The reason is that it gets a lot of attention already in other venues, whereas the issue of productivity, data and management is bereft of a home. That said, if the roundtable form evolves past the initial three sessions, jobs will be the next topic to take on.

When P.W. Singer set out to write a book about military use of social media in 2013, he couldn't have known exactly what kind of rabbit hole he was entering. The half-decade that followed would see social media power the rise of the Islamic State, elevate white nationalist movements and serve as a tool for a foreign actor seeking to undermine an American presidential election. In LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media, Singer and co-author Emerson Brooking fit phenomena like these into a broader narrative about the fast-evolving nexus of propaganda, digital marketing and psychological warfare. In their conception of weaponized social media, everyone from brand marketers and reality stars to terrorist recruiters and military personnel are now competing with one another in a viral attention battleground where troll armies, misinformation and bot networks are weapons of choice. Singer spoke with Adweek about how this social media atmosphere evolved, why brands need to pay attention to Russian bots and how artificial intelligence personas could be the future of online propaganda.

We know artificial intelligence will remake -- is already in the process of remaking -- both business and the broader world beyond. What we don't know yet is what unintended consequences AI will wreak as it becomes more advanced and commonplace. One hindrance to envisioning that future is that AI is not "a technology," in the same sense that ERP, for example, is a technology. While there are different flavors of ERP, with differing sets of capabilities, we generally understand that it's software designed to integrate an organization's operational and financial processes into a unified system. Artificial intelligence, though, is "a diverse set of methods and tools continuously evolving in tandem with advances in data science, chip design, cloud services, and end-user adoption," as Ernst & Young (EY) put it in a recent paper.

With each passing year, the CISO's job is not becoming any easier. As companies continue embracing the Digital Transformation, the growing complexity and openness of their IT infrastructures mean that the attack surface for hackers and malicious insiders is increasing as well. Combined with the recent political developments such as the rise of state-sponsored attacks, new surveillance laws, and harsh privacy regulations, security professionals now have way too many things on their hands that sometimes keep them awake at night. Should you invest in CEO fraud protection or work harder to prepare for a media fallout after a data breach? The skills gap problem is often discussed by the press, but the journalists usually focus more on the lack of IT experts which are needed to operate complex and sprawling cybersecurity infrastructures.

Google chief executive Sundar Pichai quietly paid the Pentagon a visit during his trip to Washington last week, seeking to smooth over tensions roughly four months after employee outrage prompted the tech giant to sever a defense contract to analyze drone video, according to two people familiar with the meeting. Pichai met with a group of civilian and military leaders mostly from the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, the Defense Department directorate that oversees the artificial-intelligence drone system known as Project Maven, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about the meeting. Google had worked with the Defense Department to develop Project Maven, which uses AI to automatically tag cars, buildings and other objects in videos recorded by drones flying over conflict zones. But in June, the tech giant said it would not renew its contract following an uprising from employees, who criticized the work as helping the military track and kill with greater efficiency. A Defense Department spokesperson said, "We do not comment on the details of private meetings. Department leaders routinely meet with industry partners to discuss innovative technologies. These meetings support continuing dialogue aimed at solving future technology challenges."

The SA Innovation Summit as an annual flagship event on the South African Innovation Calendar, is a platform for nurturing, developing and showcasing African innovation, as well as facilitating innovation thought-leadership. Created to support and promote innovation and facilitate collaboration within its own eco-system, the initiative brings together corporates, thought leaders, inventors, entrepreneurs, academia and policy makers to amplify South Africa's renowned competitive edge and to inspire sustained economic growth across the continent of Africa. The outcomes achieved by the Summit, is a powerful platform to bring together thought leaders and accelerate innovation in South Africa, and into the African continent as whole. MIIA ill also be represented at the South African Innovation Summit and invitethe MIIA community to also join the 48-hour hackathon being held in Cape Town Stadium from 5 - 7 September 2017.

A contemporary artist has (almost) succeeded in bringing Queen Elizabeth I back to life. In a new exhibit titled'The Mask of Youth', English artist Mat Collishaw has created a strikingly realistic recreation of the Tudor Queen's head with eyes that follow you around the room, blink expectantly and a mouth that opens periodically. The exhibit takes on a surrealist feeling as the animatronic head sits suspended in a mirrored recess, facing the Armada Portrait, one of the most famous paintings of Queen Elizabeth I. In a new exhibit titled'The Mask of Youth', English artist Mat Collishaw has created a strikingly realistic recreation of the Tudor Queen's head with eyes that follow you around the room, blink expectantly and a mouth that opens periodically'The Mask of Youth' is now on view at the Queen's House, Greenwich and was commissioned by Royal Museums Greenwich. When viewers stand in front of the suspended head, they immediately see things from her point of view, reflected in the mirror behind her.

We present the first PAC optimal algorithm for Bayes-Adaptive Markov Decision Processes (BAMDPs) in continuous state and action spaces, to the best of our knowledge. The BAMDP framework elegantly addresses model uncertainty by incorporating Bayesian belief updates into long-term expected return. However, computing an exact optimal Bayesian policy is intractable. Our key insight is to compute a near-optimal value function by covering the continuous state-belief-action space with a finite set of representative samples and exploiting the Lipschitz continuity of the value function. We prove the near-optimality of our algorithm and analyze a number of schemes that boost the algorithm's efficiency. Finally, we empirically validate our approach on a number of discrete and continuous BAMDPs and show that the learned policy has consistently competitive performance against baseline approaches.

The Department of Transportation has released new guidance for automated vehicles that identifies and supports the development of voluntary technical standards, defines government's roles, describes a risk-management framework for safety and provides a process for working with the department on this technology. This non-binding guidance, "Preparing for the Future of Transportation: Automated Vehicles 3.0," was announced by the department on Oct. 4. AV 3.0 prioritizes safety and technical neutrality and minimizes regulation, while promoting operational and legal consistency across states and throughout the transportation industry. The document is meant to clarify some safety standards in hopes of building public trust and confidence in automated vehicle technology, DOT Secretary Elaine L. Chao said at a press conference announcing the report. "AV 3.0 builds upon but does not replace voluntary guidance provided in "2.0 A Vision for Safety," Chao said. "Vehicle automation is still in the early stages of development.

Artist's impression of the U.S. Navy's first newly built Ship-to-Shore Connector maritime warfare craft (Textron Systems) The Navy's first newly-built Ship-to-Shore Connector maritime warfare craft launched on the water earlier this year, paving the way for stepped up production and introducing a new era in modern amphibious warfare for the Marines. Naval Sea Systems Command recently awarded a deal to Ship-to-Shore connector-maker Textron to acquire long-lead early procurement materials for the new fleet of watercraft. The new SSC mobile amphibious connectors are able to transport larger armored vehicles, such as an Abrams tank, from amphibious assault ships to combat ashore. The new Navy craft brings an unprecedented ability to The new SSCs are designed to replace the existing fleet of Landing Craft Air Cushions (LCAC) able to move Marines, weapons and supplies from ship to shore for amphibious operations. The connectors will integrate emerging computer technology able to reduce the needed crew size and perform more functions independently.