Federal standards for artificial intelligence must be strict enough to prevent the tech from harming humans, yet flexible enough to encourage innovation and get the tech industry on board, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology. However, without better standards for measuring the performance and trustworthiness of AI tools, officials said, the government could have a tough time striking that balance. On Monday, NIST released its much-anticipated guidance on how the government should approach developing technical and ethical standards for artificial intelligence. Though it doesn't include any specific regulations or policies, the plan outlines multiple initiatives that would help the government promote the responsible use of AI and lists a number of high-level principles that should inform any future standards for the tech. The strategy also stresses the need to develop technologies that would help agencies better study and assess the quality of AI-powered systems.

BEIRUT – Israeli drones bombed a Palestinian base in eastern Lebanon near the border with Syria early Monday amid rising tensions in the Middle East, the Lebanese state-run National News Agency and a Palestinian official said. The strike came a day after an alleged Israeli drone crashed in a stronghold of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in southern Beirut while another exploded and crashed nearby. Lebanese President Michel Aoun told the U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jan Kubis, that the attacks violate a U.N. Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. "What happened is equal to a declaration of war and gives us the right to defend our sovereignty, independence, and the safety of our land," Aoun said in comments released by his office Monday. "We are people who seek peace and not war, and we don't accept that anyone to threatens us though any means."

"Deep Labs, Inc., the leader in persona-based artificial intelligence, has announced it successfully helped the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) more effectively identify potential fraud and abuse. The pilot project was managed by prime contractor Visual Connections." "Visual Connections and Deep Labs partnered to conceive, develop and implement a successful artificial intelligence pilot, utilizing deep visioning and learning techniques and tools for CMS's Medicare Part D program, which covers prescriptions for over 39 million beneficiaries. This project was designed to discover potentially fraudulent activity before it occurs, and to enhance CMS's ability to proactively identify and investigate potential fraud by providing visualization of CMS data, allowing for improved decisioning." Source: Deep Labs Partners On AI Project That Helps Medicare Office More Effectively Identify and Prevent Fraud & Abuse – August 19, 2019.

I interviewed the Nr. 2 intelligence official, Kari Bingen at the Pentagon recently. Bingen and I have known each other for more than a decade while she was one of the top space and intelligence staffers on Capitol Hill. She ended her career there as the HASC policy director for the GOP. This is the first interview Bingen has granted since being confirmed two years ago. BD: This is Colin Clark, editor of Breaking Defense.

The explosion of digital technologies is an essential ingredient to boost innovation, accelerating the creative process to develop new solutions for a world that is increasingly data-driven, connected, immersive and reliant on autonomous systems. Thales has an important role to play in accelerating the digital transformation of its partners around the world. Working with CENTECH, Thales will support projects created by start-ups in the field of artificial intelligence, which is one of Thales' four key digital technologies, alongside connectivity, big data and cybersecurity. CENTECH has been recognised by the University Business Network (UBI) as one of the most effective accelerators in the world. Through the AI@CENTECH programme, actively supported by the Thales Digital Factory, Thales plans to accelerate the development of more than 10 start-ups a year, providing business advice, technology expertise and infrastructure services, as well as access to the Group's five core markets in the aerospace, space, transport, defence and security sectors to promote the use of artificial intelligence in critical decision support.

BAGHDAD – A powerful bloc in Iraq's parliament called on Monday for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, following a series of airstrikes targeting Iran-backed Shiite militias in the country that have been blamed on Israel. The Fatah Coalition said it holds the United States fully responsible for the alleged Israeli aggression, "which we consider to be a declaration of war on Iraq and its people." The coalition is a parliament bloc representing Iran-backed paramilitary militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces. The coalition's statement came a day after a drone strike in the western Iraqi town of Qaim killed a commander with the forces -- the latest in strikes apparently conducted by Israel against the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq. It added that U.S. troops are no longer needed in Iraq.

The European Union wants to be a leader in AI. As the European Commission's coordinated plan on AI states, its ambition is to make Europe "the world-leading region for developing and deploying cutting-edge" AI. To meet this goal, the EU will need to compete with China and the United States in areas such as talent and research. However, anew report from the Center for Data Innovation shows the EU is already struggling to keep pace. And it will likely fall further behind once the UK, a pillar of the EU's AI ecosystem, leaves the Union.

The goal of the Shared Visual Representations in Human and Machine Intelligence (SVRHM) workshop at NeurIPS 2019 is to discuss and disseminate relevant findings and parallels between the computational neuro/cognitive science and machine learning/artificial intelligence communities. In the past few years, machine learning tools -- especially deep neural networks -- have permeated the vision/cognitive/neuro science communities to become the leading computational models that describe many cognitive tasks. Huge strides are also being made on the machine learning/artificial intelligence community with biologically inspired algorithms providing large efficiency gains in both computational and learning capabilities. However, many mysteries remain with regards to the alignment of human and machine perception, and there are cases where we see divergent rather than convergent representations. To resolve such questions, this workshop aims to bring fruitful discussions between scientists and engineers with multi-disciplinary backgrounds to review the recent progress in shared visual representations in both humans and machines, and in doing so identifying road-blocks and areas of interest to further accelerate the growth of both fields.

Russia's space agency Roscosmos has a new plan to dock an unpiloted Soyuz capsule at the International Space Station after the first attempt failed on Saturday (Aug. Roscosmos now aims to dock the Soyuz spacecraft, called MS-14, at the space station Monday (Aug. Docking is scheduled for Monday night at 11:12 p.m. EDT (0312 Aug. 25 GMT). But there's just one hitch: Another spacecraft is already parked at the Zvezda port. That other spacecraft is Soyuz MS-13, which arrived at the space station July 20with Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, NASA astronaut Drew Morgan and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano.