Governor Andrew Cuomo of the State of New York declared last month that New York City will join 13 other states in testing self-driving cars: "Autonomous vehicles have the potential to save time and save lives, and we are proud to be working with GM and Cruise on the future of this exciting new technology." For General Motors, this represents a major milestone in the development of its Cruise software, since the the knowledge gained on Manhattan's busy streets will be invaluable in accelerating its deep learning technology. In the spirit of one-upmanship, Waymo went one step further by declaring this week that it will be the first car company in the world to ferry passengers completely autonomously (without human engineers safeguarding the wheel). As unmanned systems are speeding ahead toward consumer adoption, one challenge that Cruise, Waymo and others may counter within the busy canyons of urban centers is the loss of Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite data. Robots require a complex suite of coordinating data systems that bounce between orbiting satellites to provide positioning and communication links to accurately navigate our world.

From online services like Netflix and Facebook, to chatbots on our phones and in our homes like Siri and Alexa, we are beginning to interact with artificial intelligence (AI) on a near daily basis. AI is the programming or training of a computer to do tasks typically reserved for human intelligence, whether it is recommending which movie to watch next or answering technical questions. From small cities in the US to countries like Japan, government agencies are looking to AI to improve citizen services. While the potential future use cases of AI in government remain bounded by government resources and the limits of both human creativity and trust in government, the most obvious and immediately beneficial opportunities are those where AI can reduce administrative burdens, help resolve resource allocation problems, and take on significantly complex tasks. For many systemic reasons, government has much room from improvement when it comes to technological advancement, and AI will not solve those problems.

A trio of new investments in Silicon Valley machine-learning startups shows that the U.S. intelligence community is deeply interested in artificial intelligence. But China is investing even more in these kinds of U.S. companies, and that has experts and intelligence officials worried. Founded to foster new technology for spies, the 17-year-old In-Q-Tel has also helped boost commercial products. Compared to a venture capitalist firm whose early-stage investments are intended to make some money and get out, the nonprofit's angle is longer term, less venture, more strategic, according to Charlie Greenbacker, In-Q-Tel's technical product leader in artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing, analytics, and data science. "Our model is to put a little bit of pressure at the right spot to influence a company to make sure it develops things that are useful to our customers," said Greenbacker, who estimated that their investments in a given startup generally amount to about one of every 15 dollars the company has.

The latest robot from former Google sibling Boston Dynamics looks like a cross between something out of a Terminator movie and a cutesy Pixar character. Shown off in a short teaser clip, the latest evolution of the firm's SpotMini robotic dog has ditched the snapping-claw-for-a-head in exchange for a creepier headless design replete with soft, yellow plastics and eerily smooth movements. While under Alphabet, SpotMini was shown off in 2016 capable of grabbing things with a robotic arm where its head should have been, designed to navigate within the tight confines of a home and to shimmy under tables to (badly) perform domestic chores. The new SpotMini has a much softer and more compact but less useful design, which combined with its smooth, almost animal-like movement and face-style sensor system at its front (which makes it look like it has eight eyes), produces a machine that could just as easily haunt your dreams as it could become your new robot pal. Particularly when it stops, stoops and stares straight into the camera.

The following blog is an abstract of an article I wrote for the Government of New South Wales, Australia, for use as part of a symposium on Education for a Changing World. To see the full article and a companion piece I wrote on the implications of these technologies for education, click here. I'd like to thank the New South Wales government for prompting me to return to an interest in artificial intelligence and its implications for education that first preoccupied me in the 1980s and for permission to reprint this abstract here. It is not a law of nature that new technologies will put a lot of people out of work in the short term, but then create just as many new jobs that are even better in the long term. What is distinctive about artificial intelligence technologies is that they embody the very thing that makes us so different from any other thing animate or inanimate on earth: high intelligence. It is now clear that intelligent agents already exceed human capacity in some domains of intelligent behavior.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in warfare has been growing rapidly. Several weapons now use integrated AI software to slowly reduce the number of soldiers in direct mortal peril. These weapon systems can target and attack anyone without human intervention. But, the growth of this technology is raising a few eyebrows. Several prominent scientists have already questioned the future of AI machinery simply because of the unpredictability.

At the beginning of the year, efforts to put driverless cars on California's streets looked like they were careening. Uber had defied state officials by failing to get permits to test its technology and then the company shipped its cars to Arizona to test them there. After four years of trying, regulators were still trying to write rules for testing cars without anyone in the driver's seat. Lawmakers and tech industry representatives worried that California was losing its grip on innovation in a sector primed for growth. Now, after this year's release of guidelines from the state Department of Motor Vehicles, the mood has changed.

This video is the stuff of nightmares. It depicts A.I.-directed drones loaded with small amounts of explosive, seeking out and killing targets autonomously. A slick tech executive makes his (for now) fictional pitch of this "improvement" on the large, Predator-style military drones that are familiar today. He shows a bomber flying over a city, dropping $25 million of the micro-drones, which descend like a swarm--"enough to kill half a city," he says. "Take out your entire enemy, virtually risk free. Just characterize him," the pitchman says.

In a recent speech, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that whoever reaches a breakthrough in developing artificial intelligence (AI) will dominate the world.[1] Chinese government has made AI development a priority by investing billions to get ahead in its development and application. Our future will be transformed in ways we don't yet fully comprehend with application of AI. AI is a broad science and recent developments have been focused on machine learning and deep learning. It is clear that leveraging AI and the Internet of Things (IoT) can solve problems and unlock new opportunities, saving time and money in consumer, commercial and industrial environments.

NASA has revealed stunning visualizations of our'breathing' planet, showing how vegetation has changed over the course of 20 years. Through ongoing satellite observations of Earth's surface, scientists have spotted long-term changes that could have major impacts on the different habitats and ecosystems across the globe. The maps also show drastic seasonal changes that take place on both land and water, as plant life blossoms and dies down over the course of each year. The visualization shows 20 years of observations, dating back to 1997. Vegetation on land is shown on a scale of brown (low) to dark green (high).