No one doubts that artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) will transform cybersecurity. We just don't know how, or when. While the literature generally focuses on the different uses of AI by attackers and defenders and the resultant arms race between the two I want to talk about software vulnerabilities. The reason is basically economic: The market doesn't want to pay for quality software. The result is that any large modern software package contains hundreds or thousands of bugs.

For more than five decades, DARPA has been a leader in generating groundbreaking research and development (R&D) that facilitated the advancement and application of rule-based and statistical-learning based AI technologies. Today, DARPA continues to lead innovation in AI research as it funds a broad portfolio of R&D programs, ranging from basic research to advanced technology development. DARPA believes this future, where systems are capable of acquiring new knowledge through generative contextual and explanatory models, will be realized upon the development and application of "Third Wave" AI technologies. DARPA announced in September 2018 a multi-year investment of more than $2 billion in new and existing programs called the "AI Next" campaign. Key areas of the campaign include automating critical DoD business processes, such as security clearance vetting or accrediting software systems for operational deployment; improving the robustness and reliability of AI systems; enhancing the security and resiliency of machine learning and AI technologies; reducing power, data, and performance inefficiencies; and pioneering the next generation of AI algorithms and applications, such as "explainability" and common sense reasoning. AI Next builds on DARPA's five decades of AI technology creation to define and to shape the future, always with the Department's hardest problems in mind.

ARISA, a project by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, is a 6-foot guide robot that will work in the subway stations to show passengers the way to restrooms and lockers, offer transit directions and recommend tourist attractions in the area. Developed by the Japanese tech company Aruze Gaming and Chicago-headquartered THK, she's wide-eyed, sharply dressed and can speak in Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean. She's also accompanied by a touch-screen monitor.

AI is nothing new, and academics have been at work with ideas like cybernetics and the brain-computer interface since mid-last century. But IoT and it's data deluge, data lakes, and advances in Machine Learning have made AI step outside of academic to mainstream enterprises and into our homes, cities, and workplaces. From healthcare to cybersecurity to manufacturing, enterprises are working hard to integrate AI into their products, devices, and services. Artificial Intelligence has developed to achieve a wide range of capabilities from image recognition to language processing and data analysis and predictive analytics. It enables machines to make decisions and deductive reasoning faster than humans.

Here's a somewhat abridged list of some of the things that I expect to come true, at least in part, in 2019. While it's an evolution of an internal newsletter I share with old colleagues and friends, I thought I'd share these with the world at large this year to invite discussion, meanderings, or just give you all something to think about as we enter this year of uncertainties and excitement. The IPO market will have a killer year with multiples of SaaS companies trading above 8x while the M&A market will see a significant downturn, especially among public companies and at the $5B level given the recent market swings and their effect on risk-adverse CEOs and boards that have to worry about quarterly earnings. Blockchain technology will have a decidedly mixed year. After a mix of hype, fraud and regulatory challenges, there are still thousands of startups attempting to solve a myriad of very real problems, and the likelihood of one succeeding is high.

Robotics manufacturers are scrambling for more than a half billion dollars in Pentagon contracts for battlefield robots that will defuse bombs and scout ahead for soldiers on the battlefield. That's according to a new Associated Press report about the U.S. military's efforts to purchase thousands of "backpack-sized" robots that troops can deploy to take bullets in dangerous situations -- and its fear that it could be outpaced by similar efforts by China and Russia. These battlefield robots aren't killer bots capable of using lethal force autonomously, a class of machine that is currently being debated worldwide. Rather, U.S. military leaders are interested in intermediary devices like Endeavor Robotics' treadmill-sporting Centaur bot, which can perform reconnaissance and disable explosives -- bots that soldiers can put in harm's way instead of themselves.

The intelligence community's (IC) stock in trade has always been knowing what nobody else knows. Now it's looking to tap into new technology to expand its ability to forecast geopolitical events in several ways, including finding out what everybody knows. The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), the IC's lead research arm, is looking to bring artificial intelligence to bear in a number of intelligence-gathering areas. This includes two projects at opposite ends of the spy game: at one end, intercepting and interpreting classified communications, and at the other, finding a way to read the tea leaves in massive amounts of public information. IARPA recently launched a competition to support its Mercury program, which focuses on the more familiar (to the public anyway) element of spycraft known as signals intelligence.

At Wake Radiology in North Carolina, roughly 50 doctors scrutinize x-rays and other images for local medical providers. Within a few weeks, they should start to get help on some lung CT scans from machine-learning algorithms that highlight potentially cancerous tissue nodules. Although Wake is based in a region known as the Research Triangle, for its intensity of high-tech R&D, the lung-reading software hails from elsewhere--China. Infervision, a four-year-old Beijing startup, has amassed more than a million scans from Chinese hospitals that it's using to train and test algorithms. Gathering medical data is much easier for Chinese companies than for their US counterparts, because patient populations are larger and the burden of privacy regulations smaller. "In the US, particularly for big academic hospitals, you have to go through so many processes and it can take a really long time to access data," says Yufeng Deng, Infervision's chief scientist.

Google is offering US schoolchildren the chance to design their own Doodle to appear on its homepage. The Google Doodle sees the Silicon Valley search giant periodically replace its familiar logo with a sketch, often animated, to celebrate a public figure on an anniversary associated with them or their achievements. Doing so offers an opportunity to champion figures from the arts and sciences who have distinguished themselves through innovation or by blazing a trail for others and deserve to be better known. This year's theme is "hope", with entrants asked to submit a design based on their personal wishes for the future. Kids who would like to get involved have until 8pm Pacific Time on 19 March 2019 to upload a .jpg