Countless studies have shown not only that gender bias is real but also that it has significant repercussions. The pattern of diminishing representation on the higher rungs of the career ladder in STEM fields also holds true broadly in the corporate world: 56% of university graduates are women, yet women represent only 38% of the total workforce, 26% of the managerial ranks, 15% of executive-level positions, and 5% of the CEO ranks. How, then, will AI affect gender diversity in the leadership pipeline? AI has the potential to mitigate the corporate gender and leadership gaps by removing bias in recruiting, evaluation, and promotion decisions; by helping improve retention of women employees; and, potentially, by intervening in the everyday interactions that affect employees' sense of inclusion. Biased data is a source of risk.

Backlogs are the bane of government. Delays of weeks, months or even years are too often incurred in executing a number of everyday tasks, including adjudicating claims, scheduling appointments, hiring new employees, procuring services, conducting investigations and approving applications. Few agencies are exempt from these challenges, and the resulting costs are both financial and reputational, as their inability to deliver core services in a timely manner directly impacts their ability to execute the mission. However, for those people whom agencies serve, the stakes are even higher, as delays can have livelihood, peace of mind, or even life and death consequences. Broadly speaking, these backlogs happen for two reasons: an over-reliance on ad hoc, manual processes that create operational inefficiencies and/or a need for subjective, often specialized assessment or adjudication that exceeds capacity.

As society turns to artificial intelligence to solve problems across ever more domains, we're seeing an arms race to create specialized hardware that can run deep learning models at higher speeds and lower power consumption. Some recent breakthroughs in this race include new chip architectures that perform computations in ways that are fundamentally different from what we've seen before. Looking at their capabilities gives us an idea of the kinds of AI applications we could see emerging over the next couple of years. Neural networks, composed of thousands and millions of small programs that perform simple calculations to perform complicated tasks such as detecting objects in images or converting speech to text are key to deep learning. But traditional computers are not optimized for neural network operations.

A new law in Illinois will regulate the use of artificial intelligence in job interviews. The Artificial Intelligence Video Interview Act, House Bill 2557, requires companies to notify the applicant when the system is being used, explain how the AI works, get permission from the applicant, limit distribution of the video to people involved with the process and to destroy the video after 30 days. Matthew Jedreski, counsel at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP in Seattle, is a litigator and employment attorney who updates clients on local and state employment laws. Jedreski said AI video interviews apply psychometrics, which is the science of measuring attitude and personality traits. "It's reading data and then analyzing it to determine whether it can draw conclusions about the person being interviewed," Jedreski said.

The Pentagon is figuring ways to harness artificial intelligence (AI) for advantages as far flung as battlespace autonomy, intelligence analysis, record tracking, predictive maintenance and military medicine. AI is a key growth investment area for DoD, with nearly $1 billion allocated in the 2020 budget. The Defense Department's Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) will see its budget double to over $208 million, with significant increases likely in 2021 and beyond. JAIC seeks to coordinate all military service and defense agency artificial intelligence activity over a $15 million benchmark. The military is currently seeking to integrate AI into weapon systems development, augment human operators with AI-driven robotic maneuver on the battlefield and enhance the precision of military fires.

Anadolu Agency called on other European news media organizations to be more sensitive towards the ongoing tragedy in Syria. A three-day general assembly of the European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA) came to an end on Friday in the Czech capital Prague. Anadolu Agency editor-in-chief Metin Mutanoglu said in a speech that Syria's northwestern Idlib area was under heavy fire by Bashar al-Assad regime forces and that the region was facing a fresh wave of migrants. Mutanoglu underlined that though tens of thousands were forced to leave their homes due to regime attacks, the European news media were not interested enough in the issue. A new migration wave would affect not only Turkey but the rest of Europe as well, he stressed, adding that EANA should thus make a greater effort to draw attention to the humanitarian crisis in war-torn country .

Technology has been blamed for a lot recently. Automation and artificial intelligence have supposedly led to substantial job losses, reduced bargaining power for workers and increased discrimination. It is even blamed for growing income and wealth inequality and, as a result, the presidency of Donald Trump, Brexit, the rise of far-right populism in Europe and the spectre of climate change. In response, calls are being made for global oversight and regulation of technology and there are attempts to slow down its spread through protectionist trade policies and political lobbying. But perhaps we should be careful about so readily blaming technological innovation for these social problems.

There's an old saying that wars are easy to get into but hard to get out of. President Trump understands this, which is why he wisely resisted the temptation to launch a military strike against Iran after that nation launched a missile and drone attack last week against Saudi Arabian oil facilities. When he was running for president, Trump promised the American people he would not jump into endless conflicts in the greater Middle East, where thousands of members of the U.S. military have been killed and wounded in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Fighting began in 2001 in Afghanistan and 2003 in Iraq and still continues in both countries. U.S. forces have also fought on a smaller scale in Syria to strike at terrorist targets.

By 2021, digital transformation will add an estimated USD 154 billion to India's GDP, and increase the growth rate by 1 percent annually, according to an IDC study commissioned by Microsoft. The study also predicts that approximately 60 percent of India's GDP will be derived from digital products or services by 2021. With the government's vision of becoming a USD 5 trillion economy by 2024, Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog believes technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) will propel India to achieve that target and even go beyond. "Our ambition should not just be to become a USD 5 trillion economy. Instead, we should aim to become a USD 10 trillion economy in the long run, growing at 9-10 percent year after year for three decades or more, to be able to lift our young population above the poverty line. All of this is not possible without using a large amount of data, AI and Machine Learning (ML) and bringing disruption in a vast range of areas," Kant said during a fireside chat with Anant Maheshwari, President Microsoft India at the Digital Governance Tech Summit 2019 in New Delhi.

As the AI technology marches ahead with significant innovations and transformation, people do raise concern what its future beholds. The futuristic implications of AI swings between two aspects – first the anticipated positive impact of AI on economies and societies and the second negative impact of its potential over humankind. Specifically, the governments in Asia and the civil society residing in the region are concerned about structuring regulatory frameworks to guard against the possible threats. However, business leaders in Asia are quite optimistic about AI's positive impact on businesses, societies, and the welfare of humanity. Some do believe that AI will be the major growth driver for the region in the coming years.