Police use of facial recognition technology usually only makes the headlines when it's connected to a high-profile crime. But it's increasingly being deployed in more mundane circumstances: There have been reports of police departments employing facial recognition to spot criminals from gas station security footage, identify suspects who aren't carrying photo ID, and assist in social media surveillance. Lawmakers are starting to scrutinize the technology as well. Municipal legislators in San Francisco unveiled an ordinance proposal on Tuesday that, if passed, would make the city the first in the country to completely ban government use of facial recognition systems. The bill would also establish an audit system for agencies acquiring any surveillance technologies.

The changing parameters of opportunity and risk from the emerging AI revolution run much deeper than might be generally supposed, say Professor Anthony Elliott and Julie Hare. From personal virtual assistants and chatbots to self-driving vehicles and tele-robotics, AI is now threaded into large tracts of everyday life. It is reshaping society and the economy. Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, has said that today's AI revolution is "unlike anything humankind has experienced before". AI is not so much an advancement of technology, but rather the metamorphosis of all technology.

Over the past few months, we've documented how the vast majority of AI's applications today are based on the category of algorithms known as deep learning, and how deep-learning algorithms find patterns in data. We've also covered how these technologies affect people's lives: how they can perpetuate injustice in hiring, retail, and security and may already be doing so in the criminal legal system. But it's not enough just to know that this bias exists. If we want to be able to fix it, we need to understand the mechanics of how it arises in the first place. We often shorthand our explanation of AI bias by blaming it on biased training data.

NESTA unveils its top 10 predictions for innovative technology trends to watch out for this year. "This year's predictions cover technologies and trends that would once be dismissed as science fiction but are now set to tip over into mainstream acceptance," was the bold assertion of innovation charity NESTA as it launched its highly respected yearly report. Yet as you read through, it's hard not to agree with them. We're definitely living in a brave new world, but who are likely to be the winners and losers of all this disruption? The report looks not only at the technology, but to its wider impact in society.

A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. The family of the woman killed by an autonomous Uber vehicle last year has filed a $10 million claim against Tempe, stating the city created a dangerous situation by paving a median where people were not supposed to cross the road. Elaine Herzberg, a 49-year-old woman who was homeless, was the first person in the country to be hit and killed by a self-driving car. A Volvo sport-utility vehicle operated by Uber ran into her on March 18 as she crossed Mill Avenue outside of a crosswalk. The claim against Tempe was filed by Skousen, Gulbrandsen & Patience on behalf of Herzberg's daughter, Christine Wood, and Herzberg's husband, Rolf Ziemann.

It's all keen and mean on the artificial intelligence (AI) front in China, which is now vying with the United States as the top dog in the field. US companies can still boast the big cheese operators, but China is making strides in other areas. The UN World Intellectual Property Organisation's Thursday report found that IBM had, with 8,920 patents in the field, the largest AI portfolio, followed by Microsoft with 5,930. China, however, was found dominant in 17 of 20 academic institutions involved in the business of patenting AI. The scramble has been a bitter one. The Trump administration has been inflicting various punitive measures through tariffs, accusing Beijing of being the lead thief in global intellectual property matters.

Last April, Google cofounder Sergey Brin wrote to shareholders with a warning about the potential downsides of artificial intelligence. In June, Google CEO Sundar Pichai released a set of guiding principles for its AI projects after employee protests forced him to abandon a Pentagon contract creating algorithms to interpret drone footage. Now Google has released a white paper that asks governments to suggest some rules for AI--but please, not too many! As you might expect, the 30-page document Google released last week extols the power of artificial intelligence. "AI can deliver great benefits for economies and society, and support decision making which is fairer, safer and more inclusive and informed," it says.

The U.S. and China are ahead of the competition in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), which has witnessed an "upsurge" in patent applications in recent years, according to a United Nations mandated report published late Thursday. The report, prepared by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), said the "biggest untapped opportunities" lie outside the software industry in agriculture, healthcare and manufacturing. WIPO noted that in the last five years, there has been a sharp increase in patent applications for devices and machines powered by AI – defined as the replication of human intelligence by machines. It "suggests that it could soon revolutionize all areas of daily life far beyond the tech world," WIPO Director General Francis Gurry told reporters in Geneva. While research in AI began in the 1950s, the boom in AI scientific publications did not begin until 2001.

Merck, a German pharmaceutical company, has got a blockchain patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The firm has built a system that uses blockchain and Artificial Intelligence to verify the authenticity of physical medical objects. As per Merck, the platform uses machine learning to validate the authenticity of the physical objects by linking them to unique identifiers or "fingerprints" such as chemical signatures, DNA and image patterns. The company has also claimed that the tech which is being currently developed in Merck Innovation Center can help in efficiently curbing the issues related to counterfeit of physical products globally.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) may look like something out of the pages of a sci-fi book, yet you'd be surprised how often you use it daily. As the technology continues to improve, AI will become even more common with more widespread utilization among diverse industries. To start with, let's begin with the basic definition of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and what it includes. Seeking Alpha gives a very apt description of the same in their article- At a basic level, artificial intelligence is the concept of machines accomplishing tasks which have historically required human intelligence. Applied AI: Machines designed to complete very specifics tasks like navigating a vehicle, trading stocks, or playing chess – as IBM's Deep Blue demonstrated in 1996 when it defeated chess grand master Gerry Kasparov. General AI: Machines designed to complete any task which would normally require human intervention. The broad nature of General AI requires machines to "learn" as they encounter new tasks or ...