Perplexity, a company that describes its product as "a free AI search engine," has been under fire over the past few days. Shortly after Forbes accused it of stealing its story and republishing it across multiple platforms, Wired reported that Perplexity has been ignoring the Robots Exclusion Protocol, or robots.txt, Technology website The Shortcut also accused the company of scraping its articles. Now, Reuters has reported that Perplexity isn't the only AI company that's bypassing robots.txt Reuters said it saw a letter addressed to publishers from TollBit, a startup that pairs them up with AI firms so they can reach licensing deals, warning them that "AI agents from multiple sources (not just one company) are opting to bypass the robots.txt

By using cloud computing and machine learning, scientists can help the Ag-IoT respond to shifts in the environment around it.

It is expected that, in 2022, artificial intelligence and machine learning will continue to impact healthcare in a multitude of ways.

Zest AI, a leader in software for credit underwriting, today announced it has been selected as an honoree in Fast Company's inaugural 2021 Next Big Things in Tech Awards. The awards recognize the companies and technologies that promise to redefine their industries and create a positive impact for consumers, businesses and society at large in the next five years. Specifically, Zest AI was recognized for its Fairness Kit, a set of software applications created in response to demand from banks and credit unions looking to reduce bias from consumer lending. Zest's patented machine learning-based solution automatically optimizes credit underwriting models for both accuracy and fairness, creating real options for the first time for lenders that want to close the racial approval rate gap in consumer credit. "We are honored to have our fair lending efforts recognized by Fast Company for this award," said Mike de Vere, CEO of Zest AI. "Traditionally, lenders have had to make trade-offs between accuracy in risk prediction and minimizing disparate impact. Through our technology, these lenders can make more accurate decisions and say yes to more people who might have struggled to get affordable credit. This award further endorses our mission of making fair and transparent credit available to everyone."

AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future is an unusual book. Each chapter consists of a short story, penned by science fiction writer Chen Qiufan, and a related analysis piece from Kai-Fu Lee, CEO of Sinovation Ventures and author of the nonfiction bestseller AI Superpowers. Chen, who also is founder of Thema Mundi, a content development studio, spoke with Fast Company on the eve of the release of AI 2041 about his collaboration with Lee, his own experiences with artificial intelligence, and what machine learning will mean for artists and writers. This interview was edited for length and clarity. Fast Company: How did this project come about?

With the 2020 US Census results having been delivered to the states, now the process begins for using the population results to draw new Congressional districts. Gerrymandering, a practice intended to establish a political advantage by manipulating the boundaries of electoral districts, is expected to be practiced on a wide scale with Democrats having a slight margin of seats in the House of Representatives and Republicans seeking to close the gap in states where they hold a majority in the legislature. Today, more powerful redistricting software incorporating AI and machine learning is available, and it represents a double-edged sword. The pessimistic view is that the gerrymandering software will enable legislators to gerrymander with more precision than ever before, to ensure maximum advantages. This was called "political laser surgery" by David Thornburgh, president of the Committee of Seventy, an anti-corruption organization that considers the 2010 redistricting as one of the worst in the country's history, according to an account in the Columbia Political Review.

As more business travelers hit the road and take to the skies, travel experts are seeking ways to improve the overall experience through breakthrough technologies. Fast Company invited the President of Deem, David Grace, to share his ideas on what the future of business travel might look like. FastCo Works is Fast Company's branded content studio. Advertisers commission us to consult on projects, as well as to create content and video on their behalf.

While impressive, the technology wasn't yet capable of replacing the existing expensive and time-consuming experimental methods for determining what these proteins look like. However, its latest software comes close. In November, AlphaFold again outperformed all the other competing groups at CASP. The technology solved protein structures other labs had been working on for years. Scientists think the technology could have immense implications for the way proteins are studied.

NEW YORK, March 10, 2020 /CNW/ -- Kasisto, creators of KAI - the financial services industry's leading digital experience platform has been named as one of Fast Company Most Innovative Companies (MIC) in the Artificial Intelligence Category. Fast Company, an award-winning magazine with over 10.6 million monthly visitors and 525k subscribers honors businesses that are having the most profound impact on both industry and culture, showcasing a variety of ways to thrive in today's fast-changing world. This year's MIC list features 434 businesses from 39 countries. Kasisto ranked in the top 10 of 50 vendors listed in the Artificial Intelligence category, and was recognized for its leading conversational AI technology and ability to provide financial institutions with the power to deliver unique and compelling digital experiences to their customers. "We are honored to receive this recognition from Fast Company and would like to take this opportunity to thank our customers from around the world and across the financial services industry. This award would not be possible without our customers support and commitment to work alongside us as we've delivered the industry's most powerful conversational AI technology, but more importantly, also delivered on our promise to make their customers digital experiences truly humanizing," says Zor Gorelov, CEO & Co-Founder of Kasisto.

"Scraping people's information violates our policies, which is why we've demanded that Clearview stop accessing or using information from Facebook or Instagram," a Facebook spokesperson said in an email to Fast Company. The previously little-known company drew national attention last month after an article by New York Times reporter Kashmir Hill revealed that the company claimed to have scraped billions of photos from services including Facebook, YouTube, and Venmo to match against people of interest to law enforcement. Twitter, YouTube parent Google, and Venmo have also reportedly told the startup to stop accessing data from their sites, saying it violates their policies. Whether they can legally enforce those rules may be uncertain: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in September that a company scraping LinkedIn in violation of the social site's policies likely didn't violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a key federal anti-hacking law. Clearview didn't immediately respond to an inquiry from Fast Company.