Hamburg, January 8, 2020 – Beiersdorf and Insilico Medicine, an artificial intelligence company developing end to end drug discovery pipelines, announced today that they are entering a collaboration to jointly discover novel, safe bioactive ingredients for a specific skin indication at an unparalleled pace, that will serve as the basis for developing appropriate skincare products. "As part of our Open Innovation culture, we are always looking for new technologies and partners with strengths that complement ours. We are delighted to now be working with Insilico Medicine as a veritable expert when it comes to artificial intelligence. We are able to evaluate new active ingredients significantly more quickly and more efficiently by simulating biological effects in silico. This enables us to cater even better to the consumers' as yet unmet skincare needs," explains Dr. May Shana'a, Senior Corporate Vice President, Research and Development, at Beiersdorf.

With every big Hollywood hit, there's inevitably going to be a few flops – but that's the name of the game, right? Well, not according to Warner Bros. It's trialling an'AI-driven film management system', according to the Hollywood Reporter – an AI system that can calculate "in seconds" how well a film is likely to do. "We make tough decisions every day that affect what -- and how -- we produce and deliver films to theaters around the world, and the more precise our data is, the better we will be able to engage our audiences," said Tonis Kiis, Senior VP of Distribution at the company. The system can evaluate how much a particular star is worth, for example, or work out how much a film is likely to make in a particular country or territory. Warner Bros do stress that the system won't be getting in the way of "create decision-making".

Over the 20 years to 2017, the network of actors spreading scientific misinformation about climate change has been increasingly integrated into US political philanthropy. That's according to a study that used natural language processing to analyse connections between the two fields. "The study introduces a new and broader pathway through which climate change misinformation travels, beyond the tendency of research to narrowly focus on the activities of think-tanks and fossil-fuel interests, often in isolation from mainstream American institutions like philanthropy," writes Justin Farrell of Yale University, US, in Environmental Research Letters (ERL). "Yet, as this study also shows, the impact of funding from fossil-fuel sources still plays an important role, revealing that the strength of the relationship between the misinformation network and philanthropy is strongest for people and organizations directly tied to such funding." Farrell employed novel machine learning capabilities to recognise and classify repeating themes and links in lists of attendees and speakers at philanthropic meetings, millions of words of written materials, and lists of board members and lifetime achievement award winners.

Although I work at a tech company, I have no technological background whatsoever. I graduated in linguistics from the Department of Humanities, meaning I had to sit through compulsory philosophy and ethics classes. It got me thinking: how am I going to use all this? There is no better time to talk about Machine Learning (ML) ethics than now. ML is spreading, and however useful, it must also be treated with caution.

Digital artist Sham00k (motto: "I make the best worst deep fakes on the internet") illustrated the state of the art in AI-assisted face-replacement technology at the end of last year, sharing this Christmas-themed video in which Jim Meskimen's impressions of Hollywood stars get a visual assist from so-called deep-fake technology.

Fox Nation host Lara Logan and The Hill's Joe Concha break down the coverage. Fox Nation host Lara Logan said Thursday that the American media is largely failing to cover the swath of the Iranian population that is celebrating the death of terror general Qassem Soleimani in an American drone attack last week. Logan appeared on "Hannity" to discuss some media outlets' decision to highlight large public gatherings of mourning throughout Iran. Meanwhile, some hosts have characterized Soleimani as an icon of Iran. "I mean, he was a terrorist," Logan said.

The studio behind Joker enlists help to bag more hits. According to The Hollywood Reporter, it's signed up to use an artificial intelligence system to analyze its potential movies and choose which ones to put into development. "The system can calculate in seconds what used to take days to assess by a human when it comes to general film package evaluation or a star's worth," said Tobias Queisser, founder of Cinelytic, the LA startup whose AI-driven project management system WB will be relying on. Despite making a $1 billion hit with Joaquin Phoenix-starring Joker last year, WB made a handful of misfires, including The Kitchen, Shaft and Godzilla: King of the Monsters. And it isn't the only one choosing AI to do its homework.

Even though Robert Burns wrote the line "the best-laid schemes o' mice a' men/gang aft agley" more than 200 years ago, it still resonates. In the age of artificial intelligence (AI), many brands are learning this the hard way as a new generation of algorithm hackers subvert their use of cognitive technologies. AI is increasingly central to driving timely, personalised marketing communications. But by undermining the code they are built on, algorithm hackers are both subverting marketing initiatives and damaging the integrity of data. Addressing this issue depends on brands better understanding consumer motivations and the key drivers behind their own marketing initiatives.

It seems Warner Bros. is taking data analytics out of their own hands and into those of an artificial intelligence system. The 96-year-old company has faltered in recent years due to allegations of executive misconduct and critical business mistakes. Warner Bros. has also bungled the development of some of their most valuable IPs, such as DC superhero films like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League. It's no secret that Warner Bros. has struggled to catch up with Marvel at the box office, but it's surprising just how far behind they really are. Justice League, a movie that was supposed to be the pièce de résistance of the DCEU, ended up costing the studio upwards of $100 million.