We present a new approach to estimating the interdependence of industries in an economy by applying data science solutions. By exploiting interfirm buyer--seller network data, we show that the problem of estimating the interdependence of industries is similar to the problem of uncovering the latent block structure in network science literature. To estimate the underlying structure with greater accuracy, we propose an extension of the sparse block model that incorporates node textual information and an unbounded number of industries and interactions among them. The latter task is accomplished by extending the well-known Chinese restaurant process to two dimensions. Inference is based on collapsed Gibbs sampling, and the model is evaluated on both synthetic and real-world datasets. We show that the proposed model improves in predictive accuracy and successfully provides a satisfactory solution to the motivated problem. We also discuss issues that affect the future performance of this approach.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker may be surging as an early favorite for the Republican presidential nomination -- but the numbers show the person leading among potential Iowa caucus-goers often doesn't win. In the Democratic field, Hillary Clinton is the most dominant position ever for a non-incumbent, with odds of clinching the nomination as high as 91 percent. Over at the 538 site launched by statistician Nate Silver, the race is already on to handicap the 2016 presidential contest, a reminder that the season of campaigning, polls, predictions and surveys is descending upon us. Which makes it a perfect time to think about statistics. Even this soon in the game, we'll start to see polling from all sides of the political spectrum, making us ponder which results are valid and which might be biased.

Are you skeptical about machines' ability to effectively aid social science decision making? Machines are becoming ever more intelligent, increasingly able to help humans make decisions across the social science spectrum, but cognitive computing is still in its infancy, with much unexplored ground ahead. Accordingly, government leaders who harness the power of cognitive computing are helping usher in a renaissance of simplified operations and enhanced constituent engagement. The secret to effectively using cognitive computing to aid human decision making lies in teaching computers to ask the right questions while taking account context and staying focused on what computers do well. Computers operate at great speed. But can we teach computers to be good social scientists?

Inc.'s 11th annual 30 Under 30 list features the young founders taking on some of the world's biggest challenges. In 2013, a high-frequency trader named Michael Coscia was arrested in New Jersey for an activity called "spoofing"--essentially manipulating the market by flooding trading systems with future orders he had no intention of completing. He was fined 6 million--with the possibility of jail time. It was the first such prosecution under a new set of financial regulations from the 2010 banking reform law called the Dodd-Frank Act. That was an aha! moment for David Widerhorn, 28, and it became his reason for founding Neurensic.

Artificial intelligence, said United Nations chief information technology officer Atefeh Riazi, might be the last innovation humans create. "The next innovations," said the cabinet-level diplomat during a recent interview at her office at UN headquarters in New York, "will come through artificial intelligence." From then on, said Riazi, "it will be the AI innovating. We need to think about our role as technologists and we need to think about the ramifications--positive and negative--and we need to transform ourselves as innovators." Appointed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as CITO and Assistant Secretary-General of the Office of Information and Communications Technology in 2013, Riazi is also an innovator in her own right in the global security community. Riazi was born in Iran, and is a veteran of the information technology industry. She has a degree in electrical engineering from Stony Brook University in New York, spent over 20 years working in IT roles in the public and private sectors, and was the New York City Housing Authority's Chief Information Officer from 2009 to 2013. She has also served as the executive director of CIOs Without Borders, a non-profit organization dedicated to using technology for the good of society--especially to support healthcare projects in the developing world.

You are how you drive, we learned this week, when researchers showed how your car's computer can identify you based on patterns in your driving techniques. And it doesn't take much data to do so. Information collected from a car's brake pedal alone let the researchers distinguish the correct driver nine times out of 10. Patterns, of a different sort, also played a role in a map researchers have created to track where government hackers around the world are spying on journalists, activists, lawyers, and NGOs. And speaking of surveillance--whistleblower Edward Snowden also popped up in a Vice episode this week to show you how to make your phone "go black" so it's harder to surveil.

From Tony Stark's Jarvis to Apple's Siri, artificial intelligence (AI) is ubiquitous in fiction and real life. Albeit with different levels of skill, AI is supposedly built to maximize chances of reaching a goal, therefore supporting humans. But what would happen if robots, AI systems, and humanoids went rogue? For computer scientist Roman Yampolskiy, the possibilities are endless. Partially funded by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Yampolskiy and Pistono's study is conducted for the same reason that DARPA asked techies to turn household items into weapons.

Can the development of artificial intelligence technology be kicked up a notch? Scientists at Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) certainly hope so and recently issued a Request For Information about how AI advances could be made more quickly and consistently. "Artificial intelligence, defined here as computer simulation of cognitive processes such as perception, recognition, reasoning, and control, have captured the public's imagination for over 60 years. However, artificial intelligence research has proceeded in fits and starts over much of that time, as the field repeats a boom/bust cycle characterized by promising bursts of progress followed by inflated expectations and finally disillusionment, leading to what has become known as an "AI winter" – a long period of diminished research and funding activity," IARPA wrote. IARPA is the high-risk, high-reward research arm of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The Daily Roundup is our comprehensive coverage of the VR industry wrapped up into one daily email, delivered directly to your inbox. Artificial Intelligence has the potential to disrupt so many different dimensions of our society that the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy recently announced a series of four public workshops to look at some of the possible impacts of AI. The first of these workshops happened at the University of Washington on Tuesday, May 24th, and I was there to cover how some of these discussions may impact the virtual reality community. The first AI public workshop was focused on law and policy, and I had a chance to talk to three different people about their perspectives on AI. I interviewed the White House Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer Edward Felten about how these workshops came about, and the government's plan for addressing the issue.

A savage Terminator-like computer network could declare war on humanity, Britain's top robotics experts have admitted. The alarming claim emerged today as MPs held an otherwise run-of-the-mill hearing about Artificial Intelligence (AI). Parliament summoned two AI professors and two research directors to discuss how smart robots will change the economy. Labour MP Graham Stringer then stung them with the million-dollar question - whether The Terminator could come true. The 1984 classic and its sequels feature a computer system called Skynet that becomes "self-aware", takes control of America's nuclear weapons and rains a firestorm down upon the earth. Read more: Killer computers to create'artificial hell' for humanity by torturing unlucky victims FOREVER That may sound a bit extreme, but none of the four experts ruled it out.