to tender why AI is regarded as relevant to the challenge and the public benefit that is desired.

In May 2018, the U.S. federal government announced the creation of a committee of academics and private industry experts to examine the potential of artificial intelligence, followed by an executive order in February to double down on AI research. The president's budget request, published earlier this month by the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), constitutes the "first-ever reporting of agency-by-agency federal investments" in artificial intelligence research and development related to nondefense purposes.