Facing hours of sharp questioning in Congress over his company's privacy practices and its response to Russian election meddling, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly argued on Tuesday that his company is engaged in an "arms race" with Moscow's intelligence agencies. Zuckerberg said that artificial intelligence represents the best solution to misinformation on Facebook, but won't be ready for another five to ten years. In the run-up to the 2016 election, Russian intelligence operatives used Facebook and other online platforms to spread divisive content generally aimed at boosting President Donald Trump's electoral chances. On Tuesday, a remorseful Zuckerberg admitted that his company's response was slow, calling it one of his "greatest regrets." Zuckerberg argued that the highly sophisticated Russian approach to spreading its influence online has left his company at a distinct disadvantage.

Today, the Council on Foreign Relations–sponsored Independent Task Force released The Work Ahead, a report on the American workforce in the 21st century. It does not make for comforting reading. The Work Ahead portrays a country where automation and other technological advances have rendered the economy unrecognizable--employment is no longer linked to economic security, the labor market is brutally divided between a prosperous tech-savvy elite and the struggling tech-illiterate, and the educational system is ill-equipped to prepare workers to succeed. And yet The Work Ahead does not blame technology per se, but rather a government and society that have consistently failed to adjust to economic reality--leaving workers to navigate a rapidly changing world without sufficient support or guidance. It doesn't have to be this way.

In 2016, a Mercedes-Benz executive was quoted as saying that the company's self-driving autos would put the safety of its own occupants first. This comment brought harsh reactions about luxury cars mowing down innocent bystanders until the company walked back the original statement. Yet protecting the driver at any cost is what drivers want: A recently published study in Science (available to read on arXiv) shows that, though in principle people want intelligent cars to save as many lives as possible (like avoiding hitting a crowd of children, for example), they also want a car that will protect its occupants first. It would be hard to trust this algorithm because we--the humans nominally in charge of the A.I.--don't ourselves have the "right" ethical answer to this dilemma. Besides, and potentially worse, the algorithm itself might change.

A senior official from the Pentagon recently stated that artificial intelligence would likely be a valuable asset in the future of warfare. The Department of Defense official issued his bold statement at the New America Future of War Conference.

The Air Force is hoping advances in artificial intelligence mean the abundance of data from its aircraft, weapons and satellites will be easier to access and analyze. "There's certainly a data aspect piece" of artificial intelligence, Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Stephen "Seve" Wilson said Monday.

Speaking at the Sorbonne in September 2017, French president Emmanuel Macron made clear his ambitions for Europe to become a global leader in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). The European Commission is presently working on a strategy on this and is set to deliver a communication on it in the coming months. But there is much uncertainty over how ambitions such as Macron's can be attained. Much will depend on how the European Court of Justice and member states interpret a number of key provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This is the mammoth culmination of the European Union's five-year effort to make European data-protection law fit for the 21st century.

In 2010, the U.S. House of Representatives passed resolution H.Res. 1055 to make the second week of April officially National Robotics Week. Now celebrating its eighth year, National Robotics Week is more national and more robotics-y than ever, with hundreds of events taking place all over the country. We know that most of you live robotics every single day anyway (as you should), and so National Robotics Week might not seem like it's worth celebrating, but what about your friends and family who have no idea how cool robots are, and who maybe have no idea what it is that you actually, you know, do? Fundamentally, NRW is all about celebrating how cool robotics is, and getting as many people involved as possible--think about finding an event near you that looks like fun, and then dragging someone along who doesn't (yet) understand why robotics is the best thing ever. They'll either thank you for it, or think you're crazy, but it's a win either way, right?

Leading South African law firm, Webber Wentzel, has announced it has chosen legal AI company Luminance to provide doc review services for M&A transactions. This is the latest in a series of client wins for the UK-based AI company, which last week also announced it had partnered with Sweden's Delphi and also Luxembourg's Arendt & Medernach. In the latter case the Benelux firm will be making use of Luminance's new real estate document review capacity. Until recently the company had been focused on M&A due diligence work. In a statement Webber Wentzel said it'particularly values the platform's built-in collaboration tools which will allow its lawyers to quickly group and assign documents, track live progress, and significantly reduce the amount of time spent organising workflow'.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify at two Capitol Hill hearings this week over the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and we asked our tech reporter why that matters. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (center) walks out of Sen. Dianne Feinstein's office after their meeting on Capitol Hill. WASHINGTON -- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is testifying for the first time ever before Congress on Tuesday as he attempts to apologize for high-profile privacy breaches at the social media giant and convince doubtful lawmakers that he can fix the problem without government intervention. Zuckerberg is trying to restore public confidence after recent revelations that data from up to 87 million Facebook users was shared with Cambridge Analytica, a data mining firm used by the Trump campaign in the 2016 election. The information was shared without users' knowledge.

Six months ago, I wrote that "The West is Unaware of the Deep Learning Sputnik moment". It turns out mathematician Cedric Villani began a 6 month journey to learn all that needs to be learned about Deep Learning. He is the author of a report that France will use to drive their future Deep Learning strategy. Villani's report is titled "For a Meaningful Artificial Intelligence: Towards a French and European Strategy". Although Villani uses the term "Artificial Intelligence" to appeal to a much wider audience, he is actually responding to the "particular" developments of Deep Learning.