WASHINGTON/BEIJING - The Trump administration said the U.S. president still wants to meet China's Xi Jinping in an effort to end the trade war, a sign of optimism as negotiators from the world's two biggest economies start their latest round of talks this week. "He wants to meet with President Xi very soon," White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said Monday on Fox News. "This president wants a deal. He wants it to be fair to Americans and American workers and American interests." Uncertainty whether the leaders will meet to finalize an agreement has stoked concerns that negotiations are faltering as the March 1 deadline approaches. If there's no deal by then, President Donald Trump has threatened to more than double the rate of tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports.

The Trump administration is taking steps to insulate the American workforce from the most severe effects of rapid technological development while maintaining a strong global position in artificial intelligence, according to senior Trump administration officials. President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order Monday launching the American Artificial Intelligence Initiative (AAII). "By driving technological breakthroughs in AI, breaking barriers to AI innovation, preparing our workforce for the jobs of the future, and protecting America's advantage in AI, we are ensuring that AI technologies continue to improve the lives of our people, create jobs, reflect our nation's values, and keep Americans safe at home and abroad," a senior Trump administration official told reporters Sunday. Since June 2017, the Trump administration has held a series of summits with tech giants such as Facebook and Amazon along with other businesses which are increasingly embracing technology provide more services and stay competitive, such as Ford, Mastercard and United Airlines. Monday's order is a culmination of a slew of previous, smaller actions on technology, as well as providing a more cohesive strategy for developing and regulating AI in the future.

President Donald Trump reportedly plans to sign an executive order today creating something called the American AI Initiative. The executive order is apparently a symbolic nod to artificial intelligence that doesn't create any new funding but encourages the federal government to do more with AI. And we can't help but wonder, what are the odds that President Trump knows anything about what he's signing today? We don't even mean to be snarky or mean by asking the question. But it's worth asking given the president's dangerous incompetence and complete lack of intellectual curiosity.

U.S. President Donald J. Trump is scheduled to sign an executive order today creating a program called the American AI Initiative. U.S. President Donald Trump today will sign an executive order for the federal government to channel existing funds, programs, and data in support of artificial intelligence (AI) research and commercialization. The American AI Initiative will ask agencies to assist U.S. workers' adjustment to professions impacted by AI by supporting training and fellowships, and to consider what new regulations may be needed to rein in unwelcome effects. The program also would ask certain agencies in areas like health and transportation to open data stores to academics and companies engaged in AI research, using privacy-protecting mechanisms. The University of Washington's Ryan Calo said the initiative's progress should reveal whether the White House is seriously considering related ethical and human rights issues, like whether "they [are] aware enough of [AI's] social impacts, and thinking about the effects on society and how to address the problems it creates."

Video has become an increasingly crucial tool for law enforcement, whether it comes from security cameras, police-worn body cameras, a bystander's smartphone, or another source. But a combination of "deepfake" video manipulation technology and security issues that plague so many connected devices has made it difficult to confirm the integrity of that footage. A new project suggests the answer lies in cryptographic authentication. Called Amber Authenticate, the tool is meant to run in the background on a device as it captures video. At regular, user-determined intervals, the platform generates "hashes"--cryptographically scrambled representations of the data--that then get indelibly recorded on a public blockchain.

After the President largely avoided the subject of AI in his SOTU address, a new directive could shape the nascent sector as it spills into everything from healthcare to military warfare. Trump's "American AI Initiative" directs federal agencies to prioritize AI in their research and development, however it did not announce any specific funding assigned for these goals. It also includes language aimed at increasing efforts to educate American workers using a mix of programs spearheaded by the National Council for the American Worker and AI fellowships care of federal agencies. In addition, it calls upon the government to improve access to cloud computing and data-sharing for the development of new AI systems. The executive order comes amid growing concerns over China's push to become a global AI superpower and the threat of job losses in the impending age of automation. The initiative also urges federal branches to establish a regulatory framework for AI across industrial sectors.

Executives in Davos this year had a lot to discuss, such as the uncertainties surrounding the future of the planet with David Attenborough and the political instability pertaining to Brexit. Second only to the US-China trade deal however, 2019's most discussed topic in Davos was Artificial Intelligence. Two questions in particular seemed to capture the imaginations (and itineraries!) of attendees this year: Whilst the full impact of AI may seem far down the line, how far away exactly are we from a reality where these questions begin to hit home in a tangible way? In the 10th anniversary of the'Deloitte Tech Trends' published this year, one of the key trends titled "AI-fuelled organisations" posits that there are three phases of intelligence across the evolution of AI: Today's organisations primarily find themselves in the first phase and many of them are evolving to the second. "To become a true AI-fuelled organisation, a company may need to fundamentally rethink the way humans and machines interact within working environments. Executives should also consider deploying machine learning and other cognitive tools systematically across every core business process and enterprise operation to support data driven decision-making."

The United States is engaged in an increasingly bitter trade war with China. And while American companies like Google and Amazon are now leaders in A.I., experts in the field are concerned that China could surpass the United States in the development of technologies that will power surveillance systems and autonomous weapons as well as driverless cars and a wide range of internet services. In July 2017, Chinese unveiled a plan to become the world leader in A.I., aiming to create an industry worth $150 billion to its economy by 2030, and two Chinese cities promised to invest $7 billion in the effort. Other governments, too, began making large investments, including South Korea, Britain, France and Canada. In the United States, the Defense Department has accelerated efforts to embrace A.I., shifting $75 million of its annual budget to a new office that will develop these technologies. Other government agencies also have major projects in the works.

Smart Cities are the future. So when Houston, Texas faced rebuilding in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in 2017, it seized the opportunity to transform itself as a tech-centric, smart city by incorporating emerging technologies including Artificial Intelligence, IoT, Machine Learning and data analytics. Houston is being extremely planful in building multiple innovative solutions across departments at the same time that communicate with one another which is significantly increasing the positive impact it's bringing to its citizens. As a result, Houston has come to serve as a model for Smart City initiatives. We will hear from those responsible for Houston's transformation and examine what others - from policymakers to city officials to business leaders - can learn from their experience.

According to several outlets briefed over the weekend on the White House's plans, President Trump will today sign an executive order establishing a program -- the American AI Initiative -- that'll task federal agencies with devoting more resources to artificial intelligence (AI) research, training, and promotion. It comes after President Trump promised "investments in the cutting-edge industries of the future" during his State of the Union speech last week, and after companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google called for guidelines governing the use and development of AI technologies such as facial recognition. "AI is something that touches every aspect of people's lives," a White House official told Reuters. "What this initiative attempts to do is to bring all those together under one umbrella and show the promise of this technology for the American people." There isn't any funding attached to the executive order, which follows the Trump Administration's AI summit on the role of AI in May 2018.