Stanford University recently released the 2021 AI Index, highlighting major trends and advancements in artificial intelligence. The fourth edition of the report talked about technology's impact on society, education, and policy and outlined the progress made in other AI subdomains such as deep learning, object detection, NLP, etc. The highlights from the 2021 report included AI research citations, AI startup fundings, and growing conversation around AI ethics. One of the more significant observations made in the report was about the need for more and better benchmarks in AI and other related fields such as ethics, NLP, and computer vision. "We're running out of tests as fast as we can build them," said Jack Clark, head of an OECD group working on algorithm impact assessment and former policy director for OpenAI.

Solving this complex problem would lead to breakthroughs in a number of areas, including online encryption. Have a good mind for computational problem-solving? Then the University of St. Andrews and the Clay Mathematics Institute sure have the competition for you. Announced on Thursday, the prize (awarded by the Clay Mathematics Institute) is available to anyone who can solve a chess puzzle which researchers estimate could take thousands of years to come up with a quick answer to. Were it solved, a program working out the math behind the so-called "Queens Puzzle" would help address a number of currently impossible problems, including breaking any online security measures.