From Claire North's new novel to a 10th anniversary edition of a brilliant Adrian Tchaikovsky book, there's lots to watch out for in November's science fiction Claire North's Slow Gods follows a deep-space pilot We'll need to get our skates on if we're to keep up with all the new science fiction published in November. And I am creeped out by the idea at the heart of Grace Walker's . Everything feels frightening this month - perhaps the sci-fi world is still in Halloween mode. It sounds poignant, moving and beautiful, and without any supernatural scares. Emily H. Wilson is wild for this sci-fi novel: I've not heard our sci-fi columnist recommend a book so wholeheartedly in all the time she's written for us.

The taglines on M3GAN 2.0 posters read like text messages from an overconfident tween: "HEY, QUEENS." "MISS ME?" "I'M STILL THAT B." (Another that apparently exists, though I haven't seen in the wild, hilariously reads: "THIS BITCH.") Next to them, the titular robot who looks like an uncanny-valley Olsen twin peers from above circular sunglasses. This character that, per her 2023 film debut, will kill you and your little dog, too, is now being marketed with big child-star energy. While she always had more to offer than malice (her late-movie dance break went viral from its trailer alone), this moment marks a clear pivot on M3GAN's Mary Janes.

At least it shows its symptoms clearly: inflammation and swelling. In the first film, Gemma (Allison Williams), a robotics engineer, becomes the guardian to her orphaned niece, Cady (Violet McGraw), and tests a new invention, the titular A.I.-powered robot-doll, on her. Cady grows attached to the responsive doll, which is programmed to protect the child and takes to the mission with a mechanical perfection, slaughtering anyone who expresses hostility--and does so with snarky pride in her absolute power. At its core, though, "M3GAN" (like the sequel, directed by Gerard Johnstone) is a family melodrama centered on Gemma's struggles with parenting and Cady's need to bond--plus the robot's quick embrace of human cruelty. The film's failures are painful because its setup is fruitful.

Rational speakers are supposed to know what they know and what they do not know, and to generate expressions matching the strength of evidence. In contrast, it is still a challenge for current large language models to generate corresponding utterances based on the assessment of facts and confidence in an uncertain real-world environment. While it has recently become popular to estimate and calibrate confidence of LLMs with verbalized uncertainty, what is lacking is a careful examination of the linguistic knowledge of uncertainty encoded in the latent space of LLMs. In this paper, we draw on typological frameworks of epistemic expressions to evaluate LLMs' knowledge of epistemic modality, using controlled stories. Our experiments show that the performance of LLMs in generating epistemic expressions is limited and not robust, and hence the expressions of uncertainty generated by LLMs are not always reliable. To build uncertainty-aware LLMs, it is necessary to enrich semantic knowledge of epistemic modality in LLMs.

The trailer for M3GAN 2.0 is here and if you were expecting a copy-paste of the original's horror vibe, you may be surprised. Instead, the sequel is embracing a turn towards action in vein of Terminator 2 complete with upgrades to the original doll, a robot showdown and... a wing suit? Set to arrive in theaters only on June 27, the film is once again directed by Gerard Johnstone and features returning cast members Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Brian Jordan Alvarez and Jen Van Epps, along with newcomer Ivanna Sakhno (Pacific Rim: Uprising) as Amelia. It's two years after the original M3GAN doll went on a murderous rampage (including that wild dance sequence) and was eventually destroyed. Since then, its designer Gemma has become an author and voice for more robust AI oversight, while Gemma's niece Cady (who M3GAN 1.0 swore to protect) is now a teenager. Meanwhile, M3GAN's AI tech was stolen by a defense contractor to build super robot solidier Amelia.

As already explored previously in this blog, I experience different reactions to webchat. Some organisations love it, others shun it, as it's not really channel shift. Sometimes the webchat experience is very good and the customer (or prospect) receives their advice in a timely way. On other occasions, it can be a bit like the disjointed one below. You can see how webchat using customer services operators, can fall well short. That's why webchat is becoming superseded by the chatbot.

From the coining of the term back in the 1950's to now, AI has taken remarkable leaps forward and only continues to grow in relevance and sophistication But despite these advancements, there's one problem that continues to plague AI technology – the internal bias and prejudice of its human creators. The issue of AI bias cannot be brushed under the carpet, given the potential detrimental effects it can have. A recent survey showed that 36% of respondents reported that their businesses suffered from AI bias in at least one algorithm, resulting in unequal treatment of users based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion or age. These instances incurred a direct commercial impact: of those respondents, two-thirds reported that as a result they lost revenue (62%), customers (61%), or employees (43%). And 35% incurred legal fees because of lawsuits or legal action.

Michael Skirpan (mskipran@cmu.edu) is Executive Director at Community Forge and Special Faculty in the Institute for Software Research, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Maggie Oates (hello@maggieoates.com) is a creative technologist and privacy researcher working on OnlyBans, a game by sex workers about sex work and technology at onlybansgame.com.

The average Jane is a tech-savvy individual. But, we can only work with the resources we are given. Online services for local governments are huge banks of information, making them particularly complex. This is a problem because the stakes are high – local citizens need access to vital information. But, many local governments have found a resolution in the form of artificial intelligence.

Conversational AI opens new dimensions of user engagement with the digital world, which will have far-reaching impacts on all the ways we work, live and play. AI is enabling a new generation of UI which allows humans to interact with digital systems through the medium most natural to them: Conversation (either through the spoken word or interactive, unscripted text chats). While humans have long "conversed" with computers, those interactions had to follow strict structured rules that the computers were pre-programmed to anticipate (e.g., "Enter the wizard's cave."). The ascendant generation of conversational AI solutions are able to discern a wide spectrum of user inputs including ones she wasn't specifically programmed to anticipate -- everything from "Hello, I'd like to reserve a hotel room on Tuesday," to "Hey, I'm going to be staying at your hotel in a few days, what room options do you have?" Amelia: Would you like to know the balance for your Savings or Checking account?