Artificial intelligence could lead to an Orwellian future if laws to protect the public aren't enacted soon, according to Microsoft President Brad Smith. Smith made the comments to the BBC news program "Panorama" on May 26, during an episode focused on the potential dangers of artificial intelligence (AI) and the race between the United States and China to develop the technology. The warning comes about a month after the European Union released draft regulations attempting to set limits on how AI can be used. There are few similar efforts in the United States, where legislation has largely focused on limiting regulation and promoting AI for national security purposes. "I'm constantly reminded of George Orwell's lessons in his book '1984,'" Smith said.

Clustering of time series data exhibits a number of challenges not present in other settings, notably the problem of registration (alignment) of observed signals. Typical approaches include pre-registration to a user-specified template or time warping approaches which attempt to optimally align series with a minimum of distortion. For many signals obtained from recording or sensing devices, these methods may be unsuitable as a template signal is not available for pre-registration, while the distortion of warping approaches may obscure meaningful temporal information. We propose a new method for automatic time series alignment within a convex clustering problem. Our approach, Temporal Registration using Optimal Unitary Transformations (TROUT), is based on a novel distance metric between time series that is easy to compute and automatically identifies optimal alignment between pairs of time series. By embedding our new metric in a convex formulation, we retain well-known advantages of computational and statistical performance. We provide an efficient algorithm for TROUT-based clustering and demonstrate its superior performance over a range of competitors.

Like many other concepts in SEO, TF-IDF it a topic that is much debated. First, you read about it being a silver bullet to rank your content on Google. Then, immediately, you hear that TF-IDF is so old-school that it isn't worth any effort. The truth usually lies somewhere in the middle. This post will explore why you shouldn't expect TF-IDF to substitute a comprehensive optimization strategy and what the true benefits are of using it for SEO.

Artificial intelligence can help businesses identify new clients and streamline back office operations, but so far, only the largest companies have found the data-heavy tech practical. Early adopters of artificial intelligence are expecting substantial increases in profitability in 2018, according to the Nationwide's Advisor Authority survey of 1,700 advisors. But, those that used big data were also more likely to have sizeable assets under management, over $250 million in AUM and incomes of more than $500,000. That's because, for more modest firms, fewer clients mean less reliable data. "Wealth managers are still struggling to get a consistent line of sight on customer data and that includes things like demographics and transaction data," says William Trout, senior analyst at the consulting firm Celent.

It's another step in the march toward advice that erodes investors' needs for human help: A robo advisor focused on serving the high-net-worth client, powered by artificial intelligence and designed to automate their specific tax management concerns. Meeting the complicated needs of the wealthy requires a deep knowledge of tax rules and regulations says Hedgeable CEO Mike Kane. "Technology and AI systems can interpret and learn from these rules better than humans can, without our emotional biases." Doubling down on its embrace of Asian themes, Hedgeable's newest offering in its robo platform is a feature called'Tax Samurai,' run by an AI bot called'Katana.' For 30 basis points, it will work for client accounts with a minimum of $1 million to analyze their securities, aggregate all of their financial data, create tax efficient transfers, apply automated downside protection on any current holdings, and perform tax efficient trading and tax-loss harvesting.

Propeller-free robots may soon be swimming with style. A new model of how fish and other aquatic species are able to propel themselves forward without expending much energy may help create energy-efficient underwater robots that swim just like the real thing. By closely studying and monitoring how fish, dolphins and other sea creatures swim, Mehdi Saadat at Harvard University and his colleagues found that many of them have remarkably similar styles that can be described with a simple model, depending on how fast and far the tail whips back and forth and the length of the animal. Scientists previously homed in on just one parameter that relates the beat of an oscillating fish's tail and how far it oscillates to the animal's forward motion. But it turned out to be slightly more complicated.

This robotic ray, developed at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, is propelled by soft flapping wings made of dielectric elastomers, which bend when electricity is applied to them. Dielectric elastomers respond very quickly with relatively large motions, but they require very high voltages (on the order of 10 kilovolts) to get them to work. Traditionally, dielectric elastomers are covered in insulation, but for this aquatic application the researchers instead just submerged everything insulation free, relying on the water to act as both electrode and electric ground. There are several other reasons why this design is notable. The effect is slightly spoiled when you add the electronics and batteries required for untethered operation, but the fact that it can be self-contained at all is notable as well: A 450-mAh, 3.7-V battery will keep it swimming along at 1.1 centimeters per second for a solid 3 hours and 15 minutes, and it can even carry a tiny camera.

Roboticists are getting quite good at making robots with soft, flexible bodies. There are lots of good reasons to do this: Robots with inherent compliance can be safer to work around, more resilient to damage, and can leverage lots of unique methods of locomotion. The issue with soft robots is that you often have to make compromises when it comes to powering them or getting them to move, because those things usually involve the addition of components that aren't soft at all, like batteries and actuators. Over the last week or so, two new methods of soft robot locomotion have shown up in the news: One of them using external magnetic fields, and the other using an electric field to power flapping fins. This robotic ray, which was developed at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, is propelled by soft flapping wings made of dielectric elastomers, which bend when electricity is applied to them.

It's another step in the march toward advice that erodes investors' needs for human help: A robo adviser focused on serving the high-net-worth client, powered by artificial intelligence and designed to automate their specific tax management concerns. Meeting the complicated needs of the wealthy requires a deep knowledge of tax rules and regulations says Hedgeable CEO Mike Kane. "Technology and AI systems can interpret and learn from these rules better than humans can, without our emotional biases." Doubling down on its embrace of Asian themes, Hedgeable's newest offering in its robo platform is a feature called'Tax Samurai,' run by an AI bot called'Katana.' For 30 basis points, it will work for client accounts with a minimum of 1 million to analyze their securities, aggregate all of their financial data, create tax efficient transfers, apply automated downside protection on any current holdings, and perform tax efficient trading and tax-loss harvesting.

The conventional wisdom is that that AIs, or robo-advisors, will provide the necessary financial advisement for the retail client, which frees up the advisor to provide more of a human touch to high net worth clients. However, William Trout, senior analyst, wealth management, at industry research firm Celent, has written a new white paper on how AI is moving up the food chain. "What AI is trying to tackle in the wealth management space is cognitive overload and automate discovery," he said. "Humans have a finite ability to keep more than a few things in their minds at any one time. Certainly, a book of 200 clients will provide a challenge for advisors to balance the concerns and interests of all their clients."