Bletchley Park, a milestone in Alan Turing's journey to technological immortality, heard warnings this week that the coming wave of artificial intelligence systems could threaten humanity. But for one of the world's leading tech investors, holding back AI development will be just as damaging in terms of deaths in car crashes, pandemics and poorly targeted munitions that could have been prevented by the technology. "We believe any deceleration of AI will cost lives. Deaths that were preventable by the AI that was prevented from existing is a form of murder," wrote Marc Andreessen, an early investor in Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter, in a blogpost last month titled The Techno-Optimist Manifesto. When it comes to AI, Andreessen is not the only techno-optimist out there, despite the pessimistic view of the technology dominating the agenda in the run-up to last week's AI safety summit at Bletchley.

With 2021 behind us, we're going down memory lane to highlight biotech innovations that shaped the year--with impact that will likely reverberate for many years to come. Covid-19 dominated the news, but science didn't stand still. CRISPR spun off variations with breathtaking speed, expanding into a hefty toolbox packed with powerhouse gene editors far more efficient, reliable, and safer than their predecessors. CRISPRoff, for example, hijacks epigenetic processes to reversibly turn genes on and off--all without actually snipping or damaging the gene itself. Prime editing, the nip-tuck of DNA editing that only snips--rather than fully cutting--DNA received an upgrade to precisely edit up to 10,000 DNA letters in a variety of cells.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to broadly reshape medicine, potentially improving the experiences of both clinicians and patients. We discuss key findings from a 2-year weekly effort to track and share key developments in medical AI. We cover prospective studies and advances in medical image analysis, which have reduced the gap between research and deployment. We also address several promising avenues for novel medical AI research, including non-image data sources, unconventional problem formulations and human–AI collaboration. Finally, we consider serious technical and ethical challenges in issues spanning from data scarcity to racial bias. As these challenges are addressed, AI’s potential may be realized, making healthcare more accurate, efficient and accessible for patients worldwide. AI has the potential to reshape medicine and make healthcare more accurate, efficient and accessible; this Review discusses recent progress, opportunities and challenges toward achieving this goal.

It will be aimed at healthcare professionals (doctors, pharmacists, medical physicists, etc.), students and researchers in biology and healthcare as well as biomedical engineers wishing to develop AI projects using medical data. The first class will follow this training in November 2021. The 3IA Côte d'Azur, whose main focus is on digital health, has announced the launch of its new university diploma (DU) in Artificial Intelligence and Health. This initiative is part of the institute's strategy, as Olivier Humbert, a doctor and professor of Nuclear Medicine & Biophysics at the Université Côte d'Azur, explains: "At 3IA Côte d'Azur, in terms of digital health, we are working to bring together national and international experts and professionals from different disciplines to advance research. The Soph.I.A Summit, which will be held next November, is a good example of this. All together, let's join the movement of a French start-up Nation and contribute to the evolution of the Medicine of tomorrow."

The University at Buffalo announced today that it is launching a multidisciplinary artificial intelligence institute -- the University at Buffalo Artificial Intelligence Institute (UBuffalo.AI). UBuffalo.AI will explore how to combine machines' superior ability to ingest, connect and recall information with concepts that humans excel at, such as reasoning, judgement and strategizing, to develop dynamic human-machine partnerships. To lead UBuffalo.AI, the university recruited David Doermann, PhD, from the University of Maryland (UMD) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Doermann built his career at UMD developing technologies for document understanding and computer vision for the defense and intelligence communities. Human language is considered one of the grand challenges of AI, and the fundamental and applied research performed in his UMD laboratory has provided a critical foundation for addressing the next wave of AI challenges.

The government's upcoming integrated innovation strategy will feature human resources training in the field of artificial intelligence, it was learned Sunday. According to an outline of the strategy, to be adopted at a Cabinet meeting later this month, the government will aim to dramatically increase young researchers in the AI field. The government has different strategies in information technology, health and medicine, and other areas. The government will integrate them to foster cross-sector efforts. Japan is forecast to face a shortage of about 50,000 researchers with advanced knowledge of AI, big data and other important technologies in 2020, according to Cabinet Office estimates.

A quick, hassle-free way to stay on top of robotics news, our robotics digest is released on the first Monday of every month. Sign up to get it in your inbox. Let's kick off our June review by looking at some great new robotics research and development in action: Inspired by arthropod insects and spiders, Harvard Professor George Whitesides and Alex Nemiroski--a former postdoctoral fellow in Whitesides' Harvard lab--have created a type of semi-soft robot capable of standing and walking. The team also created a robotic water strider capable of pushing itself along the liquid surface. The robots are described in a recently published paper in the journal Soft Robotics.

The blending of home-based diagnostic platforms with medical care at home is arriving. The Tricorder XPRIZE competition is well underway, with several teams set to compete in the final stages. Leading contenders include CloudDx and Scanadu, a company started at our first Exponential Medicine program, have successfully leveraged crowdfunding to enable their clinical trials. Gale by 19Labs is a next generation "first aid kit meets home health center" (see the below video for a demo) exemplifying how integration of home diagnostics paired with menu-driven (and potentially AI-driven) assistance and optional telemedicine connectivity can provide increased access to home-based diagnosis, triage and management of minor bumps and scrapes and also more complex medical conditions. Interactive and engaging, from coaching on diet and nutrition to reminding you to take your medications or offering psychological support and follow up -- the chatbots are on their way.

The blending of home-based diagnostic platforms with medical care at home is arriving. The Tricorder XPRIZE competition is well underway, with several teams set to compete in the final stages. Leading contenders include CloudDx and Scanadu, a company started at our first Exponential Medicine program, have successfully leveraged crowdfunding to enable their clinical trials. Gale by 19Labs is a next generation "first aid kit meets home health center" (see the below video for a demo) exemplifying how integration of home diagnostics paired with menu-driven (and potentially AI-driven) assistance and optional telemedicine connectivity can provide increased access to home-based diagnosis, triage and management of minor bumps and scrapes and also more complex medical conditions. Interactive and engaging, from coaching on diet and nutrition to reminding you to take your medications or offering psychological support and follow up -- the chatbots are on their way.