The story of how the FBI finally tracked down notorious fugitive Lynn Cozart, using its brand-new, 1 billion facial recognition system, seems tailor-made to disarm even the staunchest of skeptics. Cozart, a former security guard in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, was convicted of deviant sexual intercourse in 1996. According to court filings, he had molested his three juvenile children, two girls and one boy, from 1984 through 1994. It wasn't until May 11, 1995, that the children's mother came forward and told the Pennsylvania State Police what Cozart had been doing. He was convicted, but he failed to show up for his sentencing hearing in April 1996. Federal agents raided his home, interviewed family members and released photos of the man to the general public. In August 2006, the Cozart case was featured in "America's Most Wanted," the national television program, under a segment titled "Ten Years of Hell for Three Children."

Artificial Intelligence is on the rise, but (for a change) I'm not talking about the great AI panic of 2015. I'm talking about everyday AI that's build into vacuum cleaner robots, Siri, web analytics, and your email. Everybody is fascinated by the technology, and it seems like AI is making huge breakthroughs. I'm sitting at the source of cutting edge AI development (pun intended), and as in any other discipline, 95% of the work has very little to do with coming up with amazing new algorithms to outsmart humans. But more importantly, 95% of how well these AI systems perform also has nothing to do with smarter algorithms.

Ever since the launch of Siri in its fully-integrated form on the iPhone 4s in 2011, digital assistants have become standard features on most modern smartphones. With competition growing from Microsoft, Google, and Amazon with their Cortana, Google Now, and Echo respectively, Apple continues providing updates to Siri in an attempt to find a semblance of functional advantage. As Google recently added changes to its digital assistant – Google Now – with smart intonation and expression to its speech patterns to sound less robotic, Apple has followed with their own updates looking to target Siri towards specific audiences; in this case, sports fans. Leading up to the opening days of this year's Major League baseball season, Apple has dramatically increased Siri's knowledge of and access to in-depth baseball knowledge and statistics. Though Apple added sports scores to Siri's functionality back with iOS6, previously, when asked specific baseball-related questions, Siri would typically respond with a simple search or Google queries.

Here are the basics of what the Panama Papers leak is all about. Photo shows the building where the office of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca is located in Panama City, Panama, April 03, 2016. SAN FRANCISCO -- The 11.5 million leaked documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca are providing a treasure trove of data on a hidden world of offshore accounts and murky dealings. "It's becoming much easier than it used to be to store and move very large amounts of data. I would expect this to continue," said John King, a professor of information at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich.

As robotics and 3-D printing technologies become more accessible to home tinkerers, men are (of course) building robots of beautiful women. Anyone who's turned on a TV in the past decade shouldn't be surprised to learn that one of the first--and creepiest--examples of this development involves movie star Scarlett Johansson. News broke on Friday about a Hong Kong designer who made a robot that looks just like the award-winning actress--although Ricky Ma, the robot's creator, wouldn't name the actress he modeled the bot on, choosing instead to it Mark 1. It took Ma eighteen months and over 50,000 to complete the project, which he constructed on his patio with a 3-D printer and software that he taught himself how to use. The question, however, is one of precedent.

A committee sponsored by the US government is recommending standards that could clear the way for commercial drone flights over populated areas and help speed the introduction of package delivery drones and other uses not yet possible, the Associated Press has reported. The Federal Aviation Administration currently prohibits most commercial drone flights over populated areas, especially crowds. That ban frustrates a host of industries that want to take advantage of the technology. "Every TV station in the country wants one, but they can't be limited to flying in the middle of nowhere because there's no news in the middle of nowhere," said Jim Williams, a former head of FAA's drone office who now advises the industry for Dentons, an international law firm. Cellular network providers also want to loosen restrictions so drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, can inspect cell towers, which often are in urban areas.

Here are the basics of what the Panama Papers leak is all about. Photo shows the building where the office of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca is located in Panama City, Panama, April 03, 2016. SAN FRANCISCO -- The 11.5 million leaked documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca are providing a treasure trove of data on a hidden world of offshore accounts and murky dealings. "It's becoming much easier than it used to be to store and move very large amounts of data. I would expect this to continue," said John King, a professor of information at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich.

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." Data Science is in the early stage of development and needs to develop canons to guide us. There is a brewing debate about the use of established scientific methods in the practice of data science. Some suggest traditional scientific methods must be used while others assert new scientific methods must be developed - especially considering algorithms, machine learning and future artificial intelligence. Part of that debate includes whether it is necessary to form a hypothesis. I suggest the answer is it depends. .

It's been fascinating to watch the storm over Microsoft's AI Twitter chat bot, Tay, which learned extreme racism, homophobia, and drug culture from internet trolls and was hastily taken offline. As one commentator put, it went from saying "humans are super cool", to extolling Nazi values in less than 24 hours – a useful analog of extremism's connection with ignorance in a meme-propelled culture. But were trolls solely to blame? As journalist Paul Mason noted in his Guardian blog, Tay was essentially feeding off the deep undercurrents of prejudice and hate speech that lurk near the surface of many social platforms. Or at least they do in the West.

They don't feel pity or remorse or fear, and they will absolutely not stop, ever. Which is fine if they are, say, helping you manage your finances rather than hunting you down to bring about the end of humanity. Real life artificial intelligence isn't the same murderous thing it is in science fiction (yet), but rather is a bundle of complex code and algorithms, carrying out tasks in a seemingly intelligent way. 'Deep learning' expands on this, allowing an AI to learn and adapt, making itself not only more useful and less susceptible to mistakes, but also more human-friendly. And it can be a very helpful tool.