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This post contains a list of the AI-related seminars that are scheduled to take place in the next couple of months. All events detailed here are free and open for anyone to attend virtually. Stephanie Gil (Harvard University) EPFL The Zoom link is here . Timo Bertholdt and Imre Polik (FICO) Association of European Operational Research Societies To receive the seminar link, sign up to the mailing list . Jonah Botvinick-Greenhouse (Yale University) University of Minnesota Zoom registration is here .

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A new Institute for Family Studies report shows traditional two-parent families vanishing from large US cities, exposing a 70-point national divide.

There are just a few obstacles in the way. Welcome to the second space race. You can be forgiven for experiencing déjà vu. Last time, it was the Soviet Union and the United States vying to be the first to plant some flags. And this time it looks like they're getting ready to set up camp. There will be, the contenders say, bases on the moon, permanently inhabited castles under the stars. The notion of a moon base, fanciful as it might sound, isn't new. But this year, under the leadership of Administrator Jared Isaacman, NASA has been flooding the zone with bold announcements . If all goes according to plan--a plan that will likely cost tens of billions of dollars to start--there will be drones, robotic landers, communication satellites, and a nuclear power plant; there will be plant terrariums and moonquake sensors; there will be mechanized scouts exploring craters for water. NASA is building the first nuclear reactor-powered interplanetary spacecraft. Initial astronaut missions to the lunar surface, which the US is currently planning to start in 2028, will be focused on exploration and technological experimentation. But the idea is that we will--some time in the 2030s--get to a point where there will be habitation quarters for long-term stays, surrounded by a network of scientific research stations, resource mining and processing plants, and landing pads for spaceships.

George Williamson: 'As AI becomes more embedded in domains like defence, national security, critical infrastructure and healthcare we shouldn't depend solely on systems we can't inspect or control.' George Williamson: 'As AI becomes more embedded in domains like defence, national security, critical infrastructure and healthcare we shouldn't depend solely on systems we can't inspect or control.' George Williamson says'national resilience' is key focus of ATI amid US and China's runaway leadership in field The UK must not become dependent on foreign AI systems that can be switched off at short notice and must develop its own versions of the technology, according to the head of the Alan Turing Institute. The country needs a stronger domestic position in AI in response to the US and China's runaway leadership in the field, with "national resilience" a key focus for ATI said George Williamson. The institute is the UK's leading AI research body and is under new leadership after the government, its main source of funding, demanded a strategic shift. Palantir's Tom Watson says'mob rule' must not dictate awarding of government contracts "As AI becomes more embedded in critical services, in domains like defence, national security, critical infrastructure and healthcare we shouldn't depend solely on systems we can't inspect or control, or that could be restricted or even switched off," said Williamson. In June Washington temporarily blocked the release outside the US of Anthropic's latest models, and has reportedly asked leading AI labs to withhold their models from being tested by the UK's AI Security Institute until they have been examined by AISI's US counterpart.

Each year, a small group of PhD students are chosen to participate in the AAAI/SIGAI Doctoral Consortium . This initiative provides an opportunity for the students to discuss and explore their research interests and career objectives in an interdisciplinary workshop together with a panel of established researchers. During 2026, we met with some of the students to find out more about their research and the doctoral consortium experience. Xiang Fang has been conducting his PhD research at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. Broadly speaking, his work focuses on multi-modal learning and embodied intelligence.

Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Mashable @Home Look Up Trending Now Mashable Selects Say More Top creators, ranked Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Creator Playbook In My Bag AI at School Safety Net All Series Independent testers say OpenAI should turn off teens' access to ChatGPT. Rebecca Ruiz is a Senior Reporter at Mashable. She frequently covers mental health, digital culture, and technology. Her areas of expertise include suicide prevention, screen use and mental health, parenting, youth well-being, and meditation and mindfulness. Rebecca's experience prior to Mashable includes working as a staff writer, reporter, and editor at NBC News Digital and as a staff writer at Forbes.

Last month, I went to York to build a robot. I came back with a robot, a tiny trophy-shaped sense of achievement, and somehow a few new friends. From 25th-27th August, I joined the UK RAS STEPS MicroMaze Robot Hackathon at the Institute for Safe Autonomy, University of York. The brief sounded simple: build a small autonomous robot, then make it survive increasingly difficult mazes. Until you actually have to build one.

This post contains a list of the AI-related seminars that are scheduled to take place in the next couple of months. All events detailed here are free and open for anyone to attend virtually. Eleni Petraki and Damith Herath (University of Canberra) Raspberry PI Sign up here to join. Gaétan Hains, Paola Inverardi, and Alexander Wolf The Digital Humanism (DIGHUM) Initiative The talk will be livestreamed on YouTube here . Tyler Summers (University of Texas at Dallas) EPFL The Zoom link is here .