The European Union is backing away from its plan to introduce a temporary ban on facial recognition technology -- instead delegating decisions on the software to its member states. In a previous draft of a paper on AI, the European Commission had proposed introducing a five-year moratorium on the technology. But in a new draft seen by the Financial Times, that suggestion has been dropped. "The early draft floated the idea of a full ban, which is very popular among civil rights campaigners worried about abuse," a person with direct knowledge of the discussions told the FT. "But the security community is against the ban because they think it's a good tool."

In images taken from a satellite floating 400 kilometers above the Earth, Europe's humanitarian crisis shows up as white pixels against the blue-green vastness of the Mediterranean. Captured by the sensors in space, small overcrowded boats with migrants leaving Africa headed north look like tiny white comets bursting through the ocean, leaving a tail where they stir waves. "It's not that with every image I look at, I think about how someone could be dying right now," said Elisabeth Wittmann as she clicked through satellite footage on her laptop showing the coast west of the Libyan port of Sabratha. "That's also to protect myself," she added. The 26-year-old computer scientist from southern Germany is one of a dozen researchers who have teamed up with a new NGO called Space-Eye to develop artificial intelligence technology that allows computers to detect migrant boats in satellite images.

Mediation Perspectives is a periodic blog entry that's provided by the CSS' Mediation Support Team and occasional guest authors. How is artificial intelligence (AI) affecting conflict and its resolution? Peace practitioners and scholars cannot afford to disregard ongoing developments related to AI-based technologies – both from an ethical and a pragmatic perspective. In this blog, I explore AI as an evolving field of information management technologies that is changing both the nature of armed conflict and the way we can respond to it. AI encompasses the use of computer programmes to analyse big amounts of data (such as online communication and transactions) in order to learn from patterns and predict human behaviour on a massive scale.

The findings were discussed at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle on Friday. Sex robots integrate artificial intelligence and traditional as well as novel technologies that may result in widely unknown and unpredictable risks. Scientists are concerned these sex robots (or love dolls) are being designed to look like children or even programmed to protest and simulate a rape scenario. According to tech expert Chris Riddell, stricter regulation of sex robots is needed immediately, "otherwise it's going to be the wild west." "Until now, we've only had human-to-human relationships. We're heading into an era where humans are having relationships with technology systems, and that's disturbing us," Riddell told 10 daily.

Fuel poverty affects between 50 and 125 million households in Europe and is a significant issue for both developed and developing countries globally. This means that fuel poor residents are unable to adequately warm their home and run the necessary energy services needed for lighting, cooking, hot water, and electrical appliances. The problem is complex but is typically caused by three factors; low income, high energy costs, and energy inefficient homes. In the United Kingdom (UK), 4 million families are currently living in fuel poverty. Those in series financial difficulty are either forced to self-disconnect or have their services terminated by energy providers. Fuel poverty contributed to 10,000 reported deaths in England in the winter of 2016-2107 due to homes being cold. While it is recognized by governments as a social, public health and environmental policy issue, the European Union (EU) has failed to provide a common definition of fuel poverty or a conventional set of indicators to measure it. This chapter discusses current fuel poverty strategies across the EU and proposes a new and foundational behavior measurement indicator designed to directly assess and monitor fuel poverty risks in households using smart meters, Consumer Access Device (CAD) data and machine learning. By detecting Activities of Daily Living (ADLS) through household appliance usage, it is possible to spot the early signs of financial difficulty and identify when support packages are required.

Artificial intelligence has been growing in popularity in many industries, and with more and more advances in technology, it is becoming increasingly commonplace every single day. Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is broadly the concept of machines having the ability to carry out tasks in a smart manner. This has led to further applications such as machine learning, which is the concept that machines can take the relevant data and learn from it. As more and more businesses are beginning to adopt various forms of artificial intelligence, it is essential to be aware of the laws and regulations surrounding these technologies. This article will cover the things you need to know surrounding AI and the law.

CHENNAI, INDIA – Indian police have reunited thousands of missing and trafficked children with their families using a new facial recognition app that campaigners said is a "game changer" in tackling the problem. Tens of thousands of children go missing every year in India, and many are trafficked to work as beggars or in eateries, handicraft industries, factories or brothels. Police in the southern state of Telangana developed the facial recognition tool as part of Operation Smile, a periodic drive to tackle child labor and missing children. They scanned through more than 3,000 records on the app and were able to reunite more than half the children with their families in January. "The results are very encouraging," said senior officer Swathi Lakra, who oversaw the campaign.

The future of artificial intelligence (AI) is here: self-driving cars, grocery-delivering drones and voice assistants like Alexa that control more and more of our lives, from the locks on our front doors to the temperatures of our homes. For example, should an autonomous vehicle swerve into a pedestrian or stay its course when facing a collision? These questions plague technology companies as they develop AI at a clip outpacing government regulation, and have led Seattle University to develop a new ethics course for the public. Launched last week, the free, online course for businesses is the first step in a Microsoft-funded initiative to merge ethics and technology education at the Jesuit university. Seattle U senior business-school instructor Nathan Colaner hopes the new course will become a well-known resource for businesses "as they realize that [AI] is changing things," he said.

Housed administratively in the College of IST, the Center will bring together researchers from across the University to develop new AI technologies and understand their social and ethical implications. The Penn State Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence promotes the thoughtful development and application of AI and studies its impact on all areas of human endeavor. In addition to supporting research focused explicitly on AI for social good and mitigating threats from its misuse, through this center, Penn State will encourage that all AI research and development activities consider social and ethical implications as well as intended and possible unintended consequences. "Given the rapid expansion and progression of interdisciplinary research and the wide-ranging impact of artificial intelligence on society, this center will engage and enable Penn State scholars and educators to work together and use AI to address the grand challenges of our time," said Andrew Sears, dean of the College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), who led the founding of the center. The endeavor will bring together researchers from diverse disciplines across the University, enabling multidisciplinary research and educational programs that will shape the future of AI.

In 2020, we will see US governments shift the conversation from who implements AI fastest to how we can implement most responsibly. While China is already using AI to measure students' brain waves with IoT sensors during class to help teachers provide more customizable content to achieve better retention and results, it's likely that the U.S. government will focus heavily in the coming year on privacy regulations to ensure AI use cases like this are fully vetted before being allowed. Federal regulations on privacy when it comes to the use of AI will take center stage in 2020. We've already seen the beginnings of this with two instances of the U.S. government taking action to prevent AI overstepping in states California and Massachusetts. This past May, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors banned the use of facial recognition technology by police and all other municipal agencies under the Stop Secret Surveillance Ordinance.