Entity linking (EL) is the process of automatically linking entity mentions in text to the corresponding entries in a knowledge base (a database of facts that relate entities), such as Wikidata. For example, in the diagram below, we would aim to link the mention "England" to the entity "England Football Team" as opposed to the entity "England" the country. Entity linking is a common first step in natural-language-processing (NLP) applications such as question answering, information extraction, and natural-language understanding. It is critical for bridging unstructured text with knowledge bases, which enables access to vast amounts of curated data. Current EL systems exhibit great performance on standard datasets, but they have several limitations when deployed in real-world applications.

After co-writing the best-selling adult novel of 2018, Bill Clinton and James Patterson have teamed up for another political thriller. "The President's Daughter" will be released in June 2021, the book's publishers announced Thursday. As with the million-selling "The President Is Missing," the new novel will be a rare joint release by rival companies: Alfred A. Knopf, which has released Clinton's "My Life" among other works, and Little, Brown and Co., Patterson's longtime publisher. "I never imagined I'd be writing a book with a master storyteller like Jim, much less two," Clinton said in a statement. "I was grateful for the success of the first book, and I believe readers will enjoy reading'The President's Daughter' as much as I'm enjoying working on it."

Professor Moran Cerf contributed research and insights for this article. I've had a few conversations with Sophia the Robot, an invention of Hanson Robotics making the rounds of tech conferences worldwide. Preparing for a session at Webit 2018 in Sofia, Bulgaria, I had a surprisingly engaging exchange with Sophie. It's unsettlingly easy to see how one day, after the clunkiness resolves, it will feel natural to engage with our technological colleagues. I feel I've gotten to "know" Sophia in a way and look forward to our next conversation.

Written in collaboration with Professor Moran Cerf. I've had a few conversations with Sophia the Robot, an invention of Hanson Robotics making the rounds of tech conferences worldwide. Preparing for a session at Webit 2018 in Sofia, Bulgaria, I had a surprisingly engaging exchange with Sophie. It's unsettlingly easy to see how one day, after the clunkiness resolves, it will feel natural to engage with our technological colleagues. I feel I've gotten to "know" Sophia in a way and look forward to our next conversation.

An ex-YouTube insider reveals how its recommendation algorithm promotes divisive clips and conspiracy videos. Did they harm Hillary Clinton's bid for the presidency? Fri 2 Feb 2018 07.00 EST Last modified on Fri 2 Feb 2018 08.54 EST It was one of January's most viral videos. The 22-year-old, who is in a Japanese forest famous as a suicide spot, is visibly shocked, then amused. "Dude, his hands are purple," he says, before turning to his friends and giggling. "You never stand next to a dead guy?" Paul, who has 16 million mostly teen subscribers to his YouTube channel, removed the video from YouTube 24 hours later amid a furious backlash. It was still long enough for the footage to receive 6m views and a spot on YouTube's coveted list of trending videos. The next day, I watched a copy of the video on YouTube. Then I clicked on the "Up next" thumbnails of recommended videos that YouTube showcases on the right-hand side of the video player. This conveyor belt of clips, which auto-play by default, are designed to seduce us spending more time on Google's video broadcasting platform. I was curious where they might lead.

Mark Waser, for instance, a longtime artificial intelligence researcher who works for a think tank called the Digital Wisdom Institute, says that once we fix some key kinks in artificial intelligence, robots will make much better decisions than humans can. Another big technical problem to solve before computers could run the country: Robots don't know how to explain themselves. In an approach called machine learning, the computer analyzes mountains of data and searches for patterns--patterns that might make sense to the computer but not to humans. In a variant approach called deep learning, a computer uses multiple layers of processors: One layer produces a rough output, which is then refined by the next layer, and that output, in turn, is refined by the next layer.

A designer in Hong Kong made a robot in the form of actress Scarlett Johansson, and Margot E. Kaminski sees a host of interesting legal and ethical issues emerging from its creepy-beautiful self. To start with, who has the right to make a robot in the shape of an existing person? Is this a protected form of expression? "What if instead of making the Scarlett Johansson robot without the actress's permission," Kaminski asks, "a robot manufacturer legally licensed her face and trotted out millions upon millions of ScarJos to serve as personal assistants?"