Companies must refuse to create artificial intelligence that is unethical and could harm humanity, even if it affects their profits, a senior director at Microsoft UK has said. Hugh Milward, Senior Director of Corporate, External and Legal Affairs, said businesses need to "draw a line" on what is acceptable when developing cutting-edge technology and understand their responsibilities. "Just because something can be done, doesn't mean it should be done," he told the Tech UK Digital Ethics Summit in London. The event heard from leading figures in business and government on how the UK can remain a global leader in building digital services and technology, and discussed how they should be used for the benefits of everyone. "It is essential to build trust in technology such as AI," Milward said.

A machine learning system that's so advanced it's been used to gain a new understanding of childhood asthma has been made available for everyone to use. Microsoft's Infer.NET has been released on the open-source site GitHub, which means anyone can now place the intelligent machine learning technology into the programs and apps they are building. The system is unique because it will create a bespoke learning algorithm for an individual and their data model, so they don't have to try to create a program using a widely-available standard algorithm that may not be a perfect match. Because the learning algorithm is compiled for a unique dataset, the person who designed it can also understand why the system behaves in a certain way when it's running. Infer.NET has been used to try to understand and predict childhood asthma, leading to "the potential of significant clinical impact".

People will get the chance to see rarely-viewed art from the Tate's collection in a new exhibition that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to match historic paintings with modern photos. The display at Tate Britain will use cutting-edge technology to study the latest pictures from global news agency Reuters and compare them with one of 50,000 pieces in the gallery's archives based on their colours and themes. The creators of Recognition, which will run 24 hours a day online as well as in the Tate, hope the digital project will not only unearth some pieces of art that people rarely see, but also create a virtual gallery of its own. "The Tate archive is very difficult to explore, and this makes it easy," said Isaac Joseph Vellentin, 22, one of the creators of Recognition. "In our digital age, there is so much content. We are juxtaposing these images to get more out of them. We are taking two things that are close but far apart in their time frame. But we are also looking at human life. It's more what people take away for themselves."

People will get the chance to see rarely-viewed art from the Tate's collection in a new exhibition that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to match historic paintings with modern photos. The display at Tate Britain will use cutting-edge technology to study the latest pictures from global news agency Reuters and compare them with one of 50,000 pieces in the gallery's archives based on their colours and themes. The creators of Recognition, which will run 24 hours a day online as well as in the Tate, hope the digital project will not only unearth some pieces of art that people rarely see, but also create a virtual gallery of its own. "The Tate archive is very difficult to explore, and this makes it easy," said Isaac Joseph Vellentin, 22, one of the creators of Recognition. "In our digital age, there is so much content. We are juxtaposing these images to get more out of them. We are taking two things that are close but far apart in their time frame. But we are also looking at human life. It's more what people take away for themselves."