The empirical analysis of experiments and quasi-experiments often seeks to determine the optimal allocation of treatments that maximizes social welfare. In the presence of interference, spillover effects lead to a new formulation of the statistical treatment choice problem. This paper develops a novel method to construct individual-specific optimal treatment allocation rules under network interference. Several features make the proposed methodology particularly appealing for applications: we construct targeting rules that depend on an arbitrary set of individual, neighbors' and network characteristics, and we allow for general constraints on the policy function; we consider heterogeneous direct and spillover effects, arbitrary, possibly non-linear, regression models, and we propose estimators that are robust to model misspecification; the method flexibly accommodates for cases where researchers only observe local information of the network. From a theoretical perspective, we establish the first set of guarantees on the utilitarian regret under interference, and we show that it achieves the min-max optimal rate in scenarios of practical and theoretical interest. We discuss the empirical performance in simulations and we illustrate our method by investigating the role of social networks in micro-finance decisions.

Machine learning advances chemistry and materials science by enabling large-scale exploration of chemical space based on quantum chemical calculations. While these models supply fast and accurate predictions of atomistic chemical properties, they do not explicitly capture the electronic degrees of freedom of a molecule, which limits their applicability for reactive chemistry and chemical analysis. Here we present a deep learning framework for the prediction of the quantum mechanical wavefunction in a local basis of atomic orbitals from which all other ground-state properties can be derived. This approach retains full access to the electronic structure via the wavefunction at force field-like efficiency and captures quantum mechanics in an analytically differentiable representation. On several examples, we demonstrate that this opens promising avenues to perform inverse design of molecular structures for target electronic property optimisation and a clear path towards increased synergy of machine learning and quantum chemistry.

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - One person was killed and seven others were wounded in an attack by Iranian-allied Yemeni rebels on an airport in the kingdom Sunday evening as U.S. Secretary of State was on his way to the country for talks on Iran, Saudi Arabia said. Regional tensions have flared in recent days, The U.S. abruptly called off military strikes against Iran in response to the shooting down of an unmanned American surveillance drone. The Trump administration has vowed to combine a "maximum pressure" campaign of economic sanctions with a buildup of American forces in the region, following the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. A new set of U.S. sanctions on Iran are expected to be announced Monday. The Sunday attack by the Yemeni rebels, known as Houthis, targeted the Saudi airport in Abha.

There are many never-ending debates between Republicans and Democrats. Impeach vs. don't impeach; capital punishment vs. life in prison; wall vs. no wall; legalizing marijuana vs. not; self-driving cars vs. human drivers; Red Sox vs. Yankees; takeout vs. home-cooked; or Gone With the Wind vs. any other movie. All of these issues are stunningly important, right up to the second where cataclysm falls and creates a nightmare scenario that so many fear. That cataclysm is a complete loss of electricity and every mode of convenience and survival we take for granted. IS NORTH KOREA'S EMP THREAT REAL OR'SOMETHING OUT OF A JAMES BOND MOVIE'?

The language of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation is misused and incites fear among the workforce, according to a panel on day two of the 2018 CIPD Annual Conference and Exhibition. Speaking during a panel session called'Will automation and artificial intelligence (AI) help or hinder good people management?', Andrew Spence, HR transformation director at Glass Bead Consulting, said that there's "fear-mongering" in the rhetoric that "the robots will take our jobs". "The word robot comes from the word'robota', which means slave so the language puts fear in people," he said. But the "term AI has a naming problem in itself", he continued, pointing out that there are multiple ways people would define the word intelligence. Cheryl Allen, HR director transformation at Atos, agreed that "people use AI as a general [term] and so many words are used interchangeably".

I, Robot was first released to theaters back in 2004. In it, the movie's filmmakers paint a fictional future (2035) where humanoid robots serve humanities needs. Our beloved Fresh Prince of Bel Air superstar is cast as a Chicago police detective named Del Spooner. Del hates robots with a deep skepticism after his experience with one that was unable to navigate a moral conundrum. Throughout the film, he condescends to these mechanical stewards for being unable to empathize and emote the way he believes only humans can. In one memorable scene, Del proclaims defiantly that robots are incapable of writing a symphony, or turning a canvas into a beautiful masterpiece.

The threat of Artificial Intelligence (AI) used to be nothing more than a science fiction doomsday scenario. Today, an AI threat is a very real possibility, and could be more disastrous than nuclear weapons or World War Three. Over the years, AI has been advancing at an alarming rate. In fact, it is precisely AI's exponential rate of improvement that makes it so dangerous. Should we decide to follow through with making AI sentient and giving it free will, it could, as many science fiction narratives have suggested, see humans as a problem and decide to do something about it.

Who should be on the ethics board of a tech company that's in the business of artificial intelligence (A.I.)? Given the attention to the devastating failure of Google's proposed Advanced Technology External Advisory Council (ATEAC) earlier this year, which was announced and then canceled within a week, it's crucial to get to the bottom of this question. Google, for one, admitted it's "going back to the drawing board." Tech companies are realizing that artificial intelligence changes power dynamics and as providers of A.I. and machine learning systems, they should proactively consider the ethical impacts of their inventions. That's why they're publishing vision documents like "Principles for A.I." when they haven't done anything comparable for previous technologies.

North Korea is reforming education at universities to place greater emphasis on artificial intelligence, according to state media. Pyongyang's Workers' Party newspaper Rodong Sinmun reported Sunday Pyongyang University of Computer Science is changing its computer-programming department into a department for the study of AI. The goal is to improve the quality of school courses so classes on AI are more readily available in the department, according to the report. PyongyangUniversity of Computer Science has decided to improve artificial intelligence education because AI is a "key technology in the information industry," the Rodong article said. The university is developing the new program following directives from Kim Jong Un, issued at the fourth plenum of the seventh party central committee meeting in April, state media said.

President Trump's last-minute decision to pull back from a retaliatory strike on Iran underscored the absence of appealing options available to him as Tehran races toward its next big challenge to the United States: building up and further enriching its stockpile of nuclear fuel. Two weeks of flare-ups over the attacks on oil tankers and the downing of an American surveillance drone, administration officials said, have overshadowed a larger, more complex and fast-intensifying showdown over containing Iran's nuclear program. In meetings in the White House Situation Room in recent days, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo contended that the potential for Iran to move closer to being able to build a nuclear weapon was the primary threat from Tehran, one participant said, a position echoed by Mr. Trump on Twitter on Friday. Left unsaid was that Iran's moves to bolster its nuclear fuel program stemmed in substantial part from the president's decision last year to pull out of the 2015 international accord, while insisting that Tehran abide by the strict limits that agreement imposed on its nuclear activities. Mr. Trump has long asserted that the deal would eventually let Iran restart its nuclear program and did too little to curb its support for terrorism.