As if anyone needed reminding that a federal election looms, a war of words has broken out between the offices of Industry Minister Karen Andrews and shadow human services minister Ed Husic over a briefing on, of all things, artificial intelligence. Late last year, Mr Husic approached Ms Andrews' office seeking a briefing on the progress of an AI technology roadmap report being prepared by the CSIRO unit Data61 and the Department of Industry, and to get an understanding of the thinking in the report. The request was knocked by the Minister's office – not once but repeatedly – according to Ed Husic and he is not happy about it. These briefings are quite routine and rarely rejected, he says. While there are no specific rules around such briefings, by convention they are commonplace – although the understanding is that they are done in the background, quietly and without any resulting overtly politicisation. Even in the hyper-partisan times we live in, governments see merit in ensuring both the government and opposition benches the opportunity to understand the detail of evolving policy – particularly where there is complexity.

What would you do if you had a machine to catch a thief? If you were a corrupt Chinese bureaucrat, you would want to ditch it, of course. Resistance by government officials to a groundbreaking big data experiment is only one of many challenges as the Chinese government starts using new technology to navigate its giant bureaucracy. According to state media, there were more than 50 million people on China's government payroll in 2016, though analysts have put the figure at more than 64 million – slightly less than the population of Britain. To turn this behemoth into a seamless operation befitting the information age, China has started adapting various types of sophisticated technology.

The notion reflects an interest in bias-free decision making or, when protected classes of individuals are involved, in avoiding disparate impact to legally protected classes.3

In a move designed to further the government's digital initiative, the union finance minister announced plans to digitize over one lakh villages, focus on Artificial Intelligence technologies and transform the country as a hub for smartphone and electric vehicle manufacturing. Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said that the country's digital infrastructure and economy by 2030 will be built on the work done in digitisation of government processes and private transactions. As part of this move, the government plans to make One lakh villages into Digital Villages over next five years with the help of Common Service Centres (CSCs), public private initiative that offer digital services to villagers.. Goyal said it is the government's vision to create a Digital India that reaches all sectors of the economy, all parts of the country and impacts lives of all Indians. "Our youth will lead us in this endeavour with innumerable start-ups creating digital India, and millions of jobs in this eco-system," said Goyal in his Interim Budget speech. The monthly consumption of mobile data increased by over 50 times in the last five years, and the cost of data and voice calls in India is now possibly the lowest in the world.

WASHINGTON - If you see a video of a politician speaking words he never would utter, or a Hollywood star improbably appearing in a cheap adult movie, don't adjust your television set -- you may just be witnessing the future of "fake news." "Deepfake" videos that manipulate reality are becoming more sophisticated due to advances in artificial intelligence, creating the potential for new kinds of misinformation with devastating consequences. As the technology advances, worries are growing about how deepfakes can be used for nefarious purposes by hackers or state actors. "We're not quite to the stage where we are seeing deepfakes weaponized, but that moment is coming," said Robert Chesney, a University of Texas law professor who has researched the topic. Chesney argues that deepfakes could add to the current turmoil over disinformation and influence operations.

Attackers are not just getting smarter, they are also using the most advanced technologies available, the same ones being used by security professionals – namely, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). Meanwhile, the widespread adoption of cloud, mobile and IoT technologies has created a sprawling IT attack surface that is getting harder to protect from cyber threats, since fixing every existing vulnerability in these infrastructures is unfeasible and impossible. Here are four ways attackers will exploit technology in new and creative ways over the next 12 months. The bias issue is in its infancy now, but will grow rapidly this year and beyond. We can expect attackers to exploit the vulnerabilities associated with it.

The growth of artificial intelligence in the healthcare industry has been astounding. Each day, we see new articles about AI-related advances in medical imaging, diagnosis, and health informatics. Health service providers are finding more and more ways to match patients with treatment options, improve the detection of disease, and analyze patients' data to give them more insight into their individual health profiles. AI is also used to improve clinical payment structures, develop treatment plans, and optimize coordination between clinical staff. The U.S. patent system--a key player in protecting R&D innovation--is also experiencing tremendous growth, with patent filings for AI-related technologies trending upward.

Theoretical models of the strong nuclear interaction contain unknown coupling constants (parameters) that must be determined using a pool of calibration data. In cases where the models are complex, leading to time consuming calculations, it is particularly challenging to systematically search the corresponding parameter domain for the best fit to the data. In this paper, we explore the prospect of applying Bayesian optimization to constrain the coupling constants in chiral effective field theory descriptions of the nuclear interaction. We find that Bayesian optimization performs rather well with low-dimensional parameter domains and foresee that it can be particularly useful for optimization of a smaller set of coupling constants. A specific example could be the determination of leading three-nucleon forces using data from finite nuclei or three-nucleon scattering experiments. Bayesian optimization in ab initio nuclear physics 2 1. Introduction Mathematical optimization plays a central role in natural science. Indeed, most theoretical predictions are preceded by a calibration stage whereby the parameters of the model are optimized to reproduce a selected set of calibration data. In nuclear physics, the coupling constants of any theory of the strong interaction between protons and neutrons (nucleons) must be determined from experimental data before one can attempt to solve the Schrödinger equation to make quantitative predictions of the properties of atomic nuclei. Typically, measured low-energy nucleon-nucleon (N N) cross sections and the properties of light nuclei with mass number A 4 have been used for calibrating the NN and three-nucleon (NNN) interaction sectors of the nuclear force, see e.g.

His work has appeared in The Lovecraft eZine, Samsara: The Magazine of Suffering, Tigershark eZine, Turn To Ash horror zine, The Atlantean Supplement, The Eldritch Literary Review, The Chamber, and Horizontum (Mexico City). John's first novel in the Dark Union series, NIGHT OF THE KWATEE is now available (on Amazon), published by Night Horse Publishing House. His horror short, "The Thing Beneath the Tree," also appears in the PROTECTORS OF THE VEIL anthology from the Lovecraft Lunatic Society (on Amazon). Follow John's latest publication news on Twitter @HPL_JDeLaughter or Facebook @HPLJDeLaughter.