Imagine an artificially-intelligent smartphone so clever that when we point the camera at a beautiful scene, it will guide us to the best spot to snap a picture, ensuring the lighting, composition, and colors are all perfect. It's a feature that in theory is not too far away. You'll take an amazing picture, but it will likely be exactly the same as photos taken by every other person who stood there and asked their phone to do the same thing. The AI effectively turned us into automatons, sharing beautiful-but-identical cookie-cutter photos. AI is a threat to our creativity and freedom of thought.

Huawei has published its Top Technology Trends for 2018, offering a glimpse into the near future of AI, robotics and the Internet of Things.

Following the introduction of its commercial robots in 2017, LG Electronics continues to push the envelope with the unveiling of three new work robots at CES 2018. If CES is a guide, you'll soon be surrounded by a multitude of brainy things--not only smart speakers, electronics gear, and appliances, but eventually household robots, an intelligent car, and maybe even the very city you live in. All things smart is an underlying theme leading into the annual tech shindig that commences this weekend in Las Vegas, giving the public an early look at devices they may buy later this year or next. Thought you just successfully navigated the decision about whether to purchase an Amazon Dot vs. a Google Home Mini? Think you've got smart lighting figured out?

Yesterday, CES announced that FCC Chairman Ajit Pai would no longer be appearing at the trade show where he was scheduled to take part in a conversation with FTC Chairman Maureen Ohlhausen. No reasons were given by CES or the FCC at the time for the sudden change in plans, but Recode now reports that the cancellation is due to Pai receiving death threats. Two FCC sources said the threats were the cause and that law enforcement had become involved with the issue. Pai has come under fire for a number of the decisions he's made since taking over as chairman, but none have garnered as much negative attention as his rollback of net neutrality protections. Pai has stated that he and his family have been threatened both in public and online and he and the rest of the FCC were forced to briefly suspend their December 14th vote on the net neutrality rollbacks after a bomb threat was issued.

AT&T has revealed plans to roll out next generation 5G mobile internet in a dozen U.S. cities by the end of the year. If it hits the deadline, it would make the firm, which is America's second-largest wireless carrier, the first U.S. company to introduce the technology. New 5G networks are expected to provide speeds at least 10 times and up to maybe 100 times faster than today's 4G networks, depending on the type of systems used. However, AT&T refused to say where mobile 5G will be offered, what phone or phones the service will work on or the precise speeds consumers can expect. New 5G networks are expected to provide speeds at least 10 times and up to maybe 100 times faster than today's 4G networks, depending on the type of systems used.

However, I believe that the distinction of "neats" and "scruffies" raised at Cog Sci in '81 didn't define scruffies as people who built expert systems [they didn't really exist as a "real" part of MAD. Instead, I believe AI These are the researchers who read Hawkings and say "gee, if his model of the lo-23 second big bang is right, then the distribution of intergalactic gases should be relatively even. Let's go see if that's true. However, to run our experiments we'll need a more sensitive space-based sensing device, so let's work with the engineers to design one." I think one could make the case (although not from the data collected in Cohen's survey) that the two methodologies are not informed and influenced by each other to the extent they should or could be.

The Workshop on Comparative Analysis of AI Planning Systems, held during the 1994 national AI conference, was lively and interesting. Both the theoretical and practical sides of the AI planning community were represented. Several papers contributed to the theoretical analysis of planning algorithms, and others showed the first steps toward convergence between such theoretical work and practical work on the system engineering aspects of working planners. Both the theoretical and practical sides of the AI planning community were represented, and both sides seemed to understand the other side better after the workshop. Several papers contributed further to the theoretical analysis of planning algorithms, either through frameworks for reconstructing planning algorithms or through empirical studies (Christer Backstrom, Linkoping University, Sweden; Subbarao Kambhampati, Arizona State University; Henry Kautz, AT&T Bell Labs; Craig Knoblock, University of Southern California/Information Sciences Institute [USC/ISI]; and Qiang Yang, University of Waterloo, Canada).

Waltham, Massachusetts GTE LABORATORIES is the central corporate research and development facility for the sixty subsidiaries of the worldwide GTE corporation. Located in the Massachusetts Route 128 high technology area, the five laboratories that comprise GTE Laboratories generate the ideas, products, systems, and services that provide technical leadership for GTE. The two laboratories which conduct artificial intelligence research are the Computer Science Laboratory (CSL) and the Fundamental Research Laboratory (FRL). Artificial Intelligence projects within the CSL are directed towards the research techniques used in expert systems, and their application to GTE products and services. AI projects within FRL have longer-term AI research goals.

Wal-Mart Stores (Bentonville, Ark.) has deployed an intelligent data-mining solution into its replenishment and decision support environment. The neural network-based software helps Wal-Mart refine store-item seasons and build more accurate predictive models for its computer-assisted replenishment systems. Stanford Telecom (Sunnyvale, Calif.) has added an intelligent agentbased component to its next-generation satellite communications monitoring systems. The systems will monitor satellite signals in near real time, alerting operators to out-of-tolerance conditions and the presence of unexpected signals. Home Automated Living (Dallas, Tex.) has integrated speech-recognition technology into its home-automation system, allowing users, by telephone, to deliver spoken commands to control their home systems.

Hitachi Data Systems (Santa Clara, CA) has added a download microcode enhancement to its Hi-Track expert system. The enhancement will allow Hi-Track to remotely identify and solve potential problems in a customer's storage subsystem, over the telephone. AT&T Network Systems (Oklahoma, OK) has developed System Test History Analysis, an expert system to lower circuit pack repair expenditures and to isolate and resolve intermittent problems prior to shipment to customers. The system reviews the test history on multiple switching module configurations of digital telecommunications systems equipment. The embedded system analyzes the competition's prices, compares them to Alamo's, and then suggests a suitable pricing alternative.