If you're near Station Square on the South Side or the National Aviary on the North Side, keep an eye out for Argo AI's self-driving cars. The Incline readers and staff have spotted the autonomous Ford Fusions -- often full of people -- more and more in the areas just south and north of Downtown. But the testing locations and the riders are signs of what's to come in 2018 for the self-driving startup. "You're seeing the first steps in expanded testing efforts," said Alan Hall, spokesman with Ford, which invested $1 billion in Argo AI a year ago. In September, The Incline launched a map to track where self-driving cars are testing in the Pittsburgh area since the multiple companies doing the testing won't provide the specifics.

Walmart may be grabbing headlines for its embrace of cutting-edge technologies, but at the heart of those changes are companies like Bossa Nova. The San Francisco-based robotics firm created the robots now roaming the aisles in 50 Walmart locations around the US. Bossa Nova's robots are able to perform tasks such as identifying when items are out of stock, locating incorrect prices, and detecting wrong or missing labels. We spoke to Martin Hitch, chief business officer at Bossa Nova, about the technology behind the machines and how they are being received by shoppers and employees. This article is part of a weekly series paired with our newsletter Clocking In, which covers the impact of technology on the future of work.

In July, Beijing published a plan to create a 10 trillion yuan ($1.48 trillion) artificial intelligence industry in the People's Republic by 2030, making China the world leader in AI instead of the current kingpin, the US. "Artificial intelligence has become a new engine of economic development," the document reads. "We must take initiative to firmly grasp this new stage of development for artificial intelligence and create a new competitive edge." What did Washington say in response to this report? While American tech titans like Alphabet and Facebook lead the world in AI development, the US has no federal plan to develop the crucial emergent technology and the White House has been mum on the subject.

NEW DELHI: Nearly two-thirds (64%) of APAC respondents say Artificial Intelligence (AI) has changed the way recruiting is done in their organization, with 76% saying using AI as a sourcing tool generates higher-quality candidates. These are the findings of a global Korn Ferry survey of close to 800 talent acquisition talent professionals. According to a company release, "When asked to compare the quality of candidates today to five years ago, when AI was still in its infancy, 65% said candidates are more qualified today." Previous training on the company's protocols and procedure, as well as the understanding of the company's culture, puts internal candidates ahead of the game when coming up to speed in learning a new role in a new division or geography, states the release. According to the survey, talent acquisition professionals are welcoming AI as a tool.

It's a question that was under discussion as this year's Munich Security Conference kicked off on Friday (February 16). Her country was the victim of a massive hacking attack that was widely blamed on Russia. "I have been really worried as an Estonian--Estonia is a digital state compared to many others--that our capacity to internationally agree and regulate for technological development has been extremely low," Kaljulaid told euronews. "We haven't managed to do any progress, for example, even on cyber issues". Members of the public present in the audience said they are worried about robot soldiers, and self-piloted weaponised drones.

To manufacture medicines, chemists must find the right combinations of chemicals to make the necessary chemical structures. This is more complicated than it sounds, as typical chemical reactions employ several different components, and each chemical involved in a reaction adds another dimension to the calculations. In an ideal world, chemists would like to predict which combination of chemicals would deliver the highest yield of product and avoid unintended by-products or other losses, but predicting the outcome of these multi-dimensional reactions has proven challenging. A group of researchers led by Abigail Doyle, the A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Chemistry at Princeton University, and Dr. Spencer Dreher of Merck Research Laboratories, has found a way to accurately predict reaction yields while varying up to four reaction components, using an application of artificial intelligence known as machine learning. They have turned their method into software that they have made available to other chemists.

It's a safe bet that some of the websites and apps you use collect and subsequently sell your personal data. But how can you know which ones? An EPFL researcher has led the development of a program that can answer that question in just a few seconds, thanks to artificial intelligence. If you're like most people, you don't always take the time to read website terms and conditions before accepting them. Not only are they extremely lengthy, they are also convoluted and written in opaque legalese.

A new broad oncology deep learning suite from the cloud-based medical imaging software solutions company Arterys Inc. was approved on Thursday, Feb. 15 for 501(k) clearance by the FDA, according to a report by Business Insider. The clearance is for Aterys new Oncology AI software aimed to advance medical imaging accuracy and consistency, according to the report. This is the fifth FDA clearance Arterys has received for its deep learning cloud-based software. Specifically, the deep learning oncology software will be able to help clinicians measure and track tumors or potential cancers in solely liver and lung magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) scans and apply radiological standards with ease. "The evaluation of primary and metastatic disease in the lung and liver are among the most valuable contributions of radiologists to the care of patients with cancer," said radiologist and Arterys co-founder Albert Hsiao, MD, PhD, in a prepared statement.

A successful autonomous system needs to not only understand the visual world but also communicate its understanding with humans. To make this possible, language can serve as a natural link between high level semantic concepts and low level visual perception. We'll discuss recent work in the domain of vision and language, covering topics such as image/video captioning and retrieval, and question-answering. ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Sanja Fidler is an assistant professor at the Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto. Previously, Sanja was a research assistant professor at TTI-Chicago, a philanthropically endowed academic institute located in the campus of the University of Chicago.

Suchi Saria is an assistant professor of computer science, health policy and statistics at Johns Hopkins University. Her research interests are in statistical machine learning and "precision" healthcare. Specifically, her focus is in designing novel data-driven computing tools for optimizing care delivery. Her work is being used to drive electronic surveillance for reducing adverse events in the inpatient setting and to individualize disease management in complex, chronic diseases. She received her PhD from Stanford University with Prof. Daph...