Anomaly detectors are often used to produce a ranked list of statistical anomalies, which are examined by human analysts in order to extract the actual anomalies of interest. Unfortunately, in realworld applications, this process can be exceedingly difficult for the analyst since a large fraction of high-ranking anomalies are false positives and not interesting from the application perspective. In this paper, we aim to make the analyst's job easier by allowing for analyst feedback during the investigation process. Ideally, the feedback influences the ranking of the anomaly detector in a way that reduces the number of false positives that must be examined before discovering the anomalies of interest. In particular, we introduce a novel technique for incorporating simple binary feedback into tree-based anomaly detectors. We focus on the Isolation Forest algorithm as a representative tree-based anomaly detector, and show that we can significantly improve its performance by incorporating feedback, when compared with the baseline algorithm that does not incorporate feedback. Our technique is simple and scales well as the size of the data increases, which makes it suitable for interactive discovery of anomalies in large datasets.

Twenty years ago today, Skynet, the fictional artificial intelligence network and antagonist of the "Terminator" movie franchise, became self-aware. In the films, a Silicon Valley tech company built the network of supercomputers for the U.S. military to replace the humans who control America's nuclear arsenal. The idea was that the program would offer better reaction times and fewer mistakes than humans and engage in strategic warfare unencumbered by emotion, political incentives or ego. According to dates cited in "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," the network was activated on Aug. 4, 1997 and started thinking on its own on Aug. 29, 1997. But Skynet had a problem.

Fact Checking Some of the clearest and most objective cases of "Fake News" include incorrect facts that could be checked. This could include lying about the number of immigrants in a country or clearly exaggerated the cost of the national health service for a country. There are more than 114 fact checking initiatives in almost 50 countries. These include Full Fact, a charity in the UK that among other things, fact checks comments made by politicians in the House of Commons and the Crosscheck project from First Draft News that introduces a framework for fact checking that is being tested in the context of the French elections. These organisations are doing an amazing job making sure people are accountable.

America seems gripped with what we might call Battlestar Galactica Syndrome. In the TV show, society developed a technology (supersmart robots) which then produced unintended and terrible results (the near destruction of humanity). Where the syndrome comes in is that in not wanting to make the same mistake twice, a society might decide to completely ban the technology. We can't have killer robots imperil our species if we don't have smart robots to begin with! The problem is you probably won't have autonomous cars and 1,000 other cool inventions, too.

Fifty years ago, an MIT professor created a chatbot that simulated a psychotherapist. Named Eliza, it was able to trick some people into believing it was human. But it didn't understand what it was told, nor did it have the capacity to learn on its own. The only test it had to pass was: Could it fool humans? These days, with robotics advancing to drive cars, beat humans at chess and Go!, and replace entire workforces, Eliza's smoke and mirrors is child's play.

I ask Trevor Paglen at his central Berlin studio. The prewar apartment was once surely the most surveilled place in the city, having formerly belonged to his friend Laura Poitras, the director who helped Edward Snowden go public. ''We're always being watched,'' he replies. The space is filled with computers: Against one wall, an assistant writes code while another researches data used to train artificial intelligence. Opposite is a long credenza filled with art monographs and topped by a slightly sinister collection of objets: a Dungeons & Dragons-style dragon trophy with a shield and saber; a toy model of the stealth submarine U.S.S.

An artificial intelligence company that uses computers, not lawyers, to sift through thousands of legal documents in search of key information is moving part of its operations to Toronto. ROSS Intelligence co-founder Andrew Arruda calls opening a research and development centre here a "no brainer." Canada'lost the lead' on artificial intelligence. Here's how Toronto will get it back Arruda, one of the University of Toronto graduates who founded the company, was back on campus Monday to announce the news, calling the city "the hub of artificial intelligence development." While the company's headquarters remain in San Francisco, "Toronto is where we always knew we had to be," Arruda told a crowd who gathered on campus for a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Uber Technologies Inc.'s incoming chief executive officer, Dara Khosrowshahi, inherits an embattled global business with crises sprawling across continents. Since Uber's founding in 2009, the San Francisco-based company has tested the world's tolerance for disruption and rule-breaking. The company's toe-stepping ways, overseen by co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick, helped the ride-hailing company grow to more than 600 cities and a $69 billion (about ¥7.45 trillion) private valuation. But the startup's aggressive approach left a trail of self-inflicted wounds along the way. Those controversies -- including raising doubts about a passenger's rape, the use of software meant to evade law enforcement officials, an intense human resources investigation sparked by sexual harassment charges, and a fierce legal battle with Alphabet Inc.-- ultimately felled Kalanick after some of Uber's largest investors asked for his resignation in June.

Military drones that can fly for more than 40 hours and stream footage of US cities will replace police helicopters by 2025, experts claim. Multiple defence companies are now racing to build unmanned aircraft that will be allowed to fly in US airspace - which is incredibly tightly controlled. Leading the race is a long-winged craft called MQ-9B, created by Californian-based company General Atomics. This could allow law enforcement to stream video of cities from 2,000 feet (50 metres) high using cameras that are powerful enough to pick out individual faces from a crowd. Californian-based company General Atomics is investing heaving in a long-winged craft called MQ-9B and are aiming to receive FAA certification to fly in 2025.

Union Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has constituted a task force to foster artificial intelligence in the manufacturing sector. The task force is designated to prepare for industrial revolution 4.0 and digitise the manufacturing sector. In a statement, she said, "With rapid development in the fields of information technology and hardware, the world is about to witness a fourth industrial revolution." Sitharaman in her statement added that "the power of big data, high computing capacity, artificial intelligence and analytics will be used to digitise manufacturing in India." Inc42 earlier reported that Nirmala Sitharaman used her MPLAD funds for setting up an incubator and coworking space in Mangaluru.