Saudi authorities attempt to control a fire at an Aramco factory. The world's largest oil processing facility and a nearby oil field in Saudi Arabia were set ablaze early Saturday morning after reported drone attacks by Iranian-backed Yemeni rebels. The Interior Ministry was quoted by state-run media as saying the fires at the Abqaiq oil processing facility in Buqyaq and the nearby Khurais oil field operated by Saudi Aramco were "targeted by drones." It wasn't immediately clear if there were any injuries, nor what effect it would have on oil production in the kingdom. Smoke is seen following a fire at Aramco facility in the eastern city of Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia, September 14, 2019.

The recent surveys, studies, forecasts and other quantitative assessments of the health and progress of AI provided new numbers regarding business leaders' assessment of China as a global AI leader, the current worldwide ranking of China's AI-related entrepreneurial and research activities, plans for AI adoption by U.S. enterprises and expectations regarding its impact on jobs, and the use of AI in face recognition, physical security monitoring, cashierless retail, categorizing open-ended survey responses, and detecting plant diseases and atrial fibrillation. A doctor examines a magnetic resonance image on a computer screen during the CHAIN Cup at the China National Convention Center in Beijing, June 30, 2018. A computer running artificial intelligence software defeated two teams of human doctors in accurately recognizing maladies in magnetic resonance images in a contest that was billed as the world's first competition in neuroimaging between AI and human experts. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimates face recognition will scrutinize 97% of outbound airline passengers by 2023 [The Economist] More than 4.5 million websites use reCAPTCHA and the system collects hundreds of millions of daily solves or more than 100 person-years of labor every day; Google/reCAPTCHA has extracted to date over $7 billion of free labor [hcaptcha] The Bureau of Labor Statistics' injury and illness database is built upon text-based descriptions of work-related injuries and illnesses it receives from workplaces across the country each year; categorizing the description into actionable data used to be done manually, but this year, the BLS has done 80% of that automatically using deep neural networks [governmentCIO] The AI market worldwide is estimated to grow by $75.54 billion from 2019 to 2023 [Technavio] The AI market worldwide is estimated to reach $202.57 Data is eating the world quote of the week: "The market for data labeling passed $500 million in 2018 and it will reach $1.2 billion by 2023, according to the research firm Cognilytica. This kind of work, the study showed, accounted for 80 percent of the time spent building A.I. technology"--The New York Times AI is "mimicking the brain" quote of the week: "Computer vision… is nothing like the human sort"--The Economist Robots are eating the world quote of the week: "A human can certainly move a part faster than a cobot [collaborative robot]. However, it does not take coffee breaks and continues to work for several hours after we have already gone home"--Pekka Myller, Ket-Met Robots are eating the world quote of the 19th century: "[A Linotype] could work like six men and do everything but drink, swear, and go out on strike"--Mark Twain

Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm, is backing Palmer Luckey's virtual wall start-up at a $1 billion-plus, unicorn valuation. This is the same Palmer Luckey who left Facebook after it was revealed that he was backing right-wing internet trolls and anti-Hillary Clinton meme factories in 2016. Mr. Luckey's surveillance start-up, Anduril, has gone where many Silicon Valley tech workers have refused to go. The start-up, which is also backed by the Palantir co-founders Joe Lonsdale and Peter Thiel, is testing digital cameras and artificial intelligence technology that tracks people crossing the southern border. Tech workers have made clear in recent months that they want no part of similar military and surveillance projects.

Businesses as well as cities all over world are actually tinkering with utilizing artificial intelligence to bring down as well as stop crime, as well as to faster react to crimes in progress. The ideas behind most of these tasks is the fact that crimes are fairly predictable; it simply involves being in a position to sort by way of a an enormous volume of information to find patterns which are helpful to law enforcement. This particular type of information analysis was technologically unattainable a couple of decades ago, though the hope is the fact that latest advancements in machine learning are actually up to the job. There's valid reason why businesses as well as government are both keen on looking to work with AI in this particular fashion. As of 2010, the United States spent over $80 billion a year on incarnations at the state, local, and federal levels.

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES – Drones attacked the world's largest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia and a major oil field operated by Saudi Aramco early Saturday, the kingdom's Interior Ministry said, sparking a huge fire at a processor crucial to global energy supplies. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks in Buqyaq and the Khurais oil field, though Yemen's Houthi rebels previously launched drone assaults deep inside of the kingdom. It wasn't clear if there were any injuries in the attacks, nor what effect it would have on oil production in the kingdom. The attack also likely will heighten tensions further across the wider Persian Gulf amid a confrontation between the U.S. and Iran over its unraveling nuclear deal with world powers. Online videos apparently shot in Buqyaq included the sound of gunfire in the background.

There's been many popular posts on this subreddit regarding patents on well known ML techniques. Here is your chance to voice your concerns to the US patent office. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is interested in gathering information on patent-related issues regarding artificial intelligence inventions for purposes of evaluating whether further examination guidance is needed to promote the reliability and predictability of patenting artificial intelligence inventions. To assist in gathering this information, the USPTO is publishing questions on artificial intelligence inventions to obtain written comments from the public. The questions are designed to cover a variety of topics from patent examination policy to whether new forms of intellectual property protection are needed.

BILLINGTON CYBERSECURITY SUMMIT: Artificial Intelligence has a big big-data problem when it comes to network defense, senior defense officials warned this afternoon. Sure, AI can pounce on a problem in a microsecond, long before a human operator can react. All you need to do is train the machine-learning algorithms. So you let the AI prowl through every computer, smartphone, server, router, Internet connection, etc. until the algorithm learns what normal looks like on your network. Then the AI can sit back and watch every passing bit and byte, ready to jump on any anomalous activity from malware slipping in as an email attachment to a disgruntled employee downloading all your sensitive files, Edward Snowden-style.

The Assistant Secretary General and Director of the Regional Bureau for Africa of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Ms. Ahunna Eziakonwa, called on African countries to take advantage of the opportunities offered by digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), blockchains and machine learning, and deploy these in various sectors for the achievement of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). She made the call during a panel session at a side event at the 7th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD7) in Yokohama, Japan. The event, titled "From Idea to Action: Harnessing the Potential of Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) in Africa's Development", was organized by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the World Bank. Ms. Eziakonwa noted that, Africa needs to harness the potential of STI for development by prioritizing policies and making investments to increase access to state-of-the-art technologies such as e-governance, finance and digital literacy and skills – at secondary and TVET (Technical and Vocational Education and Training) level. She called for the adoption of innovative financing schemes that combine both public and private sector resources and technical expertise for the achievement of the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic, social and environment.

Facial recognition technology is all around us--it's at concerts, airports, and apartment buildings. But its use by law enforcement agencies and courtrooms raises particular concerns about privacy, fairness, and bias, according to Jennifer Lynch, the Surveillance Litigation Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Some studies have shown that some of the major facial recognition systems are inaccurate. Amazon's software misidentified 28 members of Congress and matched them with criminal mugshots. These inaccuracies tend to be far worse for people of color and women. Meanwhile, companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM also develop and sell "emotion recognition" algorithms, which claim to identify a person's emotions based on their facial expressions and movements.

A key piece of the Pentagon's plan to beat China and Russia in the high-stakes artificial intelligence race lies inside a research facility along the Allegheny River here, where a small but select U.S. Army team has been tasked with creating the weapons, vehicles and sensors needed for 21st-century combat. Inside, the U.S. military is feverishly working to incorporate AI into its operations in a myriad of ways, including drones and robots to ferry wounded soldiers away from the battlefield, software that can spot a hidden enemy force over a hill, AI programs that can give generals and line soldiers a fuller picture of a confusing battle, and even algorithms that can outperform any resume in determining the right men and women for a specific job. Those projects, and a host of others, form the backbone of a major Pentagon initiative that carries far-reaching implications for the 21st century global balance of power. The Army's AI Task Force, created earlier this year as part of the Defense Department's broader effort to turn what was once science fiction into reality, has brought together military officials and academic leaders at Carnegie Mellon University, an institution considered to be the birthplace of AI research. Tucked in a spot more than two miles off the main campus that is unlikely to be found unless one knew where to look, the school's National Robotics Engineering Center serves as the epicenter of a partnership between the Army and academia.