With the creation of Smart Cities high on the UAE government's agenda, a new course from the Center for Executive and Professional Education (CEPE) at American University of Sharjah (AUS) will help executives apply the benefits of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to their Smart City projects. The Certificate in AI for Smart Cities is being delivered by CEPE in conjunction with the AUS College of Engineering's Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Topics to be covered include Big Data, Machine Learning, Cyber-Physical Systems, Internet of Things, Cyber Security and Blockchain, and Cloud Computing. Participants require no prior knowledge of AI, as the course has been designed for mid- to high-level executives from across the Middle East tasked with developing Smart City solutions. It is an introductory course intended for those who want to better understand how AI can transform their operations, with a focus on learning from global best practice and case studies. AI holds enormous value for the UAE and wider GCC.

The need for a massive symbolic artificial intelligence project of this ilk was born in the early 1980s out of a large number of experiences early AI researchers had, in the previous 25 years, wherein their AI programs would generate encouraging early results but then fail to "scale up"--fail to cope with novel situations and problems outside the narrow area they were conceived and engineered to cope with. Douglas Lenat and Alan Kay publicized this need,[1][2][3] and organized a meeting at Stanford in 1983 to consider the problem; the back-of-the-envelope calculations by them and colleagues including Marvin Minsky, Allen Newell, Edward Feigenbaum, and John McCarthy indicated that that effort would require between 1000 and 3000 person-years of effort, hence not fit into the standard academic project model. Fortuitously, events within a year of that meeting enabled that Manhattan-Project-sized effort to get underway. The project was started in July,1984 as the flagship project of the 400-person Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation, a research consortium started by two dozen large United States based corporations "to counter a then ominous Japanese effort in AI, the so-called "fifth-generation" project."[4] The US Government reacted to the Fifth Generation threat by passing the National Cooperative Research Act of 1984, which for the first time allowed US companies to "collude" on long-term high-risk high-payoff research, and MCC and Sematech sprang up to take advantage of that ten-year opportunity.

Ticketmaster envisions a future wherein you no longer need either a physical or a digital ticket to get into a venue. Its parent company Live Nation, has announced that the ticket sales giant has teamed up with and invested in a face recognition company called Blink Identity. In its first quarter financial report (PDF), Live Nation has explained that Blink has "cutting-edge facial recognition technology, enabling you to associate your digital ticket with your image, then just walk into the show." According to Blink's website, its system can register an image of your face as soon as you walk past a sensor. Blink's technology can then match it against a large database in half a second -- in a blink, so to speak. It's also apparently powerful enough that you don't even have to slow down for its system to recognize you: Just walk normally, and if the technology gets a match, it'll automatically open doors or turnstiles to let you in.

SHARJAH: The Minister of Tolerance, Sheikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, said that UAE's leaders strive to achieve a successful and prosperous future for the country, to keep abreast with the global developments in knowledge and technology, as well as to adopt the cutting-edge technology and practices in all spheres of life. This came during the opening speech of the 18th edition of Dar Al Khaleej's Annual Conference that was held on Saturday under the title "Artificial Intelligence Strategy in the UAE", in the presence of Khalid Abdullah Taryam, Chairman of Dar Al Khaleej for Press, Printing and Publishing, and Dr Yousef Al Hassan, an Emirati writer and thinker. "The conference's theme exactly reflects what the two late brothers (Taryam Omran Taryam and Dr. Abdullah Omran Taryam) were seeking to fulfill by enabling the community to be aware of the future developments and work hard to shape its features, so that the UAE will be able to contribute effectively to all the achievements global development," Sheikh Nahyan said. "The conference's discussion of Artificial Intelligence in UAE embodies what we learned from the founding leader late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan and his wisdom to use the latest in the world in terms of advanced systems and techniques. This approach has been continued under the leadership of President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces and Their Highnesses Rulers of the Emirates," Sheikh Nahyan said.

The issue was thrust into the national spotlight last month when Buzzfeed partnered with the filmmaker Jordan Peele to create a video of former President Barack Obama appearing to deliver a public service announcement about the potential impact of manipulated media. Instead it was Peele's impersonation of Obama, synced well enough with the former president's lips to keep viewers open to the possibility it could be authentic until the message itself became a clear parody. A casual observer could be forgiven at first for mistaking the video for a genuine presidential message, especially if watching on a mobile device. A closer look is less impressive, but it may not be long before the signs of tampering become nearly impossible to pick up with the untrained eye. Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert at Dartmouth College, said there has been a "startling improvement" over the past year in technology creating "deep fakes," the artificial intelligence that allows users to swap people's faces with relative ease.

How parochial our present anxieties will soon seem, how paltry. While we fret about chlorinated chicken and customs arrangements, developments in artificial intelligence are taking place that will transform our economy beyond recognition – and many of those developments are happening in Britain. Last week, Greg Clark, the Business Secretary, and Matt Hancock, the Digital Secretary, announced a billion-pound tech investment programme. "Artificial Intelligence is at the centre of our plans to make the UK the best place in the world to start and grow a digital business," said the restless and ingenious Hancock. Unlike a lot of ministerial visions, this one might actually be realised.

DUBAI: There should be a mechanism for assigning balanced responsibility among AI designers, producers and users, experts at the second session of the Dar Al Khaleej Conference on Saturday agreed. Chairman of the Private Law Department at United Arab Emirates University, Dr. Emad Abdel Rahim Dahiyat, presented a paper on the "Legislative and Legal Framework for Artificial Intelligence Institutions in the UAE." He said, "We are in an environment where programming companies are designing software capable of reading and analysing documents, forecasting disputes and proposing legal settlements." Apart from Artificial Intelligence's humanitarian uses like in medicine and education, he explained, it is being assimilated into the military field such as in military equipment and electronic warfare. In his paper, he discussed challenges in AI-based agreements, regarding who to be held liable, and the current local and global legislative system and shortages to be tackled in order to activate AI in the UAE.

Kenya sees itself as a technology giant in Africa and has embraced the nickname "Silicon Savannah" - now it has set up a special team to look into how to take advantage of the latest technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and blockchain. "We missed the internet wave, caught up with mobile technology... blockchain is the next wave - and we must be part of it," the team's chairman, Bitange Ndemo, told the BBC. A blockchain is a shared database with a provable, auditable and verifiable record of all changes. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the use of computer systems to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence. Information Minister Joseph Mucheru, the man who the team will report to, says that, among other uses, blockchain could help organise land records stored by the government, which are a constant source of frustration for people who want to buy, sell or verify information about land.

A recent article in The Guardian dons the foreboding title "Robots will destroy our jobs--and we're not ready for it." The article claims, "For every job created by robotic automation, several more will be eliminated entirely. According to an article in MIT Technology Review, business researchers Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee believe that rapid technological change has been destroying jobs faster than it is creating them, contributing to the stagnation of median income and the growth of inequality in the United States. If technology is destroying jobs faster than it's creating them, it is the first time in human history that it's done so. Actually, the number of jobs is unlimited, for the simple reason that human wants are unlimited--or they don't frequently reveal their bounds.

Artificial intelligence is the future. Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple are all making big bets on AI. (Amazon owner Jeff Bezos also owns The Washington Post.) Congress has held hearings and even formed a bipartisan Artificial Intelligence Caucus. From health care to transportation to national security, AI has the potential to improve lives. But it comes with fears about economic disruption and a brewing "AI arms race ."