The elimination of poverty worldwide is the first of 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals for the year 2030. To track progress towards this goal, we require more frequent and more reliable data on the distribution of poverty than traditional data collection methods can provide. In this project, we propose an approach that combines machine learning with high-resolution satellite imagery to provide new data on socioeconomic indicators of poverty and wealth. Check out the short video below for a quick overview and then read the paper for a more detailed explanation of how it all works.

The Department of Pathology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has established the Center for Computational and Systems Pathology to revolutionize pathology practice, using advanced computer science and mathematical techniques coupled with cutting-edge microscope technology and artificial intelligence. The goal of this new academic research facility is to explore efforts to more accurately classify diseases and guide treatment using computer vision and machine learning techniques. The Center for Computational and Systems Pathology will be a hub for the development of new diagnostic, predictive, and prognostic tests and will partner with Mount Sinai-based "Precise Medical Diagnostics" (Precise MDTM), which has been under development for more than three years by a team of physicians, scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and programmers. Carlos Cordon-Cardo, MD, PhD, will oversee the new center, located at Mount Sinai St. Luke's, and will continue his role as Chair of the Department of Pathology at the Mount Sinai Health System and Professor of Pathology, Genetics and Genomic Sciences, and Oncological Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine. Gerardo Fernandez, MD, Associate Professor of Pathology, and Genetics and Genomic Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, will be the Center's Medical Director.

Cooperation is one of the hallmarks of being human. We are extremely social compared to other species. On a regular basis, we all enter into helping others in small but important ways, whether it be letting someone out in traffic or giving a tip for good service. We do this without any guarantee of payback. Donations are made at a small personal cost but with a bigger benefit to the recipient.

On August 29, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)'s Part 107 commercial drone rules go into effect, and although they are quite restrictive, some companies have already found creative ways to work within the limitations. One commercial application that has already started to take off is drone inspections for large structures such as cell towers, buildings, and bridges. PRENAV, a Silicon Valley startup, has developed an automated drone that uses an alternative navigation system to precisely fly drones close enough to towers to see any structural issues that need to be repaired. Manual inspections are inefficient and unsafe; it just doesn't make sense to send humans to climb large structures when robots can do it better, without risking any lives. According to OSHA, tower climbing is the most dangerous job in America, and demand for tower maintenance is growing as consumers increasingly rely on broadband and wireless communications.

For the second installment of our series exploring the future of human augmentation, we bring you a story by the Transhumanist Party's presidential candidate (and occasional Motherboard columnist), Zoltan Istvan. Though he's spent most of the last year traveling the nation in a coffin-shaped bus, spreading the gospel of immortality and H, he's no stranger to fiction. His novel, The Transhumanist Wager, is about the impact of evolving beyond this mortal coil. This story is even bolder. He struggled to open his eyes. 'Who the hell is calling me in the middle of the night?' he thought. He rolled out of bed and walked naked to his desk to see. His phone showed it was his secretary.

As machine-learning becomes increasingly embedded into our everyday lives, Dr David Bray, a 2015 Eisenhower Fellow, Visiting Executive In-Residence at the Harvard Kennedy School and CIO at the US Federal Communications Commission, explores both the possible positive opportunities and potential cyber-security challenges. "The exponential changes being driven by digital technology are typically painted in a highly positive light. Just look at the average Internet minute during 2013: more than 204 million emails were sent, more than 4 million Google search results were conducted, more than 2.4 million items of Facebook content were uploaded and more than 72 hours of video were uploaded to YouTube. But it's worth remembering that technology itself is amoral: it's how we humans choose to use it that decides whether it's good or bad. The more challenging side of the exponential era is evident elsewhere: in 2013, cyber-security technology company McAfee identified 200 new threat vectors ...

By 2025 Australians may well see the application of artificial intelligence in the preparation of tax returns, according to a report by KPMG. The report, 2025: People, economy and the future of tax, suggests a future world in which service industry professionals such as accountants will be replaced by robots and the size of revenue authorities such as the Australian Taxation Office will shrink. "The technological changes ... are likely to mean few mid-skilled jobs will be required," the report says. Tax in 2025 could involve the application of artificial intelligence to the preparation of tax returns. "This is beyond complex automation, which would involve picking up items in the general ledger and mechanistically using that data in the tax return," it says.

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is all around us and we might not even realize it! As a technology that imitates human decision making, it is present in a lot of what we use every day. AI can be found in Amazon.com Facebook tells you whom you could know and want to be friends with. Cars can automatically park for you.

What I am saying applies specifically to Grid, the "revolutionary" startup company that was the first to announce that it has created a website builder that uses artificial intelligence to design the perfect web destination. Reviews, however, have been rather mixed, not quite perfect as they promised. The involvement of the user is minimal, which, on the plus side, goes to show that whatever the end website looks like is entirely credited to the AI itself and not the person pressing the buttons. That, however, also means that the user has less than enough freedom to customize their website's layout as per their wishes, even if they are a veteran in the subject. The AI limits the website's customizability to a few choices of layout and color only, asking the user to accept the fact that the algorithm knows best.

Vinod Iyengar is the director of product marketing at open source machine learning company H2O.ai. Forget Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump -- we need a trust-buster like Teddy Roosevelt, who in 1902 attacked the Northern Securities Company, a railroad holding company led by J.P. Morgan and James J. Hill. Amid the flurry of recent tech M&A deals, you would be forgiven for missing a relatively quiet acquisition: Apple bought Seattle-based artificial intelligence startup Turi for around 200 million. On its own, the Turi deal wouldn't raise eyebrows were it not for the record amount of M&A in artificial intelligence, with the giants Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft leading transactions. Consolidation in any market is expected, but AI is consolidating at such a rapid clip, at such an early stage and by so few companies that there are strong reasons to be concerned.