As China becomes more active in artificial intelligence, the U.S. should double the amount it spends on research in the field, says investor and AI practitioner Kai-Fu Lee, who has worked for Google, Microsoft and Apple. The comments come after various parts of the U.S. government have made AI announcements, even as the U.S. overall lacks a formal AI strategy. Meanwhile, China introduced its plan last year: it's aiming to be No. 1 in AI innovation by 2030. "Double the AI research budget would be a good start, given that all other countries are so much farther behind U.S., and we're looking for the next breakthrough in AI," said Lee. Doubling funding could double the chances that the next big AI achievement will be made in the U.S., Lee told CNBC in an interview this week. Lee,, whose book "AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order" was published this month by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is CEO of Sinovation Ventures, which has invested in one of the most prominent AI companies in China, Face .

Local authorities have established areas around the airport that are safe to fly for drone operations and qualify for automatic authorization,

While everywhere else there is a fear of technology taking over people's job, China, the world leader in the digital economy, thinks it has the capacity to bring a change. The latest research from Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN) shows that people in China are the most optimistic about the impact of digital technology and artificial intelligence (AI) on work and life. "The answer may lie in the belief of people in China that their education system is providing them with the tools and knowledge to succeed in the future, however uncertain or disruptive that may be," says Susana Tsui, the chief executive officer of Dentsu Aegis Network China, in an email interview. The report highlights that 68 per cent of people in China think that their formal education (e.g. Tsui gives the credit of formalized education system to the Chinese government.

MIT boffins reckon they can use old-school artificial intelligence to do much of the grunt work in the tricky task of picking suitable landing spots for spacecraft. The software uses fuzzy logic algorithms, which were introduced in the 1960s and were rather trendy in the 1990s. "Traditionally this idea comes from mathematics, where instead of saying an element belongs to a set, yes or no, fuzzy logic says it belongs with a certain probability, thus reflecting incomplete or imprecise information," Victor Pankratius, coauthor of the paper and a research scientist and principal investigator in NASA and National Science Foundation projects at MIT, explained this week. NASA and other space agencies have slowly amassed troves of geographical data on Mars. The researchers reckon that NASA has over 100 Terabits from all the different orbiters, landers, and rovers sent to the Red Planet, but it's still not enough to completely determine the exact conditions on the ground there.

Britain's chief medical officer has been instructed by health secretary Matt Hancock to draw up official guidelines on time limits for social media use. Mr Hancock said he was "very worried" as a father by growing evidence of the detrimental effect social media was having on the health of young people. So he said he had instructed Dame Sally Davies to prepare official guidance on safe time limits, which would work in a similar way to safe alcohol limits. Facebook mistake leaves 50 million people's accounts exposed Instagram founders resign from social media giant after eight years What are the benefits of giving up social media? Facebook mistake leaves 50 million people's accounts exposed What are the benefits of giving up social media?

Wang Xiaochuan, CEO of China's second largest Internet search company, Sogou, doesn't seem the least bit concerned about the prospect of Google reentering the Chinese market. Wang says Google might struggle to get government permission--unless it partners with a company such as his. "If Google wants to come back to China, there could be several incentives for working together with other parties," Wang says. "Sogou could be the one to work with the Chinese government, and Google could stand behind us." Eight years after abandoning the Chinese market, Google is working on an app that would reintroduce its search engine to Chinese internet users.

Amid rage brewing on both sides of the political spectrum over testimony by Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh, it would be understandable if you missed some significant artificial intelligence news in Washington D.C. in recent weeks. This week, a group of four senators -- two Democrats, two Republicans -- put forward the AI in Government Act to do things like carry out unique research on federal AI policy, work across agencies, and form an AI advisory board similar to the one created by the European Union earlier this year. The bill has the support of Microsoft, Intel, and the Internet Association, an organization whose members represent some of the biggest tech companies in AI, including Amazon, Facebook, and Google. Last week, Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) and seven of her colleagues in the House and Senate signed and sent letters to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission (EEOC) asking questions about their use of facial recognition software. The FTC and EEOC were asked things like how they address claims of discrimination that may be the result of algorithmic bias and if it has received complaints about facial detection in the workplace or as part of hiring practices.

The researchers at NASA's Frontier Development Lab (FDL) in Mountain View California just spent the summer working on out-of-this-world problems. They came from all over the globe and all different disciplines; computer science engineers, planetary scientists, even a particle physicist. For eight weeks they dug through data and maps, created worlds and atmospheres, sorted them, and tested their computer algorithms against the simulations. Their final products are still rough, but some hope they might contribute to our understanding of our own solar system, and overall efforts to find habitable--and maybe even inhabited--planets elsewhere in the universe. The FDL program itself is now in its third year.

CHI Franciscan Health and GE Healthcare have joined forces to implement a NASA-style "Mission Control" command center to effectively and efficiently synchronize all elements of a patient's hospital experience. The artificial intelligence (AI)-powered system will support caregivers to enhance patient safety, orchestrate seamless care delivery and, ultimately, get patients back home sooner. Currently, GE Healthcare is the $19 billion healthcare business of GE. CHI Franciscan will be the first hospital system in the state of Washington – and the fifth globally – to utilize the leading-edge technology to improve patient care. Ketul J. Patel, CEO, CHI Franciscan Health, said, "We're leading the way in Washington with our state-of-the-art Mission Control Center, which will allow CHI Franciscan to provide a much higher level of sophistication and efficiency in our hospitals. We will be able to simultaneously monitor every single patient in our system and utilize real-time data to tailor their experience to provide the highest quality care."

Criminals have always sought ways to infiltrate financial technology systems.