Measuring social influence is difficult due to the lack of counter-factuals and comparisons. By combining machine learning-based modeling and network science, we present general properties of social value, a recent measure for social influence using synthetic control applicable to political behavior. Social value diverges from centrality measures on in that it relies on an external regressor to predict an output variable of interest, generates a synthetic measure of influence, then distributes individual contribution based on a social network. Through theoretical derivations, we show the properties of SV under linear regression with and without interaction, across lattice networks, power-law networks, and random graphs. A reduction in computation can be achieved for any ensemble model. Through simulation, we find that the generalized friendship paradox holds -- that in certain situations, your friends have on average more influence than you do.

Kai-Fu Lee is a Taiwanese computer scientist based in Beijing. After earning his Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon, he worked at Apple and Microsoft before becoming president of Google China, a position he held from 2005 to 2009. Chen Qiufan is a renowned Chinese science fiction writer and the author of the novel The Waste Tide. Listen to the audio version--read by Lee himself--in the Next Big Idea App. As AI and other technologies disrupt the world, we all must familiarize ourselves with the opportunities they pose and the challenges they may create.

The pandemic is not just a mere health crisis. It is a devastating economic disruption and has caused dramatic labor turmoil on a global scale. As far as the supply chains are concerned, we have witnessed their exposure to vulnerability and inadequate contingency plans. Due to the growing saliency of ethical aspect during Covid, companies find it crucial to shift to responsible consumption. Putting corporate social responsibility at the forefront, businesses do not expect a rapid reward.

The Economic Action Plan (EAP) has set the direction for a broader and more balanced approach to economic development with a shift towards a focus on place and making communities stronger and more resilient. The EAP places a greater emphasis on tackling inequality and signals a shift to a'something for something' relationship with business. Promoting inclusive growth through a new focus on the foundational economy sits alongside the other three pillars of our Economic Contract; supporting business investment that future-proofs the economy through Calls to Action; a regional approach to investing in the skills people need to enter, remain and progress in work; and the infrastructure communities need to be connected and vibrant. The foundational economy approach offers the chance to reverse the deterioration of employment conditions, reduce the leakage of money from communities and address the environmental cost of extended supply chains.With join-up across portfolio responsibilities we are driving a greater synergy between the Valleys Taskforce, Better Jobs Closer to Home programmes and maximising the social value of procurement with what may be described as mainstream Government economic interventions. A Ministerial Advisory Board Task and Finish Group on the Foundational Economy has been established to provide advice to Welsh Ministers on current and future interventions and best practice; support wider engagement with stakeholders in the foundational economy; and promote join-up of relevant government and non-governmental initiatives.

SK Telecom has completed the development of the smart braille educating system running on its Nugu voice-activated artificial intelligence (AI) speaker to help the visually impaired learn braille much more easily, the company said Monday. The nation's top mobile carrier has cooperated with Ohfa Tech, a developer of the braille teaching device, Taptilo. The telecom company will offer 110 devices to schools for the blind and households within the month and verify the effectiveness of the system in cooperation with Kangnam University. The number of people who are visually impaired is estimated at about 300,000 in Korea, and 95 percent of these people are not able to read braille due to the shortage of specialist teachers, according to SK Telecom. The development of the braille educating system utilizing the AI speaker is expected to lower barriers to education for the visually impaired through innovative technology, it said.

A lot of words are being written about AI and machine learning these days, so it's sometimes hard to know …

In 1990, Kai-Fu Lee packed his bags and left Carnegie Mellon University, where he had been teaching artificial intelligence and speech recognition. He headed west to his first Silicon Valley job, running a new group trying to build speech interface technologies at Apple. Eight years later, Lee was hired by Microsoft with a specific mission: to go to China, start a research group, and develop a technology hub--and talent. Today, China's prowess in artificial intelligence can trace many of its roots back to that research group. In a now infamous move, Lee left Microsoft and--after prevailing against the company when it sued him for violating a noncompete agreement--went to Google in 2005 to lead Google China.

The Internet of Things will create a vast surge in the amount of data that we – and our devices – generate. To make sense of this trove of information will require the use of algorithms and artificial intelligence by researchers, firms, and government. Digital sifting creates both promise and peril, and is certain to clash with important social norms. For example, it may force us to revisit norms around privacy, ownership, prediction, and the public-private boundary. The Section on Internet and Computer Law welcomes submissions for papers about this clash.

We consider a cross-cultural interaction scenario where a group of soldiers assisted by robots interact with local vendors in a market place. We develop a model to quantify, analyze and predict the perception of the actions of the soldiers and the robot by the local population. The model assumes that humans are considering collections of concrete and intangible values which are not, in general, directly and linearly convertible into each other. We argue that satisfactory modeling accuracy can be achieved by restricting the considered intangibles to a small set of {\em culture sanctioned social values}. For these values, the culture provides a name, calculation methods, as well as associated rules of conduct. We validate our model by comparing the predicted values with the judgment of a large group of human observers cognizant of the modeled culture. We use the model to evaluate the tradeoffs between several long term strategies to maintain security as well as to increase the trust and goodwill of the local population.