Variational Autoencoders (VAEs) are a powerful alternative to matrix factorization for recommendation. A common technique in VAE-based collaborative filtering (CF) consists in applying binary input masking to user interaction vectors, which improves performance but remains underexplored theoretically. In this work, we analyze how collaboration arises in VAE-based CF and show it is governed by latent proximity: we derive a latent sharing radius that informs when an SGD update on one user strictly reduces the loss on another user, with influence decaying as the latent Wasserstein distance increases. We further study the induced geometry: with clean inputs, VAE-based CF primarily exploits \emph{local} collaboration between input-similar users and under-utilizes global collaboration between far-but-related users. We compare two mechanisms that encourage \emph{global} mixing and characterize their trade-offs: (1) $β$-KL regularization directly tightens the information bottleneck, promoting posterior overlap but risking representational collapse if too large; (2) input masking induces stochastic geometric contractions and expansions, which can bring distant users onto the same latent neighborhood but also introduce neighborhood drift. To preserve user identity while enabling global consistency, we propose an anchor regularizer that aligns user posteriors with item embeddings, stabilizing users under masking and facilitating signal sharing across related items. Our analyses are validated on the Netflix, MovieLens-20M, and Million Song datasets. We also successfully deployed our proposed algorithm on an Amazon streaming platform following a successful online experiment.

Joe Biden made his début at the elegant green-marble rostrum of the United Nations this week, as the coronavirus infected more than half a million people each day worldwide, as wildfires and floods aggravated by climate change ravaged the Earth, and as the U.S. struggled to prevent a new cold war with China. In lofty language, the President tried to redirect the world's focus away from the calamitous end to America's longest war, in Afghanistan, and a recent bust-up with its most longstanding ally, France. Just eight months into his Presidency, Biden is already trying to hit reset on his foreign policy. "I stand here today for the first time in twenty years with the United States not at war. We've turned the page," Biden told the chamber.

The choices that technologists, policymakers, and communities make in the next few years will shape the relationship between machines and humans for decades to come. The rapidly increasing applicability of AI has prompted a number of organizations to develop high-level principles on social and ethical issues such as privacy, fairness, bias, transparency, and accountability. Building on those broader principles, the AI Policy Forum, a global effort convened by the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, will provide an overarching policy framework and tools for governments and companies to implement in concrete ways. "Our goal is to help policymakers in making practical decisions about AI policy," says Daniel Huttenlocher, dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing. "We are not trying to develop another set of principles around AI, several of which already exist, but rather provide context and guidelines specific to a field of use of AI to help policymakers around the world with implementation." "Moving beyond principles means understanding trade-offs and identifying the technical tools and the policy levers to address them.

We live in a challenging world particularly since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Our ways of living, communicating, interacting, purchasing, and working have changed. With every challenge comes great opportunity so I remain extremely optimistic about the outcomes of this crisis. During confinement, we got to know our neighbors better and offered assistance. We saw some great collaboration amongst colleagues.

Omdena runs AI projects with organizations that want to get started with Artificial Intelligence, solve a real-world problem, or build deployable solutions within two months. The projects are powered by our unique Collaborative AI processes, which results in fast development, innovation, and trusted solutions through a bottom-up development process. At first, an organization submits a problem or idea. Next, we publicly announce the AI project and select up to 50 engineers that work with the organization to refine the problem statement, collect the data, and build their solutions.

Against a backdrop of startling international developments, such as Brexit and the Hong Kong protests, Japan's financial sector is uniquely positioned to step out of the shadows of its competitors in Singapore and Hong Kong. This is the assessment of The Organization of Global Financial City Tokyo -- also known as FinCity.Tokyo -- which, on March 19, held its FinCity Global Forum at the Grand Hyatt Tokyo in Roppongi to explore the opportunities and challenges that await Japan in its pursuit to become a top global financial hub. Established in April 2019, FinCity.Tokyo is an organization that promotes Tokyo as a global financial hub and supports foreign financial services firms set up in Tokyo. In addition to the keynote and other speeches, the forum consisted of a series of panel discussions that invited industry veterans to discuss a wide array of topics, ranging from regional revitalization and socially oriented asset management to competition and collaboration among international financial cities. The first panel, centered on the theme of "Advancement of the Asset Management Industry and Global Financial City Initiative," invited panelists Yasumasa Tahara, director of the strategy development division at the Financial Services Agency; Kazuhide Toda, managing executive officer and chief investment officer at Nippon Life Insurance Company; and Oki Matsumoto, chairman and CEO at Monex Group Inc., to share their thoughts on how the industry can improve its asset management environment.

We live in a world where increasingly globalisation is under threat. The biggest threat comes from trade wars, started by Mr Trump, that could significantly harm the world economy. Last year already, the International Monetary Fund warned that Trump's trade war could cost the global economy $430 billion in 2020. As the IMF's report states, all countries will suffer, but the USA the most. Trade wars are bad for the global economy as, in the interconnected world that we live in, it will affect everyone; from small business to large conglomerates.

Japan is launching multiple missions to explore the mysteries of the solar system in the coming years, joining hands with the European Union and countries such as India to compete with space superpowers such as the United States and Russia. The ultimate goal of space exploration is "to expand the areas of activities for humans and find another habitable planet. I believe there is a possibility that we can colonize Mars," said Hitoshi Kuninaka, a vice president of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). In 2018, Japan made history by landing two small rovers from the space probe Hayabusa2 on the surface of an asteroid 300 million kilometers from Earth. Hayabusa2's touchdown on the Ryugu asteroid is expected in late January this year.

Webstresser.org, a popular DDoS-for-Hire website service on Wednesday was taken down by authorities from the US, UK, Netherlands, and various other countries in a major international investigation and arrests have been made. The website is blamed for more than four million cyber attacks globally in the past three years and had over 134,000 registered users at the time of the takedown. The operation, dubbed "Operation Power OFF," targeted Webstresser.org, It involved law enforcement agencies from the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Serbia, Croatia, Spain, Italy, Germany, Australia, Hongkong, Canada, and United States of America, coordinating with Europol. The domain name was seized by the US Department of Defence.

Mindfire, a new foundation with the goal of "decoding the mind" to help develop true artificial intelligence (AI) is launching November 17th in Zurich, Switzerland. Futurism spoke with the founder of Starmind and president of the foundation, Pascal Kaufmann to learn more about its goals and the path to reach them. "We cannot achieve True AI until we understand actual intelligence. Intelligence has evolved as a means of nature to successfully guide us through an ever-changing environment. This gave rise to behavior, emotions, and consciousness. These critical factors must be taken into account in how we develop AI. This is the purpose of the Mindfire Foundation," he explains.