Delta Air Lines will implement facial recognition technology at Los Angeles International Airport from Friday, with cameras identifying passengers at a boarding gate with more to be installed after. The move has been met with controversy however, as groups such as Greenpeace call for a federal banning of the technology by law enforcement agencies. Critics say the technology could be used to violate privacy and date, as well as pointing to issues with accuracy for non-white male subjects. A spokeswoman for the coalition of groups, which also includes MoveOn and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the groups also oppose the use of the technology by airlines. 'There is no real oversight for how a private corporation can use our biometric information once they've collected it,' said Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future.

The same artificial intelligence (AI) drone technology that the Little Ripper Group used for its shark detection drones is now being used to spot crocodiles in Queensland. Little Ripper Group co-founder Paul Scully-Power said the company was approached by the Queensland government to help keep beachgoers safe in the water and on land from crocodiles. "The Queensland government said, 'Hey do we have a challenge for you and asked can you spot crocodiles for us?' Crocodiles are slinky people that like dark, muddy water, so we took on that challenge," he said. The launch of the crocodile-spotting drones follows on from a trial that was carried out between Surf Life Saving Queensland and the Little Ripper Group to identify, monitor, and track the movement of crocodiles in November. The drone technology, dubbed the Little Ripper and designed together with the University of Technology Sydney, uses an AI system that was originally designed to detect sharks in real-time.

The year 2017 has been dominated by the worst cyber-attacks and high profile data breaches. Consumer credit score company Equifax has revealed that hackers accessed up to 143 million customer account details earlier this year. The data breach happened on July 29 and the details taken include names, social security numbers, drivers' licenses, and credit card numbers of around 200,000 people This breach might have cost multimillion dollar as penalties but the cost they will pay for the most important element of business is client trust and reputation, which they might have built over years. The incidents like this have made organizations realized that the threat landscape is changing faster, new challenges are emerging every day. Organisations have to change their defense strategy from basic level majors and ad hoc response to more sophisticated and robust processes.

With deepfakes receiving a lot of media coverage recently, synthetic media is a trending topic among AI forums and a growing area of machine learning. The possible threats posed by manipulated or synthetic media has caught the attention of government officials and even led to a House of Representatives hearing in June of 2019. Like every new and emerging technology, synthetic media comes with risks. However, companies like Lyrebird are proof that the positive applications of synthetic media outweigh the negative. From chatbots to virtual assistants, research in ASR and higher-quality audio training data have led to some of the most useful tech of the current generation.

A surgeon in India has successfully performed the first remote heart surgery on a patient who was lying on an operating table 20 miles away. During the procedure, the CorPath GRX robot--developed by a company called Corindus--inserted a small instrument called a stent in order to open blood vessels in the heart, according to a paper published in EClinicalMedicine. The operation, called percutaneous coronary intervention, is often performed in patients who have a condition called atherosclerosis, where plaque builds up in the blood vessels, restricting blood flow. The long-distance procedure was performed by Dr. Tejas Patel of the Apex Heart Institute in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. "I am honored to have been a part of this medical milestone," Patel told ZDNet.

The Department of Energy and the Weill Family Foundation on Monday signed a memorandum of understanding for a new public-private partnership which will use the agency's artificial intelligence capabilities for biomedical research. Former Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill and Energy Secretary Rick Perry told CNBC's "Closing Bell" in an exclusive interview that the partnership aims to improve the diagnosis of brain diseases and neurological disorders, which would result in more effective treatment. "As one looks at science and the development of new science, especially AI and computing, you really need to have partners to make things work." "It's too expensive for anybody to try to do it by themselves." The partnership between the federal government and the Weill Family Foundation, involves Lawrence Livermore, Lawrence Berkeley and Argonne National laboratories, and was announced during a roundtable on DOE-fueled artificial intelligence at Lawrence Livermore Lab in Livermore, California.

"(AI) will rank among our greatest technological achievements, and everyone deserves to play a role in shaping it." Encompassing all facets of AI, the General Secretariat of MONTREAL.AI introduces, with authority and insider knowledge: "Artificial Intelligence 101: The First World-Class Overview of AI for the General Public". AI opens up a world of new possibilities. This AI 101 tutorial harnesses the fundamentals of artificial intelligence for the purpose of providing participants with powerful AI tools to learn, deploy and scale AI. Theoretical Physics in 1 (one) year, followed by a Master's degree in Government Policy Analysis (1998) and a Master's degree in Aerospace Engineering (Space Technology) (2000).

A "robot tax" could help protect American workers from the growing threat of automation, according to the latest policy proposal from Mayor Bill de Blasio's longshot presidential campaign. The Democratic mayor on Thursday proposed a tax against companies that bring in robots to replace humans without giving those workers new jobs. Such firms would have to pay five years' worth of payroll taxes for every person whose job is cut. De Blasio also proposed closing loopholes that allow corporations to deduct job-killing technology investments from their taxes. A new Federal Automation and Worker Protection Agency would use money from that reform and the new robot tax to create new jobs in health care, early-childhood education and green energy, according to the mayor's proposal.

WASHINGTON, D.C.-Today, U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry announced the establishment of the DOE Artificial Intelligence and Technology Office (AITO). The Secretary has established the office to serve as the coordinating hub for the work being done across the DOE enterprise in Artificial Intelligence. This action has been taken as part of the President's call for a national AI strategy to ensure AI technologies are developed to positively impact the lives of Americans. DOE-fueled AI is already being used to strengthen our national security and cybersecurity, improve grid resilience, increase environmental sustainability, enable smarter cities, improve water resource management, as well as speed the discovery of new materials and compounds, and further the understanding, prediction, and treatment of disease. DOE's National Labs are home to four of the top ten fastest supercomputers in the world, and we're currently building three next-generation, exascale machines, which will be even faster and more AI-capable computers.

This article was submitted in response to the call for ideas issued by the co-chairs of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, Eric Schmidt and Robert Work. It addresses the first question (part b.) which asks what might happen if the United States fails to develop robust AI capabilities that address national security issues. The year is 2040 and the United States military has limited artificial intelligence (AI) capability. Enthusiasm about AI's potential in the 2010s and 2020s translated into little lasting change. Domestic troubles forced a national focus on budget cuts, international isolation, and strengthening the union. Civil unrest during the 2032 elections worsened everything -- factionalism and partisanship smashed through the walls of the Pentagon. Major initiatives floundered over costs and fear of aiding political opponents.