Report discusses "special responsibilities for government which follow from its use of artificial intelligence and big data" A report by the Government Office for Science has warned that making the most of artificial intelligence, including in the public sector, will require the government to pay strong attention to ethics and governance. The report, Artificial intelligence: opportunities and implications for the future of decision making by government chief scientific advisor, Sir Mark Walport and Home Office permanent secretary Mark Sedwill, says it is important that the government actively works to bring this about. "Reaping the benefits of this revolution in information technology will require an approach to ethics and governance that enables innovation, builds trust among citizens, establishes a stable environment for businesses and investors, and fosters appropriate access to the data necessary for computer science to develop this technology still further," the report said. "The right form of governance for artificial intelligence, and indeed for the use of digital data more widely, is not self-evident. It is important to consider forms of data governance that cover all elements of the increasingly complex space, from responsibly generating data from people's behaviour to remaining accountable for autonomous software agents. Additionally, any approach adopted must be flexible, able to adapt to new uses and more advanced forms of artificial intelligence. There are many models that can be considered. But the important task is to set out what needs to be done before considering how it is to be achieved."

Want to know if chatbots are gaining ground on apps? A Citi analyst, for example, reported that bots are growing at a much faster pace than mobile apps did at this same stage. In the realm of personal finance, bots have the real potential to radically improve the way we manage our money, weaving financial decisions into the fabric of our daily lives and giving us immediate insight into the long-term effects of our spending, saving, and investing habits. For instance, in the near future, when you walk into Starbucks, Siri might gently suggest that instead of spending $5 on a coffee this morning, perhaps you should put those dollars toward your child's college fund, which you've been neglecting lately. To further nudge you in the right direction, she might also let you know how that $5 investment in a college fund will appreciate over time and remind you that the single coffee purchase holds no long-term value. You compromise and opt for drip coffee instead of a latte, putting the leftover $2.50 into your child's 529 plan.

IBM and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. said Wednesday they would significantly expand their existing global e-Health alliance with a focus on two key healthcare areas: the discovery of new treatment options and improving chronic disease management. Both projects will run on the IBM Watson Health Cloud, the two companies said in a statement. The IBM Watson Health Cloud is a health-data enabled platform-as-a-service which is designed to help healthcare organizations derive individualized insights and obtain a more complete picture of the many factors that can affect people's health based on machine learning. The expanded partnership underlines the increased convergence of drugs discovery and treatments with cognitive computing, which aims to improve and better target medication for patients, increase effectiveness and lower costs. The companies said the expanded cooperation envisages a new, three-year research collaboration to develop new technologies that will enable a systematic approach to help repurpose drugs and aid in the discovery of new uses for existing drugs, the joint statement said.

SEOUL, South Korea – Samsung Electronics says it has agreed to acquire auto-systems maker Harman for $8 billion as the South Korean giant eyes the growing market for connected cars. Samsung said in a statement Monday it will pay $112.00 per share in cash for the Stamford, CT.-based company. Overseas acquisitions are high on Samsung's agenda. Last month, the company bought artificial intelligence firm Viv Labs, founded by creators of Apple's Siri. It also recently bought a cloud service company, a mobile payments firm and a connected home startup.

Samsung Electronics says it has agreed to acquire auto-systems maker Harman for $8 billion as the South Korean giant eyes the growing market for connected cars. Samsung said in a statement Monday it will pay $112.00 per share in cash for the Stamford, CT.-based company. Overseas acquisitions are high on Samsung's agenda. Last month, the company bought artificial intelligence firm Viv Labs, founded by creators of Apple's Siri. It also recently bought a cloud service company, a mobile payments firm and a connected home startup. Harman provides connected cars and audio systems with safety and entertainment features.

Such sentiment analysis, however, comes with a heavy workload and also requires mathematical models. "There are three ways to make improved predictions – a better model, better data, and more data," says Jeremy Perlman, VP Europe for Trifacta, which helps RBS, Santander and PepsiCo analyse data. "The problem is that data created on social media and the web is expanding at a ridiculous rate, so machine learning will be critical to making better predictions at massive scale." Since computing power is increasingly exponential with the birth of super-computing in the cloud, the need to analyse more and more data shouldn't be a major hurdle. "Computational devices can very effectively, with high precision and rapidly, gather millions of tweets, posts or similar and run sentiment analysis – to understand likes and dislikes," says Jepson.

The major advancement on artificial intelligence have made experts predict the future of humanity, where robots could not only ease everyday living but also take away employment opportunities. However, a McKinsey report reveals that despite the fear of robots taking over jobs, CEOs could not be replaced by robots (yet). According to McKinsey, artificial intelligence could indeed eliminate some jobs but only a very few occupations in the next decade. It might affect parts of a certain job, but not the entire position. The report noted that new development on artificial intelligence would enable robots to take over knowledge-driven work (e.g., finance, healthcare) rather than technical, routine manpower. However, despite these, Smithsonian notes that CEOs should not fear for their job yet as their position includes a judgmental function that AIs are not capable of doing just yet.

Fujitsu Reports Boost to Todai Robot's College Exam Scores A revolutionary AI technique is about to transform the self-driving car. Here's how Google Play is using AI to improve search Nvidia Boom Thanks to Artificial Intelligence: Can the Chipmaker Keep It Up? Stay up-to-date on the topics you care about. We'll send you an email alert whenever a news article matches your alert term. It's free, and you can add new alerts at any time.

Ideas to keep in mind as the AI-ce Age thaws. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has long lived in the recesses of our subconscious with an almost relentless half-life that allows the principle to remain vivid and potent even after countless false dawns over the last 70 years. This is likely to do with our cultural fascination with automation that appears incessantly in various forms of entertainment: from movies, to books, to music. With this we have created a cocoon of fascination where the limits of our knowledge are boundlessly extended to points of contention we are not well-versed in but feel a part of. This is what makes AI such a pressing reality – it concerns us all, but perhaps, the extent to which it will impact us all is not as solidly grasped.

Samsung Electronics says it has agreed to acquire auto-systems maker Harman for $8 billion as the South Korean giant eyes the growing market for connected cars. Samsung said in a statement Monday it will pay $112.00 per share in cash for the Stamford, CT.-based company. Overseas acquisitions are high on Samsung's agenda. Last month, the company bought artificial intelligence firm Viv Labs, founded by creators of Apple's Siri. It also recently bought a cloud service company, a mobile payments firm and a connected home startup.