Twitter sold data to the Cambridge University researcher who harvested millions of Facebook users' private information without their consent. The social media site confirmed this week it sold public data to Dr Aleksandr Kogan, who created tools that allowed the political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica to psychologically profile and target voters using Facebook user data. Dr Kogan's firm GSR gathered a'random sample' of public tweets after it paid for one day of access in 2015, Twitter said - years before the recent scandal emerged. The academic insisted he had not violated Twitter's policies and the information had only been used to build'brand reports' and'survey extender tools'. However, concerns remain that GSR could theoretically have correlated Facebook and Twitter data to build up more complete digital profiles of users.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is dividing the world. Heralding the fourth industrial revolution, is AI a force for good, boosting the UK economy by 10 per cent over the coming decade as predicted by PwC, or the beginning of the end for a raft of manual and knowledge workers? Given the catchall nature of technologies apparently falling within the AI definition, it is hard to validate any predictions right now. AI is not some magic wand that will eradicate manual tasks or transform day-to-day operations – it is simply another step forward in harnessing huge data resources to better understand the business and hence drive new efficiencies. And that is where the problem lies.

Liberals to use two-pronged strategy in 2019 campaign: 'demonize the right' and'steal' from the left, say NDP, Conservative MPs The governing Liberals are already in the 2019 election campaign mode, but opposition MPs say Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's strategy to "demonize" the right and "steal" policy ideas from the left won't work and plan… The House of Commons Finance Committee is scrutinizing all 500-plus pages of the government's latest omnibus budget implementation bill after its chair opted not to ask other committees to help out, while the Senate has… Trudeau's renewed focus on economy drives up Liberal support among males: Nanos poll A two-year decline in male support for the federal Liberals appears to be reversing, and a leading pollster attributes the change to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's renewed focus on fiscal and economic issues instead of social…

Companies are working hard to figure out how to extract value from artificial intelligence (more on that below). Some promising early efforts can be found in sales, an activity that generates lots of usable data that lends itself to analysis. The sales team at Snowflake Computing Inc. employs an automated, AI-powered chatbot designed to engage with potential buyers by email or text. Each assistant, developed by Conversica, speaks six languages and works around the clock engaging with prospects and turning over the most advanced leads to humans, CIO Journal's Angus Loten reports. Collective (i) use AI to help sales managers assess the odds a deal will produce results.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. In an interview last year, Treasury Secretary Steven Munchin told Axios that job automation was "not even on our radar screen," citing that the risk was still "50-100 more years away." But even if an employment apocalypse doesn't come to pass, fear of an automated future may be making Americans sicker today, according to a study published recently in the journal of Social Science and Medicine that shows a correlation between automation risk and worsened physical and mental health at the county level. The researchers, who are from Ball State University and Villanova University, used a regression analysis of county-level data about health and the share of total jobs at risk of automation. They calculated the second data set by matching county-level employment data with the risk levels calculated in a frequently cited 2013 Oxford University study that suggested almost 50 percent of jobs could be at risk of automation by 2033.

It's been reported that services such as online banking have been down for some TSB customers for over a week. Many individuals and businesses will have made arrangements for the planned outage, but not for the additional time that the systems have been unavailable.

The British government and the private sector have both contributed to a £1 billion deal that seeks to place the UK at the head of the artificial intelligence industry. The deal includes almost £300 million from more than 50 technology companies, and will be coupled with 1,000 new government funded AI PhDs to help drive the UK's research expertise. It comes after the European Commission last week called for a 20 billion euro (£17bn) investment in artificial intelligence across the European Union in order to catch up with Chinese and US research. It also comes after a recent report by the House of Lords, which proposed a list of recommendations for the UK to become a global leader in AI innovation. That report concluded that the UK is uniquely positioned to shape the development of artificial intelligence, but a code of ethics is needed so it benefits mankind.

Lucy may be a VR character, but she doesn't act like one. Like any friend, she remembers what you've done and uses that information to inform how she talks with you. She can express a full range of emotions. And she's as good at hanging out as she is going on adventures. Initially, Lucy was designed largely to follow a script and respond to viewer actions.

This artist's concept depicts the entry of NASA's Curiosity rover through Mars' upper atmosphere. The Mars 2020 mission will use aspects of this design for its project. The heat shield for NASA's upcoming Mars rover suffered a fracture during testing recently, but the incident won't change the mission's launch date, agency officials said. The Mars 2020 mission is designed to search the Red Planet's surface for signs of ancient microbial life, and the six-wheeled robot will also hunt for and characterize potentially habitable environments. The mission is scheduled to launch in 2020, when Earth and Mars are properly aligned for an interplanetary mission, and arrive at the Red Planet in early 2021.

Nasa has cancelled its only robotic vehicle under development to explore the surface of the moon. Members of the agency's Resource Prospector mission were told to close down the project by late May. While Nasa has not given details on why it cancelled the mission, one of the team's planetary scientists speculated it was likely budget related. The decision comes just months after US President Donald Trump ordered Nasa to return astronauts to the moon for the first time since 1972. Nasa has cancelled the only robotic vehicle under development to explore the surface of the moon.