Earlier this week, David Kenny, IBM Senior Vice President for Watson and Cloud, told the US Congress that Americans have nothing to fear from artificial intelligence, and that the prospects of technological unemployment and the rise of an "AI overlord" are pernicious myths. The remarks were as self-serving as they were reckless, revealing the startling degree to which IBM is willing to forfeit the future for the sake of the present. Congressman John Delaney (MD-6) recently launched the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Caucus for the 115th Congress, the purpose of which is to "inform policymakers of the technological, economic and social impacts of advances in AI and to ensure that rapid innovation in AI and related fields benefits Americans as fully as possible." The caucus, which is being co-chaired by Congressman Pete Olson (TX-22), recently had tete-a-tetes with Amazon and Google. Now, it's had an opportunity to hear what IBM--the tech firm responsible Watson, an overhyped cognitive computing that made a name for itself by defeating the world's greatest Jeopardy champions--has to say.

Washington, DC - A US federal appeals court has thrown out a lawsuit by the families of two Yemeni men allegedly killed as innocent bystanders in a US drone strike in 2012 but one of the judges said US "democracy is broken" after announcing the ruling. The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel in Washington on Friday upheld a lower court's finding that it had no say over the president's drone programme. The case began in 2015 when two family members of Faisal bin Ali Jaber, who brought the "wrongful death" case against then-President Barack Obama in 2015, were killed by a drone strike Yemen in 2012. Faisal's nephew Waleed, 26, and brother-in-law Salem, a father of seven and noted anti-extremist imam, were killed in the strike alongwith three others. Faisal's lawsuit requested an apology from the US government and declaration that the strike was unlawful.

The recent surge in interest in ethics in artificial intelligence may leave many educators wondering how to address moral, ethical, and philosophical issues in their AI courses. As instructors we want to develop curriculum that not only prepares students to be artificial intelligence practitioners, but also to understand the moral, ethical, and philosophical impacts that artificial intelligence will have on society. In this article we provide practical case studies and links to resources for use by AI educators. We also provide concrete suggestions on how to integrate AI ethics into a general artificial intelligence course and how to teach a stand-alone artificial intelligence ethics course.

The AAAI 2016 Fall Symposium Series was held Thursday through Saturday, November 17–19, at the Westin Arlington Gateway in Arlington, Virginia adjacent to Washington, DC. The titles of the six symposia were Accelerating Science: A Grand Challenge for AI; Artificial Intelligence for Human-Robot Interaction, Cognitive Assistance in Government and Public Sector Applications, Cross-Disciplinary Challenges for Autonomous Systems, Privacy and Language Technologies, Shared Autonomy in Research and Practice. The highlights of each (except Acceleration Science) symposium are presented in this report.

Yuan Wang, co-founder of American Marine Research Company, details the progress his company is making in developing automated drones to identify and catch lionfish. An engineer at American Marine Research Company works on a drone on Thursday, June 29, 2017. The company is designing robots to autonomously detect and collect lionfish. PENSACOLA, Fla. -- There's a potential game changer brewing in the struggle to eradicate lionfish from the Gulf of Mexico. A quartet of engineers is developing drones to autonomously detect and collect lionfish at depths beyond the scope of human divers.

Next month, the inaugural FIRST Global Challenge robotics competition will bring together high school teams from around the world. Taking place in Washington, DC, over 150 teams are set to participate. However, while the team from Afghanistan's robot will be there, the team itself won't because the US has denied their visa applications. The team is made up of six teenage girls who traveled over 500 miles to the US embassy in Kabul for their visa interviews. They actually made the trip twice in hopes that another round of interviews would help their case.

Wooden propellers lie on a stripped-down drone, among tyres and gas canisters. Elsewhere, a four-wheeled contraption stands silent, preparing for its deadly mission. As the battle for Mosul rages on, Iraqi forces recently discovered this ISIS factory which has been making various death machines - from aerial drones to multi-wheeled robot bombs. The crude hardware was unearthed in a warehouse in the Al-Shifa neighbourhood on the fringes of the Islamic State-occupied Old City. Working with whatever they can salvage, the jihadis have been retrofitting hobby drones with explosives and, in some cases, building devices from metal pipes and repurposed small engines - including from motorbikes.

The cyber security attacks are evolved from wild predator-prey chase to well-designed targeted attacks which are creating significant financial and reputational damages to businesses and government. Identification of these attacks is becoming very difficult for the cyber security defense teams as the signs of these attacks are very subtle. Hackers are using disruptive technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning to plan and launch these attacks. The usage of these disruptive technologies in various areas of business are multiplying security vulnerabilities and escalating attack surface. At the same time, AI and machine learning can be used to automate security monitoring and predictive analysis.

Microsoft's Windows operating system seems to have been having a really bad year given the major cyber attacks taking place including the WannaCry incident and the most recently discovered Petya campaign. As a result, Microsoft has responded with a new and improved anti-virus software that is integrated with Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities designed to detect malware before it infects a system. Microsoft will be launching its Windows 10 Creator Update during the month of September or October, and along with it, Microsoft has left no table unturned that could threaten its security. As such, Microsoft stated that it would be releasing a new and improved AI based antivirus software. Essentially, the tech giant will be upgrading its Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) with AI that analyzes files for malware. The software will be collecting data from various cloud service platforms such as those of Azure, Endpoint, and Office to build effective machine learning models for the anti-virus software that can detect malware-infected files immediately.

Nothing is certain but death and taxes -- not even investing. There are no guarantees when you're putting your money in the stock market, and investors looking for a sure thing are bound to be disappointed. Yet there are a few things investors can look for to give them a better chance of finding a successful investment. Find a company that's tapping into an emerging trend and is the dominant player in that field. Seek out an innovator that isn't afraid to take calculated risks to leverage the future.