Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing every segment of American industry: enhancing productivity, reducing labor costs, and providing companies and individuals with previously unforeseen efficiencies and insights. Simply put, the influence of AI in our daily lives is increasing on an exponential scale and will only become more commonplace in the coming years. Recognizing this fact, the federal government is increasingly devoting its efforts to identifying research and development (R&D) priorities and to setting standards of conduct to ensure that the United States remains at the forefront of global AI development. To that end, on September 26, 2018, the National Science Foundation published a Request for Information (RFI), seeking public input as the federal government contemplates updates to the 2016 "National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan" (AI Strategic Plan). The RFI presents an opportunity for all interested parties--including entities operating in the agricultural, energy, environmental, natural resources, and transportation sectors--to help frame the United States' general policy toward the development, deployment, and oversight of AI.

Many of the?America's leading mental health professionals have concluded, based on Donald Trump's public behavior, that he is emotionally and psychologically unwell. The veracity of these conclusions has been reinforced by what would, in other, more normal circumstances, be considered a series of stunning events. This article first appeared in Salon. A senior official in the White House wrote an anonymous op-ed in the New York Times declaring that Trump is unfit for office and ...

From using artificial intelligence (AI) to determine credit scores to using AI to determine whether a defendant or criminal may offend again, AI-based tools are increasingly being used by people and organizations in positions of authority to make important, often life-altering decisions. But how do these instances impact human rights, such as the right to equality before the law, and the right to an education? A new report from the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society (BKC) addresses this issue and weighs the positive and negative impacts of AI on human rights through six "use cases" of algorithmic decision-making systems, including criminal justice risk assessments and credit scores. Whereas many other reports and studies have focused on ethical issues of AI, the BKC report is one of the first efforts to analyze the impacts of AI through a human rights lens, and proposes a new framework for thinking about the impact of AI on human rights. The report was funded, in part, by the Digital Inclusion Lab at Global Affairs Canada.

As whispers of another UK election grow louder, Tom Watson, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and Shadow Secretary for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport, could soon play a pivotal role in the future of AI in Britain. In this world exclusive interview for AI Business, Watson outlines his views on how a Labour government could use AI and automation to address inequality and the future of public services, as well as deliver improved working and living conditions for all. LONDON--Tom Watson has been given many labels during the course of his 20-year career as a Labour politician. Since calling for Tony Blair's resignation back in 2007, he gained a reputation among some as Labour's'arch-fixer'. Today, as deputy leader of the Labour Party, he's often seen by some on the left (ironically) as a'Blairite' opponent of the party's leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

An engineer with no connection to the self-driving industry has spent $6,000 of his own money to stop Alphabet's self-driving car business Waymo from patenting key technology. Following a challenge filed by Eric Swildens, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) rejected 53 out of 56 claims in Waymo's 936 patent. He just "couldn't imagine the [lidar] circuit [described in the 936 patent] didn't exist prior," Ars Technica reported. Filed in 2013 and granted in 2016, the 936 patent was a cornerstone of Waymo's lawsuit against Uber, which began in December 2016. In a nutshell, Waymo accused the ride-hailing giant of infringing its lidar design patent and using intellectual property allegedly stolen by engineer Anthony Levandowski.

How AI, machine learning, and big data analytics can help cybersecurity, and examples of real applications for AI and machine learning. A new survey indicates that many cybersecurity professionals believe that AI and machine learning techniques provide major benefits. Big data analytics can be an important tool for defeating cyberattacks. Here are fifteen examples of real-world applications for AI and ML that are improving enterprises today.

Digital healthcare specialist Babylon has announced plans to invest $100 million to create a multi-disciplinary team dedicated to building next-generation, AI-powered healthcare technologies. The move forms part of a long-term product and service strategy to apply AI to chronic disease management. It builds on recent partnerships with the likes of Tencent, Samsung, Bupa, Prudential, The Gates Foundation, and TELUS. As Babylon scales its operations internationally, it is increasing its focus on chronic conditions – which affect half the US population. Twenty-five percent of the populace in developed countries suffer from mental health issues, while diabetes and anti-obesity treatments cost the UK's NHS an estimated £10 billion and £5 billion each year, respectively.

To better understand how artificial intelligence (AI) is being adopted differently by nations around the world, we sat down with Virtusa's Executive Vice President of Global Digital Solutions, Frank Palermo. As AI takes a more prevalent role in our society, the issue of ethics and governance has become critical, and policymakers around the globe have a collective responsibility to be forward thinking when deciding how best to regulate it. It is imperative that AI is managed in a way that allows the technology to reach its full potential, while ensuring it doesn't have a negative impact on humans and society. The US has historically left technology companies relatively unimpeded by government oversight or stringent regulation, with the market dominance of the FAANG companies (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Alphabet's Google) serving as a perfect example of this. While China has taken almost the opposite approach, with the Chinese government having a more'hands-on' role, specifically mentioning AI in their'grand vision' for the country, this has somehow still resulted in a similar ecosystem of tech giants, namely the BAT companies (Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent).

Chinese e-commerce company JD.com's finance division has launched a blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) focused research institute to concentrate on building so-called'smart cities and societies.' The Nanjing-based Smart City Research Institute will attempt to find the most cost-effective and efficient ways of building tech-savvy cities through the utilization of blockchain, AI and big data solutions. It will collaborate with industrial construction operations; focused on China's eastern region for the foreseeable future. The Institute will research advanced intelligent solutions in the areas of urban environment, transportation, planning, energy consumption, commerce, security, healthcare, and e-government. Jingdong Group, known more widely as JD.com, has been keen to make its mark in the blockchain sphere.

China is enthusiastically embracing the fast-developing technology of artificial intelligence in an effort to give the country a strategic edge over its rivals. Best known for defeating humans at boardgames as Go and chess as well as US gameshow Jeopardy the technology is being lined up by officials as a useful tool for assessing the potential risk of overseas investment presented by unstable regimes and terrorism. To do this the Chinese Academy of Sciences has coded a program capable of trawling vast amounts of data gleaned from China's sprawling diplomatic and intelligence network to make sense of information that would overwhelm human tacticians. AI is increasingly regarded as a revolution comparable to that of the combustion engine, sparking a global arms race as nations seek to become the first to master the technology. China already has a national AI strategy in place to guide development as it works to become the world's pre-eminent AI research hub by 2030.