Social media researchers at the Network Contagion Research Institute in Princeton, New Jersey, got a rude awakening early last month. They were roused by 6:30 am phone calls from a colleague warning that Reddit had started blocking the institute's Pushshift service from updating its ongoing archive of every post on the discussion platform. That was a problem for more than just NCRI, because some of Reddit's 50,000 volunteer moderators depend on Pushshift to quickly investigate problem users, and many academics rely on the service. If it went stale, mods, as Reddit calls moderators, would have to work overtime or let more trash content accumulate. Researchers studying online communities would be forced to put projects and doctoral dissertations on ice.

Artificial intelligence has drawn scrutiny for perpetuating the biases of the mostly white tech guys developing it. Much of the criticism has swirled around the facial recognition algorithms used in surveillance technology, shown to have higher error rates for women and BIPOC, per the ACLU, increasing their risk of wrongful arrest and police violence. Now, a new analysis reveals an insidious way that AI can widen racial health disparities, too. Researchers found that the datasets used to train AI programs to detect skin cancer includes hardly any images of dark skin, according to a National Cancer Research Institute press release. Simply put, this technology is being optimized for light skin.

Iranian dissidents are warning of the hard-line regime's use of drones to cause instability in the region, saying it is using the technology – materials for which are being imported from China – to make up for the weaknesses of its air force. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an umbrella group of Iranian resistance groups that oppose the regime, released evidence in a press conference it says shows the production and utilization of unmanned aerial vehicles (UACs) for terrorist operations and for assisting its proxies in the Middle East – including aerial photographs of the alleged sites and details that have emerged from inside the country. "Our revelation today is significant because it shows that the Qods Force of the IRGC has in recent years expanded its arsenal to step up terrorism and warmongering to destabilize the region by arming its proxies with UAVs," Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director of the Washington office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, told Fox News. "This is in line with the regime's nuclear defiance and its repression at home." The group alleges that the regime, which has been rocked by a slew of economic sanctions imposed by the Trump administration as well as protests at home and challenges related to its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, has used a web of industries to spend billions of dollars to produce components or smuggle them in from foreign countries.

This month, the government announced £50m of funding towards the creation of five new centres of excellence for digital pathology and imaging that will use artificial intelligence (AI) medical advances to speed up disease diagnosis and improve patient outcomes. NCRI is proud to be partnering with three of these centres – furthering our existing work to accelerate cancer research in pathology and imaging and linking these exciting new AI and machine learning projects to our Partners, patients and the wider cancer research community. The five centres will be based in universities and NHS facilities, and bring together doctors, businesses, AI researchers and academics. Together, they will form a network of centres using AI to develop more intelligent analysis of medical imaging and find new ways to speed up diagnosis of diseases to improve outcomes for patients. The technologies developed at the new centres will offer more personalised treatment for patients while freeing up healthcare professionals to spend more time caring for patients.